#I booked a queer film night for me and my partner but it turned out to be creepy and churchy so we dropped out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pray4jensen · 3 years

Note

Are you hopeful about Misha being back and Dean returning Cas' feelings? I don't know what to think anymore but I'm not feeling hopeful and it makes me sad. I'm just having a hard time, I want to believe!

Hi anon! I can see how one could be skeptical because they’ve tried so hard to convince us that he wasn’t there for filming, not to mention that they really went all out with the call backs during Cas’ death scene. There was the hand print, the “wings” as the Empty takes him, and of course what definitely sounded like a deathbed one-sided love confession, but hey, they’ve also dropped a lot of clues to suggest otherwise, too!

1) In 15.09, when Chuck shows Sam the future, it is one where Cas is dead. Cas’ death is shown directly to be the reason why Dean is hopeless in the future. He gives up completely and when he finally agrees to hunt with Sam, they fail because Dean’s unable to give it his best shot. The consequence of that hopelessness is that they get turned into vampires. A future without Cas means a future where Dean becomes the monster at the end of the book and dies, which means it is a future where Chuck wins. That doesn’t really sound like a show about free will, does it?

2) To follow this, in 15.04, Becky specifically tells the audience that an ending with Sam and Dean dying and Cas absent is a bad ending. Becky is a fan of Supernatural, just like us, and all season, we’ve been told by the cast and crew that we’re going to get an ending that will please the fans. Chuck’s bad ending definitely wouldn’t fly with any fan of the show.

3) All of the above stresses the importance of Cas in the story. They can’t have a happy ending if he’s dead. Fifteen seasons have gone by, and we know one of the main themes of this show is free will. In 15.17, Chuck tells us that Cas is the only one who’s ever had true free will, who’s the only one who’s ever been able to influence Chuck’s story and break free of his control. By that same logic, Cas is the only one who can finally free Sam and Dean. He is the bringer of true free will and he is the only one who can hand it to humanity.

4) And just beyond narrative reasons foreshadowing Cas’ return, there’s also what the cast has said. Misha’s confirmed Cas is queer, and if Cas died after coming out, we’d be stuck with the Bury Your Gays trope, a mistake that the writers made with Charlie in 10.21. And anon, fans have literally never let them live it down. I don’t think they’d make the same mistake twice; they were booed at Comic Con that year and the cast all saw the backlash. Misha said in his latest panel that he could see Cas’ death as Bury Your Gays, but that he felt this scene meant something more. If Cas came back and got a happy ending, it wouldn’t be Bury Your Gays anymore

5) Misha is also like...a really bad liar. He also fumbled a lot when asked about whether it was his last episode. He emphasized that that had been the last scene he shot for 15.18, not the last scene of the season. Not to mention the cast put on a little celebration for him when he ended his tenure on the show and we know it couldn’t have happened on the same night as 15.18 because when they wrapped for the episode, Misha talked about nearly dying in a plane crash that same night. This is...what truly makes me believe...it’s Misha’s nervous babbling during the interview...

As for whether I think Dean will also return Cas’ feelings with a love confession, there’s evidence for that, too:

1) In 15.09, when Dean loses Cas in purgatory, Dean tells Cas that he has something to say. Cas tells him he heard his prayer, but the look on Dean’s face strongly suggests otherwise. Whatever he has to say, it isn’t in the prayer we heard. It’s a loose end and a very important one at that. All season they’ve stressed the consequences of Dean’s anger and Dean’s prayer was all about anger and release. Bottling up his feelings and leaving that bit of whatever Dean wanted to say unsaid wouldn’t resolve this storyline in a satisfactory way.

2) Even during the confession itself, Dean wanted to say things. He wanted more time, he told Cas not to do this, and he sobbed when Cas got pulled away. If we don’t hear anything more about Dean’s feelings and what he was going to say, it would be HIGHWAY ROBBERY, and again, an unsatisfactory resolution to his story

3) Not to mention during the same episode as the confession, Charlie and Sam both had their girlfriends taken from them. Dean had his friend taken? Um. Try boyfriend. If Dean never confesses and lets the audience know that Cas is his romantic partner, this would be very strange writing...

4) My last piece of evidence is literally the last 12 years. The mixtape, people asking him if he had a break-up whenever he fights with Cas, people asking him who he’s pining for, people asking him if he can imagine having a romantic partner who understands the life and like, just the fact that he literally loses his will to live whenever anyone tries to take Cas away from him. Like listen, I watched the last seven years of this story unfold week by week. In that manner, it’s actually harder to see how much Dean longs for him. But recently, I’ve been rewatching the show with my roommate. When you’re binging it, Dean’s incessant about it. He’s always asking about Cas when Cas is gone. He’s always hopeless, always broken without him. Sam spends like every episode comforting him about it. It would be incredibly foolish for the writers to not address Dean’s side when they went ahead with Cas’ side. Also, I’ll like literally show up at their houses with a pitchfork.

Will it be anything like Cas’ confession? Will there be a kiss? Frankly, I don’t know, but never in my life did I ever imagine something as textual as Cas’ confession either so I’m HOPEFUL, more hopeful than I’ve been in years. I do think 100% Dean will return Cas’ feelings, but whether it will be as obvious as Cas’ confession and whether the show will depict an actual romantic relationship in the finale remains to be seen.

#boredombabbles #spn spoilers #15x18 #destiel #ask #anon #I hope this helped!#ofc we don't know what's going to happen #but i have so much renewed hope after the last episode #i just...literally never thought they would go there #like listen i have been a super salty bitter and negative fan for seven years #i always stayed positive on this blog because i didn't want to get anyone down #but like literally if you had asked me in private about it #i wouldve been like NAH cas will never confess his feelings #and that cas will never come out as queer #but like WHAT THE HECK THEY ACTUALLY WENT THERE?????#and i'm never going to be the same #and i am so so HOPEFUL now #i still remain skeptical but guys i just....#for the first time i believe and i think a lot of us are going through this same thing #and i think the last episode has shown us that having faith is not a bad thing after all #this ending is for us #and it specifically it seems to be an ending for destiel fans

1K notes · View notes

walkuntilthedaylight · 3 years

Text

The people have spoken! How can I not give them what they want?

I'm gonna put this all under a cut, since it's a bit long, and also because it's highly interpretative/speculative and not everyone likes those kinds of posts as they can be rather subjective and, I suppose, invasive. I want to give two major caveats to my thoughts below: first is that I tend not to buy the idea that Paul was the "stable/normal" Beatle, mostly b/c I view marijuana dependency and workaholism as addictions and I take them pretty seriously. Second is that I really do love this kind of tabloid/gossip/personal account shit; I think it should be taken with a handful of salt, but I don't think it should be entirely dismissed out of hand either. I read this stuff like I'm piling up sheets of stained glass: I'm intrigued by the places where the colours blend and overlap, and ignore things that fall outside the prism. Anyway, let's dig in:

Okay, so what I found fascinating about 'Body Count' is that it's one of the only sources which observes Paul McCartney's mental health during the period between the India trip and when the band breakup really got rolling. I think it's overall a fairly self-absorbed text that definitely has some lies and exaggerations peppered in there to make things spicier and more dramatic, but its broad characterization - as I mentioned in my first post - isn't exactly libelous or out of left field. Some elements that make me think it's generally if not wholly authentic are: Paul's simultaneously forceful and dorky seduction style, his terrible Liverpool diet and poor housekeeping, the bouts of thrill-seeking recklessness, avoidant adventure crafting, dark moods when drinking non-socially, the occasional hot and cold bouts with the Apple Scuffs camped out at his gate, and the way in which he underplays his drug habit, which is SO "in truthfulness we spent most of the filming of Help! slightly stoned":

These details are so bizarrely specific and have significant overlap with both sympathetic and spurned personal accounts of Paul I've read in the past, so I believe Francie is just telling "Her Version Of The Truth" here rather than crafting a piece of pure fiction. The most important and revealing anecdote in the book is this one.

There's no reason not to believe this is a fairly accurate representation of something that actually happened, imo, since we know that anxious purse strings were an ongoing issue in the unusual turnover rate within the band Wings, and there are plenty of confirmed and rumoured cases alike of extended family members feeling entitled to a "piece of the pie"; this is just like, the kind of thing that happens to working class people who get catapulted into fame and fortune. And Paul in particular already had deep-seated financial anxiety for whatever reasons he'll never fully admit (as is his right, but I think his offhand claim that he "once heard some adults arguing about money and that's why" might actually be alluding to having heard some adults - y'know, like his parents - arguing over money fairly frequently). What esp interests me about the anecdote is the way Paul seems to connect the conflict b/t his dual "identities" with these financial expectations. Perhaps the CAPSLOCK emotional hysteria related in the book is puffed up for drama, but it does bring to mind one of the most revealing comments Linda ever made about their relationship, which is that Paul needed to be told he would still be loved when the cameras weren't rolling. And that's the thing: Francie caught Paul at the exact moment that the pillars of his Smile-For-The-Camera "Beatle" identity were collapsing; the dissolution of his relationships with John and Jane.

Whatever all this could possibly mean re: the breakup of the Lennon-McCartney partnership is a post for another time. What I wanna do instead is apply the level of speculation we usually reserve for that relationship to the endpoint of Paul and Jane's courtship.

So like, Paul and Jane: I know people are resistant to this specific POV, but I honestly just don't... think it was that deep? "Not deep", mind you, doesn't mean "not significant". Paul was obviously Jane's first love (u never forget), but the feeling I get from Paul's side (as a subconscious process I mean) is that Jane's importance was primarily as a lynchpin in his London Socialite persona. He loved her family, he loved the friend group, the artistic scene dating her gave him access to, as well as the leg up he got in the class system, etc. He liked to be the kind of guy who was dating Jane Asher. But I don't know that he was the guy who was dating Jane Asher, you get me? When people describe their "great love" they accidentally tell on them (Cynthia innocently describing Paul as being pleased to have her on his arm like a trophy; John: "it was an ordinary love scene"; Alistair Taylor noting that Paul was humiliated by the breakup). Paul's a serial monogamist who U-Hauls like a lesbian, of course, so he definitely took the relationship VERY seriously, but it's telling that all of his love songs to her were either about hitting a brick wall in arguments (certainly not dreamy, fond, yearning of "sunday morning fights about saturday night"; and occasionally expressing hints of class tension too), or completely non-descript Guy With A Guitar Trying To Get Laid shit. I could extrapolate a lot about Linda just from listening to McCartney I/RAM and the Wings discography, but 'And I Love Her' doesn't tell me a single thing about Jane besides that she's pretty. It could be about literally anyone the same way 'My Love' or 'Maybe I'm Amazed' could only be about his dynamic with Linda. Some of this is obviously the natural result of getting older and gaining emotional maturity; what I'm saying is that Paul's behaviour and self-expression in this relationship does not suggest to me that it was one in which his emotional maturity was able to develop or flourish.

I want to stress again that I don't think this belittles the significance of the relationship or makes it "bad" or "fake". Like, sometimes hot people just date for a while in their teens and twenties and love each other without necessarily unlocking their inner emotional cores, usually because they don't know how to. It's, like, fine. You need to experience relationships like that as stepping stones. I simply believe that this sort of front-facing social importance being prime in the romance is a major factor in why it ultimately didn't work (and probably in Linda's reported lingering jealousy of Jane, who wasn't just an ex, but also a symbol of the life Paul ditched to build a new identity w/ her, and sometimes still pined for). With Jane, Paul was dating the "right" kind of girl (didn't put out on the first date, erudite and middle class, as serious about her career as he was, a good "celebrity" match), but the relationship often wasn't doing what he wanted it to do. Francie's observation is that by 1968 it also wasn't doing what he needed it to do either. This is the overwhelming "mood" in her affair with Paul McCartney: that he needed something very badly from a romantic partner that he just was NOT getting, and Francie couldn't figure out what it was either:

(note that she means "queer" as in "mad", not "gay")

This was an EXTREMELY roundabout way of asking: well, what WAS it that Paul needed a relationship to do for him? And I think this is Francie's big, accidental insight. The most scandalous claim in 'Body Count' is that Paul told Francie that he hit Jane and it "turned her on".

I personally think this is p. absurd absent any real proof to back it up, but like, what is Francie actually saying HE'S saying here? If she's exaggerating or lying, she's trying to make it believable within the psychological parameters laid out, right? It's not an expression of some secret desire to dominate women she's accusing him of, but emotional disturbance and confusion at the idea that the woman he was with might like that sort of forceful, masculine violence more than his softer, feminine side, which he was - yeah, we all know it - deeply insecure about.

Regardless of whether specific details are true or false (and I think there's both in this story, all hyper-magnified to make it, y'know, a ~STORY~), I think what might be true is the emotional undertow of the retelling, that this all taken together is actually representative of the side of Paul McCartney she was exposed to, at a time when his public and private facades had both become unbearable to the point of cracking and the drug-fueled optimism of the Summer of Love was getting scrubbed off of everyone and everything. It's the Paul McCartney who eviscerated frogs because he was worried he was too "soft" for compulsory military service. The Paul who modelled his masculine teen behaviour off John Lennon's fake "Marlon Brando" swagger, but was actually more fond of the velvet "Oscar Wilde" interior.

What's SO FASCINATING about all this to me, is I deeply believe that one of the key factors in what makes The Beatles music so unique and compelling is that both the songwriters experienced psychological strain from the tension b/t their parochial socially-defensive "masculine" pride, and their sensitive "feminine" core, the latter of which they were able to express in the unburdened emotionality of their music. The reason I care about doing these totally unhinged psych analyses is because I do think it reveals something about the underpinnings of the music, as well as the reasons why the band was such a hysteria-inducing phenomenon (the rise of psychology, imo, is almost as important as the rise of industrialization as a defining factor of the modern and postmodern eras; mass psychology can be understood and wielded in precise ways, and The Beatles were one of the first empires built on that). The subconscious drives caused by this tension have been ENDLESSLY picked apart re: John's psyche, but Paul's "mirrored" issues are very under-discussed (mostly b/c he's still alive so people are a little more leery about putting him on the "couch" as a historical figure). 'Body Count', intentionally or not, painted a portrait to me of someone who was drowning in their own ill-fitting celebrity "suit", collapsing under the weight of "Being" "Paul McCartney". A guy who desperately needed some sort of space to be vulnerable without feeling emasculated for doing it. By 1968, there was no one in his life anymore - and maybe there hadn't been for a while, or ever - who was giving him this space.

In other words: the thing he needed to avoid going "stark raving queer and killing himself" was simply someone who would love him 'after the ball'.

EDIT: read the comments for further clarification and discussion! ;)

#/#//#///#////#/////#the beatles #mccharmley #analysis #long post #Talking About Paul The Way I Talk About John lmfao #Taking Tabloid Bullshit Seriously #(if not literally)#*gets out my fake spectacles and jumps into the psychiatry armchair*#idk if i laid out my thoughts v well here but i hope it satisfied all the people who asked #i also tried to warn what genre of post it was for those who hate this kinda thing lol #i feel like i have more to say re: how toxic 'The Beatle' facade got for all of them by this point #and paul and john's mirrored post-india breakdowns #but francie's perspective is specifically on how it felt to be the girl he used to divebomb his relationship with jane asher SO

175 notes · View notes

borgeslabyrinth · 2 years

Text

Top 5 books of 2021, and the 5 most hated books of 2021 (controversial)

Sorry for writing that like a clickbait youtuber, but I just want it out from the jump: with my five most hated- I am small minority. With the exception of a single book, my hated books are if-not beloved- popular. So! Let's get into it!

My five favorite books of 2021:

The Lost Village, Camilla Sten: I love a book about a cult. I love a book about a cult, if you cannot tell that from the three books about cults in my top five and two in my top horror recs. The Lost Village is phenomenal: it is about a documentary film crew arriving in a Swedish ghost town, where the residents mysteriously vanished 60 years before. It is wonderful, spooky, and incredibly atmospheric.

The Children of Red Peak, Craig DiLouie: while a similar set up to The Lost Village, this is Decidedly a horror novel, with a nice helping side dish of "what do you do when your religion and your community- the thing you have based your entire life around is ripped from you violently?" Oh my god, this book.

The Children of Red Peak is about five children left behind after their cult has completely vanished, just leaving blood and body parts behind. It's about those children watching in horror as their beloved religious community turns into something far darker. It's about them coming back together as adults, to face what is at the top of Red Peak. It is all these things: it is fucked up, it is savage, and it is also a breathless exploration of what the fuck you're supposed to do when your religion is traumatically ripped from you. As someone with religious trauma themselves, it was so poignant. I too don't know what to do with the hole that god left in me! I too know what it's like to have the loving community that raised you in turn harm you deeply! Sure- mine was more because I was gay than because my preacher saw god on the mountain top- but still. I fucking cried my eyes out.

(The rest is under a Read More. Sorry to mobile users, this is a bit long.)

Bath Haus, PJ Vernon: Oliver is a recovering addict with a loving partner, who has finally gotten back on his feet. But one night he visits a gay bathhouse, wherein he is attacked. Knowing his partner would never forgive him for cheating, he lies and covers his tracks. This proves hard when his attacker stalks and blackmails him, intent on finishing the job.

Whoo boy, this book is a ride and a half. I originally didn’t want to read it because I, having been raised on tumblr, had the automatic thought “this is not good gay representation. This is problematic.” But then I realized: I read 100 books a year about straight couples doing this exact same plot points: cheating, lying, stalking, murdering. Why am I getting hung up on the fact it’s a gay couple? Shouldn’t gay people be allowed to be shit people in media written by gay people?

What ultimately made my decision to pick up this book was an article I read by the author on crimereads. He opened the article with a quote a (straight) reviewer wrote of his book “there is no positive gay representation in this book.” And there isn’t! Why can’t gay people be evil in media written by gay people? Most of us have been raised where the only media representation of queer people are villains. We should be allowed to reclaim that narrative.

Ultimately, this book is fun, it’s sexy, it is edge of your seat. It’s also fucked up. I listened to the audiobook while at work, and there was a part that was so unexpected I had to go into the walk in cooler to��shriek.

The Girl Before, Rena Olson: yes, it’s another cult book! Clara has been raised with an adopted family, with countless brothers and sisters. She has been raised to be a good wife: she is clever, she speaks multiple languages, she plays the piano. She is good and obedient.

Years later, armed officers break into her house, arrest her husband, separate her from her daughters, and placed in an institution while the police try to figure out what role she played in her husband’s crimes: kidnapping and sex trafficking. She has to question and come to terms with the family she was raised in and the terrible hand she played.

Kill Creek, Scott Thomas: it’s just a good horror novel! Four famous horror authors are invited for an interview in one of the country’s most famous haunted house. They walk out of the house at the end of the interview, but the house has not let go of them yet, and will not until it’s dark bidding is done.

Now let’s get into the books I hated . **warning: discussion of rape and child sexual assault**

This is an incredibly controversial list: aside from The Guilt Trip, every book on this list is- if not widely praised- at least incredibly popular.

The Hunting Wives, May Cobb: This book wanted so desperately to be what Bath Haus was. It thought it was sexy and fun and edge of your seat. It wasn’t. It really fucking wasn’t. In The Hunting Wives, Sophie is unhappy with her life, and finds herself swept up in a clique of women who shoot guns and party hard. But when the body of a teenaged girl is discovered on one their properties, everything goes into freefall.

I hated this book. I hated every damn second of it. It is the absolute definition of an idiot plot: Sophie, the main character spends the entire book making the most illogical and unbelievable choices. I spent the entire book mentally screaming at her to just make better choices. It is honestly unrealistic the choices she makes- they beggar belief. Not to mention the fact that Sophie and Margot statutorily rape two teenage boys for most of the books, and this is presented as fine, and even sexy. There are multiple sex scenes of them raping these boys- in a way that is meant to inspire titillation rather than horror. It is absolutely not okay. I have no idea how this book is so popular and why no one seems to mind that these women are in sexual relationships with teenaged boys. If this was swapped and was about two men in a sexual relationship with teenaged girls and presented as fine and even sexy, this book would be torn to shreds. I don’t fucking understand why the inverse is okay.

The Maidens, Alex Michaelides: You are not Donna Tartt you will never be Donna Tartt. Stop trying. I am not exaggerating when I say this book is a rip-off of The Secret History: the author admits it is a rip-off of The Secret History.

After the body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Oxford, Mariana travels to the school at the behest of her beloved niece. She becomes swept up in the certainty that the murderer is Edward Fosca, the charismatic and charming Greek tragedy professor who is the head of a secret society of female students called The Maidens.

Everything this author has ever written has been pretentious, bloviating, and tiresome. The Maidens continues this tradition. A Dark Academia novel written five years too late, it licks the boots of pretentious intellectualism and lacks all the talent evident in The Secret History. It is also a bad choice in MC: I understand the decision to choose an outsider as the MC, but because she lacks insight into the one interesting part of the story- the Maidens- the book is mostly taken up with her moping around Oxford thinking about the death of her husband and again, sucking the cock of pretentious intellectualism. It’s boring, it’s pretentious, and doesn’t even have the fascinating characters or endlessly analyzable prose of TSH.

Lying in Wait, Liz Nugent: this book doesn’t have great sins like the previous two: the only problem with it is that it was boring and the ending was so deeply upsetting that it ruined my entire week. I am not exaggerating. I read this book over six months ago, and I still get upset when I think of the ending. It’s just horrible.

Hairpin Bridge, Taylor Adams: I had massively high hopes for this book, despite the fact I only somewhat enjoyed the author debut novel No Exit.

Three month’s ago, Lena’s twin sister jumped off Hairpin Bridge after 19 attempted calls to 911, leaving behind a cryptic note addressed to the policeman who found her body. Lena has come to the bridge to interview the officer and find the truth.

This is just a 300 page gun fight. I am not kidding. the majority of the book doesn’t have anything to do with the mystery, it is just a completely unrealistic gun fight. Massively fucking boring. This is one of those books where the author very obviously didn’t want to write a book, they wanted to write a movie.

The Guilt Trip, Sandie Jones: I fully believe this author has never met another human being in their entire life. The MC in this book is hands-down the stupidest and most delusional woman ever written in the entire history of written word. This is interesting, because the author’s last novel also featured a stupid and deluded woman. Both of these characters seem fully incapable of taking an actual critical look at their situations.

Three couples arrive in Portugal for a wedding. One couple will be dead at the end of it. Secrets abound.

I accused The Hunting Wives of being an idiot plot: this is not quite an idiot plot, because the only person who is an idiot is the MC. But the MC is so much of an idiot it beggars belief. If she spent two seconds thinking about the situation she would realize who was actually cheating, but she doesn’t. And sure, literature is filled with characters who can’t see their situation clearly, but this one is so obvious it is astonishing and illogical. Even the stupidest person on this planet is not as deluded as this woman. It was incredibly aggravating. If I ever buy another one of this author’s books please, please take me out back and shoot me like a lame horse. I’m begging you.

Anyway, that’s it. Hopefully I will be reading better books in 2022. Please let me know if you’ve read these! Please let me know if you have decided to pick up any of these books! If you read any of these books, please tell me what you think! Did you enjoy any of the books I hated?

#top books of 2021 #worst books of 2021 #reading #book blogging #oscar reads actual books

7 notes · View notes

bex-pendragon · 2 years

Text

Bex's Book Corner #16

March was a very successful reading month! I read 5 books in total and started 2 more. As usual, a mix of YA and adult in a variety of genres. I also had my first dnf of the year, but it didn't bother me.

1. The Other Merlin by Robyn Schneider

I’ve made it no secret that I’m Arthurian trash. BBC Merlin is one of my favourite shows of all time and I love reading YA retellings of the legends. But I’m also picky about them. I like them best when there’s a bit of camp. I also prefer racebent or genderbent retellings - bonus points if they’re queer.

The Other Merlin gave me everything I was looking for. It was like BBC Merlin by way of Twelfth Night. In this version, Emry Merlin is a girl. Her father was a famous wizard in Camelot and now her brother Emmett has been summoned to the castle to learn magic. The problem is, her brother is incompetent. Emry disguises herself as a boy and goes to the castle in his place. What happens from there is a mixture of hijinks and court intrigue that kept me turning the pages to find out what happened next! An absolute delight to read.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book set in sister cities or twin towns

Similar Books: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, Avalon High by Meg Cabot, Once and Future by Capetta and McCarthy.

Content Warnings: sexism, injuries, vomiting

2. Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price

Pride and Prejudice, now with more murder!

Does anyone remember the insufferable Mr. Hurst from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini series? It’s okay if you don’t. They cut the character completely from the 2005 film adaptation. In this retelling, he gets murdered. Mr. Bingley is the prime suspect.

As if that sweet himbo Charles Bingley could ever! But it’s a great premise. The patriarch of the Bennet family is recast as a lawyer in this retelling with Mr. Collins as his barely competent protege. Elizabeth Bennet wants to be a lawyer, but at this time in history, it would’ve been an impossible prospect for a young lady from a respectable family to pursue such a career. But that doesn’t stop her from running her own investigation anyway - and running into competing lawyer Mr. Darcy in the process.

I’m always keen to discover new Austen retellings - this author also has a retelling of Sense and Sensibility coming out this year, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for that!

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with cutlery on the cover

Similar Books: Seeking Mansfield by Kate Watson, Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Content Warnings: blood, description of murder scene, drowning, sexism

3. I’ll Be The One by Lyla Lee

This was a delightfully wholesome YA contemporary read!

Korean-American teenager Sky Shin is a talented singer and dancer. She’s been dancing her entire life. When the opportunity to audition for a k-pop talent show comes to town, she jumps at the chance. But she’s met with disapproval - from one of the show’s producers and from her own mother - because her plus-sized body type doesn’t fit the typical k-pop idol mold.

Sky’s determination and commitment to body positivity will make you want to root for her. In her journey to stardom, she makes friends with a pair of Korean girls who are in a relationship - both were disowned by their families for being queer. Sky herself is bisexual, as is the cute boy who becomes her dance partner and love interest. It was so nice to see a bi4bi m/f pairing without the associated biphobia.

Overall I enjoyed this book very much! I also added all the music to my Spotify account and confused my Youtube algorithm by looking up BTS videos.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book about a band or musical group.

Similar Books: Loveboat Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen, Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo.

Content Warnings: bodyshaming, fatphobia (challenged), emotional abuse, internet bullying.

4. A Psalm of Storms and Silence by Roseanne A. Brown

THIS BOOK. OMG.

Let’s backtrack for a moment. I read the previous book, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, back when it was released in 2020 and it ended up being one of my favourites of the year. I loved the enemies-to-lovers dynamic of Princess Karina and poor outcast Malik. The stakes were high with the kingdom in peril. The worldbuilding was incredible. But as is often the case with favourites, it sets up expectations for the follow up that the reader didn’t have the first time around.

I’m very pleased to report that APoSaS lives up to ASoWaR - and then some.

It’s hard to talk about without major spoilers for the whole series, but I’ll do my best. Karina and Malik have been on opposite sides since book one: we get to see them come together, fall apart, and come back together again after they’ve learned and grown. The character development is so satisfying. Book two went to some places I didn’t expect - but in the best possible way. It’s an ambitious sequel and you can see how much Roseanne A. Brown has grown as a writer, just as her characters have grown.

Overall this was an excellent follow up and a satisfying series conclusion.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with two narrators

Similar Books: Raybarer by Jordan Ifueko, Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor, Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Content Warnings: fantasy violence, injuries, torture, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, fire, gaslighting, panic attacks.

5. Mo Dao Zu Shi volume 1 by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù

Now this… this is a book I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time.

Back in 2020, on a whim, I started watching The Untamed. I went into it knowing very little. But after 2 episodes, I was hooked.

TI was keen to read the book, but back in 2020, there wasn’t an official English translation. That changed last December when this first volume was released.

It was such a treat to dive back into Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s story. It’s hard to summarize the plot, but I’ll try.

The Untamed, or MDZS, is the story of Wei Wuxian’s rise, fall, and resurrection. This young man was one of the most renowned cultivators in his day until he went down a dark path. He was shunned, framed for terrible crimes, and eventually killed. The story picks up years later when an outcased named Mo Xanyu sacrifices his body to bring Wei Wuxian back. The question remains: who really caused all the mayhem in the past? And what are they planning to do next?

It’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the basic premise. The book is both similar to and different from the TV series. There are some bits of backstory that I wasn’t totally clear on that the book goes deeper into. There’s also a handy glossary and pronunciation guide in the back. I picked up some things from context while watching the show, but it was great to have more context.

Wei Wuxian is an incredible character. He’s got so much depth to him. The actor did an amazing job on the show and the book shows even more of his layers. I’m looking forward to continuing his journey in the next volume!

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book featuring two languages

Similar Books: Jade Fire Gold by June C.L. Tan and Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Content Warnings: fantasy violence, blood and injuries, corporal punishment, dismemberment, body horror.

That wraps things up for the month of March! Check back next month, where I'll be sharing my thoughts about another Cinderella retelling and my first foray into Discworld!

#Bex's Book Corner

2 notes · View notes

leznup · 3 years

Text

Lesbian [Talk Show] - LeZ'N Up - Dating Stories

Stories from Conservative Closets

The hunger and thirst for LGBTQ content was strong with me and if you understand or grew up hiding in your gay closet, you know the temptation will always be a risk. What if someone sees you looking at books in that section? That's the sad truth of being a questioning youth. In order to discover who you are you have to risk being exposed and for some it's too much. We discuss how the fear of others reaction to PDA has an effect on Lesbian relationships. Even being out of the closet has it's restrictions when it comes to being okay with how the public treats lesbians and PDA. The gaze of men, haters, being outed in your community, etc. can all be obstacles for LGBTQ+ relationships.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEI5PkC6eCQ

Published on March 22, 2019

Dating and Going to Pride in the USA

Stephanie highlights some of the great Pride events she's attended on the West and East Coast. Nicole discusses some of the amazing Pride events of the Southeast side of the USA. Pride is an LGBTQIA+ festival. Events during the festival are all over the globe. Communities celebrate diversity through parades, exhibits, films, and of course parties! Join us as we talk about some of our memories from Pride. Share some of your exciting pride stories in the comments below. Have you ever been to a Pride event in your city? We speak briefly on dating as a Lesbian. Stephanie talks about the difficult task and knowing who is or isn't Lesbian. Nicole reminisces about her dating years before she was married.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAPzShnmpEA

Published on April 5, 2019

Dating Stories

Finally telling real lesbian dating stories! Stephanie is sharing some dating stories this episode. We hear about her Tinder date and her amazing luck at the gay bars in Portland. I also throw out some terrible date ideas. We discuss some interesting dating spots in big cities like Atlanta and Portland. How do we feel about Zodiac signs and dating? Do you search for certain signs while dating? Stephanie talks about the Virgo life and if her first date was interested in moving forward with her. What is your favorite LGBTQ bar in Portland? Share some of your wild stories in the comments!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb1v3q_0FXo

Published on April 17, 2019

Bedroom Stories

We are talking about what goes down in the bedroom. Stephanie continues sharing the details of her date with a woman she met at the gay bar. We discuss Lesbian top and bottom dynamics in sex and celebrate switch hitters. We talk about dating apps and how polygamous relationships compare to open relationships and monogamous ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjh9yoOL9Xk

Published on April 18, 2019

Finding Your Soulmate

Stephanie asks how Nicole knew she wanted to start a monogamous relationship with her wife instead of another open relationship with a new woman. Nicole tells Stephanie about meeting her wife and falling in love. How do you know you've found the one? Nicole discusses the difference between her relationship with her wife and past women she's dated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_V4xtharZI

Published on April 19, 2019

Finding Lovers & Friends

Nicole gives her strategy for finding lesbians in the wild. Stephanie shares how fun it is to hang out with gay males as an alternative to hanging out with lesbians. We tell stories about going to lesbian events and bars alone vs going with a crew of lesbian friends. Tune in for a glimpse into the struggle to find lovers and friends in the lesbian community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRcJcljmY2g

Published on May 1, 2019

Virgin Sex and Dating

Everyone has to start somewhere! Join Stephanie and Nicole discussing the first time they had sex as lesbians. Stephanie also gives us an update on her lesbian dating life as it heats up and continues in Portland. Will she ever find a woman that doesn't sneak out before the sun comes up? Does the media portray losing your virginity and first times wrong? Join in the comments and share how you feel about orchestrated sex scenes and what it's actually like to have sex for the first time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ4HZLWCN2M

Published on May 3, 2019

Useless Lesbians

The phrase "useless lesbian" has become a funny meme but is it harmful? Stephanie and Nicole talk about what it's like to feel like a useless lesbian. Useless lesbian is often defined as a lesbian who wouldn't recognize if a woman is into her even if its obvious. We talk about rejection, flirting with women, and giving compliments that don't feel creepy to both parties. Have you ever felt like a useless lesbian? Join us in the comments and tell your story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHu7S_8W4GM

Published on May 8, 2019

Queer Sexuality Part 1

Our first guest joins us to talk about Queer sexuality. Kyrstin (Portland) is joining us and sharing her journey to identifying as Queer. We ask her all the questions we have about what Queer means to her and how living and identifying as Queer has impacted her life. She gives us an amazing introduction into Queer topics. We discuss bisexuality, pansexuality, and how she feels about the term homoflexible. What does being Queer mean to you? What does the term mean to you and your community? Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss Part 2 of this discussion and all our other entertaining episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF7YjZLSqt4

Published on May 13, 2019

Queer Sexuality Part 2

Part 2 of our discussion into Queer sexuality. Kyrstin (Portland) is joining us and sharing her journey to identifying as Queer. We talk about the different situations where identifying as Queer would include a variety of different presenting humans. We discuss bisexuality, pansexuality, and how she feels about the term homoflexible. What does being Queer mean to you? What does the term mean to you and your community? Check out Part 1 as well to continue the topic of Queer sexuality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6YUxidEe0E

Published on May 14, 2019

My Ex Changed Her Name

Nicole's first girlfriend joins the show to talk about how she changed her name. This is great if you're thinking about changing your name or want to hear a story about something you've never done before. We discuss how she came up with her new name (Justin), her fears, and the different situations that developed. Have you ever introduced yourself and used a different name? Are you thinking of or have you changed your name?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1sEp_h5t8k

Published on May 20, 2019

My Ex is Bisexual

Part 2 of The Talking to My Ex GF series is here and it's Bisexual. Stephanie, Justin, and I talk about how bisexuals are viewed in the LGBT+ community. Justin discusses what it means to be bisexual now while she is in a heterosexual relationship and what it was like coming to terms with bisexuality. Are you struggling with identifying as bi or any other sexuality? Are you interested in how someone decides or arrives at the decision to be another sexuality?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5QrQF2RLkM

Published on June 8, 2019

Operation Gemini

Stephanie shares the legend of Operation Gemini. Lesbian Zodiac Killer, Sex, Love, Instagram PI Work, Murder Mysteries, and the one Nicole calls Carmen San Diego. We get into a play by play about the ups and downs of what we thought was Tinder magic but turned into a dumpster fire. Of course we briefly talk about horoscopes and how we always surround ourselves with the same signs. Nicole asks Stephanie to describe her perfect girl and talk about how important it is to find someone who is honest. Is Carmen San Diego playing games? Is it hard to be honest during the dating process? How does everyone feel about Murder?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQOAvNz5Mpc

Published on June 14, 2019

Operation Gemini Part 2

The legend of Operation Gemini continues. As if she couldn't do any worst she tops the charts with the worst texts of all time combined with late-night self-centered dates. Stephanie replays the last mission with Gemini and the disappointment that is dating in 2019. Lesbian Zodiac Killer, Sex, Love, Instagram PI Work, Murder Mysteries, and the one Nicole calls Carmen San Diego. We get into a play by play about the ups and downs of what we thought was Tinder magic but turned into a dumpster fire. Is Carmen San Diego looking for casual or disposable sex? Is it hard to be honest during the dating process? Is this op finally done?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFrLfG8WBD0

Published on June 26, 2019

Lesbian Squad Goals

We can't be the only ones dreaming of that perfect lesbian friend group. Tune in to hear Stephanie's idea of the most diverse lesbian squad and Nicole's lesbian run utopian town. We are talking lesbian energy, friend groups, and as always how hard it is to find lesbian friends and lovers. Are you friends with people of one sexuality over another? Would you live in a town populated with only one kind of sexuality? What does your perfect squad look like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3g3bMqvMTk

Published on August 2, 2019

Femme Lesbian Struggles

The #femmelesbian struggle is real and we speak about it in this episode of the podcast. Femme Lesbians often talk about how they are erased in the world and community. Could it be the link between heterosexuality and femme women’s style? What are femme lesbians able to do to get others to know they are a part of the QBLTIA+ community? Check out the video and let’s get a conversation going about our femme sisters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUBacKuO_0

Published on August 9, 2019

Dating Turn Offs

Can one be satisfied with getting laid even if their partners do not excite them? Is the myth women only like bad choices true? A short pow wow between Stephanie and Nicole reveals Stephanie is aware she goes for the worst women but just finds so much pleasure in the chase. Can she change her choosey ways and find a good stable woman to tame her wild way?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYiCJEWApYg

Published on August 31, 2019

Bisexual Celibacy

Can a person be naked in the heat of passion and identify with the lifestyle choice of Celibacy? Stephanie shares an interesting story about a night with a Bisexual friend. She met this friend from the totally reliable dating app Bubble. Celibacy is defined by the iPhone 11 as the state of abstaining from marriage and sexual relations. Is that what had happened lol? Have you or have you ever met someone who has been successful with Celibacy? How does everyone feel about Bisexuals being top tier on the show?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPA_PFb_k7g

Published on September 20, 2019

WTF 2020

Stephanie in Portland and Nicole in Atlanta sit down and talk about where the world is with the Covid-19 virus. Part I in the series we talk about how we are handling the virus right now. How is everyone handling the virus and being in quarantine? Have you shared the show with anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2isgCr1woU

Published on April 10, 2020

GROSS STORIES

Part II in the series we talk about what isolation has done to the whole 2020 vibe and how gross people are acting. Stephanie in Portland and Nicole in Atlanta sit down and talk about where the world is with the Covid-19 virus. How is everyone handling the virus and being in quarantine? Have you shared the show with anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_qExFAcwfI

Published on April 11, 2020

REAL HEROES

Thanks to Stripers, delivery persons, healthcare pros, and teachers to name a few. Part III in the series we talk about the real heroes of the Coronavirus. Stephanie in Portland and Nicole in Atlanta sit down and talk about where the world is with the Covid-19 virus. We talk about creative ways to reach out to people and connect in a time of social distancing. How is everyone handling the virus and being in quarantine? Have you shared the show with anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ5N75kaUV4

Published on April 12, 2020

SELF LOVE

It's important to keep your mental health strong and your spirits up in these hard times. Part IV in the series we talk about things to pass the time and keep people out of depression. Stephanie in Portland and Nicole in Atlanta sit down and talk about where the world is with the Covid-19 virus. We talk about creative ways to reach out to people and connect in a time of social distancing. How is everyone handling the virus and being in quarantine? Have you shared the show with anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLudk3swzoc

Published on April 13, 2020

GOOD VIBES

There's always some good in bad situations. Part V in the series we talk about things that are good about the quarantine and our hopes for hot girl summer. Stephanie in Portland and Nicole in Atlanta sit down and talk about where the world is with the Covid-19 virus. We talk about creative ways to reach out to people and connect in a time of social distancing. How is everyone handling the virus and being in quarantine? Have you shared the show with anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnOxnUmJL7k

Published on April 16, 2020

2020 Woke

What does it mean to be a "woke" person in the year 2020? We spend most of our lives working our jobs and trying to get by that we miss so much. We are sleep to the issues of the world and how trapped we are in a loop so we can ignore them. Stephanie and Nicole discuss the awakening of the masses because of the lack of 40 hour work week. Now that everyone can pay attention to what's going on in the world what will they do with this new knowledge? Do you stay asleep afraid of the change that could set you and others free?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19IcQHyZaoc

Published on June 15, 2020

Protest Gemini

Long time fans of the show should know if you see the word Gemini in the title it's going to be a crazy one. The Gemini Magnet Stephanie of course has another encounter with a Gemini. Who would have guessed it's the original murder she wrote Gemini herself?!? Stephanie recounts seeing Gemini Carmen again while out of quarantine and also seeing all her past hott girl summer flings. Can she be proud of how she handled running into an old hookup? Is running into Gemini Carmen a sign of the times?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smh6x5jq-PE

Published on June 16, 2020

Racist Parents

Growing up a minority in America is hard. A lot of children grow up being prepared for a racist world by racist parents. Racism is such a parasite it is in everyone. Racism isn't just a black and white issue, it’s an issue within each race. Racism is taught and it can be so hidden a person can't recognize it until they have the knowledge of something different. Stephanie and Nicole discuss cultural differences with our parents and the difficulties with mixed-matched morals. Shouldn't you trust the people who you love and you think care about you? Is their judgement always right and best for you? How do you tell them they are wrong and have a conversation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQttekUA24g

Published on June 17, 2020

All Protest Matter

How are some people allowed to protest with guns and other protests are controlled by Police violence and Police using guns? This episode Stephanie and Nicole talk about the protests going in Atlanta Georgia and Portland Oregon for the Black Lives Matter Movement. We share stories about the protests, police force on people of color, and how racism needs to talked about and people need to wake up and educate themselves. Is it enough to just not be racist? Should you know the history of racism so that you can educate others and know how to combat it when the time comes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny_wS-Nw-UA

Published on June 18, 2020

BLM Protest Matter

Racism, protests, looting, brutality, and who knows what's next. Stephanie and Nicole discuss the horror that is 2020 and the treatment of people during peaceful protests. Hear stories from the protests in Atlanta and Portland. Stephanie and Nicole discuss the heated topic of racism is America right now. Views about the Black Lives Matter Movement being the most important news, racism within the community, stories from protests, personal racist encounters, and more come up in this series. As people of color, Stephanie and Nicole offer their unique perceptive on what it means to be experiencing this important moment in our history. How does everyone feel about the protests? What about the police state we call America? Any police sad about the way your profession is treating Black people and everyone in general? Let's peacefully discuss what's going on right now in the comments below?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxsfq-Z3lOE

Published on June 19, 2020

Wuz Up 2020

2020 the Coronavirus, Covid - 19, call it what you want, it's still around and dangerous in the USA. This isn't a normal catching up show. Stephanie and Nicole discuss masks, protests, and what's going on in Atlanta Georgia and in Portland Oregon. Is it easy to get a test in your community? Has the Pandemic changed your job for the worst? Are people being too cautious and this is all a hoax? Let's talk about the worst time in history in the comments below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asW_WWhcEXA

Published on September 26, 2020

2020 Dating Rules

2020 the Coronavirus, Covid - 19, call it what you want, it's still around and dangerous in the USA. This isn't a normal dating story show. Stephanie and Nicole discuss masks during dates, dating ideas, and the important questions to consider before entering the dating field in 2020. Stephanie shares her concerns with dating during the pandemic and the more serious terms. Do you think it's risky to date while Covid-19 so easy to catch? Can we trust strangers to be honest about how they are preventing coronavirus transmission? Let have a weird sterile discussion about the virus and dating during this Pandemic in the comments below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clvB1-gIkqo

Published on September 30, 2020

Dating Bipolar

My wife and I worked at the same restaurant for two years before we started dating. Discovering the love of your life right under your nose is one thing but finding out she is bipolar is another. Stephanie and Nicole talk about what it's like to date someone with Bipolar Disorder. I talk about if given the chance again would I continue to date and fall in love with my wife. Would a serious physical or mental disorder change how you feel and your relationship with someone you're dating? Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who had major health obstacle in their life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6U_DJaBgs

Published on October 4, 2020

Fire 2020

2020 is still hitting hard. Stephanie and Nicole talk about the new way society is in 2020. We are catching up on what it's like in the job market in 2020 and the bizarre ways you can get the fire stamp from a job in 2020. Nicole talks about her family in Georgia and what they are going through at work in 2020. We want everyone to remember how important mental help is in 2020. Everyone is struggling 2020 so we need ways to figure how to deal with an increase in major situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dzHdV2rHc

Published on October 11, 2020

Leave 2020

Is the USA a huge conspiracy or is our news media feeding us hoax after hoax? Stephanie and Nicole talk about why California is just a fire zone for the new 5G tower state and other crazy conspiracies that make us want to leave the USA. We discuss the land down under and Canada as the new options to start our all Queer utopia. What kind of crazy conspiracies have you heard? Is it safe to stay in the USA or should all Queer folk leave? If we do leave where would we migrate and start a new society?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKKfdiaPJM

Published on October 17, 2020

Help 2020

So many people need help in 2020. The year is still hitting hard. Stephanie and Nicole talk about how things are still changing in 2020. We are shouting out to the people and jobs that have be giving us life and help in 2020. We talk about the future and how covid-19 is going to shape what 2020 and beyond is going to be like for society. We talk about the vaccine and the fight for a breaking point in covid-19 and the struggle in 2020. We talk about the future of 2020 in this show, what are your predictions for the rest of 2020? Will you be getting the vaccine in 2020?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLzCMXaaeJM

Published on October 24, 2020

6 notes · View notes

starfleetdoesntfirefirst · 3 years

Text

(Discovery Season 3 Episode 4 “Forget Me Not” Spoilers)

Greetings disco friends, here is my attempt at a fix-it fic.

What I mind most of all was them showing his graphic death scene, whether it’s partially-temporary or completely-temporary, after doing the same with Hugh and Michael’s then-death scenes. As far as the future of Gray's plotline goes (this season and into the next, since we know the actor is filming Season 4), I think there's a chance (especially given that GLAAD was helping them write the storyline) that he'll be completely brought back from the dead like Hugh and a chance that he won't be brought back fully but rather will continue to hang around noncorporeally like he's doing now. But either way, as with Hugh and Michael's graphic then-death scenes, that doesn't change the fact that they showed that in this episode.

I think I've reached the point of hard 'no’ on continuing to watch the show myself. (Though of course I completely support y’all in watching or not watching the show, as works for you!) And I’ll still be around here, writing fic based on Season 1 through to this episode.

Also, I’m currently brainstorming ways to put something affirming into the fandom this season while not watching, since I won't be writing fix-it ficlets and…obviously I know no one ~depends~ on my fix-it ficlets, but this community means a lot to me and I guess I want to feel like I'm putting something into the fandom even as I'm (aside from continuing to make content for older season stuff) walking away, if that makes sense? (Maybe some book giveaways of sci-fi books with trans characters, tho that may or may not work logistically/financially, or something like that.) Please let me know if you have suggestions! <3

Dreampt Of More Things

Other, F/F, M/M | Teen And Up | Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | 2,600 words

ao3 link in a reblog since Tumblr still seems unpredictable about when posts with links are allowed in the tags

and/or, full fic + tags here:

Tags – Jett Reno, Jett Reno’s Wife, Michael Burnham, Hugh Culber, Ellen Landry, Philippa Georgiou (original Captain version), Adira Tal, Paul Stamets, Gray Tal, Sylvia Tilly, Tracy Pollard Adira Tal/Gray Tal, Jett Reno/Jett Reno’s Wife, Ellen Landry/Amna Patel, Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets Grief (Ellen’s) and mentions of Lorca, no serious injury since again we are sidestepping that but very brief description of Adira’s joining surgery, Gray Tal Lives, Jett Reno’s Wife Lives, Philippa Georgiou Lives

Note: This is not an Amna Patel Lives universe (Ellen Landry’s fiancée from Star Trek Online), as I am Making A Point about how no, it’s not that queer stories about loss and grief are bad or that I personally don’t want to write/read them; it’s about context, and how many characters have died over the course of your franchise, and the nature of your franchise, and what to portray versus not portray onscreen (in the context of your show), and how you’ve advertised your characters, and reading the room.

***

“Burning the midnight oil, huh?”

Jett looks up as Michael steps closer to her workbench in the corner of Engineering, raising an eyebrow, as Michael had known she would.

“Here to check my work on your outfit, Commander?” she asks, laconically, before bending her safety-goggled face back to her work.

Michael grins despite herself as she pulls out a chair opposite Jett. “I’m entirely confident in your work, Commander.”

“So you’re here to pester me because…?”

“Because I’m curious to see the work-in-progress. And, more importantly, because I ran into your wife on her way to turn in for the night, and she told me to tell you that she’s taking you out on a fantastic date when all this is over.”

“Where’s she think she’s gonna scare up a place to go out on any kind of date in the ass-middle of the 32nd century?”

Michael grins again. “I think it was a ‘looking for a way to take my wife on a fantastic date and if I cannot find one I will create one’ kind of thing.”

“Yeah, that tracks.” Michael can hear the smirk in Jett’s voice as she fiddles with the wiring on the angel suit’s chestplate.

“Don’t stay up too late, Commander,” she says as she stands. “We’re still gonna need you on shift tomorrow.”

Jett grunts in acknowledgement, and Michael smiles as she walks past the spore cube and towards her quarters for the night.

***

“How are you doing with all this, Landry?” Hugh ventures, after a few days of deliberation, when he and Ellen have a quiet moment alone together at the end of a meeting.

Ellen takes a minute before answering, dropping a PADD into her bag. “One of my security lieutenants said it seemed implausible that we’d be able to find a way to send Burnham back in time, once again, especially with the way the Burn affected ability of the time crystals on Boreth to interface with the suit even if we are granted one.”

Hugh raises an eyebrow and waits, silent.

“I told her that if she thought implausible was going to stop this crew, she must've not been paying attention to half the weird shenanigans they’ve pulled off.”

Hugh smiles wryly. “‘More things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” he quotes.

Ellen gives him a look, and he holds up his hands in surrender. “Maybe I’ve been spending too much time around this ship’s surprisingly high number of Shakespeare fans.”

“And we’ve already dreamt of more things, haven’t we?” Ellen asks simply, pausing and leaning a hip against the table. “At this point, it’s just a matter of choosing philosophies.”

High raises an eyebrow again. “That's an interesting way of looking at it, Commander.”

Ellen folds her arms. “Yes, thank you, I am a font of excellent observations, at least when I’m not busy misreading dipshit captains and making the worst choices in the universe. You can stop giving me the sympathy look, by the way.”

Hugh watches her, silent.

“Yes," she tells him in a sing-song voice, "I have in fact experienced one or two emotions while helping prepare for a mission to bring someone back from the dead and knowing I can never bring my own fiancée back.” Her tone drops back to a flat command. “The only person in my, this, situation who actually deserves your sympathy is Amna, and she’s not here to receive it. You’re a busy man; you’re needed all over the place. Go do something clever and medical somewhere.”

Hugh watches her for a moment longer before he says simply, “I’m so sorry. For your loss.”

“Don’t. No.” Ellen’s voice is firm, though without rancor. “Those words are not for me. I am not a good widow. Do you understand that? Instead of honoring my fiancée in any substantive way, I went off and got manipulated by some dipshit. And what’s worse, if it hadn’t been for the manipulation and the secretly evil part, I might not have ever figured out to regret it. Do you understand that? Can you understand that? You’re a good person. Your partner is a good person. Do you know what it is to not just not be able to save her but to get even grieving wrong?”

For a long moment, Hugh considers what to say.

“I think your actions in helping Lorca were wrong,” he says. “I don’t think it’s possible to grieve wrong.”

Ellen, eyes dubious, grunts in a way that could be dismissal, acknowledgement, or something in between.

“Take care, Commander,” Hugh says quietly, heading for the door.

He is nearly in the hallway when Ellen speaks.

“This is part of hers.”

Hugh pauses, turning to face her again. “Hers--?”

“Amna. This mission would have been part of her philosophy.” Ellen’s lip twitches in what could be the shadow of an exhausted smile, voice still blunt and the expression in her eyes still characteristically direct. “Without question.”

***

When Georgiou returns from Boreth, she discovers that Adira has slipped down to the shuttle bay to meet her.

“How did it go?” they ask, hesitantly, eyes wide with some unknown emotion.

“Successful,” she tells them, as the two of them make their way out of the bay together. She pats one strap of her pack. “We now have a time crystal.” Given that Gray’s life rests on having a crystal to power the suit, it’s unsurprising that Adira has been worried.

“No, I mean—I knew you’d be able to do it,” Adira tells her, as if this is obvious, a trust and confidence in their eyes that makes Georgiou’s heart ache. “But, I just, I do talk with the rest of the crew, and they talked about how Pike was so f—messed up by whatever he had to go through to get the crystal, like it was really really…bad. And I just—” They stare at their feet as they walk, sneaking a quick glance sideways at Georgiou. Georgiou knows she probably looks like shit. “If I’d never come to this ship, you wouldn’t have done that for Gray. For us.”

Georgiou stops walking, turning to face Adira, and Adira watches her, their face pinched and anxious.

“Listen to me, Adira.”

Adira nods.

“This might not be something you fully, truly understand until you’re an adult yourself, but when kids are hurt or in danger, it’s us adults' job to protect you. That’s one of the most important parts of being a caring adult Human. Caring adult person,” she corrects herself. “Maybe the most important thing.”

Adira nods uncertainly.

“Saving Gray is the most important thing right now,” Georgiou says gently, as the two of them resume walking. “To all of us. You arriving on this ship was a very, very good thing for so many reasons, Adira. Saving him is one of them.”

“And that’s a go, Burnham!” comes Paul’s voice in Michael’s ear, and she launches herself upwards from Discovery’s stationary hull, the soft interior padding of the red angel suit once again surrounding her as she hovers in space, programming her coordinates.

“Jump commencing in thirty seconds,” she reports.

“Take good care, Commander,” Paul says, his voice gentle in her ear against the silent cushion of the vacuum around her.

“I will.”

A pause of a few seconds. “Adira says ‘good luck.’”

Michael can picture the two of them as they were when she flew out of the shuttle bay, Paul standing at his portable console in the shuttle bay's cobbled-together mission control, one arm around Adira.

“Tell them—” Michael swallows. “Tell them thank you. Tell them that I’ll—tell them that we’ll be back soon.”

“I will.”

The countdown completes, and Michael falls forward into a bright shower of instants.

***

Outside the generation ship, Michael shifts reality out of the timeline with a wave of one Jett-Reno-enhanced suit hand, glancing at the two figures inside the viewport in front of her before tractoring the asteroid off its course. After confirming its trajectory away from the ship, she punches the personal transporter on her chest, materializing inside.

Gray and Adira startle, each making as though to stand protectively in front of the other.

“I mean you no harm,” Michael says quickly. “And you’re both going to be safe. I am going to make sure of that. My name is Michael Burnham, and the next year is going to be very difficult for you, Adira,” she continues, feeling the words tumble from her lips as quickly as she can say them, “but I want you to know that when that year is over, you’re going to see Gray again. Gray,” she says, holding out the unpowered exoskeleton of a second timesuit, “I need you to put this on and come with me.”

Gray steps closer to Adira. “What? No, I—”

“Your name is Gray Tal, and your last name was Senna Tal, and when he was a child his favorite thing to do was to read books to his collection of plush tribble toys,” Michael says.

Gray’s eyes widen. “That’s—“

Michael continues, rattling off former Tal host facts as quickly as she can, before explaining, also as quickly as she can, about the asteroid they’ve just seen her deflect, and the symbiont, and the Discovery.

“Adira needs to have the symbiont,” she explains, “in order not to cause a time paradox. But the modified time crystal in my suit will allow me to shift you—” she nods at Adira—“back into the real timeline in time for the medbots to give you the symbiont. I just need to do it at exactly the right time, so that Gray doesn’t actually die, and you snap back just as the medbots are holding the symbiont.” Do medbots hold things? Hover them? Whatever; she’s getting the point across. And Gray is putting the suit on.

“Luckily, my amazing crewmates have worked out all the timing,” she continues, “so I just need to transport us back outside and then snap the timeline back to the right instant. And, yes, there will be two Tals in the galaxy when you see each other again and I’m sure that will make things very interesting. Ready to go?”

She holds out a hand, and Gray takes it. “I love you, Adira,” he says, as Michael reaches for the transporter.

“I love you too—” Adira says, and Michael and Gray reappear meters away in space. Adira is standing watching them, and standing watching them, and then with a motion of her hand Michael slams them back into the timeline and Gray puts a hand to his mouth over his suit visor as he watches the medbots complete the surgery and place a blanket over Adira, flying the newly-joined Human slowly away down the hallways and out of sight.

“You’ll see them again,” Michael whispers, “in just a minute.”

“Them?” Gray sounds puzzled.

Oh, right. Well, in just moments, there will be ample time for explanations. “Adira. You’ll see Adira, who’s going to be so very, very happy to see you. It will have been a year,” Michael adds, as she pulls up the angel suit controls, “and Adira is going to be so glad to see you again.”

They fall forward into sparking and sparkling time together, and all at once they’re dropping back into the timeline, floating easily in the vacuum in front of Discovery’s shuttle bay.

“Ready?” Michael asks.

Gray nods. “Yeah. I mean—of course I’m ready. I’m ready.”

Michael smiles, floating them into the bay as the forcefield ripples obligingly to let them enter and landing them both on the smooth floor, steadying Gray as his feet make contact.

“Gray?”

Adira is pressing their own hand to their mouth as Michael and Gray release the visors on their suits, and then they take a step toward him, staring as though they don’t quite believe he’s real.

“It’s me,” Gray says quietly, smiling nervously at them. “I’m here.”

This appears to be all the encouragement Adira needs to dash forward, wrapping their arms around him. He hugs them back, eyes closed as he buries his head against their shoulder. Adira is smiling and crying at the same time.

“I’m here,” he whispers to them again.

Michael steps away from the two of them, leaving them to it, and Sylvia hurries forward to wrap her arms around her. “Welcome back, Michael,” she says.

Michael hugs her for several long seconds before releasing her to accept a hug from Philippa and then a pat on the back from Paul as Tracy steps forward to scan her with a medical tricorder. “No adverse effects of the jump,” she reports, smiling.

Hugh is stepping over to do the same for Gray as Gray and Adira finally—though, Michael suspects, temporarily—pull apart. Paul echoes his motion, heading for Adira and rubbing their back before wrapping a supportive arm around their shoulder as Hugh reports that Gray is fine as well and the two teenagers grin exhaustedly at each other.

Michael watches the four of them for another moment, smiling, before turning to glance at the place where Ellen stands at her own console, studiously powering it down. Her eyes flick up just briefly toward the reunion in front of her before she lowers her gaze again, turning and slipping out the doors of the shuttle bay. Michael catches Tracy’s eye, and the two of them walk after her as Sylvia steps over to power her and Paul’s consoles down in turn and Philippa begins the process of packing the rest of mission control up.

***

At 20:00 hours in an undisclosed location on the starship Discovery, Jett’s wife leads her, eyes closed and complaining happily, into a room that has been decorated to a degree that resembles an explosion in a paper snowflake factory, while a few decks up on the bridge, Philippa settles into the captain’s chair for the night shift. Tilly climbs into bed, pulling out her PADD with its book on 30th century Earth, and at the table next to the viewport in Discovery’s rec room, Michael and Tracy sit beside Ellen in silence, keeping her company in her complicated grief. Hugh hums to himself while he brushes his teeth, and Paul yawns as he finishes slipping on his pajamas, stepping forward as Hugh sets his toothbrush back in its holder and wrapping his arms around him, humming deliberately off-key. He garners an eye-roll for his trouble, and two decks down, Gray and Adira sit in Discovery’s mess hall, gazing into each others’ eyes as Adira lapses into silence after explaining how Paul found them in the Jefferies tubes in orbit over Earth.

“You’ve had so many adventures all this time,” Gray says, grinning. “Adira Tal.”

Adira half laughs, shrugging one shoulder. “I guess so.” They look up at him. “I think my adventures are about to get even weirder, Gray Tal.”

Gray grins again. “You know, I didn’t think I or anyone I know was ever going to have the chance to visit the pools. What was it like?”

“Yes, I suppose you would have to ask me what it’s like, since it’s one of the memories we don’t share,” Adira comments with a mischievous grin of their own.

Gray laughs, shaking his head, and they beam at each other in shared exhaustion and confusion and joy as Adira begins their story and the Discovery floats onward through the night.

1 note · View note

oscopelabs · 5 years

Text

The Murder Artist: Alfred Hitchcock At The End Of His Rope by Alice Stoehr

“Rope was an interesting technical experiment that I was lucky and happy to be a part of, but I don’t think it was one of Hitchcock’s better films.” So wrote Farley Granger, one of its two stars, in his memoir Include Me Out. The actor was in his early twenties when the Master of Suspense plucked him from Samuel Goldwyn’s roster. He’d star in the first production from the director’s new Transatlantic Pictures as Phillip Morgan, a pianist and co-conspirator in murder. John Dall would play his partner, homicidal mastermind Brandon Shaw. Granger had the stiff pout to Dall’s trembling smirk.

The “interesting technical experiment” was Hitchcock’s decision to shoot the film, adapted from a twenty-year-old English play, as a series of 10-minute shots stitched together into a simulated feature-length take. This allowed him to retain the stage’s spatial and temporal unities while guiding the audience with the camera’s eye. In the process, he’d embed a host of meta-textual and erotic nuances within the sinister mise-en-scène. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents (Granger’s boyfriend, for a time) updated the play’s fictionalized account of Chicagoan thrill killers Leopold and Loeb to a penthouse in late ‘40s Manhattan. There, Phillip strangles the duo’s friend David—his scream behind a curtain opens the film—immediately prior to a dinner party where they’ll serve pâté atop the box that serves as his coffin. It’s a morbid premise for a comedy of manners, and Brandon taunts his guests throughout the evening. (Asked if it’s someone’s birthday, he coyly replies, “It’s, uh, really almost the opposite.”)

Granger deemed the film lesser Hitchcock due to two limitations. One was the sheer repetition and exact blocking demanded by its formal conceit, the other the Production Code’s blanket ban on “sex perversion,” which meant tiptoeing around the fact that Brandon and Phillip—like their real-life inspirations and, to some degree, Rope’s leading men—were gay. That stringent homophobia forced Hitchcock and Laurents to convey their sexuality through ambiguity and implication; the director would use similar tactics to adapt queer writers like Daphne du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith. (“Hitchcock confessed that he actually enjoyed his negotiations with [Code honcho Joseph] Breen,” notes Thomas Doherty in the book Hollywood’s Censor. “The spirited give-and-take, said Hitchcock, possessed all the thrill of competitive horse trading.”) The nature of the characters’ relationship is hardly subtext: Rope starts with their orgasmic shudder over David’s death, then labored panting after which Brandon pulls out a cigarette and lets in some light. A few minutes later, Brandon strokes the neck of a champagne bottle; Phillip asks how he felt during the act, and he gasps “tremendously exhilarated.”

Like Brandon’s hints about the murder, the homosexuality on display is surprisingly explicit if an audience can decode it. The whole film pivots around their partnership, both criminal and domestic. In an impish bit of conflation, their scheme even stands in for “the love that dare not speak its name,” with David’s body acting as a fetish object in a sexual game no one else can perceive. The guests, as Brandon puts it, are “a dull crew,” “those idiots” who include David’s father and aunt, played by London theater veterans Cedric Hardwicke and Constance Collier. Joan Chandler and Douglas Dick, both a couple years into what would be modest careers, play David’s fiancée Janet and her ex Kenneth. Character actress Edith Evanson appears as housekeeper Mrs. Wilson, a prototype for Thelma Ritter’s Stella in Rear Window, and a top-billed James Stewart is Rupert Cadell, who once mentored the murderers in arcane philosophy.

This was the first of Stewart’s four collaborations with Hitchcock. It cast the actor against type not as a romantic hero but as an observer and provocateur, his gaze shrewd, his dialogue heavy with irony. The role presaged his work in the ‘50s, with Mann rather than Capra, emphasizing psychology over ideology. Rupert, like L.B. Jeffries or Scottie Ferguson, is rooting out a crime, and in so doing comes to seem more loathsome than the villains themselves. “Murder is—or should be—an art,” he lectures midway through Rope, eyebrow arched, martini glass in hand. “Not one of the seven lively perhaps, but an art nevertheless.” Half an hour in real time later, having seen David’s body, he flies into a moralizing monologue: “You’ve given my words a meaning that I never dreamed of!” It takes up the last several minutes of the film, with Rupert snarling from deep in his righteous indignation, “Did you think you were God, Brandon?”

Stewart was a master of sputtering, impassioned oratory, and his facility for it renders Rupert’s hypocrisy especially stark. He taught these murderers; he can’t just shrug off his culpability. The Code decreed that “the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, or sin.” Every transgression reaps a punishment. The ending of Rope abides by the letter of this law, as Rupert fires several shots into the night, drawing a police siren toward the building. He sits, deflated, while Phillip plays piano and Brandon has one last drink. But none of David’s loved ones get to excoriate his killers. The one man here with no integrity, no moral authority, is the one who gets the final, self-flagellating word.

The Code forbade throwing sympathy to the side of sin, but if Hitchcock meant any character in Rope as his stand-in, it was Brandon, not Rupert. The top to Phillip’s bottom, he’s the director of the play within a film. He’s storyboarded it to perfection. Janet, realizing he’s toying with her, cries that he’s incapable of just throwing a party. “No, you’d have to add something that appealed to your warped sense of humor!” Hitchcock, who’d built a corpus of corpses, must have gotten a chuckle from that line. Whereas Phillip fears discovery, Brandon puts symbolism above pragmatism, prioritizing what Phillip dubs his “neat little touches.” He needs to have dinner on the chest, the murder weapon tied around antique books, and his surrogate father Rupert in attendance, much as the film’s director needed to shoot in long takes—not because it’s pragmatic, but because it’s beautiful. He went to great lengths for verisimilar beauty here, as Steven Jacobs details in The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock. Miniatures in the three-dimensional cyclorama seen through the broad penthouse window were wired and connected to a ‘light organ’ that allowed for the gradual activation of the skyline’s thousands of lights and hundreds of neon signs. Meanwhile, spun-glass clouds were shifted by technicians from right to left during moments when the camera turned away from the window.

Jacobs notes as well that a painting by Fidelio Ponce de León hanging on Brandon and Phillip’s wall actually belonged to the director and had previously hung in his own home. Rope is avant-garde art wrapped in a bourgeois thriller, about avant-garde art wrapped in a dinner party, pushing moral and aesthetic boundaries while collapsing any distinction between the two. In this nested construction, Brandon the murder artist becomes a figure of auto-critique or perhaps apologia. Did you think you were God, Alfred? By 1948, he’d already made dozens of films, often obliquely about sex and violence, across decades and continents. He’d become the world champion sick joke raconteur. Rope is a reckoning with the ethics of his genre.

By 1948, the world had changed. A few years earlier, Hitchcock’s friend (and Rope co-producer) Sidney Bernstein had asked him to advise on a film about Germany’s newly liberated concentration camps. As Kay Gladstone writes in Holocaust and the Moving Image, Hitchcock worried that “tricky editing” would let skeptics read its footage as fraudulent and asked the editors “to use as far as possible long shots and panning shots with no cuts.” The director took his own counsel to heart.

Rope was also his first color film, the start of his fascination with dull palettes. (A quarter-century later he’d limn Frenzy’s London with every shade of beige.) Genteel browns and grays dominate the penthouse, the hues of men’s suits. Only after nightfall does the apartment glow with, in Jacobs’ phrasing, “the expressive possibilities of urban neon light.” The dinner party takes place at the crest of postwar modernity, a world away from the camps. Here, among the East Coast intelligentsia, murder’s merely a thought experiment. When David’s father mentions Hitler, Brandon dismisses him as “a paranoiac savage.” Yet even in polite society, the evening can begin with a secret killing and end with that iniquity brought to light. “Perhaps what is called civilization is hypocrisy,” says Brandon. “Perhaps,” David’s father concedes.

In 1948, the world was changing. That year saw the publication of Gore Vidal’s landmark gay novel The City and the Pillar and the first of the Kinsey Reports. Antonioni was a documentarian about to make his first feature; Truffaut was a delinquent catching Hitchcock movies at the Cinémathèque. Rope’s amorality and pitch-black humor augur a world and a cinema that were yet to come. It’s thorny gay art through a straight auteur. The film’s last thirty seconds show Rupert’s back to the camera while Brandon sips his cocktail and Phillip plays a tune, the trio lit by flashing neon. In this denouement lie decadence and damnation, art and death, the Code-closeted past and a disaffected future.

#alfred hitchcock #rope film #rope movie #hitchcock #james stewart #farley granger #john dall #gore vidal #michelangelo antonioni #francois truffaut #frenzy film #the wrong house: the architecture of alfred hitchcock #musings #film writing #film essay #oscilloscope laboratories #o-scope labs #adam yauch #Beastie Boys

52 notes · View notes

erin-gilberts · 4 years

Note

Bc It’s such a good post will you answer all the cafe asks?

Yessss totally!

Vanilla Chai Latte : Are you in love?

Yes, wholeheartedly and unapologetically, I am.

My girlfriend and I have only been together for two months, but it’s one of those things where when you know, you know. I’ve been in relationships lasting upwards of a year where I still didn’t know at the end of them whether or not I was in love. Early on in the year, I was actually even having conversations with my mom about how I wasn’t sure I’d ever been in love; I had no concept of what that felt like. I didn’t feel like I was feeling what I was supposed to be in relationships. I wondered if I was aromantic and if I wasn’t meant to experience romantic love.

With her, I’ve realized everything love IS supposed to feel like, and I’ve realized I AM capable of feeling those feelings - I just hadn’t met the right person yet. My heart was waiting for her.

We daydream of the life we intend to build together, and it delights me to be able to wake up every day and choose her, again and again, as we run boldly and breathlessly into the future we now share. We totally u-hauled but we’re both so committed to blooming and becoming together; it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before despite having quite a bit of experience in relationships.

Flat White : Coffee or Tea?

Coffee. It feels more substantial to me with more ways to customize it exactly how you like it. I also just have a lot of really positive memories being in coffee shops! I’m currently obsessing over Starbucks’s seasonal salted caramel mocha.

Cappuccino : What’s your middle name?

Elizabeth! I was named after my mother and grandmother, so it’s the only part of my birth name I kept when I changed my name.

Mocha : Dream Job?

A famous professional organizer on the same level as Marie Kondo and Dorothy Breininger! They’re my inspiration and the reason I went into this kind of work. Also, the executive director of my own LGBT-focused nonprofit (which I have been, and I intend to be again!).

Pumpkin Spice : Dream car?

The super fancy bike I’ll use the day I ride in the AIDS LifeCycle? Haha, I don’t drive and I don’t intend to!

Jasmine Tea : If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

Ugh, if I could visit any place in the world right this moment, I’d choose to go back to Toronto in a heartbeat. I went there in 2015 for the Inside Out LGBT Film Festival and I LOVED that city. It was so fun and the people were so welcoming. Other than that? Moscow, because it’s where @googoogojob lives, or New York City, because I just learned Hook & Ladder 8 (the Ghostbusters firehouse) is a real place and I want to see it!

Old English : You’re stranded on an island, who do you bring with you?

Do I have a limit?? If I have a choice, I’m definitely bringing my mom, brother, maternal grandparents, best friend, best friend’s family, cat, and girlfriend! That’s like the minimum amount of people in my life I couldn’t go without.

Iced Chocolate : Do you have a crush on someone?

My girlfriend, who I continually redevelop a big gay crush on every day! But I feel like that’s not quite the spirit of what this question is asking, so - I also have a big gay crush on Kristen Wiig, which my girlfriend endlessly makes fun of me for! Like, to the point I named my cat Erin Gilbert.

Caramel Frappe : Favorite video game?

It’s a tie between Minecraft and Undertale. I swing wildly between playing Minecraft daily to not playing for months, but it never gets old. The sandbox nature of the game enables infinite creativity, and the low stakes make it both accessible to me (not a gamer) and relaxing. And Undertale with its story and unique mechanics remains to this day the game to inspire the biggest emotional response in me. I’ve thought about having, “Despite everything, it’s still you” tattooed.

Iced Lemon Tea : Favorite song/band?

My favorite songs of all time are “The Greatest” by Sia and “I Know a Place” by MUNA, both of which were written in the aftermath of the Pulse shooting and can be interpreted as the process of rediscovering queer joy at the same time your community is constantly faced with tragedy and pain. They hit hard in a beautiful way as a hate crime survivor.

Iced Cafe Mocha : Favorite thing to do on rainy days?

I like to go out as soon as the storm passes and just walk downtown in the rain. The air always smells and feels so good; it clarifies me and I feel renewed. Walking in the light rain or before / after the storm always feels like breathing, really breathing, for the first time. It reminds me I exist and it reminds me that’s neat.

Hot Chocolate : Are you an affectionate person?

Yessssss oh my god. I live and breathe being affectionate and not even in a strictly romantic sense. I’m naturally an exuberant person and I delight in making people happy. My girlfriend would also say I engage in “cat behavior” with my demands to be held or touching constantly. XD

Caramel Macchiato : You’re travelling the entire world but you can only take one person with you. Who do you take?

My girlfriend @sweetmckinnon. Not only would we have the unprecedented opportunity to be gay in every country and continent, but we’re both writers, and we’d write an excellent book about these adventures!

Green Tea : How tall are you?

5’7.

Early Grey Tea : The inevitable Zombie Apocalypse is upon us! What’s your plan of action?

I’m rounding up everyone I care about and taking us to the nearest commune of marginalized people. We’ll be avoiding those uber-macho survivalist types like the plague, because their arrogance will 100% get everyone killed. At least marginalized communities would be more likely to understand working together and looking out for the community, not just yourself.

Mint Tea : How do you relax?

Indoor cycling is my drug of choice. It’s HARD to be mad or stressed when you’re exerting that intensely. I might also write self-indulgent fanfics or indulge in a little controlled chaos (I’m an acrylic pour and collage artist). And talking to my girlfriend, best friend, or mom always makes me feel better, too.

Vanilla Latte : Board games or drinking games?

I genuinely love board games and wish I had more people to play them with.

Iced Coffee : Do you like reading? If so, what’s your favorite book?

I like reading, but having ADHD has made it extremely hard to read entire books in recent years. My favorite book is probably The Radium Girls by Kate Moore. The author takes what’s already a horrific story and a dark chapter in American history and with her devastating writing style, humanizes each woman involved to the point it makes you ache to read knowing the inevitability of their fate. Anytime anyone asks me for a book recommendation, this is the book I suggest.

Italian Soda : Describe your dream date

My dream date would be after we’ve been together for a while - maybe on a date that’s special to us, like our anniversary, or maybe just on a random night because we feel like it, we have one of those super romantic dates like you see in the movies. We dress up super cute, go out to dinner and come home to a bedroom full of candles and rose petals on the floor, and every moment is spent just enjoying each other and what we have together in every way we can. <3

Sparkling Water : Describe what qualities you look for in a person

Passion - I’m an activist who became the executive director of their own nonprofit at the age of 16. I’m not going to mesh with someone who’s just going through the motions of life without any aspirations.

Flexibility - It’s a turnoff for me when someone is EXTREMELY committed to a very specific view of how their life is going to be. It tells me right away I’m going to have to continually contort myself to fit into their unbending path, because I accept I can’t predict the direction of my life with any degree of precision and I’m not rigid about it as a result.

Creative - I’m currently dating another writer and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a relationship. The quickest way to get us to pop off into a spirited debate is to get us started about story structure and characterization. We. Go. OFF. And could go off for days. Our shared creative passion gives us endless ground to connect and bond on.

Those are just a few, but definitely a few important ones for me!

Orange Juice : Have you ever had a valentine?

My first girlfriend, who I dated from 12-17, is the only valentine I’ve ever had. The timing of my relationships as an adult has never worked out for me to be partnered on Valentine’s Day. We weren’t super out about our relationship at the time and didn’t spend Valentine’s Day together, but I still have the love letters she sent me copied into my 7th grade diary, and I still have the antique gold heart necklace with enamel roses she gave me one year, too! Lots of lovely memories from that relationship.

Rose Hip Tea : Describe your first kiss

My first girlfriend and I were 12-13, cutting class in the bathroom because she was often bullied for her sexuality. She was having an especially rough day that day and I knew exactly where to find her. She kissed me out of the blue while I was comforting her and in all of my baby gay naivety, I hadn’t fully realized I was gay or that she liked me that way prior to that. Turns out I was and she did. We dated for five years.

Herbal Tea : You’re at a candle shop, what scented candle do you buy?

Oh, I’m going right to the bakery scent section. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate-scented candles, but vanilla? Christmas cookies? Gingerbread? Sign me the FUCK up.

Sandalwood is also one of my favorite scents, but depending on what it’s blended with, it can be hit or miss for me in candles.

1 note · View note

migleefulmoments · 5 years

Note

I don't think anything of what the cc fandom posts anymore is "continued optimism". It looks like sheer terror that they're losing their game. Abby is in pure desperation mode, trying to rally the troops because she can see Darren's life is turning out to be nothing like she predicted. She can no longer validate that Darren NEEDS her, he keeps going against her. They're losing their grip. This isn't optimism, it's because everything Darren is doing equals Abby losing control of the narrative.

I agree with that they were in panic mode since the wedding but the 72 hours or so after Hollywood was announced they were euphoric that this was proof that Darren would be coming out soon. That has worn off already and they are back to their normal crap but for a few days, they were giddy. They were even speaking about a divorce in very near future.

I am going on record, I like AW and I like her a lot. She is team D, I really have no doubt and everything she is showing is that she is on his side and around to protect him often and frequently.

Yes she is giving us the illusion that she and PBB are besties that love to take intimate photos together but in reality she is showcasing exactly who M is, how much she lacks chemistry with D, some really not so pretty moments behind the scenes btwn D&M (there was some golden footage from European trip number 1 includng that video from the fireworks where E is all snuggled into her man and D&M look like virtual strangers), she flew to that island to babysit, and she announced the business family honeymoon.

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

AW is team d. She is a hard working, extremely successful men’s stylist with a pretty impressive client list at this point. And while she would absolutely have loyalty toward D, as she built her career styling him, she should not be this involved. A friend just reminded me that her other client, FW is currently promoting the J/udy Ga/rland movie. That is something AW usually would accompany her clients to, she follows D everywhere. yet no one questions why instead of being with FW she spent 2 days in a row with PBB.

I think she and d are working together and i believe she provides d with comfort. She babysits M, she works as a buffer, and unlike so many other enablers, she has D’s back. She is smart, she knows how to play M and her stans. On the surface she looks like she might almost be in love with M (seriously she has way more chemistry with her than D), but it is all a mirage, done for show. And if you look behind a lot of what she posts, it is harmful to m/iarren.

I know I have repeated the same think a lot over the past 48 hours, but I am so scared to allow myself to believe that change is ahead. And i got burned with ACS because I BELIEVED with my entire being this was the beginning of change and then everything escalated to full on disaster. But I still think no one got burned more than D&C because I am fairly certain they thought change was ahead as well.(Again the narcissism just has to rear it’s ugly head).

But I cannot stop myself from being optimistic and it is not just the RM partnership. It is the totality of the circumstances. It is watching the past 7 months since the sham mockery. It is seeing how they past 7 months were designed solely to promote her, not D, and done mainly using people only seen by fandom (her employees/friends, SK, PBB’s team). She got the massive exposure and the press from the “wedding” and some RCs as the “wife” but not much more and has now been relegated to mainly being promoted by the aforementioned. And that is only seen by fandom. Add, for the past several months, D himself has hardly tried. A random good pic here and there, but otherwise he orchestrated group honeymoons, barely touched her even when kissing, the jerk, bitch glare, the back turn. D has gained nothing until now. He certainly did not do this for a show he sold 3 years ago that is being written by, like them or not, Hwood novices. I hardly think he needed a wife to score the TB commercial. And SA doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who cares who d’s partner is, it was just a great collaboration.

And here we are, September, D is filming R/oyalties and we get the announcement that he is collaborating with RM again, not just as the star, but exec producer of a show that largely involves, based on early press, LGBT+ themes. And I have to HOPE.

The stage is set. D “married” her. He has been set up to take the blame as well as his team, thereby absolving RM. And it would make a lot of sense for RM to now step in and play the “hero.” We know the truth. D and C know the truth. But RM has the power to smooth what is going to be a difficult narrative to navigate. And it is a win for D&C and a win for RM. The m/iarrens are going to be devastated, as they are so invested in being right and D being straight (No we aren’t)(again the narcissism and her soul-crushing need to be right-is this about Darren or Abby?). And even if we just get a separation it will all be questioned. Because M is the only thing that makes him straight (not true, Darren identifying as straight is what makes him straight). Everything else points at the opposite. Add the press has not helped him at all on his path to come out, so it is going to be difficult to navigate. Having the “king of television” in his corner speaks volumes.

And then there is his horrific, abusive, incompetent team. And they haven’t just fucked with him, it seems with their no queer article they fucked with RM.(Huh? What?) I really hope they live to regret it.

Karma is a bitch.. May she rear her ugly head and finally give these people what they deserve. If i am sitting here a year from now and nothing has changed, I will be heartbroken for him. And wonder if maybe he did choose career. I just can’t believe that is who he is. I think he is a fighter and everything he has ever shown confirms that (DELUSION-ville) thought even if there was some confusion when the fraud in NOLA first occurred.

Here is hoping nonnie. Here is hoping.

I think a major decision like this was made together.

Read the book when it comes out in Oct 1. I thought c references RM. now I’m near positive.

And Hwood itself was initially announced in February. I immediately thought this was the project RM was cooking up (curious if FW and CF join the cast). But then there was silence for months,

And the first 8 months of 2019 were a complete shitshow that included that absolute fiasco in NOLA, excessive PBB promo, ads, ads, ads, TB, and SK. Not a single one of which were worthy of D’s time and attention. And to all onlookers, we were dazed and confused. utterly and completely and not sure what to think or believe.

But putting the pieces together prior to last nights announcement, logically and rationally looking at everything, it seems to me that finally D was tying up loose ends. While I do think D himself was dazed and confused in the first few weeks after that fraud occurred, it has been clear to me that starting with the work family group honeymoon (I think of all the arrows to m/iarren that have been shot, this might be my favorite) something shifted. How anyone can not see that that woman was being way over promoted is beyond me (Because “promotion isn’t a thing, Abby”). But clearly the 1st 8 months of 2019 were devoted to giving her everything and anything she ever wanted. Add in SK, the biggest enablers, that are being rewarded, first by raising an obnoxious amount of cash, and now with R/oyalties with D’s writers being his partners in the business. All of these things are massive pay out.

And last night we get this announcement from D.

notes-from-nowhere

do you want to know what I find very intriguing in all of this? The fact that all of that has been said in this topic pretty much sums up what we have said in the last 15 months if not more.

The latest news only uncovers the thread that keep all of “out theories” together. Of course something might be wrong, misplaced or misunderstood but the big picture is there for all to see (No, you don’t say?).

I do think it is too soon for me to fully embrace the idea that finally things are on the right path but well, please, excuse me for my optimism after a year and a half of struggle.

I’m going to root for D to have back his life and to finally be free to make his own choices. I hope this career advancement (or for better wording: this career extension) will give him what he wants and the power to just be his fully self and spread his wings.

I will watch what’s unfold in front of my eyes with interest from now on and a reneview wave of hope.

I do trust D is going to take the best decision ever among those available to him. My only fear is that those options may not be the one I hope for him but all I can do right now is wait and see. Hope for the best and expect the worst. Is the wiser thing I can do

ajw720

@notes-from-nowhere it’s impossible to not be skeptical. I didn’t see that “wedding” a 1000 miles away. (SMH) I care way too much (a me problem). I felt like my heart broke that day and I need to take care of me and be cautious. But I’m leaning this is good and I do think the public evidence to date supports this.

This is what euphoria looks like in cc fandom.

It’s interesting that she convinced herself this is Darren coming out when she thought he would come out during Hedwig based on this:

He and C were very relaxed, joking at interviews when G/lee was ending, both in France at the same time, the C/ol-Fur joke, the repeated telling of mandate. Everything seemed to point to a positive resolution. C even scheduled his book tour to be finished the day prior to d’s last performance. and then D was nominated for an emmy and everything seemed to shift and spun out of control and here we are, 4 years later.

She “rationally analyzes” the data and comes to the conclusion he’s coming out rather than understanding he’s just living his life.

6 notes · View notes

agameofme · 5 years

Text

Hiraeth

There’s writing that you have to do--as in, you’re obligated to do it--and then there’s writing that you need to do, as in, it’s just sitting there inside you, weighing you down, gnawing at the inner walls of your mind, needing to be expunged so you can do the writing that you have to do.

This is writing that I need to do so that I can get back to the writing that I have to do.

On a recent afternoon I got off BART at the stop near my home and there were Girl Scouts outside at a little table, selling cookies. In an instant an entire scenario played out in my head. I walked up to them, smiling, expressing enthusiasm about getting to buy some cookies, maybe making a comment about how much we all love Thin Mints, though I bet they hear that all the time. I bought a few boxes, wished them well, and went on my way. But none of this actually happened. Instead I just turned away and started walking toward my apartment. Reason being that I figured if I did, in actuality, approach them with the intent of buying cookies, the fact of my obvious transness might, perchance, have made one of the girls noticeably uncomfortable, or perhaps a parent of one of the girls, and I would pick up on this and then I would feel uncomfortable for having made them uncomfortable, and then the whole exchange would be tinged with awkwardness, and I’d just want to end it as quickly as possible to relieve their discomfort at me and my discomfort at their discomfort, and I’d walk away regretting that I’d put any of us through that. Of course I realize that there’s a chance that these particular young people and their present parents are perfectly comfortable around trans people, that there’d be no fleeting “How do I explain this to my daughter later?” flicker across a mother’s face, no girl hesitating awkwardly, caught in a moment of uncertainty about how to address me. But I can’t know for sure, and so even if I tried to approach the situation with the casual, carefree attitude that I wanted to, the fear of the possibility of things becoming awkward would be rattling around in me so loudly that I couldn’t hide it, and my fear of potential awkwardness would awkwardly poison the whole interaction regardless.

This happens all the time. This is how I live my life.

Last month, Bruno Ganz died. I love Wings of Desire, and his performance in it. Like his angel, Damiel, I sometimes feel like I’m observing life, but not really participating in it. I exist at a remove, wondering what real closeness and connection and participation in life are like. I know they can be wonderful.

“I wish I could see your face, just look into your eyes and tell you how good it is to be here...to smoke, have coffee, and if you do it together, it’s fantastic.”

The film punctures the lie that time heals all wounds. For many of us, the waiting and waiting and waiting is the wound.

Bruno Ganz was only a few years older than I am now when he made Wings of Desire. I don’t know why thoughts like that so often occur to me, but they do. I think maybe it’s because I’m so aware of time slipping away from me, time that I never get back, and I really want to start living before I die.

Today, and yesterday, and the day before that, I woke up starving for touch. Often the first thing I’m aware of when consciousness comes to me is a kind of ache in the body, like my skin is the frozen surface of a lake, and there’s warm water far, far below that could bring such relief, but it needs a warm touch on the surface to bring it floating up through the cold, to infuse my skin with life once again. This is one of the ways I am wounded by time.

Anyway, I want to tell you a story.

(Bionic Commando, NES)

It’s actually not about the person I met when I was young, though I wish it was. I’d have only very kind things to say about them, but to write about them would not be a kindness. And so, like so many stories that purport to be about someone else, this is actually a story about the person telling it, and the effect that the other person had on me.

Was I young many years ago, when this story I’m about to tell you happened? I don’t know. I mean, yes, I was, and I am. I’m very young. Young like Yorkie in San Junipero. Her body may be 60 or so, but she’s not really 60, because she’s experienced so little. In the virtual world of San Junipero, she has the freedom to be herself, a young woman looking to form connections and find love for the first time. Even there, her complete lack of experience surprises the woman she clicks with, but still, with Kelly she finds acceptance. She can let her walls down and be honest about who she is, what she’s missed out on her whole life, and what she needs now.

Now I’m physically 42 but really I’m no older than Yorkie. I go on dating sites like Bumble and I can’t help but be extremely aware that I’m very different from most of the queer women on there, not just because I’m trans, and visibly so (though that certainly significantly limits the pool of people who might want to even meet me for coffee), but because I’m so inexperienced, and so guarded, and so aware that it takes a special kind of person to make me feel safe, and able to be honest and real.

Of course, I have had long, close relationships before, but that was before I transitioned, and despite all my efforts to pretend otherwise, there was always a barrier between me and my partners, because those relationships were all predicated on a fiction, the role I tried so hard to play while gender dysphoria carved up my insides. I was profoundly uncomfortable with my body, and didn’t really inhabit it throughout all those years. It was as if my soul was hiding away, trying to make itself as small and as removed as possible from the anguish of reality, possibly curled up into a tight little ball in my left pinky toe, barely present in the real world, always seeking escape into books and songs and movies and video games.

Now I’m uncomfortable with my body for an entirely different reason: it seems to prevent people from seeing me for who I really am. I’m definitely in less pain having transitioned, and there’s a relief in living with the integrity of being honest with the world about who I am, but still, the world can’t see me clearly. I’m misgendered constantly, and because I know I’m not clearly seen by the world, fear factors into every decision I make. I’m never free of it. Do I dress the way I dress because this is how I want to dress, or do I dress the way I dress because I’m trying to make myself invisible, because I’m afraid of drawing potentially hostile attention to myself? I don’t know, and as long as fear remains present, I can’t know.

Whether or not it’s true, I feel as if I exist entirely outside the marketplace of desire as a queer woman, and that the only times people want me are when they see me as something I’m not. One woman I dated briefly repeatedly misgendered me and even admitted to me once that she fantasized about me being a man. One woman made a pass at me by saying that she saw me not as a woman or a man but just as a person. How can I be present in a relationship if I know that I’m being seen and desired expressly as things I feel like I’m not, and not as who I am?

Loneliness is hallmarked by an intense desire to bring the experience to a close; something which cannot be achieved by sheer willpower, or by simply getting out more, but only by developing intimate connections. This is far easier said than done, especially for people whose loneliness arises from a state of loss or exile or prejudice, who have reason to fear or mistrust as well as long for the society of others.

--Olivia Laing, The Lonely City

So. Let’s talk about Alex.

I’ve written about Alex before. I don’t know if i’ll write about Alex again. Some writers are fond of saying that all of us who write essentially write the same story again and again and again, but I’d like to have a new story to tell. I know Alex wants that for me too.

It was several years ago now that I met them. I was in a weird place at the time, having just gone through an intense defrost cycle on my heart. After focusing on transition and not giving much thought to relationships for many years, I’d had an encounter that made me painfully aware that finding love, closeness, and connection was supremely important to me.

There’s a great deal I can’t tell you about Alex that I wish I could tell you. What I can say is that they just had a particular kind of sincerity about them that put me at ease. Very few people can do that. I didn’t feel the anxiety around them that I feel around so many people. I didn’t mind just existing in silence with them. Time with most people drains my batteries. Time with Alex recharged them.

Alex did and still does things that I admire greatly, and I find them fascinating as a person, and I wanted more than anything to engage in the endless process of getting to know them. In the 1990 Hal Hartley movie Trust, a character asserts that respect, admiration and trust equal love. I don��t know if it’s as simple as that, but I do know that all those ingredients were there.

youtube

I could tell that Alex knew what suffering was in their own way, and that they struggled sometimes, which is essential if I’m going to be able to relate to someone, but Alex wasn’t wounded in the same ways or the same places that I was wounded, which is also essential. If you put me next to someone who’s like me, there’s just a chasm between us. All we can do is spin our wheels. Alex was someone I could relate to and understand, and also learn from.

Anyway, it eventually came to pass that Alex knew how I felt, just as I knew that Alex would never see me the way I wanted them to see me. The circumstances of this dual revelation would make for a more symbolically fraught movie scene about the anguish of a lifetime spent feeling invisible than anything I could concoct in a work of fiction, but I won’t go into the particulars. Suffice it to say that the next night, Alex and I met, I guess in the hopes of clearing the air. We sat on Alex’s couch, and Alex put their arm around me.

I suppose that’s the sort of thing you might do if you grow up in a somewhat healthy family that teaches you that your love has value.

The effect it had on me was the feeling of years and years and years of ice melting away, warm water rushing to the surface, my skin and my soul awakened in a way they never had been before. I simultaneously wanted to kiss Alex and to fall asleep in their arms. I wanted to sit there talking and laughing quietly while letting phrases like “I love you” slip out of my mouth, and I wanted to cry, to let loose all the grief that I’d carried around with me for so long and had never been able to share with anyone. I actually did laugh at the sheer wild luck of it all, of finding myself in that moment, and I laughed, too, at the wonderful surprise of discovering, after spending all my life in moments that I couldn’t fully inhabit, that really being there, right there with Alex, was the easiest thing in the world.

If I died tomorrow, and it turned out that, like in Hirokazu Koreeda’s film After Life, I had to choose just one memory to take with me, that would be it, the time I spent in Alex’s arms that night.

youtube

When I left, it felt as if the whole world was vibrating. That’s not an exaggeration or some kind of metaphor. I mean that it felt to me as if everything was humming, as if all of existence had become charged with life, or perhaps as if all of existence were always charged with life, and for the first time I could see and feel it, because for the first time I was part of it.

Maybe this is what Sam meant in Gone Home when she said she felt like a shook-up can of soda. Maybe almost everyone experiences something like this when they’re young, and they learn that they can be loved. But I still haven’t learned that. I’m still waiting for my first mutual experience of it. I don’t expect love to mean undergoing a massive spiritual experience every time the person I love touches me. Not at all. I want to get to a point where being held by someone I really like doesn’t feel like winning the goddamn lottery. But when you’ve waited for it for as long as I have, it’s powerful, when it finally happens. I don’t expect love to be grandiose. For the most part, my time with Alex wasn’t grandiose. It was low-key friendly get-togethers, conversations over drinks at bars, playing games together, or just working quietly on our own things in the same place at the same time. That was all it had to be.

Of course, I knew even as I was sitting there with Alex, being brought to life by their warmth and their presence and their touch, that they didn’t mean for it to affect me so profoundly. They were just trying to comfort me, their friend, in the hopes that it might be easier for me to let go, to move on, to just be friends. The next day they texted me and asked me if I was feeling better. What could I say? That the night before had changed my life, that it was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced and that I was, if anything, more full of yearning than ever before, that all I wanted was to hold them and be held by them?

I said that yes, I was feeling better, and left it at that. That was years ago now, and in all the time since, I haven’t met anyone else yet who has felt like a chance to me the way Alex did.

Sometimes some of my friends say that monogamy is bullshit. The people who say this around me, though, are always attractive people for whom love and affection and touch are widely available around the city in or the planet on which they live. When people ask me if I’m poly (as they occasionally do, I suppose because I’m a queer-identified woman living in the San Francisco Bay Area), all I can do is laugh. I can’t even find one person I like and who likes me who I want to know deeply, with whom I feel safe, with whom I can be vulnerable, with whom I can take my time to form a bond of closeness and trust. If my life were completely different, if the world taught me to move with confidence rather than fear, if the world taught me that I was seen rather than invisible, would I be poly then? I can never know the answer to that. We are all shaped by our experiences within the world, the messages the world sends us about ourselves, and if the world sent me different messages about myself, I’d be a different person. But I do resent the attitude among some that polyamory is inherently more enlightened or radical than monogamy. I think that in this world, where people so often use other people and then dispose of them, there’s something radical about ordinary devotion to one person, between two people who know each other deeply, trust each other completely, have seen each other at their worst, and still support and rely on each other.

The other question I get, I guess because of my lack of experience, is whether I might be asexual. But I’m not. When things are firing on all cylinders, I’m definitely sexual. But I really need to feel safe and seen with someone, seen and desired as the woman I am, and the world doesn’t make me feel that way, so it takes time for me to feel that way with an individual. Over and over again on the dance floors of life, I see people seeing each other, desiring each other and being desired, and I feel invisible, and I’m still dancing on my own.

Alex felt like home. I’m still looking for home. Not the exact same kind of home that Alex felt like. Everyone’s love makes a different kind of home. Just a home, one where I feel safe and seen, with someone I trust and respect and admire and can learn from and have fun with and be myself with, a home where I’m inclined to let down the walls that I have spent so long building up. In a world where everything about my life is complicated, feeling the way I did about Alex was the simplest, easiest thing. I know it doesn’t stay that way, but it seems to me like a good place to start.

14 notes · View notes

acehotel · 5 years

Text

Just/Talk: Justin Strauss with Jenny Schlenzka

Jenny Schlenzka was writing her Master’s Thesis at NYU by day and waiting tables in SoHo by night when a friend mentioned a job as a German-speaking assistant for a curator who had just started at the Museum of Modern Art. That person, Klaus Biesenbach, would later become the Chief Curator at Large at MoMA and appoint Schlenzka as the first Curator of Performance ever at the storied institution during his tenure. For this edition of Just/Talk, Schlenzka, now the current Artistic Director of Performance Space New York, chats with legendary DJ and longtime Ace friend Justin Strauss about reimagining apocalypses with queer artists of color, using performance art to engage with the world and trusting her intuition when building with new artists.

Justin Strauss: How did your journey begin, ending up here in New York and working in the arts?

Jenny Schlenzka: It wasn't planned. I came to New York in 2002 to study at NYU. I had a year-long scholarship and was supposed to go back.

Justin: Had you been here before to visit?

Jenny: I had been here once to visit a good friend of mine who was living here, so I really wanted to visit her. I was 23 or 24.

Justin: And where were you from?

Jenny: From Berlin. My university in Berlin was a partner university with NYU. I applied for this exchange and I got it. I was deeply confused about actually what I wanted to do professionally with my life. I was only supposed to stay for a year and for a while I went back and forth but ended up moving here and waiting tables, mainly in SoHo to pay my rent. I was studying for my master’s, so I was writing my master’s thesis during the day and then waited tables at night.

Justin: What part of town did you live in?

Jenny: I literally lived all around. I started out in Financial District, which was a year after 9/11, so it was very different down there. And then I moved to SoHo and then moved to the Lower East Side, East Village, Brooklyn, Tudor City, Midtown, Upper West Side.

Justin: Wow. Pretty much everywhere.

Jenny: And then Long Island City, and now back to the East Village. I came here in 2002, so that's like 16 years ago. It's been a while. And then, I was writing my thesis on actually film and television. I did a lot of media studies, so my studies were very broad like everything and nothing. And then two friends of mine approached me and said, “There's this German curator who just started at MoMA, he needs a German speaking assistant, would you be interested?” And I was literally like, “Curator? What exactly am I doing?” I was like okay, can't be worse than waiting tables and the curator turned out to be Klaus Biesenbach. I went there and started working for him.

In the beginning because Klaus was still involved with Kunst-Werke in Berlin, I was traveling to exhibitions between KW in Berlin and PS1 in Queens. But he was a curator at MoMA, so my office was with him at MoMA. In a really quick time, I got the most amazing insight into what a curator does and met all these great people and artists and pretty instantaneously fell in love with the idea of working with artists. What I also really like about this job is you keep learning because every project is completely different and it needs different knowledge and skills.

Justin: And so working with Klaus, he was a kind of a mentor but you also just learned as you went along.

Jenny: Yeah, I always say he threw me in the cold water repeatedly and I had to learn swimming quite quickly. I think it was a point where his career really took off, so he became a curator at MoMA and then was still deeply involved with PS1 and KW.

Justin: What's KW?

Jenny: Kunst-Werke. It's the equivalent of PS1 in Berlin. An independent alternative art space that was founded in an empty deserted building. He had so many projects that eventually they fell off and I picked them up and ran with them. Pretty naively, which in hindsight I think helped because I was just trying to get things done and dealing with it. And then he became the Chief Curator. They basically created a department for him first for Media and then Media and Performance. And then he was looking for a curator for performance and he basically gave that job to me. At first I felt shy and insecure about it. It was a weird mix between being naive, not even understanding what a big position that really was, in a historical place like MoMA to be the first curator to deal with performance. At the same time, I didn't know if I could do it, but just went with it really.

Justin: Did you have any background or interest in performance art?

Jenny: I was always interested in art. My parents would go to museums and I had an aunt who was a filmmaker and she would expose me to art and films. But really my background, was mostly film and video, so not performance. However, when I was at NYU I took a PhD class and a grad class at the Performance Studies program. So there was definitely some interest, but it was not something that I ever... as I said, when someone told me about this curator, Klaus, I didn't even know what a curator was really doing.

Justin: So then you just learned on the job.

Jenny: Yeah, and he was great in a way that just kept throwing things at me and I had to figure them out. Of course he was around to help me. And then I rose through the ranks. At some point, he left from MoMA to PS1 and I stayed at MoMA. I think for two years or so we didn't work together, and then he asked me to build the performance program at MoMA PS1.

Justin: And so that included the Dome?

Jenny: Exactly.

Justin: They had already been doing the Warm Up music series every summer?

Jenny: Warm Up, yeah. That existed. Even when I came here in 2002 it already existed. I built Sunday Sessions, a weekly program of live arts. And because of the sheer amount of programming, it really quickly became very interdisciplinary. So I worked obviously with performers and artists, filmmakers, musicians, chefs, writers, architects, at some point, even comedians.

Justin: Well, doing that, you learned a lot about performance. When you were curating shows, what was your connection to New York? Did you feel like that was important to bring that in or were you just looking from all over?

Jenny: Well, the easy answer is my budget was such that it had to be local. Later after a couple of years we started bringing in international people, but in the beginning it was very New York-centric. The Dome holds 400 people and we really tried to get a good crowd every Sunday. I think that's something that I really learned and now is useful here in my role as the director of Performance Space New York. We would sometimes do several events on one Sunday. For example we could have an architecture book launch and a concert in the Dome and then maybe a dance presentation in the building. And then all these different communities that can be quite siloed in New York would overlap out in Queens. But speaking of Queens, it was not easy to get people out there which is way easier here in the East Village on a weekly basis.

Justin: PS1 already had the Warm Up series going pretty strong. It was packed every Saturday. So people were figuring it out and there were less and less things happening in Manhattan that were interesting and seemed like a lot of the “cool stuff” was happening in Brooklyn and Queens at the time.

Jenny: I know, that's all true. But there's this bridge and tunnel mentality of people, even though it's literally one stop from Manhattan, it makes a difference asking people to come out to Queens.

Justin: Was it your idea to do the Dome?

Jenny: That was Klaus' idea. So he had the Dome and he hired me and said, “I want to have a weekly program changing every week and I want the house packed every week.”

Justin: Good luck.

Jenny: Yes. And you'll have a $500 budget per week.

Justin: And you managed to do it pretty much.

Jenny: Yeah, and we grew. There was also no team really. I learned in hindsight so much on that job. I had to build a team, I had to build a profile and to build this program and needed to market it, and I really learned to think about audience, which when you're at MoMA, the audience is kind of built-in. You never worried at MoMA that people won’t show up. So that was actually really good school.

Justin: And had you been very aware of the history of performance art in New York?

Jenny: Yes. Especially at MoMA. When you work at a place like MoMA, history becomes really, really important and there's nothing you do that is without thinking about lineage, history and influence. So I did a lot of research. I have to say that it was always more pre-80s. Maybe it was just not the time yet, but in the textbooks or history books, the performance art history would usually stop in the 80s. I think one of the reasons for that is that performance art went from the galleries and the lofts to the nightclubs. And so everything was taking place after midnight and there were just less art historians or critics in the clubs. I don't know. It's also changing now. After we've done the 60s and the 70s ad nauseam, people are interested in the 80s. The best thing about this gig as the first performance curator at MoMA in New York City was that the history was alive. So I reached out to everyone whose name I read in any book or heard about and introduced myself and said, “Can I come over and talk to you?” And everyone said yes. So really that history I mostly learned firsthand, which is great.

Justin: There was a strong connection of nightclubs and artists back in the early 80s when I started deejaying that was really inspiring obviously.

Jenny: And that we now really looked at more in-depth with our inaugural season, which we call the East Village Series.

Justin: So you're at MoMA and then PS1 — how many years did you do the performance curating?

Jenny: I think I was at MoMA five years and then at PS1 five years. Something like that.

Justin: Tell me about this building that we are in now and its transformation into Performance Space.

Jenny: So PS122, how we were named until very recently was originally a public school, hence the PS. It was in 1979, 1980 that a bunch of artists who were living in the neighborhood in the East Village came and started doing work in here.

Justin: And it was still a functioning public school?

Jenny: No, not as a school. I think that ended during the white flight probably in the 60s or so. So when everyone moved to the suburbs, they closed the school because they didn't have enough students. So it was an empty building similar to PS1 in Queens. Very similar story. And then artists came in here, started making work. We still have painting studios in the building as part of Painting Space 122, a lot of great painters camp out of here. Keith Haring had a studio here. Peter Halley had his first show. Martha Rosler was here, a lot of really great artists went through the program.

Justin: And was someone organizing this?

Jenny: It was self-organized during the first years.

Justin: So were the artists paying rent, or were they able to work here for free?

Jenny: The city allowed them to be here. They didn't necessarily pay rent, but they had to pay the operating costs. It was legal, it wasn't even necessarily illegal. Maybe there was a short period.

Justin: It seems to me like Europe and other places are way more supportive of artists and art. When here in New York and the rest of the country where there is this great talent pool of people now and certainly was back then, it’s impossible to get funding from the government for art.

Jenny: Well, there's almost no public support. However, the fact that we have this building, it's now been renovated by the city and we don't pay rent, we pay a lot of operating costs but that's already huge for American standards. Yeah, I agree, in Europe we would have this building for free plus a big check every month. So, it’s a different system.

The cafeteria had a wooden floor so it was really attractive to dancers and performers and they started coming here and also doing work and then doing performances for their other artist peers. And slowly throughout the years it became really an institution with grants and with a smaller staff and became really famous and was a very important venue for contemporary performance.

Justin: What years was that taking place?

Jenny: Beginning of 80s. It was more a local phenomena and then I would say end of 80s, beginning of the 90s it really had a worldwide reputation as the place where you come to see contemporary American performance art. There was a lot of very political monologues. Artists like Karen Finley or Spalding Gray or Penny Arcade. Their histories are very intertwined with this place.

Justin: And there was a very healthy scene going on in this neighborhood back then with Club 57, which recently had a retrospective exhibit at MoMA, and the Pyramid Club and others.

Jenny: Exactly, yes. And as I said earlier, a lot of performances took place in clubs back then.

Justin: Right. Like the Mudd Club had an upstairs space, there was a lot of performances and performance art taking place.

Jenny: Which is why we had a show called “Club” by Tiona Nekkia McClodden here for the inaugural season to really look at that history and also how it changed because of the economic or the real estate situation in New York City, clubs do not really exist to such an extent anymore.

Justin: Artists like a Keith Haring or whoever would come here from Nowheresville and get a place for $200 a month on Broome Street or wherever and would be able to work on their art.

Jenny: Yeah, and that doesn't exist anymore.

Justin: So what do young artists do now?

Jenny: Well, in terms of nightlife, they still have parties, but it's not so much run by clubs. It's not bound to particular spaces anymore. It's bound to hosts and parties and they move around mostly outside of Manhattan. But I think there's still quite a scene.

Justin: Like back then it seemed like the galleries were like actively seeking to work with young artists.

Jenny: I think that still exists. It's just different. It's more decentralized. It happens for example more in the virtual space.

Justin: There was definitely like a scene. There were this group of artists that were just hanging together, working together.

Jenny: Honestly, I think that exists still too. It's just more scattered and they don't all live in the same neighborhood anymore. They're spread out. Some are in Queens, some are in Brooklyn, some are up in Harlem or the Bronx. So it's different, but I still think that nightlife is still really a center of creativity in New York City. It's just harder to come by. You have to work for it.

Justin: And how did you end up here? You're at your job at PS1, and what happens?

Jenny: Well, they asked me to interview and I just had my first child. I had a good job at PS1 but it had been five years and I felt like there was not that much more growth in that job. If a prestigious institution like this asks you to come and interview, you do it.

Justin: And had you been aware of this place?

Jenny: Yes. I lived in the neighborhood and walked by this building many times. I've been here only two or three times because the building closed in 2011 for renovation. By the time I became a performance curator, which was around 2008, it was only open another three years. So I was aware of it. I was vaguely aware of the history, not to the extent I am now.

Justin: And who reached out to you?

Jenny: The board was searching for a new executive artistic director. I interviewed and then part of the interview process — while the building was still under construction, they brought me in here to see the spaces and that's actually really when I fell in love. We have this big 3,600 square foot theater with high ceilings with this gorgeous view over Downtown. And then a smaller space, I think it's 2,400, sits up to a hundred people. The big one sits up to 200 and much more standing room. When I saw these big two spaces, it's something that I had always dreamed of at PS1, to work more with juxtaposition in performance, and these two spaces right next to each other.

Jenny: So right now we have an exhibition in there by the American artists Sondra Perry, Caitlin Cherry and Nora Khan. They built this wild structure in there like a “tiny house.” This is all part of the current season, the Posthuman Series, which incorporates perspectives that are beyond the human, the merging of the human and machines, animals and nature, for example. The apocalypse and the end of the world is a big theme too. So they built a tiny house to live off the grid, to be mobile once the apocalypse hits. It’s also a reference to the so called Prepper Movement. I didn't know so much about it, and they did a lot of research. Basically, the premise is, they built a tiny house for queer people of color because usually it's a pretty white heteronormative movement, and what they're saying is that people of color in this country basically have been living the apocalypse, surviving the apocalypse for centuries. So who better to talk about survival and the apocalypse than them.

Every season we have one or two exhibitions in the program and which happen in the bigger space. We just had Ron Athey in there and before that Underground Resistance from Detroit who are about the merging of men and machines. I love having all these very different perspectives in dialogue with each other.

Justin: What's your vision for this place?

Jenny: I think the main goal is to become a truly artist-centric organization, which I think is in our DNA because this organization was founded by artists for artists. I earlier said that in the beginning it was artists making work and the audience was other artists. So really to have a space that listens to what artists actually right now need and what they want to do and how we can support that. Part of that is creating new and supporting existing communities, which also this space has always had... there's always been communities supporting it, running it, and we have the great fortune to looking back over four decades of artist generations coming through here who all feel connected to the organization.

Justin: A lot of them are still connected to this place.

Jenny: Yeah, very much so, which is really great. That's a real gift. Everyone talks about the gentrification of this neighborhood, which absolutely is true and exists but there is still a sense of a true neighborhood with functioning communities. If you walk four blocks further east, there's definitely still a lot of working class — it’s not all rich and bougie.

Justin: Yes. There is still something here, hanging by a thread, but there's still something here whether it's just walking by and seeing Gem Spa or Moishe’s Bakery or just a few things that are still able to survive in this climate is remarkable to me.

Jenny: And being a space for really local people and at the same time make an impact internationally. Talk about what is performance art? Why are people so interested in it? It seems like people are extremely interested in it more than maybe 15 years ago. And how can performance art help us to engage with the world in a meaningful way, so to say. Hence, we have those themes where there are connections between all the individual programs. They might be very different in form and their history might be a different one, but somehow we always try to make connections between them.

Justin: I love how you always seemed to have some kind of musical elements connected to the art, which we were talking about before. It seems to have faded away for a long time. How would a young artist get his work in here? How do you decide?

Jenny: There's not one straight way. We are having several programs where we invite guest curators with the idea to bring in artists that might actually not be on our radar. It's a program that we're announcing actually today called Octopus. You know how the animal has eight arms, and each of the arms has an individual brain. So they actually act and sense independently. But there's the brain and the heart and they all belong together and work together as one body. So, word of mouth, I go out and see a lot. My team goes out and sees a lot. But I try to see as much as possible. If people invite me to see a show, I try to go as much as I can. Honestly, it's really by either seeing something or someone telling me, “You should really check out this work. It's amazing.”

Justin: Instagram?

Jenny: I have to admit Instagram's become actually really important.

Justin: Social media and the arts.

Jenny: I do get a lot of ideas from there, also probably because I'm a mother now and don't go out as much as I used to. I do really follow artists on Instagram more than I would like to admit, but maybe that's just the times we're in. I get asked this question about decision making a lot and I think it's a mix about being informed and intuition. I've given artists commissions who I’ve never seen any of their work but just had a great conversation with them and I felt like I really want to see what this person would do... and most of the time, knock on wood, I've been right. There was always something there.

Justin: And in the current political climate in this country and a lot of places in the world, this place would seem to be a vessel for artists who are rebelling or who have a voice that is opposed to what's been going on. And I guess you are very open to that.

Jenny: Absolutely. And again, it goes back to our history. During the culture wars in the 90s, most of the artists who were under attack by Jessie Helms, who was the Republican senator attacking artists’ freedoms, the so-called “NEA Four” had all showed here the year before the big trials. So this place was always very political, very loud. We have been very involved in gay rights and AIDS activism. I think if anything, looking at our history, and what we could do better, is being more inclusive in terms of race and ability which we're really paying a lot of attention to now. And it also quite frankly I think is where most of the interesting work comes from right now. It's from traditionally unheard voices I'm most interested to hear from right now.

Justin: The world is in such a weird state. What's your feeling about the state of the world right now and what can art do to make that better?

Jenny: I don't know. I think like everyone I have my moments where I get really scared because you think it can’t get any worse. You check the news and then it does get worse. I do feel and know and live it every day that artists have traditionally been and still are the guiding lights to lead societies through difficult times. Activism is something different than art even though there's a lot of people that we work with where that overlaps, but I do feel art has a different role and ultimately it's about telling stories and finding, creating — like this exhibition — “The Wild Ass Beyond: Apocalypse Right Now,” we have on right now is really about creating possibilities for new and different worlds in a world that seems to be over. And I think artists are the people who have always been doing this and will always continue doing it.

#yes #interview #justin strauss #jenny schlenzka #art #moma #ps1 #artists #performance space #performance art #just talk #new york #ace hotel #ace hotel new york #ace hotel nyc #ace new york

7 notes · View notes

quoth-the-sparrow · 5 years

Text

Happy Birthday Sparrow! (hope this makes you smile)

It was a crisp autumn night on that November night. Daniel pulled his purple and black scarf tighter around his neck to keep the chill out, savoring the light crunch of dead leaves beneath his feet, as he walked to the home of his tutor. Ordinarily they met every late afternoon on Fridays at Panera, but this time his math tutor requested they have their tutoring session at his place. It’s not that Daniel minded going to the part-time tutor/full time teacher’s house. Weird as it may have seemed, he actually really liked Logan Sanders. Almost as much as he hated math, which was quite a lot. He’d come to think of his college professor as a father figure really. But like, the actually good kind. Daniel had even gotten to be pretty well acquainted with his teacher’s three husbands who were all weird and cool and wonderful people. One of his husband’s Roman even used to live next door to Daniel’s family before the four men all moved in together.

But lets face it- no one wanted to do work on their birthday. Definitely not Daniel. Not that he’d expected this year’s womb emancipation day to be anything all that special. He had nothing planned, his parents certainly weren’t going to make a big fuss over it, and oh yeah, he had no friends to share it with. At least not any in person friends. Anyone that Daniel actually felt close to he’d met over the internet and they were all miles away. There was no one in this town he felt close to, who knew the real him. Except his old pal seasonal depression maybe, and it wasn’t exactly the fun-time party type. Still, birthdays were meant to be a time when you could relax, be happy and enjoy yourself. Or at least do whatever the hell you wanted, even if for Daniel that meant laying in bed all day re-reading The Night Circus, or one of his other dozens of well worn books.

Buuuut he needed to pass his Calculus mid-term coming up. Plus he would’ve felt bad canceling on Logan. Ah well. Maybe he’ll make us some pb and crofters jam sandwiches to eat while we work, Daniel thought. Soon he was in front of the light blue painted house marked number 24. Seemed like Patton had planted some new yellow and orange flowers for the season, and the meticulously carved jack-o-lantern, no doubt Virgil’s work, was still on the porch even though Halloween had passed two days ago. To Daniel’s surprise the lights were all off from inside the windows. Was he too early?Were the supposed to meet at Panera after all? Daniel choked down his anxiety and walked up to the red painted door. He knocked three times. After about thirty seconds the door was opened and Logan stepped out to greet him.

“Salutations Daniel,” the teacher said.

“Hey Logan. I’m on time for tutoring right?” Daniel asked.

“Quite punctual,” he said with a smile. “A trait among many I admire about you.”

For a second Daniel thought he heard whispers and shuffling from behind the bespectacled man. He couldn’t figure out why logical Logan would have the lights in his house off if he was home. Maybe his husbands were out and he’d been reading with just a lamp somewhere quietly? No way, someone’s gotta be in there making those noises. Logan cleared his throat, which brought Daniel back out of his head.

“I do apologize for the location change from our usual tutoring spot,” said Logan.

“It’s not a problem. Although I still don’t get the reason why.”

“Simply put, it was a matter of utmost importance.”

“O-kaaay.”

“Please come in.”

Daniel followed Logan into the large dark house. If the queer 23 (now 24 year old, geez that felt weird) didn’t know Logan better, he’d be more worried about this turning into a slasher film-esqe scenario. As it was, he was more concerned about not accidentally stubbing his toe on any furniture.

“So before we get started on calculus, mind telling me why all the lights are—

The house lights came on without warning. Before Daniel had time to process what the heck was going on he was suddenly barraged by a chorus of,

“SURPRISE!!!!”

After Daniel managed to get his very surprised heart back to a normal beating pace, he took a better look around the living room. There were balloons in all colors of the rainbow, and some even had the words ‘queer and here’ written on them in sharpie. There were streamers wrapped around the bannister rail and a big banner above the kitchen entryway that read “Happy Birthday Daniel” in bright purple and blue letters. On each corner of the banner were pictures of a crown, a cat, a brain, and a storm cloud covered in glitter. Beneath it Roman and Patton were both smiling, arms over each other’s shoulders and wearing party hats. Even the emo adult artist had one on. Roman meanwhile, theatrical as ever, was blowing through the three kazooz he has in his mouth. To the right of them against the wall was a table laden with assorted snacks, drinks, gifts and even cookies shaped like witches hats. What amazed the young queer writer most of all was that Daniel’s friends were there. Not just Logan, Virgil and Like his actual friends he recognized from online. He knew only because they had pinned to their clothes nametags with their usernames written on them. silversmith-91, ironwoman359, the-incredible-sulk, eggheadinthemaking, asofterfan, randomslasher, thelogicaloganipus, lala-the-rebel and many others. Even his lifemate April was there. The others who weren’t there in person were present and waving via Skype from at least twelve different laptops scattered around the room at visible angles.

“Wha-what is all this?” Daniel asked, mouth agape. “How did?”

Before he could finish, Logan’s last partner Patton came in from the kitchen carrying a chocolate cake covered with purple, white and pale blue frosting. two and three candles adorned the top as did the swirling icing letters that spelled “Happy Birthday Sparrow.”

“Happy birthday kiddo!” Patton said beaning. “Hope ya like your surprise!”

Logan chuckled from beside him, a hand placed on his shoulder. Your partner April’s idea. They contacted the four of us informing that you had had a difficult year and that, with your birthday approaching, inquired if there may be someway we could celebrate it.”

“You’ve become such a friend to us the past two years kiddo,” said Patton. “Almost like our own child.”

“So we concocted this grand venture to ensure you have the best celebration of your very important birth!” Roman said, coming over. “It was not an easy quest, but we achieved it!”

“Hellishly tough to be honest,” said Virgil. “But we were happy to make it happen.”

“Between the four of us, we were able to contact your online friends with April’s help and arrange it so that they could skype at the same time tonight.” Logan explained. “Virgil was able to supply the laptops, which he commandeered from his job at the Radioshack for tonight.”

“Punk as hell,” Daniel smirked, still half in shock.

“You know it pal,” Virgil smirked.

“Hence why I requested to have tutoring here at our house,” said Logan. “Not only for convenience and to ensure you have, as Patton insisted upon—

‘”A super-prize’ party!” Patton said. Logan groaned at his husband’s pun but Daniel caught the warmth in his eyes.

“And for those who were able to set aside time to travel, I used my frequent flier miles from traveling for film shoots to help get them here,” said Roman.

“And I baked the cake and all the snacks from my bakery!” Patton beamed proudly.

Daniel was pretty much in tears by this point. His friends and partner were worried upon seeing them, thinking they’d gone overboard or something. But the young wiccan ensured them all they were tears of joy. He’d never felt so loved, so important before. Everyone assured him that he was, and it was the truth. The rest of the night was spent chatting, laughing, playing party games, including one or two very long rounds of cards against humanities. To everyone’s shock, Patton was surprisingly good at it. Virgil had put together an excellent music playlist that everyone jammed out to, even Logan a few times. Meanwhile Roman rallied them all into a game of red-robin story telling, which Daniel had a blast at.

When it was time to open presents he baulked at the wonderful gifts. Some of his online friends had either written ficlets for him or made things by hand. Logan gave him a Barns & Noble giftcard. Virgil gifted him a cool leather bound journal, an original painting, and a quill pen. Patton made him a hand-knitted sweater that Daniel wore all night long. And Roman, well his gift was best of all. It was a handmade binder that fit Daniel perfectly and comfortable. It was of purple fabric with a sparrow embroidered on the front in read thread.

Daniel never wanted this night to end. He couldn’t have been more grateful for his amazing friends, whom he knew now more than ever loved and cared for him, even thought they were far away. He was so grateful to his partner April for their brilliant and selfless plan to get them all together and celebrate his just being alive in the first place. And as for the four grown men whom he considered family (or LAMP as he called them), well, they’d given him more than they’d ever know. As Patton told him to make a wish on his birthday candles, Daniel felt like his wish had already come true.

Oh my hecking stars and comets, @khadij-al-kubra thank you so much?! I'm so flattered and happy and I loved this; thank you?! This is so cute and well-written and I love it so much?! I know I'm gushing but just aashsjdhshs thank you!!!!

#sparrows got mail #khadij al kubra #they wrote this for me!!!#birthday wishes #this is wonderful #thank you friend #I'm so happy #and honored #just #*keysmash*#i have a lot of feelings #i have a lot of feels okay #submission

6 notes · View notes

aroworlds · 6 years

Text

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Sebastian

Our next aro-spec creator is Sebastian, better known on Tumblr as @gloriousmonsters and @mangledmouth!

Sebastian is a bisexual, autistic, aromantic trans man who is single-handedly covering many literary bases in producing original aro and queer short stories, novels and poetry. Aside from his Tumblr blogs, you can find and support more of his work at his Patreon. If you have a dollar or two you’re wanting to invest in worthy aro-spec talent on a less-regular basis, please take a look at Sebastian’s Ko-Fi!

With us Sebastian talks about identifying with the role of villainy in narrative as an aro creative, aromantic characters and grand emotional gesture, the divide between representation and self-expression, and some spectacular-sounding work-in-progress book titles! His investment in aromantic characters and characterisation shapes every word, so please let’s give him all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

It took me a while to realize I was aromantic, but it was one of the things that made me go ‘oh, that makes … a lot of sense’ when I looked back at my childhood. I was a weird, isolated kid, so I didn’t learn from bouncing off other children; I learned through stories.

One of my strongest early memories is of watching a poorly made Red Riding Hood film over and over again, belting out the lyrics to the (poorly written) villain’s song, called ‘Man Without A Heart’. Cut to a year or so later, watching the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella (still the best Cinderella, IMO), I was utterly fascinated by the villainess singing: ‘Falling in love with love is falling for make-believe…’

I didn’t know, that early, that I didn’t feel romantic love. Not consciously. But there was something utterly, obsessively interesting about villains that sneered at love, who were called heartless, who challenged the narrative that there must always be a love story and it must come out right no matter what. I felt, on a deep level, that these people were like me somehow. The additional queercoding and common side-helping of mental illness helped - or didn’t help, depending on your perspective. I grew up knowing, deep down, what my part in life was: I was the villain.

When I hit my rebellious age, it first came out by my saying, ‘But being a villain doesn’t mean you have to be wrong or unhappy’. I began collecting villains like nobody’s business, and writing stories that more and more often centered people whose character types I’d only ever seen as villains. And from there we arrive at today!

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

Recently, my brother (who is my sounding board for a lot of stories, as I am for him) looked at my books-to-write list and said, ‘Nearly every idea you have is a deconstructed romance or strong non-romantic relationship.’

I love strong relationships, so I originally thought I needed to write people as love interests to get that; these days I feel more free to focus on whatever the heck I want, and being aro shows in everything. My current WIP centers a poly relationship where two of the partners are aromantic. Two people (often, but not always, a man and a woman due to my frustration with the ‘men and women can’t be friends’ thing) who are the most important people in each others’ lives and are platonic, show up over and over again in my novel ideas; I start with relationships that look like romances and then pull them apart. Part of this, I think, is due to my autistic ‘let’s take this into component parts and see how it works’ tendencies; being autistic and being aro aren’t cause and effect, for me, but they play well together.

When I write poetry, some of it deals explicitly with being aromantic, but all of it is non-romantic. It makes me kind of anxious sometimes to think of people interpreting pieces as being romo because they’re about intense emotions; one of the biggest ways being aro is expressed in my writing is my constant attempts to show other feelings, connections and relationships than romance being worthy of big feelings and gestures. I’ll sometimes refer to myself as ‘aromantic but capital-R Romantic’ (i.e. extremely dramatic) because of that.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

I’m sure I’ll run into more problems as I try to take my increasingly aro and queer and ND works to professional markets, but at the moment my biggest problem is self-censoring. I sit at an awkward junction of having multiple identities I want to include in my work, and being … well, someone who grew up obsessed with villains, who later on developed a decade’s interest in slasher horror, and who still tends to write people who are perceived as, or see themselves as, villains. Awkward because I always have that voice in my head (helped along by some of the stuff I see on social media) going ‘that’s not good rep! nobody will want to read this!’

But I know from experience that not writing from the heart (and look at that, I do have one after all!) doesn’t end well, so I’m working on getting good at writing my weird dark stuff and hoping I’ll find the audience for it. And I always leave a little bit of light in it, because I have another voice in my head, still saying, ‘just because you’re a villain doesn’t mean you can’t be happy’.

It’s a weird sort of positivity, but it works for me.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

Following and submitting to this blog is part of my first attempts to actually join the aro-spec community. I tend to move slowly and be very nervous of talking to new people, but I’ve been trying to be more affirming of my aromantic identity lately, and seeking out other aros is part of that. Hopefully I’ll settle in a little more as time passes.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

At the moment, people following and reblogging from my poetry blog @mangledmouth would be much appreciated. It’s hard to get traction with poetry (especially if you don’t write romantic poetry) and I’d love more people to see my work. I’m proud of a lot of what I’ve done, so check it out! Be warned that my love for horror and oddness turns up there as well, but there’s nothing too graphic.

And Ko-Fi donations or small Patreon subscriptions are always appreciated.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

My current WIP (titled either The Night In Wanting or And One of Us Be Happy, depending on whether I go for the one that sounds better or the one that fits best thematically) is about a third done! Praise me, because I’m really bad at finishing things, but I’m still on track to wrap this up at the end of June. It’s about a Weird Small Town and Sarah, a girl with a reputation for breaking hearts, who decides to date one of her best friends and actually try to make it work. Her attempts at being normal quickly get derailed when their town’s general weirdness turns hostile - attacks by creatures from the woods, unsettling amounts of rain, pictures changing when you’re not looking at them and a really pushy forest spirit trying to bargain with people for a heart. Her attempts at normal are further derailed when she figures out that her new boyfriend is also in love with a mutual friend, and that she might not feel love at all.

I love these characters, guys. This story is finally coming together after years and the three main characters - Sarah, Mags and Fred - have always been at the heart of it, no matter what shape it took. (Mags used to be a ghost, and the story went through a phase of being a Band AU of itself. Fred kept getting possessed, and there’s a joke about that in the text now that nobody will get but me. And now you guys!) It’s terrifying to write a YA that’s not only poly, but focuses on an aromantic main character, but I’m determined to make it work.

(This is is one of the most sweet/normal things I’ve worked on, despite the healthy dose of horror. I’ve also been writing snippets of a pet project called How The Child-Eater Became King, to give you an idea of the other end of the spectrum.)

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

I haven’t got the release date for it yet (it’ll probably be a while yet) but I recently sold a short story, Sabuyashi Flies, to Glittership. The main character, Sabuyashi, was originally aroace but turned out to be a lesbian ace during writing. (Characters often decide to come out while I’m writing, which is always fun to handle. I mean that both sarcastically and genuinely.) I’m already working on and off on the sequel story where she meets her future best friend Nathaniel, who is aro. Working title is Nat Luckless and the Girl Made of Beetles. Look for news about Sabuyashi Flies soonish and Nat Luckless whenever my slow butt manages to finish and (fingers crossed) sell it!

31 notes · View notes

deanogarbage · 6 years

Text

love is more thicker than forget (Aidean 1/?)

Pairing: Aidan Turner/Dean O’Gorman Rating: M Warning: Aidan is 17, almost 18. Dean is 24. Summary: Very loosely based off "Call Me By Your Name" AU / Real world timeline (but of course AU) ~ Dean is running away from everything he knows, Aidan is desperately trying to find himself. Both try to find something to hold onto in each other.

March 2001

Dean isn’t sure why he picked Ireland. Maybe it was a subliminal suggestion from a movie or commercial. Maybe it was some deep ancestral calling. Maybe it was just the furthest place he could think of from New Zealand.

Regardless, there he was in Dublin with a shitty studio flat. Trying to escape everything he left in Auckland. His family. His girlfriend. His career.

No, he was pretty sure his career was dead. His agent had told him in not-so-simple words.

“Casting directors are just looking for someone a little more...manly? Masculine? I told you that puff movie was a dense idea. You now have the ‘I’m a queer’ label on your forehead. You know I don’t care, mate, but you just aren’t marketable. You aren’t the cute little dimpled kid you once were. You have to work on your look and your skill too.”

He hadn’t gotten an acting gig in months. He hardly had any money and he wasn’t going to mortify himself further by moving back in with his parents. With the last bit of cash he had, he booked a flight to Dublin. He found a shitty studio flat and moved in with his few bags within the day.

Work came not long after, having been an amateur photographer lend him with enough knowledge to work at an old school photography shop. Many people were moving to digital, but film was his first love. It wasn’t hard to get lost into a routine of waking up, eating, working, eating, sleeping, then repeat.

—-

“Aidan! You have five minutes before I leave this house without you! I have to get to work!”

He knew he had overslept, but he hadn’t thought it was that long. The young dark haired man rushes into questionably clean clothes, brushing his teeth, and staring at his wild messy curls with dismay before gathering his things in his bedroom.

Book bag and dance bag. He grabs a pair of scuffed dance shoes, a clean shirt, and stuffs them into the bag. Slinging both on his shoulders, he rushes down the stairs, moving to slip on the worn Vans trainers as he hops to the door.

He’s met with his mother’s disgruntled stare in the front doorway.

“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry,” he mumbles out breathlessly.

“Car. Now, let’s go.”

His mother was always a domineering woman. She didn’t have the kind softness of other mums he saw on the telly or movies. She wasn’t mean or ever cruel. Determined was the word he liked to think. She was essentially a single mum. His parents having divorced in a time before he could remember them together.

Aidan gets into the car and relaxes for only a brief moment before his mother lets out a sigh as she starts the car and starts driving.

“You’re graduating this year, Aidan. You have to be more responsible. I know school isn’t ‘your thing’ as you’ve so articulately put it, but I would like to just see some effort. I feel like that isn’t too hard to ask, your brother-“

“Your brother wasn’t a good student either, but look at him now, he’s going to be a stuffy and amazing taxman,” he mimics his mother’s voice looking at her. “I don’t want to be a tax man or an accountant. I’m not you two.”

“So you would rather be an electrician like Pat?” She raises her brow.

“No, I mean I don’t know. I just know I can’t be in a stuffy room all day,” He sighs nervously twisting a curl.

“I wish you would consider dancing more competitively. Are you sure you want to quit after this season?” Her voice softens looking at him for a moment before looking back at the road.

“Yeah, mum. It’s too expensive. You need to save all that money for when I inevitably decide to become an accountant and follow in the family legacy,” He teases as she slows down at the front of his school.

His mother chuckles softly before leaning over to kiss his cheek. “You need me to pick you up from the dance studio after I get off work?”

“No, I can walk. Ta.” He grabs his bags and gets out.

“I love you, Aid. You know that, right?” She smiles warmly at him.

“I know. Love you too, mum. Bye.” He smiles back before shutting the car door and heading into the building.

—-

With working the job at the photography shop gives Dean new opportunity to pursue that passion that was once just merely a hobby he used to connect with his father. He advertises some as a photographer and gets lucky with a few gigs.

He photographs engagements, birthdays, advertisements, and even art which is more pro bono than anything.

He is reading in his flat when he gets the phone call.

“Hi, is this Mr. O’Gorman? The photographer?” It’s a woman’s voice and he’s instantly filled with a giddy excitement.

“Yes, hi, this is he, Dean. I am Dean, I mean. Sorry. How can I help you?” He grins babbling while trying to sound professional.

“My name is Mairead Dunne, I own a small dance studio right outside Dublin. I’m really wanting to get some promotional material out for the studio and build some of my dancers’ portfolios. I saw your ad while I was out and about, I don’t know what your rate is but I was hoping we could work something out?”

At this point, Dean was sure he would agree to just a warm non-frozen microwaved meal and a tank of gas. They discuss a price that Dean is more than appreciative of and they schedule a shoot later that week. He’s told to not just focus on the studio itself, but to highlight the talents and skills of the dancers there.

The next week he feels the best since he’s left Auckland. He feels like for once that maybe things are turning around and going his way.

—-

Aidan arrives at his dance practice. Naturally about ten minutes late. He rushes in and pulls the headphones attached to a CD player off his head as he tries to sneak in and into the dressing area unnoticed.

“Aidan, so lovely for you to grace us with your presence.”

He winces slightly at the voice and shyly turns not looking up from the floor.

“Sorry, Miss Dunne. I was running late after-”

“Ah, ah! Go get changed, we have a guest today!”

He chooses that moment to look up and standing past her is a younger blond man talking to some of the dancers a camera in his hand.

For the briefest of moments their eyes make contact, Aidan pulling away first and heading to the dressing room. He changes into his practice clothes and his scuffed practice shoes.

He comes out and Mairead lets them know that this photographer, “Dean,” he insists, will be taking promotional photos for the studio. Aidan feels suddenly underdressed and a bit self-conscious with a stranger in what he mentally considers a sacred private place.

He’s paired up with his partner Catrin, a small blonde woman who is a year or so older than himself. Their next competition was to be in a week, the two finalizing their three competition pieces. A tango, a foxtrot, and an open Latin.

Aidan stretches and warms up as others practices. The photographer deftly moving around the room and taking photos. He gets in the way a few times of the dancers warming up, several bumping him out of the way as a silent warning.

When it is Aidan and his partner are ready to practice performing, he tries to tell himself to ignore the soft shutters of the camera and the person behind the lens. They settle on practicing the tango first.

The music is slower and their moves are less quick and more deliberate, Aidan knowing these must be some decent photos in comparison to the previously quicker dances of some of the others.

He turns and moves Catrin in a slow and sensual manner. The dance having been embarrassing when he first learned it, but Mairead would remind him that dancing was 30% skill and 70% acting. He could act, he knew that.

He told himself in his head that Catrin was his unrequited lover and he was always trying to win her back. He moves his hand over her slender hip and look up over his dark brows, making accidental eye contact with the photographer again.

The photographer that is standing agape, his camera in his hand and not at his face. Aidan freezes for a moment, nearly missing his next cue before Catrin pulls him back in and the dance is soon finished.

Aidan breathes a little heavy as the rest of the dancers cheer politely, the photographer letting his camera hang from his neck as he also claps smiling in Aidan’s direction. He flushes a little and bows his head humbly moving off the main floor with Catrin who pats his arm.

“You better not get that stage shocked next week or I’ll personally neuter you,” Catrin whispers in jest, though he knows it’s a real warning.

“I won’t, I won’t,” he mumbles under his breath as they go back to practicing on the side floors.

When their practice winds down later that night, he changes in the dressing room and gets back into his normal street clothes. He puts his headphones over his neck and grabs his duffel bag, heading out of the room.

He tries to slip out unnoticed, a lot of the girls swarming around the photographer and he thinks he’s made a clean escape until he walks out of the studio and voice calls from behind him.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Aidan turns to see the smiling photographer breathlessly following after him out the door.

“Aidan, right?”

The younger wordlessly nods and slides down his headphones.

“Um, I’m Dean. I just had to let you know how incredible of a dancer you are. I got some really nice pictures, I was wondering if you would want copies? I know your instructor would be getting them, but I just wanted to make sure you could get them too if you wanted them,” He nervously babbles a bit, with a dimpled smile still on his face.

Aidan politely smiles back with a nod, “Yeah, I would like that. Thanks.”

Dean grins and rifles through his pocket and hands him a business card for a photography shop.

“I work here and if you’re free, maybe sometime tomorrow afternoon or anytime this week really, I’ll be there and I can give them to you,” he smiles as Aidan looks over the card before pocketing it himself.

“Yeah, sure. Ta,” he nods in his directions with a nervous little smile.

“Yeah, no, of course. Um, I’ll see you around?” Dean says walking backwards toward the studio.

Aidan nods, flashing a small smile.

“Yeah, I’ll see you around. Bye,” he awkwardly waves and flips his headphones on turns back to his path back to his home.

Dean stands at the door, watching him as he walks away, his stomach flitting in a giddy nervousness. Once he’s out of sight, he heads back into the studio.

#aidean #hobbit rpf #aidan turner #dean o'gorman #rpf #i'm gonna revive this fandom yall

13 notes · View notes