#lipstick traces meta

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Lipstick Traces Review/Thoughts

(I wrote this 2 years ago but didn’t have a tumblr to post it to at the time)

So I’ve just finished reading Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus. And it’s fucking long with so much information and I’ve been having a lot of thoughts. Some just about little specific things mentioned in the book, and some more about the themes of the book written in the 80s compared to our current epoch of technology and politics and art and culture industry etc.

I mean, a lot of the stuff in the book/the thoughts the book gave me are things I’ve rambled about before on tumblr. But I guess it’s stuff that’s still in my head, that still bothers me, that I still have no solution for, or that I can find cracks in my arguments for solutions.

Mostly what I took away from this book was a giant feeling of conflict and ambivalence and uncertainty. It is, ultimately, a book of regret. It’s a book that explores these artists and movements and ideas and people that made a series of tiny but huge impacts to art and creation, who could have made a huge revolutionary change, but whose small revolutions were lost to time. It is a book about anger or frustration that incites a change, an avant garde, and how that anger fizzles out or is smothered and forgotten. It is a book about the cycles of history and how the new, the angry, the ones pushing back, are always eventually suppressed. In a 1994 quote Richey said, essentially, that you only really get remembered if you’re an Einstein or a Newton– a person who creates or discovers something that is such a massive revolutionary change that it affects the way the world is perceived and how it is believed to function. This book talks about those who aren’t Newtons and Einsteins. Those artists that made little waves that changed a few but didn’t change enough.

And it’s simultaneously fascinating and exciting and depressing, reading and thinking about this. That this book is a book of regret written in the 1980s, and 35 years later things have only gotten more extreme, and the regret can only feel heavier. The anger is still there, too, but it was more potent in the 80s and 90s, it had more potential. Now the anger is becoming impotent, or trapped. Either the meek inherited the earth and forgot what it was like to be meek, or the ones who inherited the earth were strongmen wearing the masks of the meek and the ambition of the avant garde.

Honestly, the biggest takeaway I got from this book is how drastically things have changed. How the way the book compares the Dadaists to the original punks is a fairly close, similar type of comparison, with similar movements, ideas, ideals, messages, and actions. And how the comparison to both of those with any sort of movement that might happen in the next decade or so will be massively, drastically different because of how much culture has changed, media has changed, access and accessibility has changed, government, education, class awareness, and on and on. How, honestly, I’m not sure if there could be another movement like the dadaists and like the punk scene, because to be reactionary and avant garde and revolutionary is something very different these days.

Already Greil Marcus discusses speed and the culture industry. Which makes sense, since his primary theoretical sources are Guy Debord and Theodor Adorno. But it’s fascinating to see these theories–both written and published in the 40s and 60s–being used to critique and analyse culture and art back then, much closer to the texts’ inception. Those theories were new-ish in terms of being put into words back then. The idea of the prison of capitalism, the labor that turns the proletariat into machines and then sells them back to themselves, the speed and change of media, the homogenous nature of entertainment and pop culture. All of that was relatively new, at least in terms of being stated outright.

And people were frustrated! People have always been frustrated! The Dadaists were frustrated by the war they didn’t want to participate in, and then in the monotony of the post-war expectations that everything go back to normal, when nothing was normal. They were frustrated by the Modernists, by the Expressionists, by art becoming something that gave you Status rather than something that you just did because you had the urge. Punks were frustrated with the economic and social malaise, the labor issues, the failed ideals of the hippies, art and music stagnating, the lack of platforms for them to express themselves. But they were able to use art to express that anger, that frustration, that feeling of nihilism or of glee at meaninglessness, that feeling of “fuck it, we have nothing so let’s do what we want.” Both generations did it in different styles, but both threw convention out the window, focused on what was taboo, what was weird, what was scandalous, what they wanted to say but society didn’t want them saying.

What’s interesting about the book is that it expresses admiration for this, for the daring and avant garde and original and clever and badass nature of both Dada and Punk ideals/styles/philosophies/actions/etc. But it also expresses regret. Regret that it only lasted so long. That it didn’t leave any major effect on art or politics or life or society (that is, aside from what capitalism stole or what minor underground movements admired or were inspired by). That it was stolen by capitalism. That it inevitably fell apart as time moved forward.

But for those glorious few years….

And what it made me think of, which (like I said) Marcus talks about quite a bit, is the effect that the culture industry and the speed of culture/media/news had on both movements. For the Dadaists, it was more about the speed of the news and also just blindly making, with no knowledge of a goal or ultimate desire, that resulted in the group eventually separating into other factions and the movement petering out into other artistic ideas and styles. The Dadaists were reacting to the war, to the newness of certain parts of culture, to the personal conflicts between artists. The punk movement was more affected by the ever-increasing speed of culture and media as well as news. Things were moving faster. Styles and ideas were coming into fashion and then becoming old hat more quickly. Punk started out as avant-garde, as a refusal to conform, as an excuse and/or reason to speak out and act out and express oneself. Especially in communities that weren’t being heard. It started out as a way for individuals to force society to acknowledge them. And then capitalism and the culture industry got their hands on it and began to use it as a marketing ploy, as fashion, selling punk back to the masses it was intended to belong to.

It’s pretty obvious that the world has sped up immensely since the 1970s– media, news, and culture industry included. Things that are new on Monday are old by Friday. Memes that are hilarious and circulate social media for weeks are dead by the time companies try to capitalize on them (see: Zumiez etc making Grumpy Cat shirts etc). Music or films that are popular fall out of popularity in just a few weeks, unless they’re vapid pieces of media or unless the creators/artists continue to hype themselves over and over again in different ways. It is impossible to create focused critical art because there is always so much going on in the news and in world politics or social issues; everything is so intertwined it’s impossible to pick out certain things to criticize. Artists and art movements and things of meaning and import fall by the wayside. It’s hard for me to imagine an avant garde or artistic movement within a community growing in popularity and staying strong for long enough to really make an impact or a difference. And the speed of the news is insane now. Things are only big news for a few days before vanishing under the avalanche of new stories and new events. Things stay big news within the communities that care about them (ie Black Lives Matter, Flint MI, Grenfell, DAPL, etc) but not within the eye of the media. News changes as fast as a feed can refresh.

I also have the feeling that art doesn’t have as much power. Subliminal marketing power, sure. But the last few art pieces I remember hearing even random people talking about were Shepard Fairey’s 2008 portraits for the Obama campaign, Ai Weiwei’s Han dynasty vase smash (which was from 1995 but came back into the spotlight in the mid-2000s for some reason) and Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirrored room. It’s hard now, with the constant barrage of information and images and sounds, to figure out what is important and impactful art, and what is rubbish (or advertisement). It’s also hard to figure out what to focus on when making critical art: what moments or events in politics and current events will be remembered long enough to be used in critique; what will people remember and be affected by? Maybe hindsight is 20/20 tunnel vision or the gaze towards the past is tinged with roses, but it seems as though art had a larger significance. Barbara Kruger, for example. The Sex Pistols, The Guerilla Girls, Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Annie Liebowitz, and (obviously) Jenny Holzer. All used their art to critique various current events, social/political/global issues. They had an effect on viewers in their time as well as after it. It seems as though, now, there’s no during-and-after. There is only during (like Shepard Fairey’s portraits).

A big reason for that, I think, is because of the disintegration of Dadaism and Situationism due to speed and capitalism. Basically, Situationism was created to force those going about their daily lives to stop for a second and think about their situation, to make a moment of “real living,” to jolt people out of the stupor of the daily grind and make them remember. Remember they’re alive, remember they shouldn’t be living a life of a drone, remember they’re consuming things they’re being told to instead of doing what they want to. And those moments were created through graffiti, through the detournement of taking normal comic strips and rewriting dialogues to critique the world, through the music and fashion of punk, which shouted out the flaws in society without caring that it was supposed to be kept hush-hush, through visual art that confronted the viewer with critiques (like Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer), etc etc. But now, do something like that and you’re called “edgy” and mocked. Why? Probably because of the likes of Banksy. I say this because Banksy often creates graffiti pieces that probably should or would have meaning, or should or would make you stop and think. Except that they’re pieces by Banksy, famous for being edgy, whose pieces are worth thousands or millions of dollars. Who rarely actually has a statement, except money-making. How many of us howled with laughter when he made that nightmare-Disneyland piece? Because it was edgy and unoriginal. Because we already know we’re living in a slowly growing dystopia, and being told that by a guy who benefits from said dystopia and gets so much money from criticizing it is bullshit.

It’s also because it feels like there’s nothing new under the sun. Now, Greil Marcus kind of talks about this. The punk movement expressed this too. The nihilism that nothing is new, that everything has already been said. But it did so gleefully, embracing the nihilism in order to laugh at it and point it out and roll in that glee. There is nothing new to be said, they thought, but there are new ways to say it. Because we’ve been saying things for centuries but nothing has changed, except the way it gets said. The problem now, in the 21st century, is that nothing new under the sun is now nothing new under the sun and that can no longer be used as a statement. “It’s all already been done, just say it in a new way” is no longer good enough. Ideas have to come out of a vacuum— except if they come out of a vacuum, they’re either never noticed or they’re appropriated by the media and capitalism.

Basic Adorno, basic culture industry theory. But Adorno would have a fucking aneurysm if he could see how his theory holds up in the 21st century compared to 1944. And honestly, that is a terrifying sentence to type. That Adorno and Horkheimer published Enlightenment as Mass Deception in 1944, that they were noticing this in the 1940s. And every point in their essay has only increased exponentially since then.

Greil Marcus hints at the whole “punk is dead” thing throughout the book without actually saying those words. I don’t think the phrase really existed as a buzzword type thing when the book was published. But I think the points and ideas expressed in Lipstick Traces kind of say what my thoughts have always been on that idea. Punk is dead, and punk is also not dead. Punk is dead; its looks and sound were stolen by the media and by capitalism and sold to the masses, sold back to the kids who created and popularized it. Punk was the sound and creativity and style of the kids who had nothing and wanted to be everything, so they made it all themselves. They created their own style and said what they wanted to say. High fashion stole it, television stole it, department stores stole it, ad agencies stole it, and sold it back. “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Punk is dead, as an original movement, as an original fashion. But! But, punk thought is not. Punk as an ideal, as a philosophy, as thought, is very much alive. Punk, as the idea that you make your own, that you use your own creativity and express yourself the way you want to. That it’s passion and not necessarily talent that matters. That wearing what you want, saying what you want, confronting the issues that need confronting, being whoever you are so long as you’re not hurting or fucking over an innocent person, that’s still very much alive. The original punk fashion has been stolen. But punk fashion still exists, in people that make their own clothes or wear strange things even though they get stared at. Punk in art still exists, in people that make their art for themselves, or who make art with friends despite knowing they might go nowhere, just because they have the passion. Punk music is the same. The ideals and thought is still thrumming and alive. Its parent has been consumed by consumerism, devoured by capitalism and marketing and fashion. But the orphaned offspring is still hiding and alive.

And yet there’s another ‘but.’ The depressing one. Which is that it feels as though punk, in the early, original days, gave the youth a label, an identity. This goes for plenty  of other youth movements as well, and art movements, etc etc. But these days it seems a community identity hardly exists. And it’s hard to push a movement, create a feeling of community or solidarity, without some sort of shared identity. Perhaps the label of “Millenials” and “Gen Z” are the closest we’ve come so far. But those are so broad, and so often used in a derogatory fashion (although, I suppose, so were “punk” and “mod” and “hippie” and “teddy boy” etc etc).

And I also think that everything is so fast now, and moments are so fleeting, events are so quick to be forgotten, that it is hard to impress an idea or affect change or put an artistic statement or movement out there for long enough to make a true impact. I would say that maybe a large amount of the generation(s) banding together to make a statement would do something, would make that change. But Black Lives Matter was made up mostly of Millenials, young people, people under the age of 35. And yet it slowly petered away into almost nothingness with no changes.

But the kids of the next generation, Gen Z, do give me hope. Like that other person’s post going around says, they’re pissed, they were raised on a steady diet of dystopian literature with strong main characters, they’re highly aware of the state of politics and the job market and the economy, they’ve seen how fucked Millenials are and they know it’s not going to get much better for a while. And maybe they’re the next ones, the next to say “fuck it, we have nothing and we are nothing, let’s do whatever we want because we haven’t got anything to lose”. And maybe the millenials will join.

That’s what I hope. That’s what Greil Marcus’ book seems to be trying to say. That these sorts of movements don’t always have massive, lasting effects in the grand scheme of the world and society. But they leave cracks, and fragments, and shrapnel, and artefacts, for the next generation or the next movement to find and use. That dadaism might have faded away and punk might be dead but the dadaist yell is still echoing and punk thought is still very much alive. And it’s up to us to hear it, to use it, to find the crack in the culture industry and capitalism and society and somehow find the next avant garde, the ideas and movement that will stick and create an identity for unfettered expression, if only for a little while. That “the moment of real poetry brings all the unsettled debts of history back into play,” and it is up to us to figure out what we have to do or say to ignite all of that history and to wield its power. And how we can make our own history or try and settle the debts of the past.

(And yet…. And yet…. And yet I can’t help but doubt that the speed of the world will allow this to happen. And yet I want to believe that something can be done to create critical work that sticks. And yet how do you make critical work without it being eaten up by the culture industry and disappeared into homogeneity. And yet we have technology and creative mediums now that we didn’t in 1977. And yet punk is dead. And yet punk thought is not. And yet, and yet.)

[beatricethecat2]

"This is nice," Myka says, sipping her beer while surveying the bar.

"Consuming alcohol in a public house?" Helena asks.

"Yeah," Myka says, eyes angling down as she picks at her label. "Working with Pete...this wasn't a thing I could do much. Then Steve and I had a drink here, and I remembered what it was like. I used to go on my own in DC just to unwind. Feels like a lifetime ago."

“In many ways it was," Helena says, idly stiring the ice left in her drink. "Could you ever have imagined the company you now keep?"

"I don't think so," Myka says, shifting closer to Helena. "But I like it, a lot. Doing this with you feels...normal. Two people, spending time together, not a care in the world."

"You care for nought?" Helena says, fingers tracing a line from Myka's thumb to her wrist where her hand rests on her thigh.

"Ok, one care," Myka says, eyes flicking up to meet Helena's. "Hey, I know that look. We said we'd stay for the band tonight, not just hole up in our room."

"Is there not another band tomorrow?"

"Yeah, but we said we'd stay for this one." Myka slips her hand from Helena's.

"As you wish," Helena says, settling back on her stool, frustration evident in her tone.

"More drinks, ladies?" the bartender says. "The band's about to start."

"I shall need one," Helena grouses.

"Stop being dramatic," Myka snips.

"Fine," Helena snaps. "Bourbon. Neat. Top shelf, please," she instructs the bartender.

"Comin' right up." The bartender steps away to complete the order.

"Oh, we're getting drunk now, are we?" Myka quips.

"When in Rome..."

"I'd actually like to see that, a drunk H.G. Wells," Myka says, poking Helena in the arm.

Helena flinches. "You may very well if you keep behaving as such."

"Seriously though, when's the last time you drank enough to let your guard down, even a little."

"In the company of others? Not in recent memory. And you?"

"Same."

"Here you go," the bartender interrupts, setting the tumbler on a napkin in front of Helena. "Another beer?" she asks Myka.

"You know what? I'll have the same." Myka waves her bottle at Helena's drink.

"Cavalier, Ms. Bering."

"We'll keep each other in check. We deserve to get super tipsy, at least."

"Color me intrigued."

The band strikes its first cord just as Myka's drink arrives. She tugs Helena's arm, and they relocate to a table near the stage.

-----------------

The Adventures of Bering and Wells ("Warehouse 13" Season 5 replacement) Season 1: Episode 4 Title: New Orleans: Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Summary: Myka and Helena follow whim rather than duty, driving south, detouring around Washington DC, avoiding a second emotional rabbit hole so early on. After a wi-fi-free week in a cabin, deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, they feel ready to tackle urban density again. ("The Rockies are better," Myka declares. "We'll go there, too.) Vowing to stay as touristy as possible, the pair head towards history-filled New Orleans. But far too soon their carefree trip hits a snag and they're in need of Warehouse help.

Previously: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3

-----------------

***BONUS SCENE***

"Exactly how touristy have you been?" Abigail asks.

"Pretty touristy," Myka answers.

"Practically flâneurs," Helena says, grinning as Myka looks up at her with sparkly eyes.

"Well, that narrows it down," Steve mutters, typing into the keyboard. "Let's start with your hotel. Why'd you pick the carriage house?"

"The lack of adjoining suite and the king-sized bed."

"Helena!" Myka smacks Helena on the arm. "Because it's cute and charming."

"So this ghost isn't listed on their website? Wedding dress woman, Civil War soldier, dancing patio woman?" Steve asks.

"No. And the manager hadn't recognized the description I gave," Helena explains.

"So not all ghosts," Abigail says.

"If seeing them is normal," Myka says.

"Let's say the ones on their website are but H.G.'s isn't," Steve says.

"Are we to assume I've been 'whammied' then?" Helena says.

"You freeze in place. I have to shake you out of it," Myka explains.

"Perhaps I'm studying the phenomenon."

"You're never that still. It's creepy."

"Then I think we should consider it," Abigail says.

"Where else have you been?" Steve asks.

"Um, everywhere?" Myka answers. "That blacksmith's bar you and I went to. And The Gas and Lights Museum--"

"Such memories. So many details wrong," Helena gibes.

"On a carriage ride--"

"Highway robbery! Sixty-five dollars for a turn around the park. And not in the least authentic."

"You said it was nice!"

"I said it was familiar. The sound of it took me back," Helena says.

"I thought you'd like it." Myka leans back and looks up at Helena questioningly.

"I enjoyed the company quite thoroughly," Helena says, laying her hands on Myka's shoulders and grinning down at her fondly.

"Aww," Steve coos.

"Did anything about the carriage ride scream 'lady ghost will now appear at will?" Abigail asks.

"Not to my knowledge," Helena says.

"We also went to the Pharmacy Museum. And on a steamboat ride," Myka adds.

"Not that I'd have stepped foot on that death trap without proof of modern safety precautions. In my day, they exploded frequently," Helena explains.

"Ok...let's start with the Pharmacy Museum," Abigail says as Steve types. "Could this woman have afforded a doctor?"

"She often appears in her Sunday best, but also in, shall we say...less. She didn't strike me as particularly monied."

"Did she look sort of vampire-ish?" Steve asks. "I'm reading that people with consumption were rumored to be vampires due to how the disease aged them."

"I'm familiar with that premise, and no, this woman was not withering away."

"Could she have died on a steamboat?" Abigail asks.

"She doesn't give off that sense. There's a calm about her. She's not in danger."

"Let's try another angle. The neighborhood you're staying in, Storyville, claims to be the birthplace of jazz," Abigail says, reading over Steve's shoulder. "Maybe she's related to that?"

"Myka took me to hear this 'jazz,' and I can't say I was at all impressed."

"I like it. Steve does, too. You really hated it?" Myka asks.

"The bleat of the saxophone evokes vaudeville for me."

"Play her some Charlie Parker. Or John Coltrane. That might change her mind," Steve suggests.

"Does this relate to our ghost?" Abigail presses.

"I don't see a connection," Helena answers. "Her dress is previous to that of jazz, of an age closer to my own."

"Storyville was once a legal bordello district," Steve explains. "The whole neighborhood was shut down in 1917. So maybe she's from then?"

"That makes sense," Myka says.

"Do you see her inside or outside?" Abigail asks.

"Thus far, outside."

"But," Myka protests, "last night, when we were...t-the blindfold, you said 'just in case.'"

"Did that not heighten our activities?"

"That's not the point. I can't believe you--"

"Punish me later, darling--"

"Why don't you two hash this out, and we'll get back to you," Abigail suggests.

"Wait, is this her?" Steve asks.

Steve shares a black and white photo of a woman, seated outdoors, in front of a makeshift white backdrop, her hair styled into a modest, shoulder-length coif. Her linen top, trimmed with lace, hangs off one shoulder, and a string of pearls adorns her neck. Her lipstick, rendered as a middle grey, matches the kohl lining her eyes, giving her a soft, silent movie-era look.

"Hm, possibly."

"Here's another."

Helena leans further over Myka's shoulder, looking closely at the image. "Yes, I believe that is her."

"That's, um, really off the shoulder. Shoulders..." Myka says. "Isn't that kind of racy for the time?"

"Quite tame compared to some. Her expression is unusual, contemplative almost, recalling solemn greek statues rather than the usual fodder meant to titillate men's desires."

"How would you know?"

"One encounters all sorts of materials as a Warehouse agent," Helena says with a smirk.

"As an agent. Uh-huh."

"Listen to this," Steve interrupts, "these prints were made from a stash of glass negatives found locked in a desk drawer years after the photographer died. Many are of Adele, the woman you're seeing, but there are other women, too. They were shot in the 1910s, but these prints were made in the '60s. If there were any original prints, they were never found."

"May I see the images again?"

Steve cycles through and adds a few more, one depicting a roll-down desk with a shrine of photos arranged above, all of women, vignetted portraits and romantic depictions of the female form more typical for the time.

"Not sure if that last one is related. But it says it's by the same photographer."

"Could you send that one over? I'd like to look more closely."

"Sure."

Myka trades places with Helena, and Helena clicks the link. She enlarges the photo and inspects the array of images.

"I vaguely recall flicking through a basket in a shop with ephemera such as this. Perhaps this ghost woman was amongst it, but printed in a manner such as the images depicted here."

"So you're saying the photo in the shop might be a photo from this photo?"

"That is what I'm hypothesizing."

"So when you see her, you freeze like you're her photograph trapped in this photograph."

"Or perhaps I am her, caught in the decisive moment of the image being captured."

"That's really meta," Steve says.

"No matter what, neutralizing that photo should do the trick," Abigail suggests. "Heck, neutralize everything in the basket, just in case."

"Do you remember which shop you were in?" Steve asks.

"My recollection is hazy at best due to the copious amount of drink someone encouraged me to consume the evening previously."

Helena looks at Myka and scowls. Myka looks back, endearingly.

"I don't get hangovers."

"Lucky you," Helena quips.

"I hope you find it soon," Steve says, "because being happy looks good on both of you. You should get back to that."

"Thank you, Steve. And thank you, Abigail, for all your help," Helena says.

"Anytime," Abigail says.

"Have a great trip. Send some postcards!" Steve says.

"What a marvelous idea," Helena replies.

"Isn't flicking through postcards how we got here?" Myka warns.

"Shall you pre-screen everything I touch from now on?"

"Maybe I should--"

"We're hanging up now," Abigail says.

The screen goes blank as Myka and Helena devlove further into playful bickering.

*End Scene*

-TBC-

NOTES: "Laissez les bon temps rouler!" is Cajun French for "Let the good times roll." In season four, Steve and Myka go New Orleans and both say they like jazz, so I'm not making that up. I see Myka as more of fan of popular tunes - Billy Holiday, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, etc., whereas Steve would know the genre through and through (and try as he might, never gets Claudia quite on board with it all). The photographer is E. J. Bellocq - I was going to incorporate that more, but the politics behind photos I mentioned is...complicated. I want this B&W show to focus on our ladies journey, artifacts are side-plot motivations. But if you're interested, look him up, and I suggest reading both Susan Sontag and Nan Goldin's essays for some clarity on why the images hold the status they do. From the research I've done, his images are plastered all over Storyville businesses, so if you've been there, you've seen at least one. Oh and I had a roommate once who could drink anything and never got a hangover. Some people are lucky like that.

[jiminiessipabo]

I, Spy (Series, AU)

Chapter 1: The Seduction

Pairing: CEO! Park Jimin x reader Word Count: 2.6k Genre: au, ceo!, action, heist Warnings: explicit, smut (eventually), language, violence, drugs A/N: Starting this series has been a roller coaster, most of this stuff has come from my dreams. Enjoy my dreams guys!

Park Jimin was considered to be one of the most important men amongst some of the top CEO’s, investors and socialites that were gathered at the annual META gala. This was an event where the top social class gathered around to see who were the biggest, brightest, the best and of course, the richest. However Jimin never found himself conversing in those types of conversations, he would much rather be off to the side having his more intimate chats with his friends and acquaintances with his date on his arm, though this year he was dateless. Both of his potential dates had cancelled on him, giving no reason other than they couldn’t make it. It mattered not; he could travel alone to this gala and not be judged for any eye candy on his arm. He could pull off the look of being lonely boy.

He was currently dancing with one of the wives of his potential business partners, Rufus Conway and his Latina wife, Sasha Conway. He danced with many of the wives, keeping up pleasantries and being a good sport, just like his father, Park Jaehyun, had taught him to be. He made small talk with Sasha, commenting on how he ‘admired’ her husband’s will to expand his company; even to a CEO like himself all the way in South Korea. He was walking her back to her husband when he caught a glimpse of flaming red walk past him. He couldn’t stop his eyes from trailing down the dark material, admiring how it clung to the voluptuous body that wore it. His eyes flickered up and caught the eyes that were staring right back at him.

Your eyes were stunning, he immediately felt enticed by your presence. He gulped and looked at Sasha when she tugged on his arm. “Mr Park? Are you okay?” She asked, and he nodded with a tight smile. “My husband is just there,” she pointed out, and led him towards the bar.

Jimin looked over his shoulder one last time, but you had disappeared, leaving him feeling slightly lost as his eyes quickly scanned the crowd but to no avail. You were gone. “Ah, Mr Park.” Jimin’s head shot around to look at the culprit of the voice and saw Rufus Conway staring at him with a grin on his face. Jimin smiled back and held his hand out to shake the American’s hand in a tight grip. “My wife seems to have become smitten with you,” the loud man joked, wrapping his arm around his wife’s waist.

Jimin laughed. “I seem to have the same problem with your wife, she is absolutely stunning,” said Jimin, winking at Sasha. The Latina giggled and leaned against her husband. “She has said many great things about you Mr Conway, I’m looking forwards to merging with you,” he said but his sight was drawn away from him and to where he could finally see you dancing with a man. You were beautiful, he thought with a sigh. “If you will excuse me for a moment,” he said to Rufus Conway, who nodded and smiled.

Jimin walked over to you, grabbing two glasses of wine from a waiter and wondered closer to where the crowd stood, watching those who danced. He waited until you made eye contact with him, over the shoulder of your dance partner, and winked, cocking a glass up. The corner of your lips titled upwards and you split from your dance partner, offering him no other words as you ditched him. You approached him slowly, your red lips kept shut as you silently took the offered glass from his hand.

“I’m Park Jimin, CEO of-“ You shushed him gently, cocking  your head to the side. “I know who you are Mr Park, I am a very big fan of your work,” you said, taking a small sip of the wine. “I would suspect a man of your taste and,” you paused,” power, that you would have a woman on your arm tonight,” you said.  

Jimin smiled bashfully, his free hand scratching the back of his neck before taking a large gulp from his glass. “I’ve had plenty of women on my arm tonight,” he joked.

You simply laughed. “Yes, I have watched you plenty, Mr Park, you’re a very fascinating man I must say,” you said. You set the now empty glass onto a table that was close to you and smiled. “If you will excuse me, I need to visit the refresher,” you said.

Jimin smiled and watched you walk in the direction where he knew the bathroom was. He watched you until you disappeared before chuckling to his self. “Worth drinking the wine,” he commented before setting the half empty glass on the table next to hers. He saw there was a trace of her lipstick on the rim of her glass and licked his bottom lip.

“Mr Park Jimin, just the man I wanted to see,” a bellowing voice said, startling Jimin who looked up to see an old friend of his father’s approaching him with open eyes. Jimin smiled and welcomed him. “Mr Jaebum Kim, what a pleasure,” said Jimin.

Jimin was deep into a conversation with Jaebum when he spotted you walking from the bathroom, your attention on your bag that your hands were currently searching through. As if you could feel his stare on you, you glanced up and locked eyes with him and smirked before walking to the bar.

It was another half hour until he could find you again. He felt thirsty for your attention; he just wanted to be in your alluring presence. He wanted your body close to his, under his even above his. He wouldn’t mind, he just wanted you. With these thoughts in mind, he pursued you through the large hall until he found you sitting beside a woman, laughing with her. He stumbled for a second, faltering in his steps. He didn’t know whether it would be impolite to impose on your conversation, one you were clearly enjoying. He turned around and walked to the bar; ordering two glasses of champagne this time, and his preferred drink in galas such as these.

Jimin cleared his throat before walking towards you, trying to be confident in his strides. He slowed his walk, grinning when you turned and waved him over, your lips still moving rapidly with the woman.

“-and she just waltz right up to him and kissed him smack on the lips, in front of his wife, his secret mistress and the Mayor who was supposed to be awarding him the medal,” said the woman. Jimin eternally cringed at that story, which seemed slightly over exaggerated. He glanced at you and saw amusement clear on your face, an eyebrow cocked.

“Hello Mr Park, come and join us,” you said suddenly, turning your attention on him and he swore he forgot how to breathe for a moment. He shuffled over to you, handing you the glass of champagne to which you gratefully took, smiling at him endearingly.

“Mr Park, It’s a pleasure to meet you, I had no idea you were familiar with Y/N,” said the woman opposite them. Jimin paused before continuing to sit down at the table, his thigh gently brushing against yours.

You cut in before he could say anything. “We just met tonight, and became fast friends. We have a lot in common,” you said, turning to him to throw a wink his way before sipping your drink, almost innocently.

The woman huffed, her manicured nails tapping against the table angrily. “Well, I see my husband, he will be wondering where I ran off to,” the woman said with a titter before departing without a word of goodbye over shoulder.

You heaved a great big sigh and turned to Jimin who was watching you with wide eyes. Your frown turned into a smile once more and you leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for even coming to me.” You kissed his other cheek. “And thank you for the drink,” you whispered.

Jimin felt his cheeks warming from where your touch was, his hand coming to caress his cheek before he smiled, a full smile that had his eyes turning into crescent moons for a moment. It warmed your heart to see such a gorgeous smile sent your way.

Sadly, the night was coming to an end and you both had to part ways. “I need to go now Mr Park,” you uttered softly, your hands reaching inside of your bag to grab your phone and car keys. You looked back up and saw Jimin nodding slowly, disappointment in his twinkling eyes. You smiled and handed him your phone. “But we can speak again?” You offered and watching as the heart-warming smile appeared, his head bobbing up and down excitedly as he took your phone.

You watched as he quickly typed his number in before handing it back to you. “It was a pleasure, Y/N, I can’t wait to see you again,” he said, grabbing your hand before swooping down to kiss it with his pillowy lips. You weren’t surprised that they were as soft as they looked.

You waved goodbye to him, walking through the mass crowds. Jimin was sad that would be his last time seeing you for the night, but he was too respectful to ever ask you to spend the night with him…Perhaps next time.

You turned, watching as Jimin sat on a chair by the bar, handing your bag to the man next to you. “Get the car running,” you ordered him, before grabbing his elbow. You looked up at him. “Don’t be there when I get there Seokjin,” you warned him, watching as he gave a singular nod and sped away.

You breathed in a vain attempt to slow your racing heart down. You made your way over to him, calling out name. You grinned and waved when he turned to face you, his eyes wide in shock before he grinned, standing up from his seat as though he was shocked. You made eye contact with the bartender and watched as he gently tapped a vial into Jimin’s champagne. You reached Jimin and pulled him into a long hug. “I just couldn’t leave like that, not when we connected so well,” you said into his ear.

You felt him shiver, his head nodding against your shoulder. When you saw the last of the mixture dissolve you let him go. “Sorry,” you said chuckling, flicking a piece of your hair from your face. You set down next to him on the seat. “How about one more drink and then maybe you can take me home?” You offered.

Jimin gulped and nodded. “What would you like? My treat,” he said, flagging down the bartender once more. You gave your drink order to the man before he set off making it. “So, what changed your mind?” Jimin asked, almost shyly, his fingers fiddling with the neck of his glass, his eyes nervously flickering from you to the drink.

It was endearing, you thought. “I saw you sitting her just before I left, and I decided that I didn’t want my night to end here,” you said. It wasn’t really a lie, you thought. When he looked up at you, a smile was quickly put onto your face, masking your guilt.

Soon the drinks were gone and you could tell the mixture had gotten to Jimin, he had moved closer to you, his hands nearing your own more and more. He was no longer shy, but he was still bashful enough to keep some distance. You placed a hand on his cheek, smiling briefly when his own hand caressed it, before looking at him with concern. “Maybe we should finally head out,” you said, looking around almost exaggeratedly. “Your partners might notice you being drunk, I can’t imagine that will go down well,” you whispered.

You watched as his eyelids fluttered closed for a second before he sighed heavily. “Yeah, let’s go,” he said softly, standing up sluggishly. You grabbed his hand in yours, gently tugging him away from the bar and towards the back entrance, opposite to where others were leaving.

You weren’t concerned about security stopping you, nor the cameras watching you. You felt a weight almost drag you down and turned to see Jimin laid on the floor. “Shit,” you hissed. “Fucking stupid hired muscle,” you spat out, thinking about the bartender. You would remember his face and make sure his blacklisted from hired work. “Doesn’t even know the simple dosage,” you muttered, slipping your hands under Jimin’s armpits before dragging his heavy body down the hallway. Luckily, the exit door was just in reached.

You dragged him through the door and saw your car just outside. You set Jimin against the back door, opening the passenger side of the car. You looked from the car to Jimin, back to the car before throwing your head back, letting out a low groan. “I need to start working out with Gguk more,” you said to the sky before bending down.

With a lot of effort on your behalf you managed to tuck in the dead weight of Jimin into the Passenger seat, leaning over him to fasten his seat belt before gently closing the car door. You found the keys already in the ignition and thanked Seokjin for not being incompetent. You could always trust your team, just not the outside hired goons.

You turned the ignition on and slowly backed out of the alleyway and onto the busy road that was lined up with limos and private cars. You drove past a few known partners of Park Jimin, smiling politely when they motioned concern towards his peaceful state. You soon pulled out of the event car park, smoothly driving and merging into the night traffic. You turned your head to look at Jimin, his head resting against the cool window before looking back at the road.

Your phone rang and you quickly answered it, setting it to hands free. “Is he with you?” Came the deep baritone voice of Kim Taehyung, your assistant. “You have two cars tailing you, they have since the gala, and one of them is Conway’s personal guards.”

You looked through the rear view mirror and saw the two cars that he was talking about. “Yeah, the package is with me. That damn hired muscle almost overdosed him though, take care of it Taehyung,” you growled out. You moved through the traffic, slowly speeding up, but the two cars were keeping pace. “Good job we’re driving a Subaru,” you muttered.

“Is the WRX good enough, or are we thinking a different car next time?” Taehyung asked through the phone. You could hear the amusement in his voice and rolled your eyes.

“Just get rid of that guy, I don’t remember his name. I didn’t particularly care. Oh, and give Seokjin 5% raise on his cut, he did well tonight,” you said before hanging up. You sped up, not caring about the other road users at this point and made to weave in and out of the traffic before drifting around a corner, swiftly ending the short car chase. You smirked, watching as they missed the turning and looked back at the road, disappearing from their view.

You glanced at Jimin and saw he was still passed out. As long as he wasn’t hurt, everything would be fine.

You could only hope the rest of the job will run smoothly.

[kazeself]

#FOLKLORE BRILLIANT LYRICS

so sorry but i am literally a reinvigorated taylor swift stan b/c folklore has been everything i’ve wanted for years so y’all are gonna have to deal with my shit. here’s a collection of some of my absolute favorite lyric segments from each song. i just need everyone to know that the 1, the teenage love triangle, my tears ricochet, exile, and this is me trying slay me so hard. mad woman is a close contender. i am deeply, personally invested in the 1 and the love triangle though...and it’s only a coincidence that betty and my ex’s name are interchangeable syllable wise.

the 1

“i’m doing good i’m on some new shit, been saying yes instead of no.”

“you know the greatest films of all time were never made.”

“and if my wishes came true it would’ve been you. in my defense i have none for never leaving well enough alone. but it would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the 1.”

“we never painted by the numbers baby, but we were making it count. you know the greatest loves of all time are over now.”

“i, i, i persist and resist the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different would everything be different today?”

“it would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me.”

cardigan (teenage love triangle #1, betty)

“when you are young they assume you know nothing.”

“sequin smile, black lipstick, sensual politics.”

just the whole fucking chorus and all variations there of throughout the song.

“and when i felt like i was an old cardigan under someone’s bed you put me on and said i was your favorite.”

“a friend to all is a friend to none. chase two girls, lose the one.”

“you drew stars around my scars, but now i’m bleeding.”

“i knew you tried to change the ending, peter losing wendy.” (this was BRILLIANT)

“i knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs.”

the last great american dynasty

“who knows if she never showed up what could’ve been. there goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen. she had a marvelous time ruining everything.”

“flew in all the Bitch Pack friends from the city.”

“holiday house sat quietly on that beach. free of women with madness, their men and bad habits, and then it was bought by me.” (queen of meta commentary)

“who knows if i never showed up what could’ve been...I HAD A MARVELOUS TIME RUINING EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!”

exile (ft. Bon Iver)

“i think i’ve seen this film before, and i didn’t like the ending.”

“you’re not my homeland anymore, so what am i defending?”

“second, third, and hundredth chances.”

“there’s no amount of crying i can do for you.”

“you didn’t even hear me out (you didn’t even hear me out.) you never gave a warning sign (i gave so many signs) all this time. i never learned to read your mind (never learned how to read my mind). i couldn’t turn things around (you turned things around). cause you never gave a warning sign (i gave so many signs, so many signs, so many signs, you didn’t even see the signs.)”

my tears ricochet

“if i’m on fire you’ll be made of ashes, too.”

“cause i loved you, i swear i loved you, even till my dying day.”

“if i’m dead to you why are you at the wake, cursing my name, wishing i stayed, look at how my tears ricochet.”

“you had to kill me but it killed you just the same.”

mirrorball

“you’ll find me on my tallest tip toes.” (so fricken adorable)

seven

“please picture me in the trees i hit my peak at seven feet in the swing over the creek.”

“cross your heart, won’t tell no other. and though i can’t recall your face i still got love for you.”

“i’ll love you to the moon and to saturn.”

“and just like a folk song our love will be passed on.”

august (teenage love triangle #2, inez)

“but i can see us lost in memory, august slipped away into a moment of time. cuz it was never mine. and i can see us twisted in bedsheets, august slipped away like a bottle of wine, cuz you were never mine.”

“you weren’t mine to lose.”

“but do you remember? do you remember when i pulled up and said ‘get in the car?’” 

“back when i was living for the hope of it all.”

this is me trying

“they told me all my cages were mental, so i got wasted like all my potential.” (slay me six ways to sunday, queen)

“i was so ahead of the curve the curve became a sphere.”

“i just wanted you to know this is me trying...AT LEAST I’M TRYING.”

illicit affairs

“leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for him so you leave no trace behind, like you don’t even exist.”

“a drug that only worked the first few hundred times.”

“don’t call me ‘kid’ don’t call me ‘baby’ look at this godforsaken mess that you made me.”

“you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else.”

“you taught me a secret language that i can’t speak with anyone else. and you know damn well for you i would ruin myself a million little times.”

invisible string

“and isn’t it just so pretty to think all along there was some invisible string tying you to me?”

“time, mystical time, cutting me open then healing me fine.”

“cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart...now i send their babies presents.”

“hell was the journey but it brought me heaven.”

mad woman

“does she smile or does she mouth “fuck you forever?”” (first f bomb of her catalog and it STILL gibs shivers)

“no one likes a mad woman, you made her like that.”

“and women like hunting witches, too. doing your dirtiest work for you.”

“it’s obvious that wanting me dead really brought you two together.”

“the master of spin has a couple side flings, good wives always know.”

epiphany

“keep your helmet, keep your life son. just a flesh wound, here’s your rifle.”

“crawling up the beaches now, ‘sir i think he’s bleeding out,’ and some things you just can’t speak about.”

“with you i serve with you I fall down, down.”

“only twenty minutes to sleep but you dream of some epiphany. just one single glimpse of relief to make some sense of what you’ve seen.”

betty (teenage love triangle #3, james)

“you heard the rumors from inez, you can’t believe a word she says most times but this time it was true. and the worst thing that i ever did was what i did to you.”

“but if i showed up at your party would you have me, would you want me, would you tell me to go fuck myself or lead me to the garden”

just the whole last verse and lead into the bridge talking about how james ended up doing the fling with inez.

“the only thing i wanna do is make it up to you [...] yeah i showed up at your party will you have me, will you love me, will you kiss me on the porch i front of all your stupid friends?”

“i’m only seventeen, i don’t know anything, but i know i miss you.”

“standing in your CARDIGAN. kissin’ in my car again, stopped at a STREETLIGHT. you know i miss you.”

peace

“a coming-of-age has come and gone.”

“all these people think love’s a show, but i would die for you in secret.”

“would it be enough if i could never give you peace?”

“i talk shit with my friends, it's like I'm wasting your honor and you know that I'd swing with you for the fences.”

“give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other.”

“i’d give you my sunshine, give you my best. but the rain is always gonna come if you’re standin’ with me.”

hoax

“stood on the cliffside screaming ‘give me a reason.’ your faithless love is the only hoax i believe in. don’t want no other shade of blue but you. no other sadness in the world would do.”

“you knew the hero died so what’s the movie for?”

“you knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart.”

“my broken drum, you have beaten my heart.”

the lakes (physical bonus track)

WHO KNOWS BITCH I HAVEN’T GOTTEN THE CD DELIVERED YET IT SAYS 2-3 WEEKS!!!!

[insomniac-dot-ink]

You’re Not Handling the End of the World Very Well

genre: superheroes, end of the world, wlw

words: 3k

summary: After all of civilization has properly and meaningful collapsed, there are only a handful of meta-humans and villains left on the empty world.

So what happens when the villains win? When the planet has apocalypse-d and it’s all gone to shit? The real question is what do super-villains threaten heroes with now that everything else is gone.

The world’s over. Lucy Goren just wants her damn dog back.

Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress⭐Twitter ⭐ Ao3

story for one of my patrons for ‘Random-Pick-a-Prompt’ event for April!

Lucy’s boots scraped across the chunky rubble on the floor. It echoed low and grating across the empty space, a reminder, no, a very tired and heavy-handed statement.

Lucy looked over the gloomy, remote hallway, cast in long shadows and flickering fluorescent lights overhead. She rolled her eyes gracefully at it. It was an underground government facility that had long since been abandoned, bombed, and then abandoned again. Cracks spread in fine spiderwebs from the concrete ceiling to the wall, with little peak-holes into the dark ethers of the building.

She stepped around the next heap of rubble and made her way toward the nearest fire exit at the end of the hall, technically, she could fly there, but what would be the point?

The exit sign blinked red and cast a fiery neon glow across the grey walls, a splotch of color in the faded dingy surroundings. Water dripped from somewhere far away and stagnant air entombed the hallway.

A speaker crackled to life from a black box in the corner, staticy and jumbled, it had obviously been jerry-rigged together recently compared to every other broken thing in the dilapidated setting.

It started with a laugh. A simmering boundless sound, building and rippling off the walls, echoing down the hall and toward its demise situated directly up it’s own arsehole.

Lucy kept her eyes focused straight ahead and made no move to acknowledge it.

“It’s been too long, Lady Remix.” The voice purred as the laugh died, “I suppose you’re surprised to see me again.” “Yeah,” she responded without venom. “I kinda thought you’d manage to choke on your own spit by this point?” She tipped her chin up, unwashed blonde curls tickling her shoulder tops. “Since it’s so bullshit flavored and all.” The laugh returned, hot and pleased with itself. “My, my,” the voice radiated a perfectly practiced sense of glee. “Someone updated her vocabulary. Tired of being a role model for ungrateful brats, hmm?”

Lucy made a face up at the ceiling, “You’re the only left who thinks I’m a big deal Stephanie.” She said dryly and reached for the exit door, putting her hand on the cold dented handle. “But I’ll kick your ass into next Tuesday to be my own damn role model this time.”

She opened the door and stepped into a drafty stairwell, a damp cold crawled up her spine numbly, it smelled metallic and dusty.

“Lady Remix,” the voice tutted gently, “Your confidence becomes you. But I’m afraid you’re too late.” Lucy grimaced and looked up the endless grey steps both below and above. “You’ll have to go down the rabbit hole to meet your fate, little hero!” She cackled, “And see exactly what your chivalry has brought you.” Lucy simply held up her middle finger to the camera this time. She carefully oriented herself in space, getting a sense of her body, her beating heart, and boxy solid surroundings. She touched off from the ground.

This trick had taken years of training, sweat and tears, to be able to reorient empty space itself and allow her to float.

When Lucy was a teenager she had risked her life in a toxic oil field (as you do) and managed to stop a major spill into a local water supply. She had gotten terribly sick afterward and assumed it was over. However, a mysterious figure arrived and asked if she’d like to change her fate, reorient her dying cells and everything else around them.

She was 17, she completely and totally accepted. She had been gifted the power of Spatial Manipulation, she could reorient anything within seven feet of her. That was a long time ago, it gave her a headache if she thought about it too hard.

It had seemed worth it at the time. Now she just snorted lightly.

She stared up at the speaker in the stairwell, tracing the wires with her eyes: following the cables upward and into the wall. Lucy gave a shallow smile and then threw herself toward the next story, gliding past the gaps in the stairs and doors hanging off of their hinges.

“I said down the rabbit hole, little bunny,” the speaker said tartly. “Down. Stop that.”

Lucy quickly made her way to the second story of the underground facility, confirming her own hunch. A big red door sat with the word ‘Restricted’ painted in bulky white letters across it. The letters looked freshly applied.

“Ugh,” Stephanie did not sound pleased.

Lucy twisted the locked door away, reorienting it in space to gape wide open and reveal a dark, noisy room. The place buzzed with machines and beeping monitors, appearing to be a vast repurposed storage area with only various fuzzy glowing silver screens to give it light.

Wires criss-crossed the floor, sloppily taped down and sprawling out from the center like messy vines. A personal generator hummed in the corner, computers heaped on top of each other in a maze of defunct tech, and one central enormous screen bathed the area in alien wintery light.

Lucy took a breath in through her nose and landed heavily, she let her shadow cut a long and imposing silhouette across the concrete floors, backlit by the stairwell lights. The inside smelled musty, warm, and like corn chips that had gone incredibly stale.

A giant chair faced away her, high-backed and on a set of little rolling wheels, it was positioned directly in front of the main staticked screen. Lucy didn’t bother to inspect anything and simply strode in, letting her voice fill the room. “Where is my damn dog?” She growled. “Mmm,” Stephanie’s voice was low and rumbling, the door slammed loudly shut behind Lucy. “Have you finally learned the lesson?” Lucy groaned, “Oh my God.” “After all this time,” the other woman turned slowly, painfully slowly, her face caught half in the shadows and half light of the screen. “Have you finally learned the price of loving?” Lucy made a face, blinked several times, and then turned around in a tight circle. “Kitt!” Lucy called loudly, picking her way across the floor. “Kitt, come here girl!”

“Your precious pup is-” “Shut up, Steph.” She said dryly, “Literally nothing is stopping me from re-orienting your heart outside of your damn body.”

Stephanie paused for a moment, obviously startled, her mouth pinched shut and twisted off to the side. Lucy crossed the room to a darker corner, an area evidently lived in: strewn with clutters of trash, a mini-fridge, raggedy sweatpants, and a mattress all shoved to the side.

Lucy looked back to Stephanie mildly.

“Haven’t you heard?” Stephanie puffed herself up, recovering neatly, she tossed her head back with a flare. “There’s nothing for you to orient, hero... I never had a heart to begin with!” “Oh my God,” Lucy massaged the bridge of her nose. “Are we doing this? Are we still doing this?” “Oh precious, ignorant Remix,” she simpered, purple lipstick catching the light in an easy smirk. “Pure, brilliant power will never stop. It never rests for the foolish heroes of the world! Those easily worn down and broken. I am endless.” “Have you been just,” Lucy glanced at the pile of trash in the corner, “holed up in this shithole this whole time? Stephanie,”

“For I am!” She continued blithely.

“That mattress has mold on it.” “THE HEGEMON.” Lucy gave her a completely toneless look, twitching and unamused. “Are you done?” She looked her up and down. “Because I am.” “I don’t know the meaning of ‘done’! I am The Hegemon and you will know LOSS and GUILT, those things subjected to me at a young age, a blessing of pain that gave me insights into human nature itse-” “First of all, last time I checked your name was Stephanie Brewster and you worked in accounting for seven years.” Stephanie frowned dourly at that. “And I don’t care.”

Stephanie’s nostrils flared. She was a wry, bony woman with short, wild black hair that stood up like a faux-mohawk with too much product. She had a pair of purple goggles covering eyes and patented dark shiny lipstick. A black lab coat was buttoned all the way up to her throat and tall shiny black boots clad her calves.

Her usually purple nails were chipped and bitten down to their very nubs, she looked softly more restless than usual, shifting in place and drumming her nails on the arm of the chair endlessly.

“God this place smells awful,” Lucy kicked an empty tv dinner tray. “Steph, this is so bad.”

Stephanie sniffed loudly, petulance entering her tone. “Well you aren’t looking so great either.” That was a fair statement. Lucy hadn’t showered in an uncountable number of days, her dirty blonde curls much dirtier than usual and slouchy jeans ripped around the cuffs. She wore a dingy pink night shirt, beaten up gym shoes, and a lumpy sports bra from an unknown era.

Obviously, her face was maskless and when she caught her reflection in the dead tv screens she looked back at her own bloodshot, baggy eyes. Her skin looked slightly sickly and too pale, she had even lost some of her iconic round hips and full figure.

People magazine called her an ‘Icon of Plus-Sized Girls Everywhere,’ but that was by Hollywood standards and her thighs had been mostly muscle back then. That was all a lifetime ago.

“Kitt!” She cupped her mouth and called, “Come here girl, let’s go home.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Stephanie wheeled her chair around, trying to keep Lucy’s attention. “She’s not coming.” Lucy turned slowly, thoughtfully. She put her hands on her hips, “How attached are you to your teeth Steph? 32 always seemed excessive to me. But we could discuss.”

Stephanie pulled back in her chair, expression tensing. “You’re being kind of an asshole right now.” It was almost a whisper.

Lucy rolled her eyes, “Yeah, well, the world ended and you stole my dog.” She stomped her way over toward the villain, “Only one of those things I can change.”

Stephanie looked away, tone shifting from it’s usual mocking drawl. “Oh, it’s not that bad.” She frowned deeply, “Minnesota is still fine.” “Ugh,” she groaned loudly, “Pestilence got them last month. You’ve really been here this whole time, huh?” She wrinkled her nose at several packs of energy drinks stacked in the corner.

Stephanie got to her feet, unfolding her body like a lithe house cat stretching out, she tilted her head to the side. “I took shelter.” She said aggressively, “It’s what Gentlemen Damnation said to do for us Chosen.”

“Do we really have to call him that?” Lucy did another aimless turn in place. “Like, I know he painted it in blood on all major monuments. But considering those were destroyed too maybe we can stop?”

Stephanie crossed her arms over her chest. “He is the new and eternal lord of Lamb’s Blood New Earth. What else would we call him?” Lucy scratched her chin, “I’m thinking ‘Gunk I Find in between my Toes During the Summer’.” “Well, I mean-” “Burst Pustules on the Buttocks of Men in Unwashed Saunas.” “That’s kind of a mouthful.” “Ratty McRatman, the Sequel. Baby Whose Birth Certificate is an Apology Letter from Trojan. A Barnacle on the Ballsack of-” “Yes, I get it,” Stephanie reached for some sort of electric staff, “How long have you been saving those up?” She shrugged listlessly, “When is the last time I saw your face?” “Haha,” she turned around, “If I had known your banter had become so… unpolished. Well.” Lucy took a couple threatening steps toward her, “Enough.” She moved her hands quickly, “It’s almost Kitt’s dinner time and I just found a DVD copy of Space Jam buried last night. I have shit to do.” Stephanie cleared her throat, “I see you’re impatient for my hand to be played.” She tried to plaster on a new taunting smile, “I have a series of challenges even you will lose heart at! The grit of heroes tested by my might and ingenuity, tested- only to find themselves,” she licked her lips, “Lacking.” Lucy narrowed her eyes, and then took a sudden step toward her, bringing Stephanie into her zone of manipulation. She re-oriented the other woman upside down in space, Stephanie flailed for a moment, reaching for her weapon.

Lucy quickly re-oriented anything in her pockets and staff to the other side of her. “On a scale of one to ten, how fond of breathing are you?”

Her eyes went wide, “What?”

She separated the villain’s air supply from her lungs.

Stephanie’s face went two shades paler and she started clawing at her throat and kicking in space, arms pinwheeling and trying to right herself and gasp for air. Lucy’s eyes just narrowed further. “Now.” She growled. “Where is my dog?”

Stephanie kicked and spittle dripped down the side of her mouth, she gaped for another couple of strained seconds. Finally, she pointed toward the space under her enormous office desk off to the side. Lucy let her fall unceremoniously to the floor and made a beeline toward the desk.

She knelt down quickly and caught sight of a wire cage pushed into the corner. She pulled the thing toward her and exhaled. A lumpy form lay on top of a thin blue blanket, the chest of her floppy brown beagle rose and fell gently inside.

She managed a smile and unlatched the cage, reaching in to pet the dog’s side and scratch her behind the ears. Kitt didn’t stir, but Lucy knew it was only a heavy sedative.

She carefully gathered her dog into her arms and turned around.

Stephanie was sprawled on the floor, gasping for air and clutching at her chest. “That was,” she rasped and unsteadily sat up. “Completely against The Code.” “Don’t you get it?” Lucy strode over, reaching the scientist and taking her purple goggles in hand, she tore them off her head. “The Code is gone. The hero society is collapsed. Everybody’s off planet or dead,” she bore her teeth. “You won.” Stephanie’s eyes were an animated misty grey and flicked all around the room until they landed on her own empty open palms. “Yes. Gentlemen Damnat- David.” She said softly, “he said we’d win.” “Yeah,” Lucy jerked her head up to the ceiling, holding her dog close. “Woopee. He got what he wanted. Society’s over and villain’s are stealing my damn dog.” She looked down again sharply, “She’s just a dog Steph!” Stephanie’s chin dimpled delicately, “I wasn’t going to hurt her.” She looked away. “This isn’t how you play.” “I know.” The weight, the heaving immeasurable weight, settled on her shoulder tops. Lucy fell to her knees and sat dully on the floor next to her. “The rules are gone. It’s over… you all got what you wanted.” Stephanie scratched the back of her neck, “I don’t think everyone was supposed to… go.” She said quietly, “Just the foolish and soft-hearted and those who toted light and selfishlessness above the-” “Yeah, yeah,” Lucy put her hand up, “Have fun reveling in your victory. Imma go watch Space Jam with my dog.” Lucy got up to leave, knees creaking and a warm body limp in her arms. Her thoughts drifted over to the task of flying all the way home from here, even in its death throes D.C. was a nightmare to navigate.

“Wait,” Stephanie called weakly, “Lady Remix.” She carefully addressed her, “It wasn’t my plan to create The Four Horsemen. I didn’t know…” “Duh,” Lucy shook her head, “You were like, a C villain at best hun.” Stephanie wrinkled her nose, “Can’t you call me Hegemon once? For old times sake?” “No,” she said flatly, “You can call me Lucy though.” Stephanie balked, “Absolutely not,” she scrambled back, “terrible.” It was Lucy’s turn to laugh, “God. You’re so old school.”

Stephanie slowly crawled to her feet again, much less nimble and calculating than before. “Yes.” She said slowly. “It’s not as if David gave us much of a choice on how to rebuild the world,” she looked toward the dark corners, the outside. “Not even an email.” Lucy shrugged, “He took out a lot of villains too I heard,” she said offhandedly, “Everybody. And anyone who made it out just left the planet.” Stephanie considered her for a long moment, “Not you?”

She looked back to the door, “Not me.” She sighed, “duty and all that I thought.” She scowled at the door handle, “Plus… not everyone deserves off-planet.” Stephanie burst out into a dark laugh, voice resonating to it’s rough purr. “Deserve? What hero language! An arrogant mechanism of the weak to justify their own actions.” “Seriously?” “Right. Sorry.” Stephanie took a couple hurried steps toward her, hair askew and bright grey eyes surveying the area. “So, where are you now in the fight?” Lucy took a step back, “Nowhere. You can tell your master I’ve thrown in the towel,” her eyes unfocused, “there’s no one left to save.” Stephanie opened her mouth, and then closed it. She looked down at the floor unhappily, “There’s your dog.” She said in a controlled tone, “And you.” Lucy shot her a tense look, “Goodbye Stephanie.” She adjusted Kitt in her arms to reach for the door. “If you bother me again I will be more off Code than you know.” She didn’t stop her as Lucy shouldered the door open and started climbing the last of the stairs back outside. She was halfway toward the faceless metal exit door when she heard a number of hurried steps chasing after her.

Lucy stopped in place but didn’t turn.

“He really ruined it you know.” She started babbling, “He really missed the point we were all trying to drive home.” Lucy sprouted a lopsided smile and glanced over her shoulder, “What are you trying to say?” Stephanie drew herself up, “I may have been a C villain but even I know this isn’t how it was supposed to go, and I should,” she licked her lips, floundering slightly. She hunched her shoulders, “and what kind of woman of action would be if I didn’t do something?” Lucy threw her head back and laughed, it was filled with all that suffocating weight of the ages, “Are you going to be a hero now?” Stephanie put her hands on her hips, “Absolutely not!” She looked away petulantly, “hero? God no.” Her gaze followed her upwards, back to the door. “Are you?” “I don’t think so.” She reached for the door and it swung open, pouring in the ashen light of the storm clouds and empty roads. “Want to come?”

She blinked a couple times, frowned, and then nodded stiltedly.

They walked out into the broken world together.

[ebaeschnbliah]

S E K H M E T

________________________________________________________________

The lioness goddesses of war and healing, who could only be appeased with the “feasts of drunkenness"

Some time ago, before S4 aired, I posted about the Prince’s case from TGG, with an addition/revision three months later - Connie Kenny & Raoul . In the course of the last two years, and with the new informations given in S4, some of my former ideas and theories have changed, some expanded. Which can be expected with this story full of surprises. :)  

My interpretaation of the character mirrors in the Prince’s case though, is today the same as in the addition from Dec 2016:

Connie Prince/Mycroft/brain

Kenny Prince/Sherlock/body

Raoul de Santos/Jim/sex

Sekhmet the cat/John/love

Back then I did only a very quick research of Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess, because my main focus was on the human actors. Still, the combination of warrior and healer in Sekhmet’s attributes, combined with a strong connection to the sun, convinced me that this cat represents John. John is a soldier and a doctor, he hasn’t only a strong connection to the sun (conductor of light) but also to the lion … panthera leo ... family: felidae … cats. 

“Sekhmet. Named after the Egyptian goddess.”  (Kenny Prince, TGG)

Playing around with the five cases of TGG lately (Bruce-Partington), Sekhmet the cat came into focus once more and I researched that Egyptian goddess a bit more deeply … and found a lot of interesting and astonishing things I never noticed before.

Anyone who is interested in Egyptian goddesses in connection with Sherlock BBC, some musings on cats & lions and a little bit on dogs as well  ...  there’s more under the cut …. 

Sekhmet

In ancient Egypt Sekhmet was worshipped as a warrior goddess as well as a goddess of healing. She was depicted in art as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians or as a woman with the head of a lioness, who was dressed in red, the colour of blood. Sekhmet was also a solar deity, sometimes called the daughter of Ra and bears the Uraeus (serpent), and the solar disk on her head. She is closely associated with the goddesses Hathor and Bastet and the Eye of Ra. 

Meaning of the name Sekhmet:  "the one who is powerful or mighty". Sekhmet was also called "One before whom evil trembles", "Mistress of Dread", "Lady of Slaughter" and "She who mauls". It was said that her breath formed the desert. She was seen as the protector of the pharaohs and led them in warfare. 

The festivals of intoxication 

To pacify Sekhmet, festivals were celebrated … the Egyptians danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess and drank great quantities of wine ritually, to imitate the extreme drunkenness that stopped the wrath of the goddess, when she almost destroyed humanity. 

Hathor 

She was a major goddess who played a wide variety of roles and was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra's feminine counterpart, and in this form she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies.

Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspects, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness or a cobra. Titles given to her were: ‘Mistress of the Stars/Sky’, ‘Mistress of Love’, ‘Lady of the Offering/Contentment’.

Myths connecting Sekhmet and Hathor

In a myth about the end of Ra's rule on the earth, Ra sends Hathor as Sekhmet to destroy mortals who conspired against him. Sekhmet's blood-lust was not quelled at the end of battle and led to her destroying almost all of humanity, so Ra poured out beer, dyed red, so that it resembled blood. Mistaking the beer for blood, she became so drunk that she gave up the slaughter and returned peacefully to Ra.

In the ‘Book of the Heavenly Cow’. Ra sends Hathor as the Eye of Ra to punish humans for plotting rebellion against his rule. She becomes the lioness goddess Sekhmet and massacres the rebellious humans, but Ra decides to prevent her from killing all humanity. He orders that beer be dyed red and poured out over the land. The Eye goddess drinks the beer, mistaking it for blood, and in her inebriated state reverts to being the benign and beautiful Hathor. 

The two aspects of the Eye goddess ... violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful ... reflected the Egyptian belief that women encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love.

Bastet 

Originally she was also worshipped as a lioness goddess, just as Sekhmet. Along with the other lioness goddesses, Bastet would occasionally be depicted as the embodiment of the Eye of Ra and her festival was celebrated with great amouts of wine. Her name became associated with the lavish jars in which Egyptians stored their ointment used as perfume. Bastet thus gradually became regarded as the goddess of perfumes, earning the title of ‘perfumed protector’. Greeks occupying ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilization changed her into a goddess of the moon.

Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the dangerous side of her personality and Bastet, who was increasingly depicted as a cat, representing her benign side.

The Eye of Ra

The Eye of Ra is a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. It is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun, but it is also an independent entity, which can be personified by  goddesses like Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet and others. The Eye goddess acts as mother, sibling, consort, and daughter of the sun god. She is his partner in the creative cycle in which he begets the renewed form of himself that is born at dawn. 

The Egyptians often referred to the sun and the moon as the "eye"s of particular gods. At times they called the solar eye the "Eye of Ra" and the lunar eye the "Eye of Horus". The related hieroglyphs show the eye iconographically mirrored … from the perspective of the viewer it’s the left eye, from the viewpoint of the god, it’s the right one.

Source of historical information and images: Wikipedia (Sekhmet, Hathor, Bastet Eye of Ra)

Astonishing details shared with Sherlock BBC

The symbol of the eye turns up throughout the whole story. The sprayed eye from TBB and Sherlock’s eye from TEH.   ( Eyes    Eyes & Questionmarks)

Women dressed in red. Mary in TEH and Faith in TLD

A woman wearing cow horns. Mary in TSOT and Janine can also be seen with them in HLV. 

A woman wearing a snake on her head. Amanda in TBB.

The ‘Perfumed Protector’ and the moon. Sherlock and Mary from TEH and Claire de la Lune from HLV.   (Claire de la Lune   Clair De La Lune   Perfume Deduction   All things are blue

Lots of lions. These are both from TBB.  (John is the Lion sculpture  Cupid lions and omnia vincit Amor   TBB - hic sunt leones   Corporal Lyons’ insignias of love   Lions in TAB) 

The conductor of light. John in TGG and THOB.

A feast of drunkeness. Sherlock and John in TSOT.

Sekhmet  (TGG and a pic of the Gayer-Anderson Cat, which is believed to be a representation of Bastet (X)

Could it be that someone involved with Sherlock BBC is a big fan of Ancient Egypt? Or is all this just coincidence? Anyway, Sekhmet, Hathor, Bastet and the Eye of Ra …. all of them are closely connected to one another. 

one transforms into the other and back again

one develops from the other

they represent different aspects of the same thing

Regarding Sherlock BBC, this duality feels rather familiar. Especially where the ‘canines’ of the story are concerned. As @sagestreet points out in the Follow the Dog metas, all dogs are connected to sex and the fear of sex is represented by the monstrous hound. Two variations of canines serve to express different attitudes towards sexuality. 

At the same time there are also two human characters (male and female) who act as main mirrors for sexuality … Jim Moriarty, who conveniently calls himself Mr. Sex and Irene Adler, the cunning dominatrix. And in one scene from THOB two dogs can be seen in a shop, sitting side by side behind glass.

Sexuality is a very important aspect in life and in this story as well. Dogs and traces of dogs are interwined with it from the first to the last episode. RedBeard, either Irish Setter or someone else, turns out to be a key element in Sherlock’s past. 

What about love?

There’s another important aspect in life and in this story, besides sexuality. This aspect is love. How farfetched is it to assume that love might be portrayed in a similar way as sex? There exist already two human characters (male and female) who are widely considered to be main mirrors for love … John Watson and Molly Hooper. But is there also an animal who could represent love, like the dogs represent sex? An animal that appears, similar to the canines, in two different variations? 

Two cats in one pic, sitting in a shop behind glass … very similar to the two dogs in Speedy’s window. There are also two variations of felines who play a role in the story … cats and lions. A tame pet version and the big, wild and dangerous relative of the same species. And while John Watson is connected to lion and sun, Molly Hooper owns Toby the cat. 

Yes. I am officially going to be a mad old cat woman. I'm 31 and I'm single and I've bought a cat. But he's great. He's called Toby.   (Molly’s blog)

Felines …. cats and lions

A cat can scratch and bite you. It hurts, yes, but it wont kill you. A lion though, that one surely is able to ‘break every bone in your body, while naming it’ and can easily shred your heart into tiny pieces. Lions also often suffocate their prey by covering the muzzle. It’s called ‘the kiss of death’.

Molly & Irene - female mirrors for love & sex

There exists a striking similarity between Molly Hooper (love) and Irene Adler (sex). At Christmas in ASIB, both women send a gift for Sherlock (Mouth like a crimson wound). On both ocassions the wrapping paper is colour-coordinated with the lipstick. ‘The shade of red echoes her lipstick’ explains Sherlock in Molly’s case while the picture of Irene’s gift comes with a flashback to the beginning of the episode when she decides that a ‘shade of blood’ would be the perfect colour for her lips. Sherlock opens only one of the two presents that day … that of Irene (sex). I wrote about it in Explosive, it’s more me . The content of Molly’s present (love), is never revealed. 

John & Jim - male mirrors for love & sex

Choices and consequences … that’s a main theme which runs through the whole story and Sherlock seems to be torn between two aspects: John or James, James or John, saint or sinner … friend or lover … the more is less. This topic is adressed in detail in  Solutions or Choices  and  The Big Question - The menaing of Reichenbach. Therefore I leave it here. The picture below shows the strong connection between John (love) and Jim (sex) very clearly.

Sex and love

Sex - is action. It can be the breathtaking fulfillment of love. It can be given without love, it can be supressed, it can be sold, bought or taken by force. Sexuality can be controlled and locked away somewhere deep down in the hidden places of the soul. 

Love - is quite a different matter. Love can’t be supressed, sold or bought, or taken by force. Love can’t be given if it’s not there in the first place. Love can’t be controlled. Love is what it is. If love is there, it’s there. If not, then not. Love isn’t action. It is emotion. 

Therfore love is a much more dangerous aspect to deal with than sex … if one tries to avoid it because one is afraid of it. 

How to deal with too much unwanted emotion?

If Jim represents sex in this story, Sherlock’s counter measure against Mr. Sex seems to be a padded cell deep down in his mind palace. Here he keeps the unwanted urges fixed in a straight jacket and chained to the wall with an iron leash …. like a monstrous hound from hell  (Shoes for the hound).  A measure probably based on the pinciple: ‘don’t want it, don’t act on it’

LESTRADE: ... but these (murders) do appear to be suicides. We know the difference. The, um, the poison was clearly self-administered. REPORTER 3: Yes, but if they are murders, how do people keep themselves safe? LESTRADE: Well, don’t commit suicide.

Counter measures against love

If John represent love, how does Sherlock deal with love? This indomitable, uncontainable emotion. How does he react to a feeling he fears and desires at the same time? Comparing love to a powerful and deadly animal like a lion(ess) … what measures does Sherlock take to deal with that lion(ess)? How does one keep a dangerous lion(ess), if one can’t control that creature, that emotion? 

If one can’t chain it … maybe one can change it? 

It is known that Sherlock changes stories he doesn’t like. Could he apply a similar treatment to an emotion he fears? Transforms Sherlock LOVE, the mighty lion(ess), into a harmless cat, so he can keep it without danger. And the only remnant which indicates the actual origin of that ‘cat’ is the name Sherlock chooses for her in the play he creates on his mind stage ….. Sekhmet, the lioness goddess of war and healing. 

The cat breed chosen to play Sekhmet is a Sphynx Cat. Maybe that's not just another lovely nod to Ancient Egypt. It could also confirm Sherlock’s strategy to deal with his fear of an emotion like love ... by diminishing the source of that fear. Because of all cat breeds on this planet, Sphynx Cats are among the most vulnerable and helpless ones. 

Without a fur, their body isn’t protected against sunburn, hot/cold/wet weather, bites/scratches from other animals. They need to be bathed regularly to remove body-oils which would normally be absorbed by the fur. Without the constant care of their humans, those cats would not be able to survive outdoors for long. Maybe as a reaction to this helplessness, these cats have developed a very close and more dog-like relationship with humans. 

Diminishing the source of a fear in order to bypass it, to better cope with it … this strategy is also adressed in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, when Professor Lupin introduces his pupils to a boggart and teaches them how to deal with that creature:

"It's a shape-shifter. It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most. Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces, Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.” 

“The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing …. force it to look comical.”  (X)

Transforming a fear into something that is ridiculous or something that is profoundly helpless, achieves quite the same result. The fear might not go away but it diminishes. 

The conclusion of the Prince’s case

It isn’t Kenny, it is Connie who owns Sekhmet the cat and it is also Connie who employs Raoul de Santos. An appropiate choice if Connie indeed represents the brain. Both, the chemistry of love and of sex, have their origins in the brain after all.

The scenario performed in this little play on Sherlock’s mind stage, tells the story of a man (Kenny/Sherlock), of a body, who is clearly ruled and dominated by his brain (Connie/Mycroft). And that body isn’t happy at all under the reign of this government. It’s a brain that ‘works’, that ‘shows off’, a brain that knows exactly ‘what goes best with what’. While the body, the transport, gets constantly bullied, ridiculed and forced into a role it doesn’t want. But apparently there are also parts of the same brain that contemplate thoughts of love (Sekhmet/John) and sex (Raoul de Santos/Jim). 

Mirrored in the shiny surface of the table:  John & Sekhmet (love & love on different levels) while Raoul (sex) is silently lurking in the background.

By the end of this scenario Sherlock seems to come to the conclusion that sex would be the death of brain. Better and more reasonable to lock sex up somewhere deep down inside himself and stay safely back with the harmless cat. Definitely leave the lion in the bag. Cat/love/John without sex/Raoul/Jim would still be love …. philia/agape …. not eros. 

The outcome of the Prince’s experiment seems to be Sherlock’s basis for the following experiments. At any rate, by the end of The Reichenbach Fall, he comes to a very similar conclusion. Here too Sherlock chooses brain/work over love and sex. This time to save friendship (philia) and he sends his body into hiatus/undercover … into a metaphorical coffin. 

Then he puts on a facade to hide his true self behind it. And Sherlock keeps the cat/lion(ess) because, after all, he (Sherlock/Mary) is a big cat lover. 

Thanks for reading this far. I leave you to your own deductions. Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts. :)

November, 2018

Related metas which inspired me:

Follow the dog Meta-Series   Cats and dogs   Conny and Kenny Prince   John is the Lion sculpture

Cupid lions and omnia vincit Amor   TBB - hic sunt leones   Corporal Lyons’ insignias of love   Lions in TAB   

Sherlock Cats&Dogs   

@gosherlocked @sherlockshadow @possiblyimbiassed @raggedyblue @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @loveismyrevolution @spenglernot

[so-caffeinated]

I loved this week's chapter and the look into Ameliam as "friends"! You told me to mention the Amelia and Oliver flashfic after this weeks chapter, so here I am mentioning it...

lol… i completely forgot that i said this… OKAY, let’s flashfic it. Giving myself an hour and 20 minutes, no edits. Let’s see how this goes… 

November is colder than usual this year and the bustle of holiday shoppers in the streets is both fast-paced and well-populated. It’s a good sign for the economy, Amelia thinks, and she’s happy for it even if her focus is entirely on work. She’ll get her shopping done later. Or… well, probably her assistant will get it done for her, but presents will be bought and isn’t that the point? 

Passing the retail shops, she ducks into a higher end restaurant and slips off her hat and coat as she looks around. It doesn’t take long to spot the person she’s got a lunch meeting with. Oliver Queen has the sort of presence that draws people’s attention, after all. 

With six solid years in the state senate under his belt, Oliver Queen has increasingly become a man of influence in this state. He’s an ally you want and an adversary you don’t. As chief of staff for Central City’s mayor, Amelia’s found herself on both sides of that coin with him on various issues, but today is definitely the former and she’s glad for it. Going up against Senator Queen on anything is never a pleasant experience. Or, generally, a successful one. 

“Mister Senator,” she greets, as she approaches. He rises from his seat and shakes her outstretched hand clasped between both of his. 

“It’s Oliver, Amelia,” he corrects, looking more amused than is really warranted. “Unless you want me calling you Madam Chief of Staff throughout lunch?” 

She wrinkles her nose up at that and relents, taking a seat and a sip of the ice water already in place at her setting. “Fair enough, Oliver. We’ll play it your way. For now. But the minute we start talking about the corporate tax rate, I’m going back to Mister Senator.”

He chuckles at that and grins at her, the amusement makes him look a couple of decades younger for a moment. “Well it won’t exactly be a friendly meeting anymore then, will it?” he asks. 

“Probably a good thing that’s not on today’s docket,” she agrees. “Plenty of other things to focus on… like your pending crime prevention initiative. Central City is absolutely on board. The mayor likes what she’s seen of it so far, but we clearly have special considerations, given our population. Metas aren’t a huge percentage of our offenders, mostly thanks to The Flash, but the ones we do have tend to be violent. Talk to me about how we address that and then we can sort out how to lock down Stanley and Whitter’s votes. That’ll put pressure on McIntyre and Powers.”

They’re all business for the next hour as they map out details and fine-tune plans. By the time they’ve both eaten and are both savoring a truly fantastic French Press coffee, Amelia’s confident both that Oliver’s initiative will pass and that it’ll make a difference in her city. Not a dramatic one, of course. There’s no full, fast, or complete fix for crime. But even a tick in the right direction in a good move and she’ll take what wins they can get. 

Business is more or less concluded when her phone chirps and she means to just give it a quick glance and get back to discussing plans for the holidays but the message itself distracts her. 

God does it distract her and she bursts out laughing before covering her mouth with her hand to muffle the noise.

“I’m sorry,” she says, still grinning as she shakes her head at Oliver. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” he tells her, one eyebrow ticked in mild curiosity. 

“Just…” she stops and shakes her head again, not sure why she feels compelled to explain. “Definitely not a text I expected.” 

She holds up her phone for him to see and his reaction is very nearly the same as her’s had been.   

But then, that’s not surprising considering there’s a photo of his son with a face full of very poorly applied makeup. He’s staring deadpan into the camera, his six-year-old sister’s hand barely visible in the frame, holding a tube of the brightest pink lipstick Amelia’s ever seen. 

Why is that so endearing? It makes her want to rush over and teach little Beth all about how to put on makeup, makes her want to guide the little girl’s hand as she uses Will as her model, makes her want… well she can’t even think about the rest of what it makes her want, can she? 

Just a friend or not, Will’s a painfully sexy guy and one of the most charming people she’s ever met. She can’t help being drawn to him. That’s been a problem from day one and, if she’s being honest, it’s worse now that they’re friends, now that she knows him. And seeing him like this? Like someone so incredibly devoted to his family, so willing to play the fool for their amusement… It builds a steady sense of longing in her that’s far deeper than attraction or that ever-present chemistry that zings between them. 

She wants to be there, wants to laugh and kiss that ridiculous lipstick off of him and knock them both over as she laughs against his lips. She wants… 

“What are you doing, Amelia?” 

The question is soft, lacking any sense of accusation whatsoever, but it snaps Amelia back into the moment. It’s only then that she realizes she’s biting her lip and staring at her screen with her finger tracing Will’s face. The idea that she let that much show in front of anyone, much less in front of Will’s father, is a bit terrifying. Later, in a more honest moment of soul searching, she’ll wonder if part of her did this on purpose, if some bit of her was looking for the conversation that followed. 

“I’m… nothing,” she says nervously, locking her screen and pocketing the phone. “I’m not doing anything.”

The weight of Oliver’s eyes on her is tremendous. It feels like it’s burning right through her and she knows his scrutiny sees everything there is to see, everything she’s fought to hide, even from herself. 

“Can we pretend for a minute that this isn’t a business lunch?” Oliver asks her. “As Will’s dad, I think it’s past time you and I had a talk.”

Amelia stares at her cooling coffee for a moment, letting those words rattling around her head before she nods and gives Oliver a sideways glance. “Sure,” she agrees. 

“I like you,” Oliver tells her. “But I love my son. And he’s in love with you.”

That’s a hell of a lot more sudden and blunt than Amelia could have expected and she finds herself sucking in a sharp breath and staring down at her lap as she fidgets with the edges of her napkin. 

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Oliver continues. “I’m not even sure you know. But if you aren’t going to let yourself love him back, I’m gonna ask you to let him go.”

The very idea of that is like a punch to the gut and she finds herself nauseous at the words. She blinks rapidly to clear her vision before glancing back toward Oliver. There’s still no judgement there and for that she’s grateful. He’s just a father trying to look out for his son and it strikes Amelia quite suddenly how much she likes this entire family. 

“He’s my friend,” she defends. It’s thin and Oliver sees right through it. His face is all sympathy as he smiles sadly back at her and it’s almost too much to take. 

“No, Amelia,” he counters. “He’s not. He’s your road-not-taken. And he deserves better than that.” 

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she says nothing. Instead, she looks back to her lap and wonders how, exactly, it came back to this. Thad or Will. She’s already made this choice. Made it more than once. So why, exactly, does it never seem to stick? What is it about Will - or about Thad - that keeps bringing her back to this decision. 

“I just want my son to be happy, Amelia,” he tells her. “And the longer this goes on with you two… If it ends up going nowhere, you and I both know it’s just going to hurt him. Neither of us want that. …Do we?”

“No,” she breathes out. “I don’t want to hurt him. That’s the last thing I want.”

“Then I think you know what you need to do,” Oliver tells her, standing up and straightening his jacket. 

But the truth of it is… she doesn’t. Because there’s a reason she keeps coming back to this, keeps finding herself questioning that same decision she’s already made. She’s been comfortable calling him a friend these last few months and there’s been a steadily growing seed of something at the core of their newly minted friendship that feels like it has deep roots already firmly fixed in her soul. And she thinks… she thinks maybe Moira was wrong. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Will is inadvertantly proving that to her every single day in little ways. Maybe if the best part of her day is when she FaceTimes him during a coffee break at work instead of a dinner date with her boyfriend at night, that says a lot. 

Maybe she needs to make a change. 

“Honestly, Oliver…” she says, looking up at him. “I’m not sure that I do.”

[mastcomm]

10 Make-up Ideas for Darkish-Skinned Girls

Olabisi Ayoade

By Olabisi Ayoade

Darkish-skinned ladies must take additional care when placing on make-up. They should fastidiously choose colors and merchandise that don’t battle with their pure magnificence.

1. Use primer and moisturizer

Step one to take whereas making ready your make-up is to use MOISTURIZER in your face. That is greatest used on a darkish and dry pores and skin kind. You should utilize PRIMER to arrange the pores and skin, giving it one thing to carry on to so the make-up lasts all through the day. Nonetheless, PRIMER is Skippable, except your make-up has to final by means of the late evening.

2. Take note of your eyebrows

It can be crucial that you just take your time with this. For a dark-skinned girl, it’s essential to be certain that you’re utilizing the RIGHT COLOR OF PENCIL. Don’t shade an excessive amount of, neither ought to u draw thick traces. All the time brush out after drawing the brows. Conceal fastidiously and use particular colors, e.g, L.A. Woman concealer, chestnut or darkish cocoa. Mix nicely to attain neat and detailed brows.

3. Eye Shadow: brilliant colors look higher

The very first thing to contemplate earlier than making use of eye shadow is “EYE SHADOW PRIMER”. The very last thing you need is on your eyeshadow to put on off or crease. The primer permits the shadow to set in and come out correctly It makes the lady look youthful and engaging. Look out on your good color. Brighter colors look higher on darkish ladies e.g., Purple, Emerald Inexperienced, Gold, Bronze, Blue, Gray. These colors will come out and praise the pores and skin.

4. Use eyeliner to attract consideration to your eyes

Eyeliner is often utilized in a every day make-up routine. It used to outline the attention or create the look of a wider or smaller eye. Its main function is to make your eyelashes look lush. It attracts consideration to the eyes, enhances the attention and makes it brighter. Apply gently inside and in your eyelids so it comes out neat. BLACK GEL LINER is ADVISABLE. It’s matte and glides on simply on the pores and skin.

5. Use Mascara

Using mascara on pure eyelashes is vital. You need to take note of it. Maintain your Mascara Wand and begin from the basis of your eyelashes. Zigzag your approach to get it proper to the basis of the lash. Mascara lengthens, thickens, darkens and intensifies your pure lashes.

6. Use the appropriate color of Basis

With a purpose to select the proper color of basis, you need to be certain about your undertone. That is the color from beneath the floor of your pores and skin. The three kinds of undertone are COOL, WARM, and NEUTRAL.

A cool undertone is extra typically related to pores and skin that has hints of blue, pink or a ruddy pink complexion. A heat undertone is extra peachy, golden or yellow.

If there’s a combination of each heat and funky hues, or your undertone is identical color as your precise pores and skin color then you may have a impartial undertone

Utility of basis is a vital step. In pursuit of an ideal end, you possibly can combine two or extra shades, one lighter and darker than your pure pores and skin tone. Put a number of drops of every on the again of your hand, combine collectively, and apply some in your chest. If it disappears in your pores and skin then it’s good for you, don’t neglect to additionally mix into your neck, be certain it matches after which apply all-over in a round movement with a BRUSH or BEAUTY BLENDER., so it’ll appear and feel melted as a substitute of simply sitting on prime.

7. Get rid of shine with Powder

Crucial purpose to make use of face powder is to assist your basis last more. In case you’re sporting powder over basis, go barely lighter. When putting powder over liquids or lotions, the powder can flip barely darker. So, lighter is safer. Powder does two issues to your make-up. Firstly, it units your make-up completely, giving a clean even end to your complexion. Secondly, it helps to forestall the looks of shine on the areas most inclined to grease In different phrases, the powder is utilized as a completion.

8. Obtain a sun-kissed glow with Blush and Bronzer

Blush and bronzer are used to emulate a sun-kissed glow. It’s a good way so as to add a beautiful, natural-looking glow to your face. A slight contact of blush and Bronzer in your cheekbone is an ideal combo. Who wouldn’t adore it? Each dark-skinned girl ought to have this as a result of it appears and feels so radiant.

9. Lipsticks have to be nicely blended

Selecting an ideal lip color may be difficult however there are candy and wonderful colors for you. A dark-skinned girl can really put on nearly any color of lipstick supplied they’re nicely blended. Nonetheless, whereas utilizing your lipstick, do not forget that lip liner is vital to line your lips. This permits your lips to be extra noticeable. These are lip colors that swimsuit you greatest: Fushia punk, peach, and mauve pink.

10. Use Setting Spray

We all know it’s by no means straightforward to maintain your make-up trying recent by means of to the tip of the day. Setting Spray may help with that. It helps soak all the make-up into your pores and skin. You gained’t have that cakey, pretend powdery look all through the day. Setting spray is also called Fixing Spray. Give it a great shake earlier than spraying. Use setting spray whenever you’re totally achieved together with your make-up. It’s stunning even whenever you sweat. So Wonderful on darkish pores and skin and all pores and skin kind.

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Wayne Thiebaud Forms and Lollipops

Grades: Upper Elementary-Lower Middle School Supplies: 12×18 sheets white paper, pencils, *Crayola oil pastels, paper towels for cleaning pastels, newspaper for tables, *Fast Orange for cleaning oily hands

Resources:

http://www.artnet.com/artists/wayne-thiebaud/biography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Thiebaud

Objectives: Students will learn…

Artist Wayne Thiebaud’s subject matter and use of color.

Pop Art movement and how Thiebaud influenced the artists.

Forms have depth as well as height and width.

Compare and contrast the use of color between traditional realism versus pop art artwork.

How to draw forms such as cylinders and “wedges”.

Delivery: DAY 1: (25 Minutes)

Wayne Thiebaud:

Born November 15, 1920, Mesa, Arizona, U.S.

He is American painter and printmaker who is well-known for his colorful paintings depicting commonplace “production line” objects and items on display: pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs. He also painted landscapes and figures.

Thiebaud uses thick paint and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work.

“You take a lemon meringue pie. It’s quite a beautiful thing…It’s more than just a subject, it’s also a kind of relationship to the paint itself. You really feel like you’re sort of making the meringue and…working with the pie.” Wayne Thiebaud.

One summer during his high school years he apprenticed at Walt Disney Studios drawing “in-betweens” of Goofy, Pinocchio, and Jiminy Cricket at a rate of $14 a week.

Thiebaud studied Commercial Art in school.

He tried cartooning and commercial art, but eventually his passion for painting and art history led him back to school to study art education and studio art. In 1951, Thiebaud began a dual career as an art teacher and an artist in Sacramento, California.

Wayne Thiebaud is often incorrectly associated with American Pop Art because of his many images of “everyday” and mass culture objects. However, his artwork executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly pre-dates the works of the classic pop artists, suggesting that Thiebaud may have had an influence on the movement because of his images and use of color.

Look at Wayne Theibaud’s paintings of lollipops: Seven Suckers, BIG SUCKERS, Six Lollipops , Sucker Tree

Pop Art

The Pop Art movement started with the New York artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Claes Oldenburg.

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in America and Britain, drawing inspiration from images in popular and commercial culture.

Compare and contrast the use of color between traditional realism versus pop art artwork.

Realism: often dulled or muted colors. Colors used are meant to represent the actual color of the object in real life. Objects are not “outlined”.

Pop Art: Bright, exaggerated colors. Colors are not necessarily the actual color of the objects, but usually have been changed. Objects are often “outlined” in black or different colors.

How did Thiebaud use the elements of art?

https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/Education/learning-resources/an-eye-for-art/AnEyeforArt-WayneThiebaud.pdf

Like frosting Thiebaud’s subjects might be light and fun, but his approach to painting is serious. He uses still-life subjects to explore formal qualities of painting: color, line, shape, light, composition, and texture.

Texture: Thiebaud became famous for his ability to use paint in unexpected ways to recreate the look and feel of the substance it depicts. In Cakes, he painted each dessert with thick, heavy strokes to produce a textured surface. He transformed the oil paint into dense, buttery frosting or thick whipped cream. In other works, his paint “becomes” meringue, candy, or even mustard.

Line, shape, and composition: Like a baker arranging a window display, Thiebaud carefully composes his works. Cakes shows a repeating pattern of cylinders set against a blank background. The artist places the cylinder cakes on impossibly tall stands, which create perfect elliptical shadows. Each cake and its stand are outlined to reinforce the shapes.

Light and color: Thiebaud’s colors are more complicated than they seem—the white frosting is not just white, but it is also orange, blue, and beige. The cakes cast bluish-purplish shadows. Thiebaud developed a practice of sketching with different colored paints, which produces the rainbow-like lines that define the edges of his objects. His shadows are a blue or gray-purple color and many of his colors are mixed with white to give a low-key pastel look.

Activity Day 2-4: (4-5 40 minute classes) Lollipops Oil Pastel Project

Create an original artwork based on Thiebaud’s “Six Lollipops” painting. Guide students in how to create the forms on the project.

Use a plastic cup to draw the lollipops. Draw the front first by tracing the cup completely. Then slide the cup slightly to the right and draw the “side” of the lollipop.

Lay a popsicle stick or ruler under the lollipop to draw the stick (draw a curved line at the bottom of the stick).

Choose the direction the light is coming from, then draw the shadow in the opposite direction.

Draw Patterns into the lollipop with a pencil.

Use oil pastels to OUTLINE everything with a DIFFERENT color than what you will color the inside with. This will require thinking through your colors. Try to use color complements-colors opposite from each other on the color wheel. (Example: outline in purple and color the inside with yellow.)

Color the insides, then go over it with white to give it a dulled pastel look.

Outline the lollipop stick with blue and orange and then fill it with white.

Shadows should be blue or gray-purple.

Student Artwork (4th Grade)

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If you choose to use the information in this post (written or photo), please link back to my blog Create Art with ME. *Amazon Affiliate Links were used in this post. I ONLY link products I use and love!

  Wayne Thiebaud Forms and Lollipops Oil Pastel Lesson - Inspired by Wayne Thiebaud's Six Lollipops painting, students will create their own version with oil pastels. They will learn how Thiebaud used line and color. Create Art with ME Art Lesson Plans Wayne Thiebaud Forms and Lollipops Grades: Upper Elementary-Lower Middle SchoolSupplies: 12x18 sheets white paper, pencils, *

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The Creative Art

Girl in the kitchen

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