#only to see you carrying the torch solo for like a year

[terrainofheartfelt]

Gossip Girl Appreciation Week | Day 6: AU

The Grossly Indulgent Pop Music AU I will never write:

Inspired by one of the only Jonerys fics I like. 

Not quite a fic, but not not a fic, here’s an unhinged idea that grabbed hold and wouldn’t let me go. The music is a loose jumping off point of inspiration, in that all the characters have one or two artist equivalents. I use their music as the characters’ work in this universe. So it’s like an AU of pop musicians’ lives, but not really, since I don’t know their biographies, just their music. It’s fanfic, you know how it is.

Enclosed beneath the cut you shall find: dairfair, negatively painted jenny/damien & chair, some positive jenate, and a inkling at my newest ot3 vanessa/aaron/serena. And lots of opaque music references.

image sources: (x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)

Blair and Serena come up in a lab-grown pop girl group in their teens (sample track here), but break off for their own solo acts after a few years. They have a friend breakup after that. Diss tracks are written. (Inspo: Honey & Bad Blood) the final (supposedly) proverbial nail in the coffin of their friendship is when Blair marries record label exec Chuck Bass.

(Needless to say, Chuck is a piece of shit. Living off family money and power, using his title to back young women artists into a corner. Blair thinks she conquered the beast by putting a ring on it but, well, you know.) (While Jenny Humphrey is coming up she’s one of the artists Chuck harasses. She refuses to sign with his label and tells him to fuck off.)

The rumors as to why their girl group break up run wild, and they mutate with each tabloid run, growing more and more ridiculous, but, like many rumors, they did spring from a small seed of truth. 

Blair was ambitious, and always used the act as an opportunity to set herself up for a solo career. Serena was her best friend, but whereas Blair had to work hard at everything that came with this job, it was like Serena didn’t have to try at all. She was the darling of the interviews, of the fans. The favorite on the covers of magazines and music videos. Serena was getting solo offers since their debut, but turned them down, until she didn’t. 

Their group toured with a team of dancers, also all carefully selected by the label. Nate Archibald was one of the fan favorites, and the label quickly paired him and Blair together for publicity. Blair was always just a little more invested than Nate was. He wasn’t even sure if this career, this lifestyle was what he wanted, but Blair was more than sure, was constantly working to get ahead. But the label kept them together, until they figured they could pair Nate with Serena instead. (And Nate didn’t fight it, because he’d always carried a torch for Serena anyway).

It wasn’t the first fight between the friends, nor the last, but it was the big frisson that they couldn’t come back from. The group held on for another album, but it was clear that they couldn’t go on. Blair and Serena signed solo contracts, and Blair got close with Chuck Bass, and that was the final straw for Serena. 

Nate tried to stay friends with both of them through it, but he was also coming to the conclusion that he didn’t want to keep up this lifestyle. He quit performing to go to school, and he found his niche teaching dance to kids—not at a university level, not with the intention to make future professionals, but just to young people looking for something to love. It suits him, and he becomes a reality check for his two high profile best friends. Or he tries to be, but their lives keep pulling them away from New York, so he sees them less and less.

(The other two members of the group move on to other adjacent things. Kati founds her own fashion label—available in Targets everywhere!—and Iz becomes a judge on one of those America’s Got It Factor Talent Shows).

Post girlgroup, Serena runs a Kesha-like life, pop hits made for club dancing. Her character is much more glittering and reckless than Serena might prefer to be, but she’s in the game so long that it sort of – becomes her from time to time.

Serena works tirelessly, keeps trying to break out of her brand of the out of control party girl, but her label, the one she was brought up on, founded by her maternal grandfather, wants her to keep making what sells. Her brother Eric tries to fight her corner, but he’s only a junior employee. After a handful of solo albums and years of endless touring, she burns out. Eric gives her a place to be and rest, and she tries to figure out what the hell she’s going to do. She wants to make more music, but of what?

Blair is taylor-esque, clinging to her brand of The Good Girl from her teen career into adulthood. The reputation and her general effervescence add sparkle to the Bass brand, clean it up a little. It’s a symbiotic business relationship, until it isn’t. 

Chuck progressively tries to exercise more control over the music she puts out, to the point that Blair just…doesn’t. Her last album under the Bass label is the one she released with tracks that allude to their relationship, her victory lap for landing the billionaire bachelor whale, as it were (Style, Wildest Dreams, Wonderland, I Know Places). She’s more clever than some give her credit. For example, the tongue-in-cheek “Blank Space” belies an artistic self-awareness. Which is why, even though they aren’t in the same genres, Jenny Humphrey respects her. 

Speaking of Jenny: the Humphreys!

Rufus Humphrey, frontrunner of the early 90s outfit Lincoln Hawk, enjoyed a good run when his kids were little, then a less lucrative run as a solo artist, before he finally settled into producing. He runs a small, proud independent label with his old bandmate, and they pride themselves on supporting talent that the bigger corporate labels pass over. Both his kids, Dan and Jenny, make music with him. 

They grew up playing piano, then graduated to guitar, then spiraled on from there. Dan joins his first band when he’s sixteen, playing keys for his best friend’s big sister’s band. Ruby Abrams and her bandmates affectionately call him an honorary lesbian, and after gigging with them for about a year, Dan comes out as bi. (his three sisters: Jenny, Vanessa, and Ruby, are already out)

His best friend Vanessa is also a musician. She tries to go the classical route, wanting to usurp her parents’ and her sister’s expectations, but ultimately finds her happy in the indie folk niche that Rufus curates. (Think Lucy Daucus & Maya Hawke) Vanessa’s favorite instrument is bass, but she can find her way around a keyboard or guitar. 

Jenny is the real prodigy, though. She has her guitars and piano and even a mandolin, but she’s restless at sticking to just one sound, so she experiments with them all. Fulfilling, absolutely, but it’s a long time before she puts out a full length record. 

Dan and Jenny’s parents break up while the kids are in college. With Rufus touring as much as he was when they were young, Alison did the heavy lifting raising them, and now that they’re grown she kind of – has a Mom Drop. She moves back home to the Bay Area, and Dan ends up following her to California, needing to get out of New York and get some distance from his dad. 

Jenny stays in New York, taking classes, making music. She starts dating a much older artist—he’s not on her dad’s label (which is part of the appeal) —but he has a complimentary sound. After the mess that was her model gf Agnes, Jenny is hoping for something steadier, but that’s not what it becomes. Being with Damien Dalgaard, darling of the Guy with Guitar genre, ends up being more of a mindfuck. (John Mayer. Damien’s basically John Mayer.)

Rufus tries to put his foot down (even though Jenny’s an adult) and Vanessa tries to help, but it’s one of those things where the toxic relationship just has to run its course, even if it puts Jenny into major spotlight for the first time. It’s rough on her, but she makes it through and out of the relationship. And, at least she comes out of it with enough material to graduate from EPs and make for her first full length album: Badlands.

Jenny starts out this au Halsey-like, but evolves her sound back to her rock folk indie origins, a sound like Julien Baker. 

Meanwhile, Dan tries his luck as a musician on the West Coast, immersing himself in the scene there. He joins the roster of another band, and has enough skill to make income as a session musician to cover the difference, which leads him to another band. He still tries writing, but he’s so busy making other people’s music come alive that he doesn’t get far. 

At one concert or another he bumps into Serena van der Woodsen. She’s fun, and smart, and stupid hot, and more miraculously, she is into him. They date for a while, but her life in the spotlight as a partying popstar gets more and more chaotic, and Dan can’t keep up, and he’s not really sure he wants to. The break up amicably, but it still stings enough to generate some songs, ones he doesn’t have time to record. 

He keeps dating around. Serena sets him up with one of her friends, an actor, Carter Baizen, but he works so much too that it doesn’t go anywhere at the time. And then, there’s Georgina,

At the beginning, Georgina the heiress from Bel-Air just seems like another in a line of innocuous bad decisions Dan’s made since moving to LA. She’s crazy, but she’s hot, and fun, and it’s a good time until it fizzles out. 

Then, months later, when Dan’s offered a spot in a backup band for someone, Georgina shows up at his door, pregnant. 

The Milo plot unfolds, Dan steps away from his music, works only on what will pay bills and keep life stable for the baby. Georgina flakes, and flakes, until she doesn’t, until she decides to tell Dan the truth about Milo’s paternity and take him with her, all the way back to her parent’s mansion in Connecticut. 

After everything, his parents, Serena, Georgina, everything going on with Jenny, Dan just kind of…breaks. He deflates, struggles, holes up in his crummy apartment on the eastside of Los Angeles until Vanessa bullies him into coming back to New York. 

Being around each other again helps the Humphrey siblings reset. Jenny is already promoting Badlands, and Dan becomes her roadie, proudly cheering her on from the sidelines, even while the contents of her lyrics are absolutely gutting. 

He keeps trying and failing to write, until both V and Jen tell him that he’s trying too hard to “make it into something.” Jenny just tells him to write and see what comes out, and however it sounds, it sounds. 

 So he does. It’s not quite the folk his mother raised them on, or the 90s rock of their dad, or the punk that Dan’s been a support player in all these years. It’s softer than that, but more jagged too. But he plays a demo for Jenny and Vanessa and keeps on going. 

Jenny is a big believer in using songwriting as some sort of “exorcist.” Spit out all the bad shit, pour it into a song, put it into a vessel that doesn’t hurt you anymore. Dan’s style is a little bit different from his sister’s. She’s braver than he is – is okay to take her emotion and throw it out into her singing, but Dan thinks he might not be that tough. 

For example, the stuff about Milo, Dan can’t even say it directly. He writes about it sure, but it comes out a mess, until he’s not sure if he’s talking about himself, or Milo, or even Georgina. He can’t even bring himself to mention either of them by name, just names a song after an approximation. Georgia. He also writes his first of many storytelling songs: You Missed My Heart.

He gets enough positivity from the demo for a record deal, and the leading single, Motion Sickness, does better than Dan thought it would. He says it has to be because there’s more residual interest in one of Serena van der Woodsen’s exes than he thought. Jenny and Vanessa share a look, because he really is that good though. 

And after years of work behind the curtain, Dan Humphrey is getting vested interest in his own songs, and what’s more, he’s written something worth singing. Stranger in the Alps launches an entirely new phase of his career, and, as it turns out, his personal life. 

Blair doesn’t travel in the circles of the mid-level artist, but at a festival, purely by chance, she ends up in Dan Humphrey’s car. 

It’s not Dan’s first festival gig, but this is definitely the biggest, and the best spot he’s ever gotten in a lineup. The true sign that he’s on the up and up, though, is that he’s provided transportation. 

After sound check before his gig, he’s herded back to his car, to go back to his hotel before he goes on later tonight.

But then this girl gets in with him. 

Blair had had it with her handler (her husband’s goon), and paparazzi were starting to catch the scent—as far as the public knew, she still had the perfect fairytale dream marriage—so she co-opted this nobody indie guy’s ride as her getaway car. 

Dan’s bewildered, and irritated, but also kind of charmed. It’s a nice break in the routine, accidentally kidnapping a princess of pop. 

He invites her to see his set, which she scoffs at, but she googles him as soon as she’s back in her hotel room. And then, she pulls strings so she can watch his set from backstage. (He covers “I’m on Fire,” and she absolutely does not think that it’s hot). 

They have a drink in the green room after, and don’t stop talking until a festival staff person kicks them out because the venue’s shutting down for the night. 

AND SO IT BEGINS. 

She arranges for him to see her headlining set, and then after, she asks him what he thought, and he tells her. Like, actually tells her. She’s a good artist, with talent, but she keeps dumbing it down, and why? 

He essentially says she’s better than this, and she tells him to fuck off, and tells him that just because not every single one of my songs is about angsting alone on the bedroom floor doesn’t make me shallow, Humphrey. (and that’s his Moment.)

She’d been after compliments, some vague idea that he’d be blown away by how good she is, and she’d get a positive review for once. Which is so stupid, why should she even care what a nobody like Dan Humphrey thinks?

But he is not a nobody, not anymore.

She looks him up after the festival. His star is definitely rising. A child of nepotism, his father was in a popular band in the late 80s and early 90s, and so Dan and his little sister grew up close to the business. Humphrey’s been in a couple bands since he was sixteen (started young like her), but after those broke up, and a couple lost years that google can’t account for, he released a solo album and just like that, people are paying attention, beyond just the indie bubble. 

Blair recognizes his sister, Jenny Humphrey, and even has one of her albums saved in her library. Not something Blair would make, but it’s decent. 

She digs a little more, trying to figure out those lost years, but comes up empty. She does find, however, that Humphrey famously dated Serena a few years back, Google is rife with paparazzi photos of them in LA. And he accused her of making shallow music? Serena’s solo work is nothing but her belting about parties and drugs and sex to heavy beats. Club music. Music to have parties, drugs, and sex, too. 

Finding out his history with Serena is enough for Blair to write off Dan Humphrey as a hack, an aberration. A way to pass the time at a festival gig and distract herself from her own life. 

But, Blair finds Dan Humphrey is becoming increasingly unavoidable. He’s doing one talk show appearance while she’s at another studio a few floors up. He’s moved back to New York, he tells her, just until he goes on tour again. He invites her to a show, at some dive in Brooklyn she’s never heard of. For that, she nearly doesn’t even go. 

But then, she does. 

For security reasons, she sneaks in the back, aided by her assistant Epperly, and watches from the closet that counts as a backstage. It’s an acoustic set, and Dan plays arrangements of his solo album (that she absolutely did NOT listen to), plus some covers. In fact, he covers one of her songs. “Blank Space,” mashed up with “Stand by Me.” He introduces it by saying, “I really love the melodies in this song, I think it’s just really good melody writing.” And it feels like…an apology. 

They keep meeting up, but now, it’s on purpose, not accidental. They’re both in New York for the time being anyways, Dan is getting some rest before the European leg of his album tour, and Blair is supposed to be working on a new album before her own, but she’s got…nothing. Less than nothing. And Chuck knows that, which means it’s harder and harder to have him around. 

Besides, there’s no rule that she can’t have friends. Honestly, with how her career is, she doesn’t really have any. There’s Epperly, and Dorota, maybe Nate. She’s married, but she’s not sure she would call Chuck her friend. 

She and Dan though, they have a real connection. And they can be just friends. 

Since she has absolutely no new songs to record, she leaves for Europe a couple weeks early, she tells Chuck it’s to visit her parents in Paris and get inspired, but then, at the last minute, she changes her itinerary, and goes to Dublin instead, where Dan’s first gig is. 

Blair’s been letting herself and this friendship live in plausible deniability, but as she’s learned more about Dan, about the kind of person and artist that he is, she knows that isn’t really his thing, and when she appears at his show in Dublin, he refuses to let it go, and Blair, worn thin by…literally everything else, can’t keep up the denial anymore, and tells him to bring her back to his hotel. 

It’s a mistake, it’s such a mistake. Blair’s life is already precarious enough as it is. Chuck’s label owns her contracts, her catalog, and basically her. She’s been over and over it, and can’t see a way out. She wanted to be on top, and that was the price. 

But, Dan. 

Being with him feels like waking up after spending her entire adult life asleep. She’s excited about music again, about making something. She writes, then hides it all away, because she can’t record songs about being in love with someone else on her husband’s dime. 

She has her tour, and Dan has his, but they meet on every overlapping date. Sometimes she’s so tired after a concert all she has energy to do is sleep in his arms, but even that stolen time feels sacred. 

When their tour legs end, Dan tentatively asks if it’s the end, but she really doesn’t want it to be. 

He’s back in New York City at first, so that’s easier, and harder, because Chuck is there too. Thankfully, Blair’s sales were high enough that she’s in his good graces, and when she slips away it’s easy enough to say she’s working on something new. She practically sees cartoon dollar signs flash in Chuck’s eyes when she does. How she ever thought that this could be her happily ever after, she’ll never know. 

She and Dan talk about that, about living in stories and wanting fairytales but being smacked down by real life. She tells him that she doesn’t feel like she belongs to herself anymore, how she doesn’t want to write anymore if it means that Chuck will profit off it, but if she walks away, all those things she believed, promised, sung, was all of it for nothing? 

She wrote love songs about Chuck, for Chuck. Her life’s work is tangled up in him, and she’s not sure she wants to pull away from all of that, much less if she even could. 

Dan tells her about Milo, about loss, about the shadow his father cast and how hiding in it was safe so he didn’t try to break out of it, but now he’s out. He talks about loving his parents but resenting them for not staying in love, and resents himself for falling out of love in the past. 

“What did you do about it?” she asks him. 

He waggles his eyebrows at her, and reaches behind him to grab his guitar. 

It’s unfair, she knows it’s unfair. Blair comes to rely on Dan too much, to center her, to hold her, to love her even when it’s not his place. But she keeps going to him, and he’s always there, arms open. 

He’s writing about her. She knows before he even tells her. She can sense it sometimes, when he’s looking at her, and she just knows he has lyrics running in his head. 

But it’s unfair. He’s bicoastal, going to and from LA for gigs and appearances. When he’s gone, Blair does her own, always beginning and ending with paparazzi shots of her on Chuck’s arm, smiling like she’s still in love with him. Her heart belongs to someone else now, but she’s afraid she’s in too deep to break away. 

In the meantime, Dan, Jenny, and Vanessa come back to their roots: each other, and decide to do a project together, write an EP (boygenius. It’s boygenius). They have a fair mix of songs, and all of Dan’s lyrics are fed by his relationship to BLair, that he’s told no one about, but it bleeds out of everything he writes. They’re approaching an impasse, he can feel it, but selfishly, he wants to avoid it as long as possible, to keep her as long as possible. 

In addition to his EP with Jenny and Vanessa, Dan has a deal for a next record, and a handful of songs to put on it already. When he’s in LA, he’s working on his own music, and when he’s in New York, he’s either working with Jen and Vanessa, or he’s with Blair. 

But it can’t last. Blair is feeling the pressure from Bass Records, and if she were to get caught in an affair, or separate from Chuck, Chuck would hold her catalog hostage. Her entire life’s work wouldn’t be hers anymore. And maybe Dan’s right when he says that she can’t stay with her husband, but she’s right when she says she can’t leave him either. 

She can’t even record new music for the label either, because everything new she’s written is covered in Dan. She even wrote a song about that. She is covered in him. 

But Dan has his own wounds, and they make him push, and push, and self sabotage, and after one gruesome, draining fight, Blair calls it off. 

In the meantime, Jenny and Vanessa are doing work of their own, on their music and on themselves. 

Vanessa plays her solos up and down the east coast, through the Midwest, and back in New York. Through Rufus, she meets Aaron Rose, a jack-of-all-trades of sorts. Like Rufus, he was a musician first, but mostly works now as a producer. They hit it off, and after working on a thing or two, they start dating, but only casually. After several years and multiple musical acts, Aaron’s star as a producer is rising, and he’s working with bigger and bigger names. 

Jenny is still healing from all her garbage (Agnes, Damien, etc.), and the music helps, and the project with Dan and Vanessa does too—it’s an excuse to reconnect with each other, and she becomes close to two of her favorite people again. It helps. As does the therapy, and all the other things she does. 

One such thing, recommended by her therapist and her parents, is to do creative things that are outside of her purview as a musician. She’s always sort of been into fashion, so she gets into sewing, into designing her own looks. And when that’s not active enough, she puts in time at the dance studio in Brooklyn where her mom used to teach, where she took classes once upon a time. 

She isn’t interested in lessons, or classes with other people, but the owners still know her, and love Alison, so they’ll give her solo studio time when she asks for it, and one afternoon, one of their new staff walks into the wrong studio. 

Jenny kind of bites his head off, but he kind of likes that. He says his name is Nate, he’s the new hire to take over the beginner classes. And — he’s hot, obviously, but Jenny is on permanent hiatus in that department. Not that that stops her from looking. 

But after that first meeting, Nate is just always around, and Jenny doesn’t really want to deal with all the shit that having him around kicks up within her, but she likes hanging out with him, so she tells him – firmly – that she only wants to be friends, and he respects that. What a thing, to have a guy respect her boundaries. 

She keeps putting it all in her music, Turn Out the Lights doesn’t make the same splash as Badlands, apparently people care less the more distance she puts between herself and Damien, but Jen decides she’s okay with that. 

Reeling from another heartbreak that Dan can’t really talk about, he puts it into his music, in the EP with Jen and V and in his new album. His sophomore solo album, Punisher, comes out to a great reception. Well, great within the small circle of people who actually know who he is. 

The gigs that began with his debut keep rolling in, late night shows, radio appearances, festivals, and now mixed in with those are engagements for his act with Jen and Vanessa. To his surprise, people are interested in that music because of him. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. If you ask him, Jenny and Vanessa are way better at what they do than he is. 

Dan’s public profile grows bigger and bigger, but Blair can’t be happy for him, because it makes him increasingly unavoidable. She refuses to listen to the new music he releases, she’s afraid it’s too cruel towards her, or worse, it’s too kind. 

But, just like their accidental first meeting, she stumbles across a single he put out after the new album. Typical Humphrey. A goddamn overachiever, kept on writing even after the album was done. She didn’t mean to see it, but she was scrolling through All Songs Considered, and there he was, talking about Audrey Hepburn, of all things. 

There’s this line in the movie Sabrina, where she says “I have learned to be in the world and of the world, and not just stand aside and watch.” And that’s really what this song’s about, about falling in love with a person because they’ve taught you how to live, how to appreciate everything the world has to offer. And there’s – there’s a tremendous amount of joy in that, but there’s also fear, because gaining that now means that it’s possible to lose it too. So – I guess this is sort of trying to reconcile those ideas within a song. 

Blair listens to “Sidelines,” and it makes her so angry that she scribbles off a song idea of her own, because he still doesn’t get it. He meant her while she was in the middle of running away, so why won’t he just let her run?

She worries fleetingly about getting caught, because Audrey is her thing, and Dan knows that, but Audrey is a ubiquitous enough icon that no one but she would ever make the connection. He’s good at that, Dan is, of coding a message to her that only she could understand. It’s the same skill that makes him such a good writer. 

Blair writes songs because she can’t help it, but she won’t record them. A new album would mean adding to Chuck’s empire, and the thought of Chuck owning these songs too, the only things of Dan she’s allowed herself to keep…she can’t stomach the thought of it. 

She’s stayed with him to protect her work, but now her work is dead on arrival because of him, and that’s really what drives her decision to divorce Chuck. 

She has to do it carefully, of course. She sets up a place of her own to go to in New York, moves in all the things that mean the most to her. Puts her notebooks in a safety deposit box—just to be sure. And, finally, she reaches out to her mother, to get a recommendation for a divorce attorney familiar with entertainment law. 

On a first impression, Cyrus Rose doesn’t look like much beyond a short, ebullient, overly cheery middle-aged man, but Blair quickly learns that when he’s practicing law, he turns into a bulldog. He fights for her and for her work so fiercely that for a little while, Blair lets herself believe that it will all come out her way. 

But there’s all the media coverage, and it paints her out as a bitter, gold-digging, ungrateful woman, villainizing a man who doesn’t deserve it. It pisses her off to no end, but Cyrus tells her to hold her silence, and she trusts him, so she does.

In the end, Cyrus is able to get her out of her marriage and most of her contract with Bass Records. She’s not destitute, she still has her family money, and a comfortable settlement, but Cyrus is ultimately unable to save her music. Bass will still own her masters, and the residuals from those masters. It’s that that breaks her heart the most—more than how quickly Chuck turned the media cycle against her, more than how many people followed his lead, more than the evidence Cyrus discovered of his multiple affairs, of his mismanagement of the company—but that her work cannot belong to her, that hurts the most. 

But, bulldog that he is, Cyrus digs out a loophole. Since going solo, Blair has been the prime writer of all her songs, which gives her the legal right to rerecord her masters. So while she can’t stop Chuck from doing whatever he wants with her old work, anything she makes now can be entirely within her control. 

She just has to find someone willing to work with her. And who she trusts enough to work with. 

Worn out, Blair retreats from the public eye, it’s lonely, but thankfully, not too lonely. 

The divorce process set Blair to looking back at lots of her life, at things and people she wishes she had handled differently. After she privately filed her petition, she reached out to Serena, and, miraculously, Serena answered. 

Before anything else is fixed, Blair and Serena’s friendship is fixed. They reconnect, because everything they’ve been through, together and apart, has made them want to focus on what matters, and what matters is each other. 

They talk all the shit through, Blair’s marriage, Serena’s struggles, their respective creative blocks. They start appearing in public together, and the tabloids gobble that shit UP.

Serena is working on a comeback record of her own, her first since burning out with her grandfather’s label. It’s zany, and bright, but doesn’t shy away from the heartache she’s been through. It’s so incredibly her, that Blair can’t help but love it. She loves it, no matter that the liner notes give credit to a Dan Humphrey on a few tracks

Free from Bass Records, Blair wants to work on a new album, but she’s unsure of where to begin. Serena offers to introduce her to this producer she’s been dating (out of the public eye for a change), Aaron Rose. 

Blair doesn’t quite know what to make of Aaron, of his music, of his open relationship with her newly restored best friend, but she looks up his previous acts and thinks…maybe working with him could be the change her sound needs. 

Dan is moving in—if not the same—adjacent circles to her. Enough so that she can’t get him out of her head, can’t get over wanting him. She spills the whole thing to Serena, who she knew was also Dan’s ex, but didn’t know that they were still friends. Serena tells her to stay optimistic, Blair says Serena just thinks that because she’s okay sharing a boyfriend. 

Her engagements have been sparse, she’s not wanted many, and not many have wanted her, but Austin City Limits is still on her calendar. In the promotional materials, they highlight her on one stage, and Dan’s band with Jenny and Vanessa on another. 

She doesn’t intend to seek him out, but fate conspires against her, and they end up thrown into the same green room. Again. 

Dan doesn’t want to want her anymore. His career has forward movement and even if the music he makes is about her, the people who like it don’t know that, nor do they care. They care that it’s good. His career is good, he’s been dating Netflix Original darling Carter Baizen for months now, happily and uncomplicatedly. (Serena put them in touch, then one dm led to another, and it’s nice). Not that Carter doesn’t have his own damage—no one in LA is without damage, but they can forget about their damage with each other. It’s not love, but it’s not not love. 

Dan doesn’t want to want her anymore, But, oh, he does. 

They nearly miss their calls—his set, her soundcheck—while talking (well, talking, fighting, kissing, then talking some more). But they fulfill their contracts, and just like it started three years ago, they end up backstage after their shows, drinking, and talking, and talking until a harrowed stage manager is begging them to leave. 

Dan sets a limit, makes himself go back to Jen and Vanessa, instead of going home with her, but he says he’s going straight to New York after this, and asks if she’ll be around. 

Blair says yes. 

After the divorce, Blair sold off the real estate she’d kept from her marriage. It was all too haunted, too high up, too far from reality. While looking for a new place, Epperly showed her a listing for a remodeled carriage house in the West Village; Blair would have bought it sight unseen if anyone but Epperly had been there. 

Back in New York, Dan invites her to a secret acoustic show he’s playing near NYU. She goes, of course, and this time, when she asks him to come home with her, he says yes. 

It takes time. For them to trust each other, and reconnect. But they do, and Blair feels like her life is finally making sense. 

She and Dan take one day, one step at a time, in secret, for both their sakes, and meanwhile, she, Epperly, Cyrus, and Aaron negotiate a new contract with Rose Records.

Her best-friendship, record deal, and love life all fall into place, and then Blair is writing like never before.

Aaron is….unconventional, and doesn’t let her push him around, which she finds infuriating, not for least of which is the direction he wants to take this album. She fights it at first, but if she really does want to make a departure from the pop princess songs she was generating, maybe following down his path is not the worst idea. And if she hates it, then she can just walk. 

It’s still pop, but it’s bigger, less bubbly and more….glittering. It’s….darker isn’t exactly the right word, but like she’s not trying to be the Good Girl anymore. It’s just crafting a record that’s hers, one song at a time. 

She offers Dan the option to co-write, more than once, but he turns her down. Not because he doesn’t care, but because this is the first time the music she’s making entirely belongs to her, and he doesn’t want to get in the way of that. 

“Church and state,” he says one late night in her cozy house on Cornelia Street. 

“And which one’s this?” 

“Church,” he answers immediately before kissing her. “Obviously.”

Speaking of church and state, and despite their expectations, they’re able to keep them out of the public eye. Blair’s friends know, and Dan’s family knows, but no one else does. By some miracle, they keep out of the tabloids. Blair keeps working on her album, Dan keeps working with his sister and best friend. They go out into the world and make music and go home to each other at the end of the night. 

Blair and Aaron Rose make a surprisingly good time. They finish the album fast, and nine months after Blair’s divorce from Chuck and Bass Records, reputation drops. 

She has a whole slew of promotions to do for the release, but that midnight, she and Dan open a bottle of wine and listen to the whole thing start to finish. (“Church and State, honey, I’ll listen when it’s done,” he’d said). He’s a fan. 

She and Aaron were both intent on it not being a “divorce record,” but it is about her, exploring who she is as a person and an artist after her carefully constructed life fell apart, and about the love and truth she found in the wreckage. It's not a divorce record; she never point blank references Chuck, or their marriage, but the argument could be made that there’s a rebuke against him in every track. Even in the love songs she wrote about Dan, her writing of him is an antithesis of who Chuck was as a partner. The most pointed tracks are even able to claim plausible deniability. There are some people on the internet, though, who criticize the single “Look What You Made Me Do,” as a phrase habitually used by abusers, to which Blair says (in private, of course): “Yeah, that was the whole fucking point.”

The album doesn’t out perform her Bass releases immediately, but no one denies that the Queen B is back, she charms on late night shows, radio spots, and a months-long tour kicks off with high sales. There’s another legal fight about her having to pay for the right to perform her own songs on the tour, and as infuriating as that is, Blair is restored at having herself as an artist back. 

Of course, to the public, the addressee in many of the songs is a mystery. Who is “Gorgeous” about? Or “Dress”? Or “Call It What You Want”? Many a pop culture think-piece is written on the topic, but no one guesses right. The most popular theory though, since they appear in public so often nowadays, is that Blair is dating Serena. It turns out to be a pretty good cover for keeping their real relationships private, so they play it up. 

(sidebar: in the effort to hold of the Divorce Record allegations, Aaron had her tweak the bridge in Gorgeous, the original lines she demo’ed for him were: you make me so happy it turns back to sad / there’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have / guess I’ll just stumble on back to my man / unless you want to take me home)

(It’s actually a testament to the loyalty and restraint of the people around them, because Blair and Dan are shit at being subtle while they’re together. )

Speaking of the people around them, it’s a bit hilarious how their lives all intertwine and overlap. There’s Dan’s sister, who’s hated Blair’s ex-husband for years, and who’s now decidedly not dating Blair’s ex-boyfriend. (“Just friends,” she and Nate insist to anyone who even comes close to asking, but Blair thinks they doth protest too much). And there’s Blair's best friend who was her former nemesis and Dan’s ex but is now dating Blair’s colleague and producer. Speaking of her colleague and producer, Aaron—who just so happens to be her lawyer’s son—he’s also in a poly-relationship with Dan’s best friend and bandmate, Vanessa Abrams. Vanessa who, on more than one occasion, Blair has caught giving Serena the eye, and vice versa.

They are all kind of a mess, but Blair finds she loves it that way. Her supposedly pristine life had been fake anyway. She much prefers this. 

She and Dan keep their relationship a secret through her stadium tour and into awards season, when they decide to finally come out of the shadows. 

“I’ve never really come out before,” Dan jokes, “everybody just already kinda knew.”

They pick the American Music Awards as the event. Blair gives him one last out in the limo ride over, but he doesn’t want to take it. He’s not ignorant of the public attention and pressure she lives with, but he loves her more than he’s afraid of that. 

He gets out of the car first on his side, then comes around to open her door and help her out onto the red carpet. She kisses him as soon as she’s on her feet, limo door still open, cameras flashing in front of them. 

The internet loses its collective mind. Intrigue suddenly sprouts up around this unassuming sad boi indie artist. Streams of Punisher and Strangers in the Alps hit all time highs. Dan’s been represented by his dad this whole time, but now Rufus jokes, “I think I can’t afford you.”

To ask him if his life has changed is stupid, of course it has, but his focus doesn’t. Dan’s attention is always only on the music. On the music, and on Blair. 

Every year, Vanessa orchestrates a benefit show at one of their old favorite clubs in Brooklyn. It’s usually just Vanessa, Jenny, and Dan, but once she’s earned the trust of Dan’s sisters, Blair appears too. People go feral for a bootleg when they hear through the grapevine that she covered “A Case of You,” with Dan on the dulcimer. 

For two people who love playing music, and love playing music together, they don’t do it in public very often. It becomes something that they save for just each other, and only occasionally will they perform together in public. Dan plays on Blair’s NPR TIny Desk once, and once for WFUV, they do a cover of “Dust to Dust.” it’s OBSCENE. sex in the studio amirite

The dark corners of the internet (fangirls) start looking a little too closely at their lyrics, and it’s only a matter of time before a fan tweet theorizes that Blair Waldorf had an affair with sad boi indie guy while she was married.

Chuck jumps on the rumor, plays it up in an attempt to smack Blair down after the success of her latest record. He calls her a cheater, a gold-digger, all the accusations he floated during the divorce and more. 

In response, Blair releases a single. She wrote it while she and Dan were first together all those years ago, and kept it for her. At the time, she never planned on letting it see the light of day, she wasn’t even sure she would share it with Dan. But where she is now, she feels happy and safe in sharing this piece of her soul. 

When she drops “ivy,” it's a confirmation of the rumors, but unapologetic. Comedians applaud her gall on late night shows. She was accused of having an affair, and she said, yeah I fucked him, and I wrote this ballad about it. 

It isn’t pristine, or the most graceful thing to admit, but Blair is happy, and she won’t pretend to be sorry for being happy. She releases another album (Loneliest Time), then another (Lover), as does Dan (the more rockabilly Sleepwalkers). And three years after her divorce, they marry in a private ceremony with only their nearest and dearest in attendance. They keep the marriage quiet for six months after the fact. And, in the meantime, Blair sits down with Aaron to strategize re-recording her masters. 

She starts with a single from her last record under the Bass umbrella. She’d written “This Love” about her and Chuck’s on-again, off-again relationship before he finally gave in and married her. On touring, she’d grown increasingly tired of it, she’d hated it for a while there. But her life and heart have come full circle, and now she can sing it with a new perspective. 

When “This Love (B’s Version)” drops, she posts a set of photos on instagram: 

The cover of the new single, which is a close up of her face, eyes closed, lips red, another set of lips kissing her cheek

The original photo used for the cover, zoomed out to see Dan kissing Blair’s cheek.

Another photo of Blair and Dan in their home at the West Village, forehead to forehead, facing each other. 

A candid shot of Blair in the studio, wiping her eyes after tearing up while recording vocals. 

Another candid of Blair and Aaron hugging once they wrapped. 

Blair writes the caption of the post herself, which reads:

It’s funny how the meanings of songs can change as you change. When I first recorded “This Love,” I hadn’t even met the love of my life yet. I thought my big, magical, cyclical love story was done. Then, when I learned it wasn’t that magical at all, I couldn’t bring myself to sing the song anymore, its meaning had become tainted, hurtful. But then, after enough time, and with the right person, something amazing happened. I found a new meaning in it, deeper, happier, and it was like my life had finally caught up to what I had written all those years ago. These hands had to let it go free, but “This Love” has finally come back to me, and now I share it with you. xoxo, B

And CURTAIN

PS: this is how they announce Blair’s pregnancy when it happens

[afterthesequels]

MEET OUR BEN & REY --- Star Wars: The Chosen One (Episode X) Fan Film

Actors Madeleine Norton and Daniel Davenport play the main leads of Rey and Ben Solo, respectively, for our up and coming FAN FILM TRILOGY (once again, not official!) set to release in December 2024! And with them we also have OUR Poe Dameron, Norra Wexley, Wedge Antilles, and Darth Zanos/Cal Kestis --- respectively, Tony Rescigno, Donna Heffernan, Charles Wilson, and Kyle Bargoot.

Maddie comes from an classical acting pedigree, having done theater for the majority of her young years and she graduated with a bachelors degree in fine arts for drama. As a classically trained actress, she also brings many accents to the project, perfectly capturing the voice of Rey. She's as close to Daisy Ridley as we could get and she has a passion for the character that we love. And she's about the nicest person we've ever met, too!

Daniel is a complete contrast to Maddie, but the two compliment each other so well and have amazing chemistry in these roles. He's brand new to this field, only having done a few voice acting projects prior. But we can absolutely tell you that Daniel is a diamond in the rough and we intend to see him through as his "acting family" for the rest of his life. His voice is so perfect for Ben Solo! We love him and we're sure you'll love him too!

We're also so excited to tell the love story of Norra Wexley and Wedge Antilles which most folks haven't been privy to as their story was mainly told in the trilogy of novels called, "Aftermath". Wedge is an iconic original trilogy character and his story really gets fleshed out in those books and it deserves to be seen on the screen. These two were friends for decades and then after the tragic death of Norra's husband, they finally find each other much much later in life. Donna and Charles are Off-Broadway stage actors who have been friends for decades. Charles brought Donna into the project. He said she was perfect for it, and he was 100% percent right. We only auditioned 1 Norra, and Donna was it. As best friends IRL they bring great chemistry to their roles. Wait until you hear them guys! And because Maria has a deep love for all things Poe Dameron, she wanted to tell the story of the tumultuous love affair he had, that started as teenagers, with the formidable Zorii Bliss. That little Spice Runner burned her name across his heart and he has carried that torch for the better part of over a decade, as told in the canon novel, "Poe Dameron: Free Fall". Our Zorii could not join us on this day, but we have the incredible talent that is Tony Rescigno, a film and voice actor who most recently voiced characters in the Diablo IV video game who now takes on the task of Poe Dameron. Lastly we couldn't leave this pair out of "The Lovers Chat" showcase because well, Maria is heavily involved in the video game industry as CEO and President of The Last Prophecy Gaming, Inc. Her work within this franchise is well known and she holds a special place for Cal Kestis and of course also for that sly, revengeful little nightsister, Merrin. And yes, Cal and Merrin will cameo in our fan trilogy, starting with Episode 11, and Cal will be a Grandmaster Jedi by this timeline, and quite old... with children and grandchildren of his own. Hybrid children (half Dathomirian, half Human) with his beloved wifey! Bet they'll have some lessons to teach Ben and Rey, well all of them, we are sure.

Like Dan, Kyle is also pretty new to acting and has only served a few projects here and there. We loved him so much, we gave him two roles --- that is the brooding apprentice to Darth Maladi, Darth Zanos and the big one, Cal Kestis.

So REJOICE #REYLOS --- we're bringing you guys the happy ending that #BenSolo and #Rey deserved, PLUS more love-filled stories to fawn over because Star Wars is full of them!

Stay tuned! And please remember to SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel:

[mscottontail-stash]

Riding High

“You’d lost meaning in faith, in love and in your work, and so music had appeared as your natural savior.“

In which you embarks on a tour with Swedish ghouls and anti-popes.

I've been obsessed with Ghost for years and I cannot wait to see them in TWO WEEKS so let me share my random reverie as a way to cope with this infernal wait. Papa bless!

More on WATTPAD

I. Hemera ☼

If you could have drowned yourself under the bottle you held over your face, you would have happily done so.

The splash of water was powerless to cool you off, however, so you settled for the worn-out leather couch of your cramped lodge and let your drenched body fall flat. The room was abuzz with a mixture of excitement and exhaustion, where musicians and crew members hurriedly moved about.

Your hair clung to your skin as you tried to catch your breath, and the sorry state of your outfit told the tale of this evening’s performance: the dark fabric around your torso was as soaked as the rest of your body, and you didn’t need to check the vanity to know your corpse-like makeup was running black powder and red lipstick all the way down to your neck. Removing your leather pants was also going to be a real pain, but none of these details could manage to remove the euphoria that had taken a hold on your heart: you were a performer.

This journey had started a year ago, a few months before your twenty-seventh birthday. You had always loved music, but sadly it had been a passion squeezed between your job and your obligations. You’d been part of a group before, as a starry-eyed teenager thinking this road would lead to the likes of Metallica or Avenged Sevenhold. It had been a silly aspiration, yet one you had worked yourself to the bone for, taking up guitar and losing yourself in the dream every weekend inside of your friends’ garage.

Then life had crept up on you as it so often does, and repetitions had spaced out. Bandmates moved away and your bond faded, until all that remained were a few concerts a year with your church’s choir. For someone who had always mocked religion, you sure had relied on the faith to carry the torch you desperately maintained for music.

Days went by, college years and shitty jobs along with them, and then it came to be that you had settled for a soundless routine. Still, you listened and twitched a few cords here and there, watching the world passes you by.

Until a day of March when you had found yourself walking away from your flat and the person you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with. Music was the ember you had been more than happy to fan until it overcame the empty spaces of your life. Repetitions, tutorials, classes, it all came back with a vengeance and the salary of your museum curator job, something you’d once been proud of but was now setting you on the edge of a professional burn-out.

You’d lost meaning in faith, in love and in your work, and so music had appeared as your natural savior. This is why today was so important. All the gruesome hours, the amount of shit small bands had to put up with to carve a small place for themselves—the extra amount of shit girls in the industry had to take with a smile as they boiled- it all led up to the thirty-minutes set you had just finished. Even with your sore muscles it still felt like a fever dream, a delusion your hours of repetitions had somehow conjured in the small backstage room.

But you had stood on the stage. Hidden in your long flowing dress you had started the impossible high solo of the Aria Miserere mei, Deus, befuddling the grizzled metalheads composing the crowd with such a holy choir air. Still they had listened quietly, leaving only your soprano notes high above the black sky. A deafening silence had followed, one you had spent on the edge of a cliff before your bandmates materialized upon the stage to let the proverbial hells break loose.

It had been a simple set of three covers embodying the assignment of the night: “Love, Sweden & the Church”, a funny kind of theme that the large festival had handed to any prospective bands the year before. Your bandmates had dismissed the offer at first, but to you it had been the closest to a calling one could get. What else could so easily suit an ex-choir girl with a broken heart and a passion for metal?

Your rendition of Heaven is Here by Florence and the Machine had been an energetic start while your focus had honed onto the careful choreography woven with the lights and sounds. Anxiety had been high for your first huge venue in front of so many spectators, and yet once your heavy dress had been shed and the first riff of guitar started everything had disappeared into your craft. That first act had garnered a salvo of cheers, which meant a lot from people who were truly here for the main act. Warming up the crowd had felt natural, as cheeky as one can be when you had asked spectators if they minded a little disco in their metal. The five of you had been especially proud to belt the legendary ABBA hymn, Gimme Gimme Gimme tinged with enough bass and the appropriate amount of on-stage foolery.

You’d left the people of the venue with one last original song, Hemera. It had taken you a lot of courage to harness the ball of emotions this powerful ballad never failed to invoke within you, giving it all to your band triumphant finale. Khaos Crew had finished under a thunder of applauses, some of which still rung in your ears. And with this echo another one settled in your bones; this is what you were made for.

At last, you stood up from your short break. The air backstage was thick with the lingering scent of adrenaline and the unmistakable aroma of stale beer. You felt the pulsating beat of the music still echoing, an electrifying reminder of the crowd's energy and your own passion. The fatigue clung to your shoulders like a heavy blanket, but it was a small price to pay for the rush experienced on stage.

In the small span of your recollections the room had come alive with fragments of conversations and laughter. Bandmates and crew members exchanged stories, their voices blending into a symphony of camaraderie and shared memories. A tray of cold drinks and a plate of snacks sat nearby. Everyone made a point of congratulating you for an impeccable set, and it dawned on you that it was the first true recognition you and the crew had ever gotten. As you made your way through all the approving artists, your eyes met those of your bandmates.

Despite the weariness that settled, it was all washed away by the profound sense of joy shared by you five. In more ways than one these seasoned musicians had taken a chance on you, and for all of their praise throughout the year it was only just now that you felt like you had honored your silent promise to be worth all that noise.

“You did so so good!” Helsie’s Spanish fast-tempo was accompanied by a big hug.

You returned her embrace. “You guys were on fire! I couldn't have done it without you all.”

Their bassist calmly joined in, raising his glass in a toast. "Here's to us," Maxi commended, his words filled with a quiet confidence. His drummer twin, Len, added his enthusiastic agreement. "That was pure magic. The crowd loved you, and you know what? I heard a little rumor..." he trailed off, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

You leaned in closer. "What? What?” you urged, her voice filled with eager anticipation.

Before he could tease you any longer, Helsie spilled the news. "Word has it that the main act was completely blown away by our act. They're raving about your performance!" she revealed, a hint of awe in her voice.

Your jaw dropped in disbelief, heart pounding with a mix of pride and amazement. "No way! Are you serious?" you exclaimed.

Maxi nodded with a wide grin, his eyes reflecting his genuine admiration. "Absolutely serious. They were captivated by your voice, just like everybody else. You have something truly special, kiddo."

Emotion humbled you so strongly you had to take a beat.  “I... don't know what to say. Thank you all for believing in me and making this journey with me. I'm so grateful for each one of you…" Helsie raised her fist in a gesture of solidarity and determination.

Beer bottles were passed around until you could all raise one in unison. In this moment of triumph, you all reveled in the knowledge that your music had moved not only the fans but also those who had paved the way before your humble beginnings.

✠ ✠ ✠

Several hours passed, the backstage area filled with a flurry of activity as the members of Khaos Crew meticulously dismantled their equipment. As a small and independent band they were accustomed to handling all aspects of their performances themselves, from setup to organization.

In the midst of their controlled chaos, a show operator broke through the commotion.

"'Mary on a Cross,' is in five and the band is inviting you as their vocal backup of honor.”

Your heart leaped in your chest, mind struggling to process the magnitude of the opportunity that had presented itself. The thought of joining forces with a renowned band, performing in front of a larger audience ignited a surge of adrenaline and anticipation that erased all trace of exhaustion.  

“Fucking yes” you breathed, a hand already pulling the dusty T-shirt you had changed into.

As the show operator vanished you dived right back in: mic taped to your bra, a shade of white and red to your face, and the black nun habit hastily passed by an unknown hand on your way to the stage. You knew that this was a pivotal moment, a chance to showcase your talent once more and leave an impression. Your bandmates joined as you rushed through the corridors, their eyes filled with pride and support. You weren’t sure that you deserved that moment more than them, but the seasoned musicians had a different passion than yours: it didn’t matter what gig they would play as long as they were on stage, contents to look at the spotlight without hungering for it. 

You took a deep breath, going back into the place you reached in these moments. The energy backstage was palpable, preparing to step onto the grand stage once again. A certain weight materialized over the moment, but you remained undeterred. This was your chance to become an unforgettable part of a hell of a song.

The neon sign turned green and you moved forward.

The crowd roared at your feet, their excitement reaching a fever pitch as they caught sight of the figure beside you—Papa Emeritus himself. The first notes reverberated when you locked eyes with the man dressed in sparkling blue. You were quick to take your cues from him, making a point of looking mysterious and composed to match his charismatic energy. You harmonized and let your voices intertwine depending on the verse, careful not to overstep on the frontman’s routine. Beyond the lyrics, it was the chemistry you put your effort into and was rewarded with Papa’s own. The master showman relished in your presence, making a spectacle of fawning over you as you grew more and more confident in the intensity of the shared performance.

He gestured towards you with reverence, bowing and gesturing as if you were the true star of the show, to the point where it became hard to maintain a cool demeanor. The audience erupted at each interaction, witnessing a captivating dance of vocal prowess. The final bridge was coming when the singer extended his arms to the scene, inviting you front and center as you seamlessly obliged. The power of your soprano voice rose above the music, resonating within the walls and in every single note.

Light flooded over your face as Papa Emeritus gracefully kneeled before you. The buzzing of the congregation at your feet swelled, witnessing the culmination of a spellbinding moment between the two performers.

The final note lingered in the air before the world erupted in thunderous applause.

Your sense of self gradually came back to you, unable to make sense of the moment that had passed; you let yourself be guided by the Papa character, who rose to grab your hand and place a ghostly kiss on top of your knuckles. You followed his lead as he pulled your arm over your head, demanding more praise from his assembly who happily obliged.

Your eyes meet one final time and you allowed yourself to break away from your persona to relish in this shared moment of triumph and camaraderie. The stage was filled with a tangible energy, a testament to the unbreakable bond forged through music and art.

You had shed religion decades ago and still, you couldn’t help but feel as if you had touched something truly holy.

[omniversalobservations]

Chris Hemsworth Wants MCU Thor & DCU Aquaman Crossover Fight!

With one studio now being co-run by a vet of the other, Chris Hemsworth is interested in making a Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor and DC Universe Aquaman crossover fight happen. Hemsworth has carried the torch of the MCU's God of Thunder for the better part of a decade now across four solo Thor films, including this year's Thor: Love and Thunder, and all four Avengers movies. With the latter Thor movie scoring generally mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike, Hemsworth's future has been let up in the air, but the star himself has one idea for what could come next.

In a recent interview with The Geek House Show, Chris Hemsworth looked towards his potential future in the MCU. When asked about a crossover between the Disney comic book franchise and the DCU, which is now being co-headed by Guardians of the Galaxy's James Gunn, the actor expressed an interest to see it happen, as well as a Thor and Aquaman crossover fight. See what Hemsworth said below:

"It would be cool. Who would be a fun matchup? Thor and Aquaman, that could be fun – you know Jason is a good friend of mine."

Talks of an MCU and DCU crossover movie have swirled ever since the launch of the latter franchise with Man of Steel, despite the Warner Bros.-owned comic book universe nearly derailing in its efforts to catch up quickly with its competition. The door was seemingly opened for such a crossover with Eternals, as the MCU film made a joking nod to Superman's existence with a comparison to Richard Madden's Ikaris, given their shared powers of laser eyes and flight. Though some have argued this to be a throwaway line without any major connections between the two, the joke and the MCU's recent dive into the multiverse has led some to believe it possible they could cross over.

The biggest key to a potential MCU and DCU crossover is Gunn recently being appointed as the co-Chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios alongside his The Suicide Squad producer Peter Safran, with the two now charting a path forward for the franchise. The two are working on a full 10-year plan for the franchise, with Gunn recently offering an update on their progress in that he and Safran will deliver said plan to Warner Bros. Discovery in two months, with CEO David Zaslav also recently hinting at exciting things to come from the duo. With Gunn having also indicated he and Safran are paying attention to what fans want, it would be interesting to see if a DCU and MCU crossover is in the cards.

Hemsworth isn't the only star of either franchise to express an interest for an MCU and DCU crossover, with Black Adam star Dwayne Johnson frequently stating his belief he can use his pull in Hollywood to make it happen. With Johnson now sharing ties with Marvel star Ryan Reynolds thanks to Hobbs & Shaw and Red Notice, it will be interesting to see if this can come to be in the future. However, with Hemsworth recently hinting at his desire to retire the MCU's Thor with his next appearance, it seems like a crossover fight between his God of Thunder and Momoa's Aquaman may not come to fruition.

Source: Screen Rant

(image via Instagram)

[kordeliiius]

Hello there, im Supra (using the B.O.T account because im a dumbass don't mind me). I see you are a fellow City Of Metronome fan, have any headcanons or something?

OMG HI thanks for reaching out to me, yes I have tons of stuff on my mind that I'd be happy to get out >:D

I've seen people discuss possibility that the city exists somewhere within the LN universe because of how similar they feel. I realize that the metrognome cameos were most likely intended as harmless Easter eggs, but then again I believe everything in LN is intentional. One person I know went as far to say Six is actually from Metronome, since she's often said to be "different" or "doesn't belong."

CoM could also follow a certain thematic trend revolving around senses set up by the LN games; Pale City represents sight, the Maw represents taste, and Metronome of course represents sound

The souls that are used to power scouts are uncannily similar to shadow children, in the sense that they're fuzzy black incorporeal creatures that wear white masks, so I'm using that to support my idea that shadows are people's souls

I have a tendency to assign real-world parallels to the locations and cultures within Tarsier's games, so if I were pinpoint Metronome on a real world map it'd be somewhere on the coast bordering Russia and Manchuria. And I'm making this inference based on not just the faces of the people who live there, but also the apparent intersections of culture and language you can see throughout the city. Going off of that, Ten is Manchu and New is Kazakh

I have absolutely ZERO DOUBT that Ten and New were basically beta Mono and Six; one kid with some supernatural ability meets another kid who prefers to fight bare-handed and they form a rebel tag team

I read in a recent article that one of the main factors that prevented the project from going forward was the devs' struggle to make the sound mechanics fun and easy to use, so I hatched the idea to just abandon that mechanic and use something that's already prevalent, like photography. It's kind of a twisted idea because the corp is already using this technology to control their slaves, but I like the idea of the rebels using a loophole to their advantage to take the corp down. Plus now that photo modes are a thing in games that'd be a dope addition, assuming you don't let Ten get caught with cold hard evidence of his whereabouts ;^^ (if you try to take a photo of New she either runs and hides or tries to rip it out of your hands)

I haven't seen any mention of this one unnamed character other than on my own blog, so I'm gonna take a sec to go off abt them again. (for reference I'm talking abt the guy in the top right image, lmk if this link doesnt work) As far as I know this is the only image of this character to exist somewhat publicly but it gave me all I needed to make up a whole backstory lmaooooo First of all I'm pinpointing them as Runaway's parallel because it’d be super awesome if three core characters got resurrected as playable characters in LN. But when it comes to their actual narrative, im getting the image of a spy antagonist who's in league with the corporation and they've been sent to track down the main duo. Make that more tragic by adding the implication that they were friends with New once and are now staying with the enemy for revenge purposes

Ok now this one is real wildboy stuff, because it's not exactly based on any official material, but rather on something that appears to be fanmade. For awhile I couldn't tell who the ghost girl on this mockup cover was supposed to be, because she sorta looks like New, but I remember seeing a face like neither on them on the archived official site; it's a weird case of the Mandela effect but regardless of intention I am running with a number of ideas about this character, because who knows how big the original planned cast was The idea I have rn is that in life, this girl was childhood friends with New and the spy kid, but their huge falling-out was triggered by some sort of accident that not only killed this girl but cost the spy half their limbs. They then of course directed their anger at New, who came out almost totally unscathed. This ghost is only visible to whoever she shows herself to, and sometimes appears in front of Ten to assist him in certain tasks

Lastly it’s worth mentioning that while I can't ever see the protags being romantically involved (and i'm doing everything in my power to avoid certain tropes that were prevalent back then), I can't not see them as partners in crime either??? I say heteroplatonicism deserves more time to shine

so yea that should be everything I've written down both on and off the platform, if u read it all thanks a ton 👌

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Scream (2022)

Oh how I've missed this type of horror! Sure we've had some fun slashers in the past couple of years, but most were just homages to the OG horror films. To return to a franchise that not only revitalized, re-invented and rebirthed the slasher genre, was a very risky move. I honestly thought there wasn't anywhere else to go after the 4th film in the Scream franchise. Since we lost the Master of Horror Wes Craven, I thought that his last entry was good enough to end it the bloodshed there. Now a new generation of masterminds have taken the blood soaked reigns of the franchise and delivered not only a worthy film, but a tribute to the genius that he was. I would be lying if I didn't believe in this sequel, but right off the bat I was thrust back into the world and I loved every second of it. The kills are the most brutal of all, the humor is fantastic and the brilliance behind the commentary about the state of the horror genre was meta at its finest. In this age of horror, anytime we can get a refresher that still surprises you in an almost every unexpected way and still keeps you on the edge of your seat is a blessing. This has got to be the most interactive slasher film I have ever experienced.

This franchise has always been about the characters and the fresh blood that is brought in to be spilled. Jenna Ortega was excellent as Tara Carpenter and man was she a trooper. As seen in the trailer, she gets put through the ringer in this film and sells it. Melissa Barrera was great as her estranged sister Samantha and loved their strained relationship. At times it felt like a bad soap opera, but it opened the doors to the mystery behind the attacks and why its happening to them. Jack Quad was fun as her awkward and often correct boyfriend Richie. I loved the chemistry between them and I felt the care he had for her. Mikey Madison was good and emo as Amber. She was the more cynical person in the friend group, but good. Dylan Minnette was good as Wes Hicks, the son of Deputy Judy Hicks played once again by the wonderful Marley Shelton. My favorite characters of the film were the twins Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin played by Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding. Both were fantastic, but Mindy shined the most as she takes on the mantle left behind by their uncle Randy Meeks played by Jamie Kennedy. Sonia Ben Ammar was great as Chad's girlfriend Liv McKenzie.

You can't have a Scream film without the key surviving members. David Arquette once again shines as the heart of the franchise as Dewey Riley. He really takes the lead in this film as the lovable Han Solo type character and this was the best the character has ever been and the most badass he's ever been. Courtney Cox returns as Gale Weathers and she was stunning, graceful and just as awesome. I loved catching up with her and Dewey's relationship and it does get a bit meta. The original Final Girl returns and she is the wisest of them all. Neve Campbell was fun to see and smart as Sidney Prescott and somehow she finds herself back in the action. It was fun to see all of them together again on the hunt to take down Ghostface again. The sadistic, creepy, sexy and intense voice of Ghostface Roger L. Jackson returns. His voice is that perfect amount of menace that enthralls you with ever word spoken and every witty comeback. I love the scenes especially when Ghostface is taken pleasure in the kill and he gets more intimate this time around.

Franchise composer Marco Beltrami was missing this time around, but an equally capable composer took over and it was chilling. Composer Brian Tyler carries the torch in this installment and he nailed it in everyway. His score had my hair stand up on the back of my neck and kept my heart a flutter once I heard the familiar themes. The themes from the first film and even Dewey's theme kick in at the right moments and it gets you in the right mood for some awesome scares and emotional moments with the characters. The meta humor in this film spoke directly to all fandoms and the audience alike and it was expertly done. This film didn't forget its roots and continued to add to the family tree in a unexpected way. I loved this film and out the 4 that came before it, I think this might be my third favorite entry. This is a must see for all horror fans, a love letter to all Scream fans and a touching tribute to the Master Wes Craven that needs to be seen! Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

[stopeatingwhales]

about a girl (pt.2) x kurt cobain

hi guys :) so sorry for my inactivity, but i’m here finally lmaoo, this is a part two to my kurt fic that i wrote about a month ago, due to school its been much harder for me to keep up writing as usual, but i will absolutely try my best to finish your guys’ requests soon! anyways, hope you enjoy this <3 Pairing: pre-bleach era kurt x reader

Warnings: nothing :)

Word count: 2.167

Requested by anon (the second part was my idea, but i felt like i should still credit the anon for giving me the idea for this x) 

༉‧₊˚✧

The wind exhales short, breezy waves as you lay there, engulfed in your dreams. From the night succeeding to your outstanding performance, you were requited to a favourable hibernation which by admiring you, was needed for not only the sum of a few hours. Your solemn features are painted still, the only movement stimulating from your body is heavy breaths accompanied by a light snore from time to time. I question whether it's righteous of me to allow my eyes to adorn themselves in your serene features, yet I simply cannot stop myself. I find it surreal to witness you in such fragility; for all the pain and sorrow you’ve had to experience in your life, it’s almost like you shouldn’t be sleeping in such a tranquillic state. I wonder if you prefer sleeping than being awake, I wonder if you think it’s a chore to get out of bed. Does the world haunt you? Every click, flash, snap of a camera, does it devastate you? The image you portray to the world is magnificent, yet flawed. It’s almost as if you’re hiding something, yet you don’t care what others think of you, so you do whatever you please. My heart skips a beat every time you shift slightly, cradling your body in the duvet. I advert my stare to your arms, sculpted perfectly in God’s chamber, the lankiness of your bones withering an appearance of discrepancy. You’re not like the rest of them. Your steady breaths softly ease in and out of your flawless torso, your hair so impeccable it looks untouched even when you’re shifting around in your slumber - the hair you willingly dyed and strained with a flavoured drink mix. As I admire you, sleeping beauty, it reminds me of how lucky I am to have you in my life - regardless of where we stand. When you’re awake, you’re the only thing keeping me sane during the day; spending even just a day without you would feel as if I had lost my legs, lost what’s kept me steady for all these draining years. In all my time of knowing and understanding you, have you never not known what to say, for you have such a way with words, it's unfathomable. You carry a sort of intelligence that no one can seem to obtain; you speak words out of a bible and it’s ironic I say that, Mr ‘God is gay’, but it’s true. You’re the reason I wake up in the morning. You’re like a hard candy, sweet and delicate, although the texture is very hard making it a burden to get through to you. I want to taste you on my tongue every morning, if you would like me to be honest. I crave for things as little as your scent even before I’ve risen from the cushion. Your grace must be envied by the heavens; there is and will never be anyone as alluring as you, not that I’m surprised. 

As my eyes continue to wander on him, a sudden stretch of his arms and a small groan echoing out of his vocal chords results in my body almost instantaneously sitting up. I watch him as he blinks his eyes a few times, his vision still not clear enough. “Good morning,” he whispers, his arms thrown to the skies; he’s like a baby, reaching out for their mother in the early hours of daylight, moaning and whining for affection, warming my heart with soreful ease. Quickly taking note of the small clock situated beside him that I was aware of for the many hours I had been trapped in thought, it read a bright and early 11am. My stare continues to linger onto him as I watch him shifting around, the heart situated in my upper chest now beating as fast as drum solos in heavy metal songs. A short silence stood in between both presences; I assume that he hadn’t taken note of my pondering state adjacent to him, though was that idea contradicted by his light greeting. “Did you sleep well?” he chirps, now using both palms to rub his what-seemed-like itchy eyes.

Now what is humorous from this scenario is that he asks this as if it means nothing; a simple conversation starter it may be, though, to me it means so much more hearing those light words roll off his tongue, compared to if someone else had said it, even if it was in the exact same moment living right now. A whiff of bad breath hits my face as I laugh lightly, shaking my head in a sort of admiration towards the man lying down ahead of me. He again blinks a few times, now in attempt to adjust the bright scenery to his view. For a couple seconds the room is frozen, Kurt’s alteration in position to sitting up becoming the only sound ringing through both our ears. As I find my gaze glued onto him once again, I subconsciously repeat the question he asked me, this time directed for him. However, from what I’ve seen, I’m certain he slept wonderfully.

A tired chuckle escaped his mouth. “I asked you first,” he mutters, the morning rasp still prominent in his vocal chords. This makes me smile. The raw, genuinity forwards the idea of realism that this moment was actually happening, coming like a pinch snapping someone out of their daydream, though my thoughts will never be known to understand how I was able to spend time with such a man. “I slept well, though.” he adds, a warm smile playing on his lips. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered, my face now being cradled by my palms. 

I now feel the stare of Kurt burn onto my face. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asks, a hint of annoyance laced in his words. “We could’ve stayed up together,” 

A small chuckle breezes out of my nose. How considerate, how caring must you be to, even when you have performed such an exasperating gig, stay awake with me because of one night of my mind’s continuous ambles? For all I know, Kurt wouldn’t sleep for days if it meant I would be in absolute glee. It’s those sorts of traits in those who are lost which draw you towards them becoming the significant other to stay with for life. It’s that sense of attachment, connection you hold with someone, so strong that you would give up the roof over your head if it meant a smile to be drawn on their face. ”You looked so peaceful in your sleep,” I replied, staring directly into his loveable eyes, the shade of blue brightening as the sunlight melted onto his face. His hair was now a little more messier compared to how it was less than ten minutes ago, and the urge of me running my fingers through his golden locks only seemed to grow even more as time passed on. For a moment I decided to hold back my words, inhaling sharply to gain composure to my fatigued state. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” 

Kurt sighed - knowing that he needed sleep more than anything, though a hint of sadness dwindled in his stomach, his mind conflicted from the idea of me drowning in worry as I tended to do when I couldn’t sleep. Reaching his arm towards the table sat beside him, his fingers got lost in between the opened packet of cigarettes that slept reverently on the white wood, grabbing a random one at choice before placing it in a loose grip between his lips. With the known information that you need a torch to light a cigarette, I threw the one I had on his lap, a small laugh escaping my lips for no apparent reason. Actually no, there was a reason. “Who the fuck smokes first thing in the morning?”

Before he torched the lighter, he stopped, his piercing blue eyes locking in contact with mine. “Me, I do,” 

Another laugh tempted to flee itself from my throat, yet I held it back. If you would’ve said that to me the first night I met you, in that small, cramped room, littered with amps that Krist had dragged me into going in to listen to your material, I would’ve scoffed at your blown attitude towards such a random question. Watching you now as you’re admiring the cancer stick with pure attachment, my mind begins to wander over such a topic. I look at you and see a troubled, young kid who just wants love and affection because he seemingly never got enough from the people who designed his childhood; for you haven’t grown up since then. Perhaps in size and features, yes (and definitely the fact that children do not smoke), but hidden inside you is the same boy that was hidden away all those years ago - following onto your parents’ divorce. You say you’ve never been happy since then, you’ve never been able to think optimistically, and maybe you haven’t. Maybe the smile you give to me isn’t genuine; with continuous assurance I’ll consider it to be. Maybe I’ll never heal those bruises that were once your only source of living, and that’s okay, if you’re able to cope with the imprints. If you’re the Kurt Cobain that prefers smoking than having a normal breakfast, so be it; I’d give up my heart for you, and if anything, you’ve already stolen it. Words merely brush the surface of my adoration for you, and sometimes I believe that I’m just lying to myself, that nothing I’m saying in my head is true. Yet, as every minute, every second passes throughout the day, even in silent, contented situations with ceilings bright as yellow from the smoke like these, everything I say to myself simply strengthens in morality. My sweet, you deserve more than one could wish for. You deserve things that this world cannot give you, yet all you believe is that you are worthless. If only you saw yourself in my eyes, maybe then you’d realise, realise the impact you’ve sincerely doused onto me and my mind, you’ve got the moves to empower a generation and perhaps hundreds more - even if you don’t see that yet. 

“Give me one,” He hands me one, the strong gusts of cloud escaping his mouth creating a want for the rough substance to coat my throat in brutal ways; even if it’s slowly murdering me. It was a murderous addiction, nicotine, yet it kills us all, our addictions; and we are too blinded by the goodness it seemingly overshadows what we force to neglect in our minds - the bad in it all. We become so unbelievably enthralled by the pain we choose to accept it; we believe it is favourable, not disastrous and catastrophic. Drugs are frowned upon dearly, as they should be, but once you’re stuck, it takes more than simple courage to escape out of the deadly grip it chokes you in. Placing the cigarette in between my lips, identical to how he had just done, I reached my arm out to obtain the lighter that was in my clutch merely seconds ago, swiftly lighting it with one hand. As I breathed out the first tar-filled cloud from my cigar, I fixed my gaze onto him once again, sucking in my top lip as I allowed the droplets of ash fall onto my shirt. “I know I always say this,” I began as I studied his features, trying to identify any solemn, unpleasant emotions, noticing that there was none at all for the time being. “You’re going to make it big one day, I’m now for certain you’re going to take over the world,”

His eyes now locked into mine, a short chuckle leaving his throat as he blew out an even bigger gust of smoke. “I don’t want that,” 

Smiling, I took hold of my cigarette and inhaled deeply, holding it in my mouth until my body was unable to carry on without oxygen for longer - not that the air in the room was even oxygen; it was more corrosive chemicals than anything else, yet we’ve become so dependant on a small roll of tobacco to guide us to a path of slow death, its unnoticable. I watched as Kurt’s eyes drifted on to admire the elusive sunlight gleaming through the window, the whiffs of grey contrasting the happiness that was attempting to journey itself into the silent room. No matter how many times I may tell, his belief that he will never be as big as acts like the Sex Pistols will empower over anything I endevour on to phrase. It was inevitable though, whether he dreamt of it or not, that they will be big, bigger than anything they’ve ever seen. The path bridging onto it may cause destruction, heartbreak, and even more addiction, but the future is never in our hands - only until it is close enough for the present to capture it. Time is simply a mantelpiece, the light eventually burns out when there’s not enough coal to keep it going. You continue to refill it as the days go by until you simply cannot any longer, which is what all youths fear and avoid. Surprisingly enough, Kurt wasn’t one of the many crowds in devastating apprehension; he wanted to burn out more than anything else, for there were only small things keeping him going, or perhaps he was waiting for a longer, more agonizing death, hence the many packets of cigarettes vanished in a day.

There was nothing left to say in the room; there was no need for a response - it was only going to result in the same bicker as it resulted in many a time. The room, now physically undergoing a change in colour from the smoke, held a significant ambience, one so serene it left you more relaxed than the aftermath of a crazy high in drug use, though sometimes the relaxation is more pain than anything else. Even when my mind was so consumed in ideation earlier in the morning, my thoughts were louder than ever in this given moment. My mind was mulled over the concept of Kurt and stardom. He would never like it, nor does he even want it. It’s humorous to an extent; how much authenticity can one acclaim, to not even look up to the sugar-coated concept called ‘fame’? You’re not like the others. You don’t want fame, you want to create music. And in all honesty, I wish I lie through my teeth whenever I mumble those encouraging words of how you’re going to make it big; I can’t stand the idea of losing you, but like I said, it's inevitable, one day simple moments like these will just be memories to look back on when you’re old and laughing about your previous attachment to drugs. Maybe you won’t look back on times like these however, maybe you’ll remember the more vivid, buzzing moments like your first gig as Nirvana, and maybe I won’t remember this either, maybe these moments aren’t to be remembered, to be lived in instead. If only you knew how much I loved you, would you be surprised that I haven’t ruined my life because of it. You mean more to me than the stars mean to the night sky, more than a memory means to a person’s mind. It hurts my heart knowing I can’t heal you, though I dream that one day, you’ll wake up, just like you did today, turn to me and say, ‘I’m happy,’ because that’s all I ever dream of you to be.

[asteracaea]

Taylor Swift officially kicked off the 36th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame festivities with a tribute to Carole King, singing a show-opening cover of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.”

Speaking about King’s blockbuster “Tapestry” album, released 50 years ago, Swift said, “It was a watershed moment for humans in the world with feelings and for cats who have big dreams of one day ending up on iconic album covers.”

Dressed in a one-piece black and gold pantsuit, Swift’ performed the decades-spanning hit in front of a crowd of 12,000 at the ceremony, held at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

That song holds a special place for the 79-year-old singer-songwriter, also famed for hits like “You’ve Got a Friend” and “It’s Too Late,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” was a monster hit for the Shirelles in 1960, when King was only a songwriter and not yet recording artist; she re-recorded it for her solo album “Tapestry,” which after its 1971 release became what was then one of the biggest albums of all time.

King thanked Taylor for carrying the torch for songwriters and called her “my professional granddaughter “

King previously presented Swift with the American Music Award for artist of the decade in 2019. “Over the years, I have known some great songwriters and I have also known some great singers and performers,” King said in her speech on that telecast. “It’s rare to see all those talents in one person… She is one of the only modern pop artists whose name (sometimes) appears as the sole songwriter in her song credits. Her lyrics resonate across all generations, her songs touch everyone and her impact around the world is extraordinary.”

[kingstylesdaily]

Stevie Nicks Answers All Our Questions About Harry Styles

Of all the disciples to worship at the altar of Stevie Nicks, none have managed to capture the attention of rock’s reigning priestess quite like Harry Styles.

The 26-year-old rocker (who this week received three Grammy nominations) is the Gucci-clad poster boy carrying the torch for a bygone era of music history that the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman helped crystallize. Styles recently cited the group’s 1977 (and still charting) classic “Dreams” as one of the first songs he learned the words to growing up. Their friendship began in 2015 after the former One Direction member presented his idol with a hand-piped birthday cake after a Fleetwood Mac gig in London. (“Glad she liked carrot cake,” he later said.) The years since have seen the duo’s mutual affection blossom into one of pop culture’s most cherished bondings.

Last year, when Styles inducted Nicks into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he proclaimed the 72-year-old “everything you’ve ever wanted in a lady, a lover, in a friend.” Nicks has gushed about him in interviews as everything from “the son she never had” to her “love child” with bandmate Mick Fleetwood. Styles earned her official seal of approval after covering “The Chain” every night of his first solo tour in support of a record that sounds closer to Crosby, Stills & Nash than anything he released under his prior band.

“Harry could’ve lost a lot of fans, but he didn’t,” Nicks recently told Vogue over the phone. “I’m so proud of him because he took a risk and didn’t go the One Direction route. He loves One Direction, I love One Direction, and a gazillion other people do too, but Harry didn’t wanna go the pop route. He wanted straight-up rock and roll circa 1975.”  

Nicks has been embracing some of the busiest years of her dual careers as both Fleetwood Mac frontwoman and solo sorceress—and doing so amid a global pandemic. Since she last performed with Styles at the Forum for his Fine Line release show in December, she’s released a 24 Karat Gold concert film and “Show Them the Way,” her politically minded single and first piece of original music in six years. After Miley Cyrus asked for Nicks’s blessing before releasing her “Edge of Seventeen”–tinged “Midnight Sky,” the two joined forces for an exhilarating new mash-up titled “Edge of Midnight.”

In honor of Styles making history as the magazine’s first solo cover boy, Nicks caught up with Vogue to answer all our questions about their cosmic connection. Currently beachside with her quarantine bubble in Hawaii, she’s been doing what one would expect Stevie Nicks to be up to during a pandemic: writing new music, dancing around her house to “Watermelon Sugar,” and “casting little spells.” As befitting rock’s foremost storyteller, our intended 30-minute chat turned into a two-hour confessional about her love of Styles, working with Cyrus for the first time, joining Fleetwood Mac, the president-elect Joe Biden, the Met Gala, betta fish funerals, and much more.

ksd note: edited to only include Q&A about Stevie and Harry!

Did you get a chance to look through Harry’s cover story yet?  

Right before I called you, I sat here and looked at all the pictures on my new iPad. What can I say? That’s my Harry. I think the thing that’s most wonderful about him—and I’ve told him this, and sometimes I think he takes it the wrong way—is that he’s such a kooky guy. He’s the type of person you’d wanna live next door to. He’d look out the window, see you having a hard time planting flowers, and rush out asking, “Can I help you with those roses?” “Sure, but you are Harry Styles, right?” That’s who he is.

I really only know him to a certain extent, but I have gotten to experience some big moments in his life, like when he released his first solo record at the Troubadour. I always think of Tom Petty saying, “So, you wanna be a rock star or you wanna be a pop star?” It’s two completely different things, and he really could have gone pop like his friend Zayn [Malik]. I was sorry that Zayn didn’t keep going more because I thought he was really good. But he took the pop route, which I think was right for him. Harry could’ve lost a lot of fans doing rock and roll, but he didn’t. Harry did a long tour with that first record and said, “I’m a different person now. I have a full-on rock band, and this is what I’m gonna do.” With many of my records, I’ll stuff down peoples’ throats until they like it, and that’s exactly what he did. Then he went away and wrote Fine Line, one of my favorite records.

What were your immediate thoughts listening to Fine Line for the first time?

Me and four of my friends sat with Harry in his living room  in London and listened to it a few times before it came out. But it wasn’t really Fine Line yet. The first time we listened to it, nobody really said anything. The second time everyone started to go, “I think this song is great, but it should be second in the sequence.” By the third listen, it was five girls screaming, “Well, Harry really now, I think you need to take these four that are called Harry Songs and do this and that—” while he’s sinking in his reclining chair thinking, Are these women ever gonna leave? Thanks for your opinions, but oh, my God, stop already.  

What changed when you heard the record in it’s finished form?

This record means a lot to me. When it was all put together, I listened and said, “Oh, my god, the Beatles live.” A whole lot of people live in these songs. Fleetwood Mac lives there. I live there. When I listen to “Fine Line,” I hear melodies that would’ve worked on “A Day in the Life. “It has that same kind of complexity. I think the Beatles would’ve thought, Here we’ve influenced a young man who took some incredible things from us and made them his own years and years later.

Earlier this year you posted a message saying that Fine Line is Harry’s Rumours. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?

When Harry asked me to do “Landslide” with him at the Forum, I asked why, and he said, “Because I want you to be there. You were there for my first night at the Troubadour for the first record.” That night I wrote him a letter that said, “This is your Rumours so you have to really respect it and adore it because these kinds of records sometimes don’t ever come again.” Fleetwood Mac went on to make many great records, but people would bet their life on the fact that Rumours was the one. And this might just be the one for Harry. We were all kind of the same age when we made Rumours. I was 28, and Lindsey [Buckingham] was 27. I actually don’t even know how old Harry is—he’s that timeless to me.

Do you have a personal favorite of his songs?

Every one represents a different thing to me. “Sunflower” is such a great little song. He loves to do crazy videos, and one time I called him and said, “I have an idea. You’re gonna be a bee, and the sunflower would be your girlfriend, and you guys would get married and live in a beehive with your little bee children. You’d sing the lyrics ‘kiss in the kitchen like it’s a dance floor duh duh duh’ and show this entire bee relationship.” 

What did he think of that pitch?

When I finished, the other end of the phone was silent. I said, “No, really, think about it. It’ll be fantastical like a Francis Ford Coppola movie.” He’s like, “Yeah, okay...” [laughs]. I also love the “Adore You” video with the little fish because I have my own special relationships with fish.

In what sense?

I always have two beta fish, but they have to be separated otherwise they’ll kill each other. I stick my finger into their aquarium, and the blue one will swim around my hand like a little dolphin. When my fish get old and suddenly die, I have funerals for them in my backyard where I play Celine Dion. I have them filmed, and everything [laughs]. It’s too much, but I thankfully haven’t had any recent fish deaths. I haven’t even been able to sit down and show Harry the videos of my little fish, so when I saw the “Adore You” video, I couldn’t believe it.

Why is it important for you to foster these relationships with younger artists like Harry who’ve been so openly influenced by you?

I’m inspired by them. I’m inspired that Miley wants to make music with me. I’m inspired that the Haim girls are my biggest fans—and I theirs. A lot of these kids are making the amazing records I’ve been waiting for them to make. I’m not like other 72-year-olds. I listen to current music because I want to be current. When people find out how old I am versus the music I’m listening to, they think it doesn’t gel at all. I’ve been collecting musical knowledge since I was in the fourth grade listening to the singles my grandfather used to bring home. I listened to Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers until the sixth grade when R&B radio became Top 40. I said goodbye country and hello R&B, so it’s not like I’m ever stuck on one thing. What I love about Harry is that he’s very old school but still modern. And that’s kinda like me.

You both also transitioned from massive groups to equally massive solo careers rather seamlessly.

When I decided I wanted to be a solo artist, I’d only been in Fleetwood Mac for a few years. I tried to figure out a way to do it gracefully because I didn’t wanna break up the band. I just wanted to sit at my piano and write poetry. After we did a record and a really long tour, the band scurried off to different parts of the world while I’d just be home writing songs for a year and a half. What did they care what I did while they were all on vacation? I’ve always said all the way through these two careers I’ve had: If you’re in a band first, never break it up.

Do you think One Direction would ever reunite?

I think it’s a good idea. For all we know, One Direction is completely broken up forever. But I think those guys are friends, and five or ten years down the road, they could all go, “You know what, wouldn’t it be really fun to do a One Direction tour?” Because that’s what people do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did reunite at some point just because they can. And because it would just be fun. Harry is the kind of person who would never stomp on that idea. He would never say, [imitates posh English accent] “Never! I would never do that again!” Because why not just keep the door open?

Was there any particular detail or passage in Harry’s cover story that stuck out to you?

According to this article, he can get in a car with his friend to drive all over Europe then drive back by himself. I stopped driving in 1978 because my driver’s license expired and I’d already made a lot of money. I very smartly thought, “You know what, if someone even hits you and it’s not even your fault but you’re a little drunk, you are done. You’re finished, and the fortune that you’ve made is gone, so why should you drive anyway?” By then me and Christine were very cloistered, but Harry’s able to live a freer life because he’s a guy. He’s like Mick. He has a free life.

Would you say that you don’t?

I’m only comparing us in the way that Harry goes off to the Bahamas to work on songs, then flies back to L.A., then London, then Italy—I can’t do that. I can’t do that by myself. He’s able to do whatever he wants by himself, and it’s a whole different way of life. Being that Harry is a guy, he’s able to be a loner more than I am. As a woman, I’m not free to do all that. Even when I was his age, I couldn’t just get off anywhere I wanted. When we were on the road, Christine and I didn’t have a clue in the world what the boys did. We went to our rooms with security guys standing outside. It’s not like we ever escaped to go club-hopping in downtown Manhattan. We never got to live that life, so freedom as Harry knows it is very different than it’s been for me.

Did you ever have any figure in your life who provided some sense of mentorship the way you have to artists like Harry?

I didn’t really have anyone. If I had any guiding force at all, it probably would’ve been Christine McVie because she was five years older than me. And five years is five years, you know? Chris was friends with Eric Clapton and knew all the famous musicians in London. She’d married John [McVie] and done a bunch of records with Fleetwood Mac before I came along, so she’d been in the music business for a long time. I was breaking up with Lindsey when she was breaking up with John. She was my therapist and my go-to person for just about everything. We had each other to get through that really difficult situation where no one was gonna quit the band. Christine and I kept the whole thing together by telling the three men, “You quit because we’re not stopping” Thank God I had her, but on the other side of that, thank God she had me. We really were a force of nature.

** I’m curious to what extent fashion plays a role in your and Harry’s relationship. Have you** gifted him any accessories that were significant to you?

I actually gave him a ring at the Forum thing. It’s very masculine and has a pink stone in it. I told him it was a pink diamond, but it really isn’t. It would’ve cost $5 million. It was mine, and I really loved it, but I thought, This should be for Harry. You can see it on his hands in the “Falling” video where he’s playing the piano. If Harry and I were in a band together, we’d be trading all kinds of crazy stuff.

What are your thoughts on him being the first solo male cover in Vogue’s history?

It makes me feel so inspired. I’m extremely jealous he’s on the cover of Vogue because I’m 72 years old and have wanted to be on the cover my whole life. I’m such a magazine hag, so I’m incredibly jealous of Harry, but I’ll get over it. As far as all the crazy things he’s wearing, you do whatever you have to do to be on the cover of Vogue. I’m very proud of him, and I think it’s great that there’s a man on the cover…but I should’ve been in the corner off in the distance [laughs]. Did you know I’ve never been to the Met Gala?

We would be honored to have you at the next gala and every one after that. I’m putting this in the article to make sure it’s in the public record.

As Mick Jagger says, “We still have our freedom, but we don’t have much time.” I would like to be not much older than I am now so I can wear a fantastic outfit and entertain everybody. It’s a dream of mine, and most of my dreams have come true, but I need to not be 90 when it happens.

Harry and you could perform together.

We wouldn’t even have to rehearse. We’ve got a couple of duets that are really great. We do “Landslide” and “Two Ghosts” together really well. We actually have five or six terrific acoustic numbers that we could do at the drop of a hat.

You hinted earlier this year that there might be a role for Harry in the miniseries based on the stories of Rhiannon. Is there any update there?

This is probably the third-biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life after Fleetwood Mac and my solo career. There’s a lot to be done in the movie business before I can start riding my horses across the mountains of Wales. I’ve signed with a movie company—I’m not gonna tell you who—and we just signed a writer. I’m not gonna tell you who that is either, but there’s an amazing part for Harry. My favorite character in the series is the only man who goes through all four books. He’s a magician who doesn’t wanna be king, and I think Harry would just be so perfect.

Have you and Harry discussed collaborating on any future music together?

We’re open to making music together because we’ve been very successful when we go onstage just to do one song. I would love to be in a band with Harry, but even if I never saw him in person again, he’s made a record that breaks my heart in a million places like Fine Line. As far as music goes, there’s plenty of fun things that he and I could do. We can just reach out to each other and do it. I’m always ready to slip back into those high-heel black suede boots and become my alter ego.

via Vogue.com

[hlupdate]

Of all the disciples to worship at the altar of Stevie Nicks, none have managed to capture the attention of rock's reigning priestess quite like Harry Styles.

The 26-year old rocker (who this week received three Grammy nominations) is the Gucci-clad poster-boy carrying the torch for a bygone era of music history that the Fleetwood Mac front-woman helped crystallize. Styles recently cited the group's 1977 (and still charting) classic “Dreams” as one of the first songs he learned the words to growing up. Their friendship began in 2015 after the former One Direction member presented his idol with a hand-piped birthday cake after a Fleetwood Mac gig in London. (“Glad she liked carrot cake,” he later said.) The years since have seen the duo's mutual affection blossom into one of pop culture‘s most cherished bondings.

Last year, when Styles inducted Nicks into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he proclaimed the 72-year old “everything you’ve ever wanted in a lady, a lover, in a friend.” Nicks has gushed about him in interviews as everything from “the son she never had” to the “love child” of her and bandmate Mick Fleetwood. Styles earned her official seal of approval after covering “The Chain” every night of his first solo tour in support of a record that sounds closer to Crosby, Stills & Nash than anything he released under his prior band.

“Harry could've lost a lot of fans but he didn't. I’m so proud of him because he took a risk and didn’t go the One Direction route," Nicks recently told Vogue over the phone. "He loves One Direction, I love One Direction, and a gazillion other people do too, but Harry didn't wanna go the pop route. He wanted straight-up rock-and-roll circa 1975.”

Nicks has been embracing some of the busiest years of her dual careers as both Fleetwood Mac front-woman and solo sorceress—and doing so in the midst of a global pandemic. Since she last performed with Styles at the Forum for his Fine Line release show in December, she’s released a 24 Karat Gold concert film and “Show Them the Way,” her politically-minded single and first piece of original music in six years. After Miley Cyrus asked for Nicks's blessing before releasing her “Edge of Seventeen”-tinged “Midnight Sky,” the two joined forces for an exhilarating new mash-up titled “Edge of Midnight."

In honor of Styles making history as the magazine’s first solo cover-boy, Nicks caught up with Vogue to answer all our questions about their cosmic connection. Currently beachside with her quarantine bubble in Hawaii, she’s been doing what one would expect Stevie Nicks to be up to during a pandemic: writing new music, dancing around her house to “Watermelon Sugar“ and “casting little spells.” As befitting rock’s foremost storyteller, our intended 30-minute chat turned into a two-hour confessional about her love of Styles, working with Cyrus for the first time, joining Fleetwood Mac, the president-elect Joe Biden, the Met Gala, betta fish funerals, and much more.

Did you get a chance to look through Harry's cover story yet?  

Right before I called you I sat here and looked at all the pictures on my new iPad. What can I say? That's my Harry. I think the thing that’s most wonderful about him—and I've told him this and sometimes I think he takes it the wrong way—is that he’s such a kooky guy. He’s the type of person you'd wanna live next door to. He’d look out the window, see you having a hard time planting flowers and rush out asking "Can I help you with those roses?" "Sure but you are Harry Styles, right?" That's who he is.

I really only know him to a certain extent but I have gotten to experience some big moments in his life like when he released his first solo record at the Troubadour. I always think of Tom Petty saying "So you wanna be a rock star or you wanna be a pop star?" It's two completely different things and he really could have gone pop like his friend Zayn [Malik]. I was sorry that Zayn didn't keep going more because I thought he was really good. But he took the pop route, which I think was right for him. Harry could've lost a lot of fans doing rock-and-roll but he didn't. Harry did a long tour with that first record and said “I'm a different person now. I have a full-on rock band and this is what I'm gonna do.” With many of my records I’ll stuff down peoples' throats until they like it and that's exactly what he did. Then he went away and wrote Fine Line, one of my favorite records.

What were your immediate thoughts listening to Fine Line for the first time?

Me and four of my friends sat with Harry in his living room  in London and listened to it a few times before it came out. But it wasn't really Fine Line yet. The first time we listened to it nobody really said anything. The second time everyone started to go "I think this song is great but it should be second in the sequence." By the third listen it was five girls screaming "Well Harry really now, I think you need to take these four that are called "Harry Songs" and do this and that—” while he’s sinking in his reclining chair thinking "Are these women ever gonna leave? Thanks for your opinions but oh my god stop already."

What changed when you heard the record in it’s finished form?

This record means a lot to me. When it was all put together I listened and said "Oh my god, The Beatles live." A whole lot of people live in these songs. Fleetwood Mac lives there. I live there. When I listen to "Fine Line” I hear melodies that would've worked on “A Day in the Life.“ It has that same kind of complexity. I think the Beatles would've thought “Here we’ve influenced a young man who took some incredible things from us and made them his own years and years later.”

Earlier this year you posted a message saying that Fine Line is Harry’s Rumours. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?

When Harry asked me to do "Landslide" with him at the Forum I asked why and he said "Because I want you to be there. You were there for my first night at the Troubadour for the first record.” That night I wrote him a letter that said “This is your Rumours so you have to really respect it and adore it because these kinds of records sometimes don't ever come again.” Fleetwood Mac went on to make many great records but people would bet their life on the fact that Rumours was the one. And this might just be the one for Harry. We were all kind of the same age when we made Rumours. I was 28 and Lindsey was 27. I actually don't even know how old Harry is—he's that timeless to me.

Do you have a personal favorite of his songs?

Every one represents a different thing to me. “Sunflower” is such a great little song. He loves to do crazy videos and one time I called him and said “I have an idea. You're gonna be a bee and the sunflower would be your girlfriend, and you guys would get married and live in a beehive with your little bee children. You’d sing the lyrics “kiss in the kitchen like it's a dance floor duh duh duh” and show this entire bee relationship.”

What did he think of that pitch?

When I finished the other end of the phone was silent. I said "No really, think about it. It’ll be fantastical like a Francis Ford Coppola movie.” He’s like “Yeah, okay...” (laughs). I also love the "Adore You” video with the little fish because I have my own special relationships with fish.

In what sense?

I always have two betta fish but they have to be separated otherwise they'll kill each other. I stick my finger into their aquarium and the blue one will swim around my hand like a little dolphin. When my fish get old and suddenly die I have funerals for them in my backyard where I play Celine Dion. I have them filmed and everything (laughs). It’s too much but I thankfully haven’t had any recent fish deaths. I haven't even been able to sit down and show Harry the videos of my little fish so when I saw the “Adore You” video I couldn’t believe it.

Why is it important for you to foster these relationships with younger artists like Harry who’ve been so openly influenced by you?

I'm inspired by them. I'm inspired that Miley wants to make music with me. I’m inspired that the Haim girls are my biggest fans—and I theirs. A lot of these kids are making the amazing records I’ve been waiting for them to make. I’m not like other 72-year olds. I listen to current music because I want to be current. When people find out how old I am versus the music I'm listening to they think it doesn't gel at all. I’ve been collecting musical knowledge since I was in the fourth grade listening to the singles my grandfather used to bring home. I listened to Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers until the sixth grade when R&B radio became Top 40. I said goodbye country and hello R&B, so it’s not like I'm ever stuck on one thing. What I love about Harry is that he's very old-school but still modern. And that's kinda like me.

You both also transitioned from massive groups to equally massive solo careers rather seamlessly.

When I decided I wanted to be a solo artist I'd only been in Fleetwood Mac for a few years. I tried to figure out a way to do it gracefully because I didn’t wanna break up the band. I just wanted to sit at my piano and write poetry. After we did a record and a really long tour the band scurried off to different parts of the world while I’d just be home writing songs for a year and a half. What did they care what I did while they were all on vacation? I’ve always said all the way through these two careers I've had: if you're in a band first, never break it up.

I know Beyoncé because I spent a day with Destiny’s Child making the “Bootylicious” video. I owe them a debt of gratitude because that’s the one time I ever got to pretend I played rock-and-roll guitar! But when Beyoncé made the decision to be a solo artist she did not see herself going back to Destiny's Child every couple of years. And that's a perfectly acceptable decision because sometimes that's what people wanna do. I, on the other hand, said why not have the ability to go back to Fleetwood Mac whenever I want? Being a Gemini I get bored really easily, so being able to have those two careers was great.

Do you think One Direction would ever reunite?

I think it's a good idea. For all we know, One Direction is completely broken up forever. But I think those guys are friends and five or ten years down the road they could all go "You know what, wouldn't it be really fun to do a One Direction tour?" Because that's what people do. I wouldn't be surprised if they did reunite at some point just because they can. And because it would just be fun. Harry is the kind of person who would never stomp on that idea. He would never say (imitates posh English accent) "Never! I would never do that again!" Because why not just keep the door open?

Was there any particular detail or passage in Harry’s cover story that stuck out to you?

According to this article he can get in a car with his friend to drive all over Europe then drive back by himself. I stopped driving in 1978 because my driver's license expired and I'd already made a lot of money. I very smartly thought "You know what, if someone even hits you and it's not even your fault but you're a little drunk, you are done. You're finished and the fortune that you've made is gone, so why should you drive anyway?” By then me and Christine were very cloistered, but Harry's able to live a freer life because he's a guy. He's like Mick. He has a free life.

Would you say that you don’t?

I'm only comparing us in the way that Harry goes off to the Bahamas to work on songs then flies back to LA then London then Italy—I can't do that. I can't do that by myself. He's able to do whatever he wants by himself and it's a whole different way of life. Being that Harry is a guy, he's able to be a loner more than I am. As a woman I'm not free to do all that. Even when I was his age I couldn't just get off anywhere I wanted. When we were on the road Christine and I didn't have a clue in the world what the boys did. We went to our rooms with security guys standing outside. It's not like we ever escaped to go club-hopping in downtown Manhattan. We never got to live that life so freedom as Harry knows it is very different than it’s been for me.

Did you ever have any figure in your life who provided some sense of mentorship the way you have to artists like Harry?

I didn't really have anyone. If I had any guiding force at all it probably would've been Christine McVie because she was five years older than me. And five years is five years, you know? Chris was friends with Eric Clapton and knew all the famous musicians in London. She’d married John [McVie] and done a bunch of records with Fleetwood Mac before I came along so she'd been in the music business for a long time. I was breaking up with Lindsey when she was breaking up with John. She was my therapist and my go-to person for just about everything. We had each other to get through that really difficult situation where no one was gonna quit the band. Christine and I kept the whole thing together by telling the three men "You quit because we're not stopping” Thank god I had her, but I think on the other side of that thank god she had me. We really were a force of nature.

I’m curious to what extent fashion plays a role in your and Harry’s relationship. Have you gifted him any accessories that were significant to you?

I actually gave him a ring at the Forum thing. It’s very masculine and has a pink stone in it. I told him it was a pink diamond but it really isn't, it would've cost $5 million. It was mine and I really loved it but I thought "This should be for Harry.” You can see it on his hands in the "Falling" video where he’s playing the piano. If Harry and I were in a band together we’d be trading all kinds of crazy stuff.

How did you come to decide on your all-black stage uniform?

I started getting paid when I joined Fleetwood Mac but up until then I didn't have any money to buy food. All of a sudden we were going on tour so I just packed up my normal clothes. We started eating because there was room service and there I was gaining ten pounds in the middle of the tour. I didn't fit in any of the clothes and I didn't have time to shop so when I got home I said “I can never do this again.” I knew a friend who knew a designer and I told her I needed a uniform because I can't be thinking about what I wanna wear every night. It makes it so much easier since everybody that's in Pittsburgh isn't necessarily gonna be in Philadelphia. Harry's done the same thing with his white pants and pink shirt.

What are your thoughts on him being the first solo male cover in Vogue’s history?

It makes me feel so inspired. I'm extremely jealous he's on the cover of Vogue because I'm seventy-two years old and have wanted to be on the cover my whole life. I’m such a magazine hag, so I’m incredibly jealous of Harry but I'll get over it. As far as all the crazy things he's wearing, you do whatever you have to do to be on the cover of Vogue. I'm very proud of him and I think it's great that there's a man on the cover… but I should've been in the corner off in the distance (laughs). Did you know I've never been to the Met Gala?

We would be honored to have you at the next gala and every one after that. I’m putting this in the article to make sure it’s in the public record.

As Mick Jagger says, "We still have our freedom, but we don't have much time." I would like to be not much older than I am now so I can wear a fantastic outfit and entertain everybody. It's a dream of mine and most of my dreams have come true, but I need to not be ninety when it happens.

Harry and you could perform together.

We wouldn't even have to rehearse. We've got a couple of duets that are really great. We do "Landslide" and “Two Ghosts” together really well. We actually have five or six terrific acoustic numbers that we could do at the drop of a hat.

You hinted earlier this year that there might be a role for Harry in the miniseries based on the stories of Rhiannon. Is there any update there?

This is probably the third-biggest thing I've ever done in my life after Fleetwood Mac and my solo career. There’s a lot to be done in the movie business before I can start riding my horses across the mountains of Wales. I've signed with a movie company—I'm not gonna tell you who—and we just signed a writer. I'm not gonna tell you who that is either but there’s an amazing part for Harry. My favorite character in the series is the only man who goes through all four books. He's a magician who doesn't wanna be king and I think Harry would just be so perfect.

Have you and Harry discussed collaborating on any future music together?

We're open to making music together because we've been very successful when we go onstage just to do one song. I would love to be in a band with Harry but even if I never saw him in person again he’s made a record that breaks my heart in a million places like Fine Line. As far as music goes there's plenty of fun things that he and I could do. We can just reach out to each other and do it. I’m always ready to slip back into those high-heel black suede boots and become my alter ego.

This interview has been edited for clarity and space.

[pinktintedmonocle]

Dedicated Followers of Fashion - A Cobra Kai Lawrusso Fanfic - Chapter 3

“Do you still have yours?” Daniel asked.

Johnny blinked in confusion.  “My what?”

Daniel inclined his head towards the tournament gi on the wall.

In which Daniel is not on fire, Johnny performs a heist and they finally attempt to deal with their feelings for each other with the help of two iconic outfits…

Trigger warning: some references to outdated and ill-informed views on homosexuality and bisexuality.

1981

“Mr Lawrence.  Stay behind for a moment, will you?”

Kreese’s voice cut through the air, and although it was framed as a question Johnny knew that it was a command rather than a request.

“I’ll see you later”, Johnny murmured to Bobby, and hung back while the rest of the class shuffled out.

When they were alone Kreese surveyed him for a moment, his cool gaze sweeping Johnny from head to toe, and Johnny forced himself to stay standing straight up, head high, shoulders held back rather than turning tail.  He knew that gaze, not just from Kreese but from Sid as well, knew that it almost always preceded a sneer followed by a torrent of insults carefully constructed to inflict the most pain possible.

But no insults were forthcoming; instead Kreese just nodded, once, and walked past Johnny into his office. He emerged a few seconds later, a pile of black cloth held in his arms, and crossed back over to Johnny, holding out the bundle.

“For you, Mr Lawrence”, Kreese said smoothly, and Johnny’s jaw fell open when he realised what it was.

“A tournament gi?” he whispered, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice just in case he was mistaken.  “For me, Sensei?”

Kreese smiled indulgently and inclined his head down, indicating for Johnny to take the uniform.

Johnny picked it up, sucking in a deep breath as he did so.  He’d just been a spectator at the All Valley tournament for the last two years, sitting in the front row and cheering his fellow Cobras on, hoping against hope that one day it would be him up there, leading Cobra Kai to victory.  He ran his fingers over the patch on the front of the top, scarcely believing that he was seeing his own name (his own name!) printed above the motif of a fist.

“Do you really think I’m ready, Sensei?” he asked quietly, and Kreese’s smile widened as he laid a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, squeezing it softly.

“Yes son”, said Kreese. “It’s time for you to get out there and show everyone what a true champion is made of.  I have a feeling that gi is only the first of many.”

Johnny felt his chest swell with happiness as a grin spread over his face.

“I won’t let you down, Sensei”, he promised fervently.  “I swear it. I’ll never, ever let you down.”

 December 20th, 1984

“Johnny?  Johnny, are you OK sweetie?”

Johnny burrowed deeper under the bed covers, ignoring his mom.  His throat was throbbing painfully and he desperately needed to pee, but he didn’t want to move from his dark cocoon.  After a minute his mom stopped calling his name, and he thought she’d gone away when he heard his bedroom door open softly and feet pad across to him. He felt the bed dip as she sat down before her hand landed on his back, rubbing soft circles into it through the covers.

“Hey”, she said soothingly. “It’s OK, Johnny.  I know you did your best.”

“How?” croaked Johnny, voice muffled by the blankets.  “How do you know what I did when you weren’t even there?”

His mom’s hand stopped moving.  “I’m so sorry I missed it sweetie, but Sid had a work dinner and I had to go-”

“You always choose him over me”, Johnny said hoarsely, shifting across the bed out of his mom’s reach.

“You know that’s not true, Johnny”, Laura said quietly.

Johnny didn’t reply, and a few seconds later he felt his mom stand up and start to walk away.  He heard her footsteps pause, and then a rustling sound; the crinkle of cloth.

“Where do you want me to put this, Johnny?” she asked, and Johnny didn’t need to look to know that she was holding the gi that he’d torn off and discarded on the floor when he’d got home.

“I don’t care”, he said, curling up further under the blanket.

Laura sighed.  “OK, well I’m going to keep it if that’s alright with you.  I’ll put it with the others.”

Johnny was silent, and after a minute he heard his mom leave, the door closing behind her.  He held his breath for a moment, making sure she wasn’t about to come back, before he let himself cry, the tears running down tracks still present on his cheeks from the night before.  He didn’t care what his mom did with the gi; he never wanted to see it again.

 2019

They won the tournament, Miguel delivering the winning kick against Robby in a nail-biting final, and while the kids celebrated Johnny and Daniel had hotfooted it out of the All Valley Sports Arena, desperately searching for Robby and Kreese.  They eventually found them around the back of the building, Kreese having apparently learned his lesson from last time and avoiding the crowded parking lot.  He had Robby in a headlock, second place trophy in pieces on the ground, and for a sickening moment Johnny felt as if time had rewound thirty-five years and it was all happening again.

They had acted as one, Johnny sweeping Kreese’s leg while Daniel delivered the kick to his face, and while Daniel had pulled a shaken and spluttering Robby out of the way Johnny had stood over his old Sensei, mouth set in a hard line.

“Now get the hell out of here and never come back”, he had growled.  Before Kreese had a chance to respond Johnny had turned away, attending to Robby.

After an exhausting few weeks of sorting out the mess Kreese had left behind (“A lot of those kids he was brainwashing are going to need many years of therapy”, Daniel had said) and making sure Robby was OK (he had let Johnny and Daniel take him to hospital after the tournament, but had barely talked to either of them since, opting instead to move back in with Shannon who was fresh out of rehab), Johnny and Daniel had decided to keep their new dojo open, with them both teaching evening classes while Johnny managed most of the day sessions solo when Daniel was at the dealership.  (“Just try to be nice, OK Johnny?  No inappropriate nicknames.”  “Define inappropriate.”  “Anything you would’ve used in the 80’s.” Daniel answered drily.  “Then what the hell am I supposed to call them?” Johnny protested. “Their names, Johnny.”)

They had also managed to avoid being alone together for any length of time; Miguel, Sam and Hawk had begun to join them for lesson planning and nights out always included Amanda and Carmen.  Johnny was starting to think that Daniel had either forgotten or decided to abandon their plan to talk about The Thing between them (Johnny had started to refer to it as The Thing in his mind, even though that also made him think of the Kurt Russell film, which was confusing at times.  But he didn’t know what else to call it; what was the appropriate terminology for the overwhelming urge to kiss the face off your childhood karate rival turned reluctant co-sensei?), when he’d received a Facebook message from Daniel one night after practice.

Dinner.  My place. Saturday night, 7.30pm.  Amanda out and the kids at sleepovers.  And get a damn cell phone, Johnny.  I’m sick of having to wait for you to turn on your laptop before you pick up my messages.  (Johnny had rolled his eyes and responded with the middle finger emoji, followed shortly after by yeah, whatever, see you then.)

On Saturday night Johnny tried on the entire contents of his wardrobe, searching for just the right outfit in which to discuss what to do about The Thing.  After several hours his bedroom looked like an explosion in a thrift store and he finally settled on his dark suit and yellow shirt combo, telling himself as he adjusted his tie and slicked his hair back that he was going to Daniel’s to deal with the business of The Thing between them, so what better outfit than a business suit?  They would drink (there was no way Johnny was doing it sober), they would talk, they would eat, they would try and come up with a solution to their feelings which didn’t end with Johnny just pushing Daniel up against a wall and ramming his tongue down the other man’s throat.

The outfit selection had taken so long that it was well after 7.30pm by the time Johnny headed out of his apartment and drove round to the LaRusso house, but even after he arrived he still stayed in the car for a while, hands clutching the steering wheel as the Valley darkened around him.

Eventually he took a deep breath and got out, grabbing a bag from the passenger seat and locking the door before squaring his shoulders, walking purposefully up to the front door and ringing the bell.  He shifted nervously from foot to foot, and when Daniel didn’t come to the door after a minute he pressed the bell again, keeping his finger held down on it for a good ten seconds before letting go.  After there was still no response, Johnny started to feel a little uneasy.  What if something’s happened to him?  Johnny had a sudden vision of Daniel trying to cook some overly complicated recipe that involved a blow torch like Johnny had seen on the Food Network and setting fire to himself.  Or maybe he’d tripped over those ridiculously long legs of his and fallen down the stairs and was lying in a crumpled, broken heap at the bottom.  Or what if Kreese had returned despite his promise to stay away and had finally gotten his revenge?  Johnny’s heart started to race as he thought about what it would be like to live in world without Daniel LaRusso.  He felt bile rise in his throat and he swallowed it down as he found his feet carrying him swiftly around to the rear of the house.  He was making for the back door (rapidly formulating a break-in plan in his mind, which largely consisted of just kicking the door until it opened) when he saw that there was a light on in Daniel’s home dojo; he hurried in, shoes squeaking on the floor, half expecting to see Daniel’s lifeless body spread out in front of him.

“Johnny?” asked a familiar Jersey-accented voice, and Johnny turned to see Daniel sitting on a bench pushed up against a Japanese style screen, a wine glass raised halfway to his lips.  “Are you OK?”

Johnny breathed a huge sigh of relief, and then felt like an idiot.  His cheeks reddened.  “What? Er, yeah, I’m fine.  I just thought you might be on fire or something but you’re not, so we’re all good.”

Daniel frowned. “Johnny, why the hell would I be on fire - ” he started, before he cut himself off and shook his head.  “You know what?  I don’t want to know.  He shuffled along the bench, making room for Johnny, and gestured to a bottle of wine. “You want a drink?”  

“I’m good”, said Johnny, holding up his bag as he sat down and pulling out a crate of Coors Banquet.

Daniel rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything, instead reaching out for the bottle of wine and topping up his glass.  Johnny stared at him; he was dressed in corduroy pants and a fleecy blue sweatshirt, hair product-free and sticking up in fluffy tufts as if he’d been running his hands through it.  Johnny tore his eyes away, feeling a little hot.  He shrugged off his suit jacket and undid his top button, pulling at his collar. He took a bottle of Coors of out its cardboard container and twisted the cap off, taking a big gulp of beer.

“You missed dinner”, Daniel said.

“What was it?”

“Pesto and arugula linguine.”

Johnny pulled a face. “Sounds green.”

Daniel huffed, although Johnny thought he saw a hint of a smile on his lips.

“I didn’t think you were going to come.”

“Yeah, well.  I did”, Johnny said.  He was just close enough to Daniel that he could smell the smaller man’s aftershave (clean and fresh with just the slightest hint of musk).  He took another swig of beer.

“Yeah”, said Daniel, leaning in ever so slightly.  “For some reason you’re dressed like a detective from the 1970’s and you were over an hour late, but yeah, you came.”

Johnny reached out and shoved Daniel’s shoulder playfully, but rather than pulling back he left his hand there, fingers gently stroking Daniel’s arm through the soft fabric. Daniel bit his lip and Johnny realised he was about five seconds away from giving into temptation and kissing Daniel until his own lips were too sore to form coherent sentences.  He let his arm drop and glanced away, shifting on the bench to put a little more space between them, looking around the room for a distraction.  His eyes settled on the framed gi hanging on the wall.

“Of course you framed it. Bet you look at it every day and get a little thrill thinking about how you beat me.”

“Actually the reason I framed it was because Mr Miyagi gave it to me for my birthday”, Daniel replied. “The bonsai was embroidered by his wife before she died.”

“Oh”, Johnny said awkwardly, but then Daniel’s mouth quirked up in a smirk.

“But yeah, it does also remind me of kicking you in the face.”

Johnny picked up his discarded bottle cap and threw it at the smaller man.  It landed softly in Daniel’s hair and he scowled, plucking it out and throwing it back at Johnny who caught it easily.

“Asshole.”

“Twerp.”

They drank in silence for a minute before Johnny finally asked the question that had been bugging him for weeks.

“Why is blue my fault?”

Daniel didn’t even acknowledge that he’d heard Johnny, instead fiddling with a loose thread on the sleeve of his fleece.  He drained his glass and then picked up the bottle to re-fill, and Johnny was about to repeat the question when Daniel finally spoke.  

“I- I liked you in high school.”

Johnny snorted in derision. “I think we both know that’s not true.”

Daniel sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.  “No, I mean I liked you in high school, Johnny.”

It took Johnny a moment to realise when Daniel meant; when he did, he blinked in surprise. “Oh.  Shit.”

Daniel swirled the wine around in his glass.  “Yeah. After the tournament I started having these dreams about you, and when I saw you at school…”.  He paused, taking a sip of wine and staring down at the floor. “There wasn’t any information about it in those days, you know?  About men who liked men or men who liked both men and women.  Not useful information, anyway.  The news just said it made you sick, and my neighbour Freddy told me he’d once seen an Al Pacino movie about it and that it meant you had to wear a lot of leather and might be murdered.”  He took a big gulp of wine and stared down at his feet, not meeting Johnny’s eye, and when he spoke again his voice was somehow both soft and brittle.  

“So I just tried to ignore it and hoped that it would go away, but of course it didn’t.  So the next time I needed new clothes I just bought everything in blue, because – I don’t know, it just seemed like a safe colour. Like people were less likely to know…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“Oh”, Johnny said again.  (He felt that he should probably have said something else, but had no clue what that would be.)  “And then what?”

Daniel shrugged.  “And then, eventually, there was more information and I learned that it was OK to like both men and women, but by that time I was already with Amanda and I didn’t want anyone else.”  He went to take another sip of his wine but then seemed to change his mind, placing the glass down on the bench and running a hand through his hair.  

Johnny realised his mouth was hanging open and quickly closed it.

“And what about you, Johnny?”

“What about me, LaRusso?”

“Did – did you like me too? Back then?”

Johnny had a sudden, vivid memory of the day they first met, of looking down at Daniel playing with Ali on the beach and feeling an odd swooping sensation in his stomach at the sight of long legs and slim hips that he hadn’t fully understood and had masked with anger.

“Maybe”.  He went to take a pull on his Banquet, but the bottle was empty.  He cracked open another and took a long swig from it.

“We would be terrible together”, Daniel said bluntly.  “We’d argue over everything and we’d probably try and kill each other within a week.”

“Yeah”, Johnny agreed. “It’d be a fucking nightmare.”

“And yet –”, said Daniel, gesturing at the space between them, at the thirty-five year old heart-shaped elephant in the room.  “-there’s this”.            

“Yeah.  The Thing.  Our thing, I mean, nothing to do with Kurt Russell.”  Johnny looked down at his feet.  “I don’t know what to do about it, LaRusso.”

“No”, Daniel said miserably. “I don’t either.”

They looked at each other, and Johnny was suddenly overcome with the urge to just get up and run out of there at full pelt (he could be in his car and on his way home in under a minute if he moved fast).  He hadn’t expected it to go this way; he thought that Daniel would have some carefully constructed five-point plan for how to deal with their feelings, or that he’d get some sudden flash of inspiration (damn business suit had been no help at all). Instead he breathed deeply in and out and shifted just a little closer to Daniel, holding out a hand.  Daniel hesitated for a fraction of a second before he took it in his.

“Do you still have yours?” Daniel asked after a while.

Johnny blinked in confusion. “My what?”

Daniel inclined his head towards the tournament gi on the wall.

“Oh.  No.  But it might still be at Sid’s with some of my mom’s old stuff.”

Daniel nodded slowly. “You think you could go round there and see if you can find it?”

“Maybe”, said Johnny, frowning.  “Why?”

**********************************************************************************

Johnny loitered outside the house, watching as Sid clambered into his car with the help of Rhonda. The chauffeur got in and started the engine and Johnny ducked behind a bush as the car swooped down the driveway. When it was safely out of sight he walked briskly up to the front door and rang the bell (he knew better than to try and sneak round the back; Sid’s home security systems had always been state of the art and he’d tripped the alarm more than once as a teenager, creeping back home after an all-night rager).

When the butler answered the door Johnny walked straight past him, talking fast.

“Hey, is my step-dad home? It’s just that I think I left something here last time I visited and I wanted to see if he’d found it.”

The butler hurried behind Johnny as he walked into Sid’s study.  “Mr Weinberg is out at the moment, Mr Lawrence, but perhaps if you come back another day after you’ve made an appointment-”

“Ah, it’s OK, I think I know where I left it”, said Johnny.  “I’ll go grab it and be out of your hair in just a sec.”  He looked at the butler again.  “Well, actually, you don’t have any hair, but you know what I mean.”

“Mr Lawrence, I must protest-” began the butler, but Johnny stepped around him and back out into the hall before turning left and taking the stairs two at a time.  He ran along the corridor to his old bedroom (now a storage room) and began to search for the boxes with his mom’s name on them. He could already hear the butler talking to someone on the phone and he reckoned he had about three minutes before the burly security guards that Sid kept on site found him, and a further two minutes before Sid arrived back home (Johnny knew that he would order his chauffeur to turn right back around as soon as the butler told him what was going on; his step-father would never miss an opportunity to kick Johnny out of his house).

After a minute of searching Johnny found the boxes marked ‘Laura’ and tore them open, pulling out high heels and floral dresses, some of which still smelt faintly of his mom’s perfume. His stomach clenched at the scent, memories flooding back; he shook his head, forcing himself to focus.  He opened another box, and then another, and was just starting to think they weren’t there, that Sid must have thrown them out, when he found them folded up neatly at the bottom of the last box. Four black gi’s with yellow trim. He pulled them all out and held them up one by one to determine which was the biggest, which was the one from 1984. When he’d identified it he quickly stuffed the pants, top and a belt into the backpack slung over his shoulder and sprinted back down the corridor and the stairs.  As he barrelled out of the door he heard heavy footsteps behind him and several deep voices shouting at him to stop, but he kept running, breath hitching in his chest.

Sid’s car pulled back into the driveway as Johnny ran out of it, and as Johnny raced down the road, the security guards puffing along behind him for a few paces before giving up, he heard Sid shout.

“And don’t you ever come back here, you good-for-nothing schmuck!”

Don’t worry, Johnny thought, slowing his pace a little as he turned a corner out of sight.  I won’t.

**********************************************************************************

“Good work today everyone!”, said Sam, clapping her hands together, and Johnny smirked as Daniel raised an eyebrow at his daughter as their students began to talk amongst themselves.

“You know that’s my line, right?” Daniel asked.

Sam grinned.  “You snooze you lose, Dad.  Maybe it’s time for you to start thinking about stepping back a bit, let the new guard take the lead.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Hey, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.  Plenty of life left in this not-so-old dog yet.”

“So what’s the plan for tonight, Sensei and Mr LaRusso?” piped up Miguel, taking a slug of water from his bottle and wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “More lesson planning?”

Johnny and Daniel exchanged a glance.

“Ah, no, not tonight kid”, said Johnny.  “Me and LaRusso have got some stuff we need to work on.  Just – er – just us two.”

The teenagers frowned.

“What is it?” asked Hawk. “Some kind of secret new move?”

“Paperwork”, Daniel replied quickly.  “Although if you really want to stay and help out-”

Sam, Miguel and Hawk all made noises of protest, muttering vaguely about needing to get home.  Sam gave Daniel a quick hug while Miguel and Hawk chorused “See you later, Sensei” at Johnny before all three of them joined the other students as they trooped out of the yard.

Robby smiled tightly at them as he passed.  He’d shown up a few days prior and stood at the back of the class, joining in with kata but abstaining from sparring.  He hadn’t talked to Johnny or Daniel yet, but it was a start.  

Then it was just the two of them.  Johnny stared down at his feet, scuffing his shoes against the grass, before raising his eyes to look at Daniel.

Daniel’s tongue darted out to lick his lips nervously.  “You hungry?” he asked.

Johnny took in Daniel’s appearance, skin flushed and hair mussed from training.  Not for food.

“Ah, no, I’m good. But if you wanna go get something for yourself-”

“No”, said Daniel.  “I just – I just want to get on with this. Did you bring it?”

Johnny nodded, and together they walked inside.  Daniel gestured around the dojo.  “I’ll get changed in here.  You take the office.”

“Alright”, agreed Johnny, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.  He walked into the next room and snagged a bottle of Banquet from the refrigerator before opening up his gym bag.  He pulled out the black uniform, freshly washed and neatly folded.

“It’s important it looked how it did then”, Daniel had said. “Don’t show up with it all smelly and crumpled.”

The plan had appeared to make something resembling sense when they were drunk.  Johnny, remembering Ali’s words (“Sometimes it’s good to visit the past to know where you are now”) had agreed to it, but sober (or at least as sober as Johnny ever was) the idea seemed more than a little bat-shit crazy.  But if it had even the slightest chance of helping them process their feelings for one another he was willing to give it a shot. Besides, Johnny had always felt most clear headed in the midst of a fight; adrenaline singing through his veins, blood pumping, everything appearing just that little bit sharper and brighter.

He pulled off his workout clothes and sneakers and held up the black gi pants, wondering if he was even going to be able to get them past his thighs.  He pulled them on very slowly, just about managing to get them all the way up without busting a seam, and then leaned down at an awkward angle to grab the rest of his uniform.  He put on the top (was it really a good idea to be showing so much chest around someone who was madly in lust with him?  Probably not), tied the belt and walked stiffly into the dojo.

Daniel was standing on the opposite side of the room, fiddling with his sleeves.

“You haven’t even changed yet!” Johnny protested, gesturing towards him.

“What?  I have!”, Daniel replied, pointing towards an identical heap of white cloth on the floor.

Johnny shook his head. “Of course it still fits you.”  He walked towards Daniel, trying not to bend his knees too much.  Daniel just stared at him.

“Jesus, Johnny.  How did you even get that on?”

Johnny shrugged, still moving robot-like across the room until he was in front of Daniel.  Close up Johnny could see that Daniel’s gi was not quite identical to the one he’d worn in class; it was slightly more worn, frayed around the edges, and it was also quite snug.  His hand crept out and he touched Daniel’s chest (fully covered unlike Johnny’s, no exposed nipples in sight), and let his fingers glide down the fabric, coming to rest low on Daniel’s stomach, skimming the softness there.

Daniel shifted, but didn’t pull away.  “Why do you always touch me there?”, he asked.

Johnny felt a smile pulling at his lips.  “Only place you’re not perfect, LaRusso.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m perfect?”

“Well you’ve spent enough money tying to still look like you did in high school”, replied Johnny, gesturing with his free hand to Daniel’s carefully dyed hair and moisturiser-softened skin.

Daniel scowled, but then his eyes drifted down to Johnny’s hand, still resting on his stomach.  “So it’s my imperfections that you like, Johnny?”

“Maybe”, Johnny said. He thought back to the night of the pink shirt, of the brief glimpse of Daniel’s bare torso.  He would only have to move his fingers a little to the left to reach Daniel’s gi belt; one tug and the top would fall open, exposing Daniel’s body, just like opening a present on Christmas Day.  Instead he stepped back, arms dropping to his sides.

Daniel cleared his throat. “You remember your moves, Johnny?”

Johnny shrugged. “Yeah, I think so”.  (Of course he remembered them; that fight was part of him and always would be, whether he wanted it to be or not.)

“Just go easy on my knee this time, yeah?” asked Daniel.

“Ditto, but for my face”, countered Johnny.

They got into position and Johnny bowed, deep and deliberate, locking eyes with Daniel as the smaller man mirrored him.  Then they straightened up, getting into fighting stances, and began.

Johnny lunged forward with a jump kick and heard a tearing sound as the too-tight material of his gi pants gave way.  “Oh shit”, he muttered.

Daniel sidestepped Johnny’s leg, avoiding contact, “You alright there?” he asked, inclining his head towards Johnny’s crotch.

“I’m fine”, Johnny replied, feeling his cheeks redden.  He dived straight back into the fight with a flurry of kicks and Daniel landed a blow to the chest (“one point LaRusso”), his knuckles skimming over bare flesh.  Daniel went in for a punch and Johnny pushed him to the ground, hand lingering for a second on Daniel’s chest before Daniel flipped himself up (not quite as gracefully as the last time, Johnny noted a little smugly) and they circled each other, panting heavily, before Johnny kicked out and Daniel went low, pulling Johnny down with him and tapping him on the back (“That’s two for LaRusso”), and they both lay there for a moment, legs tangled together (those legs, what Johnny wouldn’t do to stay wrapped in them), before they clambered up, parting reluctantly, getting ready to face off again.

“You need a time out, Johnny?”  Daniel asked lightly, but there was an edge to his voice and his body was braced, ready for attack.

“I’m good.  Didn’t bust my nose this time, LaRusso.”

Daniel nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and suddenly it was as if it was 1984 again and they were in the All Valley Sports Arena, the crowd roaring around them and Kreese standing to the side, arms crossed, confident that Johnny would obey him no matter what.

“Sweep the leg.”

“You have a problem with that?”

“No Sensei.”

“No mercy.”

Johnny’s leg went up, his body moving by itself as though he had no control over it, like a puppet on a string.  Daniel tensed, waiting for the inevitable blow to his own leg, and Johnny wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised when it never came.  Instead the kick struck Daniel’s chest, a fair kick, not targeting a known weakness, and the smaller man fell back onto his ass, blinking in surprise.  They stared at each other for a moment, panting heavily, and then Daniel’s face split into a grin before he got up again, and Johnny felt his own lips pull into a smile as they continued.

Johnny fought the rest of the fight with his own moves, every kick and punch shredding the material of his gi a little bit more, and he found that he felt lighter with every ripped seam as if shedding a too tight skin that he hadn’t realised he was still wearing.

“I won’t let you down, Sensei, I swear it.  I’ll never, ever let you down.”

“You’re nothing, you lost, you’re a loser”.

“I did warn you about this.  I told you not to show weakness.”

“I will never let my students lose.  Even if they have to learn the hard way.  One day you’ll thank me for this, Johnny.”

Rip

Tear

Pull

Break

Johnny kept his eyes trained on Daniel as they sparred, on the man who Johnny had blamed for so many things that were never his fault, weren’t Johnny’s fault either, but instead were entirely the fault of someone who had seen Johnny as an impressionable young kid and decided to warp him into a solider.

Johnny didn’t grab Daniel’s leg, didn’t ram his elbow into the back of his knee.  Instead they danced around each other, Johnny’s cheeks aching from the smile that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on his face, and then Daniel raised two arms and a leg, preparing for the crane kick. There was a moment of stillness and Johnny stared at the person in front of him; this tiny, forceful creature who had crashed back into his life after thirty odd years, and he felt that same swooping sensation in his stomach that he had that night at the beach.  Then Daniel’s leg flew out, or at least it almost did; Daniel’s gi pants pulled tight around thighs that were just a little thicker than when he was a teenager, and as the material restricted his movements Daniel’s eyes went wide and he fell over backwards, landing on his ass.

Johnny felt something rise up his throat and into his mouth (for a second he thought he was going to barf all over Daniel’s precious gi, which would have kept him amused for weeks after even if he did have to pay the dry cleaning bill), but instead what came out was a snigger followed by a chuckle, and before he knew it Johnny’s body was wracked with laughter and he dropped to his knees next to Daniel, chest heaving.  For a moment Daniel stared at him as if he was mad, but then Daniel’s own shoulders started to shake and soon they were both laughing uncontrollably.  Johnny felt that lightness again, both wonderful and dizzying (“the unbearable lightness of being Johnny Lawrence”, Daniel said, years later, when Johnny tried to recall the feeling.  Johnny just rolled his eyes and threw his bottle cap at Daniel, grinning when it landed in the other man’s greying hair).

When they finally stopped, guffaws subsiding into giggles that eventually petered out into silence, Johnny felt limp but happy, as if all the tension had been drained from his body. He looked at Daniel sat on the floor before him, sweaty and out of breath but with his white gi still pristine and perfectly intact while Johnny’s black one hung off him in tatters (and if that wasn’t a perfect representation of their relationship then Johnny didn’t know what was).  He shuffled forward and raised a hand to Daniel’s face, thumb rubbing against a soft cheek where just the slightest hint of stubble had appeared.  

“Johnny”, Daniel murmured, leaning into the touch.

“Daniel”, whispered Johnny, the name unfamiliar on his lips, and they locked eyes before closing the distance between them and pressing their mouths together.

Johnny had never really understood the act of kissing as something in and of itself before; for him it had always been a means to an end, and that end was usually sex or at least a good grope (Dutch had taught him that; always try to put a hand on a girl’s boob while making out), and he had imagined it would be like that with Daniel; a desperate, frantic mashing together of lips and teeth as they ripped each other’s clothes off.  But although Johnny could feel lust coiling in his belly the kiss was nothing like that at all; it was slow and sweet, Daniel’s soft lips moving gently against his, his mouth warm and inviting.  It was somehow both too much and not enough, and Johnny didn’t know if it was the first kiss or the last, the beginning of something or the end.

Eventually they broke for air but stayed close, breath mingling, foreheads pressed together.

“It’s getting late”, Johnny said, pulling back and nodding towards the slight gap in the screen doors where a sliver of inky black sky was visible.  He gestured between them.  “We should – ah – we should probably get changed”.

“Yeah”, Daniel replied, glancing at Johnny’s ruined gi. “We should.”

But neither of them moved, and Johnny found himself wondering what would happen if they just stayed there forever, curled around each other in that little house (he could get Bobby to send food parcels).  But his legs had started to cramp and so he got up reluctantly, holding out a hand to help Daniel to his feet.  They smiled at each other for a moment longer before they both nodded in silent agreement and turned away.  Johnny started to walk into the office to gather his clothes, but only took a few steps before he turned, drinking in the sight of Daniel’s bare back as he carefully removed and folded up his gi top, muscles shifting.  Johnny tore his eyes away and forced himself into the next room, firmly closing the screen door between them.  Maybe there would be time in the years to come for him to explore Daniel’s body, maybe not, but whatever happened at least the past was finally behind them while the future stretched out in front, unwritten, a blank page ready to be filled with whatever story they chose for themselves.

[duhragonball]

damn that ask you rblogged got me thinking that I really am tired trying to figure out db as a whole like I wanna enjoy goku to the max but it gets me so tired trying to enjoy it while knowing that things could be so much better if toriyama wasnt rushed on a regular basis and if he thought some things thru

I'm not sure what ask you're referring to, anon, so I'm not sure what you mean. I'm guessing this is in reference to Tien having minimal backstory.

I can understand wanting more from a particular work. It's probably to Dragon Ball's credit that one of the biggest complaints from the fans is that there isn't enough attention lavished on the supporting and ancillary characters. It amazes me how many fans carry a torch for more Launch or Raditz when they haven't been used in over 30 years, and they weren't even used that much back then. They made an impression, and people want more. I wish I could make a character like Launch with that kind of demand.

On the other hand, stories have to call it done at some point. Akira Toriyama had to tell the story of Goku, and he had to do it on a deadline, and even if he had more time and more resources, he'd still have to make the hard decisions about what to keep in and what to throw out. He was never going to be able to include a subplot about Tien's parents, it would derail the story that he was actually trying to tell.

Star Wars is a good example. They were going to make those sequel trilogy movies, and Episode VII was going to be about Han Solo, and VIII was going to be about Luke Skywalker, and IX would have been about Princess Leia, except Carrie Fisher died before they could actually go through with it. That still bugs me. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to form a coherent opinion on Episode IX, because I'll always be comparing it to a Carrie-Fisher-led movie that ultimately never got made. I'm kind of angry that they waited thirty-plus years to do a project like this, and they ended up waiting too long to get it right. My point is that everything is finite, and everything has a deadline, even when you don't notice it.

At some point, creators have to set their priorities and stick to them, for the sake of the work. Visual artists do this all the time. No one complains when a painting doesn't detail every last strand of hair, or the individual pores on a person's nose.

I've seen plenty of folk complain that there should be more official material devoted to the underutilized characters. The thing I can never seem to get anyone to buy into is that the Launches and Turleseseses and Tien's moms are kind of our job. If we see a minor detail and we want More of That, then we gotta make it ourselves, because no one else is going to.

I mean, I think people get that, but sometimes I'm not so sure. Like, Broly got a new movie and fans are like "Well now they should do one for so-and-so!" Like Broly was some obscure background character, whose appearance in 2018 signals some sort of Obscure Background Character Renaissance. Look, I'd love to see some sort of Launch/Haskey/Colonel Violet action heist story, but Toei's never going to do that, because they're too focused on the big characters with the biggest appeal. Priorities.

I'm not saying this to be mean, Anon, but I get a sense of bitterness in your words, like you can't enjoy Dragon Ball as it is because you're too frustrated with what it might have been. Trust me, you'll waste your life that way. Nothing will ever be perfect, and you'll miss all the good parts while you're holding out for even better ones.

Actually, this reminds me of one of my favorite Far Side comics, where these people in the desert find a water fountain, and one of them wants to push his luck even further before he takes a drink. That's the sort of mentality I'm trying to combat here. That's why I get so mad about fans who gripe about video quality and aspect ratios and minor details. They're so fixated on getting the absolute highest quality trees that they never get to enjoy the forest.

For my part, I enjoy Dragon Ball for all sorts of reasons, including the dumber stuff that goes hand-in-hand with the awesome stuff. If you find yourself unable to do that, then don't sit tight and wish it were better. Go find other things that you like more. Or make the kind of content that you can't find anywhere else. Everybody's always griping about Toyotaro screwing things up like he's the only game in town. I hardly ever think about the guy, because I got into JoJo around the time the DBS manga started doing original stories. And there's plenty of fan works. My dashboard is routinely filled with Yamcha/Tien slash. Some butthole keeps spamming this endless Super Saiyan OC fic. He's not doing it for his health, or for the adulation; he's doing it because no one else will do it for him.

I'll get off of that particular soapbox for a moment, because I have no way of knowing if you're an aspiring content creator or anything like that. A lot of people aren't looking to make their own stuff like that. They just want to enjoy stuff, and that's fine. Dragon Ball's here and it's done and it's plenty big. There's a lot to enjoy. But if you say you're "trying" to enjoy it and it just isn't working for you, then maybe you need to put it down and look for something else, at least for a while.

[rockhopsblog]

Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN-- A New Hip Hop Legend

Whether tall tale, truth, or somewhere in between, 13 time Grammy Award winning rapper/songwriter Kendrick Lamar Duckworth’s rise to immortality is nothing short of a cosmic wonder. To go back to the beginning, let’s first take a look at his most recent solo project, 2017’s Album of the Year nominee and Best Rap Album winner “Damn”. The very last track of the album, “Duckworth”, tells of a saga that took place during the rapper’s infancy. The mythic-like storytelling follows the journey of his father, mother, and what would one day become the owner of the record label that propelled Kendrick into stardom. Kendrick’s father, “Ducky” supposedly worked at a chicken fast food restaurant, which “Top Dawg” Anthony Tiffith, proprietor of Top Dawg Entertainment, frequented. Tiffith was a notorious gangster on the block who aspired to be the first one from his neighborhood to reach the life of luxury. Tiffith went on to plan and subsequently rob the chicken place Ducky worked at, but spared his life because he had always given him an extra biscuit with his meals. Because of this decision, Kendrick grew up with his father around, helping to keep him out of the L.A. gang wars and keeping Tiffith out of prison so he could go on to found a record label. Things obviously could have gone very differently, but they didn’t. As Kendrick himself puts it: “Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence? Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be serving life, While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight”.

Growing up in Compton, CA and making it out to be a success is no small feat. Throughout the years, one of Kendrick’s closest collaborators has been a rapper/blood gang member, Jay Rock, who too came from the neighborhood that Kendrick grew up in. Also a close friend of theirs- Schoolboy Q, a crip. Kendrick Lamar has been on the forefront of using his voice to unify people involved in gang violence and deterring those who may later fall into it. In 2015, Kendrick designed and released his signature shoe with Nike, aimed at the unification of people divided by the lifestyle that many of his friends and family became victims of during the tribulations of his youth. In 2007, a friend of Lamar’s called “DT” was gunned down by police for reportedly posing a threat, an event which seemed to Kendrick was all too common in his life. The silver lining, however, seems to be that there’s no shortage of the tales in Kendrick Lamar’s rap repertoire to depict the dangers and deeper meanings about the reality of gang activity, giving those steeped in that side of life hope for betterment and success. 

In the early stages of Kendrick’s career, he was selected to be in one of the first XXL freshmen, an annual group of rappers recognized by the hip hop publication as up and coming artists. XXL’s freshman freestyles were new at the time, and Kendrick Lamar’s verse in the cypher was prominently featured online and the cypher itself is often looked back on as a classic among those available on YouTube. Those who initially viewed the freestyle session may have come looking for other, better known rappers, only to find themselves stumbling upon the discovery of a young Kendrick Lamar. Around this same time, he released his first official single, “HiiiPoWeR”, which was produced by the now prolific J. Cole. These two, in their own rights, have become widely regarded as today’s best hip hop lyricists for their hard hitting and meaningful bars. Rubbing elbows too with Kendrick was the now superstar pop sensation and rapper, Drake. Drake, a Toronto rapper, has helped launch several careers through featuring on their music because of his viral popularity. When Drake and Kendrick collaborated on Kendrick Lamar’s “Good Kid M.A.A.D. City”, Drake’s career was still in its early stages, but their song together certainly helped garner a mainstream appeal for the release at the time. All in all, it is clear to anyone doing some digging that not only did Kendrick work hard at refining his craft to become prolific, but that he was also met with great fortune in making the correct moves early on in his career to find the notoriety that he now enjoys. 

Fueled by artists such as Tupac Shakur, Ice Cube, Kurupt and Eminem, Lamar has carried the torch forward from the 90s into the modern age of rap. During the famed “California Love” music video shoot featuring Dr. Dre and Tupac, Kendrick has claimed a small piece of hip hop legend by saying he was present in Compton, on the scene for the shoot. As a child, seeing such an idol and icon propelled his drive to follow in the footsteps of the greats of yesterday. In 2015, Kendrick sat down for an interview with the group N.W.A. who’ve had such classics as “Straight Outta Compton” and “Express Yourself”. In the conversation, Lamar said: “anything that I do, it always comes from what y’all done, I wanna get y’all take on my generation today and what we have as far as music”. In response, DJ Ren retorted “I like a few, I like you”. The metaphorical hand-off is evident, from O.G. approval to the strong impact in waves that Lamar has been able to produce from just four major label solo albums. From Anderson .Paak to Roddy Ricch, Kendrick has set out and proved more than he’d ever dreamed of.

Currently, Lamar has two triple platinum records as well as one platinum record which was maybe the most adventurous and critically acclaimed album, not only of his career, but of that decade. Rolling Stone magazine journalist Greg Tate called “To Pimp a Butterfly” a “masterpiece of fiery outrage, deep jazz and ruthless self-critique”.With songs like “The Blacker the Berry” and “Hood Politics”, the fabric of TPAB was woven to reflect the attitudes of a movement of racial justice and equality in a time of great struggle and oppression. Aside from exposing the brutalities of life as a black man in the United States, Lamar also presented the album as a platform to uplift and celebrate the accomplishments and great artistic devotions of black people from around the world. Many consider this album to be Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus. He has shown that his work has staying power, and that his albums stand out among the formulaic pop-trap that reigns supreme on the radio. Perhaps TPAB has gone the farthest out of any other thing to help cement him as the king of hip hop and the greatest rapper of the generation. 

With a back catalogue so insanely successful you’d expect Mr. Kendrick Lamar to be universally beloved, right? Well, not so fast. No inspection of Lamar’s career would be complete without the mention of his ground-breaking verse on the song “Control” by Big Sean. Kendrick decided to seize the moment coming off of his first platinum album by going after 11 of the biggest names in rap at the time, including: J. Cole, Meek Mill, Drake, Big KRIT, Wale, Pusha T, ASAP Rocky, Tyler The Creator, and Mac Miller. Many interpreted his lyrics in which he called out these artists to be a diss, but we now know that it was, in fact, Lamar’s intent to light a flame under these artists to create higher art. The people named on the verse were people Kendrick truly believed had the potential to create truly classic works, and his bar “I got love for you all but I'm tryin' to murder you” was aimed at them because of the intention to hype them up to work harder and realize that they weren’t inherently owed the popularity bestowed to them. The so-called “Control verse” made such a splash that even rappers who weren’t even named in the song made counter-disses to the single verse in the form of an entire song. Most notable out of these songs were Joe Budden’s “Lost Control”, Joey B4Da$$’s “Killuminati Pt. 2”, and Lupe Fiasco’s “SLR 2”. Despite the negativity spawned from this verse aimed to do good in the hip hop community, Kendrick Lamar’s twitter saw a 510% increase in followers just days after the dropping of the single. If there even was any “beef” to be had regarding this song, it is clear who the real winner was.

From the president of the United States claiming his favorite song was a Kendrick Lamar song at one point, to winning a Pulitzer Prize for 2017’s “DAMN”, the mile-high accolades of Kendrick seem almost too good to be true. However, of all accomplishments, perhaps his greatest is his influence on music. Not only has he single handedly put on several label-mates to the mainstream, but he has risen the bar of what it means to write a good rap song in this day and age. Not content with people who churn out 30 song albums as a money grab, Kendrick has shown that effort is important, that careful construction of art is important. Lamar has also been credited as reviving the importance of the hip-hop music video. It is clear during a listening session on Spotify or YouTube that so many troves of artists, young and old, are attempting to emanate the same X factor that Kendrick Lamar Duckworth has been so highly praised for, and rightfully so.

[jeremystrele]

Connecting With The Past + Grappling With History, With Painter Mia Boe

Connecting With The Past + Grappling With History, With Painter Mia Boe

Studio Visit

by Sasha Gattermayr

Mia’s new Brunswick studio is filled with light, and is the perfect space to continue on her growing portfolio of work. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

A painting from her recent catalogue sits on the mantle. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Butchalla-Burmese artist Mia Boe in her light-filled studio. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Mia paints full time and volunteers for The Torch in her spare time. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

One of Mia’s works in progress.

Mia’s paintings are vibrant and narrative-driven, which means she does a lot of her own historical research. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Left: Mia is inspired by figures in art history like Albert Namatjira, Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale; and figures from history such as Eliza Fraser, Ned Kelly and the Queensland Native Police. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files. Right: ‘Stripes 3’ by Mia Boe.

A selection of work Mia recently sold in her latest catalogue and has prepared for prize entries. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Her elongated, distended figures are always in the landscape and often accompanied by food, animals or spirits. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

You can see the Sidney Nolan influence in this composition! Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The historical and contemporaneous imprisonment of First Nations people is a continuous theme in Mia’s work. Patterns and vibrant colour create tension between the political context and the composition.

Watching Mia Boe’s rise to cult status is almost giving me whiplash. The Brisbane-raised, Melbourne-based artist has grown a dedicated following in the 18 months since she’s really begun concentrating on her painting – and it’s only going up. To give you an indication of just how devoted her audience are, her recent catalogue of nine paintings sold out in under two minutes.

Mia studied art history before last year, when Melbourne’s sweeping lockdowns gave her the time (and a good excuse!) to focus on her art. But it’s not just Instagram fans who are hot on her tail. With a residency at the Museum of Brisbane, commissions for Craft Victoria and Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art, two group shows and a solo exhibition (titled Black Devil) at Open Space Collective under her belt since the beginning of 2020, it’s evident that Mia has well and truly caught the attention of the nation’s arts community.

But the institutions aren’t everything. When she’s not painting, Mia volunteers at The Torch – an organisation that aids First Nations prisoners and ex-prisoners with their art practices.

Art is the past, present and future for Mia – storytelling is her mode of being. Hear it in her own words.

How did you arrive at your current painting style? Has it evolved slowly over time or always been somewhat similar?

One clear continuity in my style has been that I tend to populate my landscapes with strangely elongated figures, whose bodies are also sometimes bloated and distended. I guess also that female figures in my work are representations, approximately, of myself, so a lot of my works could also function as self-portraits. But when I start a painting, I’m not always conscious of who the figure is, though if I’m painting black figures, they’re probably members of my family.

Also, I sometimes add larger figures with little detail, or floating in the landscape — these figures are representations of spirits. They represent family members that have died, and are a marker of the family that I will never get to know because of the repercussions of colonisation. I also try and experiment with colour: inspired by the ubiquitous blues of Robert Owen’s recent exhibition at Heide, I’ve recently been trying to control and limit my palette.

Do you use your art to connect with history or grapple with it?

Probably a bit of both. I’m especially interested in the histories of my family’s cultural heritages. My mum is a descendent of the Butchulla people, but she was only told by my grandmother that she was Aboriginal when she was in her teens (my grandmother was worried she’d have her children taken away from her if she was open about it). My Dad moved to Australia as a refugee from Burma when he was a young child.

My art practice has allowed me to research these twin histories, and to track the consequences of British colonisation in both Australia and Burma. (Burmese historian Thant Myint-U’s recent The Hidden History of Burma is an amazing book for people interested in learning more about Burma.) I hope soon to be able to spend some time looking at concrete connections between the colonial occupations of Australia and Burma. Empire, after all, makes the world smaller — it’s big project, I think, is to remake the margins in the image of the centre — so I’m sure there are some connections to be found (white officers, for instance, might have trained in Burma before coming to Australia, or vice versa).

Anyway, I definitely use my art to think through history: sometimes head-on, sometimes obliquely.

How do you involve historical references in your pieces?

I make sure that I’ve done proper research into a subject before making work about historical events. At the start of the year I showed my first exhibition in Brisbane. It was called Black Devil, and the works responded, from multiple angles, to the history of the Queensland Native Police: an exterminationist outfit which consisted of Aboriginal troopers led by white officers, and which aimed to wipe out resistance to colonisation.

The Native Police was active from 1848 to c. 1905 and were estimated to have killed over 44,000 Murris in those 50+ years. The fact that many of the massacres of Aboriginal people were carried out by Aboriginal troopers, who were themselves often kidnapped as boys, and barracked hundreds of kilometres from their kin and ancestral lands, pointed up for me the ongoing violence and infernal strategies of division which colonialism employs.

During research for this exhibition I found out that my ancestor, my great-great-grand uncle Wonamutta, a Butchulla man from K’gari (Fraser Island), was a trooper in the police force. Apart from his postings around the state, he was also seconded to the Victorian Police, where he helped to track down Ned Kelly (that’s where the exhibition’s title comes from — Kelly called the black trackers on his trail ‘black devils’).

Out of this discovery I got interested in Sidney Nolan. Two of Nolan’s most famous preoccupations were [Fraser Island’s namesake] Eliza Fraser and Ned Kelly. Nolan didn’t see these figures as related, and yet in an eerie way I think they were: Wonamutta, whose country was re-named by Europeans after Eliza Fraser, was also the man who caught Ned Kelly. So through thinking about this personal history, and the random but weird connections it disclosed, I came to envision my exhibition as also responding to Nolan’s own practice. It was a art show about history, but also about the history of art.

Do you have any key references or inspirations?

Some abiding influences for me have been Albert Namatjira and Russell Drysdale. Namatjira looms especially large: because of his tragic life story, his amazing colours. The William Dargie portrait of him which hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery, and the Noel Counihan linocut, which shows Namatjira crucified, are some really important images for me.

Drysdale matters for me because of the colours of his burnt-out backgrounds and those extraordinary gaunt figures idling about in them. His representations of Aboriginal people are very respectful and moving.

Other artists who are key points of departure for me are the contemporary South African artist Marlene Dumas, and Bill Traylor who was a self-taught artist born into slavery.

What does art-making mean to you?

On an individual level, my art allows me to recover and remake the cultural heritages which were stolen from me. And I hope in this process that I remind people (even as I learn myself) about the forgotten pasts which shape everyday life in the present.

Mia is represented by Sunday Salon. Learn more about her practice here. Mia’s next exhibition will be at Milani Gallery from 4th – 25th September.

[incoherentbabblings]

An Endless Hope (6/9)

After a horrendous blizzard falls over Gotham, Tim undergoes a sharp change in character before disappearing. Upon discovering what has become of him, Stephanie sets off on a solo journey in a magic realm to bring him home, meeting some faces who seem awfully familiar along the way.

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It was on the sixth time that Tim tried to leave her palace that the witch grew frustrated. Gripping his bare arm, she pulled him physically back into her throne room and up the stairs. She pushed him down on her throne, where he belonged, and tried one last time to make him see reason. She saw as the large sculpture melted slightly under his body temperature – colder than what any human was designed to survive certainly – but still warm enough to melt ice.

Her frustration mounted as she watched his eyes, nearly all soft blue leached from his irises, drift to the exit, and not at her. She gripped his chin and tilted it up to force him to look at her. He did, but it was obvious from his expression it wasn’t willingly.

“Why do you want to leave?” She asked, voice akin to a chiming bell. Tim supposed it could be nice to listen to, but he wasn’t really paying attention.

It took a long time for Tim to answer. His eyes once again drifted away, back towards the exit. Hypothermia caused confusion in humans, she knew this, but still, it made conversations frustratingly slow.

“Why do you want to leave?” She repeated. There was no anger in her voice, just a gentle curiosity.

Tim’s lip twisted, and he curled up into himself. It made a bizarre sight – a young man in just a t-shirt, jeans, and casual sneakers sat on a throne in an ice palace. The lady who had taken him ran a hand through his lovely black hair. She was wearing so many crystals and diamonds she hurt to look at, and her crown was white as her hair, eyes and skin. Tim assumed she was beautiful, though again, he couldn’t really bring himself to care.

“I’m bored and cold.” He finally answered. “I want to leave so I can get warm.”

“You can’t leave Tim. Your heart is frozen. If you go somewhere warmer, you’ll die. Being here with me is the only thing keeping you alive.”

He blinked uncomprehendingly at her.

“Why?”

“Because I want you here with me.”

That did nothing to abate Tim’s confusion and again, he asked, “Why?”

“I thought you might be different. I adore humans so… You are all so lovely, but you’re all so soft.” She brushed his cheek and for once he didn’t shiver, so cold was his skin that the temperature difference made no impact. “I try and pick one up, to keep me company, but their hearts can’t stand it, and they die from grief, from the cold, from loneliness… their hearts break. So, I freeze them, to try and keep them with me. I saw what you’ve been through, who you are, and thought you might survive. So, you can stay young, and handsome...”

Tim wasn’t really listening to her quiet explanation. Somewhere distantly it was registering amongst dozens of other informational sparks – he was cold, he was somewhere he had never been before, the lady’s face kept shifting in shape to women he felt he should recognize but didn’t, he knew how to get warm, he knew… he once knew… he couldn’t remember.

“I followed you because I was bored.” He said, looking her straight in the eye. Vaguely, he recognized he had interrupted her. “And I’m still bored.”

She smiled, but there was no joy to be found. “Of course, you are. I see how clever you are. It’s wasted in that city.”

Tim felt like that was a sentiment shared by many except himself. He wasn’t wasted in Gotham. He had many reasons to stay. Even if he couldn’t remember any of them.

No. Some things he could recall. No names, no faces, but he remembered and yearned. Hair like the sun and spun like gold. A songbird and a flower. Warm hands. A heartbeat. A kiss.  

He frowned at the witch.

“You took me from my warmth. I want to go back. I want it back.”

“Your warmth?” She chuckled. They had had this conversation six times at this point. Her smugness at the boy’s inability to escape the magic which held him here was only accompanied by a frustration that she couldn’t completely make him forget. Gently mocking, she breathed on him, ice forming in his hair. “Your love. The blonde girl? Do you even remember her name?”

Tim did not. He was not even aware that those memories related to another person.

“She will not come, Tim. No human can.”

Somewhere, like an instinct, Tim wanted to correct her. Somehow, he felt like the blonde girl could and would reach him, though he couldn’t remember why he wanted her so badly.

He got up to push back, but before he could, the tall witch pressed a kiss to his forehead. Tim gasped like she had sucked the air out of his lungs and fell back, limp and pale as a dead body, against the throne. He stared at his shoes, mind and voice silent, matching the quiet of the room. So quiet in fact, he could hear his very slow heartbeat in his ears.

“I’m bored.” He said finally, and his pale, empty eyes looked back at the exit. “And cold.”

Finally, the witch looked angry. She had pushed her magic to its limit, one more kiss and he would die, but no matter what she did, he wanted to return home. To the silly blonde girl who was neither his superior nor even equal. She hissed at the thought of him being another wasted experiment. Sneering, she leant forward, blocking Tim’s view from anything else. Spite flowed through her, and she decided to let the boy learn the hard way that he couldn’t go home. Even if it took a hundred years – and time passed so oddly here – for the message to make an impact in his cold frigid head, he’d learn to want nothing else but her time and attention. He’d forget his little thrumming heart and her hot tears and sunlight hair. She was nothing, not compared to the witch.

“You want to leave?” She smirked as Tim nodded. She ran her thumb over his lower lip, noting their blue colour. “You can leave when you finish a puzzle. If you quit, you must stay with me. How’s that sound, Tim?”

Stephanie tucked her hands into the muff she had been given. The princess had restored and cleaned her gloves, but there was something comforting about the muff keeping the tips of her fingers warm. The fur was thick, soft, and long. It felt good to play with. She had pulled the thick heavy hood up over her head, which reminded her of a sturdier version of her Spoiler cloak, and blinked heavily.

Somehow the horses knew where to go in the never-ending forest. Whenever Stephanie felt they were going off track, only a couple of minutes later they would redirect. It seemed to Stephanie they were taking her along the safest path.

Half a day passed, and she nibbled on some cheese and bread she had been gifted once sure enough that she was indeed out of the princess’ realm. She fell asleep in the carriage, exhausted from the past day’s events. She did not dream.

The screeching of the horses woke her up, as did the violent rocking of the carriage. It was dark out, but there was light in the form of torches. Stephanie, still bleary with sleep, peered out the window.

With a shock that promptly woke her up, a knife was thrust through the frame. She squeaked, throwing herself back against the seat as the knife narrowly missed her nose.

“Take the horses and anything she’s carrying! Even the clothes on her back!” Someone cried out. She heard the horses continue to shriek, kicking and bucking, and realised that she was being – for a lack of a better term – mugged.

“Oh finally!” She gasped. “Punching time!”

Stephanie kicked the side door open and jumped onto the nearest bandit, clambering onto their shoulders, and spinning, twisting the man off his feet. She rolled forward, fully prepared to fight off whomever would dare.

She did very well for herself, considering she was in a dress and fighting half blind in the dark. She counted eight men and woman, and had managed to knock five of them down semi-permanently when one – a giant hulking shadow of a man – managed to wrap his hand around her braided hair (Bruce had said she should have cut it he told her) and threw her on the ground. Next thing she knew, there was a knife at her throat. She did not miss that it was red with dried blood. She hoped it was not people blood, but staring into the grey eyes of the man, she knew it was a foolish hope.

“A little lamb you are not.” He muttered, voice quiet and flat. Stephanie kicked and thrashed, but it was no good. She felt him press the knife down against her neck and she gasped. Panicking, the sound of her skin slicing open in a shallow long cut made the blood rush to her face.

Abruptly, the man grunted with pain and flinched back. Stephanie saw as a little boy, no more than ten, bit the ear of the man.

“Brat!” He grunted, getting up and spinning. The little boy hung off him like a remora clinging to a shark. Stephanie sat up, feeling the wound on her neck. It was not deep, but still, she could feel the warm blood trickling down and staining her dress and cloak. She looked over to the horses to see they remained, waiting for her to get back in the carriage. Somehow, they hadn’t bolted in the confusion. The idea of mounting one and riding, even bareback, seemed like the best option

She watched the little boy and the man (who Stephanie very quickly learnt was the boy’s father), argue and bite each other.

Nothing for it, Stephanie mused, time to run again.

Getting up slowly, she tried to go round the back of the carriage and make a break for it, but alas, it was not to be. The little boy flung himself at her and, in her shock, she instinctively caught him and pulled him up into a piggyback. She regretted the reflex immediately, as the little boy grabbed her cheeks and made her turn around to look at the boy’s father. The father had a heavy brow and black hair, face twisted in a permanent frown. There was no softness or warmth to be found in his face, body or posture. The little boy on her back however, was wiry and thin, and his body temperature was hotter than any human she’d ever met.

“I want her!” The boy demanded. “A human here? Father I must keep her. She shall play with me and give me that fur muff and sleep with me in my bed.”

He said it all very certainly, like Stephanie was a willing participant to becoming the boy’s little pet cat. Writhing, she tried to hurl the boy off her back, only to be picked up by the father and tossed unceremoniously back in the carriage.

Great. Another diversion.

“I want to ride in the carriage too!” Declared the little boy, hopping in next to Stephanie. He tugged her upright, so she was sitting once more, and the carriage took off, heading in the wrong direction.

“No, no! Listen, you need to let me go—”

“My father and my friends will not kill you unless I want them to.”

Stephanie snapped her mouth shut, taken aback by the bluntness with which the little boy spoke. He was a tiny thing, with a button nose and a pouty mouth. He had darker skin than her, and greener eyes. He was kind of adorable, in a brattish, pouty way. He wrapped his arms around her neck, which was slowly stopping its bleeding.

“They think you’re a princess, to be wearing such nice clothes and riding such a nice carriage.”

“I am absolutely not a princess.”

He looked a little sad that she had popped his bubble so easily, then he snuggled into her warm coat. Not really understanding why, she reached up and rested a hand on his outward facing cheek. She lowered her tone, trying to sound reasonable.

“Can you let me and one horse go? I don’t have anything valuable on me. I’m travelling north. Another human was taken, and I am trying to find him so we can go home. I’ll walk even if you want both horses.”

“You’re staying with me.”

“I know you want that, but I won’t be of much use to you.”

The little boy leaned back, pout growing to anger, and tugged out a knife from his belt. Before Stephanie could react, he laid back down on her again, this time the knife pointing inwards, where one of her ovaries was located. Stephanie gulped, wincing at the pain in her neck, then sighed resignedly. She’d have to try and escape whenever they reached their destination. Hopefully it wasn’t a fortress.

When they did grow close, Stephanie noted that the forest had given way. Finally the endless trees had opened up to rolling fields of grass. It was not thick warm green grass though, the kind you expected to find in the lush countryside, but more akin to heather and lichen. Heathland, Stephanie distantly realised.

Another knife greeted her when the door opened, and the little boy pulled her out of the carriage.

The robber’s home was a hamlet. Brown and grey stone buildings all built around a large fire pit which protected them from the cold wind which blustered around. The bonfire was huge, and it stank of smoke and cooked meats. Unhelpfully, Stephanie’s stomach grumbled. Pushing her over to a mound of furs and cushions next to an enclosed space filled with horses and what looked like a reindeer, the little boy shoved her down. He then clambered on her outstretched legs and tugged her two arms to wrap around him in a hug. Stephanie sighed sadly.

She watched as her carriage was broken up and added to the fire, and her horses were led into the stable next to her. They were immediately fed and brushed, so Stephanie relaxed a little. It seemed animals weren’t going to be harmed and judging by the small pile of content snoozing dogs and cats in another corner, it was unlikely they ever would be. For all their threats of stabbing, she wasn’t dead, and watching the people interact, it seemed like a boisterous bunch. They drank and ate and partied, but Stephanie and the little boy remained in the corner. She didn’t see any other children present, and the pair were ignored consistently as the night went on.

As the hours passed, she felt him press back against her, falling asleep himself. Stephanie looked at the groups of people sat on benches, laughing and enjoying the revelry. When there was sudden shouting or movement, reflexively, Stephanie tightened her arms around the little boy, as if to shield him from it.

“Where’s your mother?” She whispered, only half to the little boy, not expecting him to answer.

“Gone. She thought I was better off here and not with her.” He murmured. Watching the boy’s violent father get into a drunken fight with another man, Stephanie was not sure she agreed.

She looked down at the boy, and unhelpfully her thoughts drifted to her own child. Her baby girl. She would be five years old. Melancholy returned to Stephanie, and she sagged under the weight of it. It was not that Stephanie regretted her choice of a closed adoption, she just hoped her next try would be... Less ill timed and with a better partner. She felt bad for her daughter, who in all manner of ways deserved better than a biological mother like Stephanie. A child should be wanted and loved. Stephanie would have tried, of course she would have, but deep down she knew, she would not have been good enough for that little girl. Not at aged fifteen.

She wondered what Tim’s children would look and behave like. She wilted, condemning herself for even considering such a thought. And yet... She wanted it.

If she did ever have children with Tim, a very bitter part of her hoped her daughter never ran across her with them. She could only imagine the potential trauma of such a sight.

You weren’t good enough to keep.

The little boy seemed to sense her melancholy and pulled at her arms. “Come meet my animals.”

Feeling sorry for the little boy and wanting a distraction from her traitorous thoughts, she did as bid. She picked him up, which seemed to delight him, and he directed her around the area. He pointed out a dove cot on the outskirts of the stone buildings.

“They are all mine. A few of them need tying down, else they would fly away and leave me.” He pointed elsewhere, at the snoozing pile of dogs. Stephanie walked over with him still in her arms, and he wriggled down to wake a large black dog. The poor dog looked sad to be awoken, but the little boy was insistent Stephanie meet each of his pets.

“I was gifted him when I was born. He is an old dog now, all he does is sleep and eat. Go on Modig, say hello!”

If Stephanie was expecting the dog to actually speak, she was disappointed. The dog gave a curious sniff, no doubt noting she did not smell like anything else in this realm, then licked her hand. She giggled a little at the sensation, then patted his giant head. The little boy in turn was openly delighted.

“…And this,” he dragged her back to the stables, to the horses and reindeer, “is Abie. He is a sweetheart, but he would leave too if untied. So, I tickle his neck sometimes with my knife. Just so he remembers.”

He looked at Stephanie, who watched the animal buck a little when the boy got close. The boy frowned, seeing that she was upset at the thought of the animal being harmed. He was still holding onto his knife, so he huffed and tugged Stephanie back onto the pile of furs. She groaned as they collapsed in the pile. Her neck ached.

“Do you always sleep with a knife in your hand?” Stephanie whispered, noting it was pressed between them, tip near her sternum.

“You never know who is out here.” He said simply. He remained awake until his family went to bed, his father not once coming over to check on him. The fire continued to burn long after the party had ended, keeping the cold at bay.

The silence endured for only a moment, whilst Stephanie tried to think of a way out.

“Tell me a story.” The boy demanded, eyes screwed shut.

“About what?”

“You. How you came to be here.”

Stephanie swallowed dryly and told her story. She continued to keep her and Tim’s names off her lips, not sure who else was listening. Again, as if on instinct, she repeatedly passed a hand through the boy’s dark hair, watching his eyes flutter shut, and his breathing deepen and slow.

When she was sure the little boy was asleep, there was a feeling in the air that dawn would soon break. The little boy had gone limp in his slumber, limp enough for Stephanie to extract herself from their bed, and crawl over to the reindeer and horses. She reached around, trying to untie one of her white horses, when a fussing noise made her look up.

Sat on one of the beams of the stable was a chubby wood pigeon with a puffed up chest, brooding down at her.

“I heard your story. I saw the witch a few weeks ago, before I was caught. You are not far from her palace. Two days ride. It is all snow and ice from here on out.”

Raw hope rose, and an idea sprung forward in Stephanie’s mind. She looked back at the reindeer, who was watching her mournfully. He chuffed softly when Stephanie caught his eye. She reached out, letting him nuzzle her hand.

“Do you want to leave?” She whispered. “Do you want to go home back north?”

The reindeer shook its great head, almost nodding.

“Can you take me to her palace? Just get me there, I can worry about coming back. You can be free then in the cold if you like.”

Coming back. The thought had not even crossed her mind before this point. She was so close to her goal, what was she supposed to do when she rescued Tim?

If she rescued Tim.

The reindeer pushed at her shoulder, warm breath blowing loose strands of hair off her face. He put his great head down further, allowing her easier access to the rope that held him against his will.

She exhaled with relief, then after briefly checking behind her, reached up to undo the knots.

“A little bit more time Tim,” Stephanie sighed, “Please just a little more time.”

The tip of a knife pressed against her neck, and the reindeer became skittish in fear. She froze, then slowly lowered her hands. She didn’t need another wound in her neck.

“You cannot leave.”

It was the little boy, awake and upset. Stephanie turned to face him. There was no anger in his eyes, just sadness. She took a risk and reached up, taking the knife out of his hand and setting it down on the hay covered floor.

She cradled the little boy’s face, ruddy and sweet.

“I have a job to do. I need to do it. I want to do it. Can you let me leave?”

The boy sniffed, a fat tear running down his face. “I want you to stay.”

“I know.” Brushing the tear away, she smiled, trying to be reassuring. She felt almost like a mother abandoning her child, as irrational as it sounded. He must have been quite lonely, with only his animals to keep him company with such a rough family. “I’m sorry. But I can’t stay. I don’t belong in this world. And neither does my love. We have to go home.”

The little boys face crumpled, and Stephanie’s heart jerked. He reminded her too much of Damian. The bluster and loneliness, the desire for approval and difficult parents. She wondered what she would say to Damian, if it were him in front of her. What would she say to the other boy who had threatened to stab her several times over the course of a night?

“Listen, believe me. I think you’re a very good boy. Please stay that way. And here, please keep this.” She said, handing over her little muff. “To remember me.”

The boy snatched it and buried his hands inside. He sniffed, then insisted, “Take my knife. And take good care of Abie.”

“I promise.”

He helped her untie Abie, and in a show of gratitude, she kissed his forehead. The boy’s face turned redder from embarrassment, and he helped her onto the reindeer. There was no saddle, so it would not be a comfortable ride, however the snow and ice was where the reindeer belonged. He could take her further than any horse.

The little boy gripped the antlers of the reindeer and shook his head, uttering a warning.

“I would like very much to keep you both here, but I am being good and letting you go. Put your best hoof forward and carry her to the palace and her playmate. Do not fail me!”

The sun broke the horizon, and the sound of the little boy’s father awakening seemed to panic him. He slapped Abie’s rear, who snorted and set off in a canter.

Stephanie looked back, seeing the boy run after them for a moment, only to stop at the edge of the hamlet, looking entirely too young and small and alone.

Blinking back tears, she cried out a thank you, then turned forward, gripping the dense fur of Abie’s neck as he ran north. Occasionally she’d tug on one side to turn him slightly left or right, still following the yearning in her chest, but otherwise he continued unprompted.

Soon the cool wind became frigid, the heathland became tundra, permafrost, icy then snow. Then the snow deepened. One foot, two feet, six feet… like an endless sea of rolling white. There was no cloud in the sky, and every breath Stephanie gave seemed to hurt, not only the cut in her neck, but also her throat, like it was freezing her lungs going in. When she exhaled, the steam that she blew out was sometimes so thick she would go temporarily blind with it. Her fingertips ached from gripping so tightly to Abie’s fur and from the temperature freezing her skin, but she would be unable to maintain her hold on the galloping reindeer if she let go.

“Don’t suppose you know how to enter the palace do you?” She questioned out loud. Abruptly the reindeer came to a crashing halt, throwing Stephanie forward against his neck with a squeal. It huffed and chuffed, kicking in frustration. Stephanie tightened the grip of her legs, ignoring the ache it caused. “Gosh, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Abie looked back at her, smacking her in the face with his antlers. Stephanie suspected his expression read as incredulous, so she pouted and ranted,

“Oh, come on! I’ve been making this up as I go! I don’t know how to do what I have to do; I just know that I have to do it.”

Abie rolled his eyes, unimpressed. He rotated deliberately, taking them a little bit west, then set off again. Stephanie tugged on his fur and kicked with her legs, but the reindeer seemed determined to take her to a different destination.

“No, come on please! I’m so close. Where are we going? Just over one more day’s ride, right?”

The reindeer bucked, making her shut her mouth, and she risked letting go of one hand to grab her hood and pull it up to protect her ears from the bitter cold.

They ran until midday, when in the distance, nestled in a snow dune, appeared a wooden cabin.

“Who…?”

The reindeer began to make a racket, announcing their arrival to the resident of such an isolated residence. Stephanie heard its occupant before she saw them.

“Oh, my goodness! Who has upset you so! You’d think the world was ending or –”

A decrepit old woman, who was bent in half and covered head to toe in bright red fabric, with glasses so small they seemed little more than pennies on her face thrust the door open. She peered at the sight of a reindeer carrying a girl on its back, looking baffled.

“What? A human? Here?”

Stephanie tried very hard not to roll her eyes.

Great. Another diversion.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #238

Tues May 05 2020 [02:04 AM] Wack'd: Have some Wolverine publicity

[02:05 AM] maxwellelvis: It BEGINS [02:06 AM] maxwellelvis: THERE's the John Byrne we know and... sigh because the guy who comes up with great covers like these is still the guy who sabotaged Jean Grey's spinoff attempt. [02:06 AM] Wack'd: John Bryne: fun dude but still a friggin dude [02:07 AM] Wack'd: So here we go. The secret story of Frankie Raye [02:08 AM] Wack'd: Turns out this is naturally what she looks like naked, plus a spiffy pair of elbow-length gold gloves

[02:08 AM] Bocaj: He didn't notice the gold gloves at any point? [02:08 AM] Wack'd: All this stuff just...vanishes when she puts clothes on [02:08 AM] Wack'd: Yeah no Johnny is like "I've seen you in a bikini" and she puts her robe back on and the gold clothes vanish [02:09 AM] Bocaj: "My terrible secret is that I'm a never nude" [02:09 AM] Bocaj: "There are dozens of us. Dozens" [02:09 AM] Wack'd: I understood that reference [02:09 AM] Wack'd: So anyway Frankie has been somehow psychologically conditioned to never notice that a superhero outfit appears on her whenever she's naked [02:10 AM] Wack'd: As well as not to think too hard about the fact that she has no memories before age 14 [02:10 AM] Bocaj: Uh. [02:10 AM] Bocaj: Well y'know what fair enough. I try not to think about that stretch of time either [02:11 AM] Wack'd: Her earliest memory is waking up in a dingy warehouse under an old labcoat [02:11 AM] Wack'd: She lived alone in a deserted apartment and got checks for a thousand bucks in the mail every week [02:11 AM] Wack'd: And was psychologically conditioned not to think about how off-spec that was for a teenager as well [02:12 AM] Wack'd: A lot of nonsense here resting on, essentially, a Somebody Else's Problem Field [02:12 AM] Wack'd: Whoever set all this up probably would've had a lot easier of a time if they just...gave her a normal life? [02:12 AM] Bocaj: I feel that however this explains her fear of fire from earlier on, this cannot have been what the original plan was even a little [02:13 AM] Wack'd: Anyway somehow meeting Johnny started to make the conditioning decay [02:13 AM] Wack'd: She freaked out when Johnny flamed on because it made her think too hard about things, but she was attracted to him in part because of that [02:14 AM] Bocaj: uh [02:14 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny pushes her to explore this whole ordeal further, because she feels like the dam is finally about to break [02:14 AM] Bocaj: I have a dumb thought [02:14 AM] Wack'd: And break it does

[02:14 AM] Bocaj: She was completely naked in that- HOLY BEANS [02:15 AM] Bocaj: she was completely naked in that scene where she had the breakdown in that other issue and she didn't get the gold booties there [02:15 AM] Wack'd: She didn't but also because up until that point she was Somebody Else's Probemed into not seeing them, remember? [02:15 AM] Wack'd: And so we the audience didn't either [02:16 AM] maxwellelvis: Like the clown graffiti all over John's house [02:16 AM] Wack'd: Johnny uses his fire absorption powers to keep the building from burning down and gives chase [02:18 AM] Wack'd: He catches up to Frankie and gives her a crash course in steering and pacing herself before she and her new ecstasy for life burns down New York [02:18 AM] Wack'd: And she explains Frankie Backstory 2.0 [02:19 AM] Wack'd: She was raised by a simple repairman, a good man, who suddenly lost his friggin composure when the Fantastic Four arrived [02:19 AM] Wack'd: Ranting about how dare Johnny call himself the Human Torch, he dragged her to an old warehouse and began raving about old experiments [02:20 AM] Wack'd: Frankie humors him for a bit but while carrying an old oil drum it bursts into flames, leaving her miraculously unharmed [02:20 AM] Bocaj: Simple repairman has a point. Kind of rude, Johnny [02:20 AM] Bocaj: Jim was a war hero, ya dink [02:21 AM] Wack'd: And then dear old stepdad hypnotized her and abandoned her [02:21 AM] Bocaj: 😐 [02:22 AM] Wack'd: A year later a package arrived with a tape recorder and a gold costume. The tape recorder hypnotized her into putting on the costume and then erased her memories [02:22 AM] maxwellelvis: What a drip [02:22 AM] Wack'd: Anyway from all this Johnny deduces her stepdad was Phineas Horton [02:22 AM] Wack'd: But you guys already figured that out, I bet [02:23 AM] maxwellelvis: I forgot who he was. [02:23 AM] Wack'd: Jim Hammond's dad [02:23 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh [02:24 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny decides to become her mentor and, after she tries to fly as high as possible and runs into that pesky atmosphere problem, takes her back to the Baxter to have Reed run some tests and figure out what her limits are [02:24 AM] Bocaj: I'm for once not sad that Ultron killed him after forcing him to turn the original human torch into the Vision [02:25 AM] Bocaj: Until Byrne retcons that to not be the case because dude loves him some jim hammond [02:26 AM] Wack'd: Anyway I misremembered what Frankie's deal was. I assumed android [02:26 AM] Wack'd: But Reed thinks that whatever was in that fateful oil drum was some sort of superscience chemical that mutated her [02:26 AM] Wack'd: Not sure what the point of her being a nevernude was [02:27 AM] Wack'd: Or why Phineas Horton brainwashed his fourteen year old daughter into wearing a strapless bathing suit at all times [02:28 AM] maxwellelvis: The guy labeled Jim a renegade when he showed the first signs of not being completely under his command [02:28 AM] Wack'd: It sure is a good thing this teenager with no parental guidance never did anything where that bathing suit might've become a problem! [02:28 AM] maxwellelvis: guy's a drip [02:29 AM] Wack'd: Reed has proven his hypothesis that biological sex determines how flame powers work I guess??!?!?

[02:29 AM] Wack'd: What sort of cis nonsense is this [02:30 AM] maxwellelvis: Johnny speaks for us all [02:30 AM] Wack'd: What all that means is "after a period of suitable training, we may be calling our friends at Marvel Comics and telling them to start publishing the Fantastic Five!" [02:31 AM] Bocaj: This is a thing that marvel does sometimes [02:31 AM] Wack'd: Good news for all those Spider-Girl fans I guess [02:31 AM] Bocaj: They've decided that Laura Kinney's foot claw is what girl wolverines be like [02:31 AM] Wack'd: *sigh* [02:33 AM] Bocaj: I'll say that Spider-Girl did it better by not saying, as far as I recall, that the difference was because man vs woman. [02:34 AM] Wack'd: Okay so we have another story in this issue [02:34 AM] Wack'd: Well, two, kind of [02:35 AM] Wack'd: First a brief interlude in which it is established at some point the Four will be going to the tiny town of Benson, Arizona to investigate cases of people being "frightened to death" [02:36 AM] maxwellelvis: @Wack'd My primary suspect is this man [02:37 AM] Bocaj: Put those tingles away [02:37 AM] Wack'd: Here's a Sue pinup which I'm mostly crossposting to see if I can wrangle a coherent set of interests out of her bookshelf

[02:38 AM] Wack'd: Pogo's on there. Sue has good taste in comics [02:38 AM] Bocaj: I was about to say [02:38 AM] Wack'd: And now on to our second feature [02:38 AM] maxwellelvis: She's got a copy of Shogun in there [02:39 AM] maxwellelvis: Dangerous Visions, a sci-fi anthology [02:39 AM] Wack'd: Meet Crow T. Rob--I mean, HERBIE 2.0

[02:40 AM] maxwellelvis: "You listen to me, 'Mr. Fantastic', you are NOT my real father!" [02:40 AM] Wack'd: "I want to decide who lives and who dies!" "So long as Franklin is in the 'lives' category I'm strangely okay with that" [02:41 AM] maxwellelvis: "Hey, Franklin, the secret word for today is 'booger'! Booger booger booger booger-AAAUGH!" [02:41 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this is not the only surprise Reed has in store today! [02:42 AM] Wack'd: He also has A Cure for Being the Thing Number Fucktillion [02:42 AM] Bocaj: Panel 2 Franklin does not look like a child [02:42 AM] Wack'd: He looks like a 1950s Western bit player [02:43 AM] maxwellelvis: "Oh great, another cure! How does this one work, and where can I hide when it backfires?" [02:43 AM] Wack'd: Ben is skeptical but as Reed points out science is always marching on [02:44 AM] Wack'd: He has more data than he's ever had [02:44 AM] Wack'd: Ben you've never asked her that before because it's literally never come up before. Fuck she's dated you while you were cured! Remember when you were riding around in that robot suit?

[02:45 AM] Wack'd: Anyway [02:45 AM] Wack'd: The machine blows up [02:46 AM] Wack'd: Welp

[02:47 AM] Bocaj: Could be worse [02:47 AM] Bocaj: At least its not pinecone grimm [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh that's coming [02:47 AM] Wack'd: Could be covered in bees. That'd be pretty bad [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Not for Ben it wouldn't. [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Unless they flew into his mouth. [02:47 AM] Bocaj: "Hahah sting you fuckers" [02:48 AM] Bocaj: "This time it is permanent!" Reed shut up [02:48 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this sure is weird nostalgia baiting [02:49 AM] Wack'd: Folks have done plenty of Lee/Kirby throwback stuff but was anyone nostalgic for this, like, at all [02:50 AM] Wack'd: Also like. C'mon Bryne, integrate your story developments naturally. You shouldn't need an entire issue where all that happens is status quo changes [02:50 AM] maxwellelvis: @Bocaj You might know, had Byrne ever written a comic book before his FF run? [02:51 AM] Wack'd: I guess Frankie was integrated a little naturally (even if she went from recent love interest to team member in no time flat) but the Ben is fairly hamfisted [02:51 AM] Wack'd: You can just check Marvel Wiki [02:51 AM] Bocaj: He co-plotted with Claremont I know [02:51 AM] Bocaj: And Claremont was big on the idea of co-plotting. [02:51 AM] maxwellelvis: But this would be his first, like, his first time flying solo? [02:52 AM] Wack'd: Dude has a lot of X-Men credits and some Captain Americas [02:52 AM] Bocaj: His first writing credit was on Iron Fist apparently [02:52 AM] Bocaj: at Marvel [02:54 AM] Bocaj: But from a skim of wikipedia fantastic four was his first extended solo writing thing