#her alienation from blackness due to her home life is !!! but she IS undeniably black. my nose is squishy my eyes are deep brown..

[5-htagonist]

the boondocks is so good. i dont know what black american archetypal character is missing from that show other than ahhh favorable portrayals of black queerness but 2005 (presumably) cishet man creation so you know how that goes.

[true-blue-megamind]

Daylight and Dark Ch. 1 - First Night

Photo by Joe Waranont

Read the full fan fiction HERE

This is an excerpt.  Due to Tumblr’s regulations, the second half of this chapter is only available on AO3.  The full fiction is not child-friendly!

Summary: Months after Titan's defeat, Roxanne faces concerns as she and Megamind's relationship grows more serious. Soon, however, she learns that may be the least of her problems. Metro City's new hero has a dangerous past, and loving him comes with as many perils as benefits. Mystery, drama, romance, and humor.  RATING: Explicit.  WARNINGS: violence, sex, language, references to prior domestic abuse, and rock n’ roll!

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f I should labor through daylight and dark, Consecrate, valorous, serious, true, Then on the world I may blazon my mark; And what if I don't, and what if I do?

                —Dorothy Parker

Roxanne Ritchi stared at her reflection without really seeing it.

Tonight. It was going to be tonight. She had waited, fretted, but no more. It had to be tonight.

Perhaps this moment had been too long in coming. It wasn't as if she didn't want it to—she adored him, she was undeniably attracted to him, and she was completely unbothered by their physical differences—but there was a part of Roxanne that had been affected more than she liked to admit by past disappointments.  She described her approach to relationships as "circumspect" and "judicious," but, if she was honest, she was, in reality, a coward.  Not that she was afraid of Megamind, of course; that would have been ridiculous.  Her concerns were harder to define than that.  What she feared was, she supposed, perfection, or rather the relentless feeling that anything this perfect had to be inevitably doomed.  After all, past experiences with men had all ended in disaster—she was either too aloof or too intense, depending on which of her exes you asked— and it seemed that the better relationships were in the beginning, the more spectacularly they failed in the end.  In fact, the reporter had already resigned herself to a single life, throwing herself completely into her work, when along came a certain blue alien.  Now, deep down, she was afraid that something would go wrong—especially when their relationship was already complicated by its very nature.  Perhaps that was the real heart of the issue: her love affair with Megamind was complex in so many ways, even more than the expected difficulties entailed in dating any Defender, and some of those issues revolved around things neither she nor her blue boyfriend could control.

Even so, she had made her decision, and she wasn't going to back down.  It was going to be tonight.

A knock snapped Roxanne's eyes back into focus, and she frowned at her incomplete makeup. Hurriedly finishing her mascara and applying some russet red, long-wear lipstick, she swept all her cosmetics back into a drawer.  An extra spray of perfume for good measure, and that would have to do. Fanning her mouth with her hands to dry the lip color, Roxanne walked briskly through the living room to her apartment's front door.

Megamind was standing in the hall, eyes fixed pensively off into the distance. It was a look she was growing to expect whenever she left him waiting too long; the double-edge sword of his massive intellect was that he was always thinking, always wondering, his thoughts never still. The sound of the door brought him back to attention, and he smiled. She threw her arms around him— their usual greeting— and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

Nerves sang and sparked. She hated that she was as fidgety as a maiden bride.  While she believed that, like alcohol and tobacco, sex should be "enjoyed responsibly," Roxanne had slept with a respectable number of men.  It had been years since the idea of it had made her jittery.  Until now.  Maybe it was her long hiatus from the dating pool—very few men were willing to move on a woman supposedly dating someone with lasers in his eyes—or maybe it was Megamind's charm coupled with the intensity of her feelings for him, but, whatever the reason, something about the city's hero made her feel like she was in high school once more: heart fluttering and stomach slightly queasy.  If only that were the sole reason for the butterflies beneath her skin.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she smiled again, looking into eyes so green they glowed.

His expression was tender as he turned his gaze down to her's— something that, at only two inches taller than Roxanne, he only managed to do when they were this close. And when she was wearing flats. For a moment Roxanne silently praised the work-sore feet that had prompted her to opt for more comfortable shoes this evening.

Clearly, the blue alien had been on duty today as he was dressed in his familiar dark leathers. For a short time, Megamind had tried wearing white— had even gone as far as to build a new super suit that imitated Metro Man's powers— but thankfully Minion had convinced him that it was better to be his own brand of hero. And he'd been right. Not only did Roxanne prefer her boyfriend's bad boy look for reasons of her own, but even the most hardened criminals had grown to fear the black-clad Defender of Metro City while citizens had grown to accept Megamind for himself.

Will that continue after tonight, if people find out? Or will the same public that praises him today turn against him tomorrow?

"Don't worry, it's alright," the blue hero assured her. Roxanne startled for a moment— how did he know what she was thinking?— before she realized that he'd been referring to the wait. "I was just considering how I might turn one of your windows into a transparent glass monitor," he continued. "It would require some creative engineering, but I think it could be done. Then I could build you a smaller version of the supercomputer in my lair, and ta-da! It could function as a window until activated, and then you could use it to communicate with me in my workroom, or research, or to—" seeing her quizzically amused expression, he caught himself in mid-thought and cleared his throat. He and Roxanne had agreed to just have a normal, relaxing date, and it seemed to occur to him that this might not fit the description. "Erm, these are for you," he finished sheepishly, proffering a bouquet of yellow daisies, orange and gold cosmos, gardenias, and red and white roses.

He always brought her daisies, ever since she had mentioned once in passing how much she loved the ones in Hill Top Park.  Bouquets turned up at her office every Thursday like clockwork.  She didn't even mind that some of the interns got all girlish and giggly about it.

Roxanne accepted the flowers, inhaling the blossoms' sweet scents before saying: "They're beautiful. Come on inside." She pulled him in, leaning up to give him another kiss as she reached around him to shut the door. "I've always wondered: what are these?" she continued, touching tiny white clustered flowers with one hand. "It seems like they're in every single bouquet I've ever seen, but no one ever mentions what they're called."

"Ah, yes, that's Gypsophila, Baby's Breath. And you're right, it is a common addition to bouquets... I think for artistic reasons. What's wrong? Do you dislike it?"

"What? No, not at all..."

"What is it? You look like you just smelled something horrible. I can take the Gypsophila out."

"Oh, no, that's not necessary. It's nothing... just..."

Baby's breath.  Oh God.   Roxanne tried to ignore the skittering tightness in her heart.

What if she got pregnant?  What would the world say to the first half-human child?  She was a responsible adult, of course, and she wasn't rushing into this unprepared, but even so... Sex was designed to make babies, and no matter how careful a girl was, sometimes it did just that.  Her cousin Theresa, who had conceived her third child while she and her husband were using both pills and condoms, was living proof.

Realizing she'd been quiet too long, Roxanne thought quickly. "It's just that that's an odd name for a flower, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't really look like breath."

"No stranger than Forget-Me-Nots or Grandmother's Lace." He shrugged. "Flower names are just weird."

"At least Grandmother's Lace sort of looks like lace," she laughed, more at herself than anything else. "But you're probably right. Either way, these really are gorgeous," Roxanne smiled again. "I love them."

"I'm glad," he grinned. "I've been studying Floriography."

"Flori-what?"

"The language of flowers."

"I didn't know flowers talked," she joked.

"Very funny. You've read enough classic literature to know what I mean."

"I do, and you're very sweet," she answered, retrieving a vase from the small china hutch in her living room, and leading him into the kitchen. "Let's see… Roses are for love, right?"

"Love and affection, depending on the color."

"And these colors are?" She asked, setting the vase on the counter and turning to face him.

His cheeks flushed a little, the expression of shy pleasure at odds with his tough-guy persona. It was unreasonably adorable. "The red ones mean: 'my love for you is passionate,'" he explained. "And the white ones mean: 'my love for you is pure.'"

She felt her heart do a happy, ridiculous little flip, and turned her head to give him a smile that felt embarrassingly shy and girlish. "Oh."

This was always his way: thoughtful, charming, romantic, foolishly sentimental… Yet he never begrudged her her independence; never complained when she had to break a date for a hot news story or an overdue deadline. He just told her to stop by the Lair on the way home if she had the time, and sent over a packed dinner via brainbot with a note saying something like: "You won't forget to eat, will you? Love, MM." And then there was the way he fully embraced her for who she was, skipping typical dates in favor of afternoons in bookshops, long days in the park, weekends exploring quirky little-known museums, and dinners at hidden gems serving unexpectedly excellent cuisine or wonderfully authentic international dishes.

"Are you sure you're not telepathic?" she asked, only half in jest.  It was something she'd questioned him about before.

"I think I would notice if I were."  His expression turned teasing.  "Perhaps, Miss Ritchi, you are simply too... Predictable."

"Jerk," she laughed, trimming the edges of the flowers under the running tap.  

"Villain," he corrected, gesturing to himself.  "One of the good guys, now, but still a villain," he moved close.  "And a devilishly handsome one at that."

"Hmm.  I can't argue with the last part."

"That's because you have excellent taste."  God, why did his smirk have to look like dark secrets and wanton promises?  "Really, though, Sweetheart," he added, his smile gentling.  "I know you because I love you."

"I love you, too."

She truly did, and the fact that someone as brilliant and charming as Megamind loved her back sometimes still filled her with soft surprise.  More than that, however, he respected her.  He trusted her.  Following their defeat of Titan, Megamind had not only granted her nearly unfettered access to his secret Lair— something unheard of in the past— but, keenly aware that the sudden cessation of her regular kidnappings could affect her career, he had also allowed her to join him in some of his more noteworthy heroic battles.  While her blue beau insisted that she steer clear of the dangerous Doom Syndicate, together they had taken down two minor would-be villains: the first an ex-model with a scarred face and a terrible idea of revenge, the second a balding science teacher with an insane plan to make the pigeons in the park emulate Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.  That last had been a monumental failure even by Megamind's standards.  The chemical compound the man had fed the birds had only succeeded in giving them explosive diarrhea.  It had been an incredible mess.

Thank God for brainbot cleanup crews!

"And just what are you snickering about?" Megamind asked her, cocking one eyebrow, green eyes shining with curious mirth.  "It's mean not to share," he added, adopting his best Hero-Giving-a-Life-Lesson voice.  Roxanne laughed harder.  That particular part of his new persona was definitely a work in progress.

"I was just thinking about the bird guy," she answered, turning to fill the vase from the faucet.

"The bird—Oh!  Ravenous!" he gave the word an odd inflection, putting an emphasis on "raven," just as the aspiring villain had.

"That was it!" she chortled.  "God, even his name sucked!  He got so mad at you for pronouncing it wrong, too."

"Excuse me," he grinned, leaning back against the counter to catch her eye. "I was pronouncing the word ravenous correctly.  It's not my fault he had an unnatural obsession with avians.  And, as I recall, it was you, my Dear Miss Ritchi, who insisted on pronouncing his name wrong—or rather right— on air, until you had the whole city doing it.

"Me?" she couldn't hide her smile.  "Look at this innocent face.  Would I do something like that?"

His laugh rang through the kitchen.  "Oh, yes, you would.  I always said you would have made an excellent Evil Queen!"

It was absurd how much her heart sped up when he said that.  "When did you decide to learn floriography?  I mean, it can't have been just for this," she asked, arranging the bouquet with more care and concentration than was really necessary.  "I can't imagine you taking an interest in it before."

"Yes and no.  I did learn for you, Roxanne, but," he seemed to swallow his sheepishness, "I've studied the language of flowers for years.  I... I used to imagine what I would say to you if I only had the courage to leave a tower of blossoms on your table after a kidnapping.  I never did.  I didn't want you to feel... uncomfortable, frightened, but...  Roxanne, I revolve around you.  Your smiles have been my drug for a long time."

She swallowed turned her head back quickly.  Her face felt like fire and she knew she was losing the battle for suave composure.  Damn it, I'm supposed to be the one seducing him!  

How could she not love him when he said things like that—said them and actually meant them?  Surely that was too much for any reasonable world to expect? And if others might not like it, well, so what?  She'd endured criticism of everything from her political stances to her hair, and God knew Megamind was no stranger to animosity.  Whatever storms this might brew, they would weather them together.

"The Gypsophila represent purity, too," Megamind informed her.  She could hear him grinning at her blush. "The cosmos are joy and harmony," he added, moving closer again. "Yellow daisies are for both true love, because each flower is actually two joined as one, and for new beginnings. Gardenias, now those are interesting. They represent feminine beauty, and can refer to a secret love, but," Roxanne nearly dropped the vase as he leaned against her back to breathe the last words against her ear. "Gardenias also mean: 'I will always protect you.'"

"Megamind," she breathed, gently setting the vase on the counter and turning to bury herself in him. He smelled like hot metal— he'd probably been welding something earlier— and expensive cologne, but beneath that was his familiar musk of leather, spices, and something warm and woody.

He began kissing along her ear and down toward her shoulder— something he had become extremely good at in the last few months. His goatee, warm breath, and gentle teeth were sweet torture against her sensitive skin. Clever fingers tickled up the nape of her neck and slid around to gently tangle in her short hair, making her shiver. She sighed his name again, tasting the syllables like a prayer.

Megamind. This was Megamind: fiercely loyal and endlessly affectionate. Of course, he would always protect her. Let the whole entire city, or even the entire planet, turn against them, and he would remain steadfastly at her side, determined and immovable as stone.  Certainly, they had had their share of arguments—what couple didn't?—but, in the end, he always had her back. He'd probably even do his best to shield her from the worst of people's biases.  Because that was the sort of man he was.

To hell with what people might think. I want this, now and always.

Roxanne leaned back just enough to kiss him with thorough passion, giving his mouth the full and undivided attention it deserved.  He matched her passion, tongue gliding past her lips to tempt and tumble against her own.  Almost of their own accord, her arms wrapped about his slender neck, pulling him closer, urging him on...

And her stupid phone timer went off, shattering the moment with an annoyingly jaunty little tune.

"I… um… I have dinner in the oven," she stumbled over her own words. "It should be... ready… almost... almost ready."

Mercifully, he took his cue. "Oh-ho!" he laughed, giving her one last peck on the lips. "Home cooking twice in one week! Just what are you up to, Miss Ritchi?"

Although Roxanne had learned to cook at her grandmother's elbow, she'd rarely felt it worth her time when she was single, preferring quick frozen meals she could leave in the crockpot or even pop into the microwave.  Since she had started dating Megamind, however, she'd dusted off the old cookbooks she'd inherited and started making meals from scratch once a week.  True, the hero had Minion to cook for him— and her skills were nowhere near the henchman's gourmet standards— but this was one of the ways she could show her affection, and it always seemed to please the blue alien.  Things like that had become important to the reporter as Megamind took up residence in her heart, which is why she found herself constantly making little gestures like buying him a blue teddy bear in a black leather jacket, or texting him funny pictures and thoughts she knew would make him smile.  So she had gotten into the habit of planning one special dinner each week.  But, up until now, it had always been only one.

I'd hoped he wouldn't notice.  I should have known better.  

She gave him her best calm reporter stare. It was ruined by the fact that her face still felt like it was glowing red. "Why should I be up to anything?" she asked coyly.

He lifted an eyebrow, his grin playful.  "Your wiles won't work on me."

That earned him a sultry look. "I was under the impression they were working pretty well just now."

"Wicked girl," he teased. Following Roxanne across the small kitchen, Megamind opened the oven and sniffed eagerly. "Mmmm... Lasag-na. My favorite. Now I'm definitely suspicious."

"It's lasagna, silly," Roxanne corrected fondly, moving past him to set her bouquet on the dinette table. "And can't a girl make her favorite hero a nice dinner without him getting into conspiracy theories?"

He only grinned at her again. "La. Sag. Na." That was one of the things Roxanne loved most about Megamind. He never let himself be embarrassed. Most people would have been mortified by constant mispronunciations, but he brushed them off with a smile.

Giggling, Roxanne swatted him playfully out of her way and found two oven mitts in a drawer before retrieving the dish from the oven. "Maybe I'll make you learn to say it correctly before I let you have any."

"Oh, you could never be so cruel!" he answered over his shoulder as he selected plates from the cabinet. "I should have brought a bottle of wine."

"I still have two from the last time you came over," laughed Roxanne. "I think we'll be okay."

"You make me sound like an alcoholic," Megamind complained, but he couldn't quite tame his playful expression as he began setting the table. "I simply couldn't decide what would compliment the dish best. Besides, I wanted to make sure I had something to eat my breakfast cereal with in the morning."

"Ewww!"

Roxanne loved Megamind's laugh. He was the city's hero now, but his rolling chortle still had a dark ring in it, and something about it sent delicious shivers down her spine.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding" he assured her.

"I know, but... Ewww!"

He laughed again and motioned her to her chair. "Alright, okay," he said, helping her into her seat. "Whenever I stay here overnight, I solemnly promise that I will not eat cereal and wine for breakfast."

Roxanne tried to giggle but found her throat suddenly tight. Funny how that comment brought the conversation to the matter at hand.

Come on, Roxanne.  For God's sake.  Just ask.

She looked up at him, his face still glowing with humor, and gently placed her hand on his.

"Megamind, I was thinking, what about tonight?"

He looked confused. "What about tonight?"

"For that. For you to stay over. I mean..." she sighed.  Ugh... Why is this so hard?   "Will you stay here with me tonight?"

"Of course!" his easy tone implied he still didn't get her meaning. It wasn't as if he had never stayed over, after all... It was simply that they had never done any more than cuddle.

"No, I mean, will you—" Oh, God, I'm going to have to be specific, aren't I?— "Will you sleep with me? Will you spend the night here as my lover?"

That finally did it. His eyes widened in surprise, and then he glanced quickly down, trying unsuccessfully to hide his little up-to-no-good grin.

When he lifted his gaze again, however, his expression turned serious. "Are you... sure? I want you to be sure, Roxanne. Absolutely certain." He lifted his free hand to push a strand of her short hair tenderly back from her face. "No regrets between us. Ever."

She smiled. Doesn't he understand that that's what makes me so certain?  He's always ready to put me first.

Yes, he was an alien. Yes, she was going to be the first known human to sleep with someone from a different planet. Yes, in a society where too many still objected to relationships between different races and same genders, sharing her bed with an extraterrestrial was sure to stir up trouble. But it didn't matter. She had given him her whole heart, and after five months of dating— more if you counted the dates with "Bernard"— she wanted to give him her body, too. The time had come. Their relationship couldn't continue in this state of limbo. Either she stopped holding back or she broke things off, and she couldn't bear the thought of the latter. No matter what happened, no matter who judged them, no matter how many snide comments she had to hear about Stockholm Syndrome and tentacle porn, she would not—could not—let him go.

Fully meeting his look, Roxanne let her emotions— love, desire, trust, longing— fill her blue eyes. Her hands caressed the sides of his face as she pulled him down for another slow-burn kiss.

"I'm sure," she breathed when they parted for air. "I'm very, very sure."

He smiled and leaned back in, kissing her again, letting years of contained passion spill over her.  The chair skittered back as she rose, tangling her arms around him.  Clutching her, Megamind ran eager hands over her back, cupped her hips, and pressed her close to feel the proof of his desire. His kisses were hot, desperate, as if he were drowning and her lips held his only salvation.

Panting and flushed, the hero was the first to pull back. "I'm sorry," he said, motioning to the cooling meal on the table. "I don't mean to let all your hard work go to waste, but—"

"I have a microwave. We can heat it up."

He grinned. "Well, in that case..." he purred. Scooping her up in his deceptively thin arms, Metro City's blue hero carried Roxanne to the bedroom.

Tonight. It was going to be tonight.

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[what-big-teeth]

Imprint (Asrai Girlfriend, pt. 1)

Female Reader (POV) x Female Monster [Part 2]

tw: near-drowning 

It all started with a tire swing suspended over the lake near your family’s shared summer home.

Old and worn, its fraying rope was tied to the thick branch of a dying oak tree; but that didn’t stop your cousins from using it. Neither did their and your parents’ constant warnings.

One summer’s day, during a long-winded session of Truth or Dare, Simon and Silas led you to the lake’s edge. With barely hidden mischief shining from their matching eyes, Simon stepped forward and shoved you towards the oak tree.

“We dare you to take three big swings,” he said. “If you do it without screaming, you win.”

As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t say no. The word was too deeply lodged in your throat, held in place by the larger size and greater strength of your older cousins. With a held breath, you climbed on top of the tire swing and sat down, squeezing the unraveling rope between your knees. The swing pulled back, thanks to your cousins grabbing the old tire’s inner ring and shuffling backwards together. You gulped when the rope went completely taut.

“W-wait,” you whimpered, “I’m not—!“

The first swing took you by surprise, accompanied by your older cousins’ laughter. At its apex, squinting against the sun’s bright rays, you looked back, directly past the lake’s clear surface to the deep bottom underneath. Your stomach heaved and your hands scrambled to tighten their meager grip around the old rope on the back swing.

“Guys! I wanna get off!”

Instead of catching you as you hoped, Simon and Silas just watched as the tire swung backward, still laughing. The highest point came again with a violent lurch that roiled your stomach. Something was wrong.

You screamed out to Simon and Silas again, voice cracking and eyes burning as the tire spun like a top. Like before, they ignored you. And laughed and laughed and laughed—

Something snapped.

You flew, hurled into the air like a ragdoll, the world somersaulting until your back and head collided with something solid. The impact stole the air from your body. When you tried to breathe, your lungs burned. A froth of bubbles raced up above your head towards a wavering light. All as you sank deeper and further, too stunned to do anything but watch.

But not for long.

An unseen force wrapped your wrist in a cold vice and pulled. The sudden speed at which you moved stung your eyes, forcing them closed. But you still heard the rush of water beating against your ears. The pressure built inside them until you could no longer keep gritting your teeth. Your mouth pried open from the pain above the lake’s surface instead of under.

Your hands scrabbled at the lakeside, sinking into the wet soil and seizing a raised, gnarled tree root. Your vision began to blur and you wheezed, unable to properly draw in air due to the wet crackling in your chest.

So when you heard a soft, soothing murmur right by your ear and turned towards the source, you couldn’t believe what you saw.

No girls you knew ever had natural green hair. Or slit pupils. But the thought didn’t have time to root itself in your mind.

With your mother’s screams ringing in your ears, your body gave into exhaustion and everything faded to black.

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That was years ago, when you were just a child.

A day-long visit to the nearby hospital guaranteed your recovery, but the accident left its mark in various ways. A rift severed most of the familial bonds between your parents and your uncle and aunt. The only thing they agreed to leave untouched was the shared ownership of the lake house.

Your grandparents’ final request was for it to be a secondary haven in times of need, and the adults couldn’t bring themselves to dishonor that wish. Regardless, estrangement became the norm as you grew up. So you never saw Simon and Silas again.

But you didn’t have time to dwell on the sudden alienation for long. The incident affected you as well. The first result was a wariness of any large bodies of standing water, one you’re still trying to overcome. The second was an odd curiosity: a faint, silvery handprint on your wrist.

It faded over time, but not enough to vanish. The size of the imprint resembled that of a child’s hand, which could no longer encircle your adult-sized joint. It was undeniable proof of what you saw before you were taken to the hospital.

The green-haired girl who saved your life.

Over the years, the mark tugged at the curiosity deep within you. Not insistent, but docile. The sensation gained a life of its own and turned into a steady gentle pulse, coaxing you to follow the underlying urge infused into it.

Return to the lake. And this summer, you intend to answer the call.

“Sweetheart, are you sure about this?”

You slam home the trunk door of your old-fashioned, teal pickup and dust off your hands.

“I am. I talked to my therapist and she thinks safe exposure therapy will help. We’ve scheduled when she’ll check in on me and I have her number on speed dial.”

Your dad steps closer to your mother and wraps an arm around her shoulders. He doesn’t speak. But the stiffness of his movements and the compressed corners of his eyes say enough.

You pocket your car keys and step into your parents’ awaiting, warm embrace.

“I’ll be okay,” you whisper, “Promise.”

To seal the deal, you offer your dad your extended pinky which he wraps his own around, an old, childhood tradition. All while your mom kisses your temple. With a final goodbye and promise to text them, you pull away from the curb and drive off.

An upbeat playlist blasting from your phone makes the three-hour-long drive tolerable. The natural progression from the concrete, city sights to natural scenery doesn’t hurt, either. Soon enough, your truck takes a final turn down an unpaved, dirt road. Each and every bump is just as familiar and nostalgic as they were when you were younger. But without the slight pain to your backside.

You reach the end of the trail, the lake house revealing itself once your pass the last of the towering pines. It’s exactly as you remember it, untouched by time. And without any other vehicles in the driveway.

You step out of your parked truck, inhaling the clean, sharp scent of the surrounding area. Instead of uncomfortable dread, you only feel a sense of peace and calm. With a decisive nod, you get to work.

Unpacking your rolling luggage and cooler takes the better part of an hour. Mainly as the backup generator had to be fired up and the A/C needed to circulate. Blessedly, you don’t find any traces of dust or dirt inside. The place is spotless, the trash having been emptied. Once you’re settled inside, your stomach makes its emptiness known.

Lunch is a simple sandwich, chips, and a chilled bottle of your favorite iced tea. Hunger sated, you tackle the few dirtied dishes and rack them. As you dry your hands, your wrist tingles and cools.

Your gaze lifts towards an uncurtained window, past the glass and out towards the overcast lake. This is your chance.

Brisk footsteps lead you out onto the wooden pier. Here, you used to dangle your bare feet above the lake’s surface and watch the peaceful scenery. But now, you cautiously inch towards the pier’s edge on tense hands and knees to stare down into the water. There’s nothing unusual. Just a few fish gliding along as if they’re flying.

A swift shape darts by and underneath the pier. You stifle a gasp and squint through the small gaps between the wood.

But a sweet, low chirrup interrupts your search. Your gaze turns back towards the pier’s end. Vivid sea-green eyes peer up at you, framed by a heart-shaped face, a button nose, and long, dark green hair. And her light teal skin is smooth and flawless.

Her full lips lift into a sweet smile, one that makes your cheeks fill with a pleasant warmth. It’s an addicting feeling and you find yourself moving to meet her at the pier’s end. Her smile grows even sweeter and your pulse flutters in your chest.

“It’s really you,” you breathe.

Your childhood savior tilts her head to the side, chirping softly. She blinks up at you in an endearing way and you realize the issue.

“You can’t understand me, can you?”

As if hearing the sad tone in your voice, she reaches out her hand and grazes it against yours. Seeing the thin membrane between her fingers, you carefully twine yours with hers. Her skin is cold to the touch but not unpleasant in the humid, summer heat.

She hums, drawing your attention. Her face is much closer than before. Glancing down, you see water curling up from the lake to rest underneath her lithe form, acting as a seat. She purses her lips and your eyes follow the movement of her plush mouth.

Pulse pounding, and hoping your assumption is right, you lean down towards her. She lifts her free hand to cup your warming cheek and meets you halfway.

The kiss is chaste and sweet, and when she opens her mouth in invitation, you immediately accept. She tastes of the berries you used to gather in the past, rich and bright. Your tongue brushes against something sharp and you gasp. But she soothes the sting with her own tongue before tapering off the kiss with smaller pecks.

Dazed, you pull back panting softly. She shows her white, fanged teeth with a grin.

“I can understand you now,” she murmurs, licking her lips.

You feel no fear from the hungry gleam in her eyes. Instead, it sends shivers racing up and down your spine.

“Who are you?”

She brushes the pad of her thumb against your bottom lip.

“You may call me Maris.”

You’re torn between catching your breath or indulging yourself in her again. The choice is made for you when someone calls your name.

Startled, you push away from the pier’s end and land hard on your rear. With a groan, you clamber to your feet, hissing and squirting through the pain. The face you meet isn’t familiar at first thanks to the neat, trimmed beard he has. But if you removed the facial hair, the black-rimmed glasses and the dark bags underneath his eyes…

“Silas?”

Your cousin blinks at you as if fully recognizing you for the first time. He smiles awkwardly and holds up a large hand in greeting.

“Yeah. It’s…it’s good to see you.”

You honestly don’t know if you can truly say the same. But you nod in reply, regardless.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” he says.

His bushy brows knit together as if trying to discern your reason. The gesture leaves a sour taste in the back of your mouth. It reminds you of how he and Simon would wrench your words from your mouth when you were little. Like pulling teeth. But you don’t budge and refuse to give in. To your surprise, he does.

“Things...at home aren’t going so well. Sara can’t stand to look at me and my little girl…”

You didn’t expect to learn about his marital problems, let alone the fact that he was married with a child.  

“So you need a place to stay, right?”

He nods.

“Just until this small thing blows over.”

With the way his hands clutch helplessly at the air by his sides, you know this ‘small thing’ has to be colossal. But it isn’t any of your business and you hope to keep it that way.

“I already claimed the larger guestroom,” you say. “But the other’s up for grabs and so is the master suite. There’s still room in the fridge for any food you’ve brought.”

Silas rubs the back of his neck and mutters a quick “thank you”.

“I’ll be sure to stay out of your way.”

His retreating shoulders slouch, burdened by an invisible weight as he trudges off the pier towards the lake house. You release the breath you were holding in a slow, steady stream. This wasn’t part of the plan, but you’ll have to make due. You always had as a child and still could.

Before following after Silas, you turn back towards the lake just as a breeze ripples the water’s surface. Sunlight shines down on the peaceful scene.

Maris is gone.

[buddaimond]

Kristen Stewart is due at the Venice Film Festival tomorrow for the world premiere of “Seberg”, a political thriller inspired by true events and a movie that represents one of the boldest choices the erstwhile Bella Swan has increasingly made since she burst to worldwide stardom in the Twilight saga. Stewart has demonstrated an arthouse sensibility — even becoming the first American actress to win a César Award, France’s equivalent to the Oscar — showing range in a diverse array of films while not shying away from big studio fare either, with “Charlie’s Angels” coming in November. She is passionate about her work, gender equality and telling “confronting” stories. Stewart is also conscious of the reach and influence she has as a celebrity, particularly one who broke out in a global franchise. “Everything that I do, every conversation that I have, the way that I vote, the projects that I’m drawn to creatively… It would be impossible to go to bed without being really clear and open and honest in these times,” she tells me below. Seberg (which previously went by the title Against All Enemies and is directed by Benedict Andrews) plays into that. The film is centered on Jean Seberg, the titular Breathless pixie, an American actress who spent half her life in France. In the late 1960s, she was targeted by Hoover’s illegal FBI surveillance program COINTELPRO. Because of her political and romantic involvement with civil rights activist Hakim Jamal (played by Anthony Mackie in the film), she was also a target of the FBI’s attempts to disrupt, discredit and expose the Black Power movement. Seberg died at the age of 40 in what was deemed a probable suicide. That was 40 years ago tomorrow. Of the film’s resonance to today, Stewart says, “I mean, this is America and a bunch of dudes in power are never going to be cool with you taking it away.” Bearing a striking physical resemblance to Seberg in the Amazon Studios presentation, Stewart has more in common with the actress than a great haircut. DEADLINE: In some of the acting choices you’ve made in the past few years, there seems to be more of a European sensibility than where you started out. Was it a deliberate choice to go in that direction?

KRISTEN STEWART: Well I started acting when I was really young and I definitely never got any commercial jobs (laughs). As a little kid, the first few things you audition for are commercial work or TV work or parts for children which tend to obviously be a little less complex. I was seriously, like, thrown out of every “cute girl” audition that I ever went to. At that time, there was no way for me to be aware of my sort of ultimate trajectory. But it makes total sense. I was always a very sort of over-serious thoughtful kid. I was definitely not afraid to tell confronting stories and was much more interested in that.

DEADLINE: You worked with Jodie Foster early in your career, how influential has that meeting been later on?

STEWART: I think I grew up with this default admiration because of her, because I always felt a kinship with her. I sort of consistently used her as an example of something to strive for, so that detail was always very attractive. You know, there’s just something classically more existential and realistic in terms of what it feels like to actually live a life and have a brain and live amongst people that might have different ones rather than telling these compact perfect stories. I was always into that. But (working with Foster) was like the coincidence that luckily put me in a few correct places. I definitely kind of aggrandized that whole world before I even knew about it.

DEADLINE: When I first moved to France 26 years ago, I worked at the International Herald Tribune and that famous photo of Jean Seberg from Breathless was a source of pride for us. But I was surprised how little I knew about her life and the circumstances this film reveals. What did you learn about her?

STEWART: I really only knew her as the Herald Tribune girl as well. I hadn’t seen anything other than Breathless. I knew the dégueulasse moment (at the end of that film). I always found her to be iconically cool. I thought it was rad that this actress had been ingratiated into this culture that I also am really interested in, but I really never went into it any further than that. I read the script and was really shocked, I had no idea about the story about her sort of tragic end. I was interested in the complexity of her life, but I only knew her as an image before.

DEADLINE: Beyond being an American actress who has found success in France, were there any other aspects of Jean that you identify with?

STEWART: I think Jean was really committed to telling not the most commercial stories, it was why she was attracted to the people she was attracted to creatively. It was why she was drawn to the causes that she was as well — they weren’t digestible in the country that she was living in, they weren’t something that people wanted to hear both creatively and politically. So I think it makes total sense that she found a more sort of welcome home in France.

DEADLINE: Jean was also a very strong woman, but one who had a tragic end. How would she fare in today’s Hollywood?

STEWART: We’re living in such a polarized time I think, that luckily there are fewer — I mean I can’t justify this because there are some people functioning in order to preserve their careers and not necessarily reflective of how they feel as a human in a compassionate sense or in a political sense — but I do think that people are less afraid in a way because it’s just so pertinent right now. Not that it wasn’t then. We were just out of the 50s; there was more of a cookie-cutter conformist mentality especially in the States and especially for someone who wants to maintain their success. But I think now, I don’t know, Jean currently would probably have more of a crew to substantiate these ideas. I think that now the political climate doesn’t leave much room for middle ground, so I’d like to say she would fare better. I would like to think there wouldn’t be a f***ing oppressive conglomerate out there to destroy her life. But at the same time, that’s absolutely the world that we’re living in. I think it would depend on what she was getting mixed in with. Cautiously optimistically, I would like to say it would be better. But at the same time, the reason it would be is really jarring right now because I think we all feel like there is probably someone over our shoulders ready to take us down if we say the wrong thing.

DEADLINE: There are indeed parallels to today. Sort of a meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

STEWART: I think this oppressive energy is so ironically the foundation of our politics now. I mean, what was happening then is happening now and it’s gonna continue to happen. I mean, this is America and a bunch of dudes in power are never going to be cool with you taking it away — I don’t think they really care who they bowl over to maintain that.

DEADLINE: How important do you think it is today, and in a position like the one you occupy, to take a stance and speak out and use that celebrity to get a message across?

STEWART: I feel quite strongly. Everything that I do, every conversation that I have, the way that I vote, the projects that I’m drawn to creatively — I think that I wear my feelings and my stance and my politics. I think that some people are really inclined to stand on soap boxes and I think that they should, and some people are more inclined to do it quietly, but with intention and wield your power in different ways. But, yeah, I think it’s absolutely essential that you represent yourself, knowing your influence and the reach that you have. I think that it would be impossible to go to bed without being really clear and open and honest in these times.

DEADLINE: There was a perception about Jean that audiences wanted “the girl in the t-shirt.” As someone who was so closely identified with a role early in your career, do you feel like you’ve shed that connection? Would you want to?

STEWART: I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think every step I’ve taken to this spot on the now I can say I feel lucky that some of the footprints are gouged out, I’m proud of that. I’m cool with that. I think the whole Twilight thing is pretty entrenched, which is funny and kind of crazy for me to think about now because it has been a really long time. I remember it like it was yesterday and at the same time it was another life. So it’s funny to have it consistently be the foundation of who I am in a cultural sense. But in a literal one, I couldn’t be further from it. But I’m down with it. It’s so trippy. I’m so proud to be part of it, I like the crew. I look at it really fondly and endearingly and silly, sort of like opening a sophomore yearbook, like, “OMG! Wow!”

DEADLINE: You were on the jury in Cannes in 2018, which was a pivotal year there in the fight for gender parity. What that was like?

STEWART: It was such a good year for me to be there. I’ve attended the festival a couple times with films and, oh man, I don’t know, it digs up feelings that I hold in such reverence and ones that not everybody does, quite rightfully, because that would be strange — the world is a lot more than just movies. But being there the year that it became really undeniable and really buzzy and fervently activated in terms of being a woman, I’m so lucky to have been there in that energy. Cate (Blanchett) was the president of the jury, and honestly I think that if we had to represent the earth and send one of ours out to an alien race and be like “Hey, this is us,” I think it would be Cate. So I was just so completely activated that whole time, I went home so inspired and turned on. My on switch was just slammed, so it was wonderful.

DEADLINE: Venice is getting some heat for a lack of female directors in competition. Would you sit on a jury here?

STEWART: Obviously I am a huge proponent of having more women and making films that are accepted… I guess if they asked me to be on the jury in Venice, it would be a step in the right direction. Sometimes if you act selfishly, your intentions and your politics sort of are in tow, so selfishly I would want to do that because I have everything to learn from that experience — and I think it makes a really solid statement.

Source

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON CHERRY BOMB!’S MAIN DANCE GUN MONA...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 25 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 14 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: Modeling (cf)

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): Momo, Moe, Mong (몽), 징징 INSPIRATION: As a child, she’d perform for her father, her brother, and eventually her small town community and found a lot of joy in entertaining them and making them laugh. She’s always loved performing and singing, but hadn’t really thought about doing it for a profession, despite being musically inclined. A young fan of the first-generation K-pop groups like S.E.S and Fin.K.L., she was persuaded to perform on K-pop Star just to see if she liked performing, and found it exhilarating. Hasn’t looked back since. SPECIAL TALENTS:

No-laughing challenge master

Notoriously bad at tongue twisters

Has a whistle register

NOTABLE FACTS:

Very active on her personal and the groups’ SNS and interacts a lot with fans of both the group and herself personally

When she was a K-pop Star contestant, she notably performed ‘U Go Girl’ and impressed the judges with her energy (and cuteness)

Is “jokingly” known to be a huge party girl, idol friends and celebrities she’s familiar with say she has an “iron stomach” when it comes to soju

Known for her funny expressions that can’t hide how she feels - most often it’s her resting bitch face or an unamused one, but also some wacky ones

Crochets little stuffed animals as a hobby

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

Right now, she’s looking to solidify her position as a “CF queen” — wants brands to look at her as someone that’s popular with general public and that, frankly, they’ll shell out big bucks to exclusively sign as their brand model. She also wants to venture into another field or two to supplement the wave of popularity she’s been lucky to experience thus far: an acting stint, perhaps, or maybe variety where historically she’s been a little bit more successful and more comfortable with. More for herself than for her career, she’s been keen on becoming serious as a performing artist, and is looking into music production in her spare time.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

As her relevance (also known as: time frame) as an idol fades, Mona would want to try to go solo, since her love for her craft is a life-long one, but is more than ready to complement a solo career with recognition for the other talent she’s currently deciding between. She’d like to transition her “image” as that charming, relatable girl-next-door look into someone more womanly and self-assured. Someone authentic. In a more career-oriented sense, she wants to achieve the ability to pick and choose the brands that she models for and still receive hefty contracts, in the vein of Won Bin’s star power. Overall, she’d like to shed the ‘idol’ image and turn into that of an ‘artist’ - someone well-respected in the public eye that carries life-long relevance.

IDOL IMAGE

It’s an undeniable truth to say that there is a first impression of her, and that it is always, without fail, this: she’s pretty. Remarkably pretty, in a plain, malleable sort of way. Not too sharp that she cuts, alienates — just soft enough to mould into whatever you want her to be. Most people don’t care for much else besides the first look, so it’s perfectly fine that she’ll be the pretty one, memorable if only fleetingly. It works, anyway — the relatability of her features, parts of it (of her) desirable and the other parts identifiable, make her an easy pick-up for brands to plaster on their products. Girl-next-door with wisps of maturity, of a sex appeal her members don’t quite possess. The kind of soft girl that the public loves to rest between their teeth. Palatable — just so.

You don’t have to be much more than a pretty face and a good dancer, they’ve told her in the past. Don’t stray from your design, is what they mean.

Don’t be you. There’s nothing appealing about it.

She tries. Walks the tightrope between the image of her and the girl inside — tries to dull a blunt tongue, smooth a passionate expression, tame the soft cruelty that makes up her marrow. Spends years running back and forth between wanting and having. Should haves and could haves. There’s the artist she wants to be, the truth that wants to will itself into existence; then there’s the girl that’ll actually succeed — merely pretty, with hidden laughs and closed smiles, speaking well but not too much, both seductive and restrained. So consumed by the thought of others that she tries to smooth herself out until there’s nothing left of her, manufactured out of her system.

She’s told, time and again, that her beauty is the only thing that matters — and, to be frank, she’s tired of it. Tired of being told. So she resolves to take it — their power, her weakness — into her own hands, tilt the scales in her favor. Manifest destiny, or some bullshit like that.

The public eats it up.

The newfound authenticity to her — the poignant way she expresses a confidence she’s found that she’s had, how she isn’t afraid to be desirable, how she pushes the boundary of acceptably self-loving is not so off-putting as it is intriguing. Everybody loves to hate on a woman in control, except with the way she carries herself, haughty but not in-your-face, there’s less to hate and more to admire. It helps that she’s older now, less tied to a youthful, innocent image and settling into the confident niche of her group like she was always meant to be there. Girl-next-door that’s matured into a woman — still pretty, still relatable, but with a voice that’s truly her own. Fears nothing: not the hurtful comments, lustful gazes — doesn’t mind being the sophisticated ‘sex bomb’ she’s grown to be one minute, all-natural the next, an everyday adult woman.

It’s appealing, she supposes, to see a girl grow up. Become more assertive, fill into her skin (or shed the layers that were well past due). Not trying to appease, not blinded by the limelight. At a time when she’s finally happy with herself, everyone seems to be happy with her too. With a tacit blessing, she’s let herself be unafraid to be her, for now.

Just don’t stray out of line, they whisper.

(I don’t care, she wants to say back.)

IDOL HISTORY

In the summer of 1999, she leaves.

.

It doesn’t take Mona very long to realize that her mother isn’t coming back. What with the way her father sits on the side of the bed that used to be hers, head in his palms, back poised for a knife that isn’t there, but it feels like he’s bleeding anyway. She stops questioning him soon after that — too scared, perhaps, of the consequences. One parent’s gone, no need for another to disappear too.

Home isn’t ever the same afterwards. Going from four to barely three leaves a big gaping hole in the fabric, seams loose and aching. Dinners, for example, are sombre affairs, heavy with the knowledge of the empty chair at the table. Weekends, too, are quiet — where her mother used to sing, silence makes itself heard, a loud ringing in the ears. The sound of loss is deafening, they all find out in time.

She tries to pretend that it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.

(It’s not, of course. Six year old fingers aren’t meant to hold up the spines of men — their wilting, their hollowness. No wonder she doesn’t grow up proper; no wonder that there ends up being something wrong.)

There are days when her father cannot look at her. She has her mother’s eyes.

.

Sunday in July. S.E.S. and sunlight waft through old speakers and cracks in the curtains respectively. Like calm before a storm.

Mona can’t help but sing along when the chorus comes on, all light tone and childish chipper. She realizes — there’s been no singing since she left. Since she took the singing with her. Stops short when father’s wiry figure hovers at the doorway, quiet as always. Time won’t heal his wounds, but it has allowed him to forget as a reprieve. Until now.

“I didn’t —“

“Keep singing, Mona,” he says. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen such a smile — so sad, but so happy at once. “It’s beautiful.”

So she does.

.

The moment she steps onto the shining, fluorescent-washed stage is the time she realizes: it’s different. Not at all like sinking her feet into the sofa of her living room, moving like clockwork to her father’s favorite songs, singing along. Nor is it like standing on the rickety wooden floor of her local community center, performing for the people she’s grown up around, who would love her no matter what she’d do.

This is Seoul, with all of its steel and its glamour and a cruelty that leaves fourteen year old her starstruck. This is the tipping point.

After all is said and done, she doesn’t get very far. Pretty, and a vibrant performer, but too rough, too unpolished to win a competition of the best. She’s not even sure the praise they’d given her was real — everything about it had seemed so manufactured. Machinery running through their motions. Leaves her feeling like she had less than she had started with; and she wants more.

Someone slips her a small white card before she leaves the building. You’ve got potential, they’d said. Audition.

Weeks pass and the details imprints themselves into the back of her brain: rudimentary black symbols that bely the possibility of fame, of fortune, of a life greater than her small town all in the sharp cuts of their lines. Curiosity has always been her vice, thorns strangling tighter until she has to find out what’s on the other side.

The tension, her wanting: both palpable. Her little town on the outskirts of Daegu cannot contain it. Everything’s tasteless, everything’s sober. It’s painfully obvious that she wants this. Wants more. Her mother, she recalls, had felt the same way. The parallels scare her. Her mother’s eyes. Her mother’s voice. Her mother’s self-regard. Hers, now, too.

She hates the look in her father’s eyes when she says she’s going to Seoul. Hates it even more when she forgets how he looked when she gets accepted by MSG entertainment, to begin her training as soon as possible.

When she packs her bags and says goodbye, she leaves him slumped in the dining chair she’d made her own for years.

Three becomes two. Feels like there’s nothing left of family anymore.

.

Trainee life is cyclical. Breathe in, breathe out: dance, sing, weigh, repeat. She wonders: why did they let her through when all they seem to want is to strip her gone? They lash her tongue to strip the satoori from her vocabulary; starve away the parts of her that make her her — her bold tongue, her small-town naivety, her childish innocence. Scrub the poverty from her until she’s wiped clean. You’re not here to be you, they tell her in between lines. You’re here to be a god.

Giving her best becomes harder when there’s nothing left to give, so she starts giving pieces of herself in its place. She wants this, she wants this, she wants this. Guilt propels her — her father, all the way back in Daegu, sitting with his head in his palms like she’d left him, just like her mother had before her. All the way here and she hears his howling (or maybe now it’s coming from her).

Torn between this choice: the her of before, and the her that could be.

She chooses the latter. Too many bridges burnt now to go back, she thinks. See the selfish through.

.

Idol life is an open door leading straight into hell.

She’s always so tired. Always so lost. She’d thought wrong: had been mistaken that they’d finally let her be when she debuted. Their hands go deeper now — not ghosting along the lines of her, but into her, become her ribcage and her spine and her mouth. Dissonance, it’s termed: her between closed doors, witching hour in her bedroom, and her in front of the camera. Does her father recognize her? Does she?

Pretty, they tack onto her shoulders. Pretty and docile. Perhaps it’s because she’s become awkward — lost her confidence as she’s risen to the top — but when they tell her keep quiet, she listens. Strange, feeling faceless when the only thing she’s known for is her face. It frustrates her, going through the motions, known foremost for the outside of her, a part of her that’s been an afterthought; then, just barely, how well she dances, how her body moves. Nothing about her — her love for music, her craft, or how funny she can be, or how much she wants to just be.

When she left her family, when she chose herself over others, she didn’t think she’d lose them both.

One day, her father calls. Asks why she sounds so sad. Because I left you, she says. Because I was selfish. And all for nothing — now I can’t even sing how I want, or act how I want, or be how I want. Are you proud of me? Do you hate me for leaving you behind?

Keep singing, Mona, he says. It’s beautiful.

(Be you, Mona. You’re beautiful.)

So she does.

.

Maybe her wounds will heal — maybe, quite possibly, they won’t. But inevitably, she’ll forget them once in a while. Slowly, she learns to let herself go — that is, the idea she has of herself go. It’s no good trying to be someone she’s not; she’s no actress, not at all suited to playing a part. They’d told her it would be her downfall, being herself,  being real. She intends to make it her strength.

It starts off slow, the slippage. A strut down the walkway, a haughty gaze at the camera, a flash of skin here and there. Candid in her interviews, still reserved, but more at ease than ever. Yeah, she’s watched adult films; yeah, she can hold her soju; yeah, she’ll talk about how she had loved a boy and lost him. The more she lets loose, the more comfort she feels — the most comfortable she’s felt in her own skin in years.

In the end, they’re intrigued by this new girl in front of them — the rawness, the realness, the subtle haughtiness. Who is this new Mona? They ask.

She’s always been this Mona, she says, smile on her face — open-mouth, teeth shining and everything.

For the first time, she feels centred. Feels alive.

[artificialqueens]

Love me tender - Part Three (Shalaska/Pearlet), by Lavish

A/N: Look at me submitting a chapter less than a month after the one prior! Here in Brazil it’s still October 1st, which means Halloween season is officially open. It seemed only right to submit Shalaska today. In this we have a glimpse of domestic life with Violet and Matt, beers with Sharon, Alaska letting her guard down, and something unexpected at the end. As always, thank you to those who have been following this fic, who have left feedback here and on my ask box, I love you tons. Xo, Lavish. 

“Vi, come on! It’s about to start!”

Matt’s strong voice echoed throughout the small apartment, making Violet roll her eyes, slightly annoyed, but also smile nevertheless. She had no idea when it became a thing to watch old seasons of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo with Matt, but it was now a sacred ritual for their Saturdays. Violet hurried to pour the contents of two bags of Doritos into a bowl before the opening song ended.

She handed the snacks to her boyfriend before plopping down on the air mattress they used as a couch (and bed, and often times a very convenient eating surface).

“I can’t believe you hit play before I was done picking food to feed your ass and your baby. I hope you are aware this is treason, and for that, you will be punished.”

Violet liked to complain. Simple as that – when she made snarky comments, she would usually be treated better after. It always happened, and that, as well as her true faith in aliens, were universal truths to the young teen.

“Fucking yes I did! And may I remind you it took ages, AGES, for you to simply figure out that you wanted Doritos after I browsed Uber Eats for like 20 minutes? No wonder you have HUGE swollen feet, that’s probably where all your ego went!”

Her boyfriend was the clear exception to the rule. Violet burst into laughter, holding her ever-growing belly, but attempting to swat her hand on his arm for the nerve he had. She pulled Matt’s face and planted a kiss on his nose, feeling his toothy grin graze over her own lips, making his stubble tickle her palm.

“Did you listen, Melon? That’s how your dad talks to your mom. Hopefully you’ll be less of a monster, kid.” Violet stared at her belly, as if she were waiting for an answer, and sighing in frustration when she wasn’t rewarded with any.

Since her third month, after most of her morning sickness had passed and Violet had made peace with the idea that she would get as big (or maybe even bigger, god forbid) as the entire European continent, she had grown very fond of talking to her belly. She’d read somewhere that it was healthy and soothing for the baby to hear their parent’s voice, so she opted not to risk the sanity of the baby and to address it whenever possible. Everyone did it: Violet, Sharon, even Violet’s mom and the lady who drove the bus she usually took to the hospital (Sheila was her name and Violet thought she was lovely, despite her daring habit of consuming approximately 4 donuts during the 10-minute journey). Again, Matt was the only exception. He never talked to Mellon, which was, evidently, a great disappointment. Violet figured it may be painful for him, but she still desperately wanted him to. 

She would never admit it out loud, but sometimes Violet fantasized about having a family with Matt. Having a house with three bedrooms, an ugly minivan, buying her baby clothes and toys, all sorts of mommy duty. She had even made a pact with herself: if she were ever to keep the baby, she would even keep a homelife blog, sharing the experiences of Melon the First. She craved it deeply, Violet was confident that she would be a good mom. Not the best, not a great mom, but an okay mom. And that was precisely the issue: her kid deserved much more than just okay. Her baby wouldn’t sleep on an air mattress. Violet wouldn’t drive a minivan because they were the epitome of ugly and tackiness, and extremely slow for her liking. She looked at Matt, her beloved Matt, wondering how he’d be like as a dad. She was so entertained it took Violet a second to realize he was expecting an answer to a question she hadn’t heard.

“Sorry, I totally spaced out. What did you say, babe?”

“I said I can make you some guac if you’d like, to go with that.” He pointed to the orange snack. “Hopefully it will save me from torture due to the treason of the crown.”

Again, he made her laugh out loud until her entire body was shaking. “No babe, it’s fine. You are forgiven. Let’s just see if Anna will marry that Michael guy.”

“You already know she did, tho.”

“Way to spoil the episode, you dork!” Violet faked rage, and tossed herself baby-bump-first over the giggling body of her boyfriend. In no time, they were having a tickling battle, both too invested in each other to notice the drama happening on-screen.

And maybe it was the comfort of the air mattress hugging their tangled figures due to the weight, or maybe the way Matt’s curtains hardly filtered any of the sunlight streaming through the window, but suddenly Matthew’s apartment felt to Violet like a home for their little family. ********** The warm breeze of August swept Alaska’s golden locks over her shoulder, and the edges tingled her sensitive skin. She stared at the empty seat in front of her, as though if she fixated on it long enough, Sharon would materialize. Alaska was fairly early, but she still checked her phone every two minutes to know if 15:00 would arrive any sooner. The last time she looked, her stubborn clock showed a disappointing 14:23.

Lunch with Cory was nice and familiar. Alaska missed him constantly, and despite living in the same city, LA was huge. The chances they would run into each other only decreased day by day, and still their connection was as undeniable as ever. Cory was 3 years younger and about 20 times more reckless than Alaska, but they always got along well – at least, after the karate patches incidents was forgotten. He balanced her seriousness and she lent him the responsibility he often lacked, which provided tons of laughter, some rumors about Cory possibly using heroin, and all of Alaska’s drunk dialing episodes on her first years of dating. Together, they could (respectably) paint the town.

A glimpse of what looked like jet-black hair appeared on Alaska’s line of vision through the window, and her head shot up, trying to find out if it were Sharon. A lean, tall brunette was closing the door of a red pickup truck, double checking the doors before turning around. The distinctive cleft chin and her piercing blue eyes made it undeniably clear it was none other than Sharon, waving discreetly at Alaska before making a beeline to Alaska’s table.

As she approached, the blonde checked her phone once again. 14:27.

“Well, you’re early!” Alaska broke the silence as the other woman arrived at her table, a smile easily spreading across her face. She double checked her outfit, making sure her rosy blouse was in place, and adjusted the bow on the neckline. The white skirt she wore was hidden under the table, but Alaska still straightened it reassuringly.

“Yeah, I was actually hoping to arrive early and calm my nerves before you got here, not gonna lie, but I’m not disappointed at all. You look drop dead gorgeous.”

Alaska watched in awe and chuckled lightly at the emphasis she gave on “dead”. She studied Sharon, contemplating her ensemble. From the styled (yet effortless looking) curls to her dark eyeshadow and the low-neck black dress, it made sense. It only seemed right that Sharon was that sort of grown-up punk kid.

It was an odd pair to look at, undoubtedly. But they made sense, in a way. The way Alaska’s dimples deepened when she smiled looked nice next to Sharon’s gapped front teeth, both giving a little humanity to the otherwise impossibly beautiful duo. Alaska’s breath was taken away. From the husky tone of Sharon’s voice to her milky skin and long fingers, she was amazing.

“Why, thank you! Same to you. Should we order something, or…?” Alaska trailed off, watching as the brunette’s eyes got lost on her face, studying her body language. She couldn’t help but smile, she felt good. It wasn’t invasive staring, it felt personal, intimate even. Alaska wished she would know what was going through Sharon’s mind in that moment.

If she could, she’d find out Sharon was admiring the way the afternoon sun bathed the pale skin of her chest, making the pink shirt draped over the other woman gave her an ethereal look. She’d find Sharon was curious about a tiny scar on her glossed upper lip, wondering what the story behind it would tell about Alaska’s early life. But alas, Alaska wouldn’t know all that. Instead of telling, Sharon opted for a less embarrassing phrase.

“Do you think they’ll serve us a beer right now? I know it’s still afternoon but I’m dying for one.”

“Yeah, sure!” Alaska wasn’t used to early drinking, but then again, she wasn’t used to being spontaneous at all. She looked over her shoulder, catching the waiter’s attention, and placed their order. Turning to Sharon with an inquiring look, she asked: “Soooo, tell me about yourself, Miss Needles… Anything I should be aware of before I trust you with a newborn?”

“I don’t think so, no… Does having live bunnies for breakfast count?” She kept a straight face, but Alaska’s shocked expression cracked her up. The lawyer looked weirdly green, as if she was sick. “I’m just messing with you, gosh! You know what they say: when in doubt, freak them out. You should’ve seen your face tho, it was priceless!” She smacked the table in the midst of a fit of laughter, struggling to even get the words out, the blonde soon following. Sharon was weirdly comfortable being her truest, weirdest self and didn’t get self-conscious at all. She found she was, actually, in her element.

“Literally nobody says that. But despite being close to Satan’s spawn, what else is there to you?” Alaska dove deep into Sharon’s eyes, almost believing that, if she searched long enough, she would peel off every one of the lairs built around Sharon’s impressive personality. She seemed so much more comfortable than she did in the hospital, speaking and gesturing freely.

“Well, I was born in Newton, Iowa. It’s a nice town to grow up until about 15, then it’s just too small of a town. My first teen years were terrible, I felt eyes on me all the time – and trust me, it ain’t nice at all.” She paused, getting a little more serious, and instantly reaching for Alaska’s hand over the table. Just like last time, there was no need for requests or even a flick of the eyes. It was natural. She took it and smiled, encouraging the other to continue. “I moved to Pennsylvania a few years later, then moved again down here. I attended Nursing school back in Penn, and those were the best years of my life. I love my job. I bet looking at me no one would ever guess what I do for a living, but it’s such a personal matter to me. I chose to nurse because there was… I don’t even know how to put it, some sort of emptiness, I guess, inside of me. My loneliness had hit a new level right after I got my diploma, as I’d left family back in Newton, so I clung to the first job I got. It really was fantastic how much it fulfilled me, and now… I guess I’m just ready to welcome a new life into my own. I smoke tho. I hope it’s not a deal breaker.”

Alaska was speechless. Sometime during Sharon’s monologue their waiter had placed two frozen pilsner glasses on their table, filled to the brim with bubbling beer. Without breaking their hand holding, both reached for their drinks. There was a clear syntony between the two, and it made grins split both their faces.

“Should we toast to this?” Alaska said, before taking her first sip. Seeing Sharon eagerly agree, shaking her head up and down, she continued, inclining her glass to meet the brunette’s. “To a very good start to whatever it is will happen between us four. May whatever decision Violet and Matt make the best one for all.”

“And to Melon, may he or she be as alcohol driven as any of their parents – and yes, I’m referencing underage drinking. Sorry ‘bout it.” Sharon completed, a sassy finger wiggling around.

The cold beverage tasted surprisingly good to Alaska, and she smiled languidly. It was so easy to be around Sharon, and all of her personal problems, from Tom to driving to the suburbs and all of the cases piling on her desk seemed so far, as if they weren’t her own.

“Damn Lask, this is too fancy. I usually have mine straight from the can.”

“I usually don’t have any at all! Look at us, having different experiences and fancy-ing it up for our date.” Alaska’s words only made their way to her brain when she registered what she’d said. “I meant meeting. Fuck.”

Sharon waved her hand, telling her off, both of them surrendering to contagious laughter. Alaska’s face still showed flushed, but her smile was genuine.

“Honest mistake. I don’t dress this nice for meetings.” She sighed and took another sip. “ Your turn Lasky, what’s the story here?”

“Well…” She elongated the word, trying to decide where to start. “I’m from Pennsylvania actually, from Erie. I have two brothers and one sister, we’re pretty close. Cory lives here, he’s the one who had lunch with me here earlier. I went to Law School at the University of Pittsburgh, and after I graduated I wanted to have this huge Law Firm and “make a name for myself,” She drew quotation marks in the air, rolling her eyes. To her ears, young Alaska seemed naïve and silly. “So I came down here. Luckily the firm part totally worked, but I should’ve known the part of making a name was a goal shared by basically the entire American population, so not an easy one.”

“I see that in you, I could totally tell you’re an overachiever. It’s not bad, tho. It’s ok to dream big.”

Sharon winked and Alaska felt it again, the fluttering of butterflies in the bottom of her stomach, taking her breath and her speech. All she did was smile, finishing what was left of her beer.

“Well, I guess so. It just seems childish to me from where I stand. I guess at a you-” She was cut off by her own phone ringing. She had almost forgotten she had one, from how invested she had become in their talk. The lit up screen didn’t show any names, or clues, of who was the caller. She let it go to voicemail, resuming her sentence. “Sorry about that. Back to what I was saying, at a young age we want to conquer the world, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but as you grow up even those perspectives chan-“ 

Once again, her phone blared with an incoming call from an unknown number. 

"Do you mind if I take this? I promise it won’t be long." 

"Sure, take your time, Lasky.” Sharon smiled, and Alaska detected honesty in her eyes. She was more than surprised that this was going so well. "Hello, is this Misses Langster?“

Alaska frowned, taking a second to recognize her husband’s last name, which she had gladly taken, but never really used.

"Yes, this is she.” Still oblivious, she turned to Sharon, basking on the way her full lips stretched when she smiled. It was the most beautiful one she’d ever seen.

“I’m calling from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. There’s been an accident.”

[avidbeader]

And more of the Sheith soulmates AU

Voltron fanfic. Probably rated T when it’s done. Definitely Shiro x Keith. Here I get situational with Pidge/Katie’s pronouns. Feedback is always welcome.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

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There was no indication that this would be anything other than a team fight against a beast until they were lined up at the entrance. Shiro was in the middle, with Ch’varr beside him and Xi behind him. Matt was up front.

Then the master of ceremonies spoke over the loudspeakers. “Today, we will find the strongest among these gladiators. Those who survive the encounter with the mighty Myzax will go on to greater glory.”

A large viewscreen materialized in the arena, showing the audience a large biped, holding a club with some kind of energy ball on the end. It swung the club and the energy ball took off, soaring around the arena before returning to its position on the base. The audience roared its appreciation.

The guard held out the sword to Matt. “You will be first.”

Shiro could see Matt’s body language—he was about to panic. Dimly over the thunder of the crowd, he heard the shaky, scared voice: “I’m not gonna make it! I’ll never see my family again!”

“You can do this!” Shiro hissed back, but heard Matt’s gasp of terror.

Shiro only hesitated an instant. He charged forward with a yell, shouldering the sentry and ripping the sword from it. “This is my fight!” He swung with precision, bringing the flat of the blade against Matt’s knee hard, and his friend cried out as he collapsed. Shiro grabbed what would be his last chance and threw himself down over Matt. “I want blood!”

And just as the sentries came to pull him off, he whispered, “Take care of your father!”

The last he saw of Matt was Xi bending over him and Matt’s stunned expression as he realized just what Shiro had done.

<> <> <> <> <>

Keith was plagued by nightmares most nights. Dreams where Iverson had succeeded in breaking his bond with Shiro. Dreams where Shiro and the Holts had actually crashed and died. Dreams where Shiro got away from the aliens that had taken him, only to lose himself in the vastness of space forever, unable to find home again.

Tonight was the most vivid dream since the moment he realized that the Kerberos crew had been kidnapped. He was in some kind of stadium, large crowds seated above him and cheering as he stepped forward to face an opponent. He was keyed up—something important had just happened. He had just taken an action that he might regret later, but he felt he had no choice. He had to help Matt in the only way he saw possible.

The opponent was large, head and shoulders above him. It swung a club, sending a sphere of energy around the arena in a circle wider than the various obstacles littering the floor. Keith’s eyes narrowed as he heard an odd shift in the sound of the weapon as the sphere returned to the club and shrank in size briefly before expanding again. At that point the alien sent it out once more.

Keith’s hand tightened around a sword and he waved it back and forth, getting a feel for its balance, such as it was. This was a poor weapon, mass-produced and clunky, but it was sharp. As he watched, the alien sent the sphere out a second time, openly grinning at him in anticipation. But as there had been no signal for the fight to begin, he waited.

The bond rose within him, Keith’s presence united with his. Keith’s mind zeroing in on the weapon he faced, Keith’s hand on the blade.

The third time the sphere returned to the base, the sound changed again and the alien waited for the size of the sphere and the sound to return to normal before sending it out again. That was the key. This weapon had to recharge.

The blast of sound, like cannon fire, echoed through the arena, and the alien charged toward him, swinging the club to release the sphere. He dodged to one side immediately, noting how the sphere veered to follow him, and timed a leap behind a stone slab lying on one side so the sphere crashed against it. The alien pulled the projectile back to itself and swung again.

He could do this. Keith was with him.

This time he waited as the sphere hurtled toward him, then jumped up on the slab and leaped out of the way. The sphere tore a chunk out of the wall behind him and he heard the shouts of the spectators closest to the impact as he tried to make it to the next obstacle—

The energy ball hit him in the shoulder, sending him to the ground as pain seared across his back. That had been much faster than he expected, but now was his chance. He got to his feet and charged the monster, swinging his sword as a diversion before plunging past it and whirling to slice its legs where a human tendon would be.

The creature howled in pain and stumbled when it tried to move. He had gotten one leg and it was hamstrung. He could hear the roar of the crowd shift in surprise and then eagerness at the possibility of an actual challenge to the reigning champion.

He shifted to defense. He had to evade three times before he could attack again. He felt a growl start deep in his chest and rise through his throat, filling him with a new reservoir of stamina.

Shiro counted and ran and eluded. This time the second attack got him in the thigh, limiting his mobility for the third dodge. But the timing paid off and the next sword strike connected with the shoulder the alien used to throw its weapon. But it caught him around the neck with its other hand and sent him rolling.

One more cycle…one more cycle… He planned his path to bring himself around to the monster’s off side. The crowd seemed to realize he was going the wrong way and shouted concern. The alien’s swings were weaker, the sphere moving with less force. But he stuck to his plan…he had to lure the alien into swinging wide…

The alien sent its third attack, the aim off, and Shiro was already moving in. As he had hoped, the alien moved to swat at him with the club itself. He used the sword to bind up the club and wrench it from the creature’s hand, sending it flying across the stadium. The energy sphere went obediently to its base, then fizzled out without its wielder. He immediately brought the sword to his opponent’s throat. “Yield!”

The crowd shouted, approving the conquest but demanding death. Shiro stared at the creature. “I don’t want to kill you. Will you yield?”

It growled at him. “Foolish little unknown. If you kill me now, you will not risk facing me again. I will not be so merciful.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Keith shot upright, gasping for breath. His hand flew to his shoulder, aching from the blow it had received, and then he felt his leg where a bruise ought to be.

His throat closed around sobs as he realized what he had seen through the bond. It was worse than he had imagined, so much worse. Shiro wasn’t fighting in some alien army. He was being forced to fight for his life for sport, for the entertainment of those who had abducted him.

But he had a strong impression that Matt Holt, at least, was now safer than before. That was one tiny silver lining to cling to.

Keith lay back down, feeling that odd warming purr in his essence again.

<> <> <> <> <>

Colleen Holt hung up her phone, feeling depressed. It always hurt to speak with the Shiroganes, but she would not stop her weekly calls. They were the only ones who could talk to one another, support one another through their grief of both knowing that their loved ones were alive and realizing that the chances of them ever coming back home were slim at best.

The only new thing was that Shiro’s soulmate had sent a message to them. They now had proof of what Katie had overheard, that he knew Shiro was alive due to the soul bond. He had asked them to contact her because Shiro’s emotional state indicated that Sam and Matt were still alive.

At the dining table, Katie was busy typing on her laptop, composing everything that would be needed to make one Pidge Gunderson look good enough for the Garrison. Transcripts, medical records, awards and extracurriculars were all being created to make a very tempting recruit for a future comms specialist.

Colleen noticed Katie pause and take a deep breath. She reached over and took her daughter’s hand. “Are you sure about this?”

Katie’s expression hardened, her chin jutting just like Matt’s. They had both inherited their mother’s stubborn streak.

“Yes, I’m sure. The Garrison is the only place with all the information about Kerberos on site. Getting access to their system and records is the fastest way to learn what they’re hiding.”

“I understand that. But, darling…even if you find undeniable evidence that they were taken by aliens, how is that going to help? Who knows how far away they are by this time?”

Katie’s eyes turned steely. “Oh, I have ideas…”

<> <> <> <> <>

It was definitely a second presence.

Keith had begun keeping track after the third or fourth time he had felt that comforting presence that purred at him and warmed him. It was separate from his communications with Shiro, though it seemed to respond when the bond was filled with stress and fear. He took the large corkboard that was in the house and stripped it of the previous tenant’s attempts to track Mothman’s influence over Chinese money-laundering schemes. He tracked when he could feel the presence most strongly on its own: a bit at sunrise and the two times there had been rainfall.

There was also the list next to the graph showing the instances when the presence had seemed to join the soul bond, starting with the night shortly after he had arrived here.

The night Keith had fully recognized what Shiro was being put through and realized that he was powerless to stop it. The night that Shiro had been forced to kill his opponent because the alien refused to recognize the concept of surrender. The night that the opponent had run onto Shiro’s sword in what was clearly a suicidal move. The nights the hooded things pulled him from his cell into some kind of lab facility and tested his tolerance for pain through attacks with some kind of black lightning. Those nights, Keith found he could channel the strength the presence offered him, adding it to the bond and giving Shiro the support he needed to endure.

The next time it rained, the storm blew in from the northwest and Keith noticed it took a while before the presence made itself known. The time after that, he felt the presence for an hour before the rain arrived, coming from the southwest.

Interesting that it had a definite direction when water was involved. Keith began taking the hoverbike out, mapping the area and trying to trace a potential source for this strange but welcome energy.

<> <> <> <> <>

It was almost sickening, really, how easy it was. Pidge Gunderson was accepted into Galaxy Garrison on the strength of his records and a single telephone interview, in spite of being a year younger than the average first-year cadet. Pidge Gunderson arrived and took up residence in one of the few single dorm rooms, previously arranged by some careful incursions into the student database.

And then Pidge Gunderson was assigned to a team with an amiable engineer and a loudmouth pilot who only just made the cut because a more talented pilot had gotten himself expelled. Pidge did what he had to do as far as classes and training, but no more. Pidge spent most of his evenings building his array for picking up alien signals and then sneaking up to the roof and listening in. Much to his disappointment, there was never a mention of any Holt or Shirogane. But the tantalizing repetition of a single word kept Pidge’s attention.

What was the Voltron?

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And before anyone fusses at me over the “loudmouth” description of Lance, he’ll come into his own when it’s time. You can’t tell me that Pidge wouldn’t have been totally fed up with him at first…

Thank you for the likes, reblogs, and comments!

Part 7

[claireisanaspiringnovelist]

GILMORE GIRLS (2000–2007)

 Alexis Bledel hates coffee, but Rory, her character, loves it. Whenever you see her drinking "coffee" in the series, she is actually drinking Coca-Cola out of her cup.

 Scott Patterson, who plays Luke, was not originally hired to be a series regular. He was only signed on for the pilot episode, but it was only after the discovery of the undeniable chemistry between him and Lauren Graham that he was contracted for more episodes, and quickly became a series regular.

 Milo Ventimiglia and Alexis Bledel (Jess and Rory) actually dated in real life for three and a half years.

 Liza Weil originally tested for the role of Rory and did not get the part, but the producers liked her so much that they wrote her the role of Paris Geller.

 The exterior shot of "The Dragonfly Inn" is actually the home of TV's The Waltons (1971).

 Keiko Agena (Lane Kim) was 26 playing a 15 year old in Season 1.

 Luke's character was originally written to be played by a woman, but the producers figured that "there wasn't enough testosterone" in the series and that resulted in Scott Patterson turning the character around.

 Rory occasionally speaks Spanish with Ezsperanza, where she's shown to be moderately-fluent, using basic conversational phrases. Ironically, Alexis Bledel is Hispanic (of Argentinian descent) and speaks Spanish fluently, having grown up in a Spanish-speaking household. Bledel has stated that her second language was English and she did not learn it until she attended school.

 When the character Brad Langford (Adam Wylie) returns to Chilton Academy after an absence of several months, he explains that he was away playing Jack in "Into the Woods" on Broadway. Wylie really was away from the series to play Jack in the 2002 Broadway revival of "Into the Woods".

 The town of Stars Hollow is based on Washington Depot, Connecticut. Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino stayed there while on a trip with her husband to look at Mark Twain's wallpaper.

 Due to the fast pace speech in the show, the average script for an episode of the show runs 75-80 pages, as opposed to 45-50 for a standard hour-long television show. During the 101st episode, a black and white movie from the 1930s is being shown. Lorelai looks at the movie and says they "talked fast" in those movies.

  Lane's band's name is "Hep Alien". The writers named it after producer Helen Pai; "Hep Alien" is an anagram of her name.

 Carole King (who sings the theme song) guest stars in season 3 as the music "rock" store owner who lets Lane use her store drum set for practice.

 The character of Jess (played by Milo Ventimiglia) was supposed to have a spin-off called "Windward Circle" which was picked up by the WB for midseason 2004, in which the character moves in with his estranged father (played by Rob Estes) and his father's girlfriend (played by Sherilyn Fenn) from Connecticut to California. But due to the high cost of filming on location in Venice, California, the WB changed their minds and decided not to go forward with it.

 Lorelai and Christopher are driving to Friday night dinner at the Gilmores. During the drive they are listening to Skid Row's "18 and Life". The lead singer of Skid Row is Sebastian Bach who is Gil the guitarist of Lane's band Hep Alien.

 During a June 2015 cast reunion on "The Today Show," Alexis Bledel was asked if she thought Rory would now be with Dean, Jess, or Logan, and her answer was "none of the above": "I think she'd be seeing someone new, or she'd be single and focused on her career. I don't think she'd be married." Lauren Graham then interjected, "that's the best answer ever!"

 The dollhouse seen in Lorelai's bedroom is the same dollhouse seen on Friends when Monica inherits a dollhouse after her Aunt Sylvia dies - "The One with the Dollhouse." Both Friends and Gilmore Girls filmed on the Warner Brother's lot.

[dieverdediger]

William Lane Craig’s Testimony

What of the noble who is searching for the truth With truest of intentions And yet they're jaded by hypocrisies behind cathedral walls

Calling Heaven - Michael W. Smith

From On Guard (p46-49) by William Lane Craig:

The absurdity of life is more than just an academic affair. It touches us at the core of our being. I know. As a teenager I felt deeply the meaninglessness of life and the despair that it brings. 

Although I had been raised in a good and loving home, we weren’t a churchgoing family, much less a Christian family. But when I became a teenager I began to ask the big questions of life: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “Where am I going?” In the search for answers I began to attend a large church in our community. But instead of answers, all I found was a social country club where the dues were a dollar a week on the offering plate. The other high school students who were involved in the youth group and claimed to be Christians on Sunday lived for their real God the rest of the week, which was popularity. They seemed willing to do whatever it took to be popular. 

This really bothered me. They claim to be Christians, but I’m leading a better life than they are, I thought. Yet I feel so empty inside. They must be just as empty as I am, but they’re just pretending to be something they’re not. They’re all just a pack of hypocrites! I began to grow very bitter toward the institutional church and the people in it. 

In time this attitude spread toward other people. Nobody is really genuine, I thought. They’re all just a bunch of phonies, holding up a plastic mask to the world, while the real person is cowering down inside, afraid to come out and be real. So my anger and resentment spread toward people in general. I grew to despise people; I wanted nothing to do with them. I don’t need people, I thought, and I threw myself into my studies. Frankly, I was on my way toward becoming a very alienated young man.

And yet - in moments of introspection and honesty, I knew deep down inside that I really did want to love and be loved by others. I realized in that moment that I was just as much a phony as they were. For here I was, pretending to to need people, when deep down I knew I really did. So that anger and hatred turned in upon myself for my own hypocrisy and phoniness.

I don’t know if you understand what this is like, but this kind of inner anger and despair just eats away at your insides, making every day miserable, another day to get through. I couldn’t see any purpose to life; nothing really mattered. 

One day when I was feeling particularly crummy, I walked into my high school German class and sat down behind a girl who was one of those types who is always so happy it just makes you sick! So I tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around, and I growled, “Sandy, what are you always so happy about, anyway?”

“Well, Bill,” she said, “it’s because I’m saved!”

I was stunned. I had never heard language like this before.

“You’re what?” I demanded. 

“I know Jesus Christ as my personal Savior,” she explained.

“I go to church,” I said lamely.

“That’s not enough, Bill,” she said. “You’ve got to have Him really living in your heart.”

That was the limit! “What would he want to do a thing like that for?” I demanded.

“Because He loves you, Bill.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. Here I was, so filled with anger and hate, and she said there was someone who really loved me. And who was it but the God of the universe! That thought just staggered me. To think that the God of the universe should love me, Bill Craig, that worm down there on that speck of dust called planet Earth! I just couldn’t take it in. 

That began for me the most agonizing period of soul-searching that I’ve ever been through. I got a New Testament and read it from over to cover. As I did, I was absolutely captivated by the person of Jesus of Nazareth. There was a wisdom about His teaching I had never encountered before and an authenticity in His life that wasn’t characteristic of those people who claimed to be His followers in the local church I was attending. I knew that I couldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

Meanwhile, Sandy introduced me to other Christian students in the high school. I had never met people like this! Whatever they said about Jesus, what was undeniable was that they were living life on a plane of reality that I didn’t even dream existed, and it imparted a deep meaning and joy to their lives, which I craved. 

To make a long story short, my spiritual search went on for the next six months. I attended Christian meetings; I read Christian books, I sought God in prayer. Finally I just came to the end of my rope and cried out to God. I cried out all the anger and bitterness that had built up inside me, and at the same time I felt this tremendous infusion of joy, like a balloon being blown up and blown up until it was ready to burst! I remember I rushed outdoors - it was a clear Midwestern summer night, and you could see the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon. As I looked up at the stars, I thought, God! I’ve come to know God!

That moment changed my whole life. I had thought enough about this message during those six months to realize that if it were really the truth - really the truth - then I could do nothing less than spend my entire life spreading this wonderful message among mankind. 

For many Christians, the main difference they find in coming to know Christ is the love or the joy or the peace it brings. All of those things were thrilling for me, too. But if you were to ask me what is the main difference Christ has made in my life, without hesitation I would say, “Meaning!” I knew the blackness, the despair, of a life lived apart from God. Knowing God suddenly brought eternal significance to my life. Now the things I did were charged with eternal meaning. Now life mattered. Now every day I could wake up to another day of walking with Him. 

[chrisoncinema]

The Year in Review: Top Ten Films of 2017

Well, we made it. We survived. Before getting into this list, I'd like to thank everyone who read, shared, or commented on one of my posts or videos this past year. It was a pretty monumental year for this blog and for my cinematic journey. I didn't go into 2017 with a plan to revive this blog but I'm happy I did. I ended up thinking about this very list for most of the year; giving me time to rediscover my love for movies and an excuse to watch way more movies than I otherwise would have. So let's get to the movies, shall we? This list is not a definitive, quantitative, or objective ranking of the films released this year. Rather, it is a rough sketch of the movies I enjoyed seeing the most. The movies that moved me, surprised me, or stuck with me. You can see my previous post for a listing of movies I missed and movies that didn't make it into my top ten. I hesitate to call these my ten "favorites" because, if you ask me in three months what my favorite movies from 2017 are, the list might look quite different. For today, though, I hope it provides something new, forgotten, or overlooked that you can take with you as we head into the new year. 10. It Comes At Night

In an apocalyptic near-future, a mixed-race family must protect their home and their health from foreign threats. Of all the horror movies I saw this year, It Comes at Night was the one I could never get out of my head. Whether director Trey Shults intended it or not, It Comes at Night became a meditation on many of the ills that plague America in 2017: from the failure of white saviors to a tribal and territorial fear of “the other.” What made the film feel special was its simplicity and focus. Shults was not interested in world-building or mythologizing. Without the visual formalism of The Killing of a Sacred Deer or the loaded narrative commentary found in Get Out and mother!, It Comes at Night is its own survival kit: stripped down to the bare essentials, without the fanfare or gloss of over-production. This is a movie with lace-up boots and dirt under its nails. A movie that, above all, feels like its about real characters who react uniquely to new conflicts and discoveries.

Joel Edgerton, whose face I admittedly often forget, gives one of his best performances. His family, played by Carmen Ejogo and Kelvin Harrison Jr. (who were both new to me) were standouts, and small parts by Riley Keough and Christopher Abbott (two of the greatest actors in the indie scene, Keough especially) round out the great cast. Throughout the movie I was reminded of Alien, another horror film that takes place in a claustrophobic environment, where it is just as interesting to watch all the characters converse as it is to see them get attacked by a giant space bug. Many people were let down by the absence of a horror they thought was implied in the title “It Comes at Night.” But, like Alien, they’re missing the trees for the forest. This is a human drama. What makes the film horrifying is its plausibility. Hell? Other people. What comes at night? Darkness, paranoia, emptiness. It doesn’t get scarier than that.

9. The Death of Louis XIV

Moving even smaller in scale, The Death of Louis XIV is a sad, funny, beautiful chamber-piece starring the one and only Jean-Pierre Léaud. Truthfully, a big part of what makes the film so enjoyable is the meta-narrative trip that comes with this casting. Léaud began his career at age 14 starring in one of the most influential films of the French New Wave, Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. He is, quite literally, French cinema royalty and, though Léaud himself is only 73, this feels like his great swan song. As always, Léaud manages to be both funny and tragic; equal parts ornery and charming.

The film's lofty title may not seem like the most exciting or accessible subject matter but, while stuffiness abounds, there is simply too much to enjoy in this film to pass up and I’m shocked that more people aren’t talking about it. The cinematography is some of the best this year: every single shot looks like a candlelit oil painting. The blacks are endless, the reds are velvety, and the golds are radiant. Is the movie slow? Yes, absolutely. But I, for one, enjoyed drinking with the King, scheming with his advisers, and laughing at each new, ridiculous wig that appears on screen.

8. Lady Bird

As with every new work that seems to be receiving undue or hyperbolic praise, I was highly skeptical of Lady Bird before finally seeing it. So let’s start with all the ways I was right. This is a coming-of-age story and it contains all the usual suspects: a fast-talking, strong-willed protagonist who still has a lot to learn about how the world actually works; parents who just want the best for the protagonist who have trouble communicating with her and with each other; a quirky best friend who is briefly tossed aside while the protagonist tries to be popular; and a concluding event that reminds the protagonist of some little piece of wisdom that was dropped along the way. Despite all of this narrative predictability, there’s something undeniable about Lady Bird. It works because of the characters that writer/director Greta Gerwig has crafted. An incredibly gifted, funny performer in her own right, Gerwig understands that no relationship is black and white. The best scenes feature Saoirse Ronan’s titular Lady Bird and her mother, played by Laurie Metcalf. Though their relationship is often contentious, at a moment’s notice the two act like the best of friends. They are too similar to be compatible and yet it is this resemblance that keeps them together. If that’s not an accurate, human depiction of mother-daughter relationships, I don’t know what is. In the end, Lady Bird is endearing, warm, and human – genuinely funny and genuinely moving. Gerwig didn’t reinvent the coming-of-age dramedy, but she came close to perfecting it.

7. After the Storm

If you enjoyed the familial drama of Lady Bird, I highly recommend watching the criminally ignored Japanese film After the Storm. The movie centers on a dead-beat, divorced dad trying to reconnect with his young son and ex-wife – well, kind of trying. The film’s lead, Hiroshi Abe, is basically Gob Bluth from Arrested Development: he’s lazy and selfish but is able to skate by on his charm, social flexibility, and a bit of self-deprecation. Like Lady Bird, After the Storm is full of complex, three-dimensional characters, tenuous family dynamics, and lived-in wisdom that never feels hacky. Hirokazu Kore-eda shoots the film without pretension, keeping a careful eye on the little details of everyday life. It doesn’t have the pep of an American dramedy so many viewers might find their minds starting to wander but, like 2016’s Paterson or Kore-eda’s predecessor Yasujiro Ozu, After the Storm has a lot to offer if you’re in a receptive mood. Pair with tea and a rainy day (a monsoon, if you’ve got it).

6. Good Time

Good Time is a travelling carnival. It’s a fever-dream that feels familiar even though you never know exactly what you’re going to see. The music and lights are dizzying, the air is full of weed, sweat, and old cigarettes, and everyone is inexplicably dressed like it’s the 90s. Need I say more?

I didn’t know what to expect from Good Time having seen none of the Safdie Brothers’ earlier films, but I was intrigued by the trailer. The film did not disappoint. Beginning with a bank heist gone bad, Good Time is the story of two brothers played by Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie. As many have noted, the film owes a lot to the 1970s cinema of Scorsese and Lumet but there’s an immediacy to the filming that feels unmistakably modern. Just when the gritty realism sinks in, the movie blasts into space thanks to a bold score from experimental producer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never). It’s one of the best scores of the year, featuring a gut-wrenching, original song from Lopatin and Iggy Pop. The cinematography is equally manic: mid-winter greys mix with neon lights and vibrant reds. The Safdies keep their camera dangerously tight – detailing the desperation on a nearly-unrecognizable Robert Pattinson (and we’ll see him again before this list is over). Twilight? Never heard of it. You’re witnessing a movie star – a direct descendent of Pacino or De Niro. Good Time is grimy, thrilling, and occasionally very funny. Like all carnival rides, I went home feeling nauseous, head-pounding, and in need of a tetanus shot. 

5. Columbus

Columbus is a movie so personal to me that I can barely talk about it objectively – I kind of feel like I made it (but I can assure you I did not). The first feature by video essayist Koganada, Columbus is a movie about love, loss, and architecture so genuine it makes (500) Days of Summer look like the sloppy, insincere mess that it is. The film’s success is largely due to its two leads: Haley Lu Richardson, who I had never seen before but fell in love with immediately, and John Cho who is now, unarguably, a leading man. The third star of the film is modern architecture by the likes of Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and SOM.

Without giving away too much, Richardson’s Casey is a student who meets Cho’s Jin, a visitor to Columbus, Indiana: architectural mecca of the Midwest. Many of you don’t (and couldn’t) know that I went to school to study architecture. I, like Jin, skeptically engaged with bright, young minds like Casey and questioned what architecture really meant to culture, to a city, and to me. Why does architecture matter? That’s a question I’m still answering but I can tell you this: we need spaces of reflection, communion, and discourse. The best architecture provides that. Columbus is the proof. I’m so pleased that this film has made a number of year-end lists. It’s a little film about a simple story and, like the best architecture, I look forward to exploring it again.

4. Nocturama

Nocturama is perplexing, modern, and gripping from the first minute. Nocturama is the story of a small group of French radicals who plan a coordinated attack on Paris. Nocturama asks a lot of questions – Who are these people? How did they meet? Why did they choose to become terrorists? – but if you’re looking for answers, look elsewhere.

What makes Nocturamaso exciting is the immediate immersion in the intricacies of the plot. There is no Ocean’s Eleven-style voiceover guiding you through the plan, no diatribe or manifesto to take in, just the cold, hard act. Bertrand Bonello’s ensemble piece is a commentary on luxury, privilege, and the rebellious naiveté of youth. It’s also impossibly cool: our anti-heroes smoke, dance, and listen to pop music. They’re kids – just like the ones on your street, in your school, at your mall – and that’s what makes the film so challenging, scary, and dangerous. It’s easy to characterize terrorism as a foreign offense. Nocturama doesn’t want to be easy but if you’re not careful, it might seduce you. Nocturama lights a fuse and dares you to enjoy the flames. Either way, your palms will be sweating.

3. The Lost City of Z

I’ve been critical of James Gray’s big, melodramatic films in the past but with his most recent work, I finally got it. The Lost City of Z stars Charlie Hunnam – in what is far-and-away his best performance – as Percy Fawcett, a 20th century explorer searching the Amazon for the titular city of Z. It’s hard to describe exactly why this film works so well. Like the old epics of David Lean, we follow Fawcett from his humble beginnings as a promising, young military officer, we learn and struggle with him, we return with him, after his numerous expeditions, to see his family growing and changing.

The Lost City of Z offers a whole lot to take in and it’s a testament to the editing that this 141 minute voyage moves along as breezily as it does while also never feeling rushed. What helps keep the story going is breathtaking camera work by cinematographer Darius Khondji and a great cast that includes Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Ian McDiarmid. Films like this don’t feel like they should exist anymore – The Lost City of Z is sprawling and beautiful but also quite smart: evoking questions of colonialism, masculinity, and the personal price of one’s work. It’s not perfect, but it’s a rare gem in a field of plastic.

2. Personal Shopper

Personal Shopper was one of the most unique theater-going experiences for me in 2017. It was a Wednesday evening when I spontaneously decided to drive half an hour to the only theater showing Olivier Assayas’ latest film. It was playing in a single auditorium – and a small one at that. I arrived early, as I always do, and waited for the few other moviegoers to trickle in. But they never did. And so I was treated to a personal screening of one of my favorite movies of the year. A movie that, rather fittingly, serves as a meditation for loneliness, isolation, and the vulnerability of predation.

Personal Shopper stars Kristen Stewart as a self-proclaimed medium trying to make contact with her deceased twin brother. Less of a horror film and more a dramatic character study, if you were ever doubtful of Stewart’s acting chops, this film should convince you. I was completely transfixed by her performance. She, and I say this without a hint of irony, is our James Dean. Sporting a leather jacket and a cool, androgynous demeanor, Stewart’s Maureen Cartwright is everyone who has ever slouched with hands stuffed deep in their pockets, anyone whose hands have shaken from an unexpected text message, anyone who’s had the eerie feeling of being watched by someone just out of reach. Personal Shopper is all about atmosphere: chilling, evocative, and sensual. I suppose I understand how people looking for plot-points found this film messy and inaccessible. As for me, though, I’ll be chasing the specter of that first screening. Going to the movies is a kind of séance and I’m thankful to Olivier Assayas for showing us a visionary Kristen Stewart.     

 1. Dunkirk

I know it’s basically a cliché to even talk about Christopher Nolan at this point, but this is where we find ourselves. NOLAN. BROS. FOREVER. Christopher Nolan doesn’t just make films as if each one is the last he’ll make. He makes films as if they’re the last film that will ever be made. Dunkirk is an absolute spectacle and it is, by far, Nolan’s best work to date.

As I’ve discussed before, Nolan came to prominence at the same time I was discovering film. I was in awe of The Dark Knight and Inception when they came out, but by the time The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar were released, my fan-boy-dom had faded. Interstellar is a very good but very flawed movie. It wants so badly to capture the humanity of early Spielberg and the grandeur of Kubrick but, sadly, fails to reach either. Still, the best decision Nolan ever made was swapping out his longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister for Hoyte Van Hoytema. Van Hoytema, who has done great work with the likes of Tomas Alfredson and Spike Jonze, brought a much needed flair for richness to Nolan’s pragmatic sensibilities. With Dunkirk, finally, there is a rich screenplay to match.

It seems Nolan actually listened to the critics who, for years, decried his overly-expositional dialogue and choppy editing. Dunkirk, not unlike Kubrick’s 2001 is pure visual storytelling. The difference is that Nolan was still determined to tell an intimate, human story and, calling upon the cinema gods from Murnau to Hitchcock, he did it.

There was no cinematic experience more breathtaking this year than seeing Dunkirk in IMAX. The sound design is so fierce and the score is so relentless it felt like a deep tissue massage for my brain. I left the theater after each successive viewing feeling invigorated in a way no film has affected me before. Nolan has always tried to make films that could capture the attention and imagination of any viewer (that’s why it was so important for this film to have a PG-13 rating) and he finally did it. The structural experimentation that Nolan was known for from the start is used here to turn the entire film into one of his signature, cross-cut sequences: one long, thrilling crescendo. And he did it all, God bless him, in under two hours.

Nolan-mainstays Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy are as cool as they’ve ever been, and seasoned pros Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh bring much-needed warmth and pathos, but the film belongs to the new faces that Nolan introduces: Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard, Tom Glynn-Carney, Barry Keoghan, and, of course, Harry Styles. They are the young men who have history thrust upon them – dropped into a giant, dangerous world with the weight of a nation on their shoulders. And they fail. They fail their mission and, occasionally, they fail each other. They return home distraught, ashamed, and confused.

“All we did was survive,” they say.

“That’s enough.”

Perseverance is noble. Support is bravery. Survival is victory. That’s Dunkirk’s message. It’s the one we needed this year.

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LOADING INFORMATION ON PRISM’S MAIN DANCE GUN MONA...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 25 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15 COMPANY: MSG ETC: this member has been making strides in acting (screen or stage)

IDOL IMAGE

It’s an undeniable truth to say that there is a first impression of her, and that it is always, without fail, this: she’s pretty. Remarkably pretty, in a plain, malleable sort of way. Not too sharp that she cuts, alienates — just soft enough to mould into whatever you want her to be. Most people don’t care for much else besides the first look, so it’s perfectly fine that she’ll be the pretty one, memorable if only fleetingly. It works, anyway — the relatability of her features, parts of it (of her) desirable and the other parts identifiable, make her an easy pick-up for brands to plaster on their products. Girl-next-door with wisps of maturity, of a sex appeal her members don’t quite possess. The kind of soft girl that the public loves to rest between their teeth. Palatable — just so.

You don’t have to be much more than a pretty face and a good dancer, they’ve told her in the past. Don’t stray from your design, is what they mean.

Don’t be you. There’s nothing appealing about it.

She tries. Walks the tightrope between the image of her and the girl inside — tries to dull a blunt tongue, smooth a passionate expression, tame the soft cruelty that makes up her marrow. Spends years running back and forth between wanting and having. Should haves and could haves. There’s the artist she wants to be, the truth that wants to will itself into existence; then there’s the girl that’ll actually succeed — merely pretty, with hidden laughs and closed smiles, speaking well but not too much, both seductive and restrained. So consumed by the thought of others that she tries to smooth herself out until there’s nothing left of her, manufactured out of her system.

She’s told, time and again, that her beauty is the only thing that matters — and, to be frank, she’s tired of it. Tired of being told. So she resolves to take it — their power, her weakness — into her own hands, tilt the scales in her favor. Manifest destiny, or some bullshit like that.

The public eats it up.

The newfound authenticity to her — the poignant way she expresses a confidence she’s found that she’s had, how she isn’t afraid to be desirable, how she pushes the boundary of acceptably self-loving is not so off-putting as it is intriguing. Everybody loves to hate on a woman in control, except with the way she carries herself, haughty but not in-your-face, there’s less to hate and more to admire. It helps that she’s older now, less tied to a youthful, innocent image and settling into the confident niche of her group like she was always meant to be there. Girl-next-door that’s matured into a woman — still pretty, still relatable, but with a voice that’s truly her own. Fears nothing: not the hurtful comments, lustful gazes — doesn’t mind being the sophisticated ‘sex bomb’ she’s grown to be one minute, all-natural the next, an everyday adult woman.

It’s appealing, she supposes, to see a girl grow up. Become more assertive, fill into her skin (or shed the layers that were well past due). Not trying to appease, not blinded by the limelight. At a time when she’s finally happy with herself, everyone seems to be happy with her too. With a tacit blessing, she’s let herself be unafraid to be her, for now.

Just don’t stray out of line, they whisper.

(I don’t care, she wants to say back.)

IDOL HISTORY

In the summer of 1999, she leaves.

.

It doesn’t take Mona very long to realize that her mother isn’t coming back. What with the way her father sits on the side of the bed that used to be hers, head in his palms, back poised for a knife that isn’t there, but it feels like he’s bleeding anyway. She stops questioning him soon after that — too scared, perhaps, of the consequences. One parent’s gone, no need for another to disappear too.

Home isn’t ever the same afterwards. Going from four to barely three leaves a big gaping hole in the fabric, seams loose and aching. Dinners, for example, are sombre affairs, heavy with the knowledge of the empty chair at the table. Weekends, too, are quiet — where her mother used to sing, silence makes itself heard, a loud ringing in the ears. The sound of loss is deafening, they all find out in time.

She tries to pretend that it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.

(It’s not, of course. Six year old fingers aren’t meant to hold up the spines of men — their wilting, their hollowness. No wonder she doesn’t grow up proper; no wonder that there ends up being something wrong.)

There are days when her father cannot look at her. She has her mother’s eyes.

.

Sunday in July. S.E.S. and sunlight waft through old speakers and cracks in the curtains respectively. Like calm before a storm.

Mona can’t help but sing along when the chorus comes on, all light tone and childish chipper. She realizes — there’s been no singing since she left. Since she took the singing with her. Stops short when father’s wiry figure hovers at the doorway, quiet as always. Time won’t heal his wounds, but it has allowed him to forget as a reprieve. Until now.

“I didn’t —“

“Keep singing, Mona,” he says. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen such a smile — so sad, but so happy at once. “It’s beautiful.”

So she does.

.

The moment she steps onto the shining, fluorescent-washed stage is the time she realizes: it’s different. Not at all like sinking her feet into the sofa of her living room, moving like clockwork to her father’s favorite songs, singing along. Nor is it like standing on the rickety wooden floor of her local community center, performing for the people she’s grown up around, who would love her no matter what she’d do.

This is Seoul, with all of its steel and its glamour and a cruelty that leaves fourteen year old her starstruck. This is the tipping point.

After all is said and done, she doesn’t get very far. Pretty, and a vibrant performer, but too rough, too unpolished to win a competition of the best. She’s not even sure the praise they’d given her was real — everything about it had seemed so manufactured. Machinery running through their motions. Leaves her feeling like she had less than she had started with; and she wants more.

Someone slips her a small white card before she leaves the building. You’ve got potential, they’d said. Audition.

Weeks pass and the details imprints themselves into the back of her brain: rudimentary black symbols that bely the possibility of fame, of fortune, of a life greater than her small town all in the sharp cuts of their lines. Curiosity has always been her vice, thorns strangling tighter until she has to find out what’s on the other side.

The tension, her wanting: both palpable. Her little town on the outskirts of Daegu cannot contain it. Everything’s tasteless, everything’s sober. It’s painfully obvious that she wants this. Wants more. Her mother, she recalls, had felt the same way. The parallels scare her. Her mother’s eyes. Her mother’s voice. Her mother’s self-regard. Hers, now, too.

She hates the look in her father’s eyes when she says she’s going to Seoul. Hates it even more when she forgets how he looked when she gets accepted by MSG entertainment, to begin her training as soon as possible.

When she packs her bags and says goodbye, she leaves him slumped in the dining chair she’d made her own for years.

Three becomes two. Feels like there’s nothing left of family anymore.

.

Trainee life is cyclical. Breathe in, breathe out: dance, sing, weigh, repeat. She wonders: why did they let her through when all they seem to want is to strip her gone? They lash her tongue to strip the satoori from her vocabulary; starve away the parts of her that make her her — her bold tongue, her small-town naivety, her childish innocence. Scrub the poverty from her until she’s wiped clean. You’re not here to be you, they tell her in between lines. You’re here to be a god.

Giving her best becomes harder when there’s nothing left to give, so she starts giving pieces of herself in its place. She wants this, she wants this, she wants this. Guilt propels her — her father, all the way back in Daegu, sitting with his head in his palms like she’d left him, just like her mother had before her. All the way here and she hears his howling (or maybe now it’s coming from her).

Torn between this choice: the her of before, and the her that could be.

She chooses the latter. Too many bridges burnt now to go back, she thinks. See the selfish through.

.

Idol life is an open door leading straight into hell.

She’s always so tired. Always so lost. She’d thought wrong: had been mistaken that they’d finally let her be when she debuted. Their hands go deeper now — not ghosting along the lines of her, but into her, become her ribcage and her spine and her mouth. Dissonance, it’s termed: her between closed doors, witching hour in her bedroom, and her in front of the camera. Does her father recognize her? Does she?

Pretty, they tack onto her shoulders. Pretty and docile. Perhaps it’s because she’s become awkward — lost her confidence as she’s risen to the top — but when they tell her keep quiet, she listens. Strange, feeling faceless when the only thing she’s known for is her face. It frustrates her, going through the motions, known foremost for the outside of her, a part of her that’s been an afterthought; then, just barely, how well she dances, how her body moves. Nothing about her — her love for music, her craft, or how funny she can be, or how much she wants to just be.

When she left her family, when she chose herself over others, she didn’t think she’d lose them both.

One day, her father calls. Asks why she sounds so sad. Because I left you, she says. Because I was selfish. And all for nothing — now I can’t even sing how I want, or act how I want, or be how I want. Are you proud of me? Do you hate me for leaving you behind?

Keep singing, Mona, he says. It’s beautiful.

(Be you, Mona. You’re beautiful.)

So she does.

.

Maybe her wounds will heal — maybe, quite possibly, they won’t. But inevitably, she’ll forget them once in a while. Slowly, she learns to let herself go — that is, the idea she has of herself go. It’s no good trying to be someone she’s not; she’s no actress, not at all suited to playing a part. They’d told her it would be her downfall, being herself,  being real. She intends to make it her strength.

It starts off slow, the slippage. A strut down the walkway, a haughty gaze at the camera, a flash of skin here and there. Candid in her interviews, still reserved, but more at ease than ever. Yeah, she’s watched adult films; yeah, she can hold her soju; yeah, she’ll talk about how she had loved a boy and lost him. The more she lets loose, the more comfort she feels — the most comfortable she’s felt in her own skin in years.

In the end, they’re intrigued by this new girl in front of them — the rawness, the realness, the subtle haughtiness. Who is this new Mona? They ask.

She’s always been this Mona, she says, smile on her face — open-mouth, teeth shining and everything.

For the first time, she feels centred. Feels alive.

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Post T. Creative Investigation first Draft

Essay Draft

 My hypothesis going into the creative investigation was that director Hal Ashby, was and still is an auteur, investigation this through three subtopics:

 Can Hal Ashby be considered an influence during the 70’s New Wave Cinema and beyond?

Ashby considered himself a collaborator, how did collaboration influence his most successful film?

How does Ashby represent class in his films?

Hal Ashby and his films are all to often overlooked in the grand scheme of successful filmmaking history, perhaps because he had a relatively small filmography.  

“Ashby did not direct his first film until the age of 40, so the body of his work as a director is relatively small. But the films that he made show a remarkable visual sense of black humour and irony, a consistency of theme and characterization, and an innovative use of music and editing.”

”Indeed, Hal Ashby produced an extraordinary group of films over a short period of time and his status as a pre-eminent director during the 1970s should be acknowledged and the fine films that he made during this period remembered.”[1]

In this essay I am going to investigate how Ashby influenced cinema during the 1970’s, The Hollywood New Wave, and what part his work has played in contemporary directors. Authorship will also be questioned, in terms of how and whom Ashby collaborated (with.) Focusing specifically on my three focal films I will analyse theme, bringing to the forefront of my investigation, the representation of class.  

Can Hal Ashby be considered an influence during the 70’s New Wave Cinema and beyond?

From late 1960’s to early 80’s a new generation of filmmakers and their films were emerging, films like, The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde were in the vanguard of American cinema, and it was at this time that Ashby made his mark on cinema history. Ashby’s most successful and inspiring films, including my three focal films, Harold and Maude, Being There and The Last Detail, overlap the 1970’s, the time period were Hollywood focused on more complex, challenging and unique films than previously. Writers and directors alike became more daring with their ideas. Director of an upcoming Hal Ashby documentary commented, “His rise as a director coincided with the brief but glorious period in American cinema when difficult, complex films were actually supported and encouraged by studios.”[2] An example of this from my focal films is undeniably Harold and Maude, Diablo Cody, writer of Juno, understood the unusualness of they storyline and how it was presented; “To see the character of Maude, who was the love interest she was the female lead and she was in her eighties and she sparkled and was presented with such affection.”[3]

Harold and Maude, caused controversy because of the romance between the pair, however Ashby frames this romance as appropriate and something that helped the characters Harold and Maude, discover themselves and a better life. One scene in particular conveys this, the scene in Maude’s caravan, where she sings to Harold, Ashby manages to achieve romance, humour and a sense of surrealism, perhaps making the idea of their relationship more ‘palatable’ for an unsure audience. Mise en Scene is used in the scene to communicate surrealism, a distorted image of Maude is seen through a strange pane of glass, Harold going to her presented as this swirled image, could represent the dream and freedom Harold sees in Maude. This links with my subtopic as Ashby presents the strange story in affectionate and tasteful way as to not cause disturbance in the viewer.

“You can’t imagine a director more perfectly suited to the project: a middle-aged man who’d fully embraced the swinging Sixties, a humanist whose films never shied from the darker side of life, the film’s central characters feel like Ashby’s been split into two different figures. He didn’t write it, but it’s the film we’ll always associate most closely with the director.”[4] This quote from Hal Ashby: A Retrospective, emphasises the reputation Ashby built up as he tackled unconventional films, this quote focuses on Harold and Maude, and although critics often didn’t appreciate his films in their writing; “After all, while Harold and Maude had alienated the majority of critics and cinemagoers, it had also sent out a message that Ashby was an accomplished filmmaker with a light touch willing to take risks and push boundaries.”[5] They attracted the quirkiest and perhaps the best kind of filmmaker, those willing to explore the unknown. The quote also expresses that it was almost as if Ashby put himself in his characters, attributes being shown in Maude as well as Harold, the undeniably contributes to the argument that Ashby was an auteur, the film is associated with the director, and people can see Ashby in the characters. In relation to my hypothesis, that Hal Ashby can be considered an auteur, I feel that his influence on the new wave of cinema is a key factor in recognising his authorship over his films. Film critic Grant, argues that it’s the director that gives a film “any distinctive qualities it may have.” In Harold and Maude, the distinctive qualities are the characters, and although this could be argued that the actors portrayed and presented the characters this way, the director, in the words of films critics, the director teases out the actor’s performance. Now this may not be the case for Ashby but I do know he worked closely with Bud Cort, who plays Harold, mentoring the young actor, preparing him for the role. The previous quote implies that Ashby put himself in the characters, ‘like Ashby’s been split into two figures’ and if the characters are they ‘distinctive quality’ to the film surely  this put the director at the heart, personalising the authorship, as Syd Mead said “the director is God.”

 Hal Ashby broke directing conventions in his films and his social life, moving from wife to wife almost in synchronisation to his films, he smoked weed, he was a ‘hippie’ and he employed hippies to crew on his films. Signifying the ‘new wave’ of cinema.Aclaimed film critic, Andrew Sarris belived that the second premise of auter theory is the distinguishable personality of t he director as a criterion value. Ashby definalty had personality, this quote from Being Hal Ashby by Nick Dawson shows the extent that Ashby went to do things perosally; “He spent his days meeting actresses and his nights partying with staff from paramount’s Uk office.”[6]

“Hal Ashby personifies, better than any other director, Hollywood’s Film Renaissance of the 1970s: its moral ambivalence and political rage, its stylistic audacity and deeply human voice.” [7] This quote from Darren Hughes, from Senses of Cinema, supports that Ashby was a influence during and after the 70’s film renaissance, it also pin points aspects of his work that directors before hand hadn’t paired when producing a film, my other focal film Being There, circulates around the motif of political debate and corruption, sometimes clearly other more subtlety. It addresses this topic with audacity, portraying the idea that a simple man, protagonist Chance, can have a huge influence and input into the U.S government by simply talking about gardening.  

“Younger filmmakers like Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow, Noah Baumbach, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell and many more not only absorbed his influence, but vocally championed the director as an important impactor on their work.”[8]

“But watching the film will reveal its influence over modern moviemaking as being much broader (Wes Anderson in particular did some heavy plundering here, borrowing the films center-of-frame compositions, deadpan humour”[9]

After the Hollywood New Wave to contemporary cinema, it is clear, after investigation that Ashby is still a strong influence now, supporting the idea that he is an auter (theory) researching into modern successful filmmakers influence, such as Wes Anderson, Seth Rogan and Cameron Crowe:

“All off those song are so well known, but Hal’s work is so personal, that the songs feel that they were written for Hal’s movie”[10] this quote from Crowe actually addresses Coming Home, another of Ashby’s successful films, but I think it can be applied to Harold and Maude as well, as Cat Stevens produced the whole soundtrack to Harold and Maude. This collaboration is elaborated on further in they next section.

 Ashby considered himself a collaborator, how did collaboration influence his most successful film?

Hal Ashby, throughout his career rejected the auteur label, he consistently vocalised his reliance on collaboration and the contributions his cast and crew had on the authorship of his films. He was huge on collaboration, giving young actors and editors such as Bud Cort, Randy Quaid and William A. Sawyer a chance to act and crew on his films. It wasn’t until after Ashby’s death that he was even considered to be an auteur, although this idea may seem to contradict my hypothesis it is understood that collaboration was and still very much is an unavoidable part of filmmaking, even for ‘auteurs.’ The authorship label often follows a director’s death, as was the case with ultimate auteur, Alfred Hitchcock.  ”Ashby’s quiet, compassionate and funny humanist dramas, and his gentle approach to directing which endeared him to everyone he worked with, didn’t ever receive its due until years after his death.” [11] Perhaps this recognition came with the ability to truly reflect on his films, on the controversial topics he covered and the short time he made so many successful ones in. Ashby started as an editor working closely with Norman Jewison, and so editing influence continued throughout his directing career, often firing editors and doing the edit himself.In my focal film The Last Detail, especially my key scene, editing has a huge influence on the mood and conveyance of the scene and the acting.

In my focal film key sequence notes I investigated:

“The wipes and fades, makes the scene stand out amongst the rest of the film, the fade between shots show the reaction of the Buddusky, especially when Mulhall is shouting/ speaking to him. These transitions make the scene smooth and continuous, touching on character expression and reaction as well as the surroundings of the train and landscape. Focusing on the transitions at this point, I realise that, although Ashby had influence, this would have been up to the editors to decide on the transitions. Although this doesn’t help with the argument of Ashby being an auteur, it does in fact emphasis the position of character, camera movement and shot type.”

However after my creative investigation and reading Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel by Nick Dawson I now realise that Ashby couldn’t help himself in the edit and almost always helped in the edit, “he again found that he couldn’t stay away from the cutting room. He desperately wanted to be rid of the responsibility but couldn’t trust anybody completely with his film, All the editing was now being done at his house.”[12] This shows that although he did collaborate and put emphasis on this he had influence many of the really important processes that make a film successful, like editing.

One part of the important creative processes that he didn’t really have was the writing and the screenplay, for example on my focal film Being There, Jerzy Kosinski, wrote the original novel, and the adaptation based upon it. In terms of authorship, David Kipen argues that the writer is responsible for creating the world of the movie and is therefore the author. This contrasts my hypothesis, implying that Kosinski is the true auteur of Being There, taking away authorship from Ashby.

Ashby did not build strong or loyal relationships with producers or production companies often arguing and feuding, as Ashby wasn’t in it for the money, Ashby wanted things done his way. “His hands seemed to have been bound creatively by the money guys that he made those later films with — which was a really crippling process for an artist like Hal.”[13] This perhaps prevented Ashby from truly making his authorship mark on his films, for example, Paramount would not approve Harold and Maude unless hal cut a love scene between the two main characters. Ashby has been named an artist many a time, Sarris talked about artistic authorship, and that auteur theory served to gives films value as works of art, Ashby, arguably being an artist makes work of art.

“Cort and Ashby grew close over the production. After filming, says Cort, Paramount took control of the edit from Ashby, so Cort went to a publicity meeting with the studio and told them he’d refuse to promote the film unless they gave control back to a devastated Ashby, which they did.”[14] This opposes the argument that Ashby is an auteur as his collaborator, Cort, had influence over the film and its publicly, it could be argued that Ashby relied on Cort in this situation, Cort holding responsibility for the end result of the film, as if Ashby himself hadn’t had main input on editing, the film may have been totally different, a tale of friendship instead of romance between the unlikely pair, as the production company wanted.

 How does Ashby represent class in his films?

 The representation of class is a less obvious pattern that appears throughput Ashby’s films, but it is one that I have noticed and through his 1970’s new wave films, the motif is prominent, especially in Harold and Maude and Being There.

Being There is centred around a political motif, it portrays the U.S political system and hierarchy as corrupt and whimsical, as protagonist Chance, moves swiftly and easily up the political ladder by simply talking about gardening, now often these are beautiful metaphors for political movements but mostly the politicians take everything Chance says literally, and putting him at the forefront of the U.S government.  By representing these political issues in this film, he also addresses the representation of class, especially by including the contrast of poor and rich and Chances indifference to the split, perhaps conveying Ashby’s own thoughts on the class divide.

 After being asked what he thinks Being There is about, Peter Sellers, who plays protagonist, Chance responded “I think it’s Jerzy Kosiński’s comment on power and corruption and the triumph of the innocent man” Actor Peter Sellers had undeniable influence over Being there, perhaps making more people go see it in cinema and that his acting as Chance was labelled ‘his best yet.’ However he also understood the meaning behind the film, a shout of corruption and class, interwoven with humour and metaphors. He also described it as “The triumph of the simple man over power, over wealth, over corruption.”[15] With wealth comes class and through Being There Ashby has managed to present an interwoven message that with higher class comes arrogance and manipulation, but subtly, and not too controversially.

 In Harold and Maude, Harold and his mother are upper class, his mother stereotypical, looking down on ‘lower class’ cars and people, whereas Harold breaks the conventions and finds freedom from the class restrictions in the free spirit of Maude, a working class woman who lives in a caravan. An example of this conflict between class could be Harold rebellious and transforming the posh, expensive car that his mother got him into a hearse style, a symbol of death and mourning, completely reversing the original, smart style his mum gave it to him in. This could represent Harold’s rebel against the class conventions that his mother poses upon him.

In conclusion, my hypothesis, that Ashby is an auteur, his been both supported and contradicted. His influence, during the 1970’s is clear, he made unusual films on unusual topics, changing film goers expectations and experiences, his films are art, and with this comes artistic authorship over his films. However Ashby collaborates openly and repeatedly, often working with the same people, such as Nick Jewison, he does manage to retain a distinct styel and pattern in the narratives he represents through the films he makes. Such as the theme of class.

[1] J.A. Davidson, The films and career of Hal Ashby, 1998, http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/features/halashby/halashby-nf.htm

[2] A.Scott, Filmmaker Magazine, 26 May 2014,  http://filmmakermagazine.com/86085-director-amy-scott-on-her-upcoming-doc-once-i-was-the-hal-ashby-story/

[3] D.Cody, in interview for An Academy salute to Hal Ashby, 20 March 2014,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK5THYZuvXM

[4] O.Lyttelton, The Filmsof Hal Ashby: A Retrospective, may 2011 http://www.indiewire.com/2011/05/the-films-of-hal-ashby-a-retrospective-118773/

[5] N.Dawson, Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel, October 2017

 [6] N.Dawson, Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel, October 2017

 [7] D.Hughes, Senses Of Cinema, http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/ashby/

 [8] O.Lyttelton, The Filmsof Hal Ashby: A Retrospective, may 2011 http://www.indiewire.com/2011/05/the-films-of-hal-ashby-a-retrospective-118773/

[9] O.Lyttelton, The Filmsof Hal Ashby: A Retrospective, may 2011 http://www.indiewire.com/2011/05/the-films-of-hal-ashby-a-retrospective-118773/

[10] C. Crowe, An Academy salute to Hal Ashby, March 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_cdMSh6LJI

[11] O.Lyttelton, The Films of Hal Ashby: A Retrospective, may 2011 http://www.indiewire.com/2011/05/the-films-of-hal-ashby-a-retrospective-118773/

[12] N.Dawson, Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel, October 2017

 [13] A.Scott, Filmmaker Magazine, 26 May 2014,  http://filmmakermagazine.com/86085-director-amy-scott-on-her-upcoming-doc-once-i-was-the-hal-ashby-story/

 [14] A.Godfrey, The Guardian, Bud Cort: ‘Harold and Maude was a blessing and a curse,’ July 2014

 [15] FilMagicians, Peter Sellers interview about Dr. Strangelove, Pink Panther, Being There & more, April 2017,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x-5_4NBpkQ