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get-shiggy-with-it · 3 years

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Ch. 2

Shigaraki Birthday Celebration! 18+ MINORS DNI

Pairing: Tomura Shigaraki x fem!reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: reader is marked fem cause Tomura is a little sexist and hates you cause you’re a woman, no pronouns, incel!shiggy, collage au/no quirks, tomura is an asshole, gratuitous swearing, like so much, shiggy has a dirty mouth, mentions of shigs being anxious, brief male masturbation, tags will be added for smut in the next two parts

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6

Summary: In which studying is done, unwilling connections are made, and Tomura thinks about the way you smell a totally normal amount.

AO3 mirror

Taglist: @dillybuggg (just shoot me an ask if you want to be tagged!

Tomura hadn’t stopped staring at his phone since he left the apartment. It was second nature by now—head down at a nearly ninety degree angle, hoodie pulled up to hide hair he hadn’t bothered to comb in weeks, and phone out, held just far enough away that he could see the pavement behind the screen.

He’d found that people tended to naturally avoid him this way and he didn’t have to risk accidentally making eye contact. It was still a bit nerve wracking to venture into buildings he didn’t expressly have to for classes, so he was still hesitant to make the voyage from his apartment to the library. But he’d made the mistake of mentioning plans to his roommate and the bastard wouldn’t leave him alone about it afterwards until he was practically shoved out with the door locked behind him.

He was half tempted to make up some excuse last minute and go hide out at the only cafe on campus he could tolerate, but Tomura knew he was just delaying the inevitable. Biting the bullet now would help to not prolong his suffering.

Your text thread glared up at him in stark white on blue as he pushed past a crowd of students by the library entrance and flashed his ID to the attendant.

Group Project Bitch:

— hey I got us a room on the third floor, all the way in the back

—text me when you’re here I’ll wave you in, it’s kinda hard to find T-T

sounds good—

He shot off a quick text to you that he was hoping on the elevator. The other two guys in the lift may have given him a dirty look for only going up to the third floor, but Tomura sure as hell wasn’t going to risk the physical exertion of stares when just the thought being stuck in a small room alone with you for god knows how long already had him sweating.

When he stepped out, you were leaned against one of the 90s-green shelves, scrolling aimlessly through your phone. He panicked momentarily, thinking he’d have to get your attention cause just walking up without saying anything would be weird right?

He wasn’t sure.

He didn’t do shit like this.

Thankfully, you looked up at the chime of the lift and waved him over. His red sneakers squeaked as they scuffed the linoleum floors and he already regretted choosing his tighter fitting pair of sweats. The tapered legs that hugged his ankles and thin calves rubbed against his skin and stung the raw patches.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” you said softly and he nodded, following as you began to weave through the stacks. “Sorry it was short notice, graduation’s coming up so I'm swamped with meetings.”

“It’s fine, I didn’t have anything going on.”

He cringed internally at the way his voice cracked, trying to keep the usual rasp to a minimum. His roommate said it was from the innumerable hours he spent shouting at his monitor or on discord, which was probably true but to you he was sure he just sounded like a fucking teenager.

“Cool, I’ve been set up for awhile so feel free to move some stuff,” you talked a bit louder now that you’d both stepped into the study room and shut the door.

Tomura looked around. You’d snagged one of the nicer ones at least, with the big monitors he could cast his screen onto and those comfy chairs he liked but could never beat anyone too on the lower floors.

You were right, there was shit all over the big table at the center of the room. Notes and printed out readings with highlights galore and sticky notes littering the pages were scattered all over. What a show off. You probably tossed all this stuff out so he’d think you were actually intelligent or some shit.

Kicking a pile off of the nearest plush armchair, Tomura took a seat and pulled his laptop out. There was a jack in the middle of the table and you plugged yours in to cast onto the big monitor.

You made a fucking power point for him.

This couldn’t be real.

“So I know I ran some stuff by you in class but essentially I was thinking we make like a simple Twine type thing using the rhetorical argument Swift is making…”

You started rambling again and Tomura almost immediately tuned you out. His eyes drifted between the rough outline you were flicking through on the board and the laptop you had your nose buried in.

It was covered in stickers, pretty obviously stereotypical for someone as obsessed with being ‘cool’ as you clearly were. But as he scanned through the various old meme phrases and aesthetic shit, he caught a couple of game references he recognized and a panel cutout from one of his favorite manga.

He almost fell into your trap for a moment, feeling a rush at the prospect of someone—much less a chick—being into his main hyperfixations.

But it was quickly crushed under everything his years trolling subreddits had taught him. People like you didn’t actually have interests beyond the attention and dick it got them. Plus that manga was pretty popular anyway, you probably didn’t even read it, just thought the line was funny or made you sound quirky. That had to be why you felt the need to drop it in your first texts.

“What do you think?” you asked, making good on your new habit of startling the hell out of him.

Tomura blinked, gaze instinctively turning to you but the blatant way you stared made his mouth turn to sand paper, so he looked resolutely back at the color-coded bullet points on the screen.

“Look’s fine,” he mumbled.

The more he glanced over it, the more it actually did look fine. A bit more than fine, really, which pissed him off even more. The little choose-your-own debate style story was not a terrible way to make fucking Whatever Swift interesting and it kinda looked like you’d bothered to google some simple coding which gave him a better idea of what you were looking for.

It was...good.

And that so fucking annoying.

Well, he wasn’t sure if annoying was the right word for it, but the proposal coupled with your apparent lack of disgust at working with him made his face hot and that only ever happened otherwise when his roommate left the dishes out for weeks or when some newb on his server fucked up their raids.

Then, you had the audacity to plop down in the chair next to him and—

“You can tell me to fuck off if you want,” you began, shuffling in the chair to cross your legs on the cushion, “but I was hoping you’d be willing to show me how you do some of the coding stuff? I tried on my own, but I have literally no clue what I’m doing.”

He could smell you again, like the whole fucking health and beauty aisle at the grocery store. When he turned his head a bit to look at you around the curtain of his hair, you were crooked—back against the armrest and facing him.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, sounding a bit less rude than he would have liked to.

You just fucking stared right at him though, didn’t wrinkle your nose at how greasy his roots were or how he was wearing the same hoodies as yesterday.

“I’ve always been interested in it, but my program is kinda stressful and I don’t have much free time so I never learned,” you offered and for once Tomura found he didn’t feel his skin crawl under your unwavering gaze.

The dry, cracked area around his eyes burned though as sweat beaded on his forehead and he quickly wiped at his face with a loose sweatshirt sleeve. The garment hung off his shoulders, bought a size too big that he never ended up growing into.

“What’s your major?”

He found the words slipped easily from him. It was the quintessential question you asked of anyone in college when you met, but he’d never been interested in the answer before.

You babbled a bit about your specific area of study and your voice was surprisingly not as infuriating as he remembered it being before. It was softer, he thought, than when you were soapboxing in class about the sexist implications of old as fuck poetry—it had a less grating quality and was almost pleasing to the ear.

Or Tomura would have said that if he thought you deserved the compliment.

But, obviously you didn’t.

So he didn’t.

He just pretended to care about what you were saying and didn’t hang onto every word at all. Actually he was more enraptured in the way your lips moved when you talked. You used your hands a lot too, but his eyes were ensnared on the way your mouth quirked and dipped, at the occasional flash of your tongue between strong teeth. When he leaned in a bit, he could smell your breath too: fruity gum and the remnants of whatever you were always drinking in that loud as fuck cup. He wondered now what exactly it was, so he could buy it and get a better idea of what you mouth might taste—

Nope.

No, see this was exactly what he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. How were you doing this to him? What a fucking slut.

Tomura steeled his nerves as you started explaining the extracurriculars you did on the side.

“My roommate freshman year actually started a gaming club and so I’ve gotten more into that over the years,” you explained, pointing at the stickers on your laptop case.

“Are you talking about The League?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know if you’d heard of it,” you shrugged.

He knew of the gaming club on campus. He’d thought about joining when he enrolled but the allure of anonymity online gaming provided was too strong. Plus his discord server didn’t have annoying weekly meetings.

The thought of you, up late and illuminated by the blue light of a tv screen, tucked away in one of the basement rooms in the media building was...strange. It also prompted an array of new images—you in those fucking cat ear headsets, seated in his lap as he trashed you in Mario Kart which was even stranger.

Tomura had to physically shake his head to dislodge the thought.

“Uh, we should probably work on this right?” he cringed at the way his voice cracked compared to your own, smooth tone.

You should narrate those fucking sleepy time mediation things. His roommate used to hide wireless speakers in his room and blast those when Tomura stayed up too late. It was annoying as shit then, but if it was you talking, he probably wouldn’t have minded so much.

Or no, no he would definitely mind.

Yes. It would have been worse if anything.

“Oh shit, you right. It’s been like two hours.”

He glanced down at his laptop and saw that it had, indeed, been two hours since he got there. He’d willingly spoken to you for two goddamn hours. It felt like no time had passed at all, but the sun was definitely setting, the overhead fluorescent bulbs taking over as the main light source in the room.

Weird.

So you settled back in your chair, typing away like you always did, but the sound wasn’t nearly as frustrating as before. Occasionally, you’d glance over his shoulder and ask questions about what he was working on, but mostly the two of you settled into a comfortable silence.

This pattern continued for the next few weeks. As the weather warmed, you began to show a bit more skin. He never worked up the nerve to comment on the thick expanse of bare thigh that tapered off nicely into your calf, or the curve of your arms not hidden behind knit sweaters—hell even your fucking shoulders were hard not to look at.

Maybe all those high school dress codes weren’t actually so full of shit after all. Cause he was definitely distracted by the way your neck swooped into the exposed skin of your shoulder and down your back on more than one occasion.

Did all girls know that? Was it some kind of massive conspiracy to crumble the patriarchy or some crap to go flashing bare shoulders everywhere?

Regardless if you really were trying to hypnotize him into liking you, Tomura stayed resolutely in his monochrome, long sleeved attire, and if you noticed the behavior you never said a word.

Never said a word about his allergy ridden skin, peeling lips or scarred throat. Never commented on his terrible posture or said his eyes were creepy. Even when he’d occasionally toss a negative remark your way, you never retaliated maliciously. Just brushed him off with a jovial ‘don’t be a dick’ and a playful, but hard slap to his chest or the back of his head.

The two of you always met in the same, secluded room on the third floor. You’d talk with him in class sometimes or shoot him texts about random bits of inspiration or a late night game memes, but for the most part, your conversations were confined to that room. He found he preferred the study room ‘you’ best. You weren’t as stiff. There was more of a solidity to you, like he’d seen when you told off that Kai bastard.

It...grew on him.

He was irrationally anxious that there would be a time when you couldn’t secure this particular room—with it’s big monitor and comfy chairs and less annoying ‘you’—but he’d been reassured after your third work session.

Someone had knocked softly at the thick, wooden door and a head of wild, bright pink hair peaked around the crack.

“Sup bro,” the intruder quipped, as they stepped fully into the room.

“Hey, Spinner,” you mumbled back, looking up momentarily from the essay portion of your presentation before going back to typing.

Spinner had seemed to notice him at that point and offered a small wave in his direction. “Oh hey, sorry, thought you were alone,” he said quickly.

“Nah, this is Tomura,” you said, glancing up again and jerking your thumb in his direction.

Tomura nodded and tugged at his hoodie strings to stop from scratching under the newcomer’s gaze. He’d gotten used to you, but other people still made him a bit nervous.

“Nice to meet you,” Spinner had a nice smile, bright and flashy when he spoke. He leaned against the door and crossed his arms, looking around the room. “You got the nice one, huh. How’d you manage that?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you half closed your laptop and stretched a bit. “Jin was working the front desk, so I’ve just been bribing him with vending machine snacks.”

“He hasn’t gotten himself fired yet?” Spinner laughed incredulously, but not unkindly.

“Surprisingly not, but he’s completely corrupt now,” you were picking at the cuticle of your thumb and Tomura fixated on the way the skin split off at the nail. Just like his. “A couple packs of chips and a Monster and I get the most bitchin study room whenever I want.”

“Damn,” Spinner chuckled again and Tomura really wished that he’d leave already. He was beginning to feel himself fading into the upholstery as the conversation left him in the dust. The divergence of your attention away from him or the project was even more annoying that you were. “Well, are you coming to The League meeting tonight? We’re busting out a Smash tournament.”

“That’s tonight?” you asked, eyes perking up but sliding subtly in Tomura’s direction. “Sorry, I think Tomura and I are gonna be working on this project for a while longer and I’m kinda burnt out. But next time, yeah?”

Spinner rolled his eyes but nodded and kicked off the wall. “That’s not very sexy of you,” he chided and waved a hand in parting. “Gonna work yourself directly into the fucking grave.”

“Jokes on you, I welcome death.”

You buried yourself in the screen again and Tomura actually felt a bit grateful for you ending the conversation before he got too painfully awkward.

But Spinner stopped before he left, looking Tomura up and down from the frayed strings of his black hoodie to the tips of his worn red sneakers.

“Nice to meet you, man,” he said with a wide grin. “Feel free to tag along next time if you want, we always need more players.”

The door clicked softly shut behind him and Tomura relaxed back into the silence.

He did end up tagging along—though he spent most of the time hanging off your heels like a lost puppy—to the next meeting of your gaming club and the one after that. Frustratingly enough, he learned that your interests did also extend into skills as you almost bested him in a few rounds Smash. Your profile, lit only by the flashing screen lights, was even more striking outside of his imagined imitations.

So much so that it found its way into his head late at night when he was too tired to log onto his server. So much so that it had his cock growing firm and tenting his grey sweats without even the visual aid of his go to porn clips. So much so that sometimes, he felt inclined to do something about the throbbing between his legs. So much so that he thought about the way you picked the skin by your fingers. How it looked like his. How your hand might feel like his but softer. Smoother around the edges. With your sweet voice whispering in his ear, making him whine and pant and spill white ropes of release onto his stomach.

But it was only because you were hot.

And you were practically begging for him to jack off to the thought of you with those outfits and liking all the shit he liked and noticing when he shrunk away from conversations or including him in them when he started to feel that awful sense of fading into the background.

Yeah.

Everybody jerks it sometimes to their group project partners if their ass is nice enough.

Right?

#tomura shigaraki x reader #shigaraki tomura x reader #tomura x reader #shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki imagines #bnha fanfiction #college au #bee.writes

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Chapter 263: [Immigrant Song Intensifies]

Previously on BnHA: Ujiko sicced five Noumus on Miruko. Rephrase that: Ujiko sicced only five Noumus on Miruko. In hindsight this was obviously a mistake. Miruko proceeded to laugh and jump around kicking all of them and literally ripping the head off of the strongest one’s neck with nothing but her thighs. It was legendary and awe-inspiring and also she lost an arm but WHO EVEN CARES, I’m still pledging my allegiance to her. Miruko once beat the sun in a staring contest. Miruko’s calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, because nobody fucking fools Miruko. Anyway so also the heroes are finally attacking the League of Pliff’s HQ and Skeptic is running around all “AHHHH” so I guess we’ll see how that goes now.

Today on BnHA: Things finally get started over in Gunga, although for the time being most of the kids from 1-A and 1-B are still sitting around in the woods all pent-up and anxious and restlessly shipping KamiJirou. Meanwhile on the front lines, three-and-a-half-year-old Kaminari Denki is all “SOB I WANT TO BE BACK WITH MY FRIENDS WHERE IT’S SAFE”, to which Midnight, who I would just like to remind you is (1) an adult, (2) a teacher, and (3) a person responsible for this literal child’s safety in any number of other capacities, responds with “SORRY KIDDO WE NEED YOUR QUIRK.” I have yet to see any compelling evidence that they really do need it, but putting that dubious matter aside, Kaminari does kick some ass once he gets over his anxieties. Meanwhile Cementoss tears a building in half, Tokoyami reflects on how he was exposed to Kaminari’s good and pure moral character during their many soulful jam sessions, Hawks is about to kill Twice, and – wait, what.

a few stray thoughts since this chapter is taking forever to come out today. one, the good guys need to take out Twice and Toga as soon as they find them, because they’re currently the deadliest combination in the League. Twice for obvious reasons, and Toga because I’m pretty sure she got some of Aizawa’s blood that one time back during the Basement arc, and that fact coupled with the fact that she can now use the quirk of whoever she transforms into spells big trouble for the good guys since she can basically just cancel out whoever’s quirk she wants. plus she’s probably also immune to Midnight’s quirk. all in all bad news

two, it is interesting that Hagakure is the only 1-A kid we haven’t seen yet! probably just me overreacting, but still interesting!

(ETA: we do see her standing next to Mina in this chapter, so so much for that. you get out of it this time Tooru!)

and three, I’m not clear on whether or not Skeptic has actually figured out that Hawks betrayed them, or if he just suspects it, or if he thinks that Hawks leaked something accidentally and doesn’t realize that this entire time the dude was 100% playing them. I’m sure we’ll find out shortly. but regardless of how this plays out, I’m already dreading Twice’s reaction to all this :/ my sweet innocent baby. HE THOUGHT YOU WERE HIS FRIEND HAWKS. HE TRUSTED YOU. fff I really hope Twice’s inherently good and trusting nature isn’t a casualty of all this. then again I still think Twice himself is very unlikely to survive this. so basically I’m just bracing myself for pain sob

(ETA: oh this is bad.)

(ETA 2: by the way just to clarify, the above paragraphs were all written on Friday, and the rest of this recap+all ETAs were written the next day when I finally got to read the chapter! this is not important in any way whatsoever but now you know and that’s half the battle!)

“it’s time” holy shit finally lol. you all have been camped out over here for weeks now. not that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy each and every second of Miruko’s one-woman murder show, but it is nice to finally check in with you guys over here so we can get to work at last and I can get a better feel for who’s about to die. cuz someone here is dying guys

the chapter is called “I wanna be with the others!!” so. this is gonna be a Kaminari chapter isn’t it. I wonder what fresh new traitorous hijinks he’ll be getting up to this week. that detestable scoundrel

Mineta is being all weasel-y and reluctant, and honestly, I’m a bit annoyed. and for once it’s not directed at him! it’s like... how do I explain it. okay, so like, the manga is showing him being all cowardly and clearly not at all happy about being out here, and the fact that it’s Mineta doing it only adds to the general flavor of this being the wrong attitude to have and just a really shameful way of acting in general, because it’s Mineta and we all know Mineta is vile and so clearly he’s in the wrong here! the only thing is though, I actually don’t blame him even if he’s being a little shit about it, because the kids absolutely should not be here in the first place. are they strong? fuck yes. are they gonna end up being the ones to turn the tide once everything inevitably goes to shit, and thus the others are really goddamn lucky that they’re here? probably. does that make it right to conscript kids and send them out here to a soon-to-be war zone which the adults have very little control over meaning that some of these children will almost certainly be injured and traumatized and possibly even killed? nope! not right at all! no amount of “plus ultra” can justify this, folks. and “we get that it’s wrong but that’s just the fucked up times we live in” doesn’t actually justify it either, even if the HPSC seems to think so

but having said all that, there’s clearly nothing to be done about it at this point, and I’m about to enjoy this chapter of the kids presumably kicking ass even after all that whining, so I’ll just carefully climb down from my soapbox now. but I’m still keeping it handy just in case!

who the fuck is this Thundercats guy who looks like he was part of an old timey street gang in 1920s Chicago

lol can he hear the villain hotel being ripped in half over there in the distance

and speaking of hearing, Jirou is popping her earbuds into the ground to do some reconnaissance of her own I guess!

the heroes?? she better not mean the villains. oh lord I still don’t have the faintest idea how they’re planning on actually containing them all. well, brace yourselves everyone. here comes the shitshow

now Gangs of New York is making the most unnecessary speech in the history of this manga

were any of them actually going to be careless?? I’m pretty sure they understand the gravity of the situation my dude. and if they didn’t, I’d say that’s honestly on you guys and not on them because, again, they’re kids. and if you didn’t want a bunch of teenagers goofing off during your incredibly dangerous and vitally important do-or-die hero mission, then maybe you shouldn’t have brought a bunch of teenagers to your incredibly dangerous and vitally important do-or-die hero mission

“listen makeste are you just going to sit around all day bitching about my cardinal sin of daring to involve your precious little darlings in the actual plot,” the imaginary Horikoshi that sits around trying to keep these recaps from veering off track interjects. and okay fine

sob it feels wrong to see MomoJirou there without their Kaminari

(ETA: and there is Hagakure on the left, FYI. at least I think that’s her?)

their baby boy is all out there alone in the woods. is that why you were really listening, Jirou? you can tell me, I promise not to make a big deal about it

MOMO ARE YOU COMFORTING JIROU WHILE SHE OPENLY WORRIES ABOUT “TOKOYAMI”

I lied, I might make a big thing about it. what a beautiful March day for some OT3

MY INFANT SON!!

HE’S ONLY TWO YEARS OLD!! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!? MIDNIGHT YOU BETTER KEEP HIM SAFE!! at least until he makes it back safely into the hands of his friends, the League of Villains

meanwhile here’s a fun tip, this manga gets 100x funnier if you scroll back up to that panel of Jirou being all serious and saying “they’re on the move” now that we know that this outburst is almost certainly what she was listening to lmao. “oh, Kaminari is crying, that must mean they’re getting started”

and here they go!!

who is that in the witch hat?? COULD THIS BE THE LEGENDARY MAJESTIC, AT LONG LAST? this person looks like they cobbled together their entire hero costume from Sero’s bedroom. just ransacked it and draped all of his tapestries and throw pillows every which way over some Adidas pants. goddammit who is this person, I need to know everything about them right now

DAMMIT MIDNIGHT

HE’S NOT OLD ENOUGH TO MAKE THOSE KIND OF DECISIONS GODDAMMIT. HE IS YOUNG AND PLIABLE!! WHAT DID YOU DO, OFFER HIM CANDY. DID YOU PROMISE YOU WOULD TAKE HIM TO CHUCK E. CHEESE AFTER IF HE WAS GOOD

SON OF A BITCH ARE YOU GUILTING HIM

I DON’T LIKE THIS, MIDNIGHT. I MEAN, YOU ALREADY KNOW, IT’S NOT LIKE I’VE MADE A BIG SECRET OF IT OR ANYTHING. GUH

and he’s shouting back “no I don’t think you adults are pathetic at all!” while still looking terrified! goddammit how do I cast protection on a fictional character in a manga. I don’t play D&D, but D&D players can do that, right? how do I create a shield around my party. Kaminari you stay put while I try and figure this all out

lmaoooooo Tokoyami’s words of encouragement

A MAGNIFICENT FELLOW. you guys I’m gonna be honest, lately I’ve been enjoying these fan scanlations even more than the official ones at times. obviously Viz’s are fine and good, but sometimes it’s almost like they localize everything a little too much, you know? most people don’t go around calling other people magnificent fellows, but would Tokoyami? yes. yes he would. I believe this in every fiber of my heart

LMAO KAMINARI

“KAMINARI, I REALIZED WHEN WE WERE PLAYING GUITAR TOGETHER... WAY TO WHITE-KNUCKLE THOSE SICK FRETS, HALEN.” thank you so much for that Tokoyami but we are kind of in the middle of something so I’m not sure if right now is really the time to start asking my boy here for his autograph. after, maybe

now Cementoss is literally screaming “ATTACK!” and throwing subtlety to the winds

and now we’re back to this!

and it looks like this is most likely Cementoss using his quirk to tear the building in half! so that’s one mystery from last week solved! holy shit you guys I just realized we’re actually going to see Cementoss in action. so long as the environment is right, dude is a literal earthbender. we may be in for a rare treat

Skeptic is shouting at his minions to alert the Council. it’s okay, Cementoss already alerted them for you I’m pretty sure

so he’s sending Violet and Black to the front entrance, and Cleveland and Carmine to the Assembly Hall (where the Council is). these, if you recall, are the names of the various Vanguard squads, though I don’t recall who is actually on which squad and I really don’t want to go back and look it up... but fine!

okay, Twice is on the Black squad and Dabi and Otter Pop are on Violet. so they’re being dispatched to the front, while Toga, Compress, Spinner, and Skeptic himself (how convenient for you Skeptic) are heading to the Assembly Hall. isn’t that nice that Dabi is heading out to the front, where my son Kaminari “Clapton” Denki is. hahaha. fuck

Lefty Hair is now making a sudden appearance and giving Skeptic some threatening “you majorly fucked up and the only reason I’m letting it slide for now is because we’ve got bigger things to worry about” vibes, which I like. also he has a cigarette. it’s been a while since I’ve seen a manga character actually smoke a cigarette. I guess only villains are allowed to smoke them now

YOU GUYS LOOK HOW FUCKING RAW CEMENTOSS LOOKS HERE HOLY SHIT

HOW MANY PEOPLE IS CEMENTOSS GOING TO KILL TODAY. place your bets. and is cement stronger than fire. please don’t die Cementoss

YOU GUYS HE FUCKING SLAMMED THE FUCKING BUILDING OPEN LIKE ARAGORN OPENING THOSE FUCKING DOUBLE DOORS IN THE TWO TOWERS. I KNOW YOU CAN’T ACTUALLY SLAM A DOOR OPEN BUT ARE WE GOING TO SIT HERE AND ARGUE SEMANTICS ALL DAY OR ARE WE GOING TO KEEP READING??

ARE WE EVEN ALLOWED TO HAVE THIS MUCH BADASSERY IN A CHAPTER THAT DOESN’T HAVE MIRUKO IN IT. LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY FORGOT TO INFORM THE BADASSERY GUILD THAT THEIR UNION MEMBERS ARE WORKING OVERTIME. I DON’T KNOW WHERE I’M GOING WITH THIS METAPHOR I GOT TOO EXCITED

by the way I like how a key part of their “let’s contain all the villains” plan was to open up their secret HQ and spill them all out like a bunch of ants. everyone knows this is the best way to keep people contained. instead of stationing people outside of every exit, let’s just make the entire building into one giant exit and MELEE AWAY ALL YOUR PROBLEMS

who died and made Lefty the smartest guy in the room

if only they had all listened to you, Mister Smart Guy. you’re so smart. why didn’t they put you in charge. probably just because they were jealous

booooo it looks like Black and Violet are attacking but Twice and Dabi are nowhere to be found! because they’re part of the Council?? boooo

Best Sweaterist can do anything a sweater can do. it’s not a very good power. everyone was all “you look like the number 3 hero you must be really strong” and so she got promoted waaaaay above her skill level and it’s too late for her to do anything about it now so good luck Best Sweaterist

finally some people from the League!

but where is Hawks? AND WHY IS DABI HEADING THE OPPOSITE WAY AS EVERYONE ELSE HOLY SHIT

LOL HAWKS YOU BEST MAKE YOURSELF SCARCE MY DUDE. OH FUCK

(ETA: Dabi is either going to arrive just in time to save Twice, or just in time to witness Hawks murdering him, and I’m not sure which would be worse.)

OH MY GOD EDGESHOT GOT A LINE

I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO HEAR THIS WITH MY OWN TWO EARS IN THE ANIME. IT’S GONNA BE SO GREAT AH MAN. but real talk, Miruko should be above him in the power rankings. I’m sorry I don’t make the rules. but unless you kill three Noumus within the next few pages here I’d say it’s pretty clear cut

OH NO MY SIX-YEAR-OLD SON, MY POOR BABY, HE LOOKS SO FRIGHTENED NOW. LIKE GENUINELY AFRAID-FOR-HIS-LIFE FRIGHTENED AND NOT JUST COMICALLY FRIGHTENED OH MY GOD I CAN’T

Kaminari you sweet little lamb, it’s going to be okay. you just take a deep breath and zap some of these PLF fuckers and then you can go run and hide and you’ll be playing tacky arcade games and eating hit-or-miss-quality pizza before you know it

Kami is actually in a lot of danger here what with how helpless he gets after he uses too much of his quirk though. (unless of course you subscribe to the theory that he doesn’t actually go dumb at all and that’s when he’s secretly transmitting his traitor messages to the zetans.) whose fucking idea was it to put him on the front lines, honestly. he’s only four!!

fuck me, Midnight sees him panicking and she’s being all soothing and encouraging while also being ridiculously sexy as usual. dammit Midnight

hey Kaminari if you want to think about Momo and Jirou I’m not going to complain, I just want you to know that. you can even make it all platonic by just saying “my friends.” either way is fine and I will respect your smokescreen

ahh he’s turning around and the camera is zooming back to the woods where the rest of 1-A are!

the title of this chapter is becoming surprisingly meaningful!! well played!

WOW

I don’t even know what to say?! I basically just slapped both of my cheeks and said “AWWW” out loud?! would you fucking look at these two bisexual icons living it up in this the year of our lord 2020. what a blessing

oh hey this guy decided it was time for him to talk again

okay Kami I give you permission to go pikachu on his ass. go ahead and show us why the heroes went ahead and violated ILO conventions in order to bring you here

don’t tell me this guy is also an electric type. lol who could have guessed that, there were absolutely no clues at all in his hairstyle or anywhere else. I would definitely have noticed something like that because I definitely pay attention to these things lol

(ETA: and presumably the heroes knew the identities of the Vanguard squadron leaders thanks to Hawks, and knew they had to have some sort of plan in place for this guy’s quirk, hence them being all “hey Kaminari let’s talk.”)

anyway

OH SHIT YOU GUYS KAMINARI IS ABOUT TO BE A BADASS!?

MOTHERFUCKER WAS THAT A SHOUNEN WOOSH???! whaaaaaat oh shit everybody brace yourselves

and now a Tokoyami flashback to the two of them jamming like little hero Hendrixes

because he prioritized the health of his fingers beneath his desire to learn the guitar to help his friends perform, you realized he was truly a magnificent fellow. aw shit it’s all coming together

yep

look how evil that smile in the last panel is. clearly the traitor. probably this other electric man is his dad

USING AN ELECTRIC ATTACK AGAINST ANOTHER ELECTRIC TYPE CLEARLY WON’T WORK AND THUS THIS IS ONLY A FAKE ATTACK DESIGNED IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN HIS COVER!

LOOK HOW EVIL HE IS

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN A FIVE-YEAR-OLD HAVING THIS KIND OF RAW FIREPOWER UNLESS HE’S SECRETLY EVIL!??!

OH MY GOD I LITERALLY SAID “OH MY GOD” VERY LOUDLY IN REAL LIFE AND NOW I’M HOPING MY NEIGHBORS DIDN’T HEAR HOW LOUDLY AND EMBARASSINGLY I SAID “OH MY GOD”

FUUUUCK

just. it’s like this weird and crazy feeling that’s a combination of adrenaline and chills-rushing-up-your-spine. that’s the sensation of clicking to a page and suddenly seeing the thing we fucking knew was going to happen, but just because we knew doesn’t mean we actually wanted it to happen, shit

holy shit. does Jin have to die in order for the heroes to succeed? probably. do I want it to actually happen? NO. am I suddenly reevaluating every single thing I thought I knew about Hawks and mentally updating Jeanist’s presumed mortality status in my head?? yes. are Hawks’s eyes here going to give me nightmares for the entire coming week? also yes. am I really unsettled wondering if those eyes were the last thing Jeanist ever saw? listen why do you keep asking me all of these intrusive and deeply upsetting questions like I’m some kind of magic 8 ball?? am I going to be on the edge of my fucking seat now waiting for next week? fuck

#bnha 263 #kaminari denki #jirou kyouka #tokoyami fumikage #cementoss #hawks #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste spoiler recap #makeste reads bnha #is kaminari the traitor? still no #is horikoshi the traitor? probably #nah you know what #yes

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lostinthewinterwood · 4 years

Text

Heart Attack 2020

Hey friend!

Looks like you and I both like to write like the wind and suffer in the process, so without further ado, let’s go :D

Also, oops, my habit of procrastination has caught up with me… sorry about that! Here’s a letter now at least…

General DNW

non-con/dub-con;

explicit sexual content;

incest (incl. adoptive/chosen family);

a/b/o;

mpreg;

non-canonical permanent major character death;

complete downer endings;

hurt no comfort;

heavy angst;

on-page deliberate self-harm*;

on-page suicide;

gore;

graphic physical trauma;

character bashing;

cringe comedy;

fic-as-writer-soapbox;

fic that’s all about real-world bigotries or real-world politics;

canon-typical 2020;

unrequested full-setting AUs;

unrequested identity headcanons;

unrequested romance as the main plot.

*I don’t include things like, say, punching a wall in a fit of emotion under this. However, something like cutting would not be appreciated.

*****

General Likes

– I really like plotty fics

– Secret identity and disguise shenanigans, the more layers to them and more absurdity the better.

– Crossdressing for whatever reason and gender disguises, also for whatever reason, though not as a fetish thing—that I enjoy less.

– Time travel and time loops are always fun, especially as a fix-it. I have a general preference for Peggy Sue style (aka, an older character getting put back in their younger body at an earlier point in the timeline) over the character’s physical body stepping back in time, but either one is good.

– A focus on family and/or friendship, especially characters realizing they’re not nearly as alone as they think they are, and just generally characters who like each other and enjoy spending time together

– Found family; families of choice

– Character studies

– Worldbuilding

– Canon-divergence AUs and missing scenes; things set pre- or post-canon; wriggling into canon and poking at it to see what it spits back at you, if that description makes any sense at all.

*****

wherein i request a time-travel canon and mostly don't request time travelers [art and fic]

Mother of Learning - nobody103

· Alanic Zosk & Silverlake (Mother of Learning)

· Zach Noveda & None (Mother of Learning)

· Kirielle Kazinski & Zorian Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

· Kirielle Kazinski & None (Mother of Learning)

· Raynie & Kiana (Mother of Learning)

· Neoluma-Manu Iljatir & Zach Noveda (Mother of Learning)

· Alanic Zosk & Xvim Chao (Mother of Learning)

fandom-specific dnw: romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian; physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family; significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction

Prompts:

If you want to write an AU, you can consider any AU requested for AUEx for Mother of Learning, as listed here, to be requested in this exchange as well, even if the requested characters aren’t requested there, as long as it isn’t written as purely mundane.

I’ve written a fair few Mother of Learning prompts already; if you want to see me going off more about things, especially for Kirielle, please see the Mother of Learning section of my Gen Freeform Ex letter here. If you don’t want to click through, though, here’s a bit of things.

Kirielle, Kirielle & Zorian:

If you want to focus on Kirielle’s relationship with someone who isn’t Zorian, for Kirielle and Nochka, they’re adorable and I’d love a further development of their friendship, especially getting to see it grow and develop over the months and years after the invasion. If you want to write about Kiri and Zach, these two seem to have a lot of fun teaming up against Zorian lol, I really enjoy their dynamic and how they play off each other. For Kirielle and Zorian, I love their dynamic! And again here I’d really enjoy seeing their relationship developing in real time, rather than a constantly looping world. I think it would be great to see either of them defending the other to their parents—and maybe Zorian ends up with custody of Kiri, there’s definitely things to explore there.

For Kirielle by herself, I’d love some sort of character study—what does she do now that the time loop is over? She’s growing up into a war; will she be a mage? An artist? Something else? Alternatively—what if she got pulled into the loop; what would it be like to grow older while still looking nine?

Zach, Zach & Neolu:

Assuming you don’t go for a setting AU, I’d generally prefer something set at least in part after the time loop begins, but beyond that I don’t have a strong preference for where in the timeline this might be set. Maybe something from before Zorian got looped in—maybe one of the iterations where Zach and Neolu just went off across the country having fun the whole month? Zach doing whatever, possibly very early on, or maybe him freaking out a little because what the hell, time travel is supposed to be impossible, and yet—what did he do in the start?

Or for post-canon, I’d really like an exploration of Zach, who’s got the lived-time of a middle-aged man and the body of a teenager—how does he relate to his classmates/other people in the real world, where everyone’s growing again? Maybe something about his lawsuit against his caretaker, or just a little thing with him, Zorian, and How Do You Live Normally, Again? This Is Hard, or some such thing.

Raynie & Kiana:

Me? Latching onto a minor character in a big sprawling canon? It’s more likely than you think!

Anyway I like Raynie a lot; we don’t get a whole lot on her, but what we do get paints her as someone who’s having a very interesting life of her own, utterly divorced from the timeloop shenanigans (except re: the shifter children thing).

I like her and Kiana’s friendship, too; I like how when we finally see more of them both we learn more about how they’re similar and different.

For specific prompts, if you want to go pre-canon I’d really love something with her initial going to Cyoria and how she befriended Kiana in the first place (or, perhaps more likely, how Kiana befriended her; I somehow doubt that Raynie age 13, recently semi-exiled from her tribe, was particularly in search of outsider friends).

For post-canon, really, anything dealing with the fallout of all the things that go down in the real world would be fantastic too.

Alanic & Silverlake, Alanic & Xvim:

I’ve grouped these because they both have to do with Alanic, but really they’re not very similar prompts.

For Alanic and Silverlake I’d be very interested in something to do with Alanic’s backstory; Silverlake knew him as a young necromancer, so… what happened there? How did they know each other? Why was Alanic set on becoming a necromancer; clearly he got far enough to have soul sight himself—how’d he get that? Why did he leave the necromancer’s path to become a priest?

For Alanic and Xvim, I dunno, this seemed fun? They’re both part of the “annoying but ultimately helpful teacher” club to Zorian, and they get along well with each other—gonna admit I don’t fully remember what goes down for them in the final, real-world iteration, but. They’re both a lot of fun and they play off each other well; just go wild here. I’m down for it if you are.

*****

mostly found family and similar vibes here lbr [art and fic]

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)

· Cassandra & Varian (Disney: Tangled)

· Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Red | Catalina (Disney: Tangled)

· Angry | Keira & Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider (Disney: Tangled)

· Cassandra & Red | Catalina (Disney: Tangled)

· Cassandra & Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider (Disney: Tangled)

· Angry | Keira & Red | Catalina & Lance Strongbow (Disney: Tangled)

· Angry | Keira & Red | Catalina (Disney: Tangled)

fandom-specific notes: Cass's canonical injured hand/arm that canon just kind of... forgets about and doesn't ever address after it's introduced is totally fair game; I'd love something that addressed that, just nothing too graphic about the original injury please. Dnw fic which explicitly breaks up Rapunzel/Eugene.

Prompts:

So, overall, I just love this show a lot? It’s just so wholesome and heartfelt and hopeful? Anything you write which can grab that vibe I’ll probably enjoy tbh.

But! Onwards to specifics!

Cass & Varian, Cass & Catalina, Cass & Eugene:

This is my “team betrayed Rapunzel and/or ill-advisedly trusted a blue spirit in the woods and/or died for her before being resurrected” group lol, and I’d love something that explores one of those things; canon gives us a little bit of that between Cass and Varian in the form of “Nothing Left to Lose,” but it doesn’t really address it after they’ve both found their way back; I’d love something post-canon for any of these pairs, after Cass has finally got her act together and they can start learning to deal with all of it. Sharing their experiences! Figuring out how to emotionally process the bad (or good-but-with-unfortunate-consequences-even-if-only-temporary) decisions you made! I’m here for it.

Eugene & Angry, Eugene & Catalina, Angry & Catalina, Angry & Catalina & Lance:

All the found family! If you’re just dealing with Angry and Catalina, I’d take anything at any point in the timeline tbh—how did they meet? When and how did they start thieving together? What did they do between their major appearances in the show? If you go post-canon—how do they work out their new lives with Lance? They’ve been living on their own for at least two years, probably longer; how do they learn to let go and let someone else take care of them? And for either (or both tbh) of them with Eugene—former child-thieves, reformed because of Rapunzel! He doesn’t have any parental-style authority over them; how do they relate to him as opposed to Lance, in a post-canon world?

*****

superhero time babey [art and fic]

Secret Society of Second-Born Royals (2020) [SAFETY]

· Matteo & Roxana & Sam & Tuma (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· January & Matteo & Roxana & Tuma & Sam (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· Mike Kleinberg & Sam (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· Eleanor & None (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· Catherine & Eleanor & Sam (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· January & Sam (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· Eleanor & Sam (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

· Worldbuilding & None (Secret Society of Second-Born Royals)

Fandom-specific dnw: January as purely, irredeemably evil; absolute monarchy as unambiguously purely good.

Fandom-specific note: since I’m directly asking for politics in the worldbuilding option, it would be a bit silly to fully dnw real-world politics in this real-world-adjacent setting. Don’t worry about referencing real politics if that’s where you go with your fic; however, I would rather any focused-on politics be filtered through the context of the fictional countries the film uses, and please don’t reference real-world American politics post-2015. “unrequested full setting aus” dnw has been modified to “unrequested mundane aus” so if you want to, idk, put them in a fairytale au or a sports-but-still-have-powers au or something—go right ahead.

Prompts:

So, I enjoyed this silly little movie quite a lot—the characters were a lot of fun! I love them all! I really mostly just want more of them tbh. If you want an overarching theme—I would adore time travel here, even more than I normally do. Time loops especially are just… perfection.

Matteo & Roxana & Sam & Tuma, January & Matteo & Roxana & Tuma & Sam:

Team fic! Team fic! Team fic! For these two sets, I’d love something about the whole team—of course—doing team-y things. You could set it in the summer, before shit goes down in the climax; or you could set it after—they’re going after January, of course. What happens when they finally catch up to her? What do they do? How do they all process the relevant emotions of having been betrayed? Do we catch a redemption arc?

Mike & Sam:

These two are such good friends! I like their friendship a lot, and I’d love to see more of it. Something fun would be pre-canon—how did they meet? What led them to start their band? How much traction does their band have, really? Or post-canon—even having forgiven her, it’s got to be a lot to deal with, your best friend turning out to not just be a princess, but a superhero princess, while you’re just… a groundskeeper’s son(?).

Eleanor, Eleanor & Sam, Catherine & Eleanor & Sam:

Family times! There’s a lot of tension and secrets here, have been for a long time; tell me how they come to deal with it all and learn to live with each other better than they have been before the film—or give me backstory! How did things end up spiraling this far down?

January & Sam:

I’d love to have something dealing with January’s PoV on the events of the film, or Sam’s PoV on January; more fun with secrets and betrayals! (Fun for the audience at least; maybe less fun for these two though.) They got pretty close, after all—how did that have January feeling? Did she second-guess herself over that? How about Sam—she was the one betrayed by her new friend, after all. If you want to see me talking more about just January, check out my Yuletide letter here.

Worldbuilding:

Okay, so, I really did like this movie, so I say this affectionately, but… to call the worldbuilding here flimsy would be to, well, imply that it had bothered doing any worldbuilding whatsoever, and that’s not quite accurate, now is it? To be clear, I do think this was probably a good decision, given that the movie is dedicated to superhero funtimes, not How The Hell Is This Happening, but it does leave me with so very many questions. For being a movie all about royalty, this movie is almost allergic to actually engaging any of the politics it hints at, what with the presented sides being “monarchy good” and “terrorism is fine actually”; if you want to write about the politics of the world these characters live in, by all means go ahead! For example, how did they manage to be a Western European absolute monarchy all the way to the present day? I’d love to see that, or anything like it really, explored. Other worldbuilding I’d be interested in includes an exploration of the “gene” which… somehow… manifests exclusively in second-born children of royal bloodlines—does this include bastard children? What counts as a royal bloodline? What happens when one of the superhero royal children has to ascend the throne? Why only the second-born? Is it really genetic at all, or is it some sort of magic? If not magic, then wtaf is going on in the genetics of this world, I have to know more.

*****

disguise shenaniganery and/or PUNS

Original Work [SAFETY]

· Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl/Female Student Warrior Disguised as a Boy (M/F)

· Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl/Female Fellow Student Mage (M/F)

· Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl & Male Student Warrior (M & M)

· Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl & His Older Female Mentor (M & F)

· Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl & Female Student Warrior Disguised as a Boy (M & F)

· Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl & Female Fellow Student Mage (M & F)

· Child Superhero & Their Concerned Supervillain Nemesis (Any & Any)

· Spellsword Mercenary & Mathemagician (Any & Any)

fandom-specific dnw: age gaps in ships of more than 3 or so years when one character is underage; predatory manipulation between characters in the relationship in service of the relationship–if characters are manipulating each other for non-relationship things and such that’s okay, but i’d rather both parties in any of the ships be interested in the romance of their own accord. Additionally, please don’t have characters react to any gender-disguised characters (or characters in general, but it’s most relevant to them) in transphobic or transphobic-adjacent ways (i.e. none of the characters are requested as trans, but I still wouldn’t want to see the kinds of comments people make about trans people aimed at them). I’d also rather not see any kind of serious relationship with at least one character disguising their gender pre-reveal of that disguise–flirting, starting to date a little is okay but if it’s going further please have them reveal it. Please don’t play into the idea of gender-disguised character as “trap”.

also dnw characters requested as gender-disguised to be written as trans or to be written as absolutely loathing their disguise. other characters are fair game. if writing trans characters, dnw them to be explicitly nondysphoric (but not addressing it is fine).

fandom-specific note: the “setting au” dnw obviously does not apply here; my typical “identity headcanon” au dnw has been replaced by a dnw for “marginalized identities as the main focus of a fic” since there isn’t exactly a canon here lol.

If you’re a lovely friend who wants to do treats, I’d be totally on board for art treats for this section; however, I haven’t requested them as actual fills.

Prompts:

All of these are fun groupings that, I think, imply both setting and some amount of plot; but I’ll have some more specific prompts anyway. Overall I like all sorts of settings; all of my requested pairs imply some amount of speculative elements in the setting, but beyond that it’s all up to you. Just-left-of-modern? Ancient China but with magic? IN SPACE? Whatever you want to do, go for it.

Male Student Mage Disguised as a Girl &/Whoever:

Look, I’m a sucker for identity/disguise shenanigans, and I love gender disguises, and for all the books I read as a kid featuring girls disguising themselves as boys to do [insert restricted activity here], I never saw its natural inverse; this is a travesty and must be corrected for. Anything playing into this whole trope/idea is just chef’s kiss, I promise you I’ll love it.

Child Superhero & Their Concerned Supervillain Nemesis:

Another favorite dynamic of mine! I love supervillains getting tricked into that semi-parental role where they’re like “hang on I may be a supervillain and a criminal but you’re a child where are your parents what are you doing here,” it’s quite possibly the Best dynamic I have yet encountered in superhero fiction… even if I haven’t actually encountered it all that much.

Spellsword Mercenary & Mathemagician:

Okay, I’ll admit that I mostly nominated and requested this for the pun potential. But I think there’s also quite a lot of implicit lore you could really dig into; what kind of world is this, where magic can be imbued in or used through swords, but can also be related to mathematics? Tell me more about it! How do these two know each other? Are they both shamelessly, pundamentally invested in wordplay as well as their actual jobs? If you’re looking for more plot-implying ideas, I would be super down if you wanted to map this onto one of my other origfic requests (but no pressure lol).

#exchange letters #heart attack exchange #requested: art #requested: fic #requested: mother of learning #requested: rapunzel's tangled adventure #requested: secret society of second-born royals #requested: original work

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somekindofflowergirl · 5 years

Note

ER? 😂👀

Hahaha, you ask like these answers will be any different from your own, so I will attempt to answer some of them differently. Some of them would just be flat-out lies to answer differently and we all know it.

1. My favorite female character: Abby Lockhart

I love ER’s female characters en masse, because I feel like they’re written more realistically than women generally are on TV. Most of them aren’t written as traditionally “likeable”, because they’re allowed to be grumpy, and to have bad days, and to snap at their SOs and not apologize. Because REAL WOMEN do those things, but we rarely see it on TV. I have lots of feelings about how men on TV can be huge jerks most of the time and nice once or twice and end up beloved, while women can be kind most of the time and jerks once or twice and end up hated. Anyway. I love her. Climbing off my soapbox now.

2. My favorite male character: Luka Kovac. I know you’re all shocked.

He’s brooding and troubled, but he has such a kind heart.

3. My favorite book/season/etc.

Probably 12, though I have a very soft spot for eight, too.

4. My favorite episode (if it’s a tv show):

It’s really hard for me to pick favorite episodes. I also love I Do and All About Christmas Eve and that whole arc, but I think my favorite might just be The Show Must Go On. It’s such a good balance of urgent medical situation for the interns and the beautiful friendships, both of which ER excels at.

5. My favorite cast member

Like I can pick just one. I have to echo @mearcatsreturns and say Maura Tierney, Laura Innes and Goran Visnjic. They are all always wonderful, and all have scenes where I just stop and have to marvel at their acting.

6. My favorite ship:

LOL, because this is unclear: Luka/Abby (Luby, though I really, really hate the portmanteau for this ship, sorry)

7. A character I’d die defending:

There’s a handful in here, seriously. But I’ll go with one who never gets enough love, IMO: Susan Lewis. She’s wonderful, I want more friendship moments with her and Abby, and the ER never appreciates her enough.

Also: Neela Rasgotra. She’s the character I most identify with, and she’s incredibly smart, and a great friend.

8. A character I just can’t sympathize with:

Ditto to @mearcatsreturns, but if we’re allowed to include recurring characters, I’ll add: Kevin Moretti.

9. A character I grew to love:

Pretty much ALL of them except for Corday and Luka, who are pretty much the only ones I instantly loved, but I’ll go with Greg Pratt. He started out as an arrogant, judgmental intern and grew to be a fantastic leader with a lot of compassion. (See also: Ray Barnett and Doug Ross in particular)

10. My anti otp:

Sam/Luka and Carter/Abby. I like all the characters involved (well...three of the four, and sometimes all four), but they are unhappy in those relationships, so I can’t enjoy them in them.

Whew. That was long, sorry.

Also: ER is tragically under-giffed. There are so many fantastic reaction shots.

#ask game #nbc er #er #luby #long post #abby lockhart #luka kovač #susan lewis #neela rasgotra #greg pratt #anti carby #anti samka

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artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

How Far I'll Go - Chapter 4 (Nina West/Monet X Change) - Meggie, Mia Ugly

A/N: This chapter was getting out of hand (pushing 13k and not even close), so we decided to split it so we can get out an update and not have to worry about mincing words as we finish up the second half of the chapter. This one is still lengthy (9k)!

Prior – Nina and Vanjie ended up in the top during the first episode, with Vanjie taking the first win of AS5.

To come – Nina learns a secret, shares a secret, and has a realization.

Chapter Four - never looked at me this way before

Nina wakes up and is still on Drag Race.

It is an ungodly hour and he barely remembers his head hitting the pillow; they filmed a bunch of talking head interviews after the runway, and wrote letters for Laganja, and de-dragged and ate what little takeout they could stomach at one a.m. It’s only two days in and he feels the exhaustion in his bones, but Good God Girl is he happy that he survived the first elimination. Not only survived, but was in the top two. Got to dance it out against Vanjie, got to watch Monet in the audience, smiling all white and shiny like some sort of monster (he’s got to know the effect he has, right? Has to know).

Nina forces himself out of bed with a not entirely silent groan, tries to immerse himself in his Disney princess fantasy where little bluebirds are singing to him, fluttering around helping him get ready, bringing him his towel and razor and - actually, bluebirds armed with razor blades might not be exactly Disney’s brand. He can workshop that bit.

He showers, shaves, tries to dress quickly. He wanted his Werk Room aesthetic to be a bit less “quirky elementary school teacher” this season, but when he looks over his choice of boy clothes, he realizes that that just might be his actual aesthetic - on TV or off. Damn. Well, whatever. He’ll never be Vanjie, fashion-wise, but at least he’s not Brooke.

Nina gathers his things in a hurry because he wants to get downstairs for breakfast before the rest of the girls invade. It (probably) has nothing to do with the fact that the mentors meet fifteen minutes before the contestants come down to get their briefing for the day’s challenges. He’s (probably) not trying to run into Monet.

Things are decidedly less awkward after they hugged it out on the runway and even danced a little. Monet had his hands on Nina’s hips for a moment there, said how proud of him he was (and damn it, that lights something up in Nina that he doesn’t want to look at too closely). Even though he hadn’t won the lip-sync, even though Vanjie essentially wiped the stage with him, Monet was proud. Happy he’d chosen Nina to be an X-Queen.

Something dangerous could be brewing if Nina were going downstairs early just because he wanted to bump into Monet this morning, try to make him laugh because that smile is just - something else, or find out how he takes his coffee or -

But Nina isn’t. So it’s fine. Everything’s fine.

Just peachy.

Nina bounces on his toes as he presses the call button for the elevator and waits. He feels good, more relaxed. Getting past the first episode is hardest; no one wants to be the first one out (unless you’re Vanessa, then you take that shit and run with it). And he has a trip to the Bahamas under his belt. That’s something to look forward to. He’ll take his drag mother, maybe; it’s not like they’ll let him substitute the dogs for a Plus One.

The elevator dings and Nina, still lost in thoughts of sandy beaches and the hot sun on his shoulders, takes a second to recognize the couple wrapped around each other in the back corner. Probably wouldn’t have recognized them at all, given how smashed together they are - a gasping, moaning, many-limbed organism - except for the fact that they immediately pull away from each other, looking wide-eyed with panic at the elevator doors.

“Oh.” Nina tries his best to maintain a neutral expression as he gets into the elevator and turns conspicuously around. “So I guess you guys are speaking again.”

Brooke and Vanjie are silent behind him. Nina counts down the floors. After all that weirdness yesterday, they’ve apparently - worked things out. Or something. Nina is not in the headspace to think about it right now.

Eventually Brooke clears his throat, says “Good morning,” like he’s Nina’s manager at work or something.

“Yep, hi, good -” Nina says, just as the elevator lands on the ground floor with a thump. Nina steps out without waiting for the two of them (because he has first-hand knowledge of being mortified in elevators and knows that the last thing you want is company) and walks briskly to the conference room.

The mentors are just finishing their meeting and starting breakfast. Production thinks it’s fair to let them have meals together, but the P.A.s are never far away, making sure none of the competitors get an unfair advantage from too much early information.

Trixie’s tapping away at her cell phone with one hand and shoveling cereal into her mouth with the other. Vanjie hadn’t been kidding when he said Trixie was always on the grind. Nina’s half impressed by her dedication to be working at 7:30 in the morning and half - concerned? Maybe he’s glad Trixie passed him over during the draft.

Monet is staring down a plate of pancakes, but he looks up and smiles when Nina comes into the room.

“Bubble Guns!” Monet calls, and Nina can only assume he’s being summoned. (Because, logically, no one else carried bubble guns into the Werk Room during their entrance. And, logically, who else would Monet be talking to? Nina’s the first to arrive other than the mentors and the crew.) “See hos, this is what a winner looks like. You all might wanna have a word with your girls about it.”

“I think my girls are good, thanks,” Trixie says deadpan, without looking up from her phone. There is a crease between her eyebrows and - now that Nina really sees her, she looks extremely tired.

“Bubble Guns?” Nina asks because he can’t not mention that.

“Just trying it out. Officially you’re still Jean Grey, this is more like a pet name. Like honey or snookums. You like it?”

“Nope,” Nina says quickly, and Monet laughs. Nina files that laugh away for when he needs it. There’s something about the low husk of Monet’s voice that makes him get all - distracted. Yeah, let’s go with distracted. And that’s the last thing he can afford to be right now, but sometimes it’s easy to forget -

His attention shifts as Brooke comes into the conference room, followed by Vanjie thirty seconds later. Vanjie’s mouth is swollen, and Brooke’s neck is red and blotchy from beard-burn. It all seems incredibly, stupidly obvious to Nina but then, he’s working with some additional information. Anyway, he notices.

And Monet notices him noticing.

“I’ll see you and Asia in the Werk Room, yeah?” The laughter is gone from Monet’s mouth, he’s suddenly all business. “Go get some food in you.”

“Right.”

Nina Bo’nina and Shea have come in, and Vanjie makes a beeline to them, voice getting immediately louder and growlier. Nina grabs some toast and finds a seat off in the corner where Brooke is alone, drinking coffee and eating nothing. He gives Nina a cautious smile as he sits down across from him.

“Sooo…” Nina starts around a mouthful of toast, and Brooke’s face goes stoney.

“Yes?”

“Just um, wondering. What’s going on.”

“Nothing.” But contrary to his words, Brooke’s eyes immediately clock Vanjie’s laugh across the room. He seems to realize what he’s doing, and decides to stare at his coffee instead. “It’s - nothing. We talked last night and - you know, things just happened.”

Things just happened. Right. Thoughts are running through Nina’s head - and some of them are probably unfair. His first helpless reaction is judgement, and that’s not his usual go-to. He doesn’t like being that person (live your life, stand in your truth, etc.) but come the fuck on, Brooke. Things don’t just happen between two people with this much history, especially when one half of that equation is clearly stupid in love and the other half is in denial.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Brooke says, saving Nina from any sort of soapboxing he might feel tempted to do. “We’re adults, I’m not -”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.” Nina raises his hands, only lying a bit. “I just worry. About both of you.”

“Well don’t.” Brooke’s in a mood this morning, but at least he seems to realize it. “Sorry. Just ignore me until I’ve had another coffee, I don’t know what my problem is.”

Nina suspects that they both know what Brooke’s problem is, but he doesn’t offer that up. And apparently, whatever Nina witnessed in the elevator that morning was just for the elevator, because Brooke and Vanjie don’t have a word to say to each other during breakfast or after. They leave separately, and Nina leaves a few minutes later, giving a “casual goodbye nod” (you know, like a normal person does) to Monet on his way out. Monet nods back but is deep in an intense-looking conversation with Trixie and Alaska. Nina leaves them to it.

Both Brooke and Vanjie are subdued during the filming of the Werk Room entrance. Nina wonders if they’re thinking about last season, the many times they came into this room all tangled up with each other, or kissed for luck before moving to their stations (if Nina’s thinking about it, he can’t imagine they aren’t). Now Brooke and Vanjie are at opposite sides of the pack, Vanjie grinning at Nina Bo’nina’s goofy dance moves, and Brooke just off by himself, working his worn-out red hoodie like he’s on a runway.

They all gather in a group to talk about the elimination, and get Blair’s take on being safe. She’s not crying yet, which is a good start.

“It’s a wake up call. I’m ready to show the judges that I mean business,” she says with a mild air of confidence, “that I have more to offer than I did last night.”

“Yeah you do, girl,” Vanjie says warmly. “That’s why I kept you.”

“Speaking of Miss Vaaaanjie…” Shea uses that moment to shift the conversation. “How you feel about being a winner, baby?”

Vanjie laughs. “Lord Jesus, I think it’s about damn time. If I didn’t win something this season, I was gonna send my own ass home.”

“Dela already trademarked that shit, you ain’t original,” Nina Bo’nina tells him. “She’ll take you to court about it.”

“I ain’t scared of no Seattle queen, Mary,” Vanjie sounds so authentically offended that everyone, even Brooke, cracks up. “Nah, for real. They all up there, drinking coffee and being polite and shit - practically Canadian.”

He darts a look at Brooke, who arches one eyebrow and steeples his hands like the cartoon villain some fans think he is.

“I’ll have you know that Canadians can be… extremely shady,” Brooke says, a hint of a joke in his voice.

“Bitch, you don’t gotta tell me. You already gone and proved it.”

The other queens laugh, following Brooke’s lead, but Vanjie’s tone is a little bit sharp, and things are starting to feel - not uncomfortable, but like they could be heading in that direction. Nina wracks his brain, trying to think of something kind and clever to say that would re-route the conversation - when they are rescued by their Lord and Savior RuPaul.

“Hello, hello, hello!” he calls, coming into the Werk Room.

“Thank God,” Nina hears Cracker say under her breath, and he can’t help but agree.

Then all of the mentors follow Ru down the stairs, and Nina stops thinking about anything at all.

“Look who I found at the bus stop!”

Nina immediately (and unintentionally) catches Monet’s eye, flinches, and gives him an awkward wave (a wave? Why did you wave? You could have smiled or just - looked away but - waving like a passenger on the Titanic, Nina, oh my God). Monet makes an extremely amused face and waves awkwardly back.

“Ladies. For today’s maxi challenge you’ll be performing in three All Stars ‘she-quels’ that honour our… scissor sisters.” Ru raises an eyebrow. “You will be placed in teams of three to create follow-up scenes from famous movies about women that looove women. Not to give Mommy Hytes an unfair advantage.”

Brooke smiles and licks his lips, clearly knowing where his fanbase is.

“I’m the Mommy on this show, and don’t forget it.” Ru glares in mock fury at Brooke for a moment before smiling brightly once again. “Now to separate a cast of this - quality - into teams, I think we’re going to need a little muscle. Oh Pit Crewwwww.”

The very attractive (and probably very cold) Pit Crew come into the Werk Room armed with blankets and pillows. (Nina has had this dream before - but usually RuPaul wasn’t in the mix.)

“Who’s up for a little slumber party with your best squirrel-friends?”

The queens around Nina all raise their hands, none of them as quick as Brooke. Nina’s first reaction is to see how Vanjie’s doing with all of that, but then he puts it out of his mind. He’s more than a bystander in their love story, right? He’s gotta be.

They stop filming so that two Set Dec can come in and arrange the pillows and blankets in a cozy circle on the floor. The queens all find a seat there, interspersed with members of the Pit Crew. They film a bit of B-roll of them painting each other’s nails, doing a massage chain, pillow fighting, etc. Nina doesn’t really know where this is going, but when Ru puts an empty Absolut Vodka bottle in the middle of the circle, something awful rattles loose from the deep, dark forest of his repressed high school memories.

“To choose your teams for this challenge, we’re going to play a nice wholesome game of Spin-the-Bottle. Mentors, to keep things professional, you may leave the circle. Pit Crew, you stay right where you are.”

Nina glances helplessly at Monet as he gets up and then helps Trixie to her feet. It’s a stupid move, and when Monet inevitably realizes he’s being stared at and catches Nina’s eye, Nina immediately looks away. Probably turns red or something, breaks out in hives. You know, whatever would make him seem like the most pathetic person ever.

“Miss Vanjie. Nina West. Because you were our top All Stars in the Talent Show, you will be picking teams. And if you feel like giving your new teammates a little sugar, I’ll allow it. But no pinkie fingers. Let’s keep it clean this season.” A wink at Brooke.

Vanjie is up first, and his spin immediately lands on that delicious ginger in the Pit Crew. (Bryce? His name might be Bryce.) From the sidelines, Trixie Mattel feigns disappointment and Nina vaguely remembers some kind of flirtation between the two of them on All Stars 3.

Brooke’s face freezes, but Vanjie only gives Bryce a kiss on each cheek, ignoring the cat calls from the other queens.

“Thank God!” Trixie says loudly. Too loudly. “You know that I’m the only queen for you, Brycie.”

Her tone is - weird and over the top (more than the usual over the top Trixie) but Nina can’t think about that now. He’s really good at taking on other people’s problems to avoid the problems in his own life, and that’s - okay, it’s an issue, but it’s an issue he can’t fix in the next 15 minutes and he has other things to worry about.

Nina goes next. Maybe he has a lot of emotions about the fact that the mentors are no longer in the circle (like - oh God what if he had had to kiss Monet? And OH GOD, what if he had had to kiss Monet?) but he puts them to the side. He’s strategizing, doing his best Brooke Lynn Hytes Ice Queen of the North impersonation and thinking about who would be the most strategic pick. Not that strategy has any place in this but you know…

The bottle lands on… Nina lets out a laugh.

It’s pointing right at Blair, whose smile grows wide as she stares Nina down across the circle.

“I do declare!” Nina says (he knows Blair can act, is going to steadfastly hope for the best) and he kisses Blair on the hand while she fans herself like a proper Southern belle.

“Try to pick a teammate this time,” Ru tells Vanjie, as he spins the bottle again. “Or Bryce maybe.”

Vanjie’s spin almost lands on Bryce again (“Whore!” Trixie yells) but when it finally stops, it’s definitely pointing at Asia. Vanjie beams, crawling over to her and giving her a messy and handsy fake kiss while the other girls shriek with laughter (not Brooke though. There’s a smile on his lips but it looks like it was hung there with a hammer).

Nina spins again, pretty satisfied with anyone that could end up on her team. It’s All Stars, baby, these queens are all winners. The bottle spins and spins -

“She’s got the endurance,” Ru comments.

-then slows and stops… in front of Miz Cracker.

Cracker glances flatly up at Nina before breaking into a little victory dance. She crawls over to Nina and leans in for a kiss before pulling away, covering her mouth.

“Wait, are you kosher?”

Nina cocks his head to the side. “I do enjoy sausage.”

Cracker clicks her tongue. “Better not risk it.” They settle for a handshake.

“Team Nina West is complete!” Ru comments with a wide grin. “Miss Vanjie, spin again. Then our remaining queens will make up the third team.”

Vanjie makes a show of blowing on his fingertips before he spins. And wouldn’t you fucking know it -

“Brooke Lynn Hytes!” Ru announces, no doubt extremely happy at the drama that’s about to unfold.

Vanjie’s eyebrows twitch, that little ripple of pain, before he smiles fake and flawless.

“Oh no, Mary.” He doesn’t move from his place in the circle. “Been there done that. That queen already got these cookies.”

Brooke smiles flatly, blows a kiss that Vanjie ignores.

“Now that means that Shea Coulee, Nina Bo’nina Brown, and Ivvvvy Wiiinters will make up the final team. Ladies, you three will be performing a scene from the film Carol.”

Damn it, that’s a supergroup right there. Nina forces himself not to worry. He’s got Cracker (and himself, but stay humble, girl), they’ll be golden.

“Team Vanjie.” Ru turns his attention to the source of all the awkward tension in the room. “You’ll be performing a scene from the film Monster.”

Brooke and Asia instantly go wide-eyed in the exact same way (while Vanjie does a little shrug. A moment later, the title seems to make an impact: “Shit, is that with Charlize being all ugly and killin’ dudes?”)

“That’s the one,” Ru says nodding.

Asia and Brooke still haven’t lost the look of panic on their faces, and Nina can’t really blame them. How are they supposed to make Monster funny? It’s the saddest story ever - though Nina can see Brooke giving off a bit of an Aileen Wuornos energy. Hmm, there’s a thought.

“Finally, Team Nina West. You’ll be performing a scene from a film that is near and dear to my heart - for absolutely no reason that I can think of - But I’m a Cheerleader!”

Oh my God. Nina can’t hold back his delight. He loves that film, it’s camp as hell, and RuPaul was in it - they’re going to have to turn it out, but Cracker and Blair are stand-out queens. He knows they can do it.

“Mentors, you’ll have the chance to check in on your queens as they rehearse, as well as co-direct the scenes during filming. And tomorrow’s runway theme is another nod to our sapphic sisters: Lavender Menace. Gentlemen, start your engines. And may the best woman win!”

*****

Nina ends up eating lunch with Vanjie again, the two of them sitting cross-legged on the ground with sandwiches like a couple of kids on a picnic. They talk a little bit about how rehearsals are going (without ever once mentioning Brooke’s name) but Vanjie is constantly furtive and shifty-eyed. Nina doesn’t have to guess why.

“Whatever you wanna say, I already know it,” Vanjie says quietly, after a pause in the conversation goes on a beat too long to be comfortable. “You’re gonna tell me to be careful or I’m being stupid or something, and really bitch? I been telling myself that all day.”

“Well.” To be honest, Nina had been planning to say most of those things. This is easier. At least it will save some time. “Okay then.”

“‘Sides, it ain’t going to happen again.”

Nina raises his eyebrows, and Vanjie scowls at him.

“It ain’t! I ain’t doing that again, no ma’am. Me and your girl, we’re done. Don’t pretend you never had an itch to scratch. It don’t have to mean nothing, right? And it sure as hell don’t mean nothing to him.” A flicker of pain crosses Vanjie’s face before he presses his lips together, manages a smirk that’s shaped more like a broken heart. “Bitch, I seen you and your walk of shame after that finale, you know how it is. And you still ain’t told me who it was.”

“Uh. No.” He coughs. “No, I did not.” How did this conversation get so quickly out of Nina’s control? “A – gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“You think you’re some kinda gentleman? With your dress undone and your wig over your arm? You a ho just like the rest of us.” Vanjie grins, delighted. “If it was just some random trade you wouldn’t be so shook up about it. It’s gotta be someone we know.”

“I’m not shook up. I just – it was nothing. A one-night thing.” It hurts to say, more than Nina expected it would. But he knows it’s true. He has to know. And if there had maybe been the possibility of it turning into something more – even just lunch – Nina certainly put an end to that the next morning.

“Girl, look at who you’re talking to. You think – you think I don’t know that lie when I hear it?” Vanjie swallows, smiles weakly. “I been there, right?”

“Vanjie-”

“So who was it? Another queen? Bitch, you kaikai-ing with Yvie? I remember there being some kissing –”

“No.”

“Hmmph. Nah, you right. Miss Scarlet would’ve already murdered your ass in the ballroom with the lead pipe, Mary.” Vanjie narrows her eyes, thinking it over. “It wasn’t any of the Dream Girls - though Silk would climb you like a tree, you give her half the chance.”

“Can we talk about something else? I really don’t want to -”

“Who were you talking to that night? ‘Cause I fucked off early. Was it -”

“How’s it going, Jean Grey?” Monet’s low voice interrupts them. “Hey there, Miss Vanjie.”

Vanjie cranes his head back to beam up at Monet who is standing, arms-folded, above them. “Hey girl! You come to try to steal me for your team? I ain’t messing with Miss Trixie, no ma’am. You piss her off then Katya’s coming after your ass, and that bitch crazy.”

Monet laughs. “Okay, fine. Fair. Won’t even try it. Came over here to ask Miss Nina West if she wanted to run lines with me and Cracks after lunch. What you think?” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Sounds great. Yeah. Thanks.” Nina looks up at Monet, tries not to turn too obviously into a puddle.

“Don’t thank me, I got wig money on the line.” Monet winks, smiles, places a hand on Nina’s shoulder. It lingers for a moment too long. “I’ll come grab you after.”

“Okay.” He watches Monet walk off, then looks back at Vanjie.

Whose mouth is hanging open.

“Oh, bitch.”

“Stop,” Nina warns.

“Bitch!” Vanjie repeats, swatting Nina’s leg playfully. “Okay, I see you, Miss Nina.”

“Please, don’t,” Nina begs.

Vanjie raises an eyebrow and presses his lips together into a tight smirk, but Nina knows this isn’t done, won’t be done until Vanjie has the details he craves.

“It - oh, God - okay.” Nina sighs. “There was a lot of tequila involved and bad decisions and now it’s kind of weird.”

“I bet,” Vanjie says, and then bites his lip. “Was it good? I mean, Monet looks like he’d be good. So was it good?”

Nina’s face catches fire, he’s sure of it. Positive there are flames shooting off his forehead from how hard he’s blushing. And he hates it, because he knows that gives more away than his words would.

“Ha! So it’s like that. Damn.” Vanjie sits back, looking far too amused. “Miss Nina and Miss Monet… I gotta say though…” He pauses and takes a long drink of water from the bottle at his side, no doubt for dramatic effect. “Didn’t neither one of y’all look like it was nothing just now.”

“Well it - it was. Nothing. And I - the next morning, I - there are some things that -”

Vanjie takes pity on his inability to form a sentence. “Listen, girl. I’m just saying - you looked good. Together, I mean. And it can be nice to have a piece of something when the competition gets intense.”

Vanjie tries to look down and not across the room at Brooke, where he’s sitting and laughing with Shea, Ivy, and Asia, but fails. He shakes his head (only slightly, but Nina sees).

Maybe Nina isn’t the only one here who spends time trying to fix other people’s relationships instead of worrying about his own.

He clears his throat. “It… He’s my mentor. Even if I was interested - and I’m not saying that I am - and even if he were interested, which obviously he isn’t - anyway, the point is it wouldn’t work. At least, not on Drag Race.” What he doesn’t add is that he’s seen a relationship blossom on national television, and he isn’t keen to experience the raw heartbreak that is Branjie.

“Mmm.” Vanessa’s tone is introspective. “Drag Race ain’t forever.“

Vanjie’s always been able to read into things beyond surface value. Nina was half-convinced that was the reason Brooke and Vanjie would make it. Vanjie seemed to see things in Brooke that Brooke didn’t even see in himself. Noticed when Brooke was getting in his head, getting too anxious. Knew without a word when Brooke had to be left alone, and when he needed someone to make him laugh. It was a weird symbiotic thing they had for a bit, and Nina had envied it, even as he’d been happy for his friends. He thought it was - something.

“Please don’t tell anybody, okay? Not even Brooke.”

“I told you. Me and your girl - we’re done. It’s gotta be like that.” Vanjie only sounds a bit like he’s drowning. “Your secret’s safe. But listen, don’t throw shade at your own damn self. Monet… He’s good. Like good and nice and shit. Like you. So just think about it.”

Nina nods, all while fully intending to try as hard as he can to not think about it. But with Monet fluttering around the break room, laughing and dancing with Trixie and smiling that perfect smile, he knows that’s going to be easier said than done.

*****

“My name is Graham and I like girls!” Blair chirps.

Monet purses his lips. “Hmm. Okay. So let’s do it again and… I don’t really know how to say this other than… Butch it up a little?”

Blair nods, but Nina can sense the frustration building.

They’ve been running lines for three hours and it’s not going well. The three of them have read over the script, selected their chosen roles, and consulted with Monet (who thought it was brilliant and hilarious to have Nina - with his line-backer shoulders - play the wholesome cheerleader Megan. The way he laughed when he described it made something special and intense fire in Nina’s stomach, and he’s got to get control of that. Especially now that Vanjie knows? Damn it. Put it in a box and kick that box into the sun.)

“My name is Graham and I like girls!” Blair says again, and her tone is… exactly the same. It’s very Blair. And there’s nothing wrong with that per se, it’s just not what they need for this challenge.

Monet nods and quirks his lips into a terse smile. “Maybe let’s take a break.”

Nina turns to Cracker, who’s playing the repressed Born Again camp counselor.

“I think we’re getting there!”

Cracker scoffs and rolls her eyes before stomping off after Monet.

Blair slumps into a chair against the wall and looks up at Nina miserably. “I’m really screwing this up.”

“No,” Nina lies and sits down next to her. “You’re shaken, that’s understandable. Just relax and you’ll be fine.”

“I just… I don’t get this character at all.” Blair tosses her script on the floor. “I’m really trying, I am, but like - I’m so afraid I’m going to be sent home. And I’m probably going to be sent home, now, because I’m screwing this up and it’s all I can think about.”

Nina remembers that feeling all too well, relates intensely to Blair’s feeling of inadequacy. But - damn it, all their lives are on the line here. He’s got to get Blair out of her head, even if it means - changing things up. Giving up the role that made Monet laugh like he was dying. Nina can - he can do it. It’s not the first time. It worked out okay for him and Brooke last year (okay for Nina anyway. Brooke did - substantially better with that arrangement). And Nina was… Safe. He can handle safe. Safe is good at this point.

“So.” Nina clears his throat, steels himself for what’s coming. “Which character would you rather play?” Brace for impact. Do it for the greater good.

Blair chews her thumbnail. “Honestly, I think the uber-religious one? Cracker’s? Like maybe my tone would fit better? I can do repressed gay, I mean - I’m from Indiana.”

YES! I mean, fine. The greater good.

Nina tries not to seem too obviously relieved.

“Okay! Okay. So now we just have to convince Cracker to switch roles with you. To be honest, I feel like she could probably pull off Graham.” (Surly, sarcastic - yeah, Cracker will have no problem there.) “You should be the one to ask her though - since she and I… well. I mean. You guys are Season 10 sisters! Can you do that?”

Blair nods. “Yes. Yeah, I’ll ask her. Thanks Nina! I feel better about this already.”

Nina plasters on his best Miss Congeniality smile, hopes he doesn’t seem too worried. He isn’t. Not really.

While Blair chases after Monet and Cracker, Nina looks across the Werk Room at the other teams. Nina Bo’nina, Ivy, and Shea’s team is falling over with laughter - Shea in a perfect blonde Cate Blanchett wig and a tailored fifties dress that is doing everything for her. Nina knows that confidence doesn’t necessarily lead to a winning performance, but in this case, he doesn’t see how they could fail.

Brooke, Vanjie, and Asia - that’s a different story. Brooke has definitely gotten into serial killer mode, but he and Vanjie are staring grim-faced at their scripts, clearly frustrated. Even though he can’t hear what they’re saying, Nina can see the way Brooke keeps getting distracted when Vanjie speaks, or when he gets too close. Vanjie’s eyes keep getting darker and darker, and poor Asia is stuck trying to pull the two of them together while keeping them apart.

Brooke must feel Nina watching him because he looks up and gives him a painfully fake pageant smile.

Nina smiles back with wide, panicked eyes, gives Brooke a brittle thumbs up (at least that makes Brooke laugh). He wishes he could say that his team would at least do better than Brooke and Vanjie’s - but at this point, barring a miracle from Saint Cracker, he has no idea how that’s going to happen.

He looks down at his script. Works on memorizing the lines now that he knows Blair isn’t gunning for his role (he’s basically got them down already, comes with the territory). He tells himself that he’s lived through situations inconceivably worse than this one (and he really, really has) so no matter what, he doesn’t have to feel like there’s a badger in his chest, savaging his liver. What happens, happens; go big, be kind, etc.

“You’re looking pressed as hell.”

It’s a testament to how distracted Nina is that Monet can slip into the seat beside him without Nina even noticing.

“You don’t have to be. Cracks and Blair are talking it out. Think they’re going to switch roles. How you feeling, Bubble Guns?”

“Um.” The nickname takes him aback a little. He said he didn’t like it, but come on; he likes the fact that Monet is still paying attention to him. Still invested in him. Even if it’s mostly because there’s money and prestige and basically winning another season on the line.

“Don’t get all green on me, girl.” Monet sighs. “You should feel fine. You were… You were killing it in rehearsals, okay? You’re a funny bitch, Nina West. You got this.”

Nina nods. Forces himself to focus on the words on the script in front of him and not the way that his first and last name roll together effortlessly off Monet’s tongue, the way his deep, rich voice wraps around each syllable, caresses it.

“Thanks,” Nina mutters, flipping the edges of his script. “But I don’t know—”

Then Monet pulls the script from his hands, takes Nina’s in his own, lays his hands on top of Nina’s palms, and faces him. Head on.

“That’s the thing we need to stop,” Monet says quietly. “I know you. You run shit in Columbus, Queen Nina West. Where’s that confidence?”

“This isn’t Columbus. It’s different here,” Nina manages to get out, hands burning under the weight of Monet’s on top of his. He won’t be the first to pull away no matter how much he’s tempted, no matter how much of a bad idea this feels like.

Monet tips his head to the side. “It’s as different as you make it. Deep breaths now. We gotta get this anxiety thing under control if you’re gonna win a crown.”

Nina angles his body until he’s facing Monet straight on, then they lock eyes, and Nina lets Monet guide him.

In, out. Nina feels like his heart might pound through his chest.

In, out. Monet’s eyes aren’t just brown, they’re mahogany, notes of purple and maroon and gold in the depths.

In, out. He might imagine it, but Nina thinks he can feel his pulse sync with Monet’s in the same way their breaths are flowing together, a slow beat running through their palms.

In, out. Monet might be leaning closer, but Nina could also just be concentrating way too hard on those eyes that aren’t really brown and the feeling of Monet’s fingers on his and—

“Monet!” It’s Cracker from across the room. Her hands are on her hips, eyes narrowed in a sneer, and Nina clears his throat, effectively ending anything that lingered, dissipating the electricity in the air between him and Monet.

He might be making it up (it’s getting hard to tell what’s real and what he wants to be real as far as Monet is concerned), but Nina would swear that Monet rolls his eyes as he removes his hands from Nina’s and smiles at him. Which… That smile is like Christmas and birthdays and the last day of school and ice cream on the hottest day of the summer all rolled into one. It’s everything.

“Keep working on it,” Monet says, tapping Nina’s script. “And listen, girl: you got this. Okay?”

Nina nods. When Monet says it, it’s almost enough to make him believe it himself.

*****

The mentors are there with Michelle when they get to the soundstage for filming. Nina knows he looks ridiculous in his over the top cheerleader costume, but it makes Monet laugh out loud when he sees him (Nina’s hoping it’s in a good way). The other mentors are sitting beside Michelle too - Trinity waves at Blair, and Trixie is looking down at her phone as usual. She slides it under her thigh as the enter, but the screen lights up almost immediately.

Cracker looks hilarious in her bad-girl outfit with a messy wig and layers of black eyeliner. The role switch is really working for her. Blair’s Born Again camp counselor look is a little understated, and it makes Nina worried – he encouraged her to make it more campy, but Blair was terrified of looking “ugly” and this was their compromise. Whatever, it’s done. Move forward.

“My comedy queens!” Michelle calls out when she sees them. “Look at you! I feel like all of you have that theatre background, right? Or have killed an acting challenge or two, so this should be easy for you all. You feeling confident?”

The three of them share an awkward look. They’d run the lines a few times after the switch, but there hadn’t been a ton of time and, well… Blair had been concerned about memorizing everything after spending all morning focused on the other role. Nina’s fine, Cracker’s fine, but Blair…

“We’re going to do our best,” Nina says instead of answering the question, because – that answer could be played out on-screen so many ways (the cocky team before their downfall, etc.), and he doesn’t want to take the chance. He manages to catch Blair’s eye, though, and tries his best to give her a reassuring grin.

“Okay, well. This is high camp, right in your wheelhouse. And we know it has a special place in Ru’s heart, so make us laugh, okay? You all ready?”

Nina nods and they find their marks. Make ‘em laugh. He can do that.

“Action!”

They start off a bit rocky - Blair nervously rushing through her lines, but at least she remembers them. They have to take the scene from the top, but after that, Nina starts to feel like he’s getting into the groove of it. And then Cracker enters the scene.

“My name’s Graham, and I like girls.” Cracker’s tone is correct. She’s sarcastic and absolutely over it, but Nina gets flustered waiting to see how it will go and misses his cue entirely.

Cracker rolls her eyes and continues, but the rhythm of the scene is off and they never recover. Damn it. Damn it - okay, move on, move forward.

Eventually, they get enough that production will be able to piece together and they move on to the next scene. Wherein Cracker immediately flubs a line. Nina tries to keep his expression neutral, but he sighs before he can help it.

“Cut!” Michelle calls. “Sorry, Cracker, Nina – you two are supposed to have chemistry, right? I’m not feeling any of that.”

Cracker gives Nina a pointed look, and Nina smiles tightly at her.

“Let’s try it again,” Michelle says.

“I can’t be a lesbian, I’m a cheerleader!” Nina wails and Cracker strolls in, smoking her fake cigarette.

They only get a handful of lines in before Michelle is calling “Cut!” again.

“What’s going on here?” she asks, and the set goes completely silent. “Miz Cracker, you’re a funny queen, but you’re coming off flat.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, I’m not the one who’ll be going home if you don’t get it together. Mentors, anything to add?”

Trinity, Trixie, and Monet exchange uncomfortable glances with each other.

“Are you having fun?” Trixie asks after an awkward pause. “Because it doesn’t look like you are. And if you aren’t, no one watching this is.”

Michelle nods. “Right? Trixie, you and Katya always look like you’re having fun together on UNHhhh, and that’s why everyone loves it. Like, we get to watch two people who are just crazy about each other and having a great time. You can’t fake that.”

Nina might imagine it, but it looks like Trixie stiffens - sits straight up in her chair, thin legs crossed at the knee. The foot she was swinging out of habit stops and even as she smiles, tries to look casual, Nina can see that her fingers have curled into tight fists.

“Yeah,” Trixie says slowly. “I mean, we’re best friends so… It’s easy, right? This should be easy. It is easy.”

Monet squeezes Trixie’s knee and glances up at the stage. “Y’all know what you’re doing. All of y’all can act. Just - loosen up.”

“That’s right!” Trinity chimes in. “And Miss St. Clair, from one good Southern girl to another, don’t be afraid to get a little messy. You’re a funny queen, you got this.”

“Just have fun with it,” Michelle reiterates.

Nina nods, accepting the feedback. He isn’t having fun right now, to be honest. Cracker’s looking at him like she might bite his head off, and Blair’s eyes are welling up with tears, and soon enough he’s going to embarrass himself in front of Michelle Visage and a bunch of drag legends - not to mention Monet who he’s totally crazy about -

Oh.

Shit.

That was not a thing he meant to - to think. Or feel. Or - or -

He likes Monet.

Like likes him, like a stupid teenager with a crush.

Oh no.

For all his insistence that their hook-up meant nothing, that he was going to keep his head in the game, Nina is suddenly struck blind with the realization that he’s completed fucked.

And he has this realization on a soundstage as his team is falling apart around him.

Perfect. Wonderful.

“We have enough time for one more take,” Michelle says softly. “Just one. So let’s make it count.”

Nina takes a deep breath and holds it. This cannot be happening right now. He tries to remember where his mark is.

“And action!”

They make it to the end of the scene, where the girl-on-girl kiss is interrupted by Blair only to dissolve into a frantic menage-a-trois. When Michelle finally calls cut, she isn’t smiling. Monet and Trinity look worried as well. Trixie is… Well, she’s gone back to tapping away at her phone, but she forces her lips into a tight smile (that looks more like a grimace) when she surveys them.

“All right, ladies.” Michelle sighs. Tense. Stressed. Like it’s her proverbial life on the line. “Thank you very much. And I really hope you bring it on the runway tomorrow.”

They leave the soundstage feeling - heavy. Down. Unable to stand the air of defeat, Nina instantly goes into mama bear mode.

“It’s fine, Michelle’s hard on everybody. Blair, I think the last take was your best one, and Cracks –”

“Nope, no, do not call me that.” Cracker holds up a hand and shakes her head. “My friends call me that.”

Nina stares at her. This doesn’t feel like the time to squabble over nicknames. “Oh, sorry, I – just got used to hearing Monet say it. I know -”

“Because Monet is my friend,” Cracker says slowly. “So.”

“O-kay.” Nina can’t think of anything else to say right now.

Blair is looking between the two of them in sheer terror, eyes welling up with tears.

“Don’t cry, Blair,” Cracker says, and her tone is rather - pointed. “This whole thing isn’t your fault.”

Nina feels the sting of the comment, and wishes he didn’t.

“Sorry,” he says, as politely as possible, because whatever is going on here, it seems to be ramping up. “Whose fault is it then?”

Cracker holds open her arms in a dramatic shrug.

“Well, you’re the team captain.”

Blair takes a step back. “You guys - let’s just - we’re all feeling stressed so maybe we should -”

Nina holds up a hand. “Actually, I think I’d really like to have this conversation.” He faces Cracker head on. “I’m sorry, and I don’t know why this would be the case, but it kind of feels like you’re angry at me? Like you’ve been angry with me since the first episode.”

“Angry at you?” Cracker rolls her eyes. “No, I don’t feel any way about you whatsoever. I’m just trying to put together the image you present with what I know about you as a person.”

“What do you know about me as a person?” He doesn’t know Cracker at all. How did she somehow get this terrible opinion of him?

“Clearly the Miss Congeniality thing is something you do for television, right? And then when the cameras are off you just walk all over people.”

“I’m -” Nina looks at Blair’s stunned face and then back to Cracker. “I’m sorry, what did I ever do to you?”

“To me? Nothing. But Monet…” Cracker shakes her head. “After everything he told you, it’s low. It’s fucking low.”

“Sorry,” Nina says for the second, third, fourth time, because he cannot believe what he is hearing right now (and Brooke always said he was practically Canadian). “After Monet told me what?”

Cracker’s got to be referring to Nina’s (okay, fine) ghosting of Monet following the finale taping. Monet must have told her about it, and admittedly, it was not Nina’s best moment. But it wasn’t like there had been - feelings or anything involved. At least, not on Monet’s part. It was just a hook-up, right? And any chance for anything else to come of it - well, that’s done. That ship has sailed. And - it’s for the best. Nina’s been telling himself that for weeks, months even. And he really doesn’t want to talk about this right now, not with the newfound understanding of his feelings still ringing in his ears like a gunshot.

“Whatever. This is such bullshit.” Cracker rolls her eyes. “Everyone thinks you’re so great, like ‘Go Big, Be Kind,’ whatever. But you are not. And I didn’t want to get into this, but - Monet deserved better. And after what he said -”

“Look, Cracker.” Whatever happened between him and Monet, whatever Nina feels, there certainly hadn’t been much conversation. They’d both been far too gone on tequila, and their mouths had mostly been… otherwise engaged (don’t think about that, not now). “I honestly have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Monet didn’t tell me anything, so… I’m sorry, I guess, that I’m confused, but I don’t want to argue with you anymore. Do you want to tell me what I’m supposed to know? What you’re so angry about? That would be swell. But if not - I don’t know what to say.” He’s tired of fighting, tired of Cracker’s vitriol. If this is how she’s going to be all season, he isn’t sure a crown and a title and $100,000 is worth it.

Cracker looks up at him, eyes narrowed in distrust and defensiveness.

And then - something changes. Her expression twitches and then - softens at whatever she sees in his face. She looks down briefly, then looks back up.

“He…” She uncrosses her arms, shakes her head. Her entire demeanor changes, eyes going wide like she’s seeing Nina in person for the first time. “Oh my God. Monet didn’t tell you. He didn’t, did he.” It’s not a question; there’s no lilt in her voice, just a sad note of realization.

Nina shakes his head, a bit thunderstruck by what’s going on in front of him.

“He didn’t tell you,” Cracker says again. “That fucking idiot. Oh my God.”

“Well.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him.”

Nina takes a chance, reaches across the distance between them, and takes her hand. “Don’t - do that. Don’t kill anyone.”

Cracker nods, gripping his hand tightly. “This… explains so much actually. Oh my God. Nina.”

“Listen, Cracker, I honestly don’t know what this is about. I don’t -”

“I’m so sorry,” Cracker interrupts him, and all of a sudden she is the charmingly neurotic queen he remembers from Season 10. “For how I’ve acted towards you. It’s… not okay. I can’t believe - I’m just sorry.”

“Thank you,” Nina says sincerely. “That means a lot.”

“And I didn’t mean what I said… About you being not great. I just thought - oh my God, I’m so stupid.”

“Listen.” Nina stops her. “I’m good. We’re good. Let’s - can we start over?” He cranks up the Nina West charm. “‘Cause I’m like such a huge fan.”

Cracker smiles, a bit embarrassed.

“Or at least I was. Before you came for my life.”

This makes Cracker laugh, and she nods. “Starting over sounds good.”

They bring it in for a group hug, mostly because Blair looks like she needs it. Nina takes a moment to fully have an out-of-body experience, because this has been the strangest day he’s had in recent memory. He kind of wants to keep asking Cracker about the whole Monet thing, wants to figure out what he’s meant to know, but - baby steps. He doesn’t want to ruin whatever fragile peace they’ve found for now.

“Does this mean I can call you Cracks?” he asks.

“Fuck off,” Cracker laughs. “But Blair, you’re allowed.”

All the queens grab dinner together that night; craft services sets up something in the conference room, and Nina sits off in the corner with Brooke again - mostly for Brooke’s sake than his own (mostly, mostly he swears). Things with Cracker are better (she gave him a small smile across the table as they filled their plates), but still not entirely comfortable, and Nina thinks it may be best to let the dust settle before he tries to spark a true friendship.

The mentors aren’t there - they went out for dinner together, because they are All Stars and deserve it. Or something (no, but really, they do. They already lived through two seasons, and came out the other side. It’s only episode two and Nina thinks they all should have statues).

Brooke doesn’t seem - great. He’s clearly worried about his team’s performance, fidgeting more than normal, barely eating anything. His eyes are always glancing over Nina’s shoulder at the table where Vanjie’s sitting, and Nina feels a bit like he’s in high school again, hanging out with the cool kid who’d rather be somewhere else.

“And how’d she do?” Nina asks, leaving no doubt as to who he’s talking about.

“Oh, Vanessa? Well, you know. I mean, neither of us are Meryl Streep.” For the first time all evening, Brooke’s mouth curves into a shadow of a smile. And Nina’s heart breaks, just a bit.

It brings him back to his stupid Monet feelings from this afternoon, something he’s been trying to avoid thinking about like it might cause brain cancer. Whatever, it’s fine, it’s fine. Nina has - experience putting these sorts of feelings to the side. He feels a lot, and he’s a crier, all that fun stuff, but - the romantic bits, those are things that can be compartmentalized. He’s had enough hopeless crushes in his life as an ex-Conservative, broad-shouldered, Disney-loving drag queen from Ohio (no shade on Ohio, go Buckeyes) that he’s an expert in unrealized longing.

Grit your teeth and clench your fists until the feeling ebbs.

Sleep doesn’t come easy that night. Nina doesn’t know what the next day will bring, and he’s pretty sure he wasn’t the weakest member of their team, but the final decision isn’t going to be up to the judges. It will be up to his sisters. And hopefully hopefully hopefully he’s endeared himself to at least a few of them, enough to keep him around for another few episodes.

Maybe he’s worrying for nothing, maybe it’ll all be fine. Nina wouldn’t want to see Brooke or Vanjie go home, of course - but at this point being declared ‘safe’ would feel like a goddamn gift. More than he deserves.

When he finally falls asleep, it’s restless, and full of odd dreams. He’s on stage back in Columbus, and Monet is there in the audience, wearing that honey-gold dress from the night of the finale. He’s trying to tell Nina something, Nina can see his lips moving, hands cupped around his mouth, but his voice keeps getting drowned out by the noise of the crowd (when Nina finally wakes with a gasp, Monet’s voice is running through his head like fog, but the words are already lost).

#rpdr fanfiction #nina west #monet x change #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #ninex #eventual branjie #background trixya #canon compliant #all stars au #smut #angst #fix it #how far i'll go #hfig #mia ugly #meggie #on set fic #concrit welcome

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shitpostingfromthebarricade · 6 years

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Actually, in the brick, Grantaire mentions studying at Le Gros which was a really prestigious art school. (Or 'under Le Gros' who was a really famous artist, I don't actually remember, but I know Grantaire + Le Gros = Artistaire) Anyway, why can't he be both? He's already really skilled at pretty much everything else.

I will assume that this is in response to this shitpost:

I always heard Le Gros mentioned in fics, but I never saw any passages, so I look up what you said and found this:

“It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise I would quote to you a mass of things; but I know nothing. For instance, I have always been witty; when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; rapin[24] is the masculine of rapine.” (V3 B4 C4)

(apparently “rapin” is a slang term for “painter’s assistant”–rapine means to violently seize, so it’s a fucking pun about stealing as a painter’s assistant, Vicky you beautiful bastard)

Important takeaway: Nonny is actually right.

And now I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that artist!taire didn’t spring forth from nowhere.

HOWEVER!

I stand by my feelings that artist!taire, particularly paint-covered and messy and smelling of oil paints and linseed oil, is tired–especially in modern AUs. And I will now get on my soapbox and tell you why, because I finally have a platform on which to complain about this.

First and foremost: have you been to an art store? Oil paints and canvas? In this economy??? Traditional is nice and all, but art supplies are expensive. If you’re an artist in this day and age you’re probably doing most of your work digitally: buy your hardware/software once and be done with it (until it breaks at the least convenient time) rather than constantly having to replenish materials as you use them up, easy to carry around and work anywhere, clean…sure, he’s probably still sketching and stuff, maybe doing some paintings or scuptures or fiber arts on the side, but if you’re writing R as a broke graduate just getting by on commissions and barely affording rent and his drinking addiction, he probably can’t also absorb the costs of his art painlessly. And also, who is spending hundreds on the oil paintings of a twenty-something year old? Microtransactions is where it’s at these days.

Secondly, as you point out: he can be both. But most people don’t represent him that way. He has so many talents and skills, but most often he is boiled down to three main traits: his alcoholism, his obsession with Enjolras, and his role as an artist. What about his boxing? His musicality? His dancing? They often get listed in the same breath if they come up and rarely have any bearing on the plot or character progression, not the way his artistry always seems to. And thisnis assuming it’s allowed to be a trait of his without it having to be a full-on AU where every is a dancer or a chef. It’s a convenient crutch, and when you consider all of the other things we know about Grantaire it just feels boring and a little lazy.

Note: I am not saying that artists/writers who portray R as an artist are lazy or bad at what they do. I myself have done it (though jury’s still out on whether I am a lazy or bad writer, to be fair). Tropes exist because they’re fun, because people enjoy them–both creating and consuming. There’s nothing wrong with playing into that.

I just wish that being an artist wasn’t the role R always fell into just because Huge-hoe wanted to set himself for an absolutely terrific pun.

(Sorry Nonny, this isn’t intended toward you with any mailicious feelings–I am really glad that you did point this out to me and feel all the more educated for it. I’ve just been looking for an excuse for this ramble for a long time. Thank you so much for the ask!!)

#most important takeaway is that i finally know where pilf's username comes from #you beautiful texan creature you #am i surprised? no #and i delighted? absolutely #grantaire #artist!taire #thicc bricc #vicky made a pun #les mis #les amis #i'm sorry for how long this got i literally cannot figure out to do the 'click for more below' thing #shitposting @ me #answers and shitposts #baseball bat meets hornet nest

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maggotmouth · 6 years

Text

yo, it’s nora ( gmt, she/her) i’m back on my bullshit. sorry for dropping finn and cecily i jst.... wasn’t feelin very in their headspace.

anyway bridget matusiak is a certified mess™ so have fun with that, she is an angry queer punk(?) maybe altho her identity …. i guess like everyone’s …. is very fluid…. she is very fickle and prone to change….. very impulsive and acts how she feels in the moment a lot i guess….. but also very grounded in her morals and ethics. film nerd. works at bowling alley. shakes hands. says “roger that”. yet somehow very cool™ and hip™. anyway like this or message me for plots. here’s a pinboard if u think those are groovy.

( nora. 23. gmt. she/her. ) it might be HER SOPHOMORE year but I still think BRIDGET MATUSIAK looks exactly like MARGARET QUALLEY and sometimes I think the FEMALE is actually them. Of course I’m wrong, as they're TWENTY and studying FILM while living in AUDAX here at Lockwood. The ARIES can be rather CANDID and GARRULOUS, but also kind of FICKLE and ERRATIC. Their most played song on Spotify was NOBODY REALLY CARES IF YOU DON’T GO TO THE PARTY by COURTNEY BARNETT, so I think that says a lot.

bridget n her mum alice were more like sisters growing up, probably because of the closeness in age. alice should’ve known that you couldn’t have a thirteen-year-old-daughter at 27 without everyone knowing you’d been one of those girls who gave it away fast as a hot potato, and maybe bridget should have known that she’d inherit more than her mother’s wide eyes, that things had a way of circling back, that at fourteen she too would lose it on the floor of a swimming pool changing room, soggy back, poka-dot nylon pulled down to her ankles.

her parents met in high school. her mother alice was a roman catholic -- uneducated in matters of safe sex, mother mary around her neck, bras hanging over wooden crucifixes -- and willing to give it to the first boy who seemed interested enough, gift-wrapped or not.

i say they met in high school, bridget’s dad wasn’t actually in school, they met at the high school. he was the father to a girl down the road. alice knew nothing of the girl besides her name and the few encounters in the corridors facing a stoney stare that screamed homewrecker. it only happened once, but once was enough. soon the pitter patter of tiny feet sounded along the hall of the home for wayward women, alice’s parents having thrown her out as soon as they knew a child was growing in her womb.

gilly (referred to as junior) was born two years later, the son of a mechanic and handyman named gilbert “gilly” senior, who - while a slow-witted man -- was likable enough. alice, gilly bridget & junior lived in a colorado trailer park and whenever she wasn’t at school bridget would be in gilly’s workshop doin her homework surrounded by parts of exhausts. was raised in a workshop basically.

like her mother, bridget fell pregnant barely out of her gingham print dresses, hair in two plaits down her back, teddies still lining her bed. unlike her mum, she was not box-shipped out to a home for fallen women but rather booked into a clinic, given a pill, just like taking your vitamins.

her mother flaked out when bridget was around fifteen and junior was twelve, leaving gil to adopt the two as legal guardian and raise them in the forge. she’s lived with gilly ever since. they’re not sure where their mother went. some say she rededicaed herself as a virgin and joined the convent in penance for her sins. some say she works in a las vegas strip club and sells pills to minors.

a withdrawn child, bridget was selectively mute for 2 years (so girl has perseverance) n during that time her diary became her best friend. when she went mute she communicated exclusively through passive aggressive post it notes.

she’s a strident feminist, an activist for human rights and animal rights, a vocal vegetarian and an all-round soapbox sadie. catch her in the quad shouting about human rights through a megaphone.

aesthetic: cuffed jeans, thrifted or stolen. white converse, more grey tbh through years of wear. crop tops and plaid shirts tied round her waist. a long green trench coat with loads of badge pins for alt-rock bands and independent films. red denim jacket, also covered in badges n pins. smudged mascara. glitter smeared over cheekbones from the previous night. cigarette smoke shrouding you like a veil, the red string of a thong peaking out purposely from jeans, roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your dad wouldn’t take you, kate moss posters lining the walls of a teenage bedroom, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

an aspiring screenwriter. she has a very image-based view of memory and experience. always doing a screenplay or shooting film. her style has a lot of catholic iconography (think virgin suicides styler or baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet if it was done on a super 8 camera) bcos catholicism is one of the few things she remembers about her mother. she’s never actually tried to find her mum / find out about her, jst…. occasionlly channels that energy into her work.

hypersexual and kinda manic-deppressive (though not diagnosed) probs bcos her upbringing was a bit unstable, she started life in a house that was literally designed to rehabilitate “fallen women” and she was a looked after child for a while when the adoption papers were still going through... struggles a lot with feeling unwanted, especially since her grandparesnts refuse to acknowledge her existence cos she was born outside of marriage..... so she craves feeling wanted,, like despite being a real women’s rights activist ad hating objectification, at the same time to bridge there’s nothing better than someone sizing you up with hunger in their eyes

she’s queer, but i guess she favours women, and is incredibly vocal in her support of the lgbt+ movement. often at ralleys. has done a face-sitting protest. really is that bitch

there’s a degree of anger for anger’s sake in bridget. she likes passionate, angry music – particularly garage rock, punk and riot grrrl. she loves the slits and skinny girl diet. viv albertine inspired her to take up bass guitar.

working two jobs to pay for uni currently !! works at the bowling alley polishing the shpes and fixing the bowling lanes, and also is a burger flipper at mcdonalds. a lot of her time is spent in the record store, plugged into a set of headphones, head-banging in the corner to a scratched record. music, for birdie, is a form of escapism. that and dropping acid in parking lots lmao.

massive film buff. is majoring in film at uni also spends a lot of time at the movie theatre n probably has like a season ticket. is one of those pretentious film nerds who’s like “what do u think of goddard’s work?” but also just really into shitty horror movies

she spends her evenings in downtown bars willing away her boredom, trying to find something that’ll jerk her out of apathetic lethargy. she toys with the idea of becoming a stripper — it certainly pays better than fixing bowling lanes — but she lacks the energy to dance for several hours a night.

she loves b movies and slasher flicks. at parties, she’ll occasionally try to make a horror of her own, on a super 8 camera in someone’s basement, very paranormal activity, but she’ll inevitably get bored, or too drunk and give up, like she does with most things in her life. she lacks drive and motivation. she’s bright but there’s no hunger in her.

writes shitty poems on the back of napkins and quotes dead philosophers she’s never read. romanticises herself a lot. like will be standing there in a ripped t-shirt and her undies smoking a cig like “hmmm… i bet someone is falling in love with me right now”

is vegetarian for environmental reasons but snorts coke at parties ?? sis, it don’t add up

loves dirt. ate a worm once because someone dared her too. shamelessly disgusting.

she’s slightly obsessed with true crime, up late watching documentaries on the manson family murders.

she’s fickle and enigmatic. one moment she could be your best friend, the next, she’ll behave like a total stranger. bridget’s unpredictable because she’s still unsure of her own identity, frequently flitting between different characters, like snake skins, before she grows bored of being bubbly and eager and becomes spiteful again. her core personality traits are probably forthright, impulsive, restless, thrill-seeking, selfish, melancholic.

an awful person, really

feel free to im me if u wanna plot, here are some plot ideas i stole, or, like this post and i’ll hit u with a message!

#tw hypersexuality #lw:intro #tw drugs

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skamremakesfromhell · 6 years

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i don’t think shaming people for not watching a certain remake is gonna help get anyone to actually watch said remake :/

promoting what those people would like about the show over saying a big fuck you to them for not watching it yet will probably get more people interested,,,,,,, you know just a thought

like lmao i’m someone that has been watching all of them and posting about all of them and encouraging people to watch all of them but when i see posts calling people out in a negative way for not talking about/watching them enough i just kinda shut down? like i’m sorry, i’m sorry i’m not doing enough, but the thing is i know those posts aren’t directed at me! i’m not the one they’re trying to shame! but they are! i feel upset and think what is the point? i didn’t come into this tag to feel bad about this show i’m watching. i came to see what’s new! what new things people are talking about and creating!

and i know it fucking sucks to know that whether or not a show you really really like will be able to continue is entirely out of your hands because you’re doing everything you can! its other people that have to put in some effort and you can’t force them to do that! this kinda reminds me of voting lol, are you more likely to get people out to the polls by saying they suck if they don’t vote?! no lmao you get them out by getting them to believe in a certain candidate and just as importantly believe that their vote has an impact, you can’t rally behind just “you’re a bad person if you don’t vote” you rally behind “every vote matters and you can help create change”

like so many more people started watching/liking skam nl because people started promoting it because it really needed more views, how good it was and that it might not get s2 unless views go up! and so people that had been apathetic before, people that were thinking “i’ll get around to watching it later” decided “oh i should go ahead and watch it now to help out”

anyway i don’t know why or how this turned into a soapbox and like idk i get this is kinda just how internet tone/speech has developed but idk man ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#mine #i dont care to tag even tho i prob should #just posts hating on people for being apathetic make me feel like being more apathetic #but maybe thats just the depression talking

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leviohhsa · 7 years

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When I Get Home - Wolfstar Fic

AO3

Chapter 1 (of 4)

“Sirius, where are you?” James’ voice crackled over the phone.

“Um, well… I might be in the city, in an alley out back of a concert,” Sirius winced as he said this, preparing for the onslaught of James’ disguised worry.

He took a deep breath and leaned against the concrete wall.

“And, you couldn’t tell anyone? You’ve been gone for three days, mate. We’ve been worried about you. Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” Sirius could hear James’ anger just beneath the surface of his concern.

He knew he couldn’t tell James the truth. He couldn’t explain that he was suffocating in the apartment with him and Lily. That his days working at the record store were beginning to drag and make his hands itchy. That he had been drinking a little bit more every weekend, getting a little more fucked up each time. Truth be told, Sirius didn’t know what was wrong or why things were getting bad again.

“I just… I needed to get out. I’m sorry, Prongs.”

He could hear James sigh over the phone, “Okay, well, when are you coming home?”

Sirius knew he couldn’t hide any longer. He’d have to return sooner or later. Jumping from bar to bar and spending each night with a different guy was beginning to take a toll on him, anyways. He’d never admit it but, he had missed his friends.

“I’ll be home later tonight. See you then.”

“Okay. And, Padfoot?” James voice got quieter.

“Yeah, mate?”

“Be careful.”

It was three in the morning when Sirius slowly opened the front door to the tiny apartment he shared with Lily and James. Someone had left the small kitchen light on, presumably for him. As he began his way down the hallway towards his bedroom, he heard a noise. Sirius backtracked, peeking into the living room to find Remus Lupin fast asleep on the couch. His knees were brought up to his chest and his hair was sticking up in every direction, seemingly defying gravity. Sirius sat down on the floor, his back leaning against the couch. He knew he shouldn’t wake him, he looked so peaceful but Sirius couldn’t help it. He looked equally uncomfortable.

Sirius shook Remus’ shoulder, “Moony… Wake up… Come on, you can sleep in my bed, I’ll take the couch… Moony.”

Remus’ eyes slowly opened, his pupils trying to become accustomed to the dark.

“Sirius? You’re home. Thank god. I was-I was so worried about you.” Remus mumbled.

“I know, I know. Why the hell are you out here on this couch? You should have slept in my room. You’re way too tall for this rubbish thing. You would have been so sore in the morning,” Sirius laughed at Remus’ expression as he finally stretched his legs.

“I knew you would wake me up when you got home,” and then under his breath, “well, if you got home.” Remus allowed Sirius to take his hand and hoist him up off of the couch.

“I said I would come home and I did. Now, let’s get some sleep,” Sirius voice deepened with authority.

The two tired boys made their way down the hall to Sirius’ bedroom. He flung open the door, not turning on the light as Remus plopped down, instantly pulling the covers over his head. Sirius peered through the darkness. There were still glasses and beer bottles lined up on his dresser, the room smelled stale from being left alone for an extended period, and there were at least three pairs of dirty boxers stuffed up against the wall next to his hamper. If Remus had been fully awake and functioning, Sirius would be enduring Remus’ favorite lecture. James called it the “Mama Remus’ Soapbox” and Sirius endured it at least once a week.

However, Remus was already beginning to fall back asleep. He looked exhausted. The worry lines in his face were just beginning to fade as his breathing got slower. Sirius looked at his dear friend and immediately felt guilty. How could he have left his friends to worry so much? Why didn’t he just tell them what he was doing or where he was going? Most importantly, what stopped Sirius from voicing his feelings? He knew that although their friendship was mostly based around fun times and jokes, none of his closest friends would hesitate to lend an ear or a helping hand.

When James and Lily broke up for a short period of time a few summers ago, James was a complete and utter wreck. The whole group had stopped at nothing to put him back together (including watching “ Dirty Dancing” for two weeks straight while James pretended not to cry.) When Remus got diagnosed with depression last autumn and couldn’t get out of bed for a week, Sirius had come over and stayed at his apartment. He watered his plants and made sure that Remus ate, even dragging him into the bathroom, putting him the shower fully clothed, and washing his hair. They had all been there when Peter’s mom died, accompanying him to the funeral and making sure he could say a proper goodbye. Sirius had watched as Remus had scooped Lily up off the ground when she had had her first panic attack. They were no strangers to each other’s issues.

Sirius rubbed his eyes as the exhaustion of his latest bender washed over him. He looked longingly at the empty side of his bed, not wanting to curl his long legs up onto that god-awful couch. He knew Remus wouldn’t care, they had slept in the same bed more times than he could count. But that was all before Sirius had come out. He didn’t know if things were different now that Remus knew he was gay. At this point, he didn’t care, he just wanted to sleep.

Sirius, not even bothering to change, crawled under the covers and let out a deep sigh.

“Sirius, are you okay?” A small whisper came from deep within the blanket.

Sirius was taken aback, thinking that Remus had been sound asleep. He didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t want to lie anymore.

“Not really, Moony,” He whispered back, matter-of-factly.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Sirius sighed, just admitting that he wasn’t okay was enough for tonight.

He just needed someone to know. Someone to cling onto when his brain was swirling around in outer space.

Without thinking about it, he reached out his hand and found Remus’ underneath the sheets. He held onto it, wrapping his fingers tightly around Remus’ warm hand. When Remus stayed silent and didn’t hold onto him back, Sirius quickly slid his hand out from his.

“I’m sor-“ Sirius began.

“S’okay,” Remus mumbled breathlessly, taking Sirius’ hand back into his own, this time, holding on tightly.

“I get it.” Remus stated, before dozing off to sleep.

Sirius slept better than he had in months.

********

When Sirius woke up the next morning, he was alone. He blearily rubbed his eyes and tried to adjust to the sunlight streaming through his curtains. He looked around and noticed that there were no longer any beer bottles or glasses on his dresser, his dirty laundry was tucked away in his hamper, and the window was open a crack, bringing fresh air into the room. Sirius smirked.

He stretched, letting out a big yawn and piled his mess of long, unwashed, black hair on the top of his head in a bun. He reached for his phone, which he assumed Remus had plugged in for him because he sure as hell didn’t last night. Remus J Lupin: Angel on Earth, Sirius thought as he unlocked the screen. It was 12:30 in the afternoon and he had five unread text messages, two missed calls, and one voicemail. Sirius knew he couldn't deal with all of that before coffee.

He crawled out of bed, finally feeling how dirty his body actually was. He had mud all over his jeans and he reeked of cigarettes and cheap beer. After three days, he longed for a warm shower.

"Look who's home!" A sharp voice sounded from the kitchen as Sirius came out of his bedroom.

Lily, who had probably been up for hours, was brewing a pot of coffee. Her fiery hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was wearing her gym clothes, her sneakers still unlaced.

Sirius sneered at her, "Ugh, how can you possibly even consider going to the gym at this hour?" He took the mug of coffee she offered him.

"Sirius, it's almost one in the afternoon. And, you don't work out at any hour," she retorted.

Sirius rolled his eyes, dismissing the fact that she was right and took a big gulp of coffee.

Lily looked at him with disgust, "What I don't get it how you can drink that black. I need at least three sugars before I can even think of drinking it."

"Not all of us are weak, Evans," Sirius smirked.

Lily, not drinking any coffee herself, opened the fridge and pulled out a protein shake.

"So, Remus slept in your room last night? I caught him leaving this morning." There was an insinuation in her tone.

"Yes, because that god-awful couch you bought at the flea market is the equivalent of sleeping on rocks and there was no way I was letting him take the 3AM bus. He's too fragile."

"Sirius... Do you like him?" Lily was not one to beat around the bush.

He was baffled.

"No! The scrawny ones aren't my type. However, if your boyfriend keeps bulking up, you better watch out." Sirius downed the rest of his coffee and made his way to the shower.

Sirius stood underneath the hot water for far too long, letting it turn his skin pink. He imagined the past three days washing off of him. All the different bars, all the different guys. He closed his eyes and imagined each touch of the skin being erased by the steam that was quickly surrounding him.

But not last night, he thought.

Wait, what?

Sirius' brain halted and his eyes opened.

Yes, he held Remus' hand but that was out of friendship. It didn’t mean anything. Remus was just reaching out to him and letting him know that he wasn't alone. There was nothing more to it! It was just Lily interfering with his thoughts. He could never have any sexual feelings for someone that ironed his socks.

Sirius shook the thoughts out of his head as he turned the shower off and got out. He stood in front of the fogged up mirror, his towel wrapped around his waist. He brought his finger to the mirror and wrote, “Sod off, Evans” in the center of a poorly-drawn heart. He smiled at his handiwork.

He staggered into his now-clean room and made sure to throw his dirty laundry into the hamper as to avoid Mama Remus’ Tirade. He tugged on a fresh pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt. He put his hair back into a bun and stared into his dusty bedroom mirror. He looked like trash and he did not care.

Sirius had almost forgotten that it was a Wednesday night. When they all graduated, it quickly became apparent how hard it was to keep in touch. So, James and Lily decided that it was time to establish a Family Dinner Night. Now, every Wednesday night, the whole gang comes over and Remus and Lily try to make an edible dinner. Approximately an hour later, James orders take out.

Sirius hadn't realized what day it was until Remus Lupin walked through the front door with grocery bags and his heart skipped a beat.

Shit.

#considering bringing this back?#thoughts?#fanfiction #harry potter fanfic #hp fanfic #when i get home #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfic #sirius #sirius black #remus #remus lupin #lupin #marauders #jily

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raindropsonroses123 · 7 years

Text

ScotSwap Entry

@fandom-frenzy

Hello! I was your person for scot swap and here is my story! It's not very good at all (and sort of late), for which I'm sorry, but I hope you like it!! :P I decided to use your camping prompt, although tbh I’m not sure exactly what is going on, I just went with it. Enjoy <33

Much thanks to @kerowyn-ankh for organizing this whole thing!<3

Thanks to @penguins-united for editing!

September 2016 A.D.

Virginia

It was, Jerrot thought, an insipidly delightful trip. The weather was glorious, the food decent, and everyone was sort of getting along. The only bad thing about the entire adventure was that it was so short. Despite his best efforts and intentions, Jerrot was rather enjoying himself.

He was even beginning to forget why he was so gloomy in the first place. It had been one of the vicious arguments he was always having with Lymond, probably about Marthe or Gabriel or Philippa or politics or religion or whatever stupid comment one of them had made. Afterwards Jerrot always felt a little mixed up, as though a hurricane had swept through all his carefully organized thoughts and principles and left them in disarray.

He sighed, resigned to cheerfulness, and went off smiling to look for Archie.

In his subsequent search he found himself looking all around camp. Adam had also mysteriously disappeared, but Fergie Hoddim and Randy Bell were passionately arguing about the proper way to make s'mores. Or, at least, that was how the argument had started; at some point it had shifted to the Mexican-American war and then to the affect oil prices had on the economy. Either way, they were neglecting their one task, which was to build the fire.. Lancelot Plummer (Jerrot had tried to think of him simply as Lancelot once, and it was just wrong. He was the sort of person who needed two names) had taken over, which was lucky, because he actually knew how to build a fire.

Lymond, who had organized their expedition into the terrifying world of northern Virginia camping grounds, was supposed to be getting out the ingredients for s'mores. Or building tents. Jerrot was positive he was supposed to be doing something. Instead, he was sitting on a big blue cooler Hercules brought, plucking away beautifully and maddeningly at a guitar and humming Neil Young songs under his breath. Lymond was consistently the most beautiful and maddening person in a group, Jerrot thought. It did not help that Jerrot was positive Lymond wasn't really as unthinking as he seemed. He probably had a great scheme in his head for the rest of them to carry out.

Meanwhile..

Archie and Adam had been gathering firewood by the little creek. "Had been" because Archie had declared that it was pointless to gather firewood and had tried to convince Adam to wade in the stream and catch minnows. Archie knew a lot about minnows. Adam let himself be distracted, reluctantly at first, and then enthusisastically, as he felt the sun beam down and the lovely weather whittled away at his resolve, until he was happily picturing landscapes to sketch and listening to Archie prattle on about squirrels.

The sun sank resolutely behind the trees as they wandered along the path. Adam realized suddenly that it was quite dark, his bad leg was aching, and he had no idea where they were.

“Archie? We aren’t lost, are we?” he said.

“Ohh” said Archie. He was probably the only person in the world who could say ‘oh’ in such a disapproving and decidedly Scottish tone of voice. “Oh. No. Not really. Just a wee bit, maybe,”

“Glad to hear it,” said Adam flatly.

Later…

“Has anyone laid eyes on Fergie or Adam?” said Lymond commandingly. He was standing on the cooler now, like a politician on a soapbox.

Jerrot was trying very hard not to roll his eyes.

Fergie coughed discreetly. “I believe they were looking for firewood,”

“That was an hour ago,” said Lymond coldly. “And neither brought a cell phone. Well. Everybody grab flashlights. We’ll meet back here in half an hour. Fergie and Randy, you go to the creek, I’ll go to the path, Lancelot, watch the camp. Jerrot, you head south to the lake,”

He sprung down from the cooler like a cat, and ran off to get flashlights. There was a brief silence, all too familiar an experience after some of Lymond’s declarations.

Jerrot scoffed, loudly. “It’s like he thinks we’re at war, or something,” he said. “The woods aren’t even that big,”

The others nodded sympathetically and agreed with him, but went about their respective tasks anyway. He was half-tempted to simply declare he was going to stay at camp, but it was getting sort of dark. And perhaps he wasn’t ready to face Lymond’s verbal whiplash again...

It took an hour or so of stumbling about in the woods until Jerrot found Archie and Adam. Adam was sitting on a rock, bored out of his mind, his leg aching. Archie, on the other hand,was extremely energetic. After realizing they were lost, he had apparently chugged a few powerful energy drinks he had packed. He said it always pays to be prepared. He didn’t respond when Jerrot asked why he didn’t bring a cell phone.

“What’s going on, then?” he had asked instead, pretending not to hear.

“Lymond’s been organizing search parties,” said Jerrot, resigned. “I think he’s rather enjoying himself,”

Another hour or so later, and the stars were out and ridiculously bright. Archie and Adam had prepared to face a lecture by Lymond, but he had taken pity on them- probably because Adam looked pathetic as a kicked puppy and Archie was still bouncing around like a monkey on steroids. Fergie was carefully toasting marshmallows and Archie was eating them amid his bouts of spontaneous dancing. Randy and Lancelot Plummer were listening to Adam tell a ghost story. Jerrot, bored by the idea of dead people and phantoms, and spurred on by some alien self-destructive impulse, sat down cross-legged by the fire next to Lymond, who was staring at it darkly.

He had been going to say something to provoke a fight, or to apologize, but all he managed was a rather lame comment on how nice and useful the fire was.

“For the night is dark and full of terrors..” said Lymond.

Jerrot blinked. “Was that a game of thrones reference?”

“Yes, Jerrot, it was,” said Lymond lightly. “Now how can I help you?”

“I’m not always trying to start a fight, you know!” said Jerrot. “Maybe I just wanted to make conversation!”

“Sorry,” lied Lymond, grinning. “Enjoying yourself?”

“I don’t know,” said Jerrot. “Camping is nice, but don’t you ever feel small, looking at the stars?”

“Bright star, would I were as steadfast as thou art, not in lone splendour hung aloft the night…” said Lymond. “Not really. I’ve always felt a little too important, frankly,”

Jerrot turned to him with something bitter on his lips about arrogance, but Lymond was, for once, laughing, and without reason, Jerrot was suddenly laughing too.

He was still planning on being melancholy and sulky, but then Fergie caught a marshmallow ablaze, and nearly burned an outraged Archie, and Adam very nearly had to stop a brawl, while Lancelot Plummer was laughing so hard he could hardly speak. Lymond sprang up from his seat, eyes sparkling, and Jerrot wondered with a sinking feeling if he was going to make some speech about taking themselves seriously and ruin their fun. But instead, Lymond picked up his ridiculous guitar once more, and began to strum. Archie, high on the twin pagan gods of caffeine and gatorade, began to sing in a surprisingly operatic voice.

Yes, thought Jerrot with a strange feeling he thought might be contentment, he was enjoying himself.

#im rly sorry this is late!#and also not v good #i hope u like it anyway!#my writing #lymond #scotswap #thanks to penguins united for editing #the lymond chronicles

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bmgmw · 8 years

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did you see they abandoned ahca?

Yep! Thank God. The AHCA (American Healthcare Act) was a bunch of baloney. To think that the GOP has been bitching about “repeal and replace Obamacare/ACA!!!!!” for 6-7 years and this shit was the best they could come up with? Talk about embarrassing.

I’m not saying the ACA was perfect. It wasn’t even close. It had a lot of flaws, but I think it needed to be edited more than repealed and replaced. For the most part, the ACA (aka Obamacare) has been a net positive thing for healthcare coverage (so many people who weren’t even eligible for insurance now are).

The AHCA literally just keeps some of the ACA (staying on parents’ insurance until age 26, people with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage, etc) but takes the rest and sets it in a dumpster fire. Like under Obamacare/ACA, insurers could not charge the elderly more than 3 times what they charge younger adults, but under AHCA, insurers could charge the elderly up to 5x the amount they charge younger adults!! (I literally cannot fathom even one way someone could spin this as a good thing). Or the GOP��s weird obsession with the Health Savings Accounts, as if increasing the amount of families eligible and the amount a family can put in one (from $6750 now to $13100 w/ AHCA) is gonna be some magical fix. HSAs are a nice tax-free bonus, but doubling what I can put in one doesn’t help make medical expenses or insurance more affordable. And I’m on the higher end of the middle class who could probably afford to put some money in one (I don’t have one, since with the ACA, only some people with exchange based insurers are eligible to have HSAs, and my insurance isn’t through the ACA exchange). So if you’re a lower middle class family struggling to pay for insurance and everything else in life, where exactly does the GOP think these families are going to find the extra funds to put into an HSA? Like if comes down to paying rent/food or putting money in an HSA, obviously the former comes first.

The AHCA just makes it so clear that the GOP has no fucking clue what the average American is like (to be fair, I don’t think a lot of Dems do either, but at least they make some attempts to). Or healthcare costs or how Americans use healthcare or what their constituents want. Think about that revision they had added to AHCA about how able bodied Medicaid patients should have to show they’re employed in order to get covered by Medicaid. That is such a slippery slope. Exactly how does one define able bodied? Would my Medicaid patient with some cognitive impairments and generalized weakness be considered able bodied because she can walk (even though said impairments making employment not possible/very difficult)? And what about the mentally ill? My mother was able bodied but mentally ill for most of my childhood, to the severity that she couldn’t work. Would someone like her get rejected from Medicaid coverage because she was technically able bodied but not working?

AHCA is just poorly thought out. I am all for healthcare reform. I think Obamacare has major flaws, yes. One example: while the mandating of employers w/ more than 50+ employees to provide coverage seems like a good thing (more people should get covered, right?), there’s loopholes employers will use to avoid it. I.E. reduce hours of employees so they’re working just below FT hours. Since they’re not technically FT, they aren’t eligible for benefits, and these people get effed over (like yes, they can get insurance through the marketplace instead, but their dependents can’t….but insurance via employers will cover dependents). Another healthcare flaw (not necessarily ACA specific, but the healthcare system in general)? Inefficiency and waste. We have pharmaceutical companies who jack up the costs of drugs that they have already recouped the cost of (and then some), over billing practices in hospitals, inefficient insurance claim processing, etc etc. In my own corner of the health care world (therapy/rehab in in patient rehab and long term care), I can think of plenty of things that are inefficient and not helping to keep costs down. A big one is discharge planning. I’ve had too many people cut from therapy early by their insurance (and therefore requiring additional assistance for safe discharge home, which leads to them spending more $$). And the crazy thing is, the people who read the therapy updates we send the insurance companies, aren’t clinicians or even healthcare professionals. So if on paper, to this non-clinical personnel, it looks like the patient is plateauing (even if in actuality they’re not) or if it looks like on paper they’re doing *too* well (even if they still need more therapy in actuality), they’ll get cut from therapy. It drives me bonkers. And inefficient d/c planning leads to higher prevalence of people being re-admitted to hospitals and rehab (aka more costs that could’ve been avoided….)

On the long term care (nursing home) side of things, there are patients who get put on therapy who don’t really need it (so more waste of $$). As an evaluating clinician, I put my foot down (it’s my professional license on the line after all, I’m not putting someone on therapy unjustified) and prevent this. But I know there’s plenty of Medicare fraud out there in the LTC world….

Anyway, I could go on and on about the issues of the healthcare system and how we do need reform in both the system itself and in insurance, but then I’ll *really* be on my soapbox lol.

But regardless, the AHCA was not the “reform” we needed. So thank heavens they’re not voting it through.

Sorry for this soapbox-y rant, but healthcare is an important topic for me (as both an individual consumer and an employee in the industry).

#non gmw

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aprilsimpsonhunt-blog · 7 years

Text

*This post may contain a few affiliate links, depending on whether I feel up to finding them or not. I’m trying to hurry a bit, as I have chaffeuring duties to attend to, as well as mountains of laundry and dishes. 🙂

Hi all! Hope this post finds your well! Welcome, or welcome back, depending on how you found me. Either way, I’m glad you’re here!

This post is going to serve as a catch up post. While I love to sew and love to share, I have kids a fairly busy life, which means that often, things don’t get shared. I’m really tired of looking at my pretties and realizing I didn’t share them. Sewing, for me, is all about the tangible item/reward that comes from it, as well as the feeling of having completed something. Lord knows, nothing else in this house ever feels like it’s really “completed”. (Laundry or dishes, anyone? They go on for days when you have 4 kids!)

To be honest, I’m a little lost on where to start. I’ve been sewing up a storm lately! I suppose I’ll begin with the shirts i sewed up for my Duchess skirt blog tour post. I was a little nervous, as it was my first blog tour/colab, so I made several items…although looking back, i should have sewn up more than one skirt, since the focus was that. (To be fair: I’ve been dealing with a fabric budget cut back, though. all i currently have to work with is my small stash & my linen closet. The skirt called for more than 2 consecutive yards of fabric, and I just didn’t have it. 😦 )

***You may notice that the images in this post are a little different than usual. For one, I’ve begun doing most of my photography on my own and the learning curve is HUGE. Also, I have a friend who just recently had a scare from a company stealing her images and using them for profit, so my watermark is now in the middle. Sorry in advance if it takes away from the aesthetic. You can never be too safe. I have updated my Terms of use/privacy policy and you can find it by clicking the main menu!***

So, without too much ado, I give you my first shirt (which ended up being my favorite). I used the free Key West Tank PDF pattern from New Horizons Designs. This is one of my favorite woven patterns. It’s a tank with a looser fit and features bands on the neck and armholes (I suppose you could bind them if you REALLY wanted to…but who has time for that? lol) . There is a crop length and full tunic length. It would also be really easy to take the tunic length and extend it, if you wished to have a swing style dress. If you were to do so, you would probably want to use something with a bit more drape than I used, though!

For my version, I took the pattern in my size and used this gorgeous stretch woven Stretch lace from Fabric Mart Fabrics. I received both as part of a mystery apparel box. I love those things! 6 yards for 10 bucks and I have NEVER been disappointed! (more on this another day!) I was originally going to just use the lace for the top, but hadn’t worked with stretch lace before (gasp!), so I wasn’t sure how the bands would work. I was also worried about how “finished” it would look, since I don’t use a serger (another shock, right? I did say I’m on the tightest budget ever. 🙂 )

So instead of cutting it to fit the top of the pattern to just above the bust (the middle of the armcyse), adding seam allowance and doing the reverse for the blue fabric…I cut a whole front and back bodice from the stretch woven, then just the top part from the lace. I folded it down over the bodice, RST, stitched a straight line (with a super tiny seam allowance) across the bodice, right where it would hit above thebust, then folded it back up and sewed the 2 bodice pieces together at the shoulders, then up the sides (like normal). The small amount I lost by not accounting for SA didn’t make a huge difference, as the lace stretched a lot more easily than the woven and it wasn’t hard to make it fit. If I did it again, I would probably do it a lot more technically, but I was in a rush. 🙂

So that was that. I could have just stopped there, but being the ADD/OCD person that I am I decided I may not even like that shirt. (It was pretty hard to getthe lace detail to show up on my point and shoot camera, after all.) So off I went, to find more fabric and another pattern.

Of couse, when you’re sewing and designing things in a rush, you tend to reach for those things that you’re most comfortable with. The Mama Cassie pattern by Made for Mermaids is definitely one of mine. In fact, one of my very first posts was made about the Mama Cassie. My writing and sewing styles have both changed since then. I also like to believe my photography has gotten a bit better (i.e.: my 4 year old no longer holds my camera for me), but you can be the judge and read it here.

I used this super lush DBP that was from Joann’s fabrics, but I purchased it via a destash page on Facebook for $2.50. It has been in my stash for awhile now and I’ve been staring it down lately, knowing that I wanted to turn it into a fall piece. I used the Mama Cassie cold shoulder bodice and 3/4 length sleeve pieces and constructed it as a top by lengthening the bodice by 2.5″ in front and in back. To be honest, I’m long waisted which means I typically have to lengthen peplum bodices at least this much normally, anyway. So it would have been great to lengthen it by more, or to add a band….but alas, I only had about 3/4 of a yard of fabric. I was amazed to have gotten the top out of it to begin with! I love the bright colors, mixed with the softness of the fabric. I can’t wait to see this piece, along with the rest of my fall wardrobe. (getting there one piece at a time!)

If you can’t tell from the Duchess skirt, key west top and Mood dress that I’ve made…I’ve had a big penchant for wovens this summer. Last summer, I had a pair of shorts that I bought at target that quickly became my favorite pair. I don’t know about you, but when something is my favorite, I quickly WEAR IT TO DEATH! I must have worn those shorts every other day last summer. So, needless to say, this summer when I pulled them out, I realized they were beginning to fall apart a bit. I began looking for a pair just like them, but everything was either too short, made of knit, or just not my style. (I’m 5’3″ so “board shorts” look like I’m trying to wear capris unsuccessfully. lol) These shorts had a front and back yoke, were made from woven material and were fitted in all th right places, but loose in others. They looked great on and didn’t make me look to much like a church mom OR a mom who is trying to look like a teenager.

Because of this, when Rebecca Page of Mummykins and Me released her Berry Bubble Shorts, I knew it was fate. They resembled my favorite shorts so much it was uncanny. They can be made bubble style or straight style, with a large or small yoke, with several different lengths, finishings, etc. Basically, a perfect pattern for shorts. I would venture a guess to say that they would even come out cute in a stable knit fabric! I intend to try, anyway!)

Indoor pictures with my Fujifilm Finepix 3280 camera are still a little difficult. You can tell here that my ISO was turned up too high, resulting in the “noise” that you see. Another lesson for another day. At least I’m learning, right?

The shorts are available in girls sizes as well as womens and you can bundle them via her site. (Psssst: she may also have some great coupon codes to try a few dress patterns for free, if you join the Mummykins and Me facebook group!) I’m a big fan of Rebecca’s patterns, as everything fits in a very specific niche that she has never waivered from. She definitely has her own style and it fits along with mine quite nicely. She also has a great section of “curvy & plus size sewing patterns” and I love how she keeps the patterns relavant accross the board and available for ALL body types. The beauty in sewing is being able to make pretty things for yourself that fit you well and make you look your best, so I believe designers who leave out these sizes do themselves and the sewing community a great disservice.

This was one of my sons favorites, he said. I’ve never known him to get excited about me sewing something for myself, yet he loved these shorts!

But let me hop down off that soapbox! The fabric I used for the shorts was another from my mystery apparel Fabric Mart box. It was some sort of tweed, I’m guessing (?) and I had envisioned it as either a pencil skirt or pants, but it ended up being perfect for these shorts! I’m still not sure how I feel about the poofiness of the bubble style, so I may go back in and remove the bands from the bottom, then just hem. I love that I can keep my options open!

Obviously, I struggle with top overlaod, as right after the shorts, I jumped back into making another top. This time, the new women’s Hera Blouse had been released from Wardrobe by Me, and I loved the look of it!

The Wardrobe by Me patterns are lovely contemporary pieces that fit together so well, they can help you build a capsule wardrobe. I love that so much thought has gone into the aesthetic of it. Stephanie, the designer, has developed “wardrobe builder” pieces that include such basics as tops, pants, jackets, etc. Then there are other pieces that mix and match with the bases to build a wardrobe that is unique and beautiful! This was my first time sewing up one of her patterns and I’m officially a fan.

The pattern itself was well written, the instructions are on point and thorough and the blouse goes together very quickly. The only thing I may have done differently would be to use a less stiff woven. This one has absolutely no drape and the pattern specifically mentions that you should go with drapey fabrics. Rebel that I am…I quickly figured out why, as without a belt, this top resembles a very beautiful scrub top. 🙂 (hence the full on outfit pics 🙂 ) Don’t forget to join the Wardrobe by Me Facebook group for support and to see all the other new patterns coming out! I know I’m definitely excited to have another designer to keep an eye on!

I believe the Hera blouse will be a welcome edition to any end of summer or beginning of fall wardrobe. I can just picture it with a plain white long sleeved shirt underneath and it’s practically beggin to be worn with boots and belt, as I’ve shown! Bonus, for those of us who still have kids attached to our boobs constantly nurse, you can keep the front wrap piece unsewn and voila! easy access! (although I’m not sure my milk monster needs her access to be made easier, seeing as she loves to flash me around! ha!) 🙂 I’m sure it would be excellent for a new mama, however! 🙂

Without dragging on forever, I will say that I have a few more things I have made recently, but as pictures are now a ton of work for me, I haven’t photographed them yet! I am very excited to share the new tests and things I’ve sewn up, though, so keep your eyes peeled! Among my favorites, a little boys hoodie, some zombie fabric, ironing board cover, thread catcher and some fun felt animal embellishments!

I’ll be back again soon! thank so much for reading!

Until next time,

Sewin’ and Swimmin’,

April Simpson-Hunt

Catching up: Projects lost in the shuffle of the #momlife *This post may contain a few affiliate links, depending on whether I feel up to finding them or not.

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wellmeaningshutin · 8 years

Text

Short Story #60: Parents.

Written: 3/8/2017

-There’s no way your kid is more fucked up than mine is, do you know all the shit I went through as a kid? There’s a better chance that I accidentally-

-Oh, here we go again, Mrs. Terrible Childhood back up on the soapbox, telling the world about how bad she had it.

-So what? Its not like you had any struggles, you were-

-Its not about me though, its about our children. You got to learn from the mistakes of your parents, so your kid has way better chances of having it easier than mine. I, however, was hardly parented at all and- while you’re at it fill up my glass too-and I don’t even really know what I’m doing.

-Oh, Mrs. Perfect, bragging about how she’s soo great at ruining her kids life, needing another glass of wine to-

-Hey, leave my drinking out of this. You’re two glasses ahead of me anyways.

-Yeah, but I have a higher tolerance, so-

-You think that’s something to brag about? Does drinking all of the time make it okay for you to drink a lot? Its not like we’re in our early 20’s, now-

-Whatever, I had it much rougher than you, you don’t know how much I have to drink to just get through the day. You don’t know how hard I had it-

-You can’t be in your 40’s and talk about how your childhood is holding you back! At this point its your fault for not going to therapy, for not getting any help.

-Do you know how much it would cost for me to go to some quack? Wine is cheaper, and is a better listener than any psychiatrist could ever be, so back off.

-Doesn’t it all add up though? 30 years of hard alcoholism is way more expensive than one year of-

-Here we go again, Mrs. Perfect trying to tell everybody how to handle their problems! Bitch, you haven’t gone through anything, so you shouldn’t be the one telling everyone how to deal with shit that you’ve never gone through. You’re like those rich snobs who tell the poor that its their fault that-

-Okay, lets not make this political. If you go down that road, we’re not going to even mention our kids, and then what will have been the point of this bet?

-Are you saying you’re one of those “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” types?

-No, I’m just-

-Are you saying that because people are on welfare that they can’t contribute to society, that its their fault that-

-Lets just drop this, okay? I thought you were supposed to have a higher tolerance than me. You’re only two glasses ahead, and now you can’t stop rambling about-

-Well, actually, I did some drinking before you got here, so its a little more than two glasses.

-Wait, how much have you-no, stop pouring I’m only halfway through this glass. If you keep doing that I’ll have no idea how much I’ve been drinking and-

-Mrs. Perfect needs to watch her intake, Mrs. Perfect can’t hold her liquor, la di da.

-This isn’t liquor, its win.

-Oh, so now you’re going to give me a chemistry lecture now, huh? Just because you have a fancy, college degree-

-You have one too, why are you-

-Yeah, but yours is, you have one from some fancy-

-I went to a community college, meanwhile you have a-wait, I’m not getting into this right now. How drunk are you exactly?

-Sober enough to know that I’m going to take all of your money with this bet. You’re wasting so much time, I can’t believe, I, I have to put up with all of this-

-Actually, fill up this glass. If your going to be this much of a mess then-

-My kid is the real mess-

-Then I’ll have to get drunk just to be able to put up with you.

-A bigger mess than your kid. Now, listen to this, bitch: I love my parents very much, they are the best parents in the world, and I love them… No, wait. Let me skip ahead, past this bullshit. I swear I remember, oh yeah, here it is. Dear Diary, today at school I had fun. We found a frog but then I stepped on it, now I feel bad. My mom was sleeping all day, so I went to my grandma’s house for a while until my dad picked me up. Grandma told me that I was a little sinner, and then she put out cigarettes on my arms. I cried a lot, but she didn’t stop. I do not-

-Woah woah woah, just because your bat shit mother is physically abusing your kid, that doesn’t mean that they’re messed up, it just means that messed up stuff is-

-Let me finish! When she was watching her show, she made me clean out her oven but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I looked everywhere for something to clean with. She told me that if I wasn’t done in a while then she would burn me again. I do not like the burns and she tells me that its to prepare me for hell, and I do not like that either. I wish my mom didn’t sleep so much so that I could be home with her and eat ice cream all day.

-Like I was saying before, abuse doesn’t make your kid messed up, it just makes your mom messed up.

-Well, why didn’t you say that before then, huh? Why’d you let me, waste, why did-

-I did say that before-yeah, fill mine up too, thanks. You want me to open up a new bottle?

-Yeah, I think I have a nice-

-Do you want me to get this pink one, or this yellowish one?

-What do you mean by yellow? I don’t buy yellow wine, do you think that I’m some dumb teen-teenage girl who doesn’t know what kind of wines to buy? Thinking that yellow is good, because she-

-Oh, wait, the label says its a white wine.

-How did you not know that by sight? Do you not know your wines or something? I though you, you’re always so up in the air, your nose is way up there looking down on everyone-

-I don’t know what you’re trying to-

-Let me finish! Okay? You wont know what I’m saying unless you let me finish. You’re always thinking you’re better than everyone, did you know that? Huh? Looking down on people, with your nose up in the air, got all your airs up their because you’re putting them on, one leg at a time, thinking your special because of that, well let me tell you what, you ugly bitch. Everybody puts them on a leg at a time, and that doesn’t make, you’re not any better because you do the same things, the, what everyone else does. Do you know what I think? I think you were so, like, your parents would always pat you on the head for every little thing. Like, good job walking on your legs, good job brushing your teeth, good job putting on your pants, and now its like, like you suddenly think that because they… Oh shit. I’m really drunk.

-Yeah, I know-

-No, like, I’m reeally drunk. Like, don’t-give-me-any-more-wine drunk. Like, I’m gonna, uh, I’m going to-

-Wait, hey, put that phone down.

-No.

-Who are you going to call?

-My kid, I’m gonna yell at her, I don’t-

-Why are you-just put the phone down. Give it to me!

-I need to ask her where all of the good stuff is, I want to win this bet don’t I? You think you’re the only one who wants to win, well guess what-

-I’ll give you more wine if you give me the phone.

-Ad Homenim, I give you give.

-Quid pro quo.

-What?

-That’s what, nevermind. Here, give me the phone, and then I’ll pour you some wine.

-Here you go Misses, Mrs. I Can’t Hold My Liquor. Mrs. Judgment.

-Which wine do you want?

-The pink is supposed to be really good, I think, I saw it somewhere.. Where was it? Maybe, maybe it was on a billboard, and the people drinking it were so happy, and I wanted to.. Like, is that how they get you?

-Oh my god, this smells terrible. Its like motor oil.

-Hello?

-Oh, is that how who gets you?

-The advertising people, do they just… Like, how did they know that I was so unhappy, how did they know that..

-Well, a lot of people drink to forget about upsetting things. Just because you drink like that doesn’t make you special, just like when you talked about me putting on airs, or pants, or whatever-

-Yeah, but, but nobody had it as bad as.. Or… Wait. So there are enough people out there with bad childhoods for them to, to target us?

-Not just bad childhoods, but all sorts of bad things happening to them. Life is an awful thing, its full of awful things, so a lot of people feel awful, and alcohol makes that go away. Its like emotional morphine.

-Yeah, but, I thought people also abused morphine, and those pain killers, to get away from emotional problems too?

-Okay, yeah, but a lot of things are to just get away from all of the emotional pain, almost everything is designed to distance yourself from it. Life is just one big struggle to let the good outweigh the bad, and if you’re able to die happy then you’ve-

-Oh god, I don’t want to think about dying right now.

-I’m sorry.

-Its like, you never know when, so you always wonder.. Like, will I see tomorrow? I could-

-Here, let me read my kid’s diary, okay? Remember the bet? Which one is more fucked up? Drink your wine, forget about it.

-Why is this clear?

-You’re just really drunk.

-Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Oh yeah, I can’t even taste it, that’s always bad. You know its been too much-listen up. You never drink so, so I’m going to impart some wisdom onto you. I’m like your spiritual guide right now, showing you how, how if you can’t taste the alcohol anymore, you’re really drunk, and you should probably stop drinking for a while. Drink some water, or, better yet, piss it all out.

-Thanks for that, now I-

-Wait, I just remembered, if your stomach feels all bad, and its not fun being drunk anymore, consider taking a shot or something to make yourself throw up. That way, you get all of the sick out of you, and then you can go back to having fun. I know you’re, you’re all fancy but there’s nothing wrong with vomiting, all people do it. Hell, my cat does it a lot, and that things so fucking adorable. Where is it?

-Don’t you want to.. Remember the bet? Just sit here, listen to what my kid wrote down, you’re falling apart.

-I’m just starting to come together.

-Here, listen to this: Dear diary,

-How come all of these kids always start that shit the same way. Dear diary, dear diary. Its not like it can listen to them, you know? Its not like, and why don’t they just write “Dear snooping parents” since thats way more likely to happen, its, okay you look upset, I’ll let you. Keep going.

-Dear diary, school is not fun. Nobody wants to play with me. They say they don’t like the way my hair looks, but I like it. I don’t know why people are mean. My teacher is mean to me, she says that I can’t read, and I will have to go back a grade. I’m the best reader in my class. I don’t know why she is so mean. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t like me. I met a new friend, he is tall and his hair is made of electricity. His body looks like a lava lamp. He has big arms that move around. He tells me that-

-This is, wow, you might-

-Shhh! He tells me that he can teach me how to blow them up with my mind, so that I-what the fuck am I? What the hell is this? Look, she added in a drawing, what the fuck is this thing?

-It kind of looks like those guys, the ones that dance by the cars, you know like-

-Haha, what the hell are you doing?

-I’m doing the dance, showing you what I mean. Too many people rely on words to get their points across, but I believe in body language, it helps me-

-Okay, but you’re getting water everywhere.

-This isn’t wine?

-Oh, I, uh.. He tells me that he will teach me how to blow people up with my mind, so that nobody will be mean anymore. He tells me the secret is to be really nice, and it will… I’m just going to skip ahead, this is getting too weird.. Oh, hey, look at that. She has a list of all of the people that she’s going to blow up.

-I can’t make it out, its kid scribble, it keeps moving around.

-No, you’re the one that’s moving around, I told you to stop doing that dance.

-Fuck, I’m really drunk.

-I know.

-But I just love dancing.

-I know.

-Dance with me.

-No, we, listen, I’ll just read the list to you. Hm… Oh shit.

-What.

-I think I’m on the list. Yeah, right here, she put “mom”. Huh, I guess I actually might be an awful parent. Shit, if I win this bet then I’m going to have to use that money to, for putting my kid through therapy. A lot of this is really freaking me out.

-Its not a surprise that you’re a bad mom, your worse than me you know.

-Why’s that?

-Well, you did, oh shit-

-See, that’s why I wanted you to stop wiggling around. There’s glass everywhere, and I’ll get it, I just.. Fuck.. Ow.

-What happened.

-Nothing.

-Why are you laying there? Did you fall? How drunk are you?

-Drunk enough to not want to get up. This has to be the most comfortable floor in the, how do you think they got it to feel so nice? Did you have to pay extra for it?

-No, its dirty and shitty, you’re just really drunk, drunker than me. I guess I’ll have to get on your level then. Where’s the pink wine, I’ll just drink from the bottle.

-Its under the sink.

-Why did you put it there? Oh, oh my. Is this, did you drink this whole thing?

-I was trying to get on your level, but now you have to get on my level, its like what I said about-

-I didn’t think you had it in you

-Balancing happiness, but we had to balance being drunk, and now we’re stuck, its, like, its like a fat kind, and a skinny kid, and we’re both sitting on the see saw, and no matter what we do, up or down, we’re always stuck. You know? Maybe if we brought in another skinny kid, that could be enough weight to..

-You’re kind of stuck in that, where did you find the time to drink all of this. I’m sorry, I can’t focus on the nonsense that is coming out of your mouth, but, wow.

-Haha

-I think you might be my new hero. Are you going to fall asleep, or do you just not want to move?

-My muscles are drunk, but my brain is more alive than ever. Its like, I’m a soul who has wondered-

-Okay, okay, I’ll read this to you. Hows that sound? I can still win you know.

-Okay, but scratch my back. Yeah. That’s nice, that’s calming. Its like how my, my mother used to do it that way too you know. I feel like a kid again, lying on the floor, getting my.. Yeah, this is nice. Thank you so much. You’re really a good mom, I think you might, you’re a better parent then me so you’ll definitely lose.

-Dear Diary, grandma fell asleep with a cigarette in her mouth. It was still on fire, but I let it sit there. I hoped that it would fall on her and she would burn, but instead it went out. I took her cigarettes so that she wont burn me, but she just hit me with a stick instead. I still have them. I am going to smoke all of them, so I can get sick and die. In class we learned that they make you sick. If I get sick and die then grandma will go to hell, while I eat ice cream in… what the hell. What’s with her and ice cream, like why is she so fixated on that one food?

-That’s just how kids are. But who doesn’t want ice cream? Isn’t that all there is to life, ice cream-no. No don’t stop scratching, you’re making me feel like a cat. They have it good in life, but they don’t get ice cream, they have to eat raw fish, or whatever it is that-

-Now are you going to go on and on about ice cream too?

-Maybe, it sounds really good right now. Do you have any?

-Yeah, a ton, but that, that could be why she always talks about it in here. But you think that she’d want, like at least, when I was a kid it was always pizza. That’s what I always wanted, a big pizza. And ice cream. Those are like, those are the main food groups when you’re a kid. And candy.

-And cereal.

-Yeah, that too. You want me to get you some ice cream?

-No, no, I can’t eat anything or I’ll die. And if you got it, then who would make, make me feel, who would scratch my back and make me feel like a kid again. Its like, that was such a great time in life, you know, like there were no responsibilities, and you could eat whatever you wanted, like, everything was just so simple.

-I think you’re romanticizing, like a little bit, I mean its not always good. You’re just drunk, and you’re thinking about your own. Look at your messed up kid.

-She’s the most fucked up kid that ever, and like, she’s more messed up than yours.

-Exactly. Her whole life is just being bullied, and anger, and she just wants to blow everybody up because she’s so angry. Isn’t that.. Aren’t children awful? Nobody should want to go back to that, that nastiness, and you’re so weak and, you can’t protect yourself from anything. Like, my kid, who.. Oh god, I’m such a terrible mother, aren’t I?

-Under the sun, we are all bad parents.

-Like, I’m drinking away all of my bad memories, and then my kid sees me drinking, and then she has to, because of that, deal with the same awful person that, put my life as a living hell and its just all one big cycle. I’m so wrapped up in my bullshit, and I can’t even help my kid, so my kid is going to make all of the mistakes, and-

-Sorry, I zoned out a little, you’re just too comfortable. Aren’t you floor, aren’t you hands? Its like for a while, nothing existed, except for the good vibrations.. How did that song go?

-I need a drink.

-This is going to kill me if I can’t figure this out. Can you, do you remember that song?

-I can’t believe that this is my last bottle, I can’t believe I bought white wine. Wait. No, this was a gift. Who the hell would, why would you give an alcoholic more, why is that okay? Who does that?

-Please, just hum it for me. Just hum the gist and I’ll remember how it goes.

-This has to be, I have to stop drinking after tonight. Ugh, I hate white wine so much, like, who, why would they make this? Who are they making it for? That doesn- does not go down easy. You know what, this won’t be my last, I need to have something better before I quit.

-Please, its killing me inside. I need to know how this goes.

-Ugh. Oh man, this is the worst. Who.. Who won the bet?

-I can’t type this in, I can find the video, but the buttons are too small I keep, can you type? I can’t do this.

-Who won though, who gets the money?

-Please, I need to know how the song goes.

-I’ll type it in if you tell me who won.

-We’re terrible moms, nobody wins, now type this in because I can’t stand not knowing how that song goes.

#Free Write #Short Story #Writers on Tumblr #Wine #Parenting

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movietvtechgeeks · 8 years

Photo

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/alaina-huffman-talks-directing-fandom-social-change-supernatural-course/

Alaina Huffman talks Directing, Fandom, Social Change and 'Supernatural,' of course

I had the chance to catch up with Alaina Huffman (Supernatural, Stargate Universe and Smallville) at the Supernatural Burbank convention. Our paths have crossed many times, but we had never had a chance to sit down and chat until then – and what a fun conversation it was!

Alaina was appearing as a guest at that convention, and after playing Abbadon on Supernatural for multiple episodes, had just returned to that set to shadow director Phil Sgriccia. I couldn’t wait to hear all about that, but first, we had to gush a little about the SPN Family. The Burbank convention, in particular, feels like a family affair, since many of the cast are local and can bring their families along.

Lynn: It really does feel like everyone is family at the cons.

Alaina: Especially here, everyone has their family and their kids here.

Lynn: OMG Matt [Cohen, Supernatural and General Hospital]’s son Macklin is so cute.

Alaina: SO cute!

[Yes, we were gushing. If you’ve seen Macklin, you totally understand why. There followed a brief pause for both of us to grab another handful of Doritos from the bag on the table between us]

Alaina: (laughing) I’m so sorry, you’re gonna have a lot of crunching on your tape.

Lynn: From me too! I’ll just laugh when I’m trying to transcribe it because I’ll know what all that noise is.

[And yes, that’s what just happened…]

Lynn: So tell me about shadowing [director] Phil Sgriccia on Supernatural recently. How was that experience?

Photos: Fangasm SPN

Alaina: So cool. I talked to Phil about it quite extensively. You know, going through your career, people always ask, are you interested in directing, or producing, or blah blah blah. I created a comic book a few years back with MTV, and that was my first foray into producing anything and managing a bunch of people around a project that was centered around me. And it was great; I loved it. And it was successful, we launched the full graphic novel and then I just sort of went on with my career and my life. And then this last couple years has been funky. Just to share a little, I’m getting divorced.

Lynn: That’s always hard, no matter what.

Alaina: I feel like we should have a party — 17 years and four kids is not a failure!

Lynn: Absolutely not.

Alaina: But he’s had a really hard time, and he’s dealing with his own things, and it’s a bit painful. And it’s just weird, it’s like, what happened here? So I’m trying to move on with my life in a personal way and a professional way and also, I’m a single mom with four kids, and it’s all me all the time.

Lynn: Which is unbelievably hard!

Alaina: I spent a lot of the year sort of resenting that even though I did want the divorce. So anyway, I found myself saying I need to do something, I need to be busy.

Lynn: That can be very therapeutic.

Alaina: Not that I’m not busy with four kids and a career, but I needed something to put my focus on. And I talked to Rich [Richard Speight, Jr., Supernatural, Kings of Con] about it and he had suggested this, and then my other friend Bam Bam – James Bamford who directs a lot for Arrow and I worked with him on both Smallville and Stargate. So I just kept having these conversations with people independently from each other, and I thought, what am I doing? So I sat down with a friend of mine, Chad McKinney, who was a studio executive over the show and now has moved on to Sony, but he was like, why don’t you talk to Phil [Sgriccia, Supernatural]? And I was like, that’s a great idea. So I sent Phil an email and said hey I’d love to pick your brain about directing. So we went out for a coffee, and we had a 2-hour coffee, and I said, I’ve never directed anything, I don’t know what to do. And he said listen, I’m doing shadowing next week, why don’t you come to Vancouver?

Lynn: Phil seems like such a giving person, such a wonderful and talented man. One of the reasons Supernatural has been on the air going on 13 seasons.

Alaina: He’s a great mentor. So I took that opportunity knowing the circumstances that I’m in, and I explained to him, I don’t know if I can get away, and I ended up making it work. And I got up on set and, you know, it’s a beautiful family, it really is.

Lynn: It really is, literally.

Alaina: And Phil really is a great mentor. Every meeting we had [after shadowing], he was like, so what happened there was… And he just really took the opportunity to teach me along the way. And honestly? I was lost for a lot of it, during the prep work, because it’s so disconnected from being on set.

Lynn: Right, so different from the part of it that you’ve seen, working as an actor on a show.

Alaina: For 20 years. And so I was sitting in meetings going, ‘what are they talking about? I know I read the script like five times, why don’t I understand?’

Lynn: (laughing) Like hey, I’ve been on this show…

Alaina: Yeah! And I know what department head is talking and I still don’t understand what’s going on! And then we went on the scout, and we had to go back out because we lost a couple of locations because of schedules and blah blah blah, and the second time through everything, I got it. Like oh yeah, the car is gonna come from here and this is this and that is that, and oh that’s what you were talking about!

Lynn: So it started to all pull together and make sense.

Alaina: Yeah. But definitely, there were a couple of shots of me probably on the internet like passed out on a set chair…

Lynn: (laughing) Understandable!

Alaina (laughing) I was like just falling asleep. But it was super fun, Ruth [Connell] was on that episode, which was great. So we got to prank Mark Sheppard and decorate his trailer with Misha’s [Collins] pictures.

Lynn: So you and Ruth plastered his entire trailer on set with photos of Misha! I love that Ruth pulled you into it, and it sounds like Mark loved it too actually.

Alaina: He did!

Lynn: Which I guess is not really the reaction you’re hoping for when you’re trying to prank someone…

Alaina: He was a great sport, it was really really fun. And so funny, but we were worried – we were like well, he’ll either get really really mad or he’ll think it’s funny.

Lynn: Right, it could go either way. But you didn’t really damage anything; it was all in good fun. Sometimes pranks have a mean-spirited edge, but not that one.

Alaina: Yeah, so the shadowing was a great opportunity and it’s in the back of my mind as something that I sort of have a future plan for. I want to weave it into the fabric of my life right now, which includes raising my four kids by myself and being an actor and now working as a director. One of the things that I realized is that wow, this would be a really tough job for a single mom with four kids.

Lynn: That’s true.

Alaina: They call it the black hole, you’re literally in a black hole for two and a half weeks.

Lynn: Yeah, it sounds like you just have to immerse yourself. Jensen [Ackles] has talked about that, which is why when he directs, they usually give him the first episode filming. And Richard has too, about how much work it is. It sounds a) really stressful because you have so much responsibility and b) all encompassing.

Alaina: Yes. One thing that I loved is that everyone – my sort of mentors that I’ve conferred with on this, Bam and Rich and Phil – they were all like, you’re gonna get asked so many questions. And Misha said the same thing; people just ask you questions and you just kinda have to have an answer. You’re the one who has to answer.

Lynn: It’s like the buck stops there really.

Alaina: And it made it sound like it would be really overwhelming to be asked all these questions, but as I witnessed it – and I wasn’t being asked the questions, Phil was – but actually it feels very helpful to me, because something in everyone’s inquiries would jog your memory and you’d be like oh yeah, we need that. Because you can’t do it all by yourself.

Lynn: Right, and it’s a team, and everyone is there to remember their part of it

Alaina: Yeah, and everyone is so seasoned. So, it’s there. My youngest is four, almost five in December; he’s in preschool. So I’m sort of weaving it into my life, and it’s a focus now, and I think it would be something that I would like to do.

Lynn: And we really need more female directors.

Alaina: I feel like there’s a voice, and every person, each one brings their perspective into it – it’s story telling, an aspect of story telling, and we all bring our perspectives, so I will definitely bring mine.

Lynn: I’m looking forward to that.

Alaina: So I did this course today on manifesting intentions and that kind of stuff, and one of the things I realized as we were going through the work was about being present. In acting, we talk about being present all the time.

Lynn: I’ve heard Jensen talk about that, that if you’re over-rehearsed, you can’t be present for the other actor.

Alaina: [nodding] And I wrote in my notebook – it was a big revelation for me – I always feel like I’m escaping, like I almost feel a little guilty, maybe because I’m a mom. But I always feel a little bit guilty when I travel or when I go away for work because I’m truly in the moment. Like I go to museums, I have fun, I immerse myself in a character, I laugh on set, it’s not stressful to me at all. And for years, I felt sort of guilty about that. And so I realized that’s where I am very present, and then I’m like oh, that’s not me escaping, that’s me being truthful to who I am.

Lynn: I wonder if you only feel guilty about that because you are a woman — and a mom.

Alaina: [nodding] Yeah, yeah.

Lynn: I get what you’re saying, I do, but I’m not sure many guys would feel guilty about that.

Alaina: No! And that’s so true, and I know this is sort of a soapbox that I’m on right now, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat on planes with other women saying this or like you’ll have to make a choice, and I’m like, I’ve made a choice!

Lynn: Yeah, like this IS a choice!

Alaina: Thank you, this is my choice.

Lynn: Yeah, I’m doing both. I don’t think we say that to men, you have to make a choice.

Alaina: No, and I’ve sat on the very same plane with my male colleagues who are like oh, your family is so lucky you’re willing to do that for them.

Lynn: Very different perspective.

Alaina: Yeah.

Lynn: That’s something we talk about in our books. Have you thought about doing that Warner Brothers directors course? Richard told me all about it, and it sounds wonderful, and I think it’s meant to help women and minority directors be successful.

Alaina: Yes, it’s for minorities, but they do have a strong focus on women, absolutely. Nina [Lopez-Corrado] went through that program.

Lynn: Oh, she did! I love her so much. Everyone loves her so much. She’s so damn good.

Alaina: She’s great, and they love her. She’s got a great temperament and everything. Absolutely it’s something I want to get into. There are requirements; you have to have a short that’s been in festivals or a feature…

Lynn: That’s right, Richard told me all the things he did to prepare, to get lined up to qualify, doing some commercials and shorts and things like that.

Alaina: Exactly. So it is a goal I’m working towards, and Jenny Klein has offered to write me a short to direct.

Lynn: I miss her on Supernatural. She’s also awesome!

Alaina: She is.

Lynn: Women supporting women, woohoo!

Alaina: Right, right. And the beautiful thing about it too is that I just have so many great friends who are like so talented. I did a short with Jenny [as writer] and Nicole Baer [as director] this summer.

Lynn: Oh yes, Vagabond! I tweeted it around. Talk about women supporting women – and SPN Family sticking together.

Alaina: Thank you! It was so good, and it’s funny because I was on set and Jenny showed up and I had said to Nicole earlier that day, this is the first time this has ever happened to me, and I know it’s because Jenny and I are friends, but I could hear her voice when I was reading the lines.

Lynn: Oh cool, because you know her.

Alaina: I could hear her inflection and her tone and her voice, and I was like oh, I get it!

Lynn: [nodding]

Alaina: I’ve had writers say to me before on other shows, like I hear you, after we’ve done a couple episodes and we get to know each other and have had dinners or whatever, I hear you in my head and I write from that perspective. But I’ve never had it go the other way, where I’ve actually heard the writer’s voice.

At this point, it was getting close to time for the Saturday Night Special concert, and Alaina’s handler, Victoria, came in to let us know. We spent a few minutes admiring Victoria’s awesome concert makeup, which is something she does professionally, so her makeup skills are A plus. That led to us wishing her happy birthday and then an epic discussion of birthday cakes, specifically the tres leche cake at Portos which I still have not managed to sample, much to my great dismay.

Alaina: But the line like on a holiday is blocks long. I have a friend who’s a baker there, and it’s not frozen stuff, it’s real.

Lynn: [is pouting]

I managed to pull myself out of my depression to get back on track eventually, however.

Lynn: So one of the other things that you have a unique perspective about is that you’ve been on successful genre shows with passionate fandoms before. For most of the cast, this has been a completely new experience, but not for you.

Alaina: Mm hmm.

Lynn: What’s different about this experience and this fandom from Stargate Universe or Smallville? Both of those are also genre shows with big fan followings.

Alaina: I was saying to Briana [Buckmaster, Supernatural] earlier that I’m a little envious of her and of Ruth and all these new people who have come into this fandom now — especially what’s happened with the band [Louden Swain] and with Rich, it’s like they paved the road.

Lynn: Definitely. It’s so different having Louden Swain as the house band and Richard as the host all weekend.

Alaina: Creation has been around for so long and I’ve worked with them for so long and with other shows all over the world, but there’s something about this Show and this cast. You can’t even really pinpoint it – we genuinely like each other, and the fandom is genuine. I’ve expressed this before – my show, Stargate Universe, was not well received, it was very negatively received by the fandom, and it was fine, we got over it, and people ended up coming around, but it wasn’t warm and fuzzy. But this – it’s like, you walk into it and it’s like a big slap of love in your face, and you’re like OMG they love me!

Lynn: [grinning] They do. Even with you being a bad guy.

Alaina: Especially with you being a bad guy!

Lynn: Yeah, I think especially, you’re right.

Alaina: That’s the crazy thing! And I’ve known Mark Sheppard for years, I used to call Mark my secret lover because I’d see him all over the world at these events, and I never worked with him until Supernatural.

Lynn: He did so many genre shows too, so he also has that perspective.

Alaina: Exactly. And so I’d see him, and I had done panels with him all over the world. So I’d probably known him for several years before I got on Supernatural and then I was like ‘Oh my buddy Mark Sheppard is on this show!’ So that was great getting to work with him and Sarah, his wife, is a dear friend of mine and like the best thing that ever happened to him and I adore her.

Lynn: Me too, she’s awesome.

Alaina: So it’s just like beautiful. It really is, it’s real, I think anyone can tell, on a regular basis we’re like – yesterday I was on facetime with Ruth for about an hour – I facetime with Lisa Berry, we all see each other whenever we can. And Rich and Rob [Benedict, Supernatural] are doing this amazing show, Kings of Con [Comic-Con HQ]…

Lynn: You’re in it, right?

Alaina: I’m in it, I play Robbie’s wife.

Lynn: That’s right!

Alaina: It’s so fun, it’s so witty, it’s so well written. Rich directed the episodes that I was in – I was in two, but I think he did them all and Robbie wrote them. They hired everyone that they know and they pulled a lot of favors, and we just all wanted to support each other. This is how we are; we support each other’s campaigns and charities and – it’s real. There’s usually an email that goes out like, hey can you help me with this? But there’s no resistance from anyone; they’re like YES, what do you need me to do? Let’s get on the same page. I mean, I probably have six or seven text threads with all the different people, and we have conference calls about all the things we’re doing, it’s fucking beautiful.

Lynn: And it’s so unusual. I started studying fandom because of this show and this fandom, and I felt like this was going to be a phenomenon early on. But I’ve never seen anything like this – it’s like a family on the cast side – and the crew side too!

Alaina: Yes, the crew is so great too.

Lynn: And then a family on the fan side. It’s this weird reciprocity.

Alaina: And there’s a crossover as well.

Lynn: And yeah, that doesn’t happen either. That’s what my new book [Family Don’t End With Blood] is about, with chapters written by actors and fans – the stories are equally powerful on both sides of whatever you want to call it, it’s not really a divide…

Alaina: No!

Lynn: Everybody really knows each other, there’s familiarity.

Alaina: And if there is an issue and it’s vocalized, I do think there’s support behind people. Sometimes it’s a conversation, but it’s very rarely an argument.

Lynn: It might be a heated conversation, but it gets worked out usually.

Alaina: Yeah, and it’s fascinating to me.

Side note: I have no clue how we ended up talking about Star Trek and then Nichelle Nicholls, but that’s where we went next. Alaina may have been sharing her own fangirl moments.

Alaina: I adore Nichelle Nicholls.

Lynn: Do you know her?

Alaina: I do.

Lynn: [possibly starstruck] Oh wow. I’m kinda in awe right now.

Alaina: Yeah she’s amazing. I’ve had dinner with her several times, and she’s told me so many great stories.

Lynn: [chinhands]

Alaina: Two of my favorite stories that she told me, one was how these things [conventions] started.

Lynn: Oh right, because she was there.

Alaina: She was. The first real conventions were Star Trek. And what happened was, it was off the air and fans were really distraught and they wanted to get together, and they’re like, we’re gonna get together because we all really connect and we’d love it if you would come. I don’t know how many of them there were, but they wrote letters – this was back in the 70’s…

Lynn: Right, when people wrote letters…

Alaina: And I don’t have all the details, though she tells the story beautifully, but they wrote letters back and forth to Nichelle and said look, we’re gonna have a little get together. It wasn’t a convention, it was at some hotel in NY, it was a ‘get together.’

Lynn: [rapt] Right….

Alaina: And they said, if we can get enough people, we’d like to send you an airplane ticket and put you up in a hotel if you would come and meet us. And her and a few castmates were like of course! And then there were tons of people who ended up showing up.

Lynn: Because it was really popular, and didn’t they get it back on the air for a while?

Alaina: Yeah, with letters! And so that happened and that sort of created this fan world that happened, and then Gary and Adam were a part of that.

Lynn: They were really young too, they were like teenagers when they started this.

Alaina: Yeah I think like 14, it’s fascinating. And then my other side note on fangirling over Nichelle Nichols – my other favorite story she told me was about the kiss between her and Shatner.

Lynn: Oh the famous kiss, yes.

Alaina: Do you know the story? From what I was told by her, the network at the last minute wanted to pull the plug on it. They got nervous, and they were like, no, let’s do a hug.

Lynn: Um, yeah, not the same…

Alaina: Right? We’re gonna make this really big social movement, this civil rights movement…or maybe not. And so the story she told was that Shatner said ‘okay, we’ll get to the hug, let’s do the kiss first though, we’ll just get it out of the way. Okay, you got it? Then we’ll do any version of the hug that you want.’ So this was back in the day before video village, before any of that technical stuff. There was the camera, film; you had to check the gate. Young readers may not understand that we had film. I remember when I started my career, we had film. And you’d have to re-roll sometimes, batteries died or whatever. So the story goes that they did the kiss, and then every take after that, Shatner went to hug her and leaned into the camera and crossed his eyes.

Lynn: So they couldn’t use it!

Alaina: [nodding] So that made all the takes unusable.

Lynn: OMG that’s amazing.

Alaina: Can you imagine how nervous that poor camera guy must have been? He must have been like I’m gonna get fired!

Lynn: What guts that took. I guess he was the star; he was the only one who could have done that – but he did it.

Alaina: Even when the network didn’t want to do it. So I’ve met Shatner several times, and I have yet to verify that story with him, but that’s the story she told me and I love it, it’s one of my favorite stories ever.

Lynn: I only met him once, but I can believe it.

Alaina: Yeah, definitely.

Lynn: I mean, he’s friends with Misha. Rules? Who needs rules?

Alaina: Very clever, those two.

Lynn: That’s an amazing story.

Alaina: Isn’t that a good one? I love it. And it has a personal connection for me. The gay rights movement was also a really personal thing for me; I liken it to racial civil rights. Thirty years ago it wasn’t legal in a lot of states for me to marry my husband, you know?

Lynn: I know, that’s not even long ago.

Alaina: And even still, there are places that like frown upon it, and like, have you seen my kids, they’re really cute?

Lynn: They totally are.

Alaina: Like, look what happens when you mix things! So yeah, the gay rights thing was to me a really important movement for our culture and our society, and that again is a huge part of this fandom. And not just gay but all of it, LGBTQ, curious even.

Lynn: Yeah, open.

Alaina: I’m really proud of the place we’re at with that. We still have work to do, but I love that straight people stand up for those rights and gay people fight for those rights, I love that it’s a cohesive thing.

Lynn: I was talking to Rob [Benedict] last week and asked him, do you know what a big deal it is that you got to play God as a bisexual, so validating. Robbie Thompson wrote that episode, and it was so amazing. I give Supernatural a lot of credit – they didn’t just make a human bisexual…

Alaina: They made God bisexual! Woo, bam! It actually makes a lot of sense.

Lynn: It does. I do love this show.

Alaina: I’d like to touch on that too. I feel protective of writers because they’re real people, they don’t just write your favorite show, they’re people who are my friends. We had this happen a lot on Stargate; this is where I sort of started to realize that my friends would get all this shit for writing characters or things people didn’t like. And I was like wait a minute; these are the people who’ve brought you your favorite show for like 15 years!

Lynn: And wrote all those scenes that made you love it. Alaina: And created the characters that you love and that the actors got to play and you followed around the world to meet, and I feel like they deserve credit and respect and that sometimes they don’t get it. Jenny was the only female on the Supernatural staff for a very long time, and I think that was difficult at times. I am protective – Phil is amazing, as a producer and a champion for the show. They have that site, Shaving People Punting things

Lynn: I love every single thing they do on that!

Alaina: They’re so clever, right? So yeah, this is such a great talented group of people that are a part of this show, and I feel fortunate.

At that moment, Victoria returned to say that the SNS was about to begin.

Lynn: [scrambling for my phone] Okay hang on, I need to take pictures!

Victoria: Work it, work it!

As you can see, Alaina did.

Photo: Twitter

Alaina: I’m so glad we could finally do this!

Lynn: Me too! Have fun out there!

So what do you think, fandom? We definitely need more female directors, and I have a feeling Alaina should be one of them.

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