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jgukmilk · 3 years

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he won’t know 03 (m) final

➔ summary: after weeks of hiding from the world, your friend, Mina, finally convinces you to crawl out of your cave and join her at a friday-frat party. You definitely didn’t think you’d end up with the person you had spent several weeks trying to avoid.

➔ pairing: Jungkook X Reader

➔ genre: cheating!au, smut, angst if you squint, much deserved fluff fucking finally

➔ warnings: mention of sexual assault, unprotected sex, soft sex because i’m a whore for that shit, jungoo is the one crying in this part, jungoo being a soft idiot nothing out of the ordinary, fingering, oral (f. and m. receiving), handjob, fingering, mild dirty talk, cervix kisses :), cum eating, throat fucking•_•, runny mascara because it’s chef’s kiss, soft dom jungoo, a really lame biology pick up line at the end that i am pathetically proud of, that’s it..? it’s unedited btw :P

➔ wordcount: 8.3k

➔ a/n: this was a bitch to finish but holy fuck. hope you enjoy ;) feedback is always appreciated !

part 1, part 2, part 3 final.

It had officially been seventeen and-a-half days since Jungkook came to visit you at your dorm, only to end up in you crying your eyes out in front of him and shove him out of your room.

Mina came home later that night and questioned your tear-stained cheeks. Did you tell her? No, of course not. You brushed it off and convinced her that you were having a hard time with the breakup with Jaehyun, that everything was still so fresh, and you simply just needed time. Though that was as far from the truth as it could possibly be, she believed you regardless which you were thankful for.

You didn’t miss Jaehyun, not one bit. You hadn’t seen him after your last encounter, and you thanked your stars daily. To be honest you weren’t given a chance to run into that asshole since you had reduced your time spent outside of the dorm.

Your schedule pretty much consisted of wake up, go to your classes, come back to the dorm, study, eat, sleep, repeat. It sounded like one of those shabby T-shirt every twelve-year-old would wear back in middle school and show it off for being ‘quirky’.

You weren’t complaining, you preferred things this way, for now at least. Though you couldn’t deny that you missed your friends, but you needed some time alone and you knew that, so to distract yourself from missing your friends, what better way to do so than studying till the ass-crack of dawn on a Friday night.

Fridays were the only day of the week you could spend peacefully unbothered. Every other day would consist of countless texts and calls from your friends asking about your whereabouts and why they almost never saw you around campus anymore.

To which you told them you were busy studying and thanked them for checking in on you. It wasn’t a complete lie, you were, in fact, busy studying. They never saw you because, you were always on your desk burying your face between the pages of a textbook. What you didn’t tell them was that you were so far ahead with the curriculum that you could go a whole two weeks without even touching any of your books and you wouldn’t be behind.

You never realized how much you had read ahead until a few days ago when your biology professor had only begun to teach you about DNA replication, transcription and translation. You had already covered half of it.

Your professor always did say that the unspoken rule of studies was to always read ahead. Though you didn’t think he meant to this certain extent.

You hadn’t felt academic stress in a while due to your habit of studying so much, and you were happy about it of course, but holy fuck, you were so bored, and it was starting to get to you.

“Y/N!” perfect timing for your best friend to break you out of your thoughts. Mina happily pranced through your shared dorm room and over to you, “Mina” you said back, smiling, although not in the same enthusiasm, meh – A for effort.

“Oh my god, you’re actually awake,” she said, placing herself on her bed while remaining eye contact with you.

“Well yeah, I have some topics I still need to cover before I go to bed,” Lies. You certainly didn’t have any topics you needed to cover. You would’ve gone to bed if you knew Mina was coming back to the dorm so early. It was Friday night after all, which meant that Mina was out partying with the rest of the guys. Not today, apparently.

“Isn’t there a party today?” you asked, flipping through the pages of the book in front of you, pretending to read through the paragraphs that seemed like nothing more than dull words.

“Well… yeah, but, I figured I’d rather spend my night with you – you know, since it’s... it’s been a while,” you immediately stopped fiddling with the paper, “oh,” was all you could say. “I-I mean, if you wanna study, you totally can! I don’t want to interrupt or – or anything.” You shook your head, “no, no… uhm, I could use a break anyway.” Her face relaxed.

“So… how’ve you been?” you looked around the room, “I’m okay, just studying, nothing else really,” you reassured her “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said, barely above a whisper, however you could still make out the melancholic tone hidden behind her voice.

“yeah… I’m sorry, I’m just – “

“studying? Yeah that seems to be your entire world lately.” She cut you off, her voice a little louder than it was previously. You opened your mouth to respond but – “Y/N c’mon, I know I haven’t necessarily been with you physically lately, but I’m not oblivious. Our exams are in a couple of months and you’re studying as if they’re tomorrow.” She explained all in one breath, “the curriculum this semester isn’t even that content-heavy, even the professors told us we could take it easy.”

“where are you going with this?” you asked in a weak voice. She seemed to have you all figured out. You truly underestimated how well your best friend understood you. “I just want to know why? Why are you avoiding your friends… why are you avoiding me?”

And then it came back. Everything you had been trying to avoid for the past two weeks came back. Jaehyun, the cheating, the assault, Jungkook. You began to feel your eyes stinging, subconsciously you averted them towards the ceiling. “Y/N, there’s something you’re not telling me. I want to help, please let me help.”

You made your way towards the bed, seating yourself next to her, “is this about Jaehyun? Do you miss hi–“

“No, God no I don’t, I’m so happy he’s out of my life,” she looked at you perplexed. And so, you told her. You told her absolutely everything, all the way from Jaehyun trying to touch you when you were trying to explain yourself to him, to the conversation you had with Jungkook in your dorm room several days ago.

“I’m gonna kill him,” you swiftly reached for her hand as you saw her attempt to rush out of your shared dorm, “no! I… It’s over now, he’s out of my life, there’s no reason to go look for him.”

“Of course there is! Why didn’t you–!” She yelled, however quickly stopped herself to calm down. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? He’s getting away with this when he deserves to rot in hell.” It wasn’t that simple. You never wanted to see him again, and telling any form of authority about what had happened certainly meant you were going to cross paths with him often.

Plus, it wasn’t even likely that they would’ve believed you, after all it was your word against his. There was no physical evidence of what he had done. You had your ripped clothes but you threw those away the day after the incident, you never wanted to look at them again and be reminded of this crap.

Then you had the bruises on your wrist, but Jaehyun could easily say that you guys had been into some sort of bdsm to make them believe him. They were also healed now, so there was no evidence at all to secure your side.

“I don’t want to constantly be reminded of what he did, I just want to move forward. Please, you can’t tell anyone.” Your voice cracked at the end, in which Mina reached out to hold your hand. “I don’t want anyone to know,” you cried.

“I’m so sorry, bug,” Mina rubbed your back empathetically, in a subtle attempt to calm you down. Though Mina tried her best to not scream at the top of her lungs, spitting out every profanity to curse Jaehyun. This wasn’t about her, and she knew that very well.

All she could do was comfort you and listen to everything you had bottled up for weeks. “You know what you need?” she smiled at you gently. You sniffled, rubbing your red, tear-stained cheeks, “what?”

“You need fresh air, to doll up and feel good! We all miss you so much Y/N, I don’t want you to spend another Friday night in here alone by yourself.” You raised an eyebrow, silently urging her to continue, “Wooyoung’s parent are out of town for the weekend so he’s hosting are party.”

“And?”

“And we’re going!” she clapped excitingly, “no Mina I–“ she held both your hands tightly, puppy eyes were presented right in front of you, “pleaseeee, just for an hour, you can leave after that if you don’t like it.”

You thought about it for a moment. You did deserve a break, you needed to get out of the dorm anyway, have some fun with your friends, maybe even get a bit of well-deserved alcohol in your system.

“Fuck it, let’s do i–“

“YES! Okay, okay I know exactly what you’re wearing.” She rushed over to her closet, rummaging through fabric after fabric while you silently watched behind her, seated on your own bed. “Put this on right now,” You didn’t get a good look at the clothing item she threw at you, all you knew was that the fabric was quite tiny. It was a beautiful dark navy and black fabric that was smooth to the touch.

It was a woolen, striped bodycon dress. True to its name – it looked very tight. You looked at her perplexed, “that’s me being nice. My other option was throwing you my skirt that would barely cover your juicy ass.” You rolled your eyes, but smiled nonetheless, “fine, what shoes with?” she pointed at your black high-top converse that were placed neatly by the door. Alright, black converse it was.

–

“Y/N?” was the first thing you heard when walking through the door, entering the crowd of drunks. Before you stood your friends, the friends you had missed oh so much. Jimin was the first to run to you, lifting you off the ground to swing you around, “Y/N!” He laughed excitingly. Right behind him stood Seokjin, “Okay, I’ve had too much to drink guys I’m starting see Y/N,” you couldn’t help but laugh, “Hi Jin.”

One by one, they each gave you a heartwarming hug. Wow, you missed them, and you didn’t even realize, “about time you got out of the damn dorm,” Taehyung complained, you playfully slapped his shoulder. “You don’t get to say shit, you rot in your own dorm just as much as I do when you don’t have classes,” smiling, he scoffed, “I have altered my ways, about time you did too,” you shook your head.

You hadn’t noticed that an hour had already passed by, and you didn’t want to leave one bit. Your night was just getting started. Looking around you spotted all your friends, all but two. Neither had you seen the entire party: Yoongi and Jungkook.

“Jin!” you loudly spoke through the banging music, “yeah?!” he replied, “have you seen Yoongi?” you cupped your mouth in attempt to speak as clearly as possible, “What?! No thank you! I don’t wan’t Oolong tea. There’s booze why would I want tea?!” You rubbed your face, dragging Jin’s ear closer to your mouth, “Have you seen Yoongi?”

“OW, Jesus woman.” He rubbed his ear, “He should be in the kitchen,” you thanked him, and apologetically smiled for almost ripping his ear off.

You skipped your way through the heavy crowd of drunk youth. Some of which even looked younger than that. A string of ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ was heard from you as you pushed your way to the kitchen.

“Yoongi?” he turned around, seeing you. He eyed the drink in his hand that resembled the color of piss, “I’ve had too much,” the bottom of the cup now faced the ceiling, the remainder of the liquid spilling down the edge of the cup and down the sink.

“Okay, you guys really have to stop doing that,” you laughed.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” The mint-haired boy asked in a monotone, your smile faltered.

“I’m happy to see you too?” your voice was skeptical. He seemed annoyed, which frankly, you didn’t understand. You hadn’t seen the man in well over two weeks, no way had he found a reason to be mad at you unless you had happened to eat the last lamb skewer in his dream. He always did love his lamb skewers.

“’M sorry, my head’s spinning,” instantly your suspicion was replaced with worry. You quickly made your way to the sink and filled a glass with cold water and handed it to him, which he gratefully accepted. “How’ve you been?”

You sighed, “you want the rainbow-sprinkled version or the one that was dragged through the mud, shat and pissed on,” he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I’ll take the piss-stained version, thank you.” He placed the red, water filled plastic cup next to him on the kitchen counter.

“Rough couple of weeks. I’m doing better though, so that’s something.” You shrugged your shoulders. Yoongi listened carefully, gently tilting his head to the side anticipating for you to keep going, however you didn’t, that was all you were going to say. Yoongi wasn’t stupid, clearly something had happened to make you disappear for weeks, but whatever it was it had to remain unknown for him – he wasn’t going to push you to talk to him.

“And where’s Jaehyun been through all of this?” he speculated.

“Uhm, we broke up,” you tried to laugh it off. His brows raised in surprise.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry–“ your hands swung in front of you to shake them. To Yoongi, you had most likely looked like you were sad from the breakup, understandably so. Afterall that is the typical reaction to a breakup, isn’t it?

“Don’t be! My god, no. It could – I’m not –“ you closed your eyes, sighing gently, “It was for the best.”

“I’m not going, Tae,” Jungkook pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger, attempting to rub the non-existing headache out of his temples.

“Come on, Jungkook. It’s been a hot minute since you’ve partied with all of us,” a hot minute, was putting it lightly. Jungkook was currently in his own shared dorm with Taehyung, with a black DualShock controller seated in his lap – enjoying a game of overwatch shortly before Taehyung had dialed his number. Several empty packets of ramen placed randomly across the room.

Different flavors of course. Variety was important.

“Can’t. ‘m busy.” Though Jungkook couldn’t see it, he was sure Taehyung had rolled his eyes through the other line. “Busy my ass,” Taehyung sighed, “you do this every week.”

“I wouldn’t have to do this every week if you would just stop asking,” Jungkook spat back, with a little more attitude than he had intended. “Jungshi,” the older friend started, “you can’t let this bother you forever,” he knew. Fuck, no one knew better than Jungkook that he couldn’t spend the rest of eternity sulking over this. Over you.

But no one knew how Jungkook was feeling either, every living fiber of his felt either conflicted or guilty. He couldn’t help but think that what had happened to you, was partially his fault – no, it was entirely his fault. Whatever Jaehyun had done was because of Jungkook.

Your words circled back and forth in his mind, day and night. Whenever he closed his eyes all he could see was your tear-stained orbs looking at him with so much hurt and hatred. Telling him to leave and that you never wanted to see him again.

All he wanted to do was talk to you, to know how you were feeling. Were you okay? Were you not? Jungkook had to make peace with the fact that he might in fact never get any answer for any of his questions. All he wanted was to see you, just for one small, useless moment.

He hadn’t seen you since that day. Frankly, it seemed like you had completely vanished from the face of the earth, even the guys hadn’t seen you. He managed to get a hold of Mina a few times, briefly asking of your whereabouts. She always tried her best to console and reassure him that you were okay, you were just always busy lately.

Busy.

You were always busy. Jungkook wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly what it meant: you were escaping.

Busy.

Oh, how Jungkook had grown to hate that word. How very hypocritical of him, he was mentally scolding you for using the lame excuse of being ‘busy’, all while doing the exact same behind the screen of his phone to his best friend.

“I just need time, hyung.” Jungkook tried to justify. “Time?” Taehyung scoffed, “You’ve had two weeks. I’m sorry Guk, but I’m not gonna sit around while I watch you completely lose yourself.” The younger slid further down the chair, staring blankly at the bright screen displaying the home-screen of his favorite video game.

“She’s here.”

Silence…

You… you were there? He could see you. Jungkook had a chance to see you. “Good to know,” was all he could say. “And you don’t give a rat’s ass?” Of course, he did, but he couldn’t because, “she doesn’t want to see me, hyung. If I show up, I’ll ruin her night. She isn’t hiding from the world anymore.”

“You can’t be sure– “

“Yes, I can,” Jungkook closed his eyes, a small exhale moved past his lips, “I can’t ruin this. Please don’t make me ruin this for her.” His voice was barely above a whisper. He felt weak. He couldn’t describe the growing urge he felt to rush over to whatever party you were at, just to see you. But he couldn’t be selfish. Not again.

Last time he acted selfishly he hurt you. He lost you. He wasn’t sure how it could get any worse – after all, you were out of his life, but Jungkook wasn’t willing to be daring, not if it meant it would hurt you again.

“Fine,” an extended beep was heard from the small speaker of the phone. Completely defeated, Jungkook gently threw his phone back onto his bed. Leaning back in his chair he faced the ceiling. He couldn’t seem to get himself to play another game, so shutting everything down, he went to get himself ready for bed.

Diving under the cool, fluffy sheets didn’t seem to be enough for Jungkook to knock out, which was odd. Jungkook could easily fall asleep anywhere on anything. One time he even managed to fall into a deep sleep after downing two 500ml Monster energy drinks. He had planned to pull an all-nighter with some of his online friends for a good few games of Valorant, the best way to do so was to shove an insanely unhealthy amount of energy drinks down the hatch.

He didn’t expect it to be so easy to fall asleep right away – he didn’t even remember walking over to his bed before dropping dead. But this, this was just frustrating.

He tossed and turned for what felt like hours, until when he finally felt his eyelids become heavy, a key was heard jiggling in the lock of the door. It must’ve taken Jungkook longer to fall asleep than he had anticipated if Taehyung had already decided to leave the party; that boy wouldn’t leave a party unless bits of the morning sunlight was peeking through the windows of the house of the host.

The door finally opened. Jungkook squinted his eyes, adjusting to the new light shining through the door frame. A black silhouette walked pasted the door. It wasn’t until Jungkook’s blurry vision had cleared up that he noticed a feminine like figure standing at the door. Not just anybody, no.

You. In fact.

Jungkook felt his heart begin to tie knots. He was dreaming for sure; there was no way you could just appear in his dorm of all dorms. But there you were, in the flesh. You gently clasped the bundle of keys in your palm, preventing them from making any further noise, taking soft strides through the room – you probably thought he was asleep.

You quietly made your way over to Taehyung’s bed, opening the drawer of his nightstand. Jungkook’s eyes monitoring your every move went completely unnoticed by you. The poor boy was in awe, it was like you were an angel that had descended from heaven and blessed him with your presence. Frankly, in Jungkook’s eyes, you were an angel.

You let a small aha slip past your lips, in your hands was a turquoise polaroid camera. You neared the delicate camera to your face, making sure it was the right item through the darkness, and indeed it was.

About to make your way out of the dorm, your head turned slightly; in the direction of the boy that was currently sweating his balls off and his heart pounding like crazy. Fuck, did you see him looking at you? You must’ve, you wouldn’t look at him otherwise. Could you hear his heart beating through his ribcage? That has to be it, after all it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

He hurriedly closed his eyes, praying to the lord above that for once in Jungkook’s cursed life, the spirits would work in his favor. God, if you do this for me, I won’t fart on Taehyung’s head pillow anymore.

You slowly made your way over to Jungkook’s bed, with each step you took he felt a new set of sweat gather in his warm palms. He couldn’t feel anything, all he heard was the shuffle of his blanket. The blanket that was supposed to be on him.

While Jungkook had gone unnoticed to you, the absence of his soft, grey blanket on his body had been completely disregarded. He had tossed so much in his unreachable sleep that he had kicked his blanket right off of him.

Not only did Jungkook feel his body overcome in warmth, but his heart also danced at the thought of you going out of your way to cover him in his blanket. Your kindness really was out of this world.

No matter how many times someone had hurt you, you never failed to leave the ways of resentment and treat people with kindness. You were truly too kind for your own good. That was one of your qualities that Jungkook was most fond of, the world didn’t deserve you. it didn’t deserve an angel.

You on the other hand, were completely oblivious to the fact that the man in front of you was wide awake. You crouched down by the side of his bed, you really should get going, you weren’t supposed to linger for so long.

Your eyes trailed the sleeping beauty on the bed. He looked so peaceful, his long eyelashes resting on the top of his cheek, a few of the hairs grazing the scar on right side of the skin. His dark hair was sprawled over his forehead. His lips were sealed, but slightly pouty, they looked so soft.

You couldn’t make much of his face, the only source of light being the moon light throw the window.

You hand moved on its own. Fingers trailing to the strands of the dark hair, moving the silky locks out of his face.

You wish things had been different between you. You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t miss Jungkook, which is the exact lie you had been telling yourself for weeks. Even though he was right in front of you, you missed him. No, fuck. You couldn’t miss him, even though you wanted things to be different, they never could be.

You snapped out of your daze, removing your hands from his face, you stood up and turned your heel.

“Don’t leave.” You flinched, a small holy shit, was heard from you. Turning back around, you saw Jungkook in the exact same position you had left him in, the only difference was that his eyes were now open. The warm orbs you were completely dazed by were now looking at you.

You had to leave, but you couldn’t, your feet grew minds of their own, obediently staying in place.

Jungkook sat up from his bed, never breaking eye contact with you. He was now seated at the edge of his bed, hands on either side of his thighs, tightly clenching on the sheets beneath him in order to prevent himself from reaching out after you.

There was no exchange of words, you were both lost in each other’s gazes. You were clutching your jacket tightly, looking like a dear caught in head lights. You took a step backwards, gathering every ounce of power you had in your body to try and get out of there. You just couldn’t stay.

“Please,” his voice sounded broken. There it was again – the expression on his face you had never learned to read. His eyelids were droopy, eyebrows relaxed yet slightly furrowed.

He rose from his bed, testing the waters. He examined your reaction before moving any further. When he saw you standing completely still, he took a step forward; you didn’t move, so he took yet another step. That’s when you started to back away, you didn’t look scared or alarmed, so he continued.

This kept going until the back of your thighs met a desk you had failed to notice was there in the first place. You have got to start paying more attention to your surroundings.

Jungkook was now in front of you, eyes looking at yours, searching for any sign of uncertainty. But all he saw was sadness and hurt. His heart clenched in discomfort, because partially – if not all – of the hurt in your eyes was because of him.

He wanted to pour his heart out to you, tell you he was sorry for being an asshole. Tell you he would cut his heart into pieces and hand it to you one by one if that’s what it took to make you happy.

But he wanted to be cautious, he didn’t want to scare you off. So instead, he carefully, carefully, lifted his hand up to your face. The knuckle of his middle finger grazed the side of your cheek. You didn’t flinch.

He extended his fingers to hold your cheek in his palm, his thumb ever so slightly caressing the flush skin. It wasn’t until you leaned into his touch that he felt how warm you were. He could barely make out the light tint of a rosy color on your cheeks. Must’ve been from the booze you’ve ingested at the party, he thought.

Unbeknownst to him, you had barely had enough alcohol to call yourself tipsy.

Deep in your own thoughts, you felt Jungkook’s other hand slip around your waist, the fingers on your cheek descended down to accompany his other hand.

He was hugging you. His face was buried right in the crook of your neck, arms securely wrapped around your frame, fearing for his dear life that you were going to let go of him. His fragile soul couldn’t take it if you did.

You, however, couldn’t bring yourself to hug him back, not until you felt the skin on your shoulder grow wet. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed, barely above a whisper – audible to your ear, nonetheless.

He pulled away, his hands resting on your sides lamely. His eyes were glossy, the tip of his nose red, and a few tears had trailed down his cheeks, leaving stains of the salty water. “I’m – It’s my fault, all of it, I know I don’t deserve it but please forgive me.” he sniffled, “I know you hate me, and you have every right to – “

“I don’t hate you,” for the first time that night, you spoke to him. Your voice instantly sedated the distress in Jungkook. You wiped the tears streaming down his face with your cold thumb, which only caused more to fall. “You should… It’s all my fault.”

Although that had been your exact theory for the past weeks, you couldn’t bring yourself to believe that the statement was true anymore. You continuously blamed Jungkook for everything that had happened to you, but that wasn’t fair, you realized that now.

Because if Jungkook really was at fault, then so were you. After all, it takes two to tango.

“It’s not,” you tried to soothe the tremendous guilt you could recognize behind his doe eyes, it was the exact same guilt you had felt when you returned from the weekend at the summerhouse. The same guilt that had eaten every bit of your fiber. Blaming yourself for days for having cheated on your now ex-boyfriend who turned out to be the biggest piece of shit to walk the earth.

“You didn’t force me to do anything,” you admitted, “but that fucker – “ Jaehyun, Jungkook hissed.

“Anything that came after the summerhouse wasn’t your fault. Jaehyun showed me who he really was – an asshole in disguise,” at the mention of what you had been through, Jungkook’s grip on your sides tightened slightly. You knew he was blaming himself for what Jaehyun had done.

It wasn’t anyone but Jaehyun’s fault.

You cupped his face in both your hands, smiling softly, “please stop blaming yourself for something you had no control over.” You spoke to him, but also to yourself.

For the longest time you thought it was your fault, that if you hadn’t slept with Jungkook, that you and Jaehyun would still be happy and he would never had touched you like he did.

You and Jaehyun hadn’t been happy for a while, and if he hadn’t snapped you would’ve continued to date A-level garbage.

It took you some time to realize that it was never your fault, and it most certainly wasn’t Jungkook’s fault. Your stomach dropped at the thought of him blaming himself so mercilessly.

He sniffled harder at your words, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorr–“

The kiss was soft. You could tell he completely froze against your lips. Your hands were still on his cheeks; the feel of the occasional tear grazed the skin of your fingers. It didn’t take long for him to melt completely against the plush of your warm lips.

His arms moved back around your waist, pulling you against him until you were flush against his chest. You pulled away. He followed you, refusing that’d be the end of your kiss. His pleading lips captured yours in a second kiss.

You wrapped your arms around his neck in an attempt to deepen the kiss, not having much room to move them any place else when Jungkook was pressing himself so hard against you.

“I missed you,” he breathed between the kiss “so much.” Fuck, if only he knew how much you had missed him, “I couldn’t bare not having you around me.” You hummed against his mouth, hoping he understood that you reciprocated.

You felt his warm tongue scrape against your top lip, pleading to have a taste of yours. You complied easily. Opening your mouth for him to explore the heavenly wonder that was your mouth.

You had kissed Jungkook before, but this felt different, it was softer, much more gentle. The gliding of his tongue against yours felt new, but so right.

You soon came to the agreement that kissing Jungkook was one of your favorite things to do. The slow dance of your lips increased the beating of your heart, you were sure he could feel it knock against his chest.

He lifted your body, as if you were a feather and seated you on the desk behind you, standing right between your legs. His hands resting on either thigh, gently caressing the bare flesh.

Your lips suddenly felt cold, opening your eyes you found Jungkook’s brown orbs staring right at you. Worry began to creep its way up your spine. “What’s wrong?”

“Do… Do you want me to stop?”

He was being careful. Careful not to cross any boundaries. He couldn’t fuck up again, not this time. You smiled at him. Taking his hand in yours, you placed a peck at the top of his palm, “not at all.”

Jungkook swears his heart melted then and there; the softness in your eyes, the relaxed tone of your voice, there was no hesitation. You felt safe, which was everything Jungkook ever wanted.

He leaned back in, you closed your eyes, puckering up thinking he was going in for another kiss. You felt a pair of soft bud-like lips at the side of your jaw, “beautiful,” he whispered to himself. He kissed the top of your covered shoulder.

You leaned back slightly, both hands steady behind you to support you weight. Jungkook leaned forward, following you, refusing that any sort of distance was between you.

Even though you had given him the ok, you could feel Jungkook was slightly hesitant in his moves, which was nothing like the Jungkook you had in front of you almost an entire month ago. He was so confident and cocky, yet now, he seemed unsure.

He was afraid of touching you and screwing up everything.

“I won’t leave this time,” you whispered, moving your head so that you were now looking at him, “I’m not gonna run away.” You took his hand in yours, guiding them towards your tits. Jungkook watched in awe as his hand completely engulfed your breast.

You let go of his hand when you felt him begin to fondle with the perky tit. He moved back to your neck, but instead of small affectionate kisses, he now began to place open-mouthed kisses at the expanse of your neck. You tilted your head to the side, allowing him more space; you felt the corners of his lips curl slightly.

You gasped at the feeling of his tongue gliding over the skin, slapping your hand over your mouth. While one of his hands were busy with your chest, the other removed the hand from your face, “don’t, you sound so pretty.”

The fingers that were once wrapped around your hand moved down your torso, grazing the apex of your thigh. With his mouth still busy on your neck, he hoisted the length of your stripped dress (that was actually Mina’s), just enough to expose most of your legs, but not enough to reveal the fabric of your underwear.

The pad of his cold fingers slithered over the black textile experimentally. Carefully brushing over your clothed clit, you whimpered. You sounded downright touch deprived.

The lustful boy in front of you began sucking on your neck, all while cupping your clothed cunt without warning. “Fuck,” You jumped at the overwhelming touch.

“So sensitive” he mumbled, “aren’t you, angel,” you hummed at the rightfully missed affectionate name. You gripped his shoulders when you felt him massage a little harsher at your mound. Your underwear was beginning to stick to your folds embarrassingly fast.

Jungkook curled a finger around the section of fabric that was directly against your pussy. Providing access for his hand to touch your warmth without removing your underwear. A muffled, high pitched moan of his name rolled off your tongue at his slender finger sliding into your velvety walls.

You were already so wet, and you were sure he noticed how embarrassed you were about it, with the way you were discreetly trying to close your legs.

He used his other hand to keep your legs apart. “Don’t be shy,” he soothed, “I love this pretty” he scraped his finger against the spongy spot, “pretty pussy.”

“Jungkook, please,” you whined, it only caused Jungkook to chuckle whole-heartedly at your neediness, “what is it, baby?” he pressed his thumb against your clit, gently tapping at it. You shuttered.

“I, fuck, I–“ your thighs began to tense, “tell me,” he urged. You were trying your best, but every sentence you were attempted to formulate was instantly thrown out the window the second Jungkook added another finger into your cunt.

His fingers were scraping at your walls, pumping into you or scissoring. The dangerous combination of all of the above, and his thumb rubbing meaningless patterns on your nub had you seeing stars.

Too focused on his magical fingers, you overlooked the small detail of Jungkook now sitting between your thighs, kneeling. He rubbed your thigh soothingly.

Deciding to help you out, Jungkook wrapped his fingers around the lame excuse of your panties, dragging the pathetic fabric down your legs. You were now completely exposed.

Jungkook eyes you between your legs, shamelessly. “Pretty girl,” he wooed. He pulled his fingers out of you, you whined at the empty feeling.

He brought his soaked fingers up to his tongue, slowly licking them clean, all while maintaining eye contact with you. Telling yourself you could cum from the sight alone was in no way an understatement.

“Mmm, good, so fucking good.” He purred against his fingers. “Bet it would taste even better from here,” teasingly, he slid his finger up your soaked slit, punctuating his sentence, “wouldn’t it, angel?” You quivered at his words. “is that what you want?” yes. “your words, pretty girl.”

“Yes – Yes, please. Please eat me out,” without further ado, Jungkook wasted no time placing a much-deserved kiss on your swollen bud. You moaned in relief, throwing your head back at the feeling of Jungkook’s lips circling your clit.

You bucked your hips at the feeling of his tongue sloppily gliding against your folds. Your fingers found themselves tangled in Jungkook’s dark and messy locks. He praised you.

Small grunts and low moans were felt against your warm cunt, “such a pretty pussy,” he mumbled to himself against you. You clenched around nothing at the compliment.

“Feels so good,” you cooed, “yeah?” small licks turned into long laps, “yeah – fuck, don’t stop.” Stopping was the furthest thing from Jungkook’s mind.

You felt knots beginning to tie at the pit of your stomach, Jungkook could easily feel you were about to burst. The constant tugging of his hair and the pulsating cunt was all he needed, to know he was doing his job right.

“I love seeing you so needy for me,” at this point, you’re chanting his name shamelessly. It isn’t until Jungkook adds a finger lamely circling your clit that you feel you’re about to snap. The familiar ache between your legs became almost unbearable, you threw your head back and shut your eyes.

“Eyes on me when you cum,” you obliged. Bending your head forward to watch Jungkook eat your cunt as if he hadn’t eaten in days. The view was the most sinful yet the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. His brows are furrowed, he murmured against your warmth. You occasionally saw the tip of his nose, and when you did it was absolutely soaked in your arousal.

“Oh my fuck– Jungkook.”

It’s only when Jungkook uttered his next sentence that you felt the knot in your stomach unravel. “Fuck, baby, I could eat you out for the rest of my life,” you’re breaking apart.

Your hips surge forward, pathetically grinding on Jungkook’s face — he lets you. Helping you ride out your high, he slowly laps his tongue over your spasming pussy. He’s watching your every move, “delicious,” he smiled innocently as if his mouth wasn’t completely covered in your cum.

He stood up once again, licked his lips clean in the process and you swore you just felt something trail down your thigh. Once he was at eye-level with you, you looked down and saw the tent that has formed in his sweatpants.

Naturally, you go to grab his cock. Not wanting to waste time, you wrapped your fingers around it over the material. He visibly shuttered at the feeling, and it wasn’t until then that you realized you hadn’t touched Jungkook – at all. Not even back at the summer house.

Here you were, complaining over how selfish Jaehyun used to be whenever you two were having sex, saying he never touched you properly or showed any ounce of effort.

You weren’t any different. So far, Jungkook had only been the giver, and you had been a spoiled pillow princess.

Trailing your eyes back up to Jungkook, you watched him carefully as you curled a finger around the waistband of his sweatpants and boxers simultaneously, dragging the unnecessary material down his legs.

His cock sprung up, hitting his stomach. The tip was red and hot, several drops of precum dripped down the angry shaft. He was impossibly hard and you began to feel guilt overcome you for having been so selfish with pleasure. Determined to make it up to him, you placed all five tips of your fingers at the very apex of his cock, sliding down until your palm comes in contact with the tip.

The prettiest whine you’d ever heard rolled off of Jungkook’s lips, he watched you attentively, “y-you don’t have to–“ you shushed him, “I want to.”

You twist your wrist and positioned your fingers around his dick. Using your thumb to spread the precum, you lightly brush his frenulum in which he grunts, “fuck, babyyy,” unintentionally thrusting up into your hand.

You squeezed harder and began to pump his cock. The surprising rotation of your wrist was enough to have him slap both hands on either side of the desk, completely trapping you.

“Faster,” he pleads, “go faster,” and you do. His head drops down to your shoulder. He tried to distract himself by sucking another bruise onto the skin of your neck, but it was completely hopeless with the pace your hand was pumping.

Rhythmically, he was subtly thrusting his hips into your hand, matching the pace. He couldn’t wait to fuck you, so for the time being, he had to fuck your hand. And God, it felt so good it was almost pathetic how much a handjob could rile him up.

You felt his hips stutter, and now it was his turn to chant your name. You placed a soothing kiss on the expanse of his shoulder, “Mmm gonna – haah, shit,” You hurriedly pushed him back gently and dropped to your knees. “What are you – Fuck!”

Most of his length is now shoved down as much as your gag reflex allows, and it isn’t until you have Jungkook’s cock halfway down your throat that you realize how fucking impressive his size is. The thought of having him stretch you out with his girth is enough to make you wet all over again.

Jungkook can’t resist collecting your strands of hair up into a ponytail and piston into your mouth, “s-sorry, I’m sorry,” strings of apologies are heard throughout the room, along with the sound of you choking. Your eyes begin to sting, fresh tears falling down the side of your cheek. He continues to fuck your throat, and contrary to his belief, you fucking love it.

You steady yourself by grabbing the sides of his thighs. Echoes of Jungkook’s moans and heavy sighs fill the room, alongside the sound of his cock continuously thrusting down your throat.

“so pretty, you’re s-so fucking pretty like this,” you hum at his praise, “like the feeling of my cock down your throat, huh? Dirty girl, fuck,” at this point your mascara had completely stained your cheeks.

The sight of your brows furrowed, eyes filled with tears, mascara-stained cheeks, and the absolute cherry on top: Jungkook repeatedly plunging his impossibly hard cock down your sore throat, was all it took for him to blow his load.

You’ve never heard such a moan come from Jungkook, it sounded broken and you’re certain it’s the most beautiful thing you’ll ever hear in your life. You felt the warm, white liquid coat the walls of your cheeks and throat and you made sure to swallow every single drop.

You’re stopped from licking his dick clean when Jungkook pulls you back up to meet him at eye level. He lifts you up to sit at the desk again, hands on either side of you, he looks you dead in the eye, “I want to fuck you,” he says bluntly.

Your eyes widen slightly at his directness. Confused, you look down at his dick and holy fuck – he was still incredibly hard. Seriously, this boy had some serious stamina. You assumed his extraordinary stamina must’ve developed all those years in the gym.

You felt tiny under his gaze, you meet his eyes, nonetheless.

“Come here and fuck me then.” You felt bold when a shaky breath left his mouth. He hoisted both your legs up to his waist, causing you to lean back slightly, both your hands were forced to sit behind you once again to prevent yourself from falling backwards.

Without another word, Jungkook sealed the distance between your lips with a sweet kiss.

“Ohmygod–” was all you were able to say when his cock slowly disappeared inside of you, your walls of warmth hugging his length. Once again, you had underestimated just how big Jungkook actually was. He snaked a hand to meet the small of your back to steady himself before he finally began to pull himself out, leaving his tip, only to push back in.

You whined at the delicious stretch. Setting a fixed pace, Jungkook repeatedly thrusted into you, while his lips were busy on yours. You wrapped both arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in the hairs of his nape. “Mmm fuck,” he moaned deliciously against your lips.

“Feels good?” he asked, parting your lips with a soft chu. You nodded; your eyelids lazily drooped over your orbs; eyebrows scrunched together at the feeling of his tip kissing your cervix. He felt so good.

“Say it,” he rasped, “tell me how good it feels,” his thrusts grew harder, “tell me how good I’m fucking this pretty pussy. My pussy,” his pussy, yes, it was his.

You cried at the claim. “It feels so good Guk – fuck I love when you fuck me like this.”

He pounded harder, as if he was trying to punctuate something. Both your breaths quickened, equally as eager to chase your own high as you were each other’s. Pushing his chests flush against yours, he leaned his forehead against yours, neither of you broke eye contact.

“L-love you,” he cried. “I love you.”

It felt as if all the air in your lungs was punched out of you, you couldn’t pinpoint whether it was Jungkook’s hips thrusting into yours unforgivingly, or if it was the fact that the boy you basically watched grow up happened to be the same person you’ve liked since middle-school, standing in front of you, telling you he loves you.

You lied to yourself, you genuinely thought whatever strong feeling you felt for Jungkook had died down, that you had truly moved on. You even got a boyfriend and all that.

But it wasn’t until you heard Jungkook utter those three words that you realized they never went away, no – you had hidden those feelings away in a box and chained several chains around it to keep them suppressed.

You loved him too, of course you did. You never stopped loving him for fucks sake. It pains you to think about how much crap both of you were put through for you to realize this.

“I love you.”

12-year-old Y/N was applauding and smiling like crazy; you finally said it. The love you had carried for Jungkook in your poor overwhelmed heart was finally spilled all over the table.

Jungkook’s hips stuttered at your reciprocating words. He hadn’t expected you to say it back, but for the love of all that is holy; he loved hearing you say it, it sounded so pretty coming from you. “Say it again,” he was now smiling, and you couldn’t help but smile back at him.

His eyes were glowing, so of course you had to say it again, “I love you. Fuck – I always have.”

“Again.”

“Jeon Jungkook,” completely out of breath, you caressed the side of his cheek, watching as his eyes teared up once again. He only fastened his pace, if that was even humanly possible. Lovingly, you ran your thumb across the scar that laid right on his cheek, “I am in love with you.”

That being said – Jungkook exploded, with you following right after him. You were holding on to each other for dear life, with slow pumps to help ride out your highs. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, at your final clench.

Small strings of I love you’s were heard from Jungkook who was breathlessly panting into your neck. He kissed your temple, guiding a small string of hair behind your ear.

“You know,” he started, “I’ve been in love with you since freshman year of high school,” he smiled adoringly at you, “the first day we had a biology class, I saw you slip a note into my locker that read ‘if I could be a nitrogen base, I’d be adenine so I could be paired with U.’ and there was a small purple bellflower taped to the corner of the paper. You’ve had my heart ever since that day.”

Your eyes widened, physically cringing at yourself in your teenage years, “I can’t believe you knew it was me, and really? That’s what it took for you to like me back?” You giggled, “you can’t blame me, you were, and still are, extremely adorable.” He shrugged his shoulders. You gently pushed his shoulders, feeling your face turn red at the reminder of your rather sappy biology pick up line.

“Well, I’ve loved you since middle school. I win this one, Jeon.”

Saturday 02:57AM

“What’s taking so long, Y/N should be back by now,” Jin winced, eyeing the small watch on his wrist.

Taehyung and Mina looked at each other, “do you think it worked?” Mina questioned, a beaming smile plastered across her face, “yup,” Taehyung crossed his arms proudly. “Operation tell-Y/N-to-get-polaroid-camera-because-Taehyung’s-too-drunk-for-his-own-good-so-that-she-could-be-trapped-in-the-same-room-as-Jungkook-and-make-up… Was a success!”

taglist: @selinashere @jjenjen @ladyartemesia @emsuzz @iamjiminsfloor @silvlyjmhwa

#jeon jungkook #bts jungkook #jeon jeongguk smut #fluff #angst #he won't know #fanfic

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synnthamonsugar · 3 years

Text

Savathun's Trip to the Last City

Now that we have a clearer picture of what’s going on with Savathun I decided to compile the last year’s worth of her POV lore pieces together.

This is super long, and has spoilers for Path of the Splicer VI / Beneath the Endless Night VII, so I’m putting it under a cut.

Credit to @xivuuarath for reading through this and adding some of their ideas! We talked about more beyond what’s posted here, but this is getting long, so maybe that would be better saved for a part two.

1. Traveler's Chosen (Season of Arrivals)

This piece is told from the POV of a narrator viewing the events through an "ossific den". Based on later lore pieces, I'm certain the narrator is Savathun. Given that ahamkara bones have been compromised by her, and that Shaxx has an ahamkara skull slung up in his station, it’s safe to assume this is Sav’s vantage point.

That said, I don't believe Savathun is observing Shaxx, but rather Zavala, struggling in the wake of the Darkness' encroachment on the system and his colleagues' refusals to evacuate to safety. She seems pleased to find Zavala in a desperate state, and watches as he has a silent conversation with the Traveler. Of note is that she's waiting for it to respond.

He waits for a response and I do as well, tense, curious. [ . . . ] It is no time at all for me, but for him, the hours creep by in silence.

I am ready to choke the voice of his Traveler if it answers him, but there is nothing.

2. Harbinger Mission (Season of the Hunt)

Thank you to @xivuuarath for pointing this out since I didn’t include it the first time around. During the Harbinger mission Savathun’s forces are attempting to secure a Shard of the Traveler in the EDZ. Of note is that they aren’t trying to destroy it, but rather siphon the Light from it.

Given that the Shard of the Traveler is what allowed our Guardian to jumpstart their Light when they lost it during the Red War, and is what allowed Uldren Sov to break into the Dreaming City during the events of Forsaken, we can assume it’s useful to lightbearers and mortals alike. Make note of this, because it becomes potentially relevant later on.

2.5. Hawkmoon (Season of the Hunt)

From an unknown vantage point, Savathun watches The Guardian and Crow celebrate their defeat of her Taken at the Shard of the Traveler. Unlike Zavala, she can find no weak points in Crow or the Guardian, only happiness. This awakens something in her.

What is this feeling? I did not ask for it. I do not understand it. I do not want it.

Which gets repeated throughout the lore piece. This is our first glimpse of Savathun having feelings that don't fall into the range of "malevolence" or "plotting". She yearns for her youth with her siblings and the warmth of her old life, and feels burgeoning regret for the people she betrayed.

There is a growing kinship here. Against better judgment.

This is ambiguous enough to be a comment on Crow’s and The Guardian’s relationship, or herself and The Guardian and/or Crow. She's called us her friend before but this might be the first time she's actually had friendly feelings for us.

3. Books of Sorrow: New Verse (Season of the Hunt)

This hasn't actually been posted on Ishtar Collective and I'm too lazy to track down a transcript online, so pardon the source. There's a lot to unpack here.

I walk in a city made of delicate hopes.

Savathun has moved beyond occupying ahamkara bones and is actually physically present.

I hear my name everywhere. [. . .] The sound is nourishment.

Imbaru machine on-line?

I am more than I ever was, and less than I will ever be.

Make note of this line.

I am many and none. I'm a man who sits alone in a cavernous office counting my failures. I'm a woman looking at a silent god. I'm a lost soul on a cold moon. I'm a broken mirror of a man who tries to steer the ship.

Comparing (?) herself to Zavala, Ikora, Eris, and back to Zavala again?

I'm a familiar stranger, flitting between them all, hiding my face.

Again, I think she's speaking literally here.

The people here are small krill dwarfed by the enormity of oblivion.

A neat little comparison of humanity with the krill, who we established in her last appearance she's beginning to feel regret for.

4. Retrofuturist (Season of the Chosen)

Savathun watches a Crucible match, and judges Guardians for being reckless with the gift of immortality. The tone of this piece reinforces the idea she is actually out and about in a corporeal form.

I'm mostly interested in her perspective on Ghosts here. She calls them "A perfect being", and describes their ability to revive the dead as miraculous. She isn't happy that the spectators don't appreciate the gravity of this. Weird sentiment for a hive but ok.

I look up into the blank white face. I feel its Light on my cheeks. It no longer burns me.

The Hive are repelled by the Light. Savathun has grown to tolerate it. Something has changed in her metaphysical composition.

@xivuuarath made the excellent observation that she might have been at least partially successful in the Harbinger mission - that she may have secured enough Light to build up an immunity, allowing her to be physically present in the City without being hurt by the Traveler.

Each revival is a choice. I know what to do.

Tuck this away for a moment.

5. Beneath the Endless Night: VII - Ripe (Season of the Splicer)

Okay this whole page is insane so excuse the massive infodump here.

I walk through the City on broken legs. I am conspicuous, but the people here grant me many affordances. I chose this form well.

Confirmation that our girl is actually bumping about in a human-form.

I open my eyes and search the faces of the people around me for familiarity. I did not mean to. I twist inwardly with disgust.

She's sympathizing with the humans of the City. She does not like this, but she is!

When they first reached for me, I reached back in acid mockery, and they opened themselves to me in stupid, naked innocence. I was giddy. My fingers raked their minds. I forced my will through them using only words and met no resistance.

Now I reach as often as they do, and when they reach back, I am thankful. I speak with them. I seek their company. Their companionship.

In case it wasn’t obvious already, Savathun has been running a psy-op on the residents of the Last City, which may explain some of the particularly erratic and troubling behavior from individuals / groups this season.

However the interesting thing is, while Sav used her powers of suggestion to manipulate, the humans unknowingly manipulated her in return. Not through any magic - simply through their kindness.

Savathun is doing more than observing the people of the Last City, she is living with them, getting to know them. Savathun is making friends and it’s literally changing her.

This is not pity, for I know pity. What is this—

A call back to the Hawkmoon lore with her trying to make sense of budding positive feelings.

I clench the gangling black mass that threatens to unspool recklessly from within this shell of flesh. My new arms are too thin, too weak. My new shell still bound with thick mucus. Not yet, I say.

I suspect that the “new shell” she talks about here is not her human-form, but rather something else growing inside it.

A man places his hands on me, on my shoulders, on my back. He asks if I am ill, and he sees my flat eyes, my teeth black with ripeness, and he prepares to scream. I let him keep his mind. I push breath up and through my ruined mouth and speak a simple lie. He stops, smiles, laughs. Shakes his head. He points a finger at me in mocking admonishment before walking away.

A few things to unpack here.

Savathun is physically deteriorating... badly. @xivuuarath pointed out that the body horror of this particular scene mirrors the Emissary’s description of a world with no darkness and creatures that are incapable of death even as they physically fall apart, and if you follow that line of thinking you may infer that she’s forcing herself to live through light alone.

She's approachable enough that some rando would see her in trouble and want to help her, reinforcing the point that she's been wandering about the City and vibing with its residents.

She could have done worse to the good samaritan but chooses not to. She does her mind trick and lets him go about his business. She’s showing mercy... which is something we know the hive absolutely must not do at the risk of being consumed by their worm.

Even here, basted in deception both ample and rich, the Worm cries ravenously. It has grown grotesque, skin taut, overfed, and still it howls for more. It commands me to keep it alive.

I look up, beyond the flickering net of darkness, and see what rests just beyond. Waiting for me. The Worm roars.

NOT DISCONCERTINGLY AMBIGUOUS AT ALL that we don't know if the worm is roaring in terror, pleading or triumph.

TL;DR of what I think is going on.

Savathun came to the City to destabilize it through manipulation, but could not be physically present until she hardened herself to the Light. Camouflaging herself in a human form, she spent time with the residents of the City, and found herself manipulated in return by their kindness. She's resisting the positive emotions, but they're there, which is something we've never seen between hive and humans before. You can't have a crisis of conscience if you don't have a conscience, and Savathun does.

I think Savathun is trying to shed her current form and be reborn in some capacity. I think she's going to try to use the Light to rid herself of the Worm and bootstrap herself into something new. If you'd asked me before reading this lore, I would have insisted that she wanted to become a thought-entity, but the cocoon-like imagery makes me second-guess this assumption.

There are outstanding questions at this point.

Why did she want to prevent Eris and/or The Guardian from communicating with the Darkness in Season of Arrivals? Is there a purpose to the Endless Night beyond eroding willpower and sowing division? Is she trying to save only herself, or attempt to undo the millennia-old injustice she inflicted on her people?

#destiny #destiny spoilers #savathun #hive #beneath the endless nightblogging #im glad ttp now has a challenger for lore pieces for me to obsess over.

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greekowl87 · 3 years

Text

Fic: Embracing Parenthood 5/?

Get caught up: (1) | (2) | (3) (4) or AO3

A/N: I’ve been writing while trying to figure out my depression but it’s not as much as I would like. I finally got this done and have two other things I am working on. Looking at episodes 4-D and Lord of the Flies, I decided to consolidate this chapter and do a focus on “Lord of the Flies”. I’m still not 100% on the direction this will be taking. I borrowed lines from the episode so, just an fyi. I used the transcript from Inside the X. Bit of light smut at the end.

Tagging @baronessblixen @suitablyaggrieved @today-in-fic @improlificinsarcasm

After a few more months, they seemed to finally be hitting their stride. This new...whatever it was...took some getting used to for Mulder and Scully. Aside from the one time they caught William’s mobile spinning under its own accord, they had not caught anything else. Scully was fine with this and shut down any attempt Mulder made to bring it up. She kept telling herself that their son was just fine and normal like any other baby. After a couple of weeks, Mulder gave up. It became an unspoken agreement between them. Aside from this, things at the academy and x-files remained quiet.

Agent Reyes settled in an apartment in Foggy Bottom. A few x-files have been solved. Despite Agent Reyes’s claim of an interdimensional serial killer nearly ending his life, Doggett was still alive. Mulder and Scully settled into their teaching roles at the academy, William was growing in size, and they both were beginning to believe that they were getting that happy ending that they both deserved.

On a regular Wednesday afternoon, as Mulder graded quizzes in his office, he heard a light knocking at the door. “Come in,” he called looking up from his desks.

Scully smiled at him. “How’s the grading, Agent Mulder?”

“I want to know your secret,” he confessed. He held out his hand, offering a chair across from him. She surprised him instead by taking his hand, squeezing it, and kissed him deeply. “Well, hello to you too.”

“I like this, Scully.”

“I’m glad. I have to go to New Jersey though. Agents Doggett and Reyes need my medical opinion about a matter.”

“Do you need me to tag along?”

She didn’t answer his question. She sat in the chair across from him. “Teaching suits you, Mulder. Are you happy?”

“I can do without the grading,” he confided. “So, back to the case? Is this what...for an afternoon?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe. I’m sure it’s fairly straightforward. A teenager was found with half of the head collapsed in, and many flies came swarming out.”

“Flies? Is this a case of Lord of the Flies? Or Jeff Goldum’s The Fly?”

“Thankfully not. I just suspect something weird. However, I need to travel to New Jersey to lend a helping hand.”

“You never answered my question. Do you need me to tag along?”

“No. I’ve already called my mother to let her know. I’m taking a car from the pool and I’ll be stopping by the apartment before making my way to New Jersey.”

Mulder shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The suddenness of this news made him feel very uncomfortable. He did not have much time to sort through these new feelings as Scully continued. “It’s a three-hour drive from Washington. I’ll be spending the night up there. I should be back in a day or two.”

Mulder cleared his throat. “Just like that?”

She titled her head. “Why? Is there something wrong with it?”

“No,” he lied. He fiddled with the pen in front of him, rolling it back and forth on his desk. “I’ll pick up William from your mother.”

“It’s only for 48 hours,” she said.

“It’s not a big deal, Scully. Do you not have faith in me taking care of William?”

“I didn’t say that but you are pouting.”

“I’m not pouting. Look, I probably need a guy’s night anyway.”

“The Gunmen?” She asked.

“I was just thinking about me, Will, and Plan 9 From Outer Space. You know a guy’s night.”

“Maybe pick a less depressing film?”

“We’ll be fine, mom. Promise.” Scully arched her eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “Promise, Scully. Nothing will go wrong.”

Her cellphone started to ring and she sighed, looking at the caller ID. “It’s Agent Doggett,” she sighed. She got up from her chair and hastily kissed his cheek as she left. “I’ll call you when I get there. Love you.”

“Love you too.” He replied, watching her retreating form.

As the emotions welled in his chest. Mulder pushed the rest of the ungraded quizzes to the side and began to search for movies. As a psychologist, he knew pushing his emotions aside and burying them was unhealthy. He and Scully spent seven years doing that. Unfortunately, he was no longer a bachelor and had a baby to worry about as well.

* * * * * *

Traffic was a beast in driving the length of I-95 to Quantico to drive the hour to Annapolis to Marget Scully’s house. Two accidents just added to Mulder’s sour mood. As he sat in traffic, he tried to distract himself by switching it to NPR and ultimately switched it off. As traffic inched towards Maryland, he finally identified and named just a few of the emotions that were swirling in his chest. Jealousy. Feelings of inadequacy. Sadness.

He sighed, finally sighting the exit to Mrs. Scully’s and signaled the right turn signal. As he pulled off, he was bitterly reminded of the initial shock and awe he felt coming back from the dead. He struggled to find this place in a Twilight Zone-like universe where he no longer had the x-files and had Scully seven months pregnant. They struggled to find their footing. Mulder remembered feeling left out and bitter that Scully had a new partner in Doggett. He didn’t necessarily dislike this man. He was a good agent, just like Scully had said, but he was the one investigating x-files with Scully. Mulder wasn’t. He didn’t mind Agent Reyes either. He liked her and thought her addition to the x-files office in place of Scully would help balance the skeptical Doggett. But that didn’t stop him from feeling jealous and left out.

As he slowed, pulling into a residential neighborhood, he saw Mrs. Scully’s white sedan in the driveway and the lights throughout the house. He jogged up the front steps and raised his hand to knock. Mrs. Scully opened the door before his knuckles could rap against the wood. “Fox, I’m glad to see you weren’t caught up in traffic too badly!”

“I still hit a couple of accidents, Mrs. Scully.” He forced a smile. “Were you expecting someone?”

“What? Oh, no! I saw your headlights in the driveway. Come in! I was just about to pull out dinner.”

“I couldn’t…” he stammered out of instinct.

“Nonsense. Besides, William will be very happy to see you.”

Oh yeah, he thought, I’m a father. “You need to get past the formalities, Fox. Don’t you think Maggie will do? You are the father to my grandson after all.” Mrs. Scully was already pulling on his hand, tugging him inside before he could put up a fight. “Besides, as much as I love my daughter, Dana does not know how to cook.”

“Actually, she’s quite good,” Mulder defended.

Mrs. Scully chuckled to herself. “What I meant is she doesn’t know how to cook for a family. I raised four children by myself for the most part when the Captain was at sea. Now that William is here, I’m not going to dismiss the possibility. Take off your shoes, Fox.”

Mulder slid off his polished Oxford shoes and loosened his tie. “The possibility of what?”

Maggie stopped and smiled. “Of what could be. Come on. I bet William will be excited to see you.”

Mulder followed Mrs. Scully into the kitchen and saw his son light up. William began to babble happily and stretch his arms for his father. He smiled and bent down to kiss his forehead. “I think he is going to have Scully’s eyes.”

“They might still turn brown. I don’t know, Fox. I think William is beginning to look like you. Have a seat. Do you want a beer with dinner?”

“Water would be fine.”

Mulder sat closest to William as Mrs. Scully served them. “William was fine today,” she said. “Dana called and let me know. If it is more convenient, I can come to Georgetown and watch William tomorrow if you want.”

Mulder nodded and replied, “I would appreciate that. I wish I could simply take the time off.”

Mrs. Scully played with her shepherd’s pie. And how are you feeling, Fox with Dana in New Jersey and you here?”

He was caught off guard with the question. “What do you mean?”

“Seven years you two were practically glued together. She would always answer your calls. Now you’re here and she's out in the field.” She paused. “I know you two had some difficulties when you came back.”

He chuckled hollowly. “Not every day you come back from the dead.”

“Exactly. She was alone for six months.”

“I didn’t leave her intentionally,” he defended quietly.

“I’m not saying that you did. I’m not my oldest son, Fox.”

“I’m that bad?”

“Worse than Dana,” she chuckled. “I know what it’s like to feel left behind and on the sidelines. I imagine you felt some sort of jealousy with Agent Doggett when you first met him?”

“I, uh, punched him in the jaw.”

Mrs. Scully nodded. “Dana mentioned something about that. The point is, Fox, I know what is like feeling out of the loop when your partner is out doing something. I felt the same way when Bill was out to sea and I was left to raise four kids of my own. He would joke that I was the admiral in the family.” She gave a small smile. “And you find yourself in a similar situation.”

“I guess so,” he whispered. He pushed his food around. “Even though we’re both teaching at the academy, it doesn’t feel the same.”

“You could always propose.”

William squealed eagerly and threw something across the table making Mulder jump. “Excuse me?”

Mrs. Scully shrugged. “I just figured after 8 years, a child, and sharing an apartment...it’s time you make it permanent, Fox.”

“I…”

She held up her hand. “You don’t have to say anything. Just think about it. In the meantime, are you sure I can’t get you anything else right now?”

“Yeah,” he stammered. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

As it neared 8 o’clock, Mulder gathered his son and Mrs. Scully piled leftovers into a brown grocery bag to walk him out. “I’ll be up by 10 tomorrow. What time will you be home?”

“About six,” he replied, shifting William in his arms. “Scully said she might be home by tomorrow.”

“Well, I’ll set one extra place at the table.”

Mulder, still feeling insecure, interrupted. “You don’t have to, Mrs. Scully. I can take care of William. I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Nonsense,” she dismissed. “I love seeing my grandson.” She kissed Mulder’s cheek goodbye. “And I don’t do these things because I pity you or think you unworthy of Dana, Fox. I do it out of love for you and William. Now, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

As the door closed behind him and Mulder tucked William into his car seat, his thoughts became distracted yet again. Scully did need him, right? He hadn’t brushed aside. And what did Mrs. Scully insinuate with their dinner conversation?

* * * * * *

A few states away in Manahawkin, New Jersey, Scully retired from examining the half-collapsed head of “Captain Dare” and the persistent flirting of Dr. Rocky Bronzino earlier than she anticipated. She politely declined the dinner invitation from Agents Doggett and Reyes as well. She found her attention drifting towards various journal articles about the Spanish fly and their mating rituals. After a few hours, Scully abandoned her research.

She tried to take a bath and felt distracted. Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around the facts of the case. As she dressed for bed, she sleepily looked at the motel clock and saw it was nine o’clock. How could she have let time get away from her? Without a second thought, she found her cell and called the apartment’s landline. When there was no answer, she quickly called Mulder’s cell phone. He answered the third thing.

“Mulder,” he greeted automatically.

She could hear him hiding a yawn in his voice. “Mulder, it’s me,” she spoke softly. “Did I catch you at a bad moment?”

“No,” he sighed. “I just put William to bed. A late bath, a lot of crying, and a partially read bedtime story and he is down for the count. He misses you terribly.”

“I bet,” she said. Scully shifted the files around. “And what about you?”

“What about me?” He yawned again.

“How are you?”

“Tired,” he admitted simply. “And very much missing you. Your bed is too big without you. But never mind me. Tell me about the case?”

“I am dealing with a human head half-collapsed in with flies exploding it before I arrived. Agents Doggett and Reyes are chasing down a teenager suspect.”

“Oh,” he hummed. “Bugs. Is this like those teenagers from Pittsfield, Virginia, Scully?”

“Not at all,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure if this is an x-file yet. I mean it has bugs. It’s all about the bugs, Mulder.”

“Washington state. One of our first cases.”

“Well, no one has been found cocooned in the web.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” she repeated. Scully sighed and looked at the empty side of the motel bed. “I should be done by tomorrow evening. Hey, we have the weekend at least. One perk of teaching at the academy: normal 9-5 jobs.”

“Unless you get called away on another case.” Scully could hear a hint of bitterness in his voice. “But yeah, I’ll look forward to it.”

“Mulder, are you okay?”

She could hear the phone shifting on his end. “Hm? Yeah. I was just getting the blankets pulled down. I thought about putting William in the bassinet but I guess he needs to learn about sleeping in his room.”

Scully groaned inwardly. “You’re not helping,” she told him.

“What did I do?”

There was a weariness in his voice she could not place. “Mulder, what’s wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing, nothing. Everything is okay. I’m handling it just fine.”

She heard his voice rise defensively and the baby crying in the background. “Look, Scully. I’m going to check on William. I’ll talk to you later okay?”

“Okay but…” Mulder hung up the phone before Scully had a chance to reply. “Great.”

Scully looked back at the clock, wondering if she should call her partner back. She felt hurt about the shortness in her voice. What had happened? Did her mother say something to Mulder? Did she do something? Did something else happen to William that he wasn’t telling her? In the end, she decided not to call him back lest she wake the baby again and cause Mulder to lose any sleep. As she settled in the motel bed, she turned onto her side and swept her arm up and down the empty side. She missed being away from him and their son.

Three hours away in Georgetown, Mulder, unable to sleep found himself on the couch in front of the television. William held contently against his chest. William sleepily watched his father as Mulder settled on TCM for a black and white horror film. A small gurgling brought Mulder’s attention back to his son. “We’ll just keep daddy sleeping on the couch a secret from mom,” he said.

William yawned and twisted his head towards Mulder’s chest. “Well, the important thing is that you’re comfortable,” Mulder continued. “You’re just like your mother; she can sleep anywhere too. I think her favorite place is to fall asleep on me.”

He shifted his attention back to the television and then back at his son. “I can’t help but feel forgotten,” he confessed to William. “I mean, your mom was all by herself when she found out she was pregnant with you and I was abducted. She got a new partner.” Mulder thought of Doggett’s straight-laced demeanor. “He is just the opposite of what I expected. And of course, I am jealous of him. He was the one watching Scully’s back because I ran off to chase down a damn UFO. Look at what that got me, Will. Six feet under.” He looked down at his son. “Does that make me a bad person?”

William met him with silence.

“Well, I value your opinion so don’t hold back,” he told the baby. More silence except for a sleepy blink. “I think that is why I was so distant tonight. I’m jealous. I’m upset. I feel left behind.” Mulder watched his son grow sleepier. He had Scully’s blue eyes. “I feel like she’s moved on without me. I have since I came back. Even with you and all your glory, bud, I still feel inadequate.” William grabbed a fistful of Mulder’s t-shirt as his eyes grew heavier. “Are you trying to reassure me?” Mulder chuckled slightly. “I wish I could tell Scully how I felt.”

One day, he promised himself. As William drifted off to sleep, Mulder found himself wide awake still, his thoughts going to Scully and the bitterness he felt over the fact she was out in the field and he felt left behind.

* * * * *

Back in New Jersey, Scully left the motel to head straight to the medical examiner’s office. Agents Doggett and Reyes had texted her that they were going to follow up with some matters at the high school before meeting her at the medical examiner. On her way there, Scully tried to call Mulder again first at his office and then his cell. This was the second time since last night that he hadn’t answered his phone. Trying to dismiss the growing insecurities into the back of her mind, she tried to focus on the case instead. As Scully strolled into the main medical lab, it was much to her dismay that Dr. Bronzino was waiting for her.

“Dr. Scully,” the overly tanned scientist greeted. “How are you this fine morning?”

“Well,” she greeted with some reserve. “Have Agents Doggett and Reyes arrived yet?”

“Not at all! But I’ve been examining the flies that exploded from that young man’s skull. It’s quite fascinating really. Being a forensic pathologist, you might find this particularly interesting. Have you ever heard of the coffins fly?”

Scully took a step back and forced a smile. “I can’t say I have.”

“Well, they’re amazing creatures. A female coffin fly has been known to bury its way through over two meters of dirt just to lay its eggs on the cadaver. That is the equivalent of a human digging two miles into the ground.” He flashed her a dazzling smile of whitened teeth. “Isn’t it amazing of the lengths one will go to procreate?”

“Fascinating,” she replied quickly, “but what does this have to do with the victim?”

“Oh,” the entomologist exclaimed, “all the flies that came for the young victim’s head were female. There is probably nothing to it but isn't it fascinating?”

Scully’s mind was already firing and meaning connections. “It is. And it could be nothing or it could mean everything. Did you set any aside for the examination?”

Dr. Bronzino waved to the other end of the room where the microscope was. “I was going to prepare some samples to examine.”

She moved towards the microscope. “Why don’t I start on that and you do whatever it is that you are doing, Dr. Bronzino”

“Excellent suggestion, Dr. Scully! Divide and conquer! I like the sound of that!”

“I’m sure,” she answered.

“Which reminds me. I’m going to run back to my lab real quickly to gather another instrument of my invention. I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here,” she said.

Scully was secretly glad to see him retreat as she set to work. She laid out her research of flies that she had started the night before and her morning coffee. She paused, trying to collect her thoughts before she delved into the day’s work, however, she couldn’t. Her thoughts kept going back to the abrupt conversation that she had with Mulder the night before. He sounded distant and aloof. She was reminded of his jealousy when he came back from the dead. She found her phone and dialed his office at Quantico. At nine a.m., he should have been strolling right then. However, it went straight to messages. She hung up before she could leave one. Growing disgruntled, Scully called the Georgetown apartment. To her surprise, it was her mother that answered.

“Hello?” Her mother answered.

“Hi, mom,” she greeted quickly. “What are you doing at the apartment?”

“Oh, I thought I would save Fox driving to drop off William with me this morning,” she said. “One less hassle to do. I also picked you and Fox up some groceries that you desperately needed.”

“We were fine,” she said. “Where is Mulder? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” her mom replied vaguely. “I found him sleeping on the couch last night with the tv on. William must have kept him up all night.”

She felt a twinge of regret twist her heart. “Is he okay?”

“I guess so. He seemed fine and left for the office with no issue. Why? Is there something that I should be aware of?”

“No, no,” Scully said. She pushed the thoughts of insecurity deep down. Now was not the time. “He seemed distracted last night. We only chatted briefly. Is William okay?”

“He’s a fat, happy baby who can sleep through anything. Just like you were. I’m here until Fox comes home if you need anything. Do you want me to tell Fox that you called?”

“No, no. Everything’s fine.”

Her mother was silent on the other end. “Well, if you do need anything, Dana, I’m here with William. Love you.”

“Love you too, mom.”

She hung up her phone and tried to ignore the new signs that taunted her. Nothing was fine except she was not going to say anything. Scully sat at the microscope and began to work.

A couple of hours later, Dr. Rocky Bronzino rejoined her with a crude-looking invention to he promised to give a giant break in the case. She half-listened to ramble on about the various mating rituals of insects until she noticed a pattern emerging with the insects. It took Bronzino to confirm her suspicions and identify the peculiar fact about the case. As she continued to examine the flys, at a quarter till noon, Agents Reyes and Doggett walked in. Scully looked at both of them and announced, “I’m glad you’re here. I think we just got our first real break in the case.”

“What did you find?” Reyes asked.

“Well, it's what the entomologist Rocky Bronzino found. The flies that ate at the brain and skull of the victim are all female. Every last one of them.” Scully motioned to a fly under the microscope as she spoke.

Doggett looked towards Monica Reyes and asked, “Exactly how is that a break”

Scully thought for a moment and answered, “Well, what are the chances of that?”

Agent Reyes clarified, “You mean that the absence of males suggests there's a reason for the attack. Behaviourally.”

“Well, something biological is going on. Whether it's hormonal or chemical something has caused these bugs to attack,” Scully theorized.

Doggett added, “Or a need to express themselves.”

Scully asked, “To what?”

Agent Doggett continued, “This is a kid that calls himself "Sky Commander Winky." Agent Reyes and I were interviewing him as a suspect when this happened.” He showed photos of the victim’s back were the words ‘DUMB ASS’ shined a bright, red welt. “The paramedics arrived and treated him for an aggressive attack of bodily lice.”

She took the photos to examine them closer. “Hmm. Lice are not altogether uncommon in a school environment.”

Doggett snorted. “Except that these are better spellers than most of the kids.”

“Maybe they stayed late for after-school lessons,” she snorted. “So what are you saying? That this is just another dumb ass stunt?”

Reyes interjected, “Well, that was my first thought. But the victim here was just too freaked out by this incident to make me believe he'd staged this. Which leads me to think that while you may be right about this being a matter of biology, someone is directing the biology.” She paused. “Maybe you might want to consult Mulder?”

“Why?” Doggett asked. “These are bugs we are talking about.”

“And how does one direct bugs?” She added.

Reyes shrugged and replied, “I don't know how but we've been running down a long list of witnesses.” She passed Scully the rest of the photographs. “A loner who was present at every dumb ass stunt and who had a run-in with this kid Winky at school just prior to the lice attacking. His name is Dylan Lokensgard. We're going to want to talk to him.”

“He seems like a promising start,” Scully replied. “Dr. Bronzino should be back soon. He promised to bring a piece of equipment that will help break the case.”

“We’ll be back then. Call us if you have anything. Let’s head back, Monica.”

“I’ll call you when I have something,” Scully replied.

She watched the two agents retreating. She glanced at the clock on the wall and did the math in her head. She probably wasn’t going to be home that evening that she had promised.

* * * * * *

Having Mrs. Scully watch William in Georgetown instead of Maryland was a bigger relief than Mulder had realized. Although he hit traffic on the way to Quantico, the extra hour of not driving had put him in a somewhat fairer mood. However, as the morning dragged on and he did not hear anything from Scully began to sour his fair mood. By lunch, he was mad. Well not mad, but pouting and being gloomy. If Scully were here, she would have chewed him out and told him to pull his head out of his ass. But that was just it. Scully wasn’t here to do that.

As noon droned on, Mulder heard a light knocking at his door and looked up with some surprise to see A.D. Skinner standing in the doorway. “Wow, Mulder. Even having an office out of the basement and looking depressed as hell.”

“And it’s good to see you too, sir.” Mulder rose to greet the man and offered his hand. “I suspect you did not come down to comment on my office.”

“No.” Skinner paused. “I had a meeting I needed to attend. I wanted to check in on you and see how things were. You know, just to see if you threaten to burn down the establishment yet.”

“Haha,” Mulder said lamely. “No. Things are normal. Just perfectly normal.”

“And you are a terrible liar. Why don’t you come to lunch, Mulder? Get your head out of your ass and get some fresh air.”

“I’m fine where I am,” he said.

“And I know you well enough to know when you’re lying. You’re jealous aren’t you?”

“About what?”

“I know Scully’s out in the field,” Skinner stated, “and you’re not.”

“Way to rub it in.” Mulder glanced at his computer clock and relented. “Fine, fine. It isn’t like I have anything else to do today.”

“Good. You could use the distraction.”

. . . . . .

Back in New Jersey, Doggett and Reyes were still canvassing the school looking for more witnesses, Scully found herself out in the streets with the brazen etymologist, Dr. Rocky Bronzino. His continued efforts of flirting with her wearing down on her last nerves. She surveyed the empty street and how idyllic it reminded her. Dr. Bronzino focused on the tool he had brought from his lap that was designed to help them. He took a step back from the tracker to examine the surroundings.

“So many flowers ... so little time,” he murmured

Scully looked up from the trunk of the Land Rover. “Excuse me?”

The etymologist stated excitedly. “Pheromones, Dr. Scully. Heavy in the air. Nature's natural attractions. Driving the insect world to go forth and pollinate.”

As Dr. Bronzino began to advance on her, she took a few steps back. She shifted her gaze to the device he had brought with him. “I'm aware of how pheromones work. But according to this device, there isn't a single pheromone to be found out here.”

He began to tweak his machine and Scully rolled her eyes, looking back up to the sky. She smirked, remembering the time she was with Mulder when frogs rained from the sky. Dr. Bronzino was growing frustrated. “Well, that can't be right. The biosensor uses an actual fly antenna over which the pheromones pass. But I modified the EAG to measure in picograms which makes it sensitive to traces a mile in any direction.”

Scully watched an overly casual Rocky lean against the car, a confident hand on his hip, as he tried to charm her. Scully tried to remain professional and keep them on track. “But I'm still not sure why you think that pheromones might cause an otherwise harmless fly to attack a human so violently, Doctor…”

“Rocky,” he corrected. His whitened teeth shined as brightly as he flirted with her.

“Rocky,” she repeated

He smiled, thinking his charm was working. “Bugs are small-minded creatures, and therefore very predictable. They don't have moods. They react to circumstance and stimuli as they have been doing for millennia.”

“How wonderful.” She tried to keep it professional. “So what do you suppose they're reacting to out here?”

Dr. Bronzino puffed out his chest like a mating dove and took a few steps forward. “It may be the bugs are being somehow driven crazy with desire. You know, they say we humans respond to pheromones, too.”

Scully put her hands on her hips, clearly uncomfortable. “Yeah, I tend to agree with that, yeah.”

Rocky pressed on. “‘Women's dormitory syndrome.’ It's believed that pheromones are the reason that women who live together share the same menstrual cycle.”

“Fascinating,” she deadpanned.

Dr. Bronzino felt emboldened. “You know, when a male and female calliphorid fly mate they stay joined for up to one and a half hours. One and a half, doctor.” He punctuated the last few words for emphasis. “What do you think of that?”

Scully stood unfazed. This was not the first time she had to deal with this, however, this time was different. “You know, Rocky ... I'm a mother.”

He arched an eyebrow, not dissuaded. He looked at her left hand. “Mothers are women, too.” He took a moment to look at Scully surveying her. “I noticed a lack of a ring. And what does it matters? Women have biological needs, just like men do.”

“You are drawing dangerous conclusions without lack of evidence, doctor.”

“Well, as a trained scientist, I observe you are a woman. There is no ring on your finger to denote a marriage or a serious relationship in what we consider legally.”

“I can assure you that I am very serious. I am in a committed, nine-year relationship with the baby’s father.”

“Well, he is not here. You are.”

“Doesn’t matter, Rocky. Let’s keep focused here, please.”

“Well, relationships aren’t known to be monogamous,” he countered.

“Seahorses, macaroni penguins, gray wolves, barn owls, and bald eagles,” she said.

“What do those animals have to do with relationships?”

“If you were a real scientist,” she pressed, “you would be aware of some of the animal species that are known to mate for life. There are some cracks in your argument. ”

“Well, there are numerous insects that perform a variety of mating rituals. Give it time, Dr. Scully and I’ll win you over.” She was about to reply but was interrupted by the beeping of the pheromone bio-sensor. Dr. Bronzino turned excitedly to the machine. “Big hit!”

“What is it?”

“A high concentration of c-13 calliphorone...incoming.” He looked up at the sky. Scully did the same and heard the beeping increase and then suddenly dissipate. “What? What happened?” He quickly went to check his machine.

“Nothing, apparently,” Scully commented drily. “We should get back to the lab. Agents Doggett and Reyes might have something for us there.”

“Are we going to continue our discussion of animal mating and ritual habits?” He asked, his voice heavily laced with innuendo.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s done.”

“Dr. Scully, are you blushing? As the great Charles Darwin once said, ‘Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.’”

“Don’t make me shoot you,” she sighed.

“I consider it a challenge.”

. . . . . .

“How do you like teaching at the academy,” Skinner asked. He watched Mulder use his plastic fork to push the mac and cheese around on his plate. “Mulder?”

“Um, interesting. A lot better than having to deal with the profiling cases in VCU even though I’m sure I will come calling. That’s part of the deal with teaching? We help out and consult as needed.”

“Are you that bitter that Scully is on an x-file and you’re not,” he asked.

“Am I that obvious?” Mulder asked.

“I’ve had hemorrhoids that weren’t as annoying with you,” he replied. “Or is it the fact that you don’t have the x-files anymore?”

The bluntness of Skinner’s observations caught Mulder off guard. He looked up from his food and took a few moments to reflect. “In theory, I shouldn’t. I have Scully and our son, things are about as normal as we can make them. But I can’t help but feel connected to them in some way. Seeing Scully out in the field, me not there…” He shrugged. “It brings up a lot of baggage.”

“Especially with Doggett?”

Mulder was quiet. “I blame myself. I should have stayed with her instead of chasing UFOs.”

“Doggett’s a good agent, Mulder. It was hard watching her, Mulder, during those months she was gone. Having to keep her pregnancy a secret. It was tough.” Skinner took a napkin and wiped his mouth. “You know, Sharon used to get mad at me when we first got married. I was still a field agent but the jealousy she would get. She felt inadequate with everything that was going on between us. Said she felt left behind.”

Well, Mulder thought, certainly hitting everything on the topic. Skinner continued to stare at Mulder. “And?” he asked. “What did Sharon do?”

“Well, we had a real nasty fight that was the start of our quarrels at the very beginning of our quarrels. I was in the field, missed an important date, you know how it goes.” He smiled to himself, remembering her. He thumbed at the wedding band thoughtfully. “But we made time. Communication wise. It didn’t always go well but we tried.”

“So, in addition to being an assistant director, you are secretly a marriage counselor. Wow, sir.”

“Knock it off, Mulder. All I am saying is that something is bothering you about this...arrangement, then make sure you take the time to talk to Scully.”

Mulder nodded. He decided to change the subject. “So, how is our old buddy Kersh?”

Skinner chuckled. “Tap dancing his way on the top floor so that you’re no longer there to bother him.”

“Well, at least some things never change,” he answered. “My advice, Mulder, from one man who tried to balance a career and relationship? Make sure you always leave time to talk and communicate. If not, the whole thing can go to shit.”

“Thanks, sir,” he nodded. His mind drifted to Scully. “I appreciate the advice. You should come down to Quantico more often. Skinner’s Lunch Hour wisdom.”

“Knock it off, Mulder,” he dismissed.

. . . . . . .

After getting John’s call from the school, Scully took her car to investigate and meet them there. According to Monica, Dylan had somehow controlled the bugs during their confrontation. She was surprised by the number of cops, firefighters, and EMTs. She was even surprised to see people in hazmat suits. But to her surprise, Monica had found them a clue. A used tissue. They rode back to the medical examiner. As they rode the elevator to the second floor. Scully was the first to emerge carrying the tissue in a metal container with Doggett and Reyes flanking her. “Where did you get this again?” She asked.

“Dylan Lokensgard provided it to us when we interviewed him,” Doggett answered.

“I have to warn you, there's typically not a lot to be found in a teenage boy's sweaty kleenex.”

“Well, a teenage boy can produce other things,” Reyes replied.

“Don’t remind me of the future,” Scully laughed thinking of William.

“But we were looking for pheromones. Aren't there pheromones produced in adolescent sweat?” Reyes continued.

“Yes, it's what causes B.O., But all too obviously it's not all that attractive--to anything,” Scully countered. “While I was out with Dr. Bronzino this morning, we thought we had a possible hit this morning but it turned out to be nothing.”

“A possible hit?” Doggett asked.

“Well, Dr. Bronzino was more than trying to hit on pheromones.”

“Well, at least Mulder isn’t here to punch him in the face,” Doggett chuckled.

“Yeah,” she said distantly. Scully’s brief thought of Mulder drifted away as she entered into the medical examiner’s office where Dr. Bronzino was bent over a microscope. She still needed to call him. The lack of communication between them was growing. “Let’s see what we uncover.”

As they entered, the biosensor’s beeps became progressively faster, startling the etymologist grew excited. “Finally! I knew it wasn’t broken!” He glanced up seeing Scully, Doggett, and Reyes. “Dr. Scully, I’m so glad you’re back! I've got a reading here that's going right off the scale. Holy Toledo! We've got pheromones coming out of the ying-yang here. C-13 calliphorene and how.”

As they got closer, the beeping became a steady tone, and then suddenly stopped. Doggett raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”

“I think my electroantennogram just... tilted,” Bronzino spoke in disbelief.

“What's c-13 calliphorone?” Reyes asked.

“Insect pheromone,” Scully supplied.

Dr. Bronzino’s attention shifted to the sample the FBI agents had brought. “Where did you find this mother lode?”

Agent Reyes answered, “A boy named Dylan Lokensgard. That specimen came from him.”

Rocky Bronzino sputtered, “A boy ... is secreting bug pheromones? That's impossible. Preposterous.”

Doggett glanced at Scully who met his gaze, trying to hide her smirk. He glanced back at the doctor. “You're the expert, Dr. Bronzino. How else do you explain it, then?”

When he didn’t respond, Scully asked, “Rocky?”

“A boy is a boy, a bug is a bug. You can't have it both ways,” he explained trying to wrap his mind around it, “science doesn’t allow it. Period.”

“I have a few theories,” Scully began, “Okay, so this boy's going through puberty, right? I mean, maybe his body chemistry is somehow just going crazy and it's his raging teenage hormones that are attracting all these insects.”

Reyes nodded in thought. “What if it's more than chemistry and hormones? More than biology? Dylan's not just attracting these bugs he's using them to act out.”

“Yes, but against what?” Scully asked.

“We saw him talking to a girl,” Reyes answered.

“Well, that makes sense. In a way. Teenage love,” Doggett connected. “The girl is the one in the dumb ass video. Captain dare's girlfriend.”

“How on Earth are you all making these connections,” Rocky said.

“We’ve experienced with cases like these,” Scully said. “Agent Doggett, why don’t you and Agent Reyes try to chase down the girl and check on her. Dr. Bronzino and I will check on Dylan.”

“We will?” He asked, confused.

“We are,” Scully confirmed. “Call each other in about two hours and meet back here?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Doggett nodded.

. . . . . .

It was evening by the time they got to the Lokensgards’ home. As Scully and Bronzino pulled up in front of Dylan Lokensgard’s house, her mind was elsewhere. She did not remember to call Mulder. As they walked up the sidewalk to the front door, Scully slowed and saw the front door slightly open. Scully slowed and drew out her flashlight. She knocked lightly on the door. “Mrs. Lokensgard? Dylan?” She called out.

Rocky Bronzino behind her was fiddling with the machine, trying to fix it, and it started emitting a series of steady beats. “Ah, got it! I'm getting a reading here. Trace levels inside the house.”

Scully shifted her gaze and replied, “Well, I guess that's probable cause.” Scully began her trek up the stairs when she was stopped by Rock Bronzino. “What now?”

Bronzino said quickly, “Dr. Scully? I just wanted to say this while I had a chance.” He smiled with bleached teeth. “This is so exciting. I've never had a partner before. And this isn’t a thing. This is a professional collaboration that happens only one time.”

Scully thought of Mulder and felt her heart twist. “I have. Don’t forget what I told you, Dr. Bronzino.”

“Semantics, Dr. Scully. I'd like to think of it as a hymenopteran relationship. Two scientists using their special knowledge reaching higher than either of them could ever reach alone. And if I may say so, Doctor, you complete me.”

“I’ve already completed. I already have a partner. I’ve told you this. Now, I got upstairs, you takedown.” She shook her head and thought of Mulder. She needed to call him once this was done.

“All right,” he exclaimed, “Partner!”

She rolled her eyes and jogged up the stairs. As she slowly examined the upstairs, her thoughts drifted back to Mulder and how she hadn’t communicated with him. Or her mother. As she neared Dylan’s room, Scully spied Natalie’s class picture on the bed. As her phone rang, she jumped, digging it out. “Scully?”

“Where are you?” It was John Doggett. He sounded rushed.

She looked around the room. “I’m with Dr. Branzino at the Lokengard’s house. But there’s nobody here.

“Yeah, well, I'm afraid the kid's on a tear. He's caused a car accident out here on Glenhaven road,” Doggett explained.

“How'd he do that?”

“You'd better see for yourself.”

“I’m on my way.”

Scully turned to make her downstairs while Rocky was just getting his equipment working properly. He looked up. “It’s everywhere, Dr. Scully. C-13 calliphorone. I'm getting a stiff new reading from up here.”

Scully nodded, “Yeah, Dylan's bedroom's up there. That’s probably what you’re reading. Unfortunately, he's not in it.”

“Where are you going?”

“The kid's on a rampage. I’m going to meet Agent Doggett.” The pheromone machine began to beep loudly and Dr. Bronzino cried in surprise. She called, “You got my number.”

Dr. Bronzino smiled and called out. “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind, Dr. Scully?”

“Not in your wildest dreams, Rocky.”

. . . . . .

Mulder came home, hoping to see, Scully but his heart fell when it was only Mrs. Scully smiling with William. He should be happy to have his son but he was missing his partner more. After a simple dinner and promises of coming to dinner Saturday night, Mrs. Scully left Mulder alone with William on a Friday night. William was quick to fall asleep and Mulde put him to bed. He surveyed the empty apartment. It felt foreign without Scully there with him.

He went back to the couch and tried to get comfortable. Flipping on the TV, he found the Sports Center. He glanced at his cell phone. He checked it one last time before turning it off. If she wasn’t busy saving the world without him, she would find a way to let him know what is going on.

. . . . .

As Scully drove to meet Agent Doggett, her phone started to ring again. She sighed and answered, “Scully.”

“Agent Scully,” Doggett’s voice filtered through the voice piece, “I need you to turn around and go back to Dylan’s house. Monica just called. She got knocked out and Natalie is gone. I think Dylan got her.”

“Is Agent Reyes okay?”

“Yes, I think so. I found her covered in some sort of web. Like a spider.”

Scully’s mind flashed to one of the first cases she and Mulder had on what was supposed to be a walk through the forest. “Call the EMTs and make sure they bring hazmat gear. I’m on my way back to Dylan’s house.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Take care of Agent Reyes first. And call back up for me as well.”

“You got it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She tried to dial Rocky’s number but it was disconnected. As Scully pulled back up at the Lokensgard home, it was still eerily quiet and something felt amiss. She drew her weapon and flashlight and took a few steps in. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Natalie Gordon, the girl that Doggett and Reyes had been after, sitting in a chair and crying. She asked, “Where are they?” Natalie shook her head, unable to speak. “Natalie!”

Natalie’s crying continued. She pointed upstairs wordlessly. Scully pointed her weapon upstairs and began to make her way to the attic. She widened her eyes in disbelief to see large human-sized sacs of web hanging from various positions. She instantly recalled the mysterious web-slinging, glowing insects from Washington state and how her, Mulder, and the park ranger were almost swallowed alive. As she examined them, a small voice emitted, “Help me. Dr. Scully, help me!”

Scully bent down to tear off the web. “Dr. Bronzino?”

“It’s the boy! And the mother!”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know.” His voice sounded faint. “I don’t feel so good.”

In the distance, she could hear sirens. That must have been Doggett and Reyes coming with the cavalry. She tried to tear the webbing away as she heard the sirens sound to a stop. Bronzino looked faint suddenly and lolled his head backward and his eyes shut. She dragged him out and checked for a pulse. Feeling one, although faint, she began CPR. She heard footsteps running up the stairs and as the flashlight shined on her.

“Agent Scully!” Doggett greeted. “Is that Branzino?”

“He was in one of the web sacks,” she explained quickly, continuing CPR.

“He’s smiling,” Reyes observed.

“He’s what?”

Scully looked down to see Bronzino with his eyes closed but he was smiling. “That sonofabitch,” she cried.

Caught up in the moment, she slapped him against the cheek and got to her feet. The smack was resounding and caused Dr. Bronzino to sit up suddenly and place his hand against the red cheek. “What kind of care was that?”

“A dose of reality,” she snapped. “Make sure the EMTs check him out.”

“I thought we were partners,” he pouted.

“We worked together on this one case. That’s it.” She turned to Doggett and Reyes. “I found him cocooned up like these unknown victims. I had seen something like this once before when I first started on the x-files. That might be worth checking out.”

“We will,” Doggett said, trying to fight from grinning. “But um, do you find any signs of Dylan?”

“Gone. How is Natalie?” Scully answered.

“Fine. Shaken up but I think she’ll be okay,” Reyes said, trying to fight the urge to laugh.

“What?” Scully asked. She turned as the two agents stared at Bronzino who was now trying to charm a female EMT about his close brush with death. “Oh, come on!”

“I’m just saying,” Doggett said. “If Mulder were here, he would have slugged the guy.”

“Just because you were on the receiving end of the man’s fist once, John doesn’t mean he would slug another guy.”

Scully rolled her eyes and cast one lingering glance at Bronzino. “Speaking of Mulder, I need to call him.”

“Let him know about the human fly trap?” Doggett grinned.

“Both of you knock it off,” she grumbled.

“Agent Scully,” one of the police officers called, “I need to get your statement!”

“Can it wait?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am unless you want to do it in the morning,” the officer said.

Scully sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll do it tonight.”

Her plans of going home or evening calling Mulder disappeared as she was left with Agents Doggett, Reyes, and the cops investigating the scenes.

. . . . . .

Saturday morning. The sun was just peeking through the windows of the Georgetown apartment as Mulder sipped his coffee. He was preparing to wake William up to take him to do a morning run to the shop down the street for donuts and a newspaper. Despite the jealousy and sour feelings, he had with Scully being in the field, being home on a Saturday morning with his son was nice.

His attention was drawn to the door when he heard a key sliding into the lock, the deadbolt turning, and the door open. In came Scully, still wearing the suit from the night before. She came in, kicked off her boots, and dropped her keys on the table next to the door. She sighed and Mulder stood quietly. “You look like you’ve had a tough case,” he called softly.

Scully looked surprised. “You’re awake.”

“I’m not much of one for sleep. You should know that by now,” he replied. “You didn’t call.”

“I’m sorry,” she started. Her tired mind tried to piece the past 24 hours. “I got busy and distracted. Everything came to a head last night. I didn’t want to wait to see you so I drove through the night…”

“You drove through the night,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“As a doctor, you should know better.” He made his way to her in a few steps and wrapped his arms tightly around her. Scully was shocked by the greeting but relaxed a few seconds later. Her arms came under his and she hugged him tightly. Mulder squeezed his eyes tightly and buried his face into her hair and breathed deeply. “I missed you.”

Scully buried her face into her chest. His cotton shirt smelled of William, old sweat, and just home. “I missed you too.” She lifted her head and kissed him. Mulder smiled and kissed her deeply, not relinquishing his grasp. She chuckled tiredly. “You missed me.”

“Words fail to describe it.”

She smiled again and looked about the empty apartment. “Where is William?”

“Still sleeping. He’ll wake up in another hour or so. What about you? When was the last time you slept?”

“I napped at the station before I hit the road.”

“You’re a doctor,” he admonished.

“I know, I know.”

“So you know bed rest is the thing you need right now. I’ll call your mother later and cancel dinner plans.”

“Dinner plans?”

Mulder nodded. “We thought you were coming home last night so we were going to have dinner as a family. No worries. We can do it tomorrow.”

“Mom usually goes to church first thing.”

“I’m sure she’ll make an exception.”

Scully was already moving towards their son’s bedroom. The need to see her son was killing her. She opened the door slowly to see William still sleeping soundly. “He sleeps like you but like clockwork, he’ll be up ready for his bottle. We were going to run to the store to get donuts and the Saturday paper. I can pick you up for breakfast if you want?”

“That’d be nice.”

At the sound of his mother’s voice, William sleepily opened his eyes and gurgled happily. “He was up earlier, about three, with a diaper. Go ahead. I’ll get his bottle ready and get you some coffee. Unless you want to change.”

“No, no, this is fine.”

Scully bent down to pick up her son, cradled him, and sat in the rocking chair. Mulder smiled at the image before he went to fetch the bottle and coffee. As he came back and saw Scully, still disheveled from her case, smiling and cooing at their son, the anger and bitterness he had been nursing the past few days momentarily vanished.

. . . . . .

“Is William asleep?”

“Yeah,” Mulder replied, crawling into bed with her. “He’ll probably be up around two or three. He’s been consistent the past few nights with you gone. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take the first shift when he wakes up.”

Scully flipped the covers down for him further. “I missed this.”

“Missed what?”

“You, William, us.”

Skinner’s advice came back to him suddenly and Mulder said, “I have something to ask you. Rather something to tell you?”

“What?”

“I was quite moody and jealous when you were gone. I felt...I felt left behind,” he confessed searching for the right words. “I know I screwed up being abducted and dying and putting you through all that before William was born. With you gone…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“You did nothing wrong. I may have gotten caught up in the work,” she said. Scully reached for his hand. “But this parenthood thing, our relationship, we just need to strike a balance and find out what that is. I enjoyed Saturday with you and William. That’s something we wouldn’t have if we were still on the x-files.”

“True. But I still feel bad.” He pulled her suddenly towards her and she let out a yelp of surprise. He kissed her neck and nuzzled her pajama top open. “William can sleep through anything. And, correct me if I’m wrong, doctor, you’ve healed enough.”

She giggled and slide down so he had better access. “On the case, there was this etymologist that had helped us. Rocky Bronzino. The man kept flirting with me to no end. He ended up in a cocoon…”

“A cocoon you say,” Mulder murmured.

His fingers were already unbuttoning her pajama top, his hand sinking beneath the elastic waistband of her undergarments. She shivered to feel his fingers touch her. “Yes. I got to say I was in a relationship,” she smiled. She sought more kisses from him. “Publicly. Openly. I am in a committed relationship with my partner.”

Mulder smiled and whispered, “You sound so sexy saying that.”

“What? I am in a committed relationship with my partner?”

“Yes.” Scully found herself topless and pulled off Mulder’s shirt. “He made me perform CPR on him.”

Mulder paused. “He did what?”

“Don’t worry. I gave him a good dose of reality.” She snickered. “By slapping him.”

“There’s the Agent Scully I know,” he breathed. “And good. I don’t share.”

Scully let him continue his ministrations, relishing being home and with him again. Her thoughts about the case as she just let herself be present and let herself be free. Mulder moved and loved her, silently thanking whoever was listening he had her and William in his life. After a passionate reunion, Scully cuddled against Mulder, resting her head on his heart. “I missed you.”

He held her and gently played with her hair. “I missed you too.”

On the baby monitor, William began to make noses, crying from one of his parents. “I got it,” Mulder whispered. He kissed her quickly. “And you’re right, we’ll try to find a balance.”

Scully laid back down in bed and watch his naked behind jog to the nursery. She lay back down to watch the shadows on the ceiling and he was back five minutes later. Mulder slid effortlessly back next to her, embracing her again. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “He was just talking in his sleep. Like you do.”

“You mean you,” she yawned.

“I mean you.” He pulled her closer. “It’s good to have you home, Scully.”

“It’s good to be home.”

#xfiles #xf fic #msr #txf #txf fic #msr fic #embracing parenthood fic #mulder #scully #mulder and scully #season 9 #au

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nicolinocolino · 4 years

Text

⚠️

How to watch SKAM Italia season 4 if you’re not Italian/don’t know Italian

Hi! 👋

Unprecedented times in the SKAM universe! Most of us international fans are used to watching clip by clip with a very helpful translation team nearby getting us transcripts and subbed clips mere hours if not minutes later. (Everyone say thank you translators!) However, as we all know, SKAM Italia season 4 will drop all ten episodes on NetflixIt on May 15th. NetflixIt is only available in Italy and the episodes will only have Italian subtitles.

Bad news: If you’re like me and you don’t live in Italy and/or you’re Italian isn’t that great, this is unfortunate for us impatient folk who want to watch the season right away. Good news: I spent a few hours messing around with VPNs and Chrome Extensions to try and put together the easiest, cheapest way to watch the season for us non Italians. Instructions under the cut 👇

Step 1: Get a VPN that supports Netflix. A VPN connects you to a different server and lets you browse the internet from that server. So, for example, you can browse the internet from Italy. Netflix is tricky and recognizes when you’re trying to watch it through free VPN like Windscribe or TunnelBear (these ones were popular in the SKAM fandom for people watching SKAM France or SKAM NL, if I remember right), so you need to get a more secure one. Unfortunately, they usually cost money. I’d recommend ExpressVPN. It’s “free” for a month — as in you have to pay for the subscription first. I think I spent like 12 dollars. But they have a no questions asked 30-day money back guarantee. (And don’t forget to turn off auto-renewal!) Here’s what the little app looks like when I open it on my computer and select a country to browse from:

Then, log in to Netflix. You should now be able to search for SKAM Italia among the titles!

Step 2: Get the Wisesub Chrome extension to translate the subtitles. THESE ARE NOT PROFESSIONAL SUBTITLES (obviously). Think of it as if you ran the subtitles through Google Translate. Not horrible, but not perfect either. For the most part, they’re alright! Below are some screenshots I took of season 1 episode 1 that are relatively correct:

But like I said, not perfect. Sometimes it translated words like Papà (referring to asking where Eva’s dad is) to Pope and names like Fede to Faith:

But, better than nothing if you don’t know Italian! You can switch the language, too, if you’d rather translate the Italian subtitles into something besides English. I really like that it plays both subtitles side-by-side! The Chrome extension, after you download it, will be up in your browser toolbar. Click it, go to settings (the gear icon) and make sure all of these are turned on:

Please note that in order to turn on “Automatic subtitle translation (Except Youtube)”, you need to subscribe to Wisesub. I think it cost me three dollars and fifty cents. Otherwise, it will not automatically translate the subtitles. In the free version, you will have to hover over the words you don’t know and it’ll provide a translation:

Which still might be useful for people who are studying Italian or know Italian well enough!

So, in short: start your VPN and browse from Italy, open Netflix (assuming you already have an account/use someone else’s account) and turn the subtitles on, make sure your Wisesub extension is on, and tada! You’re able to watch SKAM Italia season 4 on NetflixIt with translated subtitles even though you’re not in Italy/don’t know Italian! :)

I realize I’m kind of a crazy person for doing all of this just to watch a TV show that, in reality, I could wait a little bit to see totally for free thanks to this awesome fandom who goes above and beyond to download, translate, and sub episodes for us. But I bet I’m not the only crazy person ;) and I figured if I took the time to figure all this out, someone else out there might appreciate it and find it helpful.

But if you’re not a crazy person, @skamits4 will have the translations and subtitles soon enough 😘

#skam italia #riveting saturday night i know #this didn't show up in the tags probs because of the links so fml i guess

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lantur · 4 years

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royai week 2020: day one, “letter”

summary: It’s a running joke in the office that even if Hawkeye were to be shot at her desk, she would put together a complete and professional memo, date, time, and subject line and all, before calling a medic for assistance. Re: Request for medical leave, effective immediately.

Or: Roy and Riza exchange a series of memos on November 18, 1910.

rated: e for everybody

tags: partial epistolary format, pre-canon

words: 3642 | read on ao3

Roy receives the invitation on the third Wednesday in November. It has been slipped in with several memos from Grumman’s office. The invitation to the annual Central Officers’ Ball is printed on the finest stationery he has ever seen - heavy ivory card-stock with golden trim and deep emerald green lettering. He takes in the details with a single glance. The last Saturday of December, at Central Command. Six in the evening. Formal attire. Dinner and dancing.

He has barely spent any time in Central since being posted to East City Command and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Frankly, it’s surprising that he even scored an invite. Grumman must have had something to do with it. In the midst of one of their chess games earlier this autumn, the Lieutenant General had been musing about some of the connections made at the Officers’ Ball some decades ago, and how helpful those connections were in advancing his career. Everything you want in life is a relationship away, Mustang, Grumman advised, before putting him in checkmate.

Roy smiles, folds the invitation in half, and tucks it back into its envelope.

He tears off a sheet of memo paper and begins to write.

Date: Nov. 18, 1910

Time: 3:15 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Svensson (New Optain)

Reviewed Svensson peer interviews. You may strike him from the list due to reported issues with temperament. Proceed with followup on Nilson.

Postscript: Please clear your social calendar on the last Saturday of December.

Date: November 18, 1910

Time: 3:30 PM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Svensson (New Optain)

Svensson has been removed from the list of contenders. Nilson interviews are attached.

Postscript: Schedule is open on the last Saturday of December as requested, though I would not recommend attempting to interview a potential candidate so close to the New Year. Most individuals will be traveling to see family at that time.

Date: Nov. 18, 1910

Time: 4:30 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Nilson

Nilson appears promising. Thank you for being proactive on completing these interviews and transcriptions in advance.

Postscript: We will not be attempting to interview Nilson on the twenty-sixth of December. You will be accompanying me to the annual Central Officers’ Ball. Expect to leave East City by late morning of the twenty-sixth. We’ll return on the morning of the twenty-seventh.

Date:

Time:

To:

From:

Re:

Lt. Col., you may have misunderstood the purpose of this event. The Central Officers’ Ball is a social event, not a professional meeting. The plus one that officers receive is intended to be filled by a spouse, partner, or date, not a member of one’s unit. I am sure that you will have no difficulty finding a suitable companion.

Roy throws a discreet glance over to Hawkeye’s desk. She’s sitting up straight, telephone held to her ear, undoubtedly making further inquiries about the next candidate on their list. The Second Lieutenant looks as calm and composed as ever, and had been perfectly collected while dropping off the memo at his desk. It’s all a sharp contradiction to the empty memo lines on the sheet before him.

Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye never leaves a memo line unfilled. Only Falman is as attentive to detail as she is. It’s not unusual for Hawkeye to chastise Breda and Havoc - not to mention him - for poorly composed or incomplete memos. The purpose of a memo is to share information, as well as to keep a record of communications, she has lectured them, a dozen times. If any fields are missing, you’re providing your fellow colleagues with an unclear picture of the situation and opening the door to any number of miscommunications. It’s a running joke in the office that even if Hawkeye were to be shot at her desk, she would put together a complete and professional memo, date, time, and subject line and all, before calling a medic for assistance. Re: Request for medical leave, effective immediately.

Roy twirls his pen through his fingers, and he can’t help but grin.

Date: Nov. 18, ‘10

Time: 5 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Incomplete memorandum

Hawkeye, I regret that I must reprimand you for the memo that you delivered to my desk earlier this afternoon. Several fields were missing, including date, time, address information, and subject line. This could have opened the door to any number of miscommunications, or even provided your colleagues with an unclear picture of the situation.

Postscript: You said you would follow me “into hell” but you refuse to come with me to the Central Officer’s Ball? I’m not sure what that says about your conviction - or if you just think the ball will be worse than hell itself.

Hawkeye reads the memo at her desk and looks so momentarily wounded that Roy feels sorry for her. He grabs another sheet of memo paper, scribbles a few lines, and delivers it to her desk before she can even pick up a pen to respond to his first note.

Date:

Time:

To:

From:

Re: Disregard previous memo

A civilian would not be an appropriate companion for this event. It is a mission-critical operation, not a mere social engagement. I need somebody sharp and perceptive at my side to assist with evaluating the individuals we meet, most of whom will be members of senior staff. I require a second set of eyes to pick up on existing social networks and spot any opportunities for suitable connections that could help with my advancement. I can think of no better set of eyes than yours.

Date: November 18, 1910

Time: 5:15 PM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Incomplete memorandum

I extend my sincere apologies for the incomplete memorandum earlier this afternoon, Lt. Col. It will not happen again.

As the event on the twenty-sixth of December is mission-critical, I will be happy to accompany you. Any guidance that you can provide on dress code would be much appreciated.

Riza works steadily at her desk. Roy surveys her for a few long moments, resting the top of his pen against his chin thoughtfully.

She notices his scrutiny and deliberately angles her chair so that all he can see is the back of her head.

Date: 11-18-10

Time: 5:30 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Dress code

Formal attire. Don’t fret too much about it. You’ll look stunning beautiful gorgeous nice no matter what you wear.

We’ll discuss further as we approach the operation.

Riza blushes faintly when she receives the memo. She folds it twice, into a tiny square, and then tucks it into her pocket, before proceeding to his desk and standing at attention. “Is that all for today, sir?”

Roy leans back in his chair and gives her his most disarming smile. Riza’s eyes narrow slightly. “You’re dismissed, Second Lieutenant. Enjoy your evening.”

Roy feels oddly cheerful for the rest of the night.

Date: December 25, 1910

Time: 11:15 AM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Grumman meeting reschedule

Yes, you can go ahead and reschedule my meeting with Grumman to 2 PM today. We’ll push the Smith meeting back an hour.

Postscript: I’ll pick you up at your place at 11 AM tomorrow.

Date: December 25, 1910

Time: 11:30 AM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Grumman meeting schedule

The changes to your schedule have been made. Please be sure to review the files that Smith sent over prior to your meeting with him at four.

Postscript: Do you plan on driving? I can book train tickets for us today.

Date:

Time:

To:

From:

Re:

Yes, I plan on driving. You really didn’t have to look so alarmed when you read my earlier note. I’ll let you choose what we listen to on the radio, if that helps.

Date: December 25, 1910

Time: 12:30 PM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Tomorrow

I suppose it does, sir. I’ll bring coffee for the road.

Roy looks up from the memo and grins at Hawkeye. His Second Lieutenant gives the towering stack of paperwork on his desk a meaningful look, but her lips quirk up in a hint of a smile.

Riza is, uncharacteristically, two minutes late on the morning of the twenty-sixth. At two minutes past eleven, she emerges from the door of her apartment building, looking somewhat harried, carrying a canvas bag over her shoulder, a long garment bag slung over her arm, and a covered travel mug of coffee in each hand. She’s in civilian clothes, a gray skirt, knee-high boots, and a pink sweater, and Roy admires the look for a moment before he slides out of the driver’s seat to assist her. It’s bitterly cold outside, even with his overcoat, gloves, and scarf on.

“I’m sorry for my lateness, Lieutenant Colonel,” Riza says, the moment she sees him. “It’s just this stupid garment bag - it’s very unwieldy.”

“Two whole minutes, Hawkeye. It’s unforgivable. We’ll be late for the entire event, and blacklisted from all future occasions.” Roy relieves her of the coffee and opens the back door for her, allowing her to unload her canvas bag and the garment bag, which she folds carefully and places beside his neatly pressed dress uniform.

They settle in the front, taking a minute to sip their coffee in comfortable silence, curling their hands around the mugs for warmth. “No one makes coffee like you do.” Roy breathes in the steam, savoring the scent.

Riza shrugs modestly. “It’s just a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar stirred in with the cream, sir. There’s nothing to it.”

She’s eyeing the radio, set to the monotonous sounds of East City Public Radio, and Roy sighs. It’s an age-old battle between them, going back to a happier, simpler time, years ago, when they were both living under Berthold Hawkeye’s roof. “Go ahead and change it.”

Riza puts on a jazz station without argument. The roads between East City and Central are unusually empty today, and Roy delights in the ability to go fast, the music in the background, the scent of coffee lingering in the air, one of his two closest friends at his side. Even though she isn’t nearly as thrilled with the ability to drive fast as he is.

“What’s in the garment bag, Hawkeye?” Roy glances over at her. “I almost offered to come shopping with you. I thought I could pass on some of the sartorial insights I’ve learned after growing up with so many sisters, but then I realized that might be seen as inappropriate.”

“No, sir. You don’t say.”

Roy grins at the deadpan. “Insubordination, Second Lieutenant,” he replies, not meaning a word of it.

Riza settles herself into a more comfortable position in the passenger seat. “It’s a lovely dress, if I do say so myself, Lieutenant Colonel. Tangerine orange silk, sleeveless, fitted through the bodice to the knees, and flaring out from the knees to ankles. There’s a two-foot long train as well.”

Roy shoots his Second Lieutenant an appalled look, and she gives him a tiny, smug smile.

They book neighboring rooms at Central’s nicest hotel, just down the street from Central Command. It’s four by the time they check in, and they disappear into their own rooms at once to get ready. Roy takes a drink from the mini-bar in his room - just a small one, just to calm his nerves - before going through the routine of shaving, showering, getting dressed, slicking his hair back. By the time he’s finished, he can barely recognize the man in the mirror.

Roy leaves his room with the intention of finding Riza at the hotel bar for a pre-mission briefing. Instead, they both step out of their rooms at the same time, locking their doors behind them, and for a moment, Roy can’t do anything but stare. Finally, he recovers, raising an eyebrow at her. “Tangerine orange?”

Riza smooths her hands down the skirt of her dress somewhat self-consciously. It’s a silken fabric, high-necked, sleeveless, fitted close to her chest and waist, the skirt flaring out from the waist as it falls to the ground. It’s green - not the true Amestris green, but a dark, shimmering emerald green. The color is a striking contrast to her hair and her amber earrings. “Not quite,” she says. “It’s not too much?”

“Not at all. You look lovely, Hawkeye. You could be the First Lady of Amestris.”

The implication of the words hit him the second they leave his mouth. Thankfully, Riza misunderstands. She reaches for his arm, and then curls her hand into a fist, bringing it back to herself somewhat self-consciously. “You don’t think it’s overstepping for me to wear this color? I wouldn’t want to offend Mrs. Bradley.”

“Definitely not,” Roy insists. “Relax. I’ll buy you a drink at the bar to help ease your nerves. Now, come on. We have time for a quick pre-mission meeting before we head over to Central Command.”

The Central Officers’ Ball is exhausting. Roy becomes acquainted and re-acquainted with several dozen high-ranking officers stationed at bases across Amestris. He wears his most charming smile, engages in his wittiest repartee, and constantly watches and listens - not just to the officers he’s talking to, but the people in the vicinity. The Hero of Ishval, men and their wives say, over and over and over again, and his smile never falters.

He has surprisingly little time with Hawkeye. They socialize separately for most of the night - divide and conquer, he had told her, on their drive from East City to Central. Despite the crowds, Roy catches sight of her often, locked in a dance with this or that colonel or general, or conversing quietly with men he recognizes as adjutants of some of the Central Command senior staff. He’s mildly surprised to see that Hawkeye seems to be quite a hit with the younger officers and adjutants, and some of the not-so-young ones, either.

But it shouldn’t be a surprise. Riza has always been someone with intense focus, and when she trains those clear, lovely, amber-colored eyes on a man, listening to him in that calm, intent way she does, it must make him feel like the only man in the room.

Not that he would know.

Hawkeye’s looks certainly don’t hurt, either. Her dress, hair, jewelry, and cosmetics are quite a bit more understated than the other women in attendance, but she’s stunning, regardless. His eyes aren’t the only ones lingering on her tonight. But the other men aren’t her commanding officers, and Roy clears his throat, and finds a group of Brigadier Generals from Central Command to converse with.

Riza appears by his side at the next break in the music, and Roy politely excuses himself from the group. “How has your night been, Hawkeye?” he asks softly, leading her to a more quiet corner.

Riza glances up at him, a satisfied gleam in her eyes. “It’s been very productive, sir. We’ll have a lot to discuss on the drive home.”

Roy can’t help but laugh. “You worked the room even better than I did. If I didn’t know it was you out there, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Riza accepts a glass from a passing waitress with a nod of thanks, and takes a sip of the champagne. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Lieutenant Colonel.”

“What can I say, Second Lieutenant? You have certain advantages with this crowd that I don’t.”

“And what would those be, sir?” Riza asks, straight-faced.

“Oh, look, Hawkeye,” Roy says, suddenly very interested in the waiter moving past them. “Can I interest you in some canapes?”

The canapes are delicious. They share a savory biscotti, and when the orchestra resumes, Roy nods to the center of the ballroom. “It’s the last dance. Shall we?”

“I--” Riza hesitates, evidently taken by surprise. “I suppose that’s all right.”

Now, that’s the Riza Hawkeye he knows and--

Roy grins, and immediately suppresses the rest of the sentence. “Ah, Second Lieutenant.” He rests a hand over his heart, feigning injury. “The enthusiastic response that every man dreams of.”

Riza places her hand on his arm with a small, resigned sigh. It’s the same sound she makes when she looks him dead in the eye in the office after telling him to stop procrastinating on his work, and adds that she should be paid more. Roy leads her to the floor, and he takes her hand, placing his other hand on her back, as Riza rests her hand on his arm.

He realizes, too late, that this is the first time he’s touched her like this since the weeks immediately after Ishval.

Since you maimed her, his mind elaborates helpfully, and Roy fights the urge to wince.

He doesn’t feel the scars underneath the silken fabric of Riza’s dress. And it’s not like the fabric is thick. Over the past year, he’s wondered how the burns have healed, even though the ease of Riza’s movements, their natural grace, seem to indicate a complete recovery.

Roy glances down at her, worried, wondering if this is the reason she had hesitated to accept the offer to dance. If Riza is at all troubled, she shows no indication of it. Her hand is relaxed in his own, her expression calm. She looks genuinely at ease, for the first time tonight. They’re close enough that he can breathe in the scent of her hair. Vanilla, the same shampoo she has used for all the years he’s known her.

So Roy tries to appreciate the music, the lovely sounds of the forty-piece orchestra. He tries to glance around at the men surrounding them and identify which ones he and Riza hadn’t conversed with tonight. He tries to think about anything except how good and how right it feels to have his subordinate in his arms.

He can see the Fuhrer and his wife through the crowd. Fuhrer Bradley holds his wife close, resting his chin on top of her head. A rare, tender gesture, one that appears incongruous from such a fierce-looking man. A man who had signed off on the slaughter of the Ishvalan people. The First Lady is wearing a dress remarkably similar to Riza’s, though it’s violet and not dark green.

Even with the music, Roy can hear the soft swish of Riza’s skirt as they move. The warm glow of the low lamplight catches her hair, her eyes, her amber drop earrings.

“The green was a good choice,” Roy murmurs, even though he shouldn’t. Just like he shouldn’t imagine the two of them ten years from now, standing in the Fuhrer and the First Lady’s place.

“Thank you, sir.” Riza’s voice is barely audible.

There will be no extravagant holiday parties for them. His tenure as Fuhrer will last only as long as it takes to strip the power away from the military and hand it back to the people. If there’s any justice in this world, his tenure will end with a firing squad.

The music comes to an end, and they release one another’s hands.

They say their farewells, lingering to socialize a bit more with the potential new allies formed tonight. It’s midnight before they head back to their hotel, and they slump back against the wall of the elevator in exhaustion. Roy’s eyelids feel heavy, his head aches slightly, and he is overly conscious of Riza’s shoulder, a few inches from his own. He’s so used to seeing her shoulders covered by the dark blue wool of her uniform coat that it takes an effort not to stare whenever he sees her in civilian clothes.

It would be so easy to lean into her. He sees that Riza is tired too, in the sharp, impatient movements of her hands as she hitches up her skirt enough to pull off her high heels, right there in the elevator. But he doesn’t, just like he doesn’t stare at her legs.

“Questionable, Hawkeye,” Roy comments, as they make their way down the hall, back to their rooms. Riza’s steps don’t click on the marble floors as they have all night. “These floors may look spotless, but I wouldn’t want my bare feet all over them before getting into bed.”

“That’s what the soaking tub is for, sir,” Riza replies, and Roy is momentarily distracted by the mental image of her slipping off the ballgown, the emerald green silk falling to the floor.

They come to a stop in front of both of their rooms and turn to face one another. “Thank you, Second Lieutenant,” Roy says. “For accompanying me.”

“I was happy to do so, Lieutenant Colonel, despite my initial reluctance. I think we worked well together.”

“Do you want to come in, to discuss the connections we made tonight?” Roy asks, and he can’t bear to look her in the eyes. He stares at a spot just above her head instead. “I’ll mix you a drink.”

Riza looks at him steadily. She swallows, and Roy watches the movement of her throat, and imagines running his fingers through her hair, gently pulling her head back, kissing her neck. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir.”

The worst thing, by far, is that he’s not imagining the reluctance in her voice.

“Of course.” Roy forces his most carefree smile. “Sleep well, Hawkeye.”

“You too, Lieutenant Colonel.”

They retreat into their separate rooms. Roy closes the door behind him, locks it, and leans against the door heavily. He runs his fingers through his hair, mussing the impeccably slicked-back style, and all the breath leaves his body in a sigh.

He stays there, for a long while. He thinks of Riza, in her room. And finally, Roy makes his way to the mini-bar to pour himself a drink.

#royaiweek20 #royai #royai fanfic

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years

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08/30/2020 DAB Transcript

Job 34:1-36:33, 2 Corinthians 4:1-12, Psalms 44:1-8, Proverbs 22:10-12

Today is the 30th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is a joy to greet the new week together with you and step into it together. It’s this shiny threshold that we throw the gates open and walk into every week and just remind ourselves nothing’s gone right or wrong, not…the bottom hasn’t fallen out of anything and we haven't soared into anything. It's a week that is in front of us and we will live into it, moment by moment and the story of this week will be told with the words that we say the conversations that we have the actions that we take the decisions that we make. That's what's gonna…that's how this week is gonna form itself. And, so, we choose now to center ourselves in God's Word and orient ourselves to Him and to submit ourselves to Him on the front end of the week, not at the backend when everything has gone wrong, now. We get to choose how to live into this week and what posture of heart we will live into it. Like are…are we gonna rage all week long or are we going to be patient? We get to choose that. And, so, let's choose wisely. And one of the wisest choices that we make is to continue the rhythm around the Global Campfire, allowing the Word of God to speak into our lives and inform our week. And, so, let's dive in. We’ll read from the New International Version this week and continue the book of Job. Today chapter 34, 35, and 36.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us into this shiny sparkly new week and we look to the future with anticipation as we prepare to end a month and begin anew. We mark the passage of time, as we as we always do. The passage of time is an opportunity for us to see Your faithfulness, that You have brought us here, that we are still standing. No matter how worn-out we might be, You have been faithful. We are still here, and we are grateful. And, so, we look forward with longing to all that You will speak to us in Your word and the coming week, all that You will do in our lives in this transformation process, this removal of the veil so that we might see and reflect Your glory upon this earth. What a gift. What an invitation. What an overwhelming sense of possibility, that we get to collaborate with You in the world this week. Come Holy Spirit. May we represent You well. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, check it out. You can check it all out using the Daily Audio Bible app as well by hitting the Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner.

Check out the Community section. This is where the Prayer Wall lives. This is part of what the Global Campfire is, that we are people who pray for each other, that we stay connected, that we actually get invested in each other's stories. We feel that spiritual connection with our brothers and our sisters, people that we may have never seen, people we may actually never be able to lay human eyes on. But as we…as we learn, that doesn’t mean we don't love them, that doesn’t mean we don't care. We are the body, right? If one hurts, we all hurt, and we sense that. And when one rejoices, we all rejoice, and we sense that. So, the Prayer Wall is definitely a resource for always being able to reach out for prayer and in prayer with prayer for one another. So…so check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. The link is on the homepage. If you are using the app, the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button. We have a Hotline button in our community. We can always reach out. And that is found in the app, little red button at the top, you can't miss it or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Good afternoon family this is Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. If you guys…as you guys will remember, my mom passed away in March. She had breast cancer and other things and I was trying to get to Maryland before she passed but I missed it by hours. But my youngest sister, my baby sister, who has given up her whole life to care for our mom has had a mammogram and they called her for a diagnostic one and now they have seen some…something that they want to go and to a biopsy on. And, so, I’m asking you guys to pray, please in deep prayer for my baby sister Sandra as she’s faced with this now and she is in…is in emotional turmoil already because of the death of our mom. She hasn’t resolved that yet and now the possibility that there may be something there. And I am also a breast cancer survivor. So, please pray with me. My heart is just troubled because I’m concerned for my baby sister. So, I ask you all to join me in prayer and ask for God’s divine intervention so that He would miraculously remove whatever they…that there is…they are seeing their, that the biopsy will show a non-malignant situation. Grant her piece now because I’m sure she’s scared. She’s not saying much but I can imagine her thoughts. So please ask the Lord along with me to wrap His loving arms around her, protect her and keep her mind fixed on Him. She’s a Christian. She loves Jesus and I thank you all. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hey fellow DABbers this is Lincoln from Canada and I was wondering if you would be so kind to pray for my wife and myself. In June it would’ve been six…seven years since we got married and the first six years were pretty rocky but this last year has been a pretty good year until January when my wife informed me that she was leaving and I was completely blindsided by that. I did not see that coming. And, so, after she had moved out, we started some reconciliation efforts and we started to spend a little bit of more time together and things seemed pretty promising until May when it was my birthday. When I came home on my birthday she was at the house and she and surprised me with my favorite meal and she had gotten me some gifts and we spent an amazing weekend together, which was really nice. And then, right the very next weekend she…things weren’t going so well. So, she decided she was going to block me, and I have not had any communication with her in 2 ½ months now. So, today I reached out to her to see if there’s a way that we could come to the table and discuss a plan forward and she doesn’t seem to be willing. So, it is very painful, and it seems this marriage me may end in a divorce and I am praying that may not be the case. So, I’m inviting you to join me in prayer as we seek God’s leading and hopefully, we can get this marriage restored.

Hi Brian and Daily Audio Bible family this is Victory Michelle calling from New York. I’m so glad I was able to get in touch with you guys. I called once before but I don’t think my call got through. I’ve been with the Daily Audio Bible about 12 years now. Here’s my prayer request. I don’t have a job right now and I have some mental health issues that kind of prevent me from working sometimes. So, I really need a job that doesn’t stress out my mental health issues. Also, I’m thousands of dollars behind in my rent. I’ve applied to the city for grant. So, I need prayer that they will grant my request. And basically, that’s it. I’m also behind on my taxes as well. So, I have a lot of financial problems that have been giving me a lot of anxiety and depression. I’d also like prayer for a husband because I’ve been single all my life. I’m in my 50s right now and I believe God wants me to have one. Just want to thank you and I really appreciate being on this call and I hope someone’s able to pray for my prayer request. Thank you.

Hi this is Dorothy out in California. This message is for Jana who has a daughter, Amber in third grade, and you’re worried about school. This is for Shannon. Your birthday is this coming Saturday and you just lost your mom and I am so sorry about your loss. And Prodigal, who you’ve lost everything and you’re struggling with your son who’s addicted to heroin and stole from you a lot of money. Abba please, please, rescue them. Please help them. Please step in. Guys, I can’t…I can’t give…say anything in that I’ve ever experienced…I’ve never been where you’re at. One day you’ll be able to help someone who has been where you’re at. God came to me in a dream a couple days ago. I think it was God. There was this man and his name was Abba but he said make sure to mention only my kids call me that and I was distraught over something and I was ready to give up on life and he had said, there’s more than what you see, don’t give up. Keep going. I love you guys. You are not alone. You have a DAB family. Keep calling and keep posting on the Prayer Wall even if it’s every day. God loves you. He is the God of miracles. He has you in His hands. I love you guys.

Hi, DABbers this is Lucy in Huntsville Alabama. My family lost two members on Tuesday, August 25th. My dad died. I had not called in about him, but I put a prayer request in DAB friends on Facebook. I did not know at this time that a cousin of his who was, I guess she’s a third cousin of mine, she died as well the same morning. She had been diagnosed with melanoma just a few weeks ago and was doing great and suddenly had to be rushed to the hospital a week and half ago and had a pulmonary hemorrhage. They had to do work on her in the hospital, but they couldn’t get her in an ICU bed because there were no ICU beds available because of all the COVID patients. My dad got the COVID-19 also. He was in a nursing home. He was safe but someone brought it in, and he ended up with pneumonia last week and I kept checking on him nobody could visit but he seemed to be doing great until Monday. The nurse told my brother that she thought he was about to die, and he hung on for one more day. I really appreciate your prayers. My brother and I both of us had cancer. My cousin had cancer. I got…her daughter also has another form of cancer. We would really, really appreciate your prayers at this time. Thank you.

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antimatterpod · 4 years

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Transcript - 46. #MeToo - Terok Nor

Liz here! Thanks to Covid ("thanks”), I’m either wildly busy, all day, every day, or I have hours and hours of spare time to fill.

I hate feeling unproductive, but I’m also a bit creatively drained right now, so I’m using that time to transcribe our back catalogue, going from new episodes to old. (And skipping, for now, episodes about Discovery and Picard episodes as they aired, which are more time sensitive and prone to becoming outdated than our regular two-weekly eps.)

I was a professional transcriber before I was a secretary/legal assistant, so I’m pretty happy with my accuracy levels, but you should know that I make corrections where one of us has clearly misspoken, and also tidy up some of the false starts and interruptions in our conversations, so that it’s easier to read.

[theme music]

Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. Today we're talking about episode 8 of season 5 of Deep Space 9: "Things Past".

Liz: And we have to thank Jules for suggesting this. And I definitely thought fondly of her as we open with Garak basically being an alt-right troll.

Anika: [laughs]

Liz: To summarise the episode, for those who didn't watch it, uh, this episode sees Sisko, Dax, Odo and Garak returning from a history conference on Bajor -- why these four people, I don't know -- where Garak is outraged that no one wanted to debate him about his so-called 'alternative interpretation' of the Occupation, and where Odo was hailed as a hero.

Just as they're about to return, something or other happens, and all four of them end up in a coma, but those characters themselves wake up six or seven years earlier, during the Occupation.

Anika: Nine.

Liz: I forgot the numbers. And there was confusion! Because--

Anika: Yeah, they think it's nine, but then it's eight, or -- I don't know. It was very strange. But that's not important.

Liz: No. The important thing is that they've been thrust into the roles of a group of Bajorans who were executed for an attempt on the life of Gul Dukat, and the man in charge of the investigation is a Cardassian civilian named Thrax, who reminds one of a certain shapeshifter. Who, by the way, is not at all coping with events.

And along the way, we learn that -- turns out Odo was kind of a collaborator, and also Quark's business practices are really terrible, and it's a miracle that he's allowed to operate in Bajoran space. And it turns out the Occupation … was bad.

Anika: Yep. And Dukat was slimy all the way through.

Liz: Oh, well, we knew that. But it's just seeing it, again, and again, and again.

Anika: Yep.

Liz: [dramatic sigh] I make it sound like this episode? I did. I just felt like we didn't need to know right away that the characters were physically in a coma on present-day Deep Space 9. Like, that took a lot of the mystery out of it.

Anika: Yeah. Honestly, I don't think I did like this episode.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: I'll just start with that.

Liz: Yeah?

Anika: I found it, like, boring. Most of it was boring. It might be because of the whole framing -- they could have taken it out and done more with what was going on.

Liz: Yeah, the tension and the mystery of what's happening to them.

Anika: So that it -- yeah, so that it wasn't just very -- I mean, maybe I knew what was going to happen. I definitely have seen it before, because I remembered it being weird, I remember it being, like, why are they in Bajoran bodies? But they're not? But it's the -- and I knew, because you say it, like, five or six times on the podcast, that Odo's a collaborator.

Liz: [happily] Mm hmm!

Anika: So I knew that was gonna come up.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: So maybe I was just, like -- because I knew the twist, I wasn't into the mystery? But also, I think they just didn't build it up at all. Like, Sisko did nothing. Garak was just sort of there, being Garaky.

Liz: But an unusually assholey version of Garak.

Anika: Yeah, yeah, especially Garaky. Like, he was Garak to the max.

Liz: GARAK TO THE MAX! Guitar squeal.

Anika: And Odo just moped the entire time, and I just wanted to -- I was just not into Odo at all. And Dax was the best, and she had, like, five minutes of screentime. So it was very -- it was just sort of like -- I dunno, I like the idea of, or the purpose of the episode. I think that it had a lot of interesting questions that they had just started to get to answering, and then it was over.

Liz: Yeah. I found it interesting to watch, because I had forgotten the twist that this is actually all "Odo's dream". And I thought it was a trap set -- like, a psychic trap set to torture Odo by a survivor, or someone who remembered what he had done. So I was disappointed by that "it was all a dream" twist. I think that's always weaksauce, and in this case, it was just particularly disappointing. "Odo's conscience is bothering him!"

But what I liked was Thrax, this Cardassian who turns out to be Odo, is -- he's played by Kurtwood Smith. And it's such a good performance, because he's his own character, but there are these tiny moments where he sounds like Rene Aubergenois. And he moves like Odo. And just these tiny hints that I really appreciated, because I remembered that twist, that Odo was the security chief who had these people executed.

Anika: Mm. I think that part was -- but that's something that could have been -- there could have been more of that.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: And less of other stuff.

Liz: Yeah. I think Jules was right, last week, when she said this episode came too late in the series. Because I think this was a perfect season 2 episode, and should have held the place of "Necessary Evil", the so-called "noir episode" with black and white flashbacks to the Occupation, and a sexy widow and femme fatale, and all that. And Kira in her Resistance ponytail -- which is always delightful, but I think this story, and the revelations in it, needed to come much, much sooner in the series. And even Garak's behaviour felt more in line with him in season 2 than Garak in season 5.

Anika: Yeah. Like you said, Garak to the max. So I don't love Garak the way that all of fandom loves Garak. This is the episode of Anika's unpopular opinions! But--

Liz: Look, there's a reason we don't talk about Deep Space 9 as much as other series.

Anika: [laughs] But this episode, he was just smug and annoying. But I will say that the one interesting part of the entire episode was when he was basically saying that Bajorans were made to be servants, and are just naturally lower. That was interesting, because it was clearly, like, the Cardassian party line. It's like, that's what he learned in second grade. And so--

Liz: Yes.

Anika: Even though he's met Bajorans who don't fit that, and even though he is trying to learn and grow as a person, he falls back on that. Like, that is his ingrained belief, clearly from childhood. And that was interesting to me! But that was, like, a throwaway line.

Liz: I think it was more than a throwaway line! Because then there's Odo -- or "Thrax" -- Thrax's remark, which must have come from Odo originally, that Bajorans need to accept their place in history as a footnote, and servants to the Cardassians. And drawing a parallel between Odo and Garak, I think, was a really interesting idea. And it didn't quite come out, I think, as neatly or clearly as it could have.

Anika: Yeah.

Liz: But it highlighted to me that Odo is -- "Oh, he's such an outsider, he never took sides!" But he absolutely had a place in the hierarchy, and he was very well aware of it! He was below the Cardassians, but well above the Bajorans. And this makes sense, because, I think, to have the facilities he did, Dr Mora must have been a collaborator. And knew that Odo sort of spent his early years doing party tricks for Cardassians. Like, it makes sense that this is who Odo is. But, as always, it troubles me that they never really grapple with it beyond the occasional very special episode.

Anika: Right. I think that's what it is. This seemed very, "We're going to talk about these interesting ideas of the--" you know, what it was like to be in the Occupation for all of these other characters. For Quark, and for Odo, and for the people who are not actively involved in it, who are not Bajorans or Cardassians. But that's not really what happened.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: It was just sort of, like, "We're gonna wave at the idea of this story that could happen, but we're not gonna really grapple with any of those thoughts."

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: I mean, part of it is, if they did, then they would be stuck with Odo and Quark being main-cast characters who we still have to see every week and like, and care about, and be invested in. And it's harder to make those characters lovable when you do something like that. But I would have appreciated them more if they had. Both the show and the characters. Like, Odo and Quark are never going to be my favourites. They weren't, and they're not. But -- I don't know.

Liz: And I think, from a 21st century perspective, we can say, not every character in an ensemble has to be "likable" or "lovable".

Anika: Right.

Liz: And there's a real disconnect between what we know Odo and Quark have done, and the consequences and the way the story treats them. And Garak, too. And even Dukat is only -- the only thing that stood between Dukat and a canonical relationship with Kira was Nana Visitor going, "Uh, yeah, no, that's gonna happen."

Anika: "That's gross."

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: Yeah. So Dukat -- coming off of our last episode, where we really talked about Dukat, I was sort of into his smarminess. I was like, "Okay, I get why he--" because he's still charming! Like, he's horrible, and I hate him, but he's still charming. And it's like, this is so awful, and I hate it, but it's way more fascinating than sad Odo.

Liz: Yes!

Anika: Like, if Odo was -- I don't know. He was just Emo Odo, and that wasn't at all interesting to me. I wanted Odo to, like -- the scene at the end, between Odo and Kira was probably the best for it, because he did seem to actually be sort of looking in the mirror, and thinking about it. The fact that Kira is disappointed means more to Odo than anyone else. Including himself.

Liz: That almost annoyed me, because it was like, oh, well, you feel -- you know, do you feel guilty because you did it, or do you feel guilty because now the secret is out, and the woman you're in love with knows?

Anika: I think the second! Which is why it's like -- like, how is this supposed to make me care about Odo more?

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: I just get more upset with him. It's like, no, I don't want this character to be -- I don't. And what you're saying, that not every character needs to be likable, and that's totally true. But they -- I really get the impression that they're like, "Okay, so Odo is the curmudgeon, right? He's the guy who is unlikable on purpose to -- and that's his personality, but he's just hiding the fact that he's really a squishy teddy bear that we all love!" And it's like, no. I don't love him.

Liz: He's a squishy teddy bear who was a collaborator.

Anika: And is just sort of, like, sad about it? He's not--

Liz: Yeah, he's not--

Anika: He doesn't say in so many words, "I wish this didn't happen. He sort of does say it in that, like, when he's shouting at the end, when he's explaining, and when he's revealed. But it's like he's backed into the corner by his subconscious--

Liz: Yes!

Anika: --to acknowledge these things, and if the other people hadn't been there, I don't know if he would have learned from it. Like you said, he only cares because Kira cares. And it's like, yeah, if all these other people didn't know, would he just be sad about it, and not think about it?

Liz: I think that's the conclusion we have to draw. Because at the beginning, it's clearly on his mind, because he's obviously troubled by how he was feted as a hero at this Bajoran conference -- but he wasn't going to say anything. He didn't correct anyone's assumptions. And, you know, the story of how he goes from being a Cardassian yes-man to a person who does stand up for justice, even for Bajorans, would have been really interesting! And I almost wish that this had been an ongoing arc, and we sort of saw Odo's redemption story, and that it wasn't then thrown under the bus by his actions during the Dominion War.

Anika: Mm.

Liz: Because I feel like Odo is a really interesting character, and the writers just didn't realise fully what they were doing with him?

Anika: No. Right. I think that's true. I think they pigeonholed him into the Spock-Data mindset, and didn't realise that it could be different. That you could do different things. Like, they just talk about his identity discovery quest. That's his big arc throughout the whole series.

Liz: Yeah, and that's interesting and all--

Anika: Right. And it's good, and he does get to explore that. And I think it's good for him, and it's interesting. People who love Odo love Odo, and I think that's great. So even if it's, like, an identity arc that I'm not into, that's okay. But I do think that there are these interesting places it could have gone.

Liz: Right.

Anika: That they almost went to, but didn't quite.

Liz: Which brings me to the Ronald D Moore quote I found, and it's a bit long, but I'm gonna read the whole thing out:

"One of the things that always drove the writing staff nuts was the idea that Odo had been a policeman during the Cardassian Occupation, but had never gotten his hands dirty, that he had been above it all, and that everybody had trusted him. We never bought that. it seemed to me that if I were a Bajoran, I wouldn't trust the cop who's still on duty from the Occupation. Somewhere along the line something bad went down on Odo's watch. And "Things Past" was the show to say it."

And I'm like, yes, these are good points, but I do not for a minute believe that this was an ongoing concern for the writers department!

Anika: No. No. Because it never comes out!

Liz: No! No! In the first season episode ["A Man Alone"] -- this is from Memory Alpha -- but a character goes, "Why are you still in charge of security?" But that guy's -- you know, he's targeting Odo because "he's an outsider". Like, Odo is not a victim. Or, at least, he is a victim in the way that Garak is a victim of Cardassian culture, or Narek and Narissa are victims of Romulan culture.

And I do think that it makes a difference when you remember that Odo is actually very young, and much, much younger than Rene Aubergenois made him seem and sound.

Anika: Yeah. It's hard. I mean, it's hard when -- like, the Doctor in Voyager, people are always telling me -- you know, whenever I complain about the Doctor's age difference with any of the women that he is thrown together with, they're like, "Well, he's really, you know, if it's the fourth season, he's only four years old." And it's like--

Liz: THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT BETTER!

Anika: [laughs] THAT IS NOT THE GOTCHA THAT YOU THINK IT IS!

Liz: No!

Anika: So. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's hard to look at Rene Aubergenois and think of a teenager.

Liz: What I think we need is a remastered version of Deep Space 9 that casts Adam Driver as Odo. He's still probably too old, I just think he'd be very good in the role.

Anika: I like that you're just gonna put Adam Driver in every Star Trek.

Liz: I really like him!

Anika: Good goal. Good goal.

Liz: I like his weird face.

Anika: I like it, too. I think that I would have liked this episode more if -- I agree that the framing -- it was very gimmicky.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: I would have rather someone found the records, or something, and actually confronted Odo about it, or -- I don't know. It was this whole "let's put them"--

Liz: Bajoran investigative journalism.

Anika: Yes. Maybe we go to the history of Bajor conference, and in the middle of his big -- they're feting Odo, and someone comes in and says, "That's not how it happened, blah, blah blah." Like, I don't know, I think I would have enjoyed that more than this super sci-fi play with your mind -- it just seems like -- Worf and Bashir were just there to say quips and cash their cheque. It was just very--

Liz: And Colm Meaney and Cirroc Lofton weren't even in the episode.

Anika: Yeah. They were just not there. Kira gets one good scene, and it's still almost the best scene.

Liz: I understand that Nana Visitor was heavily pregnant at the time, but it is so frustrating that there is no -- that Kira has no presence beyond that final scene, when this story is so integral to her experience of the Occupation, and her understanding of Odo. And I almost wish that they had ditched the framing device and the conceit of Thrax, and just had an episode set seven or nine years in the past, and -- you know, get some high profile guest stars to play these doomed Bajorans, and … you know?

Anika: Yeah. Right. Because our cast were the doomed Bajorans, I didn't care about them at all! Nothing was going to happen to our people. They were just some random Bajorans. We didn't know any of them. We got the "Siri, tell me about this guy" -- you know, so we got their name and occupation and whether or not they had family. So who cares?

They're just -- on the one hand, you know, if they were saying, "The Occupation was bad all around, and any Bajoran dying is wrong" -- which I agree with! Like, I'll just say, yes, true. But that's not how it came across to me. It came across as, "We think that, by having Sisko playing this guy, that you're gonna care what happens. We're gonna put it entirely on Avery Brooks's ability to act two different characters at the same time in the middle of Odo's memory." What?

Liz: But he doesn't, really. Brooks is outstanding, and I think Sisko comes out -- Sisko and Dax come out the best of all characters in this story. But he's just playing Sisko.

Anika: Right, he's just playing Sisko. We never even see these people as Bajorans.

Liz: No!

Anika: Their picture and at the end, that's it.

Liz: The only character that I was concerned for was Dax, because I felt like, even if -- you know, execution, blah, blah, blah,she survives -- but whatever Dukat intends to put her through, that's an experience that she'll have.

Anika: Yeah!

Liz: And that tension in those scenes was palpable. It was really hard to watch!

Anika: Yeah, it was. I was sitting there, I was like, this episode should end with DAx holding up a Me Too: Gul Dukat sign.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: That's all I could think, the entire scene, was, poor Jadzia is gonna end up--

Liz: I know!

Anika: --on one of Gul Dukat's lists by this psychic nonsense. And the fact that she was using Leeta as her name made it doubly -- argh! All of the women are going to end up on Dukat's list because of this horrible thing! Which the episode was not about at all?

Liz: No, which -- you know, I think, when sexual grooming and implicit assault is, you know, just a sidebar, that's maybe a problem. And we've complained about the all-male writers room for DS9, but yeah, it really jumped out at me that Dax is so important to driving the plot along, and she takes out Dukat, and she tries to free the others, and it's only the rules of Odo's dream that stop them. But the script treats her as an afterthought. She's barely -- she is not important to Odo's journey. And it's really frustrating!

Anika: Yeah. It was really frustrating. That's a good summary of my thoughts on this episode.

Liz: No, no. Like, I'm so glad that they have belatedly decided to confront Odo's presence in the Occupation. I think Quark comes out very, very badly in terms of using slave labour--

Anika: Oh my gosh. And his condescending tone of, you know, "Okay, now you're going to step out here with me. And now we're going to walk in a line together." And it's like, wow. WOW, Quark.

Liz: The amazing thing is that his bar isn't being firebombed once a week by people who hate the fact that he's still in Bajoran territory. I feel like, if Sisko had known about this, he wouldn't have been, like, "Oh, you're a community leader" back in the first episode. But, at the same time--

Anika: He's not a community leader.

Liz: No. No. But, at the same time, I think that Sisko did not know that, or did not suspect that, and that maybe suggests that Starfleet's understanding of the Occupation is pretty limited. And that makes sense, because--

Anika: Which I would believe.

Liz: --all of these terrible things on Terok Nor are happening during, like, mid to late Next Generation.

Anika: I know.

Liz: This is not the distant past.

Anika: It's weird. You know how we were saying, again, last week, how the Kazon were, you know, thirty years ago, they were the Bajorans. And this is a decade ago. A decade ago! Less than! The Bajorans were under everyone's thumb, and all of this stuff was going on, and it's kind of still happening. It's kind of still, like, yeah, they have Terok Nor, now, but they don't, really?

Liz: Hashtag decolonise Bajor.

Anika: They're asking a lot of questions, and really not interested in answering them.

Liz: Yeah, and I think that's one thing I found frustrating about the final scene. It's like, oh, Odo is sad, and Kira is judging him. But we know that there's going to be no long-term consequences. We know that his relationship with Kira doesn't change, and her trust in him persists. And I know this is very early in serialised or semi-serialised mainstream television, but it's just so intensely annoying.

Anika: Yeah. Mm hmm.

Liz: Like. Yeah.

Anika: I want there to be more consequences.

Liz: Yeah. And the thing is, like, I enjoy the complexity of Bajor suffering while the Federation is happily doing its Federation thing. I think that's terrible! But it's interesting, and it feels real. And it's the sort of thing that I wanted Star Trek: Picard to deal with, that sort of complex moral and ethical question. And it didn't.

Anika: Yeah, but -- yeah. They're really good at bringing up the question, and saying, "This is a question we could discuss." But then sort of sidestepping it, and saying, "Instead, we're going to tell a Star Trek story."

Liz: Yeah, and we're going to end--

Anika: And I get it, they're fiction, it's all good. But it's sort of, like, this is another [case where] we're going to rest on the idea of "Starfleet" and "Star Trek" as a thing, and we're not going to actually engage with it in any way. We're just going to rest on the laurels of "Star Trek is moral and good, and asks moral questions, and is telling us about society", and yet they don't say anything about society. They don't say anything about collaborators, they don't say anything about Quark and making money off of people's suffering.

Liz: No, it's usually just a funny joke.

Anika: None of that is actually being addressed in any way. It's just sort of there.

Liz: Yeah. Which I think--

Anika: And that's not going -- I just want it to go further. I'm not expecting Star Trek to give me answers. I think that asking questions is their role. But I think that they do need to engage with the questions, and explore the questions.

Liz: Right, and not just go, "Yeah, this is really complicated. Anyway, roll credits!"

Anika: Exactly. Exactly. This is really complicated. The end. We are Starfleet.

Liz: Yeah, and we can go, "This is really complicated," and maybe some regular characters feel differently about Odo, and maybe others like, say, Worf, go, "Oh yeah, that was a shitty situation, but you were doing your best. Hey, I nearly sided with Admiral Satie that time."

Anika: Yeah, Worf one hundred percent would, too. And I think that would be a great conversation because it would tell us something about both characters.

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: And how they were similar to each other and different from others, and finding those connections between people who -- on the surface, Worf and Odo are not much alike. Okay, I guess they're both in security, that's it.

Liz: No, and they're not friends. Yeah.

Anika: They are not alike. And so something that brought them together to have that conversation, and say, "This is how we're alike," and different from Kira, because Kira would rather die than make that choice -- that's interesting!

Liz: Right! And it's not that they don't answer the questions, because I don't think these questions can easily be answered. But the fact that they don't grapple with them at all, and it's just business as usual afterwards, that, to me, is disappointing. And this is not a problem unique to Deep Space 9, obviously. You know, that's--

Anika: No, and it's not a unique Star Trek problem, it's not -- like, every story -- we get it. And I'm not saying that I would do any better. So I'm not saying, "Ooooh, Deep Space 9 is bad! And Ron Moore is bad!" Like, obviously not. That's not true. That's not what I'm saying.

Liz: No.

Anika: What I'm saying is, as good as it is, it could be better.

Liz: Yeah!

Anika: Because these are really interesting questions that could be discussed in more nuanced conversations.

Liz: And I think that there is a level of dishonesty, now, in the approach to Odo and Quark after all of these long-overdue surprise reveals. You know, we can't just go back to seeing them as our lovable curmudgeon and his thief best enemy.

Anika: Yeah. That's what's -- that's hard.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. It's that they ask the audience to make that leap, without going to any particular effort to improve it? Without going to any effort themselves to make it work.

Anika: Right.

Liz: And it's sort of the same with Garak, because this is his first episode after he spent six whole months in jail for attempted genocide! And he's back, complaining that the Bajorans aren't nice to him.

Anika: You know -- ugh. Like, shut up, Garak.

Liz: Right, no one wants to hear your opinion.

Anika: That whole episode! The whole episode, I was just, like, no, you are not contributing to this. And then, when he stole the thing, and Odo is like, "I'm gonna add pickpocket to your resume," and he says something like, "Why would a simple tailor have high-level codes," or whatever -- and I was like, it is season 5.

Liz: Right!

Anika: We have to let the simple tailor stuff go.

Liz: You were just in jail for attempted genocide.

Anika: Like, I get that that's the party line. But it's stupid at this point. Odo is not an idiot, and Garak is not an idiot, and so, like, this whole, you know -- just saying it sarcastically, it just made me angry. I was just angry at the whole thing.

Liz: It reiterated my feeling that this is a lost season 2 episode.

Anika: Yes, I agree with this. Because I think that no one -- like, they weren't making sense. And, like, O'Brien could have had Worf's lines and nothing would change.

Liz: Right!

Anika: So, therefore, it could be -- whatever. Or Kira. Like, there was nothing Worf about that. And Bashir was just … Bashiring.

Liz: And bless his heart and all, but, you know.

Anika: So it was all just -- I don't know. Missed opportunities and lost potential. Because I wanted there to be more. I felt like we were past this, and we should be really digging deep into it instead of... [laughs] It's ridiculous how angry that line about the tailor made me, but I was just so over it.

Liz: It's just sort of emblematic of the problems with the episode. It's not that it's a bad episode, it's that it comes so late in the story as to be meaningless.

Anika: Yeah. So. Oh well!

Liz: You got a message asking if we wanted to talk about Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5. And you have not seen Babylon 5--

Anika: I can't do that.

Liz: --but I have.

Anika: I'll pass it onto you. Please discuss Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5.

Liz: So my secret shame as a Trekkie is that I like Babylon 5 better than Deep Space 9. I don't think it's necessarily a better show? But I think J Michael Straczynski was watchig Star Trek and seeing the things that annoyed him, and going, "I'm not going to do that." And then he does a whole lot of other annoying things. It's a show that I love, but I don't recommend it to new people because I don't think it's aged very well?

But one thing -- I will say it has more overt queerness, in its mid-90s way, than one season of Star Trek: Picard in 2020.

Anika: Well, that's yet another -- yeah. Let's just push that over. Yep.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. But one thing I felt like it did very well was that -- there's a character, Londo, who comes from this fading, once-glorious Empire. And he's -- I don't want to say he's Make The Centauri Empire Great Again Guy. Because it's more about Rome, and that sort of metaphor.

But there comes a point where he commits genocide against -- or a partial genocide -- against the people of another main character. And he is literally standing on the ship, watching as asteroids are driven down onto their homeworld.

Anika: Yikes.

Liz: And then he … is not forgiven. Or -- no. Some characters forgive him, and some characters even come to love him again, but no one forgets that he did this. And there is not a single point in the series (barring some of the weaker spots in season 5, which had a lot of behind the scenes drama) where -- "This is Londo, he is our funny alcoholic who has a terrible past. He also killed a whole million -- you know, millions and millions of people, and we kind of side-eye that." And it's not forgotten! It's so important! And it's important because he becomes a character who is determined never to do it again, but he goes through that whole story.

I don't know if I explained it very well [I didn't!], because I didn't want to get into the details of who, and what, and alien names, and whatever. But the funny alcoholic clown man with the vertical hair goes through this, and I think it's a much more nuanced take on this sort of story than Deep Space 9 did.

Anika: And I think, again, it comes back to that -- like, it was okay for Dukat to be the charming guy we love to hate. It was not okay for Odo to be that. That was a bridge too far for Star Trek. He could have this quote-unquote "dark past" -- and, you know, in that Kira scene, at least he admits that it probably wasn't the only time?

Liz: Yes!

Anika: But the fact that she was like, "If you tell me this is the only time, it'll be okay." It's like, no! That's not the lesson here. The lesson here isn't, "I did this one bad thing this one time, and I'm sorry about it twenty years later, so now you should love me again." The lesson is, I need to make up for this, and never do that again, and grapple with the fact that I am the type of person who could do it. Like, that's the story we need to be telling here.

The show had that moment, where they almost gave themselves an out from making Odo spotless except for his one spot, I guess? And at least--

Liz: No, and they didn't take it, and I respect that.

Anika: --they didn't do it, so that was good. But the fact that not much changes, that this doesn't change him, it doesn't change his relationships, it doesn't change the series, means that it still sort of is. You have this one spot, and whatever, we all have that one spot.

Liz: And I think that's the sort of disconnect that fic writers love -- and part of the problem is that I don't love these characters enough to do that work. Whereas, like, I just watched the Voyager episode "The Chute", and I'm like, "Wow, Janeway is really more than usually implacable this episode, and that's kind of inconsistent with past characterisation, but I think she's just still recovering from losing her ship in 'Basics' and she's more determined than ever to hang onto it and protect her crew?"

So, yeah, I think people who are bigger fans of Deep Space 9 will do the work.

Anika: That's fair.

Liz: And that's sort of the joy of being a Trekkie.

Anika: Yeah, 'cos we can go read those fics if we want to explore more. We can go looking for it, and it's probably there.

Liz: Right, and as much as I am not a Deep Space 9 fan now, there is always the possibility that one day I'll wake up and go, "Man, you know what I really want? I wanna read a lot of Kira/Odo!" It's gonna happen, I hate Kira/Odo. She can do so much better.

Anika: [laughs] I was just gonna say! NoTP, noTP!

Liz: No. No. I opened Netflix to watch this episode, and for some reason, it went straight to "His Way". I think that's where my flatmate and I noped out on our last rewatch. And I'm like, I'm a good person, I shouldn't have to see this!

Anika: [laughs] I mean, to be fair, none of the people that Kira dated were good enough for her. None.

Liz: No.

Anika: Zero.

Liz: One thing, though -- the other week, I read My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. It's a contemporary novel, semi -- it sort of straddles the boundaries between commercial and literary fiction. But it's about a woman looking back at an affair she had with her teacher when she was fifteen, and it's a very stark depiction of grooming. And it made it really hard to watch those scenes with Dukat and Dax. Like, just so -- awful.

Anika: Yeah. It's strange how I really had a visceral reaction to that more than the whole rest of the episode. And it might partially be because -- okay, so I watched the season finale of SVU this morning. And it was their take on the Harvey Weinstein ordeal.

Liz: Oh no.

Anika: The season opened with this, you know, big case taking down a Harvey Weinsteinesque person, and it closed with his trial, and how absolutely impossible it was, because all of the -- you know, there was so much intimidation, and he was having these medical problems, and his lawyer was just completely--

Liz: Awful?

Anika: Like, her whole thing was, "Well, I'd rather have ten guilty men go free if one innocent man is brought down." And it's just, like, ugh. It's an interesting math equation you got going there, of lives for -- you know. But whatever, lady. And so that's how I woke up this morning, is what I'm saying.

Liz: That sounds nice.

Anika: And so maybe, when I got to Deep Space 9, and I watched the scene between Dukat and Dax, and I was just, like, "Oof, #MeToo: Dukat," that's what's going on here, you know, I was already in that mindset. So that's what I connected to, maybe?

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: Because it was -- and it's obviously not just SVU, it's in the news all the time. It's reality. Before Covid took over everything, it was like the backlash of the #MeToo movement.

Liz: Right, right, and then Fiona Apple's new album came out, and that was also about predatory powerful men, and her anger towards them, and all of that. It's sort of the wallpaper of our lives.

Anika: Right.

Liz: But I watched Dukat monologuing about, "I'm a father to the Bajoran people," and I was like, yeah, you also want them to call you daddy. And then I just felt like I'd really squicked myself out, because he is--

Anika: I need a -- [laughs]

Liz: Like, this fictional man preying on fictional women--

Anika: "I need a friend," and, you know, "you're the only one I can--" ugh. It was so gross. And there was a whole, like, flashback to Schindler's List, because they seemed very similar to the wine cellar scene. I was just, like, this is exactly what's happening here. And it was just really disturbing on every level. I was way more invested in that non-storyline--

Liz: Right!

Anika: --than I was in everything that was happening with Odo. And that is maybe just because, you know, quote-unquote "women's issues", and that's what I was interested in, because I'm a woman? I don't know. Because there weren't--

Liz: Not a lot of women in this episode!

Anika: --a lot of women in this episode. And so if I am -- and also, I don't relate to Sisko. I don't relate to Garak, for heaven's sake.

Liz: [laughs]

Anika: I definitely don't relate to Odo. So my options are limited in -- even if it was some -- even if I was going to relate to a man, or a male character, as a woman, there weren't any that were for me anyway.

Liz: I kind of related to Garak a little, in that he was being very much a Karen, and I--

Anika: [laughs] Sorry!

Liz: I said it to make you laugh!

Anika: That's perfect.

Liz: But, you know, as a middle class white lady, I am certainly prone to that sort of attitude, and sort of check it in myself. But what really interested me was Dax's story, and how -- you know, none of the men really play the role they're assigned. Whereas Dax throws herself right into the part -- if that's the right way to put it -- of this Bajoran woman who doesn't even get a name! But, like, she's a method actor, apparently. She eats the food, and tells him that she doesn't eat very well very often, and -- I was so scared for her! But so impressed by her at the same time.

Anika: Yeah. And she, like, gets out of the whole -- and it's also, like, because Odo's not in any of her scenes, it's like, what is even going on there? If she's just lost in his subconscious--

Liz: Right!

Anika: --then how is -- like, why is Odo's subconsicous writing a scene between Dukat and Dax? I was just -- like, if you think about it too much, you'll go down a bad rabbit hole.

Liz: Yyyyyeah.

Anika: So just, let's not

Liz: No, it's too late, I am already asking why Odo is writing this fic.

Anika: And just say, Dax is great, and she was smart and clever, and playing along, and getting rid of him, and could have actually -- could easily have actually killed Dukat, as opposed to being accused of killing Dukat, like everybody else. There was just so -- it was like, wow, the fact that he doesn't -- he's not afraid of her at all. He thinks he is in control of the entire situation.

Liz: Right!

Anika: And she, like, with two scenes, is able to completely destroy him. It was just, like -- that's what I'm saying, that story was way more interesting. Dax being cool, and getting one over on Dukat, was way more interesting than everything else.

Liz: And it also felt like a better depiction of the treatment of Bajoran women under Dukat than the episode where Kira goes back in time to judge her mother for being a comfort woman, essentially.

Anika: Yes.

Liz: Because I think that's another interestingly complicated episode that, in that case, does try to draw easy answers, and the answer is that Kira is incredibly judgemental.

Anika: Yeah, right.

Liz: In a way that I think was bad at the time, and has also aged badly.

Anika: It's just -- especially when you have this episode, where she's judgemental, for sure, but--

Liz: But so much more gently.

Anika: Yeah. And it's not -- it's like, "I'll forgive you, Odo, but I'm not gonna forgive my mother." Why? What is the--

Liz: Which I think is an interesting psychological choice.

Anika: Right! It is interesting! And it sort of -- it's another thing where you learn about Kira, and I don't think the writers intended us to learn this about Kira, but I absolutely believe that she is the type to hold her mother, and women in general, up to a higher standard.

Liz: Right.

Anika: And even, like, Bajorans, in general, up to a higher standard than she would Odo. I believe that of her. Not consciously, and not on purpose, but she would.

Liz: Oh no!

Anika: And so it's like, that's interesting, but I don't think they meant that to happen. I think that's just what happened.

Liz: No, and it's not a story I would want this all-male writers room to tell.

Anika: No. Definitely not.

Liz: One thing that I think this episode hinted at, but didn't really explore, is that after fifty years of occupation, like, no one comes out of this oppressive regime untainted. And so, of course -- everyone knows collaborators, and everyone -- except the most hardline Resistance cell members -- has to make a compromise to survive, for themselves or their loved ones. And that was a really -- they don't really discuss it, but it's come up in other episodes about the Occupation and Bajoran politics. And I just think it's worth remembering that Kira's attitude is sort of in the minority, because most people are more pragmatic and less idealistic than she is.

Anika: It's true.

Liz: Which is not to say that anything Odo did was okay, but I don't think he was -- I'm sure that there were Bajorans serving in security roles and police roles that also committed crimes against their own people.

Anika: Yes. And, again, those are interesting questions. Those are the people who are not the heroes of the story, and not the villains. They're the people who are just trying to survive.

Liz: Right.

Anika: And making choices. And some people make better choices than other people, and that's interesting, that's life, and that's -- again, those are interesting questions. And so, yes, Odo -- and when you brought up his age earlier, I think I cut you off before you actually got to your point, but if your point was that, at that time, he was young, and he was also alone--

Liz: Yes.

Anika: --because we know Odo as Odo, a part of our ensemble, who has these relationships with these people. But at that point in Odo's history, he didn't have those relationships, he didn't have people, he didn't have friends.

Liz: Right, exactly.

Anika: He was just the law and order guy. That was all he had, "I'm gonna create order." And so I can understand, from that perspective, of Odo, this choice.

Liz: Right!

Anika: And I wish that Odo took the time to try to understand his former self making this choice, and actually acknowledging that. Instead of me doing it for him.

Liz: Yes! And the journey he made from being straight-up law and order guy, and more about the order than the law, to developing an understanding of justice, and of becoming a competent investigator who did the work. That's an interesting story, and I wish we knew more about it, and I wish we knew how he learned, and who taught him, and all of that.

Anika: Yeah. And these are the whole -- I think I would be pretty into a Deep Space 9 prequel. I would love to know terrorist!Kira. Like, I wanna know more than what we get.

Liz: This feels like a great topic for, like, a high quality graphic novel. So, call us, whoever has the rights to Star Trek comics right now!

Anika: Yeah! [laughs] Exactly. I think you're right, it's a little too gritty for the high budget television series, but a graphic novel would be just right.

Liz: That, and -- yeah, I just -- if this is how Quark is treating his temporary bar staff, and waiters, what is he doing to the dabo girls?!

Anika: Oh God. Ew.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: What are the Cardassians doing to the dabo girls?

Liz: #MeToo: Terok Nor is something I've never really considered before, but--

Anika: It's very, very real, though.

Liz: Yyyyyeaaaaaahhhhhhh.

Anika: I get why people like Deep Space 9, because it is that realism, that gritty version of Star Trek. Like, I get it. I get it.

Liz: It just--

Anika: But it's still a little too -- I dunno.

Liz: To me, it half-asses the realism.

Anika: Yeah. It's santised.

Liz: Yeah. And I do understand that it's the nineties, and all of that, but that doesn't mean we have to acclaim it now. Like -- it tried, it was important at the time, it does many things well, even now, but -- you know? And I don't even think that, necessarily, uh, modern, twenty-first century Trek is doing hugely better. I was more optimistic after Discovery's first season, but then, you know.

Anika: Then Discovery's second season.

Liz: And Picard.

Anika: And Picard. Going backwards. I don't know. Star Trek is imperfect, and that's part of its charm.

Liz: And, to an extent, every series and every spin-off has to reinvent the wheel. And there is always a shakedown period of awkwardness, and trying to figure out how to do things.

Anika: Yeah, but that brings it back to, THIS IS A FIFTH SEASON EPISODE.

Liz: Right.

Anika: This season is supposed to be the best season. So what happened?

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. Should we wrap up?

Anika: Sure. Yes.

Liz: It's a little bit short, but I don't know that we have more to say, and honestly, I've been at my desk -- I have been doing work every single day since Easter Sunday. And I'm so sick of being at my desk.

Anika: I'll say one positive thing.

Liz: Yes?

Anika: At the very beginning of the episode, when the shuttlepod is coming, and Worf is on the bridge, there is a woman -- who is his person on the bridge, I don't know -- but she's wearing the Bajoran uniform in grey, with the quilted -- it looked really good.

Liz: Oh, nice.

Anika: I was like, I really like these Bajoran uniforms. And I always liked Kira's, but in the grey, it was really interesting. It was more utilitarian, and also sort of more Starfleety, but looked really good. It was interesting, so I liked it.

Liz: As long as we're talking about costuming, there's a full-length shot of Kira at the very end, and you see her boots. And I've always liked the boots that she wears, whether the high heels or the flats, but they just looked like -- because she's so pregnant, they looked like very nice, solid, appropriate heels. And they looked really comfortable.

Anika: Kira boots over leggings is super nineties, and I love it.

Liz: Right, I was looking at them going, I remember coveting slouchy boots.

Anika: I dressed like that all the time.

Liz: Yeah.

Anika: All the time! That was me. So good on you, Kira.

Liz: I spent the nineties dressing like Janeway in "Resolutions". So, yeah.

Anika: [laughs] No, but seriously, Kira was my fashion icon.

Liz: Did you own a crochet singlet?

Anika: She had -- yes, exactly! The crochet things. I still, whenever I go to a thrift store, I look for crochet vests and little dresses and things. And it's like, Kira and Kes were what I dressed like. Just, you know. Has nothing to do with this episode, but: fashion icon.

Liz: My other shameful Trekkie confession is that, as a feminist, obviously I think it's terrible that Nana Visitor was put in steadily tighter costumes and higher heels as the series went on. But from an aesthetic point of view? I'm really into it. See also: Seven of Nine's catsuit.

Anika: [laughs]

Liz: And I did -- I went through a phase of wearing heels like that everyday. And then I had to have foot surgery, and I never wore heels again.

Anika: You know, T'Pol's pastel velour faux uniforms that she wears in the last two season? Those are my favourite. I love them. They're so good.

Liz: I think it was TrekCore who retweeted a picture of a cosplayer wearing that outfit, and she looked amazing.

Anika: So bad and so good. Yes.

Liz: It's just kind of the Star Trek equivalent of the Juicy Couture tracksuit.

Anika: It is exactly! And it looks so comfortable.

Liz: By catsuit standards, yeah!

Anika: By catsuit standards, yeah. You know, it's probably horrible to wear. But it looks cosy.

Liz: I reckon it'd be more comfortable than what Jeri Ryan had. Like, it just seems like it moves better, and doesn't have an inbuilt corset, and has separate shoes.

Anika: Honestly, it looks more comfortable than what [T'Pol's] stuck in, what I call her couch catsuit.

Liz: Yeah, it does look like a cushion.

Anika: That is rough. Like, that looks really -- like, at least the velour is soft?

Liz: Yeah, the couch one often looks a bit cold. Like, it's very thin fabric. It looks cheap, basically. All the constuming on Enterprise looks cheap.

Anika: It was bad choices. Bad choices. T'Pol was happier in the later seasons, and I think it's partially because of her clothes.

Liz: I found a bunch of photos of myself from the early 2000s, and that was a bad time for fashion in general. Like, I was unfortunately very trendy then, and I have regrets. [laughs]

Anika: Yeah.

Liz: The extremely revealing singlet and boot cut jeans? Don't know what I was thinking, not gonna go back to that. I just wanna go back to my past self and put a cardigan over her shoulders.

Anika: And right now, it doesn't even matter what we wear, so.

Liz: I'm wearing jeans right now, but that's because, once we're done here, I'm going to mow the lawn, and I don't want my neighbours to see my terrible tracksuit pants.

Anika: I will be honest that I am back to leggings and boots.

Liz: Good.

Anika: That is, once again, what I wear everyday. And it's very cosy.

Liz: Yeah, I had some money set aside to upgrade my autumn work wardrobe, and instead, I spent it all on hoodies.

Anika: That was a good choice!

Liz: I'll probably regret it, come spring, but that's a spring!Liz problem.

Anika: That's right. That's the future. Who even knows what's gonna be -- pfft. Anything could happen between now and then.

Liz: [big dramatic sigh] Well, I know what's happening on our next episode, so!

[outro music]

Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod.

You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.tumblr.com, including links to our social media and credits for our theme music.

You can also follow us on Twitter at @antimatterpod. Sometimes we post cat pictures, and questions for our audience.

If you like us, leave a review on apple podcasts or wherever you consume your podcasts -- the more reviews, the easier it is for new listeners to find us.

And join us in two weeks when we’ll be discussing an iconic TOS novel: Diane Duane's My Enemy, My Ally.

#star trek: deep space 9 #antimatter pod #podcast transcripts

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him-e · 5 years

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Hi, I'm the anon who wrote the 5 asks about the Dany plotline and GRRM. I'd like to apologize to u for lashing out, it was uncalled for and u have every right to state those opinions regardless of what I (or anyone else) think. Feeling hurt by the show wrt Dany's story made me react badly to the idea that it was actually acceptable, especially coming from someone whose ideas I appreciate so much and have spent hours invested on. You can answer them, delete them, idk, I just wanted to say sorry.

No need to apologize, anon! I’m currently on semi-to-full hiatus and that’s why I’m being so slow at answering messages—and yeah, I understand the frustration completely, and I don’t blame you for it. ;))

I’m going to answer your ask anyway. Long reply after the cut:

I hope this doesn’t come off as offensive or confrontational bc that’s not the point, I’ve enjoyed reading your ASOIAF/GoT and TB metas for years and would not reply to them if I weren’t invested on them. That said, I’d like to ask why do you insist on 1) arguing that Dany’s dark turn was reasonable if you don’t hate her and 2) defending D&D and blaming GRRM for what happened on the show. When it comes to 1), sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented (in that she had the choice to not kill anyone but did). You argue that that direction was valid of because of the recurring theme of how power corrupts, but then I’d argue, what if it were Sansa, another character very much involved in the world of politics? Would you be ok if people argued that it’d make sense for her to give up her ideals and become just as power-hungry and cynic and bitter as Littlefinger? Probably not; what’s the point if those characters become their worst possible selves? Dany was made a villain, was implied to be mad and was called “your satanic majesty”. I really can’t see how you could call those writing decisions valid. When it comes to 2), I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

The reason why I maintain that the show’s ending is a (badly written) version of GRRM’s ending is that I can 100% see Martin’s blueprint in the climax+anticlimax structure of the season. The way it twists the audience’s expectations and delves into what happens AFTER the final battle is won, the way it subverts the most reliable narrative conventions and, instead of building up in a crescendo towards a final spectacle where the heroes would sacrifice their lives to save the world in a blaze of glory, it shifts gears almost unpleasantly, slows down to show what happens to them once their heroic purpose is fulfilled and zooms in on their identity crisis, their depression and isolation and sudden lack of purpose… it’s all too deliberate, and IN MY PERSONAL OPINION it’s done with a vision in mind—something I don’t believe d&d would spontaneously put any effort in, especially not if GRRM had already served them a perfectly fine, crowd-pleasing endgame involving Dany’s heroic sacrifice against the Others.

I understand my stance might come across as “defending d&d and blaming GRRM”, but I’m really not? I’ve often repeated how I believe d&d messed things up and that GRRM’s version will make infinitely more sense and be infinitely better written, and I’m sure he will avoid the pitfalls of cynical, circular storytelling, because he’s ultimately a better writer and someone who believes in idealism and true heroism even as he deconstructs it. How can the overall narrative remain uplifting & give a message of hope and faith for humanity while still telling a story that ends with Dany’s descent into “true villainy” (but haven’t we repeated ad nauseam that heroes and villains are too reductive categories for asoiaf?), I don’t know, but it’s not my job to figure it out, and I ultimately trust & respect Martin’s vision and ability to tell the story HE wants.

sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented

1) I’ve always conceded that, while I think the gist of the storyline is Martin’s, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the battle of King’s Landing will go as we’ve seen in the show, or even happen at the same point of the story (for one thing, Young Griff & JonCon will probably be involved, and that seems more likely to happen before, and not after, the war for the dawn);

2) That said, what I’m relatively confident of, at this point, is that Dany will NOT die in the WftD as a self sacrificial hero (this is entirely FANON SPECULATION, and people treating it like a fixed point in the universe, something the narrative is “inevitably” building towards, is one of the reasons the fandom seems unable to critically analyze show!Dany’s evolution without going hysterical about it and resorting to no true scotsman arguments. I’ve often complained about the dangers of elevating fan theories to canon status, and trust me I never wanted to go full cassandra about this, but here we are). The details and plot points leading up to this might be wildly different from the show’s version, but I think Dany will survive the WftD, which will leave her directionless and purposeless and doubting the truth of her heroic destiny for the first time in her life after she hatched the dragons, and that she’ll cross the ultimate moral horizon in a hail mary to restore that sense of self, that sense of purpose, completing her parabola from princess in rags, to breaker of chains, to conqueror, to savior of humanity, to conqueror again, to TRAGIC HERO. How can this be a valid writing decision, you asked—well, why shouldn’t it? Is something only valid as long as it pleases the audience? What screams tragic hero more than the hero turning into the very thing she swore to eradicate, and realizing it only when it’s too late? There’s something genuinely chilly in Dany’s “if I look back, I’m lost” refrain. This is the mantra of someone who thinks the only way to stay alive is to cross one threshold after the other. So far this coping mechanism has brought her higher, and higher, and higher. But what if it will be her downfall? “I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell”, indeed;

3) Dany’s burning KL *accidentally* is like Stannis burning Shireen “but only if the circumstances are dire enough / the stakes are high enough”. No offense, but this is typical stan logic: you admit the possibility that your faves might go through a dark phase but you don’t want to have to unstan them, so you want them to do bad things for good reasons, or because there’s no other choice, or because “they didn’t know”. That’s understandable, but I don’t think Martin is the type of writer to give his character free passes or soften the blow of their moral crucibles like that. This is NOT to say that the show did Dany’s dark turn WELL, because it DIDN’T—her motivations were all over the place, the turning point (the bells) wasn’t believable because it lacked connection to her character arc, the narrative backed away from showing the attack from her pov which betrays the writers’ inability to make sense of this psychological downfall from HER perspective, etc. But to say “Dany will NEVER! BURN! INNOCENTS! ON PURPOSE!” sounds very, very premature to me.

(re: Sansa, hasn’t power corrupted her too, to an extent? Hasn’t she lied, schemed, manipulated, spilled secrets, in order to restore & secure the Stark hold on the North? Isn’t she queen, in part, because the rest of her family was scattered at the four corners of the known world? I’m not particularly happy with the way she was written this season, and I think some of her choices were questionable; but at the same time I reject the idea that a character ending up more flawed, or morally ambiguous, or less likeable than they were at the beginning must necessarily be bad storytelling)

I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

Martin is not responsible of the show’s writing, but he is responsible of the outline he gave to the showrunners, and right now I have no reason to believe they didn’t follow it, at least for the most part. For years I’ve been told that “the show is not the books”, and while that’s certainly true, I can’t, and won’t, separate the show from the books when it comes to book speculation, because the show is still for all intents and purposes an ADAPTATION of the book series, and while it’s irresponsible to expect it to be a 1:1 transcription of what will happen in TWOW and ADOS, it’s also equally (imo) irresponsible to act like the two canons have nothing to do with each other and that it’s stupid to use the show as a resource for book speculation. If people want to pretend the show never happened, good for them, but that’s not the way I think, personally. I don’t blame GRRM for the show’s faults, and my reservations are actually 90% about the EXECUTION of the plot which is ENTIRELY on d&d, but there’s a 10% of my concerns that is about the IDEA in itself, regardless of context and execution—the idea of the story ending with a bittersweet anticlimax involving the death/downfall of the MOST PROMINENT FEMALE HERO OF THE SERIES, who is also the carrier of the most subversive anti-establishment political message in the story.

tldr: I’m not criticizing GRRM for what he hasn’t written yet, but I can certainly criticize him for what I think is a (however botched) adaptation of his outline, if the main selling points of said outline are questionable in themselves. No one can convince me that GRRM told d&d that Jon and Dany would die heroically to save the world and they ARBITRARILY decided to fuck it up for shock value or whatever, and just accidentally stumbled onto a more subversive and provocative ending than what Martin HIMSELF was planning. (that would make them two geniuses, even if the execution sucked, lol)

and if i’m wrong about it, well:

but until then…

#anon #asks #got wank #got asks for ts #got discourse #got finale #got negativity #show vs books #dany discourse #dany**#grrm #asoiaf spec #asoiaf endgame

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beihonglin · 5 years

Text

[about subbing.]

alright y’all sit tight and buckle up, i’ve held this in for three months now but today i saw a youtube comment demanding to know why it took so long for eng subs for a certain show to come out and i think some things should be made clear.

fan subbers are not obligated to do the subbing we do. we are people with our own lives who are busy with work and school and life. the time spent subbing takes away from our study time, our down time, or time better spent doing more productive things.

“but wait, surely it doesn’t take that long to sub a show? i see gifs on tumblr / translated transcriptions on twitter, so i know people are capable of translating things but nobody will sub the whole episode / it takes so long for eng subs to come out.”

it takes. so. much. time. in case you’re not familiar with the process (i know i wasn’t, before joining a subbing team), i’ll walk you through it with personal examples.

(1) obtaining the raw video:

content is often hosted on iqiyi, youku, tencent. unlike youtube, these platforms have little to no ‘fast’ ways to download the videos. for example, iqiyi uploads their episodes as .qsv files, which, due to their non-standard format, cannot be opened in any normal multimedia player and require the use of iqiyi's proprietary software. in order to decode the file and make it usable, downloaders have to find ccodes and ckeys, which takes time. to make it worse, these ccodes and ckeys change every few weeks, which means downloaders have to go on a hunt for them all over again.

even if you could find an online downloader for videos, video parsers such as this one often give you very little control over the quality of the video - most of the downloads end up looking like someone chewed it up and spit it out.

this means that whoever obtains the raw video has to use methods like coding or terminal just to get the hd file, which takes time and effort.

from here, the raw video goes to two people: the transcriber and the timer.

(2a) transcribing the video:

this is a step i skip when i am subbing alone or when i’m subbing in a team that are all chinese-speakers, but when i’m working in a team that has typesetters who don’t speak chinese, we have to provide a transcription along with our translation so that they can match the words on screen with the translations they put in. in some teams, there are members who only transcribe, but in smaller teams, translators have to do it ourselves.

transcribing takes time - it can take anywhere from half an hour to two hours for a five minute segment, depending on how used you are to typing in that language.

(2b) timing the video:

for me, this is The Most Time Consuming part of subbing - it’s the part i dread when subbing alone. it involves making sure your subs appear at the same time as the corresponding characters on screen, and often, if your subs appear even a couple of frames off, the entire sequence will look strange to the viewer. timing involves small adjustments made over and over again just so your subs look at least presentable.

it requires precision, which takes time. and it requires practice and being comfortable with the timing software - if you’re starting out with new software, you might take more than two hours to time a five minute segment.

even worse is when a video comes without chinese subtitles (rip all of us who ever had to sub these) - we don’t have a frame of reference and have to decide how to time by ourselves. we have to take into account sentence length and how fast viewers can read per second, how long a clause can be before viewers forget what was in the previous clause, and we have to make these decisions in tandem with how fast the people on screen are speaking. which takes time.

(3) translating the video:

i think this step is often what people reduce subbing to and is what most people are familiar with seeing, but i cannot stress this enough - it also takes time.

personally, i take an hour to clear five minutes worth of dialogue on a good day. and then i take additional time for the sfx captions. and then additional time to proof-read and make sure i didn’t mishear, misinterpret or mistranslate things. most of the time, interviews love using internet slang or gaming terms and for those of us who don’t game or spend most of our lives on weibo, it’s an extra step for us to search for the term, understand its meaning and the context in which it’s being used. which takes time.

when a video comes without chinese subtitles and the members on screen happen to Love Screaming Over Each Other... replaying the segment over and over again to try and hear what they’re saying takes time. and patience. and eardrum abilities.

in a team, it also involves proof-reading each other’s work. our translations team always proof-reads each other’s segments in case we catch something the others missed out on or mistranslated, or in case semantics are awkward and we have to restructure a sentence. i’m very, very lucky in that the subbing team i’m in have different strengths - one of us is better at chinese and explaining complex phrases, one of us is good at pragmatics and catching nuances and suggesting rephrases and one of us is good at semantics and making sure things are grammatically accurate. but sometimes teams are unbalanced and it takes extra effort to make sure things still turn out in the best quality possible.

in some cases, we can discuss one (1) word choice for a full ten minutes because there simply isn’t a phrase for it in english and we have to t/n it, or because multiple english words map to the same chinese word and choosing the wrong one will provide a wrong connotation. in other cases, we know that some scenes will be talked a lot about or giffed a lot by international fans, and we have to make sure that the translations have to be as accurate and as nuanced as possible so that nothing gets twisted. and in the worse case scenario, a wrong word choice can change a fan’s whole impression of a member.

(4) typesetting the video:

for dialogue subtitles, this involves finding a font that is readable by everyone and a style that will be visible against all backgrounds. it involves making sure they stay in the same place and are of the same style (all aligned left, a certain number of pixels from the bottom etc).

for sfx captions, this involves matching your english font to the chinese font used so the scene style isn’t incongruous and matching styles like outlines and shadows so that the colour scheme remains the same. in some cases, there is no space for the sfx translation, and typesetters have to blank out the original to make the translations visible. in many cases, they move, so typesetters have to animate the text, which takes extra effort.

for multiple-episode shows, typesetters have to make sure that the styling remains consistent and visible in all settings, which make the thought given to these choices all the more important.

in some teams, typesetters don’t speak chinese, and have to refer to transcriptions and corresponding translations to typeset correctly. this takes time. in the cases where the original video comes without chinese subtitles, typesetters have to decide in which order the noise and mayhem should appear on screen. this takes time.

and in the first place, this assumes that you have the software to do hard-subs - something not all of us have.

(5) encoding and posting the video:

this step takes the least effort but it still needs So Much Time - converting the aegisubs or premiere pro file into an .mp4 requires a media encoder, and adobe media encoder more or less takes three hours to encode a three hour episode. sometimes, it exports as an .mov and you have to handbrake it to get it to an .mp4 file, which takes extra time.

uploading it on youtube also takes time - it takes an hour to get a two-hour video uploaded, and it takes another few hours for it to process so that you can publish it in 1080p.

some of our laptops don’t have enough processing power to go through a three hour video - even encoding a half-hour episode can slow down our laptops so much they’re pretty much useless until it’s done. some of us even don’t have a media encoder on our laptops and have to run to computer labs to get it encoded. and if the closest one is on campus twenty minutes away and it’s snowing outside? good luck.

people who gif casually or translate in blocks of text on twitter don’t have to deal with steps (2), (4) and (5), and that’s where the difference lies - even if they’re capable of translating things, the sheer amount of effort and time it takes can deter people from trying.

in addition, most of the time, the content we sub is copyrighted so we can’t even monetise the eng subs - we get nothing out of subbing.

the reason why we do it anyway is because we love the show or the people on the show and want to share that with an international audience. we’re fans and for some of us, that’s justification enough to put in the time and effort needed to get more love and attention for our faves.

and that’s why we appreciate it when people ask us, “hi, would you be interested in subbing this show?” most of these requests are polite and include an “only if you want to” add-on (which frees us from the obligation to agree), and it lets us know that you’re following our faves and lets us know what kind of content you’re interested in. most of the time, most of us don’t even need a ‘thank you’ in the comments (although they are very much appreciated), because if we see comments laughing over a certain member’s actions, it means someone else is loving our faves too and to me, it makes the effort worth it.

i understand people asking, “why does it take so long to sub?” out of curiosity, because before i joined my subbing teams, i knew nothing about the process. but going, “why is it taking so long to sub?” is different, and demanding that a show be subbed when it takes us ten hours of work to let you enjoy a twenty minute video? that’s not fair.

tl;dr: don’t underestimate the amount of effort it takes to sub a show. subbers have their own lives and are not obligated to work on your schedule.

if you’re still thinking about demanding subs faster, consider joining the subs team. otherwise, shut up and enjoy the fact that fans are putting in time and effort for your entertainment for free.

#vivi yells into the void #translations #anyway i'm tired of fans complaining that things take time #especially when you don't know the subs team members personalyl #i know a lot of people complain about yhsubs not updating but one of the translators is in premed and her schedule has been Insane this year #we're in the same club and one of my friends is her roommate and i still barely see her #and to those asking about the new trainee18 show?#i'm the only one translating for it and i've been packed this semester i havent even watched past episode six #much less sub episode three

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adiscontinuedblogyo · 5 years

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My College Story

After I graduated high school, I moved into a dorm with my best friend at a state university with the intention of majoring in psychology and later going on to become a marriage and family therapist. It was what I would tell people all throughout high school that I wanted to do, but things didn’t go as planned.

I was accepted into that state university on conditional admission. They told me I had to receive a 3.0 GPA in my classes by the end of my first semester or I’d be on academic probation during the second semester. What the actual fuck, right? Because any other student not conditionally admitted to the university wouldn’t have been placed on academic probation if they got a 2.9 GPA so why would I have been?

Anyway, to make a long story short, I met a guy and spent more time with him than I did on my coursework and ended up getting academically dismissed at the end of the semester for my horrible grades.

I ended up going back to the state university in the spring of 2014 after taking the entire year of 2013 off from school. I even got good enough grades that I would have been able to return in the fall but unfortunately, there was a mishap in the financial aid department or I forgot to submit a document or whatever, but I ended up not being able to return because my tuition wasn’t paid. They even blocked me from accessing my transcripts, so I wouldn’t have been able to send them to another university if I had wanted to transfer somewhere else. Seriously? This school only cares about the money, not the success of their students. I’m sure it’s like this at other schools too and I realized…

I DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT!

2013 and ‘14 were really low points in my life. Dark times, y'all. I ended up getting accepted into my local community college (the one I’m currently attending) in the spring of 2016 as a business administration major. I was working a job I absolutely hated at the time. By the time I quit that job mid-semester, I was so emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually drained that I completely lost myself. I realize now that I had to lose myself because if I hadn’t, I never would have found myself. I ended up with Ds and Fs in every single one of my classes. Then something beautiful happened. I DIDN’T GET DISMISSED FROM THE COLLEGE. I DIDN’T EVEN GET PLACED ON ACADEMIC PROBATION!

This college cared about my success. THEY GAVE ME A SECOND CHANCE! At the end of the spring semester, I had an overall GPA of 0.5. At the end of the fall semester where I had changed my program of study to gen. ed., I had raised that overall GPA to 2.5! I took 5 classes and got As in 3 of them and Bs in the other 2. I had a semester GPA of 3.538. I even made the Dean’s List. I was so freakin’ proud of myself. I started the job I’m currently working in November of 2016 and decided to take the spring 2017 semester off to get adjusted to my new schedule at work, so that what happened in the spring of 2016 wouldn’t happen again. When I returned in the fall of 2017, I took 3 classes and got As in 2 of them and a B in the other. My semester GPA was 3.667 and my overall GPA had been raised to 2.929.

I ended up taking the ENTIRE year of 2018 off from college because I was working SO MUCH OVERTIME at my job. I mean, I was working an 8 hour shift 6-7 days a week practically EVERY SINGLE WEEK! It was exhausting, it was miserable, and it didn’t give me much time for college. I needed my job to pay my tuition and had just received a $2 pay increase and knew I wouldn’t find another job with better hours that had the same pay, so I stayed with my job. During the fall 2017 semester, I was working overtime and it was such a struggle to keep up with my homework. I remember actually crying IN THE MIDDLE OF WORK because I had a high point assignment due in my mass comm class that week and my boss had just told me I had to work BOTH days that weekend. I ended up withdrawing from that class because I didn’t have the adequate amount of time to dedicate to it.

When January of this year came around, I was just so fucking sick and tired of working so much that when I heard about the opening in the weekend shift, I jumped on the chance to take it. When I talked to my supervisor about switching shifts, I was prepared to do whatever it took to make my education a priority if she had said no. I would’ve moved to a weekend shift in another department or switched jobs entirely. I was so determined! I felt such immense joy and excitement when she said I could switch to weekend shift.

I had to make a few sacrifices when I moved to the weekend shift though. I had to give up the quality lab position I had grown to love SO MUCH and I had to go from seeing the guy I like 5-7 days a week, to just 1. AND I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO SEE HIM SUNDAY NIGHT AT WORK THIS WEEK BECAUSE HE WASN’T THERE AND I JUST MISS HIM SO MUCH. THERE’S LIKE THIS ACHE IN MY CHEST WHENEVER I THINK ABOUT HIM AND IT’S AWFUL.

I’ve had absolutely no problems adjusting to the weekend shift. I mean, doing the same repetitive tasks over and over again for the duration of a 12 hour shift is definitely a bit boring and makes the night go by slower but it’s manageable and when I leave work Monday morning, I look back and it seems like the weekend of work just flew by. My 4 day weekends even seem to go slow! One of my coworkers asked me the other day if I’d rather do lab work or operate a machine and he seemed so shocked whenever I said I’d rather do lab work because I gave that job up to become a machine operator on the weekends. One of my coworkers was getting trained to replace me in the lab at work Sunday night and I found myself feeling a bit sad and jealous of her, haha. So yeah, I’m not having any problems with my actual shift change but I’m struggling a bit to say goodbye to the only two things I liked about my job. Although, I don’t really wanna say goodbye to the guy I like AT ALL. I’m stuck between thinking that if I’m meant to be with him, then it’ll happen when it’s meant to, and thinking that if I don’t say or do anything, then it just won’t happen at all.

I made my education a priority. I put myself first. I made this decision because I was miserable working so much. I don’t regret it. I have the time now to focus on earning a degree and I’m gonna use it. I told everyone in high school that I wanted to be a marriage counselor. I didn’t want to do that at all. I went to a state university because it was the only one that accepted me. That state university only cared about money and was definitely not the right choice for me. I went to a community college and they CARED. I raised my GPA and now I actually have colleges emailing me all the time wanting me to transfer to their schools. AND THEY’RE ACCREDITED COLLEGES TOO! I’m in a much better place in my life than I was 5 years ago.

Today I’m currently working on an Associate’s degree in paralegal studies. I’m definitely very interested in studying law and can’t wait to work in law one day!

If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself not to settle for a university just because it’s the only one that accepted me. I would remind myself that I deserve better than “conditional admission” and that’s it’s totally fine to earn an associate’s degree at a community college, raise my GPA, and then transfer to a college that’s the right fit for me. When I apply to four year universities next year, I’ll be applying to over 10 universities and I’ll find the one that’s the perfect fit for me. I won’t settle for less than I deserve. Not ever again in any aspect of my life.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I appreciate it so much.

#college #academics #life #studyblr #everything happens for a reason #my college story #uni #university #state university #community college #adjusting to change #thanks for reading #new studyblr

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cecilspeaks · 6 years

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136 - The Mudstone Abyss Part 2

Kevin: Age is just a number that counts quickly upward to an ending point.

Welcome to Desert Bluffs.

Hello, Desert Bluffs! Let’s start there. Let’s start with a greeting, a simple hello and of course, a huge smile. Then let’s move right into the good news, the happy news.

Charles and I went on our first date many weeks back, and it was magical! I met up with him in the new town square, which is a sand dune with a cow skull on it. I was wearing my best rabbit fur coveralls and rainbow-striped head band. He was wearing a rose gold lame cravat and soccer shin guards. We went to eat at Desert Bluffs’ newest restaurant, Vermillion, which specializes in lip meat. We shared a bottle of Cabernet and talked comfortably about all the things you shouldn’t talk about on a first date. Politics – we’re both theocrats -, religion – we were both raised in the arborial faith -, sex – we both have had it – and banking. We had some polite disagreements here. Later we went back to my house next to the Temple of Joy. It had been a long time since either of us had had - [chuckling] well, I don’t wanna share too much. So I’ll skip to the next morning, where over coffee we talked about our dreams, or rather dream. It was that same shared dream that all Desert Bluffs citizens have every night with the birds flying in seemingly random directions over the cornfield before crashing their bodies into the ground. Charles, being new in town, had a lot of questions about this dream. But I said that the dream is nothing more than a simple pleasure we all share as a community. It’s fun to know that the whole time sometimes wakes up at the exact same time, sweating and screaming for joy!

After enriching conversation and strong coffee, he said he had to go meet someone. When I asked who, he said, “We’ll talk about it later, it’s not a big deal.” He kissed me and I smiled like I have not smiled in years. I smiled so hard that every glass object in my kitchen exploded all at once. A lacerating confetti of joy.

An update on the construction of the new Mudstone Abyss. Mayor Lauren Mallard reported today that the dig is behind schedule. She sighted a shortage of workers. She had planned for a larger turnout of labor, but this simply has not manifested. I’m disappointed to hear this, Desert Bluffs, but it’s certainly understandable. We all have jobs and responsibilities, and making time to contribute to the building of this great monument can be difficult. Desert Bluffs is a place of hope, of renewal, of refuge for those in need and above all, of joy. The Mudstone Abyss is a celebration of all those things, and I tell you now that the reward will be great. Not just the reward of being devoured by the Smiling God, but the reward of your eternal impact on your town. Think of the Rapa Nui people who built the Moai, or the proud union workers who erected that deco masterpiece, the Chrysler Building. Or the time traveling street artist collective known as Banksy, who built Stonehenge.

Every great monument is built by human hands, and those hands leave their artistry for generations to enjoy, discover, and study. The Mudstone Abyss will be a triumph of Desert Bluffs citizens, and later a tourist attraction, and later a historical landmark, and eventually a curious and misunderstood artefact of a long dead civilization. You can be part of this.

Mayor Mallard and I put our heads together and agreed that the solution here is to set up communes and camps along the dig site to make your commutes easier. Schools and businesses will go on half day schedules so that everyone can make time for the monument. Mayor Mallard, and I support her brilliant idea 100 per cent – believes this is the only task we should be focused on as a town. The Smiling God deserves a physical manifestation of our penitence and devotion. Desert Bluffs deserves a notable landmark, and best of all, if we all worked and lived together, we would get to know each other’s interests, cultures, languages, histories. If we worked together, we could become so much – closer.

And now a word from our sponsors. When we talk apocalypse, we talk fires and spires of smoke and screams and wars and horrid clouds of ash and floods. And this is a comforting vision, because it supposes we’re all in it together. But death is mostly something you keep to yourself. In all reality, the apocalypse is likely going to just be you alone in a room with the flu. Bed, Bath and Beyond: you’re going to need some new sheets.

So after my first date with Charles, we went out again the following week. I showed him around Desert Bluffs, I took him to the Sandy Blossom Bowling Alley and Arcade Joy Compound. We bowled that afternoon and played a few old video games like Ms. Pac-Man, Sleepytime Spider Swallower, and Horse Carcass, all the classics from our youth. We then went for a romantic walk along the beach. Charles thought it shouldn’t be called a beach because there was no body of water, but I pointed out that it was sand, and that there was water somewhere. How close the water is is all a matter of faith. He laughed, and I squeezed his hand. Then we went to the food truck park. He bought some cheese pirogues from the Odessa Dumplings truck, while I went to the Tex-Mex truck and got a burrito filled with fibreglass insulation and refried beans.

The food trucks weren’t nearly as classy as Vermillion, but food is only as good as the company you enjoy it with. And I really enjoyed my time with Charles. It’s hard to intimately connect to people especially as you get older, but my time with Charles made dating seem easy. Why would anyone choose to be single when they could just walk up to the perfect man and say “Let’s know each other”? When life is good, it’s hard to understand how it could have ever been bad.

After dinner, I suggested we could go get a drink together. Unfortunately Desert Bluffs doesn’t have any bars. Not for religious reasons, I explained to him. It’s just that no one’s been able to open one yet. The state places some pretty high taxes on hard liquor transported across dimensional rifts. So I offered to have him back over to my place for some more wine. But he said he had to be going. I protested. Charles said, “Kevin. You fill me with such joy, and I don’t wanna keep secrets. I should tell you I have a son. His name is Donovan and he’s five. He’s a sweet kid.” Charles said he moved here because Donovan starts school next year, and he wanted to raise his boy in a community based in happiness and positivity. But Charles is concerned about bringing dates home with him until he knows they will stay around for a while. “Kevin,” he said, touching my face along the socket of my left eye. “I think you would be great around Donovan.” My smile disappeared from my face. Not because I didn’t feel happy, but because I felt – so many things. My lips couldn’t express them all. He said, “I’m not suggesting we have to be serious right now, we have to figure that out with time.” He then said we should go back to his place, but on the way, he needed to pick up Donovan from Grandma Josephine, who has been babysitting. We spent the rest of the evening drinking sodas at his home. I wanted to touch Charles, to put my hand against his chest again, to kiss him with real passion. But instead we watched Donovan play with toy airplanes and Charles talked about the things parents talk about.

Donovan was nice, but I had to concentrate hard to keep my smile.

[long pause] An update on the construction of the Mudstone Abyss. Nearly everyone in town is now at the dig site, setting into their lean-to’s and pop tents and gathering up the appropriate tools for the physical labor ahead. Mayor Lauren Mallard said she is heartened by the outpouring of support in the past hour. We have made huge strides, already marking out our mile-wide parameter and deepening the pit to almost 1,000 feet. Some stone workers have even begun carving sacred texts from the Book of Devouring. I’m getting reports from the construction area that some of those etchings have begun to glow bright white, as the earth trembles beneath them. Wow! I’m getting chills just thinking about this!

There have been some scuffles among the workers, miscommunication and arguments that devolved into small fights. The Desert Bluffs police department sent two officers, who are also friends of mine from the Temple of Joy, Keon and Kelton, to break up some of these skirmishes. But more fights and arguments happened than they could control. Officers Keon and Kelton reported that parties involved in fights were shouting nonsense at each other. They initially thought some were non-English speakers, but they could not identify the languages. Then they saw young Ryan Nichols, who was an English major at Ala-bay-, Al-bama, at his former university, spouting absolute gibberish at another person. Keon and Kelton reported that sometimes people’s words sounded like normal English, but without any context or meaning, and at other times like unconventional noises that are not common to any human language. But everyone speaks passionately and personally, thinking they’re communicating what they mean, even though they were not. Apparently the fighting became pervasive enough that Mayor Mallard had to make a public address. Here’s a transcript of what she said.

“Desert Bluffs, please do not fight. Remember to take time to smile and relate to one another. If someone says something you do not understand or do not appreciate, simply cauliflower. Roomba starlight rice tank ship. Stallion the ballisters right on through, until balloons.” And then she repeated “until balloons” over and over, with complete conviction and passion. And eventually the fighting stopped, not because of the speech but because of sheer confusion and exhaustion.

As the fighting stopped, so did the construction. No one knew what anyone was saying, longtime friends could not find their words and so resorted to physical gestures. But even Jerry Kramer and his daughter Morgan, who communicate mostly through sign language, found that they could no longer comprehend any of the phrases.

More on this developing situation, but first a look at traffic. Near the dig site for the Mudstone Abyss, several hazy dark shadows, vaguely human-shaped, have begun to appear. They are drifting along city streets, which has caused nearly a dozen minor traffic.. uh.. a-ci-des. Ac-dicent. Acci..dents. There is a ten minute backup entering downtown along sci-fi novel. Al-along rhubarb. Ugh, I can’t oak tree, can’t sparrow modem. Spar-row mmodem. Sparrowmodem. That’s not right. I have to condensate. Ugh. Have to con-den-sate. Yellow refrigerator shelves.

I’m trying to say – crab grass to the petroleum!

[“She Left Without A Goodbye.” by Cerah https://soundcloud.com/cerahmusic]

Machine: First unheard message.

Charles: Kevin. Sorry to bother you, it’s Charles. I need you to get the word out that language doesn’t work right in Desert Bluffs. I haven’t found a single dictionary that expresses normal word structure, I’ve been recording and re-recording this message for the past hour and each time it comes out like alphabet soup. No syntax, no identifiable verbs, no words that even appear to fit together. But I did finally manage to find an old text you wrote about the souls of unpure, those whom the Smiling God cannot clean even upon devour. There’s a certain style of hat you described that can keep your thoughts and ideas pure. I-I drove over to your house, because I remember you had one just like this you told me you wore during sermons. Sorry for going through your stuff, but the hat seems to be working for now.

Anyway, based on my research, I think this dig is (loosing) those spirits back into the world and they’re causing… [whispers] There’s something at my door, Kevin. I-I need to go, OK? Call you back in well, I don’t know.

Machine: End of message.

Charles: [whispering] There’s a hazy dark shadow hovering about my front door, Kevin. It’s not knocking, it’s just hovering in front of my house. I can’t make out a face, I’m peering through a crack in the living room blinds to get a better look. Oh no, I think it saw me!

Machine: End of message.

Charles: OK, it’s gone I think. This giant yellow hat is really remarkable. Anyway, I wanted you to get the word out on your radio show about the dig and let your friend Lauren know as well. If we can fully (stop) this giant (pit), I think we can stem the return of these unpure souls, who I think are dismantling our language.

Also… I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope bringing Donny around didn’t scare you off. If it did, please just tell me now, OK, I won’t be hurt. That’s a lie. I would definitely be hurt if you stopped seeing me because I have a child, but I won’t be bitter. That’s really it. I won’t be bitter if you tell me now. Now that I think of it, that’s not true either. I’ll be less bitter, less hurt, less angry if you tell me now.

Or maybe you’re busy. I know the Mudstone Abyss has all your attention these days and what with communication failing us, I’m sure it’s hard to think about having dinner or even, I dunno, like a family date. You and me and Donny, maybe a trip to the amusement park or… We were thinking about adopting a cat, is there an animal shelter in Desert Bluffs? That could be a really fun day together.

Either day, when you have a chance, just let me know you got this. I don’t wanna stop seeing you, but I’d rather know sooner than aquifer. Aquifer. What? I mean platter.

Kevin, that shadow is back. He’s not at my window anymore, he’s inside graft huts. No I mean – grant first, grapple wigs grapple wigs, Kevin I – handlebar cereal, OK? Handlebar cereal.

Machine: End of new message.

Today’s proverb: Girl, did you fall from heaven? ‘Cause there’s a giant crater where you landed and radiation levels are spiking.

#welcome to night vale #welcome to desert bluffs #welcome to night vale transcirpts #episode 136 #the mudstone abyss part 2 #the mudstone abyss

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philiie · 6 years

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Interactive Introverts London highlights

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD PROCEED AT YOUR OWN PERIL

This is also the most extra shit like I spent hours writing everything up lol

Go check out @danfanciesphil post here of the Brighton show which inspired me to do this :))

- When they first came it was the coolest thing ever. They were standing on the podium thing and the screen at the back lifted to reveal them in a cloud of smoke and they were silhouettes until the spotlight shined on them. Holy shit it was the best thing ever it doesn't even seem real.

- They were quite close to their apartment as well so Phil said they were considering bringing their sofa and "sitting in our browsing position".

- Dan mentioned how Phil's old videos from 2008 were very different from now (lots of audience approval) and how they were kind of really creepy and weird and honesty it probably isn't a good thing (I disagree but sure whatever). Phil talked about 'snokoplasm' and how it was literally just him rubbing slime over himself shirtless pretending to be futuristic (lots of audience approval for that lol) but he doesn't make videos like that anymore because he wants to make things that are actually entertaining and things he WANTS to make.

- Montage of everything they aren't gonna do in the show just so our expectations are levelled.

- They went backstage to get a silver box (Dan literally Naruto ran for no apparent reason) from which they were acting out the things using props from it in the centre while a voice narrated. In between each one the lights went darker so you could only see their silhouettes as they grabbed props. It was all very pantomime like which was really cool and theatrical.

- The things included: 24 hour livestream of them doing domestic home things (recording of dan on the toilet and Phil munching on crunchy nut appeared on the screen lmao), Erotic roleplay (Phil was in a policeman hat and had a baton thing while dan was in handcuffs. The recording of dan saying please be gentle, I have sensitive skin played), Stripping on stage... they started acting like they were going to actually take their tops off and they actually ripped them off to reveal an exact copy of the top underneath except Phil was now in a half sleeved shirt instead of full sleeved (I now understand Louise's joke)

- Phil stumbled and almost tripped on the step when going into the centre and was like "I almost forgot there was a step there" and was walking really strangely into the middle like elongating his legs after every time he lifted them and Dan made fun of it being like who tf walks like that. "Does anyone ever feel like Phil is actually an alien learning how humans work?" Later on in the show Phil says something about removing his lizard face and Dan says THAT would explain the weird walking. He also imitates Phil going up into the centre and says "I'm doing a Phil walk" v v cute :))

- For the Dan vs Phil segment they talked about the electric shock machines and for each round the pointer moved up one level of electric shock. The first time it moved into the yellow area and Phil said "Finger in the yellow" which elicited a massive audience reaction and dan stopped and was like oh god and Phil was giggling in his 'oops shouldn't have said that' way, somehow he made that adorable.

- The first round was seeing how well they know each other and Dan made the comment saying "don't worry guys I'm Phil trash #1 and all"

- Phil's question was: What did Dan swap alcohol with in ISG10?

Phil answered green tea correctly but the electric shock sound effect came up anyways. Dan was like no you answered that correctly it should have been a ding but the ding didn't come up anyways (lol tech crew nice one)

- Dan expressed extreme discomfort with 'x rated lester' "in any interpretation"

- Dan's bad thing was 'spoilers' and he tried to say that it's better to not be surprised. (I'm pretty sure this is the bit where he said "otherwise I'd be like 'Phil... Phil I don't feel so good'" reaching his arm out to him (infinity war reference for those who don't know,,, I could have killed him in that moment can he not) "Too soon? Yeah probably too soon."

- Phil's good thing that he had to make bad "getting unlimited money" Dan found that hilarious. His way of making it bad was that it gives you too much power- he would strap two planes together and stand on top of and ride them which would probably make them explode.

- They used the Isle of Man pic of Dan for the Dan, Phil or a rat segment (you guys know the one where he's smiling super happy) that just made me feel very warm :)

- The picture for Dan was just a really pale cream colour and Dan made the joke that it might be translucent enough to be Phil's skin but he said no I bet it's a troll and guessed rat. Turns out Dan was right and it actually was Phil's skin lmao from the picture of Phil with the silver hair dye.

- When Dan got electrocuted he fully hit his shin on one of the benches and basically died on stage. He fully snorted and turned away in shame and pain and it was the most hilarious thing ever. "Who designed this stupid set" LMAO

- Phil asks us to clap on the count of 3 after which some people immediately clap and Dan's like omg no on the count of 3. But then people start clapping for the people that clapped "are you seriously clapping for the people that just clapped" and then basically everyone started clapping and oh my gosh it was the best moment ever I've never felt more collectively part of something in that moment it was so funny and Dan looked so done with us all. A great moment.

- Someone asked in the getting deep part that there's a guy she likes but all she does is makes vine references. Phil's response to that is if he doesn't appreciate your vine references he's not worth it. Dan: "there's your dating advice from Phil"

- Phil was cleaning in 'Dan's' room (dan says "like you've ever done a chore") Phil's indignantly says he vacuums doing the hand movement. Apparently he found 'something weird' under 'Dan's' bed so he brought out a silver box that was locked saying it was heavy and handed it to Dan. [yes I'm putting that all in quotation marks fight me]

- He wanted the audience to guess what they thought was inside the box and the things that people said were: A single piece of Phil's hair, A fursuit and a Dildo(ll) rip they kept emphasising DOLL it was too funny nice one whoever that was lmao

- Phil was asking the audience if anyone had a key to open the box and Nora (what a legend) threw some plastic keys onto the stage and Phil fully tried to unlock the box using them lmao what a cutie. When Dan came back with the actual key Phil was like someone had plastic keys and dan was like wtf it was too funny.

- Do you really know Dan and Phil? 1% of people said 'who are Dan and Phil?' Lol they wouldn't stop bringing that up. 47% (?) of people said they don't really know Dan and Phil and Dan was like wow Phil why are you so shady? (He said this twice in the show when addressing the idea that their personalities are different online)

- They did a pie chart to show fave video series which apparently they were really excited about seeing as they hyped that up for a solid 2 minutes,,, "90% of the budget of the show was for this pie chart"

- Dan got sacrificed attached to the wheel of death comes out yelling with no warning so everyone is just screaming because it was so unexpected so i couldn't actually hear anything he said but the basic gist of it was fuck you all lmao.

- When Phil tried hitting him with a slinky it was a couple inches away from "the danger zone" I.e. Dan's crotch. Phil repeats the phrase danger zone two more times after that lmao.

- Dan says "almost hit my balls" w o w.

- The last time is some massive intense bazooka that Phil started stroking and then dan was like "stop stroking it- especially with those gloves on".

- Phil hits him the last time with the bazooka literally almost at his crotch and Dan screams. They say how it's all our fault and that we should feel bad. Phil is like "I don't think they feel guilty" lol I mean he's not wrong

- At the end dan was like "Phil help unstrap me" clearly looking for Phil to unstrap him around the waist but Phil went for his feet instead lmao (Dan just wanted a reaction from us Phil lmao well done). Phil finally got the memo though and helped and then dan stumbled out being like okay get away from me don't touch me and Phil just giggled.

- The white protection suit lab coat thing got stuck on dans shoe so he was hopping around and Phil was like do you need a hand there and Dan said "no Phil I don't need your help to get me undressed" and everyone screamed and Dan was like okay okay shut up (idk if that was an intentional line or not I couldn't actually tell but... nice)

- Phil's diss track happened and if you're reading this you've probably seen a transcript of it already but damn hearing him say bitch live was the best thing ever lmao. Also when he said the line about not wanting to get demonetised he did the making it rain hand gesture (thanks anon) which was hilarious

- There was a point where Dan was like no Phil you can't swear on stage and Phil was like aw why not I wanted to say "what the (fuck)" mouthing it and that's more than I could have ever hoped for

- They did the song and it was v cute and got stuck in my head. When Phil got up and sat on the piano he was swaying one leg back and forth and it was adorable.

- They ended the show bowing and went back behind the black screen that they came out from and were waving the whole way through and Phil was bending down to wave as the screen was going down and it was v lovely :))

And then I died the end.

#phan #dan and phil #interactive introverts #ii spoilers #phandom #shut up sadiyah #100 #200 #300 #400 #500 #1k

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fansplaining · 6 years

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Transcript: Episode 73: Ship It

(episode | show notes)

[Intro music]

Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!

FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!

ELM: This is episode 73, "Ship It."

FK: It's "Ship It" and the people who have been following along may know that this is the title of Britta Lundin's new YA novel and we're going to have her on to talk about it.

ELM: Debut novel!

FK: Yes, debut novel! And Britta, if you are not familiar with her, is a writer on Riverdale, the CW show, and she also comes from fandom, specifically X-Files fandom, and then Supernatural, and then various other things. And she was on our show before, talking about Riverdale and being a TV writer, and now she's here to talk about her novel! Or will be here shortly, I should say.

ELM: I believe, since I had to link to it yesterday, it was Episode 43, it was last spring, spring of 2017, and it was about making that transition from fan to pro and still being a fan. And I actually wanted to follow up on that a little with her too, because I feel like especially watching her on Tumblr and the way she engages with the Riverdale fandom, is really interesting to me.

FK: I think so too. I think she's going to have a lot of really good insight into what that relationship is like, having been on both sides of it, which almost no one that we ever get to talk to has.

ELM: Even a lot of the people who are fan to creator, it's often not from the type of fandom that both you and I have spent time in, so maybe that's changing, but.

FK: OK, but before we get calling her though we should probably summarize Ship It at least a little bit, because I'm gonna guess we're going to get into it.

ELM: OK. So for the record Ship It came out, I believe for everyone listening this will be in the past, on May first and you should get a copy ASAP, I'm just gonna say that in advance, order it, purchase or get your library to get a copy.

FK: We are both super obsessed.

ELM: Love this book. Love it.

FK: Super super obsessed.

ELM: Love it. So. The basic premise: there are two alternating protagonists. One is Claire. She's sixteen, I believe. She lives in a very small town in Idaho. We learned about cool farm kids.

FK: An accurate depiction of the farm parts of the Pacific Northwest.

ELM: Yes, from which... from whence?... Britta hails. From which?

FK: From whence I think. I think it's whence.

ELM: From whence! [laughing] So Claire is a fangirl, she is a fanfic writer, not...it seems like a kind of a fanfic writer who stays out of the fray, she talks about how she really doesn't have a lot of fandom friends but she has a lot of followers who read her fic and she engages with them but she's not into ship wars or wank or whatever. But. She ships the two main male characters of this CW like show which clearly seems to be Supernatural to me, I don't know... I don't know! I haven't even seen Supernatural. It was as if...

FK: I mean, the show is called Demon Heart.

ELM: When we had one of our listeners write in to talk about her impressions of Harry Potter after reading Carry On, that's kind of how I feel about Supernatural with this book. I'm like, I got it.

FK: Yeah, you do get it.

ELM: And I've seen the fandom.

FK: It's pretty real.

ELM: So there's two main male characters and that's her ship and she thinks that it should be canon.

FK: Yeah, for real.

ELM: She's trying to sort out her complicated feelings about the ship and she's very reticent at first and over the course of the novel also trying to sort out her sexuality and that's one of the subplots I would describe, because the main plot is about the show and the ship. And the other protagonist is one of the actors in the ship, Forest, who is just a pure dumb boy I would say.

FK: It's like his first kinda big break...

ELM: I like how much affection we have for him. [laughing] He had one Honda commercial once and that was great but he really hasn't had a lot of success, he's like 23, I just...he's trying, but he doesn't get it. He really doesn't get it. So I think I can set up the basic plot, she goes to a convention and he's there, he doesn't even realize all the fans are female. He assumes that because this is a show about two dudes hunting demons who are brothers to the end, he's only understood fans as fan boys.

FK: He's super clueless, like clueless to the nth degree.

ELM: He doesn't understand shipping.

FK: Meanwhile by the way his costar is totally clueful [ELM laughs] having been previously on a fan favorite show and is super chill about it and is like "yeah it's awesome!" Just seems to be slightly stoned and really happy with his life all the time.

ELM: He's our favorite right? He's my favorite.

FK: I'm not sure he's actually stoned in canon, but he seems like the kind of person...

ELM: He'd be happy to, you know. Yeah. He's just very chill. He's genuinely pure, it's not like Forest's pureness, which comes from his dumb ignorance.

FK: But Rico's pureness is real.

ELM: It's his actual personality [laughs] So anyway, at this convention, I feel fine spoiling this because it's kind of a setup for the rest of the book, Claire...she goes to ask a question I believe, about the ship, and they give her a nonanswer and then she just is like "BULLSHIT." And [laughing] shouts at them in the middle of the panel, causes a huge stir!

FK: It goes viral! And so then the very young social media person is like "we have to get on this."

ELM: No it's also the head of PR who's like very classic...

FK: You're right you're right you're right.

ELM: It's a classic Machiavellian shark PR woman who I love also.

FK: And then her henchwoman who is the also fairly pure social media person.

ELM: So the social team or the marketing team decide, well, keep your enemies closer, and set up her to win a contest where she gets to accompany them for the rest of the convention tour. And thus begins a fraught relationship between her and all the people making this show, where she wants the show to canonize her ship, and the dumb man showrunner is just like "I know exactly what you're talking about and also fuck you."

FK: Yeah but she is very much not taking fuck you for an answer. She's like ON A MISSION to convince them.

ELM: It's really something! One thing I love about her too is simultaneously with these adults she's kind of... slightly unhinged in her boldness with them, which I love, and then in her personal life where she's trying to sort out her sexuality and she's got a potential love interest she's just confused. And I appreciated that part about the book too because it let her sit in that ambivalence and not really have any of the answers, and that was fine. You get to decide how you feel about that in your own time. But with the girl herself she makes some bad decisions I would say.

FK: But it is a very charming YA romance I would say.

ELM: Do you think that summarizes it? I feel like that sets it up well. Basically you've got fans and you've got creators and they're trying to understand each other. They're actually...some of them are not trying to understand each other. That's part of the thing. It's about this transition into good faith attempts to understand each other I would say.

FK: I would agree. OK. I think that sets it up, so should we call Britta?

ELM: Yeah, let's call her!

[Interstitial music]

FK: Alright, it's time to welcome Britta onto the podcast. Welcome Britta!

Britta Lundin: Helloooooo it's so good to be back!

ELM: Yeah, welcome back to the podcast!

FK: It's true! You are a repeat guest.

ELM: How does it feel to be back?

BL: Like one of the highest honors probably.

ELM: Wow.

BL: In the fan podcast universe.

ELM: [laughing] You just lowered the stakes.

FK: [laughing] The bar just went [downward noise]

BL: It's an important community and this is a high honor for that community.

ELM: Alright, all right.

FK: Now that we've been slightly negged...

ELM: Negging works though, right?

FK: Totally works for me!

BL: I have a feeling we're gonna have a good hour long conversation now because of that neg.

ELM: That's right. Just keep wearing us down subtly the whole time.

FK: Oh my God. [all laughing]

ELM: All right, obviously we're gonna mostly talk about the book, which spoiler, we're both obsessed with. We just wanted to get that out of the way.

FK: Which by the way if you want a spoiler free conversation about the book I think probably you should read it before listening to this? I don't know, it's hard to say. What do you think we should do? We'll say spoilers if we're gonna spoil something, right?

BL: I think that we can do the sort of spoiler where we're lightly spoiling things and talking in vaguenesses without going deep on the ending or something like that. Is that OK?

FK: Yeah I think it's OK! We'll try, we'll see what happens.

ELM: OK. So we're gonna talk about the book at length but first, how's your year been?

BL: [laughs] Personally, career-wise it's been great. I feel like you have to clarify that in this day and age.

ELM: Wait, did you see the...it wasn't a gifset, it was stills that were going around in late December and it was from...it might have been Big Fat Quiz of the Year, some round up British quiz show, and Jimmy Carr was saying to David Mitchell "how was your year," and he said something like "personally it's been adequate, but internationally it's a total disaster" or something. It's delivered in perfect David Mitchell, it's, you know. That felt really right for me as well.

BL: I relate to that, yeah. It's been good. The last time we talked I was in the middle of writing Season 1 of Riverdale, and I was writing the first draft of the book, and now we are talking again and we've finished writing Season 2 of Riverdale, the book comes out next week. [FK yelps]

FK: It'll be this week!

BL: It'll be this week! It comes out May 1, so whatever that is in your personal timeline. [all laugh]

ELM: Possibly in the past.

FK: Probably in the past for many listeners.

BL: Probably already out for you. So tell me how that is! Because to me that's still weird and bizarre. And then we're gonna start writing Season 3 of Riverdale in just a couple more weeks, so everything is still truckin' along despite the wildfire disaster that is our government!

ELM: Yes. You're not responsible for that, don't worry.

BL: Great.

ELM: One thing I would love to know, and we got a lot of feedback, people loved your episode, I think it's one of the all time faves, not to put too much pressure on you for this one.

BL: Not at all.

FK: Pressure's totally on you it's fine.

ELM: Kind of. I think that a lot of people really appreciated, and I think we knew this going in, but you had this really unique position as a genuine true person who straddles the fan-creator interaction and I'm wondering how that looks to you a year on. I have to imagine that's evolved as you've gotten deeper into not just writing this book but as Riverdale, cause you had kind of just started and now it's really something that's much more solid.

BL: Yeah, I feel like when we spoke last I don't remember exactly when it was but we had been writing for awhile and I think that we hadn't started airing yet, or we had just started airing, and so our fan base was growing but small, and now our fan base is firmly entrenched. There is a fandom. The top ships are what they are, and they're every week they're on Fandometrics on Tumblr and you can see them there.

ELM: Multiple ships from Riverdale are on that list, right?

FK: It's funny though, in retrospect, because when we spoke to you last you were like "holy shit, my DMs are blowing up and everything's happening!" and it seemed like it was really overwhelming then.

BL: It was!

FK: You were super excited! And yet it only grew.

BL: It only grew from there and now...for awhile it was really hard to figure out how I was gonna deal with it because my instinct was to respond to everybody and give everyone a thoughtful answer about why we did it the way we did it and I can understand where you're coming from, and every time I got a new DM I would have to restrain myself and now my go-to is that I don't respond to anything unless it's a screenwriting question or a career question or a personal question. I don't respond to anything that starts with a "will," like "will this happen on Riverdale," "will my ship do this," "will Betty do this," nothing like that.

ELM: You do on Tumblr from time to time, you do a very "LOL I'm not gonna tell you" kind of response. They're like "will this happen?" and you're like "you think?"

BL: "You think I'm gonna tell you that?"

ELM: "I'm not gonna fall for this one!" Very clearly a policy. And I find them hilarious every time, I don't know how the askers feel but I think that's a fine response. [laughing]

BL: I don't know how the askers feel either. The thing I have to keep reminding myself is you know nothing about the person on the other side of this question. They could be a total...they could be an adult like you, who's also a fan, or they could be 13 years old and living in Slovakia. You literally have no idea. So it's hard to remember that when I'm about to answer in a funny or condescending or snarky way. You don't know how this person's gonna take that answer!

But mostly I'm just very conscious of the fact that I don't want something I say to be considered...if somebody's like, "what did it mean when Betty told Jughead this?" and I'm like "Oh, here's what we meant when we wrote that, here's what we discussed in the writer's room when we wrote that line," that might be a fun interesting anecdote for one viewer, but for another viewer it might mean "OK, so it's canon that Betty said this line to Jughead because XYZ." And suddenly it's canon because I answered a Tumblr DM. Or is it canon? It's like...a little asterisk next to canon that's like "this was what was on the screen but then Britta elaborated this on her Tumblr and then we believe this..." so it's just extrapolating in this way where I don't, this is why I don't answer those questions. I want fandom to decide all that stuff for themselves and just let the show stand on its own and not tell them what to think about what's on the show, tell them what we were thinking when we created it. The show is the show and from there it's yours to decide what to do with it.

FK: I imagine that must be even harder because you've also got the actors in the mix. They may not read the same scene in the same way, and they may not have played it that way or thought they were playing it that way, right? But then...

BL: And they have to do a lot more interviews and media than I do! So they're constantly on a camera and people thrusting a microphone in their face asking them "what did you think about this scene?" and sometimes they say stuff like "I thought the scene meant this" and it's like, OK, well, that's not what I thought the scene meant, but now you have that actor's interpretation as part of the conversation about that scene.

ELM: I feel like despite all that, fans are always...I feel like there's a bit of a hierarchy, obviously people put a lot of stock in what actors say, but I feel like most fans acknowledge that the writers are the...if you have to put a hierarchy of who decides what's canon, I think that the writers are gonna be on top. I don't know, maybe that's not true. Maybe there are a lot of fans out there who are like "what the actor thinks is..." But I just feel like you see more often people being like "that's what the actor," if they don't like what the actor's saying, "they're just this dumb actor, the writers are the ones that are creating the work."

BL: I think it totally depends on if they agree with the actor or not! [all laughing]

FK: The joy of having something that's done by so many people as a group is that you can always find someone who probably agrees a little bit more with your view of this.

ELM: I kinda want to transition into the book but it's sort of in a transition question way!

FK: I feel like this is very relevant to the book, right?

ELM: One of the huge things I was wondering, not necessarily thematically but relevant to me asking how your year has been, is I'm wondering if you could speak in any way to how this book has changed as you have spent more time in your current job. If it has at all.

BL: I'll answer it in a way that you didn't mean the question, and then I'll answer it in a way that you did mean the question.

ELM: Sure! The question is open to your interpretation.

FK: Answer the question you wanted to be asked, not the question you actually were asked.

BL: The first way it's changed is that over the last two years, since I sold the book to now when it's being published, I've been in the writer's room for the breaking and writing of 13 episodes Season 1 and 22 episodes Season 2, so that's 35 episodes of television. And during that process, I have learned so much about how to break a story and how to write conflict and drama and create characters that are memorable that I think I as a writer am fundamentally a better writer now than I was two years ago. I could feel it happening over Season 1. Oh my God, this is more writing in a very short period of time than I've done in my life, even when I was in film school. It's just a very intense process.

So when I look at the book, I can look at the beginning of the book and the end of the book and I feel like I can see myself become a better writer by the time I get to the end of the book in this way that...it's probably one of those things that nobody else notices, but I can feel myself growing more confident and secure in my writing by the end. So that's one way that being in the Riverdale writer's room has changed it.

But I think you're asking about how has being a TV writer helped me understand this story about TV writing. Which is...I talked to a lot of people when I was writing this book. PR people, actors, people who worked in marketing, screenwriters, fans...lots and lots of fans...to make sure that I was getting things right about the experience. And not right like in a technical way. Some of the details are fudged here and there about how this would actually happen. But right in an emotional way. So then when I got into the Riverdale room, I saw a lot of stuff happening firsthand that I didn't have to ask people about anymore. I was seeing it for myself.

Some of the stories in the book are literally pulled from conversations I've had with friends. There's a moment where, for example, Forest is about to go on stage at this Comic-Con and someone's like "your shirt's not nerdy enough," they make him take it off and they have a bag of other shirts and they hand him a nerdier shirt, "this will go over better with this crowd." That's a story I got directly from a friend who was working with an actor who saw this happen backstage at Comic-Con. And so that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about. That's not something from Riverdale by the way. [ELM laughing] It was somebody else.

FK: I did really like that there was that little character moment where at first he has to wear a shirt that's nothing like him and then later on he gets to wear the shirt that's of the thing he's actually a fan of! I was like oh Britta you did that and it was so charming!

BL: Oh good I'm glad! Yeah, everyone's a fan of something. Even people who don't think they're fans are totally fans they just don't realize it yet.

ELM: I cannot believe your reference to the Buffalo Bills. [all laughing]

BL: I'm so happy I reached you!

ELM: I mean, I don't think you understand...

BL: Knives to the heart.

ELM: As a Buffalo Bills fan...the line was, what was it? Why is fanfic more embarrassing than liking the Buffalo Bills or Bruce Springsteen or a couple of other items and my response to that is nothing is more embarrassing than liking the Buffalo Bills. It's fine. Look, we went to the playoffs this year, after the longest drought in the history of professional sports in America.

BL: That's pretty embarrassing. I can't believe that you're admitting this on a public podcast.

ELM: I mean, what are you gonna do? No. More embarrassing is when we went to the Super Bowl four years in a row and we lost every time. [FK laughing at her] That was formative for me as a young person. But. Enough about me and my sad, sad fandom. I'm wondering about you personally. We talked a lot, and I want to talk more, about how you feel about all the themes in this book about the idea of what belongs...what's canon? What's fanon? What is interpretation? Queerbaiting, and shipping, and all of these big themes that I think you handled in a really nuanced way. There's a diversity of opinions throughout the book, on the fan and creator sides. But I'm wondering if your perspectives on all this stuff have changed now that you're in a writer's room in a more permanent way... Permanent, I don't know.

BL: Permanent, wow!

ELM: You know what I mean?

FK: More established.

ELM: Yeah, more established. You could quit your job and become a nudist sculptor.

BL: I'm not counting it out, it could happen.

ELM: She was also a great character in the book. I love that mother so much. [laughing]

BL: I think...You know, one of the biggest things I learned about how TV gets made when I started working on Riverdale is it's just incredibly messy. So as a fan, when you're watching, every decision that seems intentional and obvious and clear cut...it could have been...or it could have been the result of weird scheduling problems or weird money budgeting problems, like budgeting plays a huge role in what creative decisions do or don't get made on TV. Or it could be because an actor's kid got sick and they stayed home from work that day to take care of their kid so you're looking at a scene as a fan and you're like "why is one half of my OTP not in this scene, clearly the writers hate my OTP," and it's like no, actually, his kid was puking. That's a made up reason, Cole Sprouse does not have a child to my knowledge. [all laughing]

FK: TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

BL: To my knowledge.

FK: This is how rumors get started, Britta!

ELM: The example in the book, what seemed like a really shippy moment for the fans, and the actor Forest was grateful because the other actor Rico gave him a coat cause he was cold. He was just feeling the bonds of friendship.

BL: And also I love line where he's like, if I can quote my own work to you to say how much I love it.

ELM: Yes. You wrote it and you should quote it.

FK: You can definitely do that.

BL: Where she's like "what are you feeling in that moment, it looks like you're feeling love," and he's like "I don't know it was a split second captured on camera 6 months ago!" And it's true that he was just spending a night in the woods. His life has been a long and rich tapestry and he's had many feelings over the course of it [all laugh] but this one was captured on camera and pulled out and put on screen and someone giffed it and now you can watch it over and over again in slow motion, this one micromoment of this guy's life, over and over again, dissect it and figure out what it means.

That's part of the fun of fandom but it's also really freaky to the guy who's like "I don't know what I was feeling! That was a long time ago, and it was so fast, I have no idea!" That dynamic.

FK: I really appreciated you bringing the RPF aspects of this into it because I felt like that was...that's where it gets even...there's this moment, you're in one level, and then it's like "We have to go deeper!" Here we are and now we're in RPF land and oh, shit, cause then it's not just a moment...at least he knew that there was a camera on him in that moment. There was something intentional about that, or at least he was aware that it was going to be shown to people, whereas I think if you're on a convention stage you know on some level that it's gonna be shown to people but it's not the same thing. Or whatever, someone's greeting a fan and then those expressions get obsessively [laughing] picked apart.

BL: Totally. I actually had a lot of conversations with my editor about RPF for this, which was great. My editor's so great and so smart about writing and didn't know much about fandom at all, which was actually really good, to have fresh eyes on this. Does she understand what's happening even though she didn't know what shipping was when she started this project?

And one of the things she wondered was, during the course of the story Claire crosses the line and writes some RPF that's too personal. That uses personal information that Forest told her which he didn't think she would then blast out to all of fandom. So that's something, an instance where she crosses the line and does something she shouldn't have, overreaches. An invasion of privacy. So at the end of the book she apologizes for that. This is one of those light spoilers we talked about, I think it's OK.

ELM: I think it's alright.

BL: My editor was like, should she apologize...basically she was like, should she apologize for writing RPF at all? And I was like, no. This is something I want to be really clear about. Because she writes RPF earlier in the book and I don't think that's as big of a deal, because it's RPF of these two guys' public personas, of yes, they're the actors, but it's about who they're putting forward in the world, as opposed to RPF of their true selves using private information that they don't intend for the broader audience to know.

So I had to write her an email of "here's why one RPF is OK and the other RPF is crossing the line," and she was like, OK, well, you seem to be very clear on this topic so I'm gonna trust you on this. I was like, no, yeah, I've been following the discourse and this is where I've decided I land. [all laugh]

ELM: You know, the first RPF scene totally faked me out?

BL: Good, good!

ELM: That was the intent, I'm assuming.

FK: It was going to fake you out, also because one of the things Elizabeth had asked me was...

ELM: Before I read the book...

FK: She was like, is this going there? Is this book...

ELM: I was like "that seems like too many."

FK: Too many ships. Too many.

ELM: Too many things to conquer. But I stopped paying attention to the headers and then I didn't even notice that that one didn't, you know, the chapter headers about who the narrator was. I cackled out loud when I realized what was going on and my cat did a double take. Good cat.

BL: So what Elizabeth is talking about if you don't know is the book is told in two perspectives, one from Claire who's the fanfic writer, and one from Forest, who's the actor in the ship, one half of the OTP. But then interspersed throughout Claire writes fanfic, and much like Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl there will be a short chapter of fanfiction in there. And there's one that's a bit of a fake out. Which I'm glad, because I was worried as soon as we added those chapter headers that it wouldn't fake anyone out, so I'm glad it did.

The reason that's there is that I wanted people who have never shipped anything in their lives to read that and it ends abruptly right before they go into the kiss and I wanted their little hearts to go, [gasp] "but I wanted them to kiss!" [all laugh] That's shipping! Right? They have it yanked away from them right before they get the moment that they were waiting for. And if anybody who never has read gay fanfiction in their lives reads that and suddenly is like "OH! But I wish it had kept going!" It's like OK, then you're in it. That's what I need from you.

ELM: I also think that when, what was it, when I sent you that message saying "I can't believe you're getting me to read about Destiel by proxy," and I'm like, still slightly resentful of you for this...but I will say...

FK: It's such a rich vein to mine!

ELM: So I've never seen Supernatural and Flourish, you're different than me on this, I don't really get...it's hard for me to read fic for something I'm not in the fandom of, even old fandoms that I'm not currently in, right? A lot of people really vary on this. I know Flourish is often up for a good story regardless of her true emotional connection. So the fic that's the SmokeHeart fic, I was like OK, whatever. They were well written, I'm not saying they were bad chapters or whatever, but I didn't feel any emotional investment. But the RPF section, because I was with those characters, I felt emotional investment in that, which I found very funny, cause I was like... cause I didn't actually have context for the fictional show. I understand her feelings for it, but I'm not a fan of Demon Heart.

FK: I will say that as someone who has watched Supernatural, all the SmokeHeart bits...

ELM: I will not be a fan of the...

FK: I think a little bit like in Rainbow Rowell if you were into Harry Potter and it's like oh, you're a parody! Oh, oh, this is a parody of everything! It's an accurate parody! Wearing Carhartt things and being men and having long staring into each other's eyes talks and oh my God I can't. Yeah. It was very pointed.

BL: Well I'm glad!

ELM: Look, when I read Fangirl too, if I hadn't been a Harry/Draco shipper back in the day I'm not sure that...those scenes instantly, boom, the exact, and they were so Harry/Draco fanfictiony. Same with Carry On. It's not anything to do with, I mean, it's not disconnected from the original Harry Potter but it's so much about that kind of fanfiction, so I believe I understand what it is to be connected to Dess-tiel. Dee-stiel?

BL: You can just say Dean/Cas if you want.

ELM: Wow, you're gonna let me do the old school one?

BL: Yeah, yeah! I'm all about that. I never really liked Destiel as the name anyway. But when I was writing Demon Heart, I had to create the fake TV show within the book, and have it be shippable enough that it was undeniable that Claire would ship it. And so yeah, there's heavy dashes of Supernatural in Demon Heart, but there's also a splash of Teen Wolf in there and a little bit of Buffy in there.

FK: Oh yeah, it's not a direct...an exact. But it's enough. It's definitely a CW show. If someone, if I read that pilot I'm like "oh, this pilot is definitely gonna be picked up on the CW cause that's where it belongs!"

ELM: Don't forget the part where they say there's no one else to ship them with because they killed off all the women.

FK: It's true! [all laughing]

ELM: That was extraordinarily to the point. On point. Yeah. So.

BL: That was a subtweet.

FK: Also even the idea that people are shipping these two characters and we don't want them to ship them so we'd better introduce someone else. Please! Let's stop everybody from wanting Dean and Sam to get together cause that's iffy!!!! [all laughing] Yes, yes, small people who were not there in Supernatural fandom prior to Destiel existing, this was the big drama and the discussion around why Castiel had to show up. Cause he's not a brother and so it's OK.

ELM: Are people who were not watching Supernatural 12 years ago small people? [all laughing] C'mon, as we know the young people think of them as dads.

BL: Yeah. They do.

FK: Yeah.

ELM: Adopted by Dean and Sam.

FK: Yeah, it's true. I really never felt more old than the moment that I realized that that had turned that corner.

ELM: Sorry, that's the way it is.

FK: The moment where the "dad" is not a joking "dad" it's an actual "you are a dad."

BL: One day all your faves will be dads.

FK: I KNOW. I know. It's frightening.

ELM: Didn't I tell you that all my faves have always been dads? I was talking about this with Flourish. My first fandom online was Buffy, and literally the only character I cared about was Giles. Literally only. Absolutely no one else.

FK: And before that...

ELM: I wrote fic JUST about Giles.

FK: Before that you were into Sweet Valley High and what did you write about Sweet Valley High?

ELM: Yeah I traumatized my friend the other day who thought we were gonna bond over our love of some random female character in Sweet Valley High and I had to inform her that my Sweet Valley High fandom when I was 12, did you read Sweet Valley High?

BL: I did not, I was too gay for that.

ELM: Yeah. So I was really into, there's the twins, and the superficial twin, her best friend is this obnoxious rich girl and she has an emotionally absent father and I wrote massive sprawling fanfiction about him and his company and his corporate world.

BL: Wait, I've heard this. Is he involved in plastics?

ELM: Silicon chips actually. Did we talk about this in the last one too?! [laughing]

BL: I think we did! I think we did, this sounds familiar.

ELM: I swear I don't talk about this in every episode. You bring it out in me! My obsession, and I checked out every book in the middle school library on self made men.

BL: Wow.

ELM: And told everybody I wanted to be a ruthless businesswoman. [laughter] Giving you a little insight into my sixth grade self.

FK: But this is a really good question actually...a really good question, there's no question there.

ELM: Just dads.

FK: This is something interesting to me because you're talking about checking out the books in the middle school library and one of the things I thought was interesting in Ship It was that the two major fan characters have different attitudes towards being a fan. One of them is like...

ELM: Yeah, I wanna dig into that!

FK: One of them is like "I can't tell my friends that I am into Demon Heart because it's too nerdy and I just can't," and the other one is like "yeah everyone knows it and you may think that means I'm confident but in actuality I just have no friends so I therefore don't care because who could judge me! Who can even judge me." And I thought that that was really interesting because I was trying to cast my mind back to being in high school and feeling whether people were judging me or not and it just seemed like such a foreign land to me now. I was like "oh, I can't even remember what that was like!"

ELM: You were weird. You're a terrible example, Flourish.

BL: Yeah Flourish that's true.

FK: I'm not using myself as an example, I'm just trying to put my...

ELM: You are literally the worst example.

FK: I just can't even remember what, it's not just what I thought about it but what other people thought about it. I was interested to know...

ELM: Britta, what did you think about it?

FK: Yeah.

ELM: You seem like a less terrible example.

BL: First of all I think you need to do an episode where you bring back middle school classmates of Flourish's and ask them what they thought of Flourish.

FK: Oh my God.

ELM: That is an extraordinary idea. Let's do it with multiple ages.

FK: AGH.

ELM: Someone who went to college with Flourish also, just like you, and hear some stuff.

BL: Flourish is dying because it's such a good idea [as Flourish wails]

ELM: This is your life, embarrassment.

BL: I know...you know, I struggled with that a little bit because I don't know what it's like for kids these days cause I went to middle school and high school a decade ago. But I know what it was like when I was in seventh grade and I discovered the X-files and I went HARD on the X-files immediately. I joined the fan club and I got some swag and I had a T-shirt that I loved, that I was...

ELM: Did you wear that to school?

BL: I wore it to school under an oversized plaid shirt that would cover it. But I knew it was there, and so...I had a picture of Mulder and Scully that I'd pulled out of a VHS tape and I kept it in my bag and when I would get stressed out or when things would get really hard or something I would pull it out and look at it. And it would calm me down.

ELM: This is so pure.

BL: I know! I had friends who liked the X-files, but it was a different level. They just liked watching the X-files, but for me the X-files was something much more. There was an emotional connection there that went way deeper, and it was just clear from a young age that I was feeling things harder than my classmates felt things. So from that it was clear that it was not something that I should be public about or talk too much about and certainly being on X-files fan forums and debating fan theories nad reading fanfiction was definitely not something I ever talked about.

So having this secret online persona that Tess has, and Tess is the love interest of Claire in the book, who is secret about her fandom, that was something I definitely relate to. At a certain point I had to come out as a fan and that's kind of a bad terminology because it's not the same as coming out as gay but it might feel the same for some people a little bit at times. And I came out as gay before I came out as a fan [laughs] but as a fan once I started, it was really when I started writing Ship It and talking about it that I would talk to other people and I'd be like "oh I'm writing this," at the time it was a screenplay, "I'm writing this screenplay about gay fanfiction" and they would be like "Oh, my God! You read gay fanfiction too!" People were coming out of the woodwork to tell me about their weird Social Network OTP or whatever that they loved.

So that's when I was like, oh, there's a lot of other people who kept this part of their life secret as well. That's something I wanna talk about, because there's a line in the book where someone says "you should never be ashamed to love the things that you love," and it's true. It's something Tess has to learn, not to be ashamed of loving this weird genre show that's on a small network, and it's something that Claire has to learn when she's coming to terms with her sexuality, not to feel ashamed of being queer.

ELM: I'm wondering if it was conscious. Cause it is tricky when you think about actual teens right now. While I don't think every teen in fandom is running around putting it as their yearbook quote or whatever, I do think teens these days are inherently...a lot of them do have a different relationship to it and fandom spaces are really different. You may have a fandom Twitter but you might not. Or you might not draw those distinctions, or...and so I felt like the way that you sidestepped that, whether that was intentional or not, by having Tess be friends with popular girls, actually was a great way to kind of get around that because yeah. It's not...what are the odds that this cool girl in her cool girl clique is also gonna be able to actually talk about this in any way? Because those stigmas obviously, are you gonna be the head cheerleader and a top fanfiction writer? Not that they're cheerleaders, but you know what I mean.

BL: Right. They were on the dance team actually.

ELM: Oh, OK, yeah, alright.

BL: One of the things I think is maybe different about a lot of the more mainstream fans is, for example, I'm on Twitter and Tumblr and all over the place followed by a bunch of Riverdale fans. And there are so many, for example, Bughead fan accounts. And their username will be something like Bughead but with three A's or something like that. And that, I think, feels slightly more mainstream, but Bughead is a canon het ship. And I think maybe there's a difference between shipping something like that, which is validated and endorsed by the show and every time you watch the show you feel like your viewpoint is valid, and you feel like this is what you're supposed to be feeling when you watch the show, as opposed to shipping a non-canon slash ship that may never go canon, that every time you watch the show makes you feel like you might be seeing things, you might be delusional, you might be hysterical, all those things.

ELM: Watching it in opposition to the text, yeah.

BL: So I feel like you look at Tess's friends, and I was trying to be careful with how I portrayed them cause I didn't want them to be evil popular girls.

ELM: I didn't mean to draw them that way.

BL: No, no, I'm glad you brought it up, because it was something that I thought a lot about because I think there's that stereotype can be rooted in misogyny, so I wanted to be careful about portraying them as the kind of girls who maybe wouldn't be open to this kind of fandom, who might be open to a Bughead fandom for example. But also, you can understand why Tess is keeping this part of her life secret and is just like, you know what, maybe it's safer not to talk about this part of my life with my friends. They don't have to know everything about me. Some stuff can just be secret on the internet.

ELM: Tess and Claire also have opposing viewpoints about canon versus fanon.

FK: Which it was such a relief, by the way, to see this in a book that someone was writing about fandom, because I feel like most books about this...I don't know, it's not that they don't address it but it seems like it's never a central thing and this was very clearly a central part of this book. I was like PHEW. Cause this is one of the biggest conversations!

ELM: I'm going to press this on everyone I know who has anything to do with this in real life, FYI. I'm gonna hand sell it to anyone who asks me any question ever about fan-creator interaction.

BL: OK great.

ELM: Just FYI.

BL: Great! And I think if it could just be required reading for any up and coming actor who gets cast in a sure to be fandom favorite...

FK: I like that you're like "Read my book, buddy, read my book."

BL: That would be great.

FK: Are you gonna personally gift it to every actor on Riverdale? [laughs]

BL: I think that would go poorly for me. [all laugh]

FK: I'm sure it would but I just had the vision of it. [all laughing]

BL: Oh oh ok. Canon.

ELM: Fanon and canon. Obviously I'm a little curious to know...cause actually I don't know where you stand on this. And again, wondering if your feelings have shifted over time as you started to see the other side of things. If you have opinions about this. My feelings vary.

BL: OK. So let's dive into it. One of the central questions of the book is Claire wants her slash ship to go canon for two reasons, one she looks at the show and she thinks well, obviously they're in love. Clearly. Any person who watches this would see that. So just do it, ya dummies! What's so hard about that? So first of all she ships and she wants her ship to go canon, that's an actual reason you can understand.

And the second reason is this social justice reason which is she wants to see more queer people on TV. And I think those two things get conflated a lot and they're two separate ideas. And so I think that's important.

So in the book I try to pick them apart a little bit, which is...with the first reason, you have people like Tess who question why is it important that your ship go canon? Your ship. You can read the fanfic of it and the fanfic, let's be real, is frequently better than whatever the source material is in the first place. And you can read a million different versions of it in a million different ways and you can satisfy any whim you might have through fanfiction. So why is it important that the showrunner, or the writer, or the screenwriter, make it go canon when you can just have it be canon in your heart? So there's that argument, which I understand and I believe a lot, and there are a lot of things that are canon in my heart that aren't canon in reality, and a lot of things that are canon in reality...

FK: [laughing] that are not canon in my heart! I'm looking at you, X-files. Right now. I'm personally staring you in the eye.

BL: Yup, yup. Yup. Yuuuuuuuuuup. OK. So that was something I wanted to talk about. And another thing is the social justice thing, which I do think there is a strong leg to stand on when you want more queer characters in a world in which most of the media we consume is based on big franchises, or is based on something else. It's great to have original queer characters coming out into the world...not coming out, but entering the world. But another really important way to get queer characters in our media is to take characters that already exist that people previously assumed were straight and turn them queer and that goes for Captain America and it goes for Elsa and it goes for Dean Winchester and Sherlock Holmes and it goes for all of them because if you don't do that then all the burden is on up and coming writers to create brand new queer characters that are not necessarily gonna have all of the weight and importance that these characters that already have huge franchises behind them have.

So I feel like there's something to be said for that. Where you get into trouble is when you start to assume the only way to have queer representation is if MY ship goes canon. It's not about you and it's not about your ship. It can be important for these ships to go canon, that can be really great, and it can help improve our media landscape, but I think you have to pick apart your own personal feelings about your ship with the desire to have more queer characters on TV. Cause if ten new queer characters are introduced, but your ship didn't go canon, that's still a win. That's still a good thing.

ELM: I was very impressed with how subtly you picked that one apart. Because this is obviously a theme we talk a lot about, our listeners think a lot about because we talk about it constantly so.

FK: All the time.

ELM: Discussing shipping does not equal activism. And I thought it was really masterfully done the way there were a number of angles you came at it. Some of it was exposing a bit of the hypocrisy of it, in terms of well, you care so much about these two, these men in these bodies, that kind of thing. Talking about lack of other representation. I don't know, even the...you're skirting around femslash stuff too, which I thought was really interesting and I'm actually wondering if you have, and maybe this is too thorny to go into right now.

BL: No no we can talk about femslash.

ELM: Even a suggestion of this disconnect between a queer woman, possibly exclusively a lesbian, she hasn't...well, is it a spoiler to say she doesn't know?

BL: That's fine! That's her big question in the book, how is she gonna identify by the end?

ELM: Right. All the references to femslash were very interesting to me, some of them in the sense of...I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say that line at the end Caty has where she says, when she started reading femslash things kinda came into focus for her. I'm wondering if you could...Caty being a queer woman. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little about that and if you had your own personal feelings about that.

BL: Yeah, I mean, I think Claire is someone who ships a slash ship, and over the course of the book confronts her own sexuality and tries to figure out how she identifies. She meets Tess, she starts to feel feelings for Tess, but she doesn't know does that make me queer, am I just...is this just a phase, is it a one off thing if I come out because I like this one girl what if I never meet another girl who I like again and then I have to un-come-out in the future...

FK: I felt that so hard! [laughing] I was like THIS IS SUCH AN ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW YOU IDENTIFY.

BL: Yeah! When you're young, you haven't had that many experiences to try to make a straight line out of them, to understand what is my sexuality. And also sexuality is so squishy and hard to put a label on already. Claire's struggling with all of that. And then I think she's reading a lot of slash fic and I think this is something I've seen a lot is that women read slash fic...reading femslash is a little too on the nose, or close to home. You know what I mean? Maybe you're having questioning feelings, you can read slash and there's a level of removal there where you can relate to that and maybe explore those queer feelings without having to actually be thinking about yourself and your own body and you with another woman, cause that might be really scary or too much to even think about.

So I think that's kind of what Claire's doing and along the way she has these moments where someone's like "have you thought about femslash?" There's a moment where she's having her first makeout with Tess where she gets to a certain point and she doesn't actually know what to do after that, and the thought comes unbidden to her mind, "maybe if I read more femslash I would know what to do right now!" [all laughing]

ELM: I laughed out loud at that part. And thinking about her googling male/male sex in the beginning, too. She's just like, "I don't know." Also yesterday Flourish and I saw the Cursed Child, which we don't need to go into right now, but there was a lot of teen foolishness.

FK: Oh my God there was so much teen foolishness!

ELM: We were watching each other because it was just so...and the kissing scene in this book also made me feel like TEENS! She's so [all laughing] brutally awkward it's so good.

FK: Every brutally awkward teen interaction...I found the whole book was actually very subtle in a great way. It wasn't just the things about teen awkwardness or the ways people were talking. It was also the big stuff. Like for instance I kept laughing about how Forest's entire career dream is to be in a fucking video game movie. I was just sitting here being like "of course that is what the lead in a CW show dreams of." But also, oh man, oh bro, oh man bro. Oh bro. Chris Pratt might be in the running but like...it's like a boat payment for him and for you it's never gonna get you where you wanna be bro! There were all those little moments and it was on both the fan side and the industry side I was just [laughs helplessly]

Or the showrunner having the jealousy of his friend from film school who had hit it big as a director. I was like, oh. You just slipped that knife in and twisted.

ELM: The most brutal knife for the showrunner was when you described him as like the kid from E.T. but old. [all laughing] That was the harshest thing in the book. Ohhhh it was so good.

BL: But you can immediately picture it!

ELM: I got it, I got it! All your descriptions of all the showrunner types, or the Hollywood man types, I thought were really brutal and beautiful.

FK: They were very accurate descriptions of Hollywood man types!

BL: I've met a bunch of 'em at this point!

FK: And Rico was also like, there he was. Bein' his beautiful self. Sort of a...

ELM: Rico is by far the best person in the whole book. I'm just gonna come out there and say it. Do you think that's too much?

BL: Rico for those of you who might be wondering, I don't think we've introduced him yet, is the other half of the OTP.

FK: You're so good at this.

ELM: Who's listening to this at this point who hasn't read this book?

FK: Most people because it's gonna be like May 2nd and they'll have just gotten it!

BL: It will have just arrived in the mail from Amazon because they've preordered it.

ELM: That's right. They'll have stayed up all night reading it like it was a Harry Potter book. And they'll listen to Fansplaining the second it comes out, 11:01 AM.

BL: Rico is the other half of Claire's OTP. There's Forest and there's Rico and Forest is the clueless one who's obnoxious in how much he doesn't get it.

FK: 23 and living in Koreatown, another delightful example of deep Hollywood [laughing] Yeah, that dude lives in Koreatown.

BL: Rico's slightly more experienced and has been on another genre show before and so kinda gets it a little more and is a little more generous.

FK: He probably has a grown up apartment. A real person's apartment.

BL: A house he bought in Silver Lake 15 years ago for 200,000 dollars probably.

FK: When he first got his first genre show.

BL: Exactly.

ELM: Wow, are these your head canons about your own characters?

BL: Oh god this is not canon. This is not canon! This is my head canon.

FK: But it's totally what that person would be. It's completely MY head canon. It just is the truth. [all laughing]

ELM: Slight aside, but another thing that I love more than life...I already said I loved the mother but the conversation where she explains what shipping is was never in my life have I read a more accurate...when she's like "oh, I ship myself with Obama!" [all laughing]

FK: Peak mom.

ELM: It was SO mom. It was so good. She's such a good mom.

BL: I know. That scene literally exists because there's people like my agent who started reading this book who don't know what shipping is and so that's in the first fifteen pages, Claire's mom is getting an explanation, a primer of what shipping is. The writer's challenge is to make a purely expositional Wikipedia article about shipping sound interesting and fun, and the way to do that is just to have a peak mom character peak momming.

ELM: I just think those were very mom reactions and then later when she meets I think Forest and she's like "I ship myself with him!" Of course that's the way she's going to think of it. "I ship myself and your dad." [all laughing] OK! Fine!

BL: Yeah, that's how shipping works. OK fine.

FK: I will say that is a preferable mom reaction to my mom's reaction to being told what shipping was when I was in high school and reading X-files fanfic, which was to ask me to recommend to her Mulder and Scully fanfic and then read it and want to talk about it and I was like I'M GOING TO DIE. I'M DYING. First I can't believe I gave you this and now I can't believe you read it and it had smut in it too if I recall correctly, it was a novel length story, and I was just sitting here like "now we have to discuss this over the dinner table Mom I'm not sure I can cope!"

BL: OK we have to have Flourish's mom on the show.

ELM: Yeah! She's in the rock fandom.

FK: She is the rock fandom. Not The Rock the actor, rocks. Actual physical actual rocks. [all laugh]

BL: Oh, I was thinking The Rock like the actor.

FK: No, not The Rock.

BL: She can also like The Rock.

ELM: If you explained it and she was like "yes I ship myself with the Rock," can you imagine.

FK: My mom would probably like The Rock, actually. The person she actually loves is Michael B Jordan though. To the point where she saw Black Panther and then she had to tell me all about how Michael B Jordan was the perfect man. For like.

ELM: Michael B Jordan himself, not...

BL: Not Killmonger.

FK: No no no she also loved Creed because Michael B Jordan was in it.

ELM: She's a fan of him as an actor.

FK: She's a fan of Michael B Jordan. I'm not sure as an actor. I think just because she thinks he's incredibly cute and she has a crush on him.

BL: She's not wrong.

FK: She's not wrong, but just saying, babies don't let your mommas grow up to be shippers or something. [BL laughing] OK obviously the entire book is sort of about this weird situation we're currently in, almost a current cultural moment where everything is brushing up against each other and we have this creator-fan interaction that's happening way more that it ever used to, and to some degree it seemed like it was about the porosity of the barrier between fan and pro, cause there's that moment where Caty gives Claire her tumblr name and is like "psst I'm on Tumblr too!" Note she's like a 23 year old so it's not shocking. But of course it is shocking when you receive that Tumblr name and ohhh people are in fandom!

So I guess I'm wondering about, when people read this book and they start thinking about their position, fans, their position vis a vis Hollywood, vis a vis...I mean not just novel writing, which I think is something that people commonly see themselves as potentially breaking into, but it seems like this really invites people to imagine themselves in the entertainment industry. What...how do you think about that? Cause it doesn't seem like you're totally valorizing it. Some people are like "oh obviously you want to go pro" and that's not the message of the book. It's a more complicated relationship.

BL: I agree. I think there's a moment there where Caty's like "oh and hit me up in a few years if you want a job, I can totally see you as being really good at PR." And Claire is like "oh, I never really thought of myself as doing anything like that." I think a lot of fans think of themselves as sort of permanently on one side of the fandom divide, who could never cross over. So part of that was giving Claire options. If she does want a future affecting the shows that she loves, that's an option available to her.

And also if she just wants to write fanfic and go do something else for a living, that's fine too! But I think Hollywood would be better off if there were more people who came from fandom working in it, so that's my little baby pitch to the teens [laughing] to be like, this world could use you! Could use your voice and your minds and the way that you think about celebrity and the internet! Hollywood needs that right now. So if you're interested, come on down, the water's not warm. It's really cold. And dangerously full of sharks. But please come down anyway! [laughing]

ELM: Not to be the Debbie Downer to that very positive invitation, but don't you think that...

BL: Oh, please, go ahead!

ELM: To some degree there are, one of the reasons that makes the novel so enjoyable, there's a bit of wish fulfillment involved in this. It's something of an unrealistic, it's unprecedented certainly, that an angry fan shouts about her ship and then she gets invited because they can see...you know. I don't know if this is the right idea, but it's kind of a fantasy in that regard and that's not a criticism.

BL: Not at all.

ELM: It's a fun...

FK: It's a delightful, it's still a fantasy that I hold even despite working in the entertainment industry so that when I first read it I had to read it ALL in one NIGHT when it was in DRAFT form and I think I emailed you keysmashing about how this was my dream. [ELM laughing]

ELM: It's definitely fantasy elements and it's something that you see people referencing when they complain about shows and they're like...I guess even with that element, she's extraordinarily bold, she's...someone calls her a psychopath at one point and I'm not saying she is but her behavior is very much "fuck it I'm doing it" and you're like "holy shit go for it," and I'm wondering if with the reality if that tempers your advice a little bit to say "come on down," I know you just said the water is incredibly cold and full of sharks, but do you think that it's actually a lot more disheartening...how many fangirls need to show up in Hollywood for...even with, sorry this is an incredibly long question, but even with this kinda being a fantasy, the realities of these situations are still completely present in the book and actually huge factors, right. All the stuff about the video game franchise is incredibly frank. You're like, oh, that's exactly what it's like. Or all the stuff that Jamie says, the showrunner, is incredibly frank. So I'm just wondering how you reconcile that with the real world.

BL: Yeah, I think...you know, I'm in a community of fans who also work in Hollywood, and there's about 50 of us in this community and we're very tightknit and we talk about these issues a lot, but the truth is there are fans here already on the inside. We've penetrated the gates. And we're infiltrating the castle.

ELM: Commence the uprising.

BL: Exactly! It's happening. It's slow, but it's happening. So I think throughout the book you see instances of where an individual can make a difference. You see Caty helping Claire and you see Paula, the only reason Claire's there in the first place is because Paula made an executive decision and was like "this is what's happening." You see times when Rico can affect Forest's thinking. So you see if Jamie were just 25% more open, or if John Reynolds, the director of the video game movie, were 25% more open, or if those people were replaced altogether by fangirls, right, this story would have had a totally different outcome.

So you can just feel that while it is hard to make a difference, it is possible on an individual level every day, and I'm just glad that Caty is Caty and not a baby Jamie. And Paula is Paula and not a Jamie type. You know? It's...if everyone was a Jamie, we'd be back in 1985, where everyone's a douchebag and doing coke a lot. But we're not! It's slightly getting better, so I just wanna make it better than it is today.

ELM: Wait, somehow I asked a really cynical question and you managed to give an answer that was not only incredibly hopeful but a really beautiful example of having faith in incremental progress. Which I feel like people don't often enough praise incremental progress. Progress that steadily marches forward.

BL: It does steadily march forward, and you kind of have to believe in that, because if you believe it's hopeless, then I should just quit Hollywood right now. Go be a lavender farmer outside Portland, Oregon. Which is the backup plan. Even though I'm allergic to lavender it's still the backup plan. But I don't feel that cynical yet! I still feel like I can make a difference which is why I keep doing things. And look, here we are! I wrote a book and now we're on a podcast talking about it to a bunch of people who probably at this point are really excited to read it, so you know! Things do happen. Good stuff does happen!

FK: Things happen! Thank you. Britta, it was such an incredible pleasure having you on this podcast. Genuinely please come back many times in the future because this was such a good conversation.

ELM: She should probably write - yeah. Write one fandom novel that is a total delight, once per year, and we will have you back and discuss it.

BL: No problem!

ELM: Just get writing. Hang up and go write.

BL: OK great.

ELM: No, thank you for this book, it was absolutely wonderful, I'm not kidding when I say I'm gonna force everyone to read it.

BL: Thank you. I'm glad. No, I know that because you were joking on Twitter about being really...

ELM: My bad joke?

BL: Being really hard on it and being a very tough judge, and so I'm glad that you like it. I think it's hard when you're making a book about a community for that community cause you know that not everyone will like it and particularly because Claire is not the platonic ideal of a shipper. She does make mistakes and she does overreach and there's times where you cringe for her and you're like "oh Claire don't do that that's a terrible idea" and those times a fan might be like, "oh this is not a good representation of fans." But without that it's not an interesting or a good book. It would have no drama. So I hope that you get to the end of it and people who know nothing about fandom love it and feel like they understand fandom and have empathy for it, and forgive Claire for her mistakes and her overreaches.

ELM: I think that one of the book's great strengths is actually there's no clear...I think there is a desire in some fandom novels, one other thing I thought was really successful about Grace and the Fever by Zan Romanoff too is that Grace is a fairly flawed protagonist too. Makes some decisions that I think horrify me, from a fan perspective. I'm like "NO! Don't be that fan." I don't think there's any one of these characters, including Jamie, fuckboy that he is, who are like...everyone is right on something. And everyone is wrong on something. Wrong on many things or right on many things. And I think it's a really extraordinary example of truly nuanced flawed characters. All of whom have a point but are not 100% right. And that's very hard to do, so this is my official book critic... [all laughing] So well done. Well drawn characters.

FK: OK. So if people have not yet bought the book what is the...I assume the best way for them to buy it is from their local independent bookseller.

ELM: That's right!

BL: For sure, and if that doesn't exist for whatever reason, it's also on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Powells.com.

ELM: Powells! Oh, actually, did you guys see that post going around, I bookmarked it so we can put it in the show notes, did you see the tumblr post about the gay bookstore or queer bookstore in Michigan and they were like, apparently they had posted on Facebook that they had had no sales that day. And so then someone was like, "they have an online store, so...why not order your stuff through them?" So they posted a week later and they were like "I don't understand but 300 people ordered books from us today we genuinely can't handle this."

This got hundreds of thousands of notes and it was very pure and obviously this store cannot handle that many people seeing this so someone made a long long list of other queer bookstores around the country that can do an online shop. So we should put that in the show notes.

FK: We'll put that in the show notes! That's where you should buy it.

ELM: Absolutely.

FK: For real this time it was a pleasure having you on and...

ELM: Actually goodbye now.

FK: Actually goodbye now! [laughing]

BL: Bye!

ELM: Bye!

[Interstitial music]

FK: OK we really do have to have Britta on once a year because she has to write us a book once a year.

ELM: Do you think that she takes requests.

FK: It can't hurt to ask, can it?

ELM: Cool. I'm gonna think of a plot for her next one.

FK: OK great.

ELM: I want it to engage with a canon that I care about, not pretend Supernatural.

FK: Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. I really want her to somehow get involved with the X-files and make it good, but that's a vain hope.

ELM: Oh! Is that your request?

FK: My request.

ELM: To put her in a different writer's room?

FK: Solve the X-files problems.

ELM: Britta we're arranging your career for you don't worry about it.

FK: We're both fans, it'd be great.

ELM: That's right.

FK: We can solve the X-files together.

ELM: Fan creator interaction. This is what you SHOULD do, creator. That's right.

FK: Yeah, totally. OK. [laughing]

ELM: As people, I hope people buy it and read it and I'd love to know people's reactions! Cause one of the things too is talking about Claire vs. Tess and their different feelings about fandom. And its relationship to canon. And I love that they're both there and I think they both have good points and I'm curious to know...I wrote about this on Tumblr, a post plugging it, and I said that unlike all the other fandom YA novels I've read, several of which I've really loved, obviously I loved Grace and the Fever and I loved Fangirl, and the few which I didn't love which I'm not going to name, usually you don't get multiple perspectives. You get the protagonist's view of fandom and you get other fans or in Fangirl, her twin has said I'm growing up now, I'm putting that aside. Obviously that's another perspective on fandom.

But this was two people in fandom with opposed views, so I'm really curious about how people read that and if they feel, as I did, that it was a really great balanced depiction of the different opinions within fandom.

FK: I am also interested in this and I look forward to hearing from our listeners.

ELM: Yeah!

FK: Other business, we have a ton of mail that has been piling up but we don't have time to get into it now so I am sorry to all the people who are waiting to be on the air. We will get to you I'm so sorry.

ELM: Yes. OK. Alright. So. Wrapping up business. Contact information.

FK: Yeah!

ELM: [laughing] It's [email protected] if you want to write to us. To tell us anything! As we've said we're going to read some letters that you sent us hopefully next time. But you can also leave us an ask, that's fansplaining.tumblr.com, and anon is on, so don't be mean.

FK: Be nice!

ELM: Yeah. You can also tweet at us, fansplaining or send us a message on Facebook, both of those are not ideal for longer more nuanced questions but if you have a quick question you can get in touch with us that way and on our tumblr which is fansplaining.com we have a voicemail. And we haven't gotten any voicemails in months and I love them so if you have thoughts...we get these great emails and I would really love if you sit down with your computer and read it.

FK: Yeah you can literally do it on a phone too. It's just a phone number that you can call.

ELM: You literally call...I meant read it, read it from your computer, the email that you wrote in a text document.

FK: Yeah that thing.

ELM: I don't want to control how you go about calling us. You can do whatever you want.

FK: But we do want to have other people's voices on here so please if you are willing do it.

ELM: We get these great emails from everyone and I would just love to actually hear people especially...I always feel weird when it's clear, they say they're from a different country and I'm just doing my dumb American accent. Call us with your great other accents. Not to fetishize other people's accents.

FK: OK! [ELM laughing] So also, if you happen to have extra cash lying around and you want to support us you can always support us on our Patreon. Patreon.com/fansplaining. If you don't have any extra cash lying around or if you do but don't want to give it to us or if you do and also want to do something nice, you can review us...

ELM: Too many choices.

FK: On iTunes! We believe we deserve 5 stars. You can give us however many stars you feel like we deserve, but it really helps people find us, so.

ELM: Yeah, reviews and ratings, either or both will be really really awesome. And sharing the podcast generally, just letting people know, and also we're putting together, we've got a few posts in the works for our Medium collection, so we're gonna get that up and running too so if you have friends who are not podcast listeners but...this is a thing I am thinking about for my job right now. Is that it?

FK: I think that's all the hashtag content we have right now.

ELM: #Content. Yeah, that's all we got.

FK: I'll talk to you later then, Elizabeth.

ELM: OK bye!

FK: Bye!

[Outro, thank yous and disclaimers]

#britta lundin #riverdale cw #ship it #fansplaining

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