#so if they wrote the scripts before casting and ending up having slightly different ages without altering the scripts

[ghostlypawn]

people calling garsantos age-gap when the original script had them with a one year difference is so funny to me

[writersblog20]

Night Terrors

Tom Hiddleston x reader.

Not my gif! Credits to the owner!

Summary: you have a movie night at RDJ’s house with the entire marvel cast and it turns out in a sleepover. You and Tom were very close from the beginning. Everyone knew you found yourself in a hard time and they were always there for you. But when you all fell asleep you were cruelly awakened by a nasty nightmare. Tom tries his best to comfort you.

Warnings: Angst, ptsd (in my experience because everyone experience ptsd differently.), night terrors, passing of a loved one. Age-gap but definitely legal! Reader is about 24. Nudity but not sexual and a lot of comfort

Words: 3,3K

 It was a Saturday night and RDJ invited the whole marvel cast for a nice bbq and a movie night over his house. You were an beginning actress as well and this was your first big role. You did on the other hand directed a lot of small films which gave you an identity on it’s own. People loved the movies that you wrote and directed and loved to see you play in one. You were actually interested in acting as well so you took the opportunity with both hands when Marvel asked you to play in a movie.

You met Tom, Benedict and Sebastian already. They all acted separately in your movies. But the closest connection you had with Tom. You actually developed a huge crush on the British actor but you thought he saw you as a little sister. Not only that but you started working together as well.

Tom would pick you up to go to RDJ’s house together. You heard your doorbell go off and opened the door seeing a smiling Tom. “Hey Tom!” you said excited and he pulled you in a big hug. “Hello love, how are you doing?” he asked you. “I’m trying.” You told him and he gave you a weak smile. “I actually called my godmother today…” you told him. “really? How did it go?” he asked you. “We talked for about an hour and a half. It was very hard. I was becoming emotional but I didn’t want to cry…. Still in my system I guess.” You told him while he listened intently. “I’m so proud of you. I bet it was hard. But you are making so much progress and you’re really trying. You’re so strong and such a strong woman.” He told you giving you a hug. You nuzzled into his sweater. “Thank you Tom.” You told him.

Everyone knew you had a difficult time with the passing of your godfather. You always saw him as your father since your biological dad was a shithead to say nicely. So when he passed it was a big shock for everyone. It was sudden and unexpected. It also triggered your ptsd. You were always very open about mental health but at this moment it was a very hard time for you. The whole cast was there for you but Tom was always there and could read you like an open book. Which scared you as well because you were afraid that he would know about your secret crush on him.

When it happened you were all alone and tried to stay strong for your family like he asked you and so you did. Then came the roll around which he knew about and you promised him you would take him to the premiere. So with the premiere around the corner you felt yourself crumbling down. besides that you never really had time to process everything and try to heal from what happened. So when you were having a big breakdown one day, they all found out what was happening. Tom spend a lot of time with you after that. More than he already had. He was determined to never let you be alone again in one difficult moment.

You got your stuff and your present for RDJ and hopped in the car with Tom. He obviously helping you as the gentleman that he is. You chatted for a while about funny things and you told him you were writing a new script for a movie. “maybe you can read it sometime if you want and let me know what you think?” you asked him carefully. Tom’s heart filled itself with love that you trusted him enough to let him read your new script. “I would love to!” he told you honestly and you smiled while looking at the road.

Once arrived RDJ opened the door and hugged you tightly. You walked into the big house and saw that a lot of the cast was already there and you hugged them all. “oh I brought you something!” you told RDJ. “oh you didn’t have to!” he told you while gripping the present and opening it with a big smile. “can’t come empty handed! They raised me differently” you told him giggling. “You see! You can all take a note from Y/N here!” he told the marvel cast who were laughing. You made him a painting. Ever since he saw how you painted he wanted one and wouldn’t shut up about it so you thought this was the perfect time. “it’s absolutely beautiful y/n” he told you mesmerized by the painting. He pulled you in a big hug. “we’ll find a nice place to hang it up together later.” He told you softly which made you smile.

You all took a seat and started to eat. You all had laughs and sat outside in the evening. His garden was beautiful. There were fairy lights to make it cozy and a fire was burning. You sat contently staring at the fire in silence. Tom noticed that you had gotten more silent and he laid his hand on top of yours, looking at you. You got out of the daze and looked at Tom, immediately meeting his blue eyes. He smiled sweetly at you and took your hand in his now. his thumb caressing the top of your hand. You felt your cheeks heat up. he wasn’t planning on letting your hand go anytime soon.

After an hour you all decided to go inside to watch a movie on his big tv screen. The cast started to bicker over what movie to watch while RDJ tapped you on your shoulder and hinted to walk with him. You walked in the hallway with him and he looked around. “what about that place?” he asked you while holding the painting. He nudged to the end of the hall where everyone could see it. “are you sure?” you giggled and he looked strict at you. “Look what you made! Of course I’m sure!” he told you dramatically which made you giggle. “Then it’s a beautiful place” you both hang the painting on the wall. RDJ took a selfie with you, him and the painting before returning to the group.

You sat next to Tom and Chris E. Tom smiled lovingly at you and softly placed his hand on your knee. There were mattresses laying on the floor where the other half of the cast laid down. RDJ had a very big couch so there was enough space for all of you. You snuggled against Tom who laid his arm around you pulling you closer. It didn’t take long before you grew very tired. The others felt the same, some left to go home like Paul Rudd, Mark R and Paul Bettany since they lived close by. a couple of others could stay in the guestrooms but you rather stay downstairs.

When everyone settled the TV still played some background noise. You were now laying with your back to Tom but turned around. Tom watched you intently, getting his arm a little of you so you could turn. You laid now face to face with Tom and he smiled softly once again at you and kissed the top of your head. Chris E softly petted your hair for relaxation. Tom held you close to him with his arms wrapped around you. You rested your head against his chest and fell into a deep sleep.

~time skip~

You were woken up abruptly by people shaking you awake. You shoot up sweating. Tears filling your eyes once you remembered the nightmare. You were breathing heavily and looked around erratically. Chris E shushed you while Tom held you tightly while rocking you back and forth. You were wet from all the sweating. “hey shs it was a nightmare. You’re okay now.” Chris E told you. Tom placed his lips on the top of your head while keeping a protected grip on you. “You were calling for your godfather.” Chris E told you. Anthony came back from the kitchen with a glass of water and gave it to you. You now saw how concerned they all looked. Seb rested his hand on your knee while his thumb rubbed drew circles. You thanked Anthony but you really didn’t liked all the attention you were getting right now. “sorry for waking you all up.” they chuckled slightly “Don’t worry about it, we’re here for you y/n” Seb said. You pushed the tears away and Tom noticed that you were keeping it all in again. “why don’t we go outside for a minute? I think some fresh air would do you good.” Tom asked you and you nodded.

You got up and whished them a goodnight sleep so they wouldn’t wait up. Tom got a blanket and walked behind you. once outside Tom placed you on a chair and you looked up at the stars feeling the tears slip. He took your hand in his. “what was the dream about?” he asked carefully. You told him about your dream while crying. You tried to let everything out. Once you were done Tom stood up without saying anything and stretched out his hand for you. You looked up questionable with puffy eyes. he gave you a warm smile and you took his hand. RDJ had a sort of bed outside. It was more for the pool but there was a mattress with curtains. You smiled at the thought of how good Tom knew you. You didn’t want to go inside anymore and he seemed to get that. Luckily it wasn’t very cold outside.

You sat down on the lounge bed. Tom pulled you a little back so you both sat against the headboard. “I never knew him, only from the stories you told me and I believe full heartedly that he is so unbelievable proud of you. Of the woman you became and becoming, everything that you did and overcame and still the things you are working on. We can all see that and we all have so much respect for you. You are a role model for a whole lot of people! It’s okay to feel these feelings but you need to keep talking about them.” You felt tears slipping. He wrapped the blanket around himself and then around you which made you scoot closer to him. “he’s watching over you. I’m sure and he’s looking over you with probably the biggest smile.” You both laid down and looked at the stars. “Thank you Tom. For being there for me every time.” He looked at you. “Of course love” you stared at the stars with teary eyes while Tom kept looking at you.

Once you calmed down you said: “Tom, you’re staring.” While keeping your gaze at the stars. He smiled. “you’re more beautiful to look at.” He bluntly told you. You never turned your head faster than in that moment. He just smiled softly at you while you screened his face. He laid his head closer to yours. “do you mean that?” you asked him softly while looking down shyly. “I never say something I don’t mean y/n” you stayed silent in disbelieve. “I eh really like you.” he told you with a blush creeping on his cheek. You looked deeply into his eyes. “I really like you too Tom.” He smiled and came closer until your lips connected. His hand rested on your cheek. He gave you the lead at the moment and you took that opportunity to deepen the kiss. He rolled partly on top of you while leaning on his elbow, his other hand now going to your waist and rubbed with his thumbs your side.

You both pulled back and heard Sebastian and Chris H and E scream “Finally!!!” before going back inside which made you both laugh in embarrassment. You laid down on his chest while Tom kissed the top of your head. “Do you maybe want to be my girlfriend?”  he asked carefully which made you chuckle at the way he asked you, like a teenager in love. “I would like that” you said while lifting your gaze to look up at him and gave him a big kiss on his lips which made Tom sigh through the kiss in containment.

~time skip~

You woke up from clicking. It sounded like someone was taking pictures. You squeezed your eyes shut tight because of the sun but saw Chris H taking pictures along side RDJ. “so we can show your kids once you get them.” RDJ said casually. You chuckled. Tom sighed getting out of his slumber his arm tightened around your middle scooting you closer. “Awa let’s give these lovebirds some time to wake up, we made you both some coffee.” Chris H told you while pointing towards the warm mugs. “Thank you.” You told them giggling a little. Once they left you turned around to face Tom. He still had his eyes closed and your fingers traveled along his facial features. “Good morning love” he told you still with his eyes closed but with a smile. “good morning handsome.” He opened his eyes and smiled lovingly at you while connecting your lips again. You cuddled into his side. “this is nice” you told him. “It really is. Now I don’t mind waking up” he told you which made you chuckle.

Once you both got up you all had breakfast together and decided it was a nice warm day to go swimming. Tom brought you home so you could pick up your stuff and off you went to the beach. You all laid down in the soft sand and chatted away and shared funny stories. You all decided to take a swim. Once in the boys started a water fight. Scarlett sat on the shoulders of Chris E and you were on the shoulder of Tom. You both tried to push each other off but both fell in the process. Now it was the turn of the boys. Sebastian on the shoulders of Chris E and Anthony on the shoulders of Chris H. It took a while but in the end Sebastian fell and Anthony cheered which made you giggle.

You started swimming a little with Tom by your side. You were on his back while he slowly swam back and forth. You got off of his back and put both of your legs around his waist and hugged him tightly. He grabbed your chin to give you a kiss. Once you both got a little tired of swimming you both got out and dried up.

After a nice day at the beach you were tired out. Especially because of the night before. Tom brought you home. “Tom…? Can you please stay with me tonight?” you asked him softly. “of course love, let me grab my stuff and I’ll be back in an hour” he told you and gave you a kiss before you got out of the car.

You in the meanwhile cleaned your house a little and made your bed and took a shower to get all the sand off of you. You were done just in time for Tom to come. You opened the door and you saw that he showered as well. then your sight fell on the bottle of wine he brought and a brown back. “I went to the store and got us some snacks.” You smiled and let him in. He put everything on your kitchen counter. You poured you both a generous amount of wine and plopped on the couch. You put on a movie for you both to watch. After you drank the wine and ate some snacks you became even more tired. “Let’s get you to bed.” Tom told you. He took your hand and turned off all the lights.

You both got ready for bed and got in. “Tom? Can you maybe read to me?” you asked him shyly but he knew his voice calmed you down and it wouldn’t be the first time that he would read for you. “of course sweetheart.” He started to read to you while you laid in his arms and you softly drifted off to fall asleep in yet another night terror.

You sat up suddenly, breathing heavy and once again sweating. Tom softly sat up next to you and rubbed your back. “I’m sorry.” You told him feeling guilty and out of breath. “It’s okay love really. Don’t worry about that I’m here for you” Once you regained a steady breathing he asked you “ Let’s take a shower okay?” you nodded and he took your hand and lead you to your own bathroom. “I’ll wait outside okay?” but the thought of being alone scared you a lot at this moment giving you an anxiety attack. “No Tom please stay.” You begged saying it a little too fast for your own liking. “I’m sorry if you feel comfortable with that.” You told him again and he gave you a soft smile.  You both stripped out of your clothes. “I can keep my underwear on if you’d like.” He told you not trying to make you feel uncomfortable in any situation. “No it’s fine, if you’re okay with it.” you told him and he nodded. He stripped out of his boxers and you out of your underwear.

You looked at each other but at the moment it wasn’t sexual but more for comfort. He stepped in the shower first and took your hand helping you in. you the shower on and Tom massaged your head you turned around and rested your head on his shoulder while he put his arms around you. You started to cry. You felt so safe that you had all the space for your feelings. Tom hushed you while giving kisses on your head. Trying to give you comfort. You stood there for a good while just hugging each other. When you calmed down you both got out and Tom dried you off. “You are absolutely gorgeous.” He told you kissing your shoulder. You looked up at him and you made eye contact. He slowly held your face in his hands and gave you a soft kiss that turned passionately. Before anything could go further you both stopped. He helped you in his shirt and got into bed again.

Everything he did, he did with so much care and love that it was something you’ve never experienced before and it was heavenly. You laid both face to face and just looked at each other. His thumb softly caressing your cheek. You both didn’t have to exchange words, everything said it all. You went with your fingers over his features again while looking in his eyes. It held so much love and adoration that it felt you up with love.  “forever” he said softly “forever you said back and he smiled. It said it all, you were both an open book for each other and it felt like you’ve read that book a hundreds of times and you knew each line. That was how good your connection was. An beautiful antique book with it’s wrinkles and faded lines. Handled with love and care and reading it over and over again never getting tired of the story as the letters danced on the pages.

You looked at Tom and you both kissed each other falling this time in a peaceful sleep in the arms of the man you love the most and he in the arms of the woman he loves the most.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

You wrote the original novel with the late Terry Pratchett. What did you love about Terry as a writer?

He was the most wonderful writer. He was a craftsman who regarded art in the same way that a really good medieval craftsman regarded his craft. If you build it right, it will be beautiful. You don’t set out saying: “I’m an artiste and I’m going to make something beautiful.” You set out saying: “If I craft it right, it’s going to be beautiful.” It’s like a 12th century cathedral or a piece of Chippendale furniture. It will inspire awe and beauty because it’s so well built.

Why is Michael Sheen so well suited to the role of Aziraphale?

He is a massive fan of the book. He read it as a 20-something at drama school and loved it. When this production was being discussed, he was the first person I went to. He said: “Ah, yes, you want me to play Crowley.” “No,” I replied, “I want you to play Aziraphale.” Crowley is the sexy dude in the sunglasses, but Aziraphale is the heart of this story. He is also the one that changes. That’s very important to the story - who changes? The Crowley at the end is the same as the Crowley at the beginning. But the Aziraphale at the end is not quite the same as the one we went in with. He’s grown and changed. I needed someone who could show that progress.

Why does David fit the role of Crowley so well?

In my head, David was the dream casting for Crowley, but I felt sure it wouldn’t happen. That’s the best way to avoid disappointment. So when David said he’d love to do it, I was just delighted. He brings an insouciance and a slouchiness which I love. He’s not playing it as Doctor Who or any other previous characters. His Crowley is so much loucher than that. He’s a slightly cynical, wonderful demon.

How did other castings happen?

We got a lot of people because they were big fans of the book. For instance, Jon Hamm read it and loved it, although he confided in me that he thought it was unfilmable! I wrote him an email saying: “I’ve written the new part of Gabriel. He is the leader of the angels. I need someone to play the coolest, smoothest, best-looking angel. Will you do it?” I quickly got reply saying: “Oh my God, I thought it was unfilmable, but I love these scenes!”

What did Douglas McKinnon give to the show?

What he brought to the production was even more than we were expecting. He and his director of photography have made something stunning. But the most amazing thing is Douglas’s eye for detail and just how unexpectedly beautiful he has made this world. It absolutely gives me a kick to see it brought to life. It’s magical.

So Douglas has endowed Good Omens with an amazing look?

Definitely. This world has its own visual language. It’s gorgeous and glorious. I showed an early version to Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon. His reaction was: “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.” What a lovely thing to say.

For many years Good Omens was going to be a movie. Why does it work better as a TV series than a feature film?

Because when you have got six hours, you throw away less of the original book. You can even add stuff. When I broke down episode three, I realised there was not much of Aziraphale and Crowley in it. So I wrote a whole new 20-minute, mini-movie of Aziraphale and Crowley through the ages - in Roman times, with medieval knights, during the Second World War. How much fun was that! I got to indulge my inner fantasy. I was writing my own fan fiction!

Everyone is really committed to this production, aren’t they?

Yes. It’s a hugely loved book. A lot of the cast are huge fans of the book, which means that they’re very passionate about the project. For instance, Josie Lawrence, who is the only original cast member from the radio version of Good Omens, was desperate to reprise her role as Agnes Nutter, but at first it was impossible. She was opening that week in Mother Courage. But we really wanted her, so her director very kindly stood in for Josie at the technical rehearsal for Mother Courage - which never happens - so Josie could do Good Omens. People are willing to go the extra mile to be in this, which is wonderful.

Why is the book of Good Omens so popular?

People love the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. When I was writing the script, I was determined never to lose sight of the fact that on some weird level it’s a love story between Aziraphale and Crowley. People might grab the wrong end of the stick, but it’s a relationship that develops over 6,000 years. It’s a rather strange and glorious friendship between two incredibly different characters.

While Aziraphale means well, he’s wrong an enormous amount of the time. Meanwhile, Crowley is a demon who sees the worst in human nature and yet is right a lot of the time. There is a line from the book, where Aziraphale says: “Imagine how terrible it would have been if we were at all competent!” They are gloriously incompetent, and the fact that they’re more human than they care to admit drives the plot and is one of the things that people love about Good Omens.

What do you hope that viewers will take away from Good Omens?

I hope people will fall in love with the characters. I want to make something that bears rewatching and gives you something more every time you rewatch it. I know moments in Good Omens pay off with repeated viewing. When you rewatch it, you think: “Oh my God, that’s why they set that up.” Mostly, I want audiences to walk away in love with Michael and David and want to spend time with these characters. The best thing about good TV is that you’re spending time with characters who become part of your family. I hope the characters in Good Omens will become part of your family.

[queerchoicesblog]

Epilogue: Underwater (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series)

As promised, here the epilogue of the Zetta x Adele Series, folks. 

This is the very end of a project that meant me quite a lot to me and got me through the last terrible year. Thanks to all those who supported it: hope you enjoyed it and will enjoy this ending.

In case you were wondering, this song inspired the whole series, particularly the last chapters:

I will skip the tag list for once since it’s pointless anyway. 

➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1, Ch. 10/2, Ch. 11/1, Ch. 11/2, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15 , Ch. 16, Ch. 17

_________________________

Almost a century after the sinking of the RMS Titanic and to celebrate Canada becoming the first country outside Europe to legalise same-sex marriage, the Canadian Film Institute decided to work side by side with several LGBTQ+ organisations across the world to put together an exhibition focused on the early queer cinema and the many queer stars who were forced to hide their true selves in the Golden Age of cinematography, spanning from 1890s till the aftermath of Second World War. "A testament to the role the LGBTQ+ community played in the history of cinema and that we have always been here, even if people hardly saw us" as a journalist wrote on a queer magazine. After the recent discovery of some private documents, the curators were overjoyed to include an icon of the 1900s - 1910s cinema like Zetta Serda into the retrospective and cast a new light on her extraordinary career sadly soon forgotten after the advent of the sound era. Yet, the silent picture star was mentioned as a model and 'endless source of inspiration" by many queer movie stars like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Greta Garbo all part of the retrospective. Rumor has it that as soon as she landed in America, Marlene Dietrich demanded his agent a meeting with Mrs King.

A curator drove all the way to Montreal to meet the last known heir, a certain Mrs. Julia Nowak, who greeted him on the threshold of a cosy downtown apartment. She offered him a coffee and a slice of a Polish sweet bread: the recipe was a family heirloom, she explained, beaming. She was in her late fifties, a therapist, she said. Her hazel eyes gleamed when she added, in a pleasantly soothing voice that betrayed a hint of excitement: "I must confess I am so incredibly happy that you contacted me about the retrospective. I adore the idea and I will make sure to attend it. Also" she nodded to a wedding picture hung to the wall "did you know that my wife is in politics? She campaigned for the legalisation...yes, Madeleine Fournier: see, you know her! We got married right after the law passed. If anything, your call and project made me twice as happy". She took a pause, smiling over her coffee in remembrance. "Anyway, back to the matter of your visit...yes, as far as I know, I am Zetta's last heir. As you probably know, my family wasn't officially related to her but she stated otherwise in her will". She moved to the couch and gestured the curator to follow her as she opened up one of the boxes and chests piled into the living room and picked out an old album, the leather cover worn at the edges. Dust waltzed in the air as she opened it with caution and gentle care. She showed him a slightly discoloured black and white picture of a young couple kissing for the camera in front of a church. Another wedding picture, from a different era. "Nana Hileni and Papa Maciej's wedding picture. I still remember them even if they both died when I was barely a teen...as if one couldn't bear to live without the other. Or so I like to think. She would help me with the homework, mathematics particularly, and he baked this bread for me till he was too weak to do so. He always claimed that he won Nana's heart with his pastries but she always denied it laughing". She passed another picture of the same couple proudly standing in front of the Nowak family bakery in Hoboken. "Frankly, I believe that Papa's broad shoulders and Marlon Brando smile are more likely to blame for this coup de foudre" she laughed. "And he knew how to deal with her no-nonsense attitude and vice versa. They...balanced each other, if you wish". She picked another picture and handed it to him. A woman was looking down in tender adoration and awe to a baby nestled in her arms looking up at her, outstretching a tiny arm in an attempt to touch her face. "There! This is Dad" she pointed at the baby before turning the picture where someone wrote 'Alex meets Auntie Adele'. Turning it again, she pointed at the woman. "This is Adele Carrem. Or Auntie Adele as I've always heard calling her. Nana's sister and Zetta's publicist and companion" Putting it back into the album, she carefully picked a bunch of other old pictures. "You surely know who this one is" she smiled, handing out the one on top. The photo was rather grainy but you could still recognise the same kid, slightly older, around two, sucking his thumb, cuddled up in Zetta's lap. The actress had aged a little but her features were unmistakable and it was endearing to see her sitting by the fireplace to read that kid with the sleepy face a bedtime story. "Sadly, I have never met them. I wish I did, oh you have no idea...but stories of them lived through in our family" Julia continued. "My Dad loved his Aunties - as he called them - dearly and by what I've heard and read, they loved him in manner as if he was their own. He knew little of them or Zetta's career back then...to him they were just the sweet ladies who would buy him ice-cream in Central Park or take him to see his favourite pictures over and over again at the movie theater. He said he will never forget the afternoons he used to spend with them in a Manhattan cafe that no longer exists around Christmas: Nana and Papa worked like crazy as the festive season approached and the glorious cup of hot chocolate with an elegant puff of cream on top with the Aunties became a tradition to him. He kept it alive somehow as he did the same with me". She handed the curator a bunch of other pictures: Zetta cleaning up Alex's face smeared with jam, the both of them laughing; Zetta posing with Maciej and her Dad at a table in the Hoboken bakery. He eventually mirrored her smile seeing a five years old Alex at the beach all engrossed in building a sandcastle with Hileni and Adele, and he standing at the water edge hand in hand with Miss Carrem, looking out into the distance. "These are family pictures. I'll show you the Zetta's private memorabilia we cherished". Julia searched a little, opening an old chest and handling every item inside with tender care. When she found what she was looking for, she showed the curator an elegant set of smaller boxes containing letters, dried flowers and photos. "I have already received an offer to get these published. I'm still pondering it. Before agreeing, I want to consider throughly if this is a thing they would have wanted, even if they're no longer here" The curator nodded as she kept searching. He skimmed a few letters and smiled as his eyes fall on the photos hidden away in those boxes: the two women sitting together and chatting at Hileni's wedding, Zetta's reading a script, lazily sprawled on a chaise long in her apartment. Some had short lines handwritten on the back, like a promotional picture with "Missing you" written by Zetta herself. The curator showed another to Mrs Nowak: a visibly excited Miss Carrem proudly showing to the camera a document announcing her voter registration. On the back, in Zetta's penmanship: "On the way to vote...my sweet Adele won!". "Oh you didn't know? Auntie Adele was a suffragette! I couldn't believe it when I first heard it! Nana told me that she was in and out jail when they lived in London because of protests. You know, like those suffragettes you read about in history books but less famous. Yet she fought for women's rights and kept fighting for them even in America. She was quite disappointed though by some major decisions of some feminist movements and eventually joined a socialist Union 'more rightfully welcoming working class individuals, immigrants and black brothers and sisters'. It's all in those letters but yeah, you couldn't possibly know. So little is known about her outside family". A little smile drew on her face as she put back the photo. "That photo was taken the day of the first election open to women. I checked the date. I suppose Zetta wanted to immortalise the moment...it was sweet of her, huh? Auntie Adele must have been so proud and overjoyed that day! You know, my Dad was born in 1920 when women's right to vote was legalised nationally and Nana once told me that Auntie commented the lucky coincidence saying she was incredibly happy her nephew would get to live in a fairer world. She was a true force of nature...she never talked much of the sinking of the Titanic just like Zetta and Nana actually but when one day Dad asked...he was barely a child and probably found an old article about the tragedy...Auntie Adele minimised but Nana assured him that her sister saved her life that night, risking her own to go down to the belly of the sinking ship to bring her to safety. Auntie simply shrugged, saying that it was what sisters do and that they made it to the lifeboats only thanks to Zetta, who shouted protests to stubborn officers and eventually found them a spot on a boat. I cannot even bring myself to imagine how scary that must have been: I cried so much when Madeleine took me to see Leo and Kate...to think they were there and it was all real!" She picked a few other objects out the box: a Shakespeare Sonnets book in a leather cover with golden engravings, with a little handwritten dedication 'To Adele, my sonnet 116. Happy birthday! With all my love, Zetta'; old scripts with annotations, a framed photograph of Adele and Zetta slow dancing barefoot in the living room of a gorgeous Long Island mansion. "These have a sentimental value" Mrs Nowak noted, her voice betraying the flicker of emotions as she picked it up. She took a deep sigh and continued. "I remember the day I told Dad I was gay as it was yesterday. We had always been quite close so it came natural to tell him first. We were in his car, he had come straight from college to pick me up at ice-skating practice. I..I dropped it in the middle of a conversation, bracing myself for the worst. I heard so many bad stories about coming out to your parents I was terrified of the consequences but I couldn't hide it anymore. I mean, yes, in public: bullies get even nastier if they know and I didn't want people shouting me "dyke" at school. But I needed to get it out of my chest...with someone at least. He kept quiet for a moment and I felt like drowning in shame. But then he spoke". A nostalgic tender smile formed Julia's lips. "He said he had two amazing Aunties that contributed to make his life a wondrous adventure. It was thanks to them that he, the son of a baker, could attend a prestigious college, for instance: they offered to pay for it without asking a penny back. They also helped him write his first romantic letter to his childhood sweetheart and consoled him when the little girl turned him down. But his Aunties had a secret, he added. He said: to my kid eyes they were no less a couple than Mom and Dad and at home we all treated them in manner but one day Mom made me promise to behave differently when we were in public. In public I would refer to her sister as 'Auntie Adele' but call Zetta by her name. He didn't get it and it took some getting used to. He soon noticed that even the Aunties behaved a bit differently out in the sun: they wouldn't hold hands or use endearing words in the street or when other people were around. They simply behaved like good friends did. He understood it later when he, as stubborn as a mule, asked them directly". Julia gently grazed her fingers on the glass of the framed photograph, caressing it. "And they told me everything, he said. That they were in love, just like mom and dad were, but people out there could be uncomfortable and extremely rude to women loving other women and men loving other men. That they kept their companionship a secret in public because those people had no problems with women being friends and they didn't want to have bad words or worse happening to them. I remember asking him what he thought about it. He smiled. 'I cried. Since Auntie Zetta mentioned people claiming that women like them were sick and would burn in hell, I actually started crying. I sobbed desperately in her arms, crying that I didn't want them to burn in hell, I loved my Aunties and I was happy they loved each other. Eventually they explained me it was just a vile lie spread my malignant people. But I got quite a scare and kept staring at them with puffy red eyes and my face wet with tears for a while. It required lots of cuddling to bring a smile back on my face'. He shook his head, laughing of his endearing naivety. Then he pulled over and looked at me. He continued: 'I still don't get why people keep spreading those mean lies but I know for sure that my Aunties weren't sick and didn't end up in hell and so won't you. Don't believe bullshits like that for a split second, okay? And I also want you to remember that it doesn't change a thing for me and mom too. You will always be my little girl, our little girl and we love you'. We shared a long hug before driving back home. On the way back he insisted to buy my favourite chicken and waffles for dinner, saying mom's veggie soup could wait. For my birthday, a month later or so, he asked me to follow him to the attic and showed me this chest. To meet the Aunties that 'would have surely been there for me'". She tipped away a tear. "I told you I married Madeleine right after the legalisation of same-sex marriages. My wedding was also the last public event Mom and Dad attended together before his health worsened irremediably. He passed away last year". For a moment she looked on the verge of tears but she recovered quickly. "Sorry...anyway, that day Dad insisted on walking me down the aisle even if he was getting weak. He beamed with pride when a friend fixed a rainbow ribbon to his jacket. Later at the lunch he read a speech he had written for the day, his hand shaking. He shared the story of his Aunties. He said that despite the hardships their situation forced upon them, they had quite a happy life together, a happiness carefully hidden from the world. He wished us to find something similar to what they shared without needing to hide anymore. He said Adele and Zetta would have been so happy and proud to celebrate with all of us that day" Mrs. Nowak picked the Shakespeare Sonnet book and gave him a fond look. "He brought this to the wedding. And he read for us the sonnet 116, the one Zetta mentioned in her dedication. You know, the one that starts with 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments..." ----------------------- A few months later the exhibition on old Hollywood queer cinema and artists opened. Each artist had a room that soon filled with a crowd of enthusiastic visitors. In the first half, in a room arranged as a turn of the century nickelodeon with velvet chairs, all the memorabilia of Zetta Serda's public life: panels explaining the various stages of her career and the birth of her myth, promotional pictures of her performances, articles about her and a copy of a gazette announcing her wedding with the director Richard King. On the wall, on a screen her entire filmography rolled up in loop, bewitching spectators after a century. In display cases: the gorgeous sapphire necklace she wore on her last night on the Ship of Dreams and at the movie party of Surviving the Titanic, and a replica of her Cleopatra costume. The aging Queen of Egypt with a tragic love and destiny immortalised by Shakespeare was her last role back on the theater stage before retiring from the scenes. Old scripts with her personal annotation were displayed with photographs taken on sets and mundane events. The wall hosting the motion-picture screen cut the room in half. On the other side, the hidden half of her life. Her life with Adele no one suspected back then. A life kept secret that now unveiled in front of the eyes of the visitors. The curators discovered that finding public pictures of Miss Carrem was nearly impossible, true to the nickname she acquired as time went by: The Shadow. She stayed at Zetta's side until and even after she stopped acting, showing rare loyalty and devotion, but ever surrounded by this mystery allure. No one, even the most stubborn reporters managed to know anything about her and she was soon dismissed as a Titanic survivor, possibly a fan, who worked as Zetta's secretary and somehow gained her respect. Little they knew about the depth of their relationship and what stacks of secret letters and family memories revealed of the life of Miss Carrem. A panel finally told her story and her secret achievements: Adele, or better Adal, kept fighting for a fairer world and society her whole life and marched for women's right to vote on the famous parade in 1915. She also passed the teaching of Edith Garrud to her American sisters. The only pictures of her came from the Nowak family, except for one. The only photograph of a public appearance of Miss Carrem as well as the only known public appearance of Zetta and Adele. An old grainy photo accurately framed showed Adele shaking hands with The Unsinkable Molly Brown on a podium. In her free hand a shiny medal and a few steps behind the mayor of New York. According to the panel, the survivors' committee founded by Mrs. Brown decided to award Miss Carrem a medal for bravery and a generous check "to help her and her sister starting a new life in America". With great surprise, Miss Carrem received the medal and the check, thanked the board but refused the honors. Instead, she asked to deliver them both to the family of a certain Charlie Stoke, a stewart that lost his life in the sinking to save her life and those of many passengers. She added that her friend expressed the desire to study naval engineering one day and she wished that the money kindly offered to her would be enough to establish a scholarship for boys like him across the ocean. In another picture, Miss Carrem and her sister chatted with Moll Brown in company of Zetta. Eventually, other philanthropists and wealthy socialites signed checks for her cause so that the Stoke family received a generous contribution too. And today, as another picture confirmed, the faculty of naval engineering of the University of Newcastle hosts a marble engraving of Charlie Stoke: to his memory a scholarship had been instituted one year after on the anniversary of the sinking. Since 1913 it has been helping students of poor background to get an education and improve their life. Zetta herself became a philanthropist during her Renaissance and ever since. The first act of her new phase of her life was joining the Moll Brown survivors committee to provide help to the second and third class passengers families and survivors. Some said that the tragedy she witnessed touched her heart, other claimed that it was to be attributed to the influence of her publicist. Jokingly, she used to say that after all, she had too much money yet all she could have wished for in her life, so why not doing some good with it? A considerable donation under her and Mr King was received by the main hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic; she was particularly active in providing financial help to struggling neighbourhoods and female education institutions. In the middle of the room, a long glass display hosted the Shakespeare Sonnets opened at sonnet 116 and a selection of the private correspondence between Zetta and Adele. My darling, You will receive this letter tomorrow morning when I'll be already off to Chicago. The suitcases are ready and packed, this is a goodnight note scribbled the night before leaving you to remind you how much I love you and care about you. How much I'm going to miss you even if - thank God! - we won't be parted for long... Do not forget you promised me to write every day! Write to me, Adele, write to me whatever thought crosses that gorgeous mind of you: you know I could you rambling for hours without getting tired of the sound of your voice, of your sparkling wisdom. I wanna know everything. So don't be shy: I'll be waiting your letters with tender impatience. Can't wait to be in your arms once more. Adoringly yours, Zetta - Dear, dearest Zetta, I went to Central Park today with Hileni. It was a gorgeous spring day, sunny, a gentle breeze blowing: 'simply too beautiful to be wasted inside' as my sister put it. Did I tell you that she's still exchanging letters with the delivery boy from the hat shop? I thought they were over but apparently he invited her to the nickelodeon next week. Anyway, walking in the park with her I suddenly realised how I wanted to share that spring wonder with you. When are you coming back to New York? Tell me soon, please. And even 'soon' won't be soon enough: you're always on my mind since you left. But yes, tell me soon so I can make you promise we will go for a walk before the weather becomes too hot. Do you think I can wrap my arm with yours? Is it professional enough for a publicist? Even just for a few steps: oh you have no idea how I would love that! Or maybe you have? I hope so: it'd mean you miss me as much as I miss you when we are apart. Oh, I almost forgot: all settled with that magazine you mentioned before your departure! I negotiated a two pages long interview, plus pictures. And a cover mention. Hope I did well: you have already fired me as your secretary, I must prove you I am just what you're looking for in a publicist... Can't wait to see you again! Loving you always, Adele Only one letter was copied on a panel of its own on the main wall side by side with a blow-up of the picture of Adele and Zetta slow-dancing barefoot and free, for a blessed moment immortalised in a discreet shot. Adele pressing a tender kiss on Zetta's forehead, drawing a soft smile on the acrtress' lips. Many visitors commented it was heartwarming to see such a photograph that conveyed the intimacy and the warmth of affection radiating from the dancing couple. Some said that Zetta was even more beautiful like that: free, hair slightly askew and genuinely happy, loved. What stole their hearts away though was the letter attached to it. It was no surprise that the curators decided to name the retrospective Underwater. Dearest Adele, Forgive me for the tone of this letter. I am writing it down in bed while I cannot sleep and my mind runs back to you as if we could meet halfway between the miles separating us, in a world of fantasy of our own. It's ridiculous how much I miss you! I want you near, I need you near all the time. Take tonight: if you were here with me, I would be heavenly sleeping in your loving embrace. Most unfortunately, you are not and I'm lying here, insomniac, thinking of you. And about my life. No, don't frown. I am not getting all sad again. It's...bittersweet. And - I'll spoil you the ending so you will stop worrying, hopefully - it gets better the more you proceed. Have you ever felt trapped underwater? I did, my whole life. Always hiding, always measuring words, gestures, gazes not to let them see, not to let them know...so little time to go up and break the surface. Drop the mask and breathe. In, out. Once, twice. In my lowest moments I repeated to my myself: how are you gonna survive? One day an acquaintance with a remarkable passion for the sea explained me and the other bored commensals that you can keep someone alive by breathing oxygen into their mouth underwater. Pretty much like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation helps an unconscious person to regain consciousness. I found it interesting but doubted his words. Then I met you, Adele. My dearest, wondrous Adele. And I learnt that yes, you can't breathe if you're constantly underwater...but you won't drown if you have the right person swimming by your side in those deep waters. Put your lips on me, Adele. Touch me, hold me in your arms. And I can live underwater. With your love, I can live underwater. We can live underwater. I love you. I want to cover a full page of these three simple words: I love you. I want to cry them out and entrust them to the winds, to the night. But what for? Who cares if the world knows or not? I'll whisper them over your lips when we will be reunited. So you can breathe underwater. Counting down the hours separating us, my love. Eternally yours, Zetta

[morganclaire4]

“Treated Right”

Summary: Chris shows the reader how she should truly be treated.

Warnings: None.

A/N: I write in first person, it’s just easier to me. I’m also fully aware that Joe Johnson, the real director, is not a true jerk. It was again just easier. Also, the reader is from the Texas. I’m from the south and I thought it added something🤷🏼‍♀️

Somehow, at the age of twenty-two, I was hired as one of three director’s assistants for “Captain American: The First Avenger.” Each of us had different jobs, but mine I felt mine was definitely the best. I was the line of communication from the director and producers to the actors, mainly Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, and Hayley Atwell. But like all jobs there was a small down side, mine being the jerk of the century in my boss, Joe Johnston. The upside to this job heavily out weighed the down though, I met my best friend and boyfriend, Chris Evans.

I was first hired after the casting and such. My first day meeting the three stars, I would closely work with, was in a meeting. Chris, Sebastian, and Hayley were all brought to New York to go over a few changes in script.

They all came in and sat down in the conference room. Chris looked around. “Is there any coffee any where?” He asked.

Joe immediately said, “The girl-“ he looked at me, “is on her way to get some. Just tell her what you’d like.” I wanted to roll my eyes and scoff, but I kept it to myself. “The girl? Really? I have a name.” I thought to myself. I just smiled at the three stars and nodded. Chris wanted a medium coffee with two sugars and whole milk. Sebastian wanted a large black coffee. I almost gagged. “Who can drink that?” I thought. Hayley asked for a water. Joe wanted his usual. I wrote everything down and headed down to the small coffee cart in the lobby.

Marisa was the young girl who worked the coffee cart and she was kind of my only friend some days. I handed her the paper with the order on it. We made small talk while she fixed the drinks.

“Y/N, I’m out of whole milk.” She said as she fixed Chris’ coffee. “Really?” I whined a little. “What do you have?”

“2% milk, half and half, almond milk, and vanilla creamer.” She listed them off. “I don’t want to just put something in Chris Evans’ coffee. What if he notices?” I panicked a little not wanting to get further on the bad side of my boss.

“Well I can put those four in small cups and he can pick, them it’s not your fault.” Marisa thought of the idea. “That could work!” I perked up. She fixed four small cups with each and labeled them.

I returned to the conference room with what looked to be eight drinks. Before having a millisecond to explain, Joe jumped on me. “Eight drinks! Are you incompetent?” He shook his head. Chris and Sebastian both looked at each other as if they wanted to say something.

I passed out the drinks, Chris’ last. “Mr. Evans, the coffee cart was out of whole milk.” I stated as I placed his coffee down. “These four cups have different options, 2% milk, half and half, almond milk, and vanilla creamer. I wasn’t sure which you would like.” I said smiling.

“Thank you, very thoughtful.” Chris smiled at me. “I’ll take the half and half, and please just call me Chris.” He said. I nodded and handed it to him. Chris fixed his coffee then I cleaned up the trash.

As I was throwing away the extra cups, Joe looked at me. “You can go sit in the hall now.” I turned and looked at him. I nodded and grabbed my small bag and exited. Chris and Sebastian exchanged yet another look. I closed the door and sat on a bench in the hall for the next two hours.

Two hours later, Hayley exited the room followed by Sebastian then Chris and Joe. He glared at me. “You’re done for the day.” He said coldly. I nodded and began to put my laptop away. Joe said his goodbyes to the three stars and walked back into the conference room. Hailey and Sebastian did the same and went for the elevator. Chris leaned against the wall and watched me pack my things. I looked up at him and smiled.

“You know, you don’t have to take that from him.” He stated. I laughed and stood up. “But I do. He’s my boss and if I said anything back, I would end up fired.”

“You could at least remind him that you have a name.” Chris said. “You do have a name right?” He raised his eyebrow.

I laughed and blushed slightly. I couldn’t help that he was attractive and quite the flirt. “Yes, I do have a name.”

“And your name would be?” He stood up from leaning on the wall.

“Y/N” I said with a smile.

“Hmm, well see I think that sounds much better than ‘girl’.” Chris said. “How about you join me for lunch, Y/N?” He asked.

I raised my eyebrow. “You want ME to join you for lunch?” I was shocked.

“Yes, I would like to show you how a woman should be treated.” Chris stated. I blushed five shades of red.

“Ok.” I giggled and put my bag on my shoulder. He smiled and began walking with me to the elevator. “I know a great little cafe.” Chris said.

We left the Marvel offices and began walking. Talking to Chris was easy and it just flowed. We made it to the small cafe and were able to get a table outside. It was beautiful day. We sat down and our conversation just continued to flow.

“So what did you do to end up at the end of Joe’s anger?” Chris asked. I just shrugged. “You’re guess is as good as mine.” I said taking a bite of my sandwich.

“How’d you even know about this place? I’ve lived here for four years and didn’t even know it existed.” I asked changing the subject.

“My sisters are travel gurus and they know all these little places that aren’t super crowded in just about every city.” Chris explained. I laughed softly and nodded.

“Hey, I see that coming in handy.” I smiled at him. I couldn’t help but stare just slightly at him. The way his eyes shine and the way he smiles.

The waitress came with the check and I fully intended on paying for my half of the meal. It wasn’t a date, or at least I didn’t think it was. I reached into my bag to grab my wallet.

Chris raised his eyebrow at me as he accepted the check. “What are you doing?” He asked as he placed his card in the book.

“I’m going to pay for my half of the meal.” I stated mater-of-factly. Chris laughed and handed the waitress the check. He gave her a look and she escaped to run his card.

“Chris, I’m a big girl. I can pay for my food.” I said.

“I know you can, doll.” Chris said with a smile. My cheeks flushed red at the sound of the pet name. “But I wanted to treat you like a real woman should be treated.” He reached across the table and laid his hand over mine. “I understand working for someone who’s not easy to deal with, it happens a lot in this business. That being the case doesn’t mean you deserve to be treated in such a crude and harsh way.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his kind words. Before I could give my response, the waitress returned with his card. He put his card away and pocketed his wallet. We stood and I figured we would part ways from the small cafe.

“So as I continue to treat you like a real woman, which way is your apartment? I’m now going to walk you home.” Chris stated. I could not help but laugh softly at how confident his statement sounded.

“It’s this way.” I said smiling as we walked out of the restaurant and headed down the street.

“So, you’re from Massachusetts, right?” I asked Chris as we walked.

“Yeah, Boston to be exact.” He smiled proudly. “And you are from?” Chris raised his eyebrow and gave me side glance.

“Well, I’m not from around here.” I laughed.

“Oh, I can tell.” He said. “That accent is definitely not one of a Yankee native.” I couldn’t help but laugh, I thought I was doing a pretty good job at covering my accent.

“Alright, alright, you got me!” I smiled “I’m from Texas.”

“Texas?” He said looking at me as we stopped at a cross walk. “Well I will give it to you, I definitely would not have guessed Texas.”

“Well then, where would you have guessed then?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow up and finally letting my accent become more natural.

“I don’t know, maybe somewhere south but definitely not that south.” Chris laughed. I blushed and smiled.

“Yeah, well I’m just a southern belle.” I said exaggerating my southern accent. Chris laughed as we continued our walk to my apartment.

After a few more blocks, we made it to the lobby of my apartment building. “Thank you, Chris!” I smiled up at him. “You definitely showed me how a woman should be treated.”

“That’s good, but I’ve got one more thing to show you.” He said with a smirk.

I raised my eyebrow at him as he stepped closer. He slowly reached his hand up and rested it against my cheek as he leaned in. I knew it was coming. I raised up on my toes just slightly and met his lips. I rested my hand against his chest. As cliché as it sounds, our kiss was electric.

I pulled away as my cheeks turned red. I looked up at him with a soft smile. “I’m not complaining, but why?”

He laughed and smiled down at me. “Because you, Y/N, are absolutely stunning, you’re obviously very smart and talented. You also deserve to be treated with respect and like the woman you are.”

I think I almost melted as I listened to him. “So if it’s ok with you, I want to take you out on a date.” Chris said. “Not like what we just did because I get the feeling you didn’t think that was a date.” He laughed softly. “Like a ‘pick you up at 8, wear something nice’ type date.”

My cheeks were still red as I nodded. “I’d really like that.” I smiled up at him. Chris took my phone from my hand and put his number in my contacts.

“I’m in New York until Wednesday morning. I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at 8.” Chris smirked and handed me my phone. “And wear something nice.” He winked and started walking away.

[tsukikoayanosuke]

7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 27, 35 & 39

[It’s a lot again 😅 hope you don’t mind :D]

I might be going way too far with these answers, so please bear with me ^^’

Sorry for the long rambles but these are my answers!

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Oof. This is hard. There’s actually a lot of paragraphs that I like throughout the writing process. I can re-read and just pick which is my favorite, it’ll be different every time.

But, I think the thing currently going on with TW:OPT can be summed up in this Once Upon a Time… (I was being dumb and I thought prose is just poetry without rhyme)

So, this drabble is written on the run. There’s not really deep thought and I can’t even remember why I wrote it in the first place. From the date I posted it on Tumblr it was in the middle of Octavinelle Arc.

But, in this small crappy prose-poetry, it has one of the themes in TW:OPT: happy vs sad ending. This is something that I want to build since in the early stage. The theme of TW:OPT is second chances for the reincarnated villains, giving them a happy ending, something way better than the original ones.

So, if you look for example the two lines about the Queen of Heart:  

The Queen of Heart was forgotten by Alice like it was just a bad dream

The Queen of Heart will always be remembered by Alice as his dear friend and the greatest queen

The first line is what happens to the original Disney Alice’s Queen of Hearts, while the second line is what happens to Riddle, the current reincarnation of the Queen of Hearts. It’s a good change for Riddle’s life.

However, like everything, there has to be something to balance it. 

After all, good endings cannot exist without bad endings.

Can the good guys really live with the bad guys in harmony? After all, all Disney movie always has “good wins, evil lose” theme. If the “evil side” wins, wouldn’t that mean the “good side” loses? Is that even a good thing or even possible?

After all, the One-Eyed Captain found his happy ending to sail away once again. What will happen to him in his next life?

This line becomes the question. What will happen to the already-set happy endings? Would they just disappear to change into bad endings to keep the balance?

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8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I’m debating between many dialogues, but I think the one piece I’m most proud of is in Chapter 97. I'm cutting a lot of the narration and just focus on the dialogues because it becomes too long.

Riddle: What happens that day? The day when everything went downhill. Azul: Didn't anyone tell you already? Riddle: I want to hear it from your or Jonah's mouth. What happened that you must curse him? Azul: Pretty simple, really. I told him not to come here that day, and he did To make it worse, that boy was stupid enough to go back against our agreement. Riddle: Just that? Azul: Oh, please, dear Crimson Ruler. I don't want to hear that from you. Have you forgotten about your reign before? Riddle: I know what I did was tyrannical, but I want to be better. Azul: Because of the captain told you too? Riddle: No. This is my choice to change. Just like it was your choice to curse him. He trusts you, you know? He knows that you wouldn't go back against your own words, which was why he was willing to sign another contract with you. Azul: If he trusts me that much, why is he against me? If he trusts me, why did he choose to save his stupid friends than agreeing with me? Tell me, Riddle Rosehearts...Why does he choose you instead of me?

We all know what happened during Octavinelle Arc and I don't deny that this sounds cheesy or slightly ooc. And let me just say this, there's no intention of this become a love triangle or whatsoever.

There are two things I want to highlight in this exchange: Riddle's growth and Azul's decline.

Riddle, after everything happened in Heartslabyul and Savanclaw arc, finally putting his foot down on where he wants to stand. He wants to be a better person, more than just the feared Crimson Tyrant. That's why he's helping them. Not because the boys are breaking the rules, not because someone tells him to, but Riddle is willing to risk it all, even his unique magic (as we see at the end of this chapter and the next) to save his friends. Again, this might sound ooc and I apologize, but from my perspective, this is a logical step of development for Riddle.

Meanwhile, Azul is showing more and more decline from this until the end of Octavinelle Arc even Scarabia Arc. For Azul who knows how easy people can leave and mock when you have nothing, seeing Jonah leave him and siding with the anemones is basically a betrayal. He can't think rationally when it comes to the betrayal and we see how brash he can be with anything related to Jonah throughout the arc where all of their interaction nearly kills Jonah.

If Riddle-Jonah is a coming-of-age story, Azul-Jonah is a broken friendship story.

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9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

This is a hard one to write. You might think I’ll just answer with TW:OPT, but honestly, all multi chapters fanfic has their own difficulties, so I can’t choose which is the hardest.

For Twisted-Wonderland: Our Precious Treasure, where I do treat this as a novel-writing practice, keeping the consistency with the theme, plot points, and characterization.

For Private Tutor, Angel of Death, Philza Minecraft, actually coming up with new ideas is hard because I don’t based this on anything, and just write anything once a week. In addition that I’m still new in Dream SMP fandom so characterization won’t be the strongest thing.

For both TWST MC Hybrid AU and Magical Girl AU, giving the massive cast equal spotlight and actually not getting lost is quite a challenge. Both AU has seven main characters and I need to give them the same amount to screen time.

And don’t get me started with those smut. I won’t be talking about it because I’m keeping it family friendly. Those has their own problems XD

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10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

As I said, every fic has their own problems, even one shot. So, I’m looking through my works and trying to figure out which fic I wrote the fastest but had the most fun.

I think I’ll go with A Wish for a Proposal because the comfort in this fic with Ace going heads over heels for Deuce and being doki-doki all the time. And the kiss under a shooting star, AH! Poetic cinema~

I do enjoy when I wrote how Ace thought keeping a toy ring as childish but he ended up using it to confess to Deuce and thinking that it’s not as childish as he thought.

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13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

There are good writing advice that I had head, one of them came from On Writing: Great Character Descriptions! by Hello Future Me. He has so many good advices in writing and I highly recommend him.

He said that “when describing characters it’s good to focus on their movements that can tell the readers of who the characters are”. As someone who has many troubles in writing physical description, this is actually a great alternative, especially when you want to go thought the “show don’t tell”.

After watching the video I tried to write something. I ended up writing Jonah’s father, Benjamin, in Chapter 137

The owner of the inn was an old man who, coincidentally, also shared the 'Argentum' surname. Benjamin Argentum was a man with slouched back from the burden of the world, white strands on his reddish-brown hair and tired, but kind, black eyes. He walked slowly with his walking stick, claiming that his knees were never that strong since a cart accident during his younger days. The way he speaks was gentle like everyone's favorite uncle/grandfather, along with the delicious appetizer that he had prepared a few minutes ago on the reception table. The spices he used reminiscent of the spices Jonah used in his Ramshackle Kitchen. There was no way all of these were coincidences. Crowley wouldn't doubt if Jonah Argentum ever grew old, he would be looking exactly like the warm innkeeper.

I want to highlight how Benjamin is a kind old man ("He walked slowly with his walking stick, claiming that his knees were never that strong since a cart accident during his younger days”, ”The way he speaks was gentle like everyone's favorite uncle/grandfather”) but has his own problems (”a man with slouched back from the burden of the world”), and very similar to Jonah (”The owner of the inn was an old man who, coincidentally, also shared the 'Argentum' surname”, ”The spices he used reminiscent of the spices Jonah used in his Ramshackle Kitchen”, “Crowley wouldn't doubt if Jonah Argentum ever grew old, he would be looking exactly like the warm innkeeper.”)

It’s not the best descriptions, because most of the example used highlight only one most recognizable feature while my description highlight nearly everything. I still need some practice.

.

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

“Write what’s mainstream”.

Here’s my problem with it: sometimes anything that’s mainstream is not my thing. I like to challenge what we are given and give it a spin. 

I mentioned before that growing up with Indonesian TV Series that only centers around love, riches, and cheating, I grew tired of it. That was why I once tried to make a script for a group of friends creating a classical music band and mental problems. 

I’m not the first one to make an adaptation of TWST, but I think I’m one of the first, at least in AO3, that make an adaptation with Male MC. Among the Female MC or Female Readers story with a hint (or too much) of Romance, I want to give something for the small group who wants Male MC or something more platonic to read.

I always want to push slightly further, trying something that I haven’t seen at first glance, giving varieties. I will admit that would always doubt whether me writing something different is even worth it or not. But when I saw that yes, this is worth it, I gain more confidence and become bolder in my twist.

Going against the mainstream is risky, but we'll see whether it's worth it or not.

.. 

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Oh no... Does it have to be a romantic pairing?

Okay. I don't really have an OTP. I mean, I like ROnah and JonAzul, but I don't think I can't live with writing only about them.

So, romantically, I don’t know. But, this doesn’t help with platonically either because I find enjoyment in writing all relationship. Just pushing the limit of my writing, you know?

So, I don’t think I can answer this because I’m a coward XD

.

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

A mixed bag.

So currently I'm in at least 2 collab projects: TWST MC Hybrid AU and Arisu in Alternate Wonderland. In the former, I'm the group leader, while in the latter, I'm just a writer.

Both sidea are different experiences. With AiAW, it's definitely lighter because this is basically retelling TWST but with seven Yuus. However because of this freedom and the possibilities of anything, I cannot predict whether my oc action will affects in the future or how they would interact with other ocs in the project.

With Hybrid AU, since this is a fantasy au, anything can happen. Plus as the main writer, I can see and plan clearly which event will be important and setting the characters' arc. It's definitely harder to organize because of the various idea that we want to write.

So, yeah. Collaboration can be two things for me: a scripted roleplay or a freestyle roleplay

.

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

*looking at draft for TW:OPT Book 2*

Maybe...?

.

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I remember when I was a kid, I wrote a fanfiction where it only features OCs, and someone gave a review, ranting about the lack of canon characters. I, of course, sulked a bit but then just keep writing.

However, what I usually do when it comes to comments is take them into considerations. During Scarabia Arc I got a comment that the Jonah-Azul therapy moment is kinda weak, and rereading it, I can see that. Which was why the next part of the therapy Arc I tried to connect them further. So compare the JonAzul scene in the last part of Chapter 124 with the first part of Chapter 126. At least for me, I prefer the latter because there's more intimacy.

[iwach4n]

this is basically an AU me and @snazzieyama have been talking about where haikyuu characters are the actors in Hamilton, and i haven’t been able to get it out of my mind so have an obnoxiously long set of headcanons about it

(i wrote this listening to the soundtrack, proper jamming i tell you)

CAST LIST (hear me out on some of these)

alexander hamilton - hinata shoyo

aaron burr - akaashi keiji

eliza schuyler - kageyama tobio

angelica schuyler - atsumu miya

peggy schuyler - yachi hitoka

john laurens / phillip hamilton - nishinoya yuu

marquis de laffayette - bokuto koutarou

hercules mulligan - tanaka ryuunosuke

george washington - sawamura daichi

thomas jefferson - tsukishima kei

james madison - yamaguchi tadashi

king george III - oikawa tooru

maria reynolds - kozume kenma

james reynolds / the doctor - kuroo tetsurou

samuel seabury - sugawara koushi

charles lee - lev haiba

george eacker - yaku morisuke

the bullet - shimizu kiyoko

HEADCANONS

hinata auditioned for hamilton despite having literally no theatre experience besides like school musicals and like one community theatre show. he was cast in ensemble at first but worked his way up to hamilton’s understudy and then the official hamilton

tsukishima auditioned for burr. he was salty that he was cast as someone else (his dynamic with yamaguchi was too good to pass up and akaashi had a better voice for Wait For It) at first but then he immediately clashed with hinata and took great pleasure with being able to roast him every night

in Alexander Hamilton, the laffayette/jefferson and mulligan/madison parts switch actors every show so bokuto, tsukishima, tanaka and yamaguchi all get to do it. sometimes they switch it at the last minute because “please dude my grandma’s come to watch i need to be on stage as much as possible”

tanaka has the Best fun on stage. he never fails to get the crowd pumped, he is jumping around and bringing so much energy, especially in his part in yorktown. it makes you mad that its a musical and you can’t start jumping up and singing along

suga was cast as seabury because he was perfectly good at the role and they preferred kageyama as eliza, which he auditioned for originally. he’s really good at it but it took way too long for Farmer Refuted to come together because him and hinata kept bursting out laughing. they both consider each other, like, the least threatening people ever, and they couldn’t take it seriously whenever hinata would have to get in suga’s face

SOMETIMES IT STILL HAPPENS!! if you watch carefully, you might see one of their lips twitch while they try to keep a straight face. the minute suga gets off stage, someone always has some cushion or piece of clothing he can laugh into because once he started laughing while his mic was still on

THE BIGGEST CAST JOKE IS ABOUT THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAMILTON AND ELIZA!! kageyama looks so much taller than hinata (coz he is but its so noticeable when they’re alone on stage) and they torment hinata with pictures where it just looks ridiculous

oikawa always absolutely steals the show. he’s so dramatic, but he’s also one of the most simped-for cast members and sometimes he’ll throw a wink into the audience in the middle of You’ll Be Back to make things more interesting. 

also the bits in act 2 where he just comes in to watch and laugh at everything that’s happening? he’s so fun! just because he’s not the main focus of the scene doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna make the most hilarious facial expressions. half the audience ends up focusing on him instead.

daichi is the most commanding washington literally ever. he just comes on and he immediately takes over the stage. he barely has to try to give the character the air of authority. literally the perfect actor for the role

he’s also been in the show the longest. was cast as washington right off the bat and has been doing the role for multiple years. it makes him the unofficial dad of the cast and the go-to for advice since he’s seen a bunch of people do every other role

the “CALL ME SON ONE MORE TIME” line was another one that took too long for them to do without laughing. daichi has been doing this for ages but when he practices with hinata, he can’t help but laugh because this is the kid who he witnessed choke on hello kitty gummies with five minutes until the show began (back when hinata was in ensemble). hinata does the line too well and its hard to take it seriously at first

akaashi singing Wait For It is the literal most beautiful part of the show. he’s an amazing actor and his voice is incredible and it’s the sort of thing you could rewatch on loop for an entire week non-stop without getting bored

bokuto got akaashi the audition for burr, and even though their characters don’t interact too much their chemistry is really good. The “everyone give it up for everyone’s favourite fighting frenchman!” line is so genuine they just really admire each other as actors

lev auditioned for lee for the sole purpose of getting the line “i’m a general, WHEEEE”. he got the role mostly because he was just,,, really good at that line

atsumu refused to interact with anyone outside of rehearsals and performances for a solid month. the instagram of the cast had loads of photos on the story that were just mugshots of him saying “day 24, atsumu still won’t talk to us :(” whenever any of the cast take over it for a day

akaashi is the second most simped-for actor in the cast (after oikawa). you can literally feel people in the audience swooning in Dear Theodosia because he’s just so sweet

when yachi found out she was the only girl in the main cast she was literally terrified. she latched onto kiyoko really quickly and there’s a ridiculous amount of pictures that every fan has seen of those two together

kiyoko is really mesmerising as the bullet!! when she’s lifted her form is just stunning she just looks really nice okay-

every wondered whether kageyama would be like,,, actually good because he just seems kind of awkward off stage, but the minute he’s on stage and following a script, he’s like the perfect eliza

nishinoya has the perfect range for both laurens and phillip. fun and friendly yet still principled and serious rebel? check. small sweet nine year old? check. charismatic flirt? check. heartbreakingly dying from a gunshot wound? check.

tsukishima is a really unique jefferson. he’s not as flamboyant as the role usually is, but he’s super sassy to make up for it. it’s really refreshing and SO fun to watch. “uh,,, france?” becomes “france.” with a ‘are you stupid’ expression

yamaguchi wasn’t expecting to get anything past ensemble but he came in to audition with tsukishima and he is so good at what few lines he has. “which I wrote!” is said with such a scandalised tone, it gets a laugh every time

everyone who knew kenma before thought he’d be too awkward to do maria but he is actually really good once he gets past the initial awkwardness, he manages to portray her like a victim really well

i’ve already done like two of these so here’s some more scenes that took too long before they didn’t burst out laughing: eliza teaching phillip to play piano in Take A Break (just imagine nishinoya and kageyama doing it i can’t-), the duel in Ten Duel Commandments (the height difference between nishinoya and lev made them laugh every time they turned around), 90% of Say No To This but especially the kiss (kenma would just stop and get off like ‘no, i can’t, i can’t do this’ every time it was about to happen while hinata just started cackling)

part of the reason noya got cast as phillip as well as laurens was because he’s one of the only people who auditioned who was shorter than hinata

in rehearsals, akaashi has fallen off the table from The Room Where It Happens because they couldn’t time him jumping while the tablecloth was pulled off. there’s a compilation of the falls on youtube, no one knows who recorded them, let alone who posted it (it was kuroo)

speaking of kuroo, he takes his like five lines and he runs with them. he’s awesome as james reynolds but he’s also the fandoms favourite instagram of the cast because he just posts all the backstage shenanigans. he’s somehow always recording whenever something is going wrong.

he also teases kenma relentlessly about how their characters are married, but kenma is having none of it. it always goes like “awe we’re married” “,,, you’re literally abusive” or “come on, do it for your husband” “i’m cheating on you”

(i stopped here to jam to That Part of Hurrican. i wrote my way out hell i wrote my way to revolution i was louder than the crack in the bell i wrote eliza love letters until she fell-)

bokuto managed to rap Guns And Ships first try. he listened to it like twice, read the lyrics, and he could immediately do it. he took ages to do a convincing french accent though, and it pained everyone

TSUKISHIMA COULDN’T DO THE FAST PART OF WASHINGTON ON YOUR SIDE AND HAD TO ASK BOKUTO FOR HELP

bokuto is just,,, such a good laffayette. he’s jumping all over the place, flexing his muscles while he does the fast raps without looking out of breath at all. it seems almost impossible

also!!!! kuroo has a ridiculous amount of videos of bokuto backstage fortnite dancing to serious songs like Burn or Its Quiet Uptown

kageyama in Burn!!! heartbreaking and beautiful but he burns his hand on the letter too often. he’s gotten used to it at this point so he only slightly flinches when the flames touch his hand. its worrying

congratulations was almost brought back because atsumu really likes it and he absolutely kills it. they recorded him singing it in like a studio and everything because its just that good

when noya found out yaku was playing eacker he was so happy because they’re both short and he already looks ridiculous and tiny enough in the first duel

tsukishima will never admit how much fun he has with “southern motherfucking democratic republicans!!!” but its so clear his eyes literally shine (he kind of carries that line coz yamaguchi and akaashi are a lot more mellow)

oikawa once got dared to fortnite dance in reynolds pamphlet when he’s throwing the one singular sheet of paper. he was going to do it but the directors found out about it and literally threatened to fire him if he did it (they did it in a rehearsal to make up for it)

you know that bit in Your Obedient Servant where its like “careful how you proceed good man, intemperate indeed good man, answer for the accusations i lay at your feet or prepare to bleed good man”? literal chills from the look on akaashi’s face when he does it

whenever other cast members get food gifts from fans and they leave them unattended atsumu will always steal them. only daichi has figured out its him and he has kept quiet on two conditions - he leaves his alone, and he gets half of all the cakes

sometimes yachi just likes to lie down in the middle of the spinny floor and spin to destress. yamaguchi joins her sometimes.

there’s always a ton of people waiting at stage door, and kuroo has made it his mission to come out first and announce everyone as they leave. people play along with it and cheer for every person. some of the cast (mainly oikawa and bokuto) make it super dramatic and do massive bows as they walk out. kageyama never fails to look bewildered despite it happening every day

oikawa chills in full king gear backstage way before and way after he needs to. like half of his instagram is selfies is him in it doing dramatic poses. he’s broken the crown too many times because it fell off his head

hinata sometimes subconsciously does the My Shot dance while he’s going about his life. he can’t escape

they can be sorted into three groups: is the literal sweetest baby to their fans and is kind of shocked they even exist, adores having fans and fully expects them to exist, and the ‘i appreciate the support but pls leave me alone i want to go home’

i don’t know how to round this off but this is getting too long and its gonna keep on going because i’m listening to the soundtrack as i write. maybe there will be a part 2 one day.

[aion-rsa]

Boy Meets World’s Slasher Episode Was Scarier Than it Had Any Right To Be

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Blood-curdling screams. Taunting phone calls from a psycho killer. Creepy, ominous music with lyrics like “Here’s a knife. Here’s a gun. There’ll be fun for everyone. Death is on the menu tonight!” Elements of a forgotten ‘90s slasher classic? Nope. Just some highlights from the most memorable episode of ABC’s family sitcom Boy Meets World.

With the launch of Disney+ and ample time to get nostalgic and revisit old movies and TV shows due to the pandemic, many older millennials are diving back into Boy Meets World, which ran for seven seasons from 1993 through 2000 as a staple of ABC’s TGIF lineup. The show centered on Philadelphia teenager Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) navigating life with his best friend Shawn Hunter (Rider Strong), his love interest Topanga Lawrence (Danielle Fishel), and brother Eric (Will Friedle), while perpetually receiving life lessons from longtime teacher and eventual principal Mr. Feeny (William Daniels). 

Boy Meets World had no shortage of standout moments and episodes, like WWE wrestler Vader appearing as the father of a misunderstood school bully, a young Linda Cardellini being the girl who almost destroyed the Cory and Topanga love story for good, and Peter Tork (who briefly played Topanga’s father), Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones staging an impromptu Monkees reunion. And who could forget when Ben Savage’s famous brother Fred guest starred as a creepy college professor and was shoved through a glass door? 

But perhaps no other Boy Meets World episode made a bigger impact to impressionable young minds than the fifth season highlight “And Then There Was Shawn,” a format-breaking homage to the popular slasher films of the moment, like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer (the latter of which hit theaters just four months earlier). Serving as a metaphor for the fear and uncertainty Shawn feels over the recent breakup of Cory and Topanga, the episode is a mini-horror movie that operates in dream logic and features shocking cast deaths, zeitgeisty jokes, and a big ‘90s teen idol cameo. Many young fans were genuinely frightened by the scares conjured up in the episode, while older fans loved the campy, winking references and the change of pace storytelling.

“And Then There Was Shawn” writer Jeff Menell was typically happy to do what was asked of him on the series, but he jumped at the chance to write a horror-influenced episode. “I’m a diehard movie fan. I have been my entire life. But as a writer on set, I just did whatever I was told,” Menell said in a phone interview with Den of Geek. “I never went after anything. But I begged to write this one because I just knew I could do it.”

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The episode finds the high school-aged cast members serving detention with Mr. Feeny after a fight, springing from Cory and Topanga’s recent breakup, disrupts the class. Things quickly take a turn when the kids see a message in blood written on the chalkboard that reads “No One Gets Out Alive!” and hear a discomforting jingle with menacing lyrics playing over the high school’s PA system. Initially, the kids believe that Mr. Feeny is playing a prank on them, but things take a turn for the serious — and scary – when classmate Kenny is murdered in the dark by the masked killer wielding a pencil (prompting a very timely “You Killed Kenny!” reference). None other than Mr. Feeny himself bites the dust shortly thereafter via scissors to the back.

“You know, usually you go off for two weeks and you go write this draft and you bring it back, and then the room rewrites it. That always was the process. I wrote this one like in two days, and I had to pretend that it took longer because if you’ve written the script in two days, they assume it sucks, or that you didn’t really care or make an effort,” Menell says.

When Menell brought the initial draft to the writer’s room, however, there were minimal changes to his script. The episode’s director, Jeff McCracken, was impressed. 

“Jeff (Menell) went out and wrote his episode and when it came in it was perfect. It was an absolutely perfect flow of the script. He just nailed it.”

Emulating classic slasher film elements, McCracken had to approach the filming of “And Then There Was Shawn” differently than a typical episode. 

“It was so much fun,” McCracken says. “Because it had all these special sequences, we really had to shoot it like a film. We rehearsed for two days, then shot it for three, and then we showed it before a live audience. The film style is generally single style or two cameras, but I shot a lot of it with three to four cameras so that we wouldn’t have to do multiple retakes. You couldn’t have done the whole thing in front of a live audience because it would have taken too much time to set everything up and run through a show with an audience sitting there.”

The pencil kill is the most memorable moment from the episode, but McCracken nor Menell can take credit for it. “I remember the one gag that was not in the script, the one gag that Michael Jacobs (creator/executive producer) came up with, which was genius, was the pencil dynamic,” McCracken recalls. After classmate Kenny is shown impaled through the head with a pencil, his body slumps down the wall, leaving a lead pencil mark behind him. Cory quips, “We’ll always remember he was this tall.”

Kenny and Feeny’s deaths are bloodless, but they leave a mighty impression for a network family-friendly series. Both writer and director knew that they’d have to tread lightly if they were going to be faithful to the slasher genre (“I’m surprised they let us have Feeny with (scissors) in his back, to tell you the truth,” Menell says) but they both made a concerted effort to surround the kills with humor. 

“We had to make it funny,” McCracken says.” I mean, you put (scissors) in someone’s back, it can be very disturbing for a young audience. You can’t traumatize them. We did it with some sense of humor and it wasn’t so graphic.”

Part of the humor was derived from the very specific references made in the episode. Like Scream standout character Randy, Shawn makes meta references to the rules of the horror genre, telling his friends that virgins are the only ones who are safe. Eric says, “I’m dead,” Jack says, “I’m dead,” and Shawn says, “I’ll get as sick as you can without dying.” 

This slightly scandalous joke wasn’t anything new for the series, but the violent nature of the episode led to “And Then There Was Shawn” receiving the show’s first TV-PG-V rating. According to Menell, Michael Jacobs had a way of pushing the boundaries with network executives. “He got away with a lot more stuff than most people because he could really browbeat some network executives at times to get what he wanted.”

One major addition to the cast for “And Then There Was Shawn” probably helped Jacobs catch the network in the right mood. Jennifer Love Hewitt, coming off Party of Five and at the height of her scream queen powers, guest stars as new John Adams High student Jennifer Love Fefferman. Hewitt at the time was dating Will Friedle and it’s believed their relationship inspired her cameo. 

“We maybe asked him to ask her, because obviously she was in I Know What You Did Last Summer, so having her there just adds horror film credibility to it,” Menell says. “She was great. She was such a great sport, and it was fun having her on.”

McCracken concurs: “It was such a pleasure. It was one of those things that you don’t know how a major star walking in on your set, how they’re going to be, what their demands are going to be, what their personality is going to be like, what their disposition for the script’s going to be like, and she just came in full guns blazing and just had a blast and that made everything just wonderful. She was game for anything.”

One thing that Hewitt was game for was a big makeout scene with Friedle’s Eric, that may or may not have been improvised. “I don’t think we wrote that in, I think they just wanted to do it and we let it,” Menell laughs.

Amongst all of the horror homage fun, the episode ends with Shawn removing the killer’s mask to find himself starring back, having gone through this whole slasher bit just to get his friends back together. It’s quite the philosophical ending for a show primarily aimed at tweens and teens. 

“When it did get serious with Shawn at the end, it was more poignant than it was scary and it was also a great reveal that it was him,” McCracken says. “It was metaphorical in the sense that that component of Shawn is in us all and it’s always lurking and it’s always out there. And so, be vigilant.”

The Jeffs knew that they had a special episode on their hands with “And Then There Was Shawn,” but who could have guessed the episode would have this sort of longevity 22 years later?

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“We got a few letters from people that were so scared, couldn’t believe we would kill Feeny. And we got some people that were upset,” Menell says. “But we had no idea until years later when the internet came on how popular that episode became. We did some crossovers, some time flashbacks, and some other really cool episodes, but this was a show that was nothing like any other episode we had aired or would air. It was probably the most fun … it’s certainly the most scary.”

The post Boy Meets World’s Slasher Episode Was Scarier Than it Had Any Right To Be appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[buzzdixonwriter]

Our Regularly Scheduled Program Vs Binge Watching

Every now and then the little light comes on and I grasp an insight into something that previously stared me in my oblivious face.

I was watching episodes of a popular sit-com* from 35 years ago, not a huge hit but certainly a cult favorite popular enough to stay available on recorded media and now streaming.

Not having seen it in well over two decades, I plopped down and started watching episodes back to back.

I got tired by ep. three.

The problem, I realized, lay in how the material was originally presented.

It used to be we’d have to wait every week for a show to come back at its appointed time, and present us with whatever shenanigans the characters got themselves into that week.

Most episodes were standalones, there was little forward progress in the stories and the tiny bit that did exist was mostly in the backstory, not the main plot.

Every week they gave us the same thing, only slightly different.

Mind you, I can appreciate the diametrically opposed tension facing shows of that era -- I wrote and story edited for TV at that time.

The audience wants the same thing they liked the last time…

…only different.

With daily shows like G.I. Joe and Transformers and Jem, trying to come up with something new enough not to be a dull repeat but not so different to alienate the audience was a challenge.

Luckily, the Sunbow series were awash in Joes and Autobots and pop stars and Little Ponies, so we could always find some underused character to build a novel story around, or to add a fresh twist to our old standards.

But even there, I don’t think one can binge watch too many at a time without feeling a certain sense of sameness.

Modern streaming series take that into consideration, but for me that works against them:  I like my stories done in one.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

I’ll watch a 3 hour epic movie without qualm, but I start balking at 7 - 13 - 26 episode story arcs.

I loved season one of Daredevil, never watched season two.

I loved season one of Luke Cage, never watched season two.

I hear people telling me how great The Mandalorian is and I believe them 100%.

No desire to watch it, however (though this may be more the fault of seeing too many Star Wars features films).

Likewise zero interest in any new Star Trek, or for that matter any of the various Star Trek imitators out there.

One and done ripoffs / parodies excepted, of course.

I have the same problem with old movie serials, a genre and format I adore.

Nowadays I tend to watch serials by viewing the first three and last two chapters.

Everything in between tends to be padding.

The Sopranos seemed to be the exception, but then the show lost Nancy Marchand, who played Mama Soprano, and with it the entire raison d’etre of the series.

I clung with it for several seasons past that before abandoning it long before the final blackout.

The Venture Bros. still grabs my attention, but like the Sunbow shows it has a large enough cast to give it the needed flexibility to keep the stories varied yet part of the same universe as well.

It’s reportedly coming to an end with season eight, and to that I say good:  Better to go out at the top of your game than jump the shark and flounder.

. . .

Modern audiences -- at least modern audiences with cable / satellite / Internet access --  no longer have the tacit sense of an appointed time and often and appointed place to enjoy media.

Prior to the electronic age, few people could be entertained whenever they wished unless they or a family member sang or played music or read aloud or told stories.

There were kings and nobles who kept musicians on tap and theatrical companies close at hand but even they were constrained by time and space.

Today’s audience can just whip out a phone and listen / watch / read whatever they want.

As a result, the sense of being an audience seems vanish.

An audience used to be those who came to a performance of some kind, even if it meant simply showing up in their own living room on Tuesday at 8:30pm (5:30 Pacific) to listen to Fibber McGee and Molly.

Even in one’s home, it meant setting aside a time to come in and listen or watch as a production presented its entertainment.

One may or may not like what one experienced, but the audience placed itself at the disposal of the program.

Transistors started changing that.

Transistors made small cheap radios easily affordable and eminently portable.  

People could take their listening pleasure with them, and that marked the rise of recorded popular music programs instead of live scripted broadcasts.

It proved the first technological step in a long line of dominoes that completely upended the relationship of audience to entertainment.

The audience used to come and absorb patiently.

Now the entertainment needs to break through a thousand and one distractions.

It does so by escalating the sensationalism -- and by sensationalism I mean anything that’s designed to grab an audience’s immediate attention, no matter how well or thoughtfully executed.

It undercuts the lower key / slice of life popular entertainment audiences enjoyed generations ago.

(And, yes, Shakespeare & co. are filled with blood and thunder tales, but again, those were things one committed oneself to experiencing as the performers intended; audiences didn’t walk out en masse and go to a neighboring theater in mid-performance.)

. . . 

The problem with ongoing stories is this:  At any point they can be upended by fiat, negating all that’s come before.

Go ask a comic book fan how many times DC has destroyed the universe.

My reluctance to enjoy open ended fiction is that I like being able to mull over a story once it is completed, teasing out the full measure and meaning of what I’ve just experienced.

I’ll risk a program like The Queen’s Gambit because I know it’s a limited series withn a finite ending.

I wouldn’t watch an open ended series based on Walter Tevis’ book.

My career as a writer and an editor enables me to see the gears turning behind the scenes in a story.

More often than not I’m already several plot beats ahead of any movie or TV episode I’m watching.

I bailed on a highly recommended current program recently just halfway through the first episode.

I got the joke.

I knew where it was going.

Nothing about it enticed me to keep following.

The classic sit-com mentioned above wore thin because it was the same damn joke every time.

It’s a funny joke, mind you.

And when seen the way originally intended, I’d have a week to forget about the details of the previous episode, to be hungry of that particular brand of humor for a bit, and be willing to take a repeat of material a week later.

But back-to-back-to-back?

No.

Legendary writer / producer Stephen Cannel sold the first story he ever pitched to a detective series called Ironside w-a-a-a-y back in 1971.

Cannel began his pitch thusly:  “One morning Ironside wakes up with the worst toothache he’s ever had in his life…”

And instantly everyone in the pitch session paid rapt attention.

Why?

Because they knew that whatever came next, it wasn’t going to be something they’d heard a thousand times before.

I’d rather have one simple thing that grabs me than a million and one fireworks attempting to get my attention.

And I’d rather experience that one thing and be able to process it rather than see another installment that undoes everything set before.

. . .

As I’ve posted elsewhere, there’s a place for comfort food TV.

My wife and I enjoy Emily In Paris.

It reminds us of our trips to France and the stories and characters are just interesting enough to be amusing but not so demanding as to require full attention.

Nothing wrong with comfort food TV.

But the real nutrition is found elsewhere.

And for me, this applies to all modes of art and entertainment.

    © Buzz Dixon

  * No, I’m not going to tell you the title.The point of this post isn’t the particular show, it’s the manner in which televised stories are told now as opposed to how they were told the

[fanficsrusz]

Love Rekindled - Keanu Reeves Oneshot

A/n: not one of my best works but this was requested anon. I wrote it on my lunch break instead of doing the work i needed to do 😅 oops. Oh well please enjoy. 😊

__________

The year was 1991 and y/n was a 16 year old up and coming moving star. Women wanted to be her and men wanted to be with her. She was beautiful to say the least with her y/e/c eyes and y/h/c hair that framed her face perfectly.

 All of this had happened in the space of a year. One measly year. 

This time last year she was just a shop assistant in a clothing store and then one day a casting agent came in saying how she was "the perfect fit" for a new film she was casting for called 'point break'

At first she thought that the woman was playing an elaborate prank on her and that there would be no way anyone would want her in a film. She thought it was no more than just a scam and so she turned the agent down. She left but not before giving y/n her card with her name and phone number on.

Returning home that night she couldn't get the woman out of her mind and looked her up. To her shock, she was a real casting agent and point break was an actual film. Y/n sat on her bed for hours contemplating what she should do and after talking with her mum, she decided to give the agent a call. That was the day her life changed forever. 

On the set of the movie she had met her co stars. But one stood out to her the most. Keanu Reeves. he was handsome, kind, funny and she fell for him instantly. She thought  that someone like him would date someone like her. Not only that but there was still a bit of an age difference between them so Instead she just made friends, dismissing any feelings she might have for the man. 

However, she was pleasantly surprised when one day keanu had asked her out and that's when the celebrity romance blossomed. The two went everywhere together and it was evident that they were truly in love. They were big news, their pictures were on practically every magazine available, even when they did interviews, a question about their relationship would pop up. 

But that all changed 3 years later when a woman claimed that she had slept with keanu when he went on a small trip somewhere. It broke y/n's heart and she didn't know what to do. The worst thing about it was that keanu denied it but for some reason y/n couldn't bring herself to believe him. She knew that the whole relationship was too good to be true. 

It seemed like the whole world had an opinion on what she should do. 'I think y/n and keanu should split' 'no they should stay together' 'y/n would be an idiot if she left keanu. She's nothing without him'. The comments came daily and she just wanted to disappear and so she decided to split from the man, going her own way. They were both devastated but what could they have done. 

28 years later

Y/n sat in her agents office and looked down at the script. "you've been contemplating doing this film for 3 weeks now. it's a great film y/n you should do it" her agent moaned handing her a bottle of water. Y/n looked at the script and she smiled. It had been a while since she had a script that excited her, but she still liked to be sure it was a film she really wanted to do. Never before had a character fitted her so well and so she made up her mind. 

She sighed before leaning forward, placing the script on the table "sure. What the hell" she smiled "yeah that's the y/n i know" her agent laughed as she stood up, making her way over to the actress. "ok so you need to be at the table reading in two days in New York. I'll book your flight for you and arrange everything. All you need to do is turn up and learn your lines" she began to usher y/n to the door, barely giving her time to gather her bag and script. 

Y/n smiled to herself as she made her way out of the agency and towards her home. 

As she walked down the street, her mind wandered. As much as she loved acting, it was tiring with all the travelling and box offices. What would she be doing right now if she never accept that acting job all those years ago. She shook her head and was brought back to reality when a camera flashed in her face and paparazzi surrounded her. She tried her best to smile and answer a few questions that were shouted at her. 

As she pushed past the last few people, a guy stepped in front of her shoving a mic in her face. "IS IT TRUE YOU JUST ACCEPTED A ROLE IN THE SAME FILM THAT KEANU REEVES IS IN? ARE YOU TWO DATING AGAIN??" the man shouted over the noise of the other reporters and it caught y/n off guard. how on earth could he even know that. I literally just accepted it' she thought to herself. She pushed past him and rushed into her apartment complex, relieved that she was away from the paparazzi. 

She couldn't deny the fact that she missed keanu but that was so long ago and what would be the chances of her having the chance to be in a film with him again? 

The reporters words lingered in her mind for the rest of the night, she half wanted the reporter to be right that he was in the film with her and half wanted him to be wrong. She sat on her sofa watching some film, trying to forget about keanu but as much as she wanted to forget about the incident earlier she couldn't. She leaned forward and eyed her phone that laid next to her. She bite her lip contemplating if she wanted to find out if he would be in the film with her.

 "fuck it" she mumbled to herself after several minutes of deciding. She called her agents and soon her cheery voice could be heard through the other end. 

"y/n? Why are you calling me?" y/n was hesitant at first but soon asked the important question. "is keanu reeves my co-star?" her agent was silent before y/n heard her sigh. "yes he is. But the job offer is too good to turn down" there was silence for a few seconds. "do you still want to do the film?" y/n fell back onto the sofa and thought for a second "of course i do" "great. I'll see you in two days on your flight". Y/n hung up after saying a quick goodbye and closed her eyes. "Why God" she moaned, closing her eyes, slightly regretting accepting the job offer. However deep down, she was excited to see her long lost lover. 

___

Y/n pulled her suitcase over to the waiting area in the airport. Her plane would leave in 2 hours and all she wanted to do was sleep. She wore a simple white blouse with some skinny blue jeans. Her outfit was simple yet classy. She moved her hair over her shoulders and got comfy as her anxiety began to quick in. After so many years of being a celebrity and flying to different countries, anyone would have thought she had gotten over her fear of flying, but nope she still hated it. 

She popped in an earphone and began to listen to some music as a last attempt to calm her nerves. 

Within an hour her gate had been opened and she was able to board the plane. She walked slowly in line and waited for her turn. As she crossed her arms, she could sense someone behind her. at first she thought nothing of it, but then she heard it. His deep, soothing voice that called out to her. "y/n long time no see" she froze in spot before turning around slowly. She looked up the man in front of her. Keanu stood there, slight stubble and long hair made him look godly and his simple outfit of jeans and a shirt was a dream come true. She wanted to cry and run but she also wanted to hug him, missing how he used to make her feel. She pushed her emotions down and chose to remain professional. She smiled sweetly "keanu. It's nice to see you again". She envied the way he managed to look so calm, imaging that she looked like a sweaty mess. Keanu smiled and pulled her into an unexpected hug. "you still look as young as the day we first met" he laughed and y/n just smiled "good genes I guess" she tried to hide the blush that spread across her cheeks. she hated the way he made her feel like the 16 year old girl that met him all those years ago. Who was she kidding, she still loved the man for God's sake. 

Keanu smirked at the woman's nervousness and pointed behind her. "I think it's time for us to board". She tried to compose herself as she walked on the plane, quickly finding her seat next to the window. How was she going to cope with filming a whole entire film with him when she could barely deal with talking to him for two minutes.

Y/n closed her eyes and relaxed into her seat, hoping no one would sit next to her, but her dreams were soon short lived when she felt the pressure of someone next to her.

Opening her eyes, y/n groaned as she looked to see keanu smiling at her. "what are you doing?" she whispered and keanu began to rummage through his bad. "I swapped with someone. I thought it would be nice if we could…. Get to know each other again" he pulled a small bag of mints out of his bag and offered one to her. She looked at him confused and he turned to her. "you told me they helped you relax on flights".

Y/n was taken back by his words and she blinked a few times before replying. "keanu i told you that 20 years ago". It was keanus turn to blush and he looked down. "what can i say. I have a good memory. '' Y/n smiled at the idea that keanu had remembered such a minuscule thing about her and even more at the fact that he had taken his time to actually go and buy the sweets for her. "thank you" she smiled and took one of the sweets from him, popping it in her mouth as the air stewardess began to explain the emergency protocols and within minutes, the plane was moving. 

Y/n gripped onto the armrest tightly, her knuckles turning white. Keanu notice and so turned to her, his face softened as he took in y/n's face. Her skin was still smooth, her eyes had life in them and she still looked beautiful. Well, despite the fact that she was terrified. "you're still the same" he hummed as he placed a hand on top of hers, feeling how she instantly relaxed under his touch. "how can you not be freaking out when we're thousands of meters up in the air and could crash at any second" she whispered trying to keep her cool "the plane is not going to crash" he sat back  and crossed his legs. Y/n turned to him "and what? You've seen the future? The hell do you know what's going to happen" sarcasm dripped from her tongue and she sounded rude, she didn't mean for it to come across that way, it just happened. She leant back and watched as keanu raised his eyebrow. "sorry" she whispered, regretting how she just snapped at him. She was terrified after all. "don't be sorry. It's like we never stopped talking. I kinda missed it". He spoke so suddenly and y/n didn't know how to respond. Instead she just turned to look out the window, all fear leaving her body and instead she was to busy thinking about keanus words. They excited her as well as scared her, more than death ever could. 

After the long flight, the plane arrived at its destination and y/n practically ran off the plane. She was relieved to be out of the death trap and back on land. She forgot all about keanu and sped walked to baggage claim and towards the exit. After what felt like forever, she was hailing a cab and would soon be heading to her hotel. 

"where to miss?" the cab driver ask "the royal blue ho-" y/n was cut off by the door opposite her opening and keanu slid in. "what the hell are you doing?" she asked and the cab driver just watched in the rear view mirror. Keanu shrugged and turned to the driver "royal blue hotel please". The cab driver nodded and pulled out. Y/n turned to keanu and stared at him. "care to explain?" she stared at him, trying to seem angry but not being able to restrain the small smile on her face. "we're staying at the same hotel. What's the issue?" he laughed and y/n faked annoyance once again. "how do you know what hotel im staying at?" keanu pulled out his phone before speaking. "it's not that hard when fanpages know EVERYTHING about you and i mean everything. Apparently they even know your bra size" keani laughed and y/n sat in shock'' I hate you" she hissed and turned to the window, watching as people and buildings flew past. 

The car ride to the hotel was mostly quiet after that and they were soon at the reception desk. Y/n pushed past keanu and spoke to the receptionist. "room for miss y/l/n" she spoke sweetly and the women typed on the computer before looking back up at her with a small frown. "im sorry miss y/l/n, there was an issue with your reservation. Your room has been double booked. Let me fix it for you" y/n was annoyed at this point, wanting nothing more than to have a nice long hot bath and get into bed. "im sorry, there are no available rooms here. If you want I ca -" the woman was cut off by keanu pushing y/n aside and standing in her place. "there's no need for that. She can share with me. Mr reeves" keanu smirked at y/n and the receptionist nodded, handing him the room key. 

Y/n's mouth hung open and stood there for a second not knowing what to do. Keanu pulled her arm towards the lift and she pulled away from him. "why did you do that? Do you have any idea what will happen if a reporter found out about this" she held her head in her hands, going through all the scenarios in her head and keanu just laughed as he pressed the floor number for their room. "y/n relax. No one will know" he reassured her. 

If she was honest that was not what she was most scared of. She was really scared of the fact of facing the harsh reality of coming to terms that she still loved keanu. 

Pushing open the hotel door. Y/n dragged her suitcase to the double bed and placed it on top of it, unpacking a few items. "you can have the bed if you want, I can take the couch" keanus voice said to her calmly. Y/n snorted "and what have you moan in the morning that your old man body hurts. No thank you. We can just sleep head to toe" 

When she turned around, she jumped to see keanu stood only a few meters from her, his hand was extended towards her offering her a glass of whisky in hand. She looked at it momentarily before accepting it, she needed a good drink in order to calm her nerves. 

She walked away from him and towards the balcony doors, throwing them open unable to stand the heat in the bedroom. 

Keanu followed behind her and leaned over the railings as he looked down. 

"you know i never really got over you" he said it so boldly and with ease, y/n couldn't believe her ears. "what." she asked and keanu moved closer to her, trapping her between the railings and his body. "you heard me. When you broke up with me all those years ago. I never got over it. You do realise that girl lied about sleeping with me?" y/n stood their stunned and all the memories of the pain came back and it felt like she was stabbed in the heart. "how was i supposed to know?" she looked down and he laughed. "do you really want to know what i was doing the night I apparently slept with her?" y/n looked into his eyes and nodded. Keanu stared deep into her eyes lovingly before saying his next words. "i was visiting your father. I asked him for his permission to marry you" he sounded defeated and y/ns heart broke. "if that's the case then why didn't he tell me? Why didn't you tell me? " keanu looked away from her "i don't know why but i thought it was the best thing to do so I made him promise me not to tell you. To keep you happy. I thought that it might be better for you in the long run. You had your whole life in front of you and I didn't want to ruin it. Looking back at it now it makes no sense" they both laughed. "keanu" she called and he turned to her as she grabbed his face, pulling him in close. She closed her eyes and kissed him, she felt his chest push against hers as his arms wrapped around her waist. Y/n pulled back first and looked at him before smiling. "you are a complete and utter idiot do you know that. Do you have any idea how much i love you. Why didn't you tell me the truth? I would have believed you then. We could have been married with kids by now" keanu shrugged and moved to kiss her again. "well how about we start again now? Just me and you. Let's postpone the filming and go out together. Explore the city a little" y/n smiled, agreeing to the idea immediately. "i would like the keanu". The pair kissed again before being interrupted by a loud commotion on the pavement below. The two pulled away and looked down, watching as flashing lights from cameras blinded them. "well, looks like we don't have to announce anything" keanu joked and y/n slapped his chest. She was happy that she had finally gotten a second chance of experiencing true love all over again.

The end

________

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@gwenebear

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[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 41

Spoilers, obv.

After last issue's formalism, this one just accelerates. And, as everything in this arc, everything is a big beat. If everything is a big beat, how do you choose what to spend your space on? What beats really matter? How do you pace it? What can be a grace note and what's a scene? That's what this issue, and the rest of the arc, tends to be about.

This issue has gone down very well. I'll admit that while I absolutely gasped when I got paged in, I suspect it's going to be least favourite of the whole arc. That more says how much I enjoy the rest of the arc. Also, as a friend put it to me, I may be allergic to making people happy.

Let’s get on with this.

Jamie and Matt's cover:

There is, to some degree, a "Who hasn't had a headshot cover?" to this arc. As such, Mimir finally gets his. This is a glorious one – the pinks and blues, work really well, and the circuitboards frame it well. Obviously, Mimir plays a big role in this issue, so it is thematic. As is…

Paulina's cover

I just love Paulina's covers, as her being the regular alt-cover artist on Thunderbolt should imply. This made me want to immediately pitch a kick-ass pop D&D bard comic to someone, Xena Warrior Princess as produced by Xenomania. The names of the swords are the chef-kiss, but there's so much to love. The expression is everything.

Page 1

One page scene, with a modified nine panel grid. The one page scene is something that happens a lot this arc. I did a two-page version, but with the right seven panels, we're sorted. Yes, this is all we see of the de facto antagonists of the series this issue – when last issue was all about them, it doesn't worry me too much.

Page 2

Standard music journalist concept. That the second album tends to be worst than the first. Hard to prove, though my old friend Peter's note that "you have your whole life preparing for your first album and have a year to do your second" does seem to imply an easy explanation.

Page 3-4-5

Stealth mission! It's Metal Gear WicDiv!

We actually forgot to add the flashes to the first panel until the very last minute. Monthly Comics is a hell of a time sometimes, stress the “hell.”

I love the determination of Laura in the second panel of 3. That's great eyes.

Looking at this now, that "I can't do much now" is in a panel smaller than 1/9th of the page says a lot about the scale she's working on. The background was Matt in full trippy mode – I had a friend note that this scene is a little akin to Kohl in Rue Britannia 5 (The difference being Kohl is using nostalgia for a performance, while Laura is just doing a performance) but the moving squiggle does remind me the use of optical illusions in Phonogram 3. Bugs in the optic nerve are our friend.

Panel 3 on 4 is obviously Clayton living large and conquering. When you ask for something like "Can you sample the background and use as a speech balloon" you have no idea if it's going to work.

We could have divided the middle panel into two, but I suspect it'd have been less effective. We've seen the trick before. Now we see the same trick, but different. Mix it up. We're performers.

Hmm. I realise the Norns string of balloons is something I'm doing more often now – it's not something I've always done. I'm normally a one-panel-one-emotion, which strings of dialogue rarely allow (as, if there’s any change of emotion inside the string, the image is rendered ludicrous). In a middle shot, and a strong emotional throughline with the dialogue and I'm more okay with it.

While this whole three pages is an action sequence, it's also exposition for Laura's current state. The best exposition is demonstration, I guess.

I mean, the last panel of page 5? That's how cut to the bone we are. Problem? Solve it. Problem? Solve it. We don't need to fuck around anymore.

Page 6-7-8

And after six whole trades, the reunion between Lucifer and Laura. I suspect a different writer would have played this bigger and more melodramatic, but when the reader knows this, a splash feels overkill, especially with the taut pacing of the rest of the issue. However... there are five panels here. That's a page's worth of content, and enough to give an emotional throughline.

Sometimes when writing it's all about trying to find an honest response which is also unexpected. Like, in life, you think you'll feel sad or happy at certain times, but when you live through it, you don't. Or you don't entirely. What other stuff is happening? That's what rings true to me.

Anyway – that's where Laura's Guilt comes from. Laura at her most Dionysus.

And then Lucifer shatters all that self pity with the wink. Did you miss me? Of course, you did.

Page 7, panel 4 is one of those "a comic panel is not a moment in time" bits of magic McLeod always talks about. As in, as we read across the panel time progresses. The Mimir/Cass conversation is getting on for... 10 seconds, maybe? The teleport signatures do not take that long to appear. It's only with Laura's interruption that panel kicks into high gear.

As Multiversity noted you can easily imagine another draft of this with a bigger fight scene. And it's true – but also lying around was a version which cuts it even shorter. Do we need to really give a whole page to Cass breaking out? I felt so. Without the big beat, it feels flat. And it's good to see Cass let rip.

The slight angle on Jamie's external shot with a Norns black/white plus golden thread from Matt is really interesting. We don't often see the Norns as combatants in WicDiv, so this is a rare chance to give Cass a "Hello, I am a bad ass too, in case you've forgotten."

Page 9-10-11-12

Cripes. Going this and making notes I can't believe how tightly we're winding this and (more so) getting away from it. We did all this in four pages?

Two panels to the escape – the right image and a handful of taut captions to hold you between scenes. The first is doing a lot of work, but the second is just elegant. What do you need but the broken doors? Great stuff by Jamie here.

(Laura's captions do a lot of work here in setting up the themes, and the return of Sakhmet's memory to the story)

If you're wondering "How on earth could we get the escape be quicker, it's to take the first two panels on page 8 and move to the previous page. That makes it a five panel page, which is entirely do-able. That's a cost, but it would have bought slightly more space in this scene. As it is, I preferred to cut mid-page and end with Lucifer's first spoken lines in ages.

Once more, a big reveal in a small panel. Chrissy's note on the script was basically hearts for Luci at this point. Like, the second she cuts to the chase and tell s people what to do...

...and then the page turn, and she just goes full Lucifer. I know you lot have missed her, but I have too.

Getting back to Inanna was also easy, the sweetheart... but it all leads back to Sakhmet. That Mothering Invention was as tight as it was didn't leave much room for Laura to think about Sakhmet, or mourn at all... or, most of all, make it clear the story (and Laura) considers her loss important and real. It's an awful sad panel at the end of the page.

Inanna's voice was easy to find again. He's such a sweetheart. Tara is a little harder, just as I wrote her less, but I've been fascinated by this arc in terms of writing her as an actual character. I think one of the ironies of issue 13 was that it put Tara on a pedestal, and the pedestal is an objectifying as any other cage. Getting her back as a character is wonderful, and she gets to be as messy and flawed as everyone else.

Inanna not knowing ANY of this is hard. That's the problem with most of this arc – there is so much information flying around, and secrets some (but not all) are aware of. Who gets to respond to what and when? What to remind people of? What to let slide? Inanna not knowing about Baal is so huge it had to be hit and hit hard.

And then... the bodies.

When plotting this and trying to work out how I could get the cast – oh god, this is not a deliberate pun, but it's also clearly a pun - back on their feet, I was thinking of the Morrigan Gambit. Three heads, three bodies. Perfect. Then I remembered Mimir, and swore. I started to think about how that would be a tense, dramatic situation and how the personal politics could play out and I realised that Tara would just turn it down. I then realised that's exactly how the scene would work too.

(In a "tightness" thing, I suspect in another world, this scene would have been two pages. The "and Tara then just butts in" is the key thing, but you could get the timing a little more intricate to sell the moment more – still, even in this page, I could have extended it more, but seeing Tara's elaboration and everyone else's response to it was just key work for them all.)

In passing – Mimir's glowing in the dark in the penultimate panel just wonderful. Nice work Jamie and Matt.

Page 13

From the Sisters of Mercy's song, Marian.

Page 14-15-16-17

Here's where you talk about spending space. What's important here? You need the scale to show what Baph has been doing – and Jamie turns it into something astoundingly gothic. The use of blacks, the use of light and shade. Just the right level of suggestive. It’s one of my favourite bits of composition in the issue.

As the pantheon are getting back together, this leads to an increase in crowd scenes, which are the eternal artist killer. As such, I'm looking for solutions which only involve the absolute minimum of the cast in a scene.

Thee was an awful moment earlier in the issue when I went – wait! Do I have too many heads to carry? Then I realised I was fine. That said, finding places to put them down so we can have chat scenes was also somewhat tricky. The shelf turning up on page 15 is an example. Clealry Baph planned to (er) have a place to keep heads.

Well, I say, Baph, but it's clearly Nergal now. The road from early Nick Cave to late Nick Cave has been a long way. It's a great shot.

To go back to the space, why spend it on this? We’re reintroducing Nergal and Morrigan, and we’re also showing the scale of them in the plot, and the actions of Nergal. Where we go with the bodies is such a big beat, it needs to come from something similarly large. That’s also the reason why so much (relative in the issue) space is spent on the Morrigan/Nergal scenes. Of course, it’s also a key scene for this subplot, so demands space for that. It’s rarely just one reason. Probably a useful time for my usual “these notes are only ever a selection of thoughts.”

This is also a serious pose panel by Jamie.

The “I could bring her back.” He’s an underworld god too. If she could do it, he could. This is something which I suspect some people thought implicit in the old scene, but the final manipulation of Morrigan is unpacked at length in the nine panel grids.

Nine panel grids are a natural rhythm for this – when I was planning the later bit the triple-goddess of it made obvious sense, so it expanded to the whole scene. Also, the cropped image reduces the possibility of a Jamie crowd scene.

I always thought that, given the amount of time the various characters get on film, Ladyhawke could more accurately be called Blokeywolf. I digress.

Page 18-19-20

As said earlier, the triple-goddess to nine panel grid is one of those natural ways to give a stress to each of the elements. You’ll notice the clicks are left then right then centre. I’d originally written it as left to right, before – after Chrissy’s Editorial urging – rewrote to end with the Macha section to go last. Gentle Annie may have been the kinder part of Morrigan, but Macha was the part he mostly dated.

Then, in a moment of weirdness, Jamie actually drew it in the original order, despite never having seen that script. Morrigan has powers, as does the logical necessity of a left to right panelling order. As a nine panel grid, just moving panels around to fix it is easy. Hail grids!

Like most of the big acts of magic, it’s all about emotional sense than anything else. Hence, it is inevitable as Nergal actually does this, the bleak temple he’s constructed starts to crumble. And, in perhaps the most ludicrous bit of me in the comic, The Temple Of Love Is Falling Down. Too much is the bare minimum.

Jamie’s triple-portrait of the Morrigan is pretty startling. I have no idea if Jamie will miss drawing Badb’s hair, but I’ll miss seeing it.

Re-reading this now I’m struck by how low-key it is. That was always part of WicDiv’s magic – the finger click, and then things happening. The Morrigan transformation was usually drawn to be instantaneous – one panel Macha, the next Badb and so on. This kind of keeps to that.

And then… the reveal. That the new bodies isn’t a splash page says everything about this issue, but it still gets the punching the air moment. We had to have one of those eventually. Lucifer in a black suit is one of the things I’ve been waiting as long to see as Nergal in his. I giggled with glee at seeing this. Jamie’s worked in elements of the Morrigan into each of the gods – Lucifer’s red hair is the most obvious one, but Gentle Annie in Inanna and Macha in Mimir also have their notes. Inanna’s netting top is the main one – and note the shapes on Mimir’s armour changing to mimic Macha’s.

Yes, writing Lucifer remains fun and easy. I recommend it to everyone.

Page 21-22

In terms of seeing chat, people responding to the small details in the issue is one of the bigger joys. That Jamie got the Inanna/Nergal hug in the background of this exchange between Laura/Lucifer/Cass is absolutely wonderful. Laura and Cass have come a long way.

This is arguably a small cliffhanger – the smallest of this arc, at least. However, it sits on the weight of the rest of the run. We’re promising a solution to one of the larger mysteries in the run, and I suspect we get by on that. Note how space is used – this is a dense panel layout, but we go to a thired of a page for Laura’s “I know how to end this” (so giving it weight” and then going to three panel page for the conclusion (which adds weight to each of these beats.) Jamie takes the framing to tight on Cass for the beat as well to sell it. Note Matt with the Norn-colouring creeping in – and how it goes from the fires in the first panel to this is just a joy.

Page 23

Interstitial, and obvious reference to the Jay-Z record, but everyone is just excitedly clapping over the adding stuff to the godwheel. Sergio outdid himself here. It’s certainly an example of how you can have storytelling and even hero-shot audience-cheers beats out of things entirely unlike a traditional comics panel. After all these issue,s we get to see something added to the godwheel. Of course people cheer. That said,  as I said to a friend, “Of all the things I’ve found to torture the WicDiv readership, hope is the cruelest of all.”

EDIT: Actually, I messed up here - Jamie did the tweaks. Nice work Jamie!

And that’s it. Next up – 42, wherein questions are answered. In passing – the letters we’ve been getting are amazing. I’m going to try and cram as many as I can in the issues to come, but issue 44 will be our last one with a letters page. So that’s a timelimit if you wanna try and get in. It’s wicdiv@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading.

[schmergo]

Okay, here is my full review of Richard III at the Shakespeare Theatre Company! As you proooobably know, Richard III is one of my favorite plays. I’ve seen five professional productions and directed one community production and one staged reading, as well as writing an entire novel-length story based on it. For seven years, I’ve checked my email when the STC season announcement came out, hoping to see Richard III, and when it finally happened this year, I actually began to cry.

So needless to say, my love for this material may make me both unreliably lenient AND overly critical of any production I see. On one hand, I’m always thrilled to see Richard III and my love of the text mitigates many issues I may have with the director’s and actors’ choices. On the other hand, I’m so familiar with the script— of a play so long that it’s almost impossible to perform uncut— that I have really strong ideas about which moments *I* think are crucial and which themes should stand out. They’re never gonna do a version that keeps in ALL of my favorite lines.

Would I recommend STC’s production? Yes, I would, especially to people who are less than familiar with the play. It keeps the story and characters as clear as possible and moves at a quick, crisp pace full of action and intrigue. There’s never a dull moment. But would I say I loved the production? I can’t quite go that far.

If you’re not familiar with this play, Richard III takes place in the aftermath of a massive civil war. A veteran of the wars whose ruthlessness was handy in battle, Richard is the youngest brother of the king and is restless during peacetime. So he hatches a plan to climb to the throne- no matter how many family members he must kill and friends he must betray to get there.

David Muse’s stark aesthetic for the play may seem weird at first, but it definitely kept things interesting. The stained, off-white, instutitional-looking box of a set was inspired by an abandoned morgue- a concept they took very literally with body lockers, gurneys, and creepy machines full of fluids and tubes. The blank expanse at the top of the set was handily used to project text- whether backstory at the beginning of the play or the names of each major character as they enter the scene- accompanied by bursts of hard rock music. I’ve never seen a play as devoted to making sure the audience keeps names and relationships straight.

Costumes are modern and generally in shades of greys (with brilliant white for the royal York family- I particularly loved Queen Elizabeth’s white gown), but with some gorgeously surreal twists. Richard wears armorlike bracing to support his body, with heavy corsetry, neck brace, leg and arm brace, and a matching cane. This exoskeleton operates as an extension of himself- his strength and physicality never seems very limited when fully clad, and he does cut a strong, powerful figure. Once he becomes king, the bracing doubles as a fashion statement as he dons a glittering gold corset to match his crown while other members of court wear stylish corsets and neck bracing that call to mind Elizabethan fashions popular at the time Shakespeare wrote the play.

In a notable scene near the end, though, Richard’s servant removes his bracing so he can sleep before the battle of Bosworth Field, and we see this indefatigable bulldozer of a man helpless and in pain for the first time in the play. It’s powerfully done and makes the audience realize this is how Richard always sees himself.

I was sitting near the very back of the house, which may color my impressions of the show (I plan to see it again in two weeks from the front row to see if I change my mind), but my overall assessment is that this is a show that paid so much directorial attention to staging, aesthetic, theme, and visual excitement that it left a lot of individual performances underdeveloped or emotionally unconvincing. Maybe it’s the sheer size of Sidney Harman Hall, which I almost think is TOO big to effectively communicate the subtleties of Shakespeare’s dramas.

The death scenes, for example, were incredible. Wow. Most of them took place offstage in the original play, but in this production, every single one is depicted with graphic originality, including onstage drowning, lethal injections, decapitations, and more. It’s brutal but thrilling. Richard’s nightmare sequence, in which the ghosts of everyone he’s killed come back to haunt him, is the best and spookiest I’ve EVER seen it done.

For the most part, though, individual performances seemed to lack a certain spark of life. Though most performers had memorable specific moments, none truly stood out to me as really exceptional performances. Across the board, the delivery style seemed slightly stilted, formal, shouty, and “Shakespeare-y,” which I not only felt didn’t fit the raw text but clashed even more weirdly with the modern rock-and-roll visual aesthetic.

Even Matthew Rauch as Richard seemed to be holding back in the first half of the play- he seemed almost cautious, formal. Richard in the first half of the play is written to be so charming and charismatic that he even brings the audience along for the ride until his terrible deeds reach a point of no return. Rauch’s Richard was the most serious I’ve seen in the first half- even his humor felt strained- and paradoxically, I found him less scary and less dangerous than other Richards because of that. When you have such brutal onstage deaths, juxtaposing them against Richard’s devilish glee in ordering said deaths really drives home how little conscience he has. Rauch has the bearing of a soldier and clearly understands Shakespeare well, but he almost faded into the background of many of his early scenes. Maybe some of this was intentional- the directors’ notes in the script emphasized the importance of the supporting roles, which overbearing Richards so often overshadow— but given that Matthew Rauch’s face is splashed all over posters for the show around town, you’d think they’d give him more opportunities for the ol’ Razzle Dazzle.

Rauch hits his stride in the second half, when Richard begins to become slightly unhinged and paranoid. With a manic energy and unpredictable temper, Richard felt fully realized and truly threatening- with moments of keen vulnerability. His confrontation scene with Queen Elizabeth (portrayed rather blandly though elegantly up to that point) felt electrifying even if I didn’t necessarily love the cut of the text. And this production dispensed with the portrayal of Richard as sexually perverted or predatory that you often see these days. Rauch’s Richard is a misogynist who sees women as disposable objects or tools to aid his rise, but he doesn’t lust after them.

Some directorial choices looked cool but were confusing or distracting, like repetitive chanting from an ensemble or the rhythmic sharpening of scalpels and snapping of leather straps every time Richard prepares to kill someone. It sets the tone but obscured the language... and not that it matters, but why DOES Richard have a large army of mad scientists in the first place?

I did appreciate the diversity of the cast, filled with performers of different ethnicities, ages, genders, and sizes. Richmond, the valiant and pious hero who ultimately defeats Richard, was a woman of color and was well cast in the role, commanding yet gentle. But the business about marrying Elizabeth’s daughter to Richmond was both mentioned once and failed to come up again at the end of the play, maybe to keep from drawing attention to the fact that there would be no Tudor dynasty with two queens on the throne? I felt they should have really leaned alll the way in and ended with Princess Elizabeth by Richmond’s side or else avoided the marriage subplot all together.

Richard’s end was also quick and anticlimactic after all of the exciting battle that had preceded it, but maybe they wanted to avoid portraying Richmond as being as brutal or ruthless as Richard. Still, they had blood-covered ghosts of Richard’s slain foes adding to the numbers of Richmond’s army. Maybe they could have taken that a step further by having the ghosts assist in finishing off Richard- after all, the historical King Richard’s body was hacked by a mob.

All in all, I felt it was definitely a play worth seeing but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by some of the elements. In particular, a lot of the funnier lines and scenes were removed from the script, as if the director wanted to keep things “Dark Knight style grim dark,” while to me, the black humor is one of the best things about the script. But the audience still laughed and reacted to the more humorous- or shocking- moments nonetheless— in fact, hearing gasps of disbelief or excitement or disgust from the audience at crucial moments was one of my favorite things about this production. Clearly, many people were seeing Richard III for the first time. And, like me, they felt it in their bones.

Richard III plays through March 10 at Sidney Harman Hall, the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

[tartantardis]

Survival of the fittest - and the light fantastic

(Rona Munro is the only writer to have created a Doctor Who story for the classic series and the 21st century revival. This interview is a hybrid, from a 2013 interview for the Daily Record's Tartan TARDIS, and from another for my current employer, Scottish Field magazine)

WHEN Doctor Who's original run on British television came to an end in 1989, the last story to be aired was written by a Scot.

But Rona Munro still doesn't take it personally, as the decision to put the series on ice had been taken long before her three-part script, Survival, was made.

Aberdonian Rona held the dubious honour of being the last Doctor Who writer on television for seven years, writing for fellow Scot Sylvester McCoy, as well as his companion Ace, played by Sophie Aldred.

Since the early 1980s, Rona Munro has been a name to watch on the Scottish arts scene.

An accomplished playwright, who has also had her worked performed on radio and television, the Aberdeenshire writer is noted for her acclaimed trilogy The James Plays, for the National Theatre of Scotland, and has collected numerous awards along the way.

Recalling her youth, Rona said: "I’d always had an interest in writing and was encouraged to do more by Angus MacVicar. I called him my uncle, but he was really a second-cousin of my mum’s. Angus was a very prolific writer, in all its forms – novels, radio dramas, TV drama, and journalism. He wrote several autobiographies, including Salt In My Porridge.

‘Angus was a wonderful mentor to me, and gave me endless encouragement. He made sure that I learned that being a writer wasn’t a case of sitting on the couch and waiting for inspiration to strike, as it was a way of living.

"I did things for the school drama group at Mackie Academy in Stonehaven, where I had two teachers who really encouraged me. One of them, Mrs Jolly, was the most amazing English teacher, and she later got my play Bold Girls to become part of the Scottish schools syllabus.

"I had this ambition, and if you get the right teacher at the right time, it makes the world of difference to you.’

At university, she graduated with a degree in Medieval European History.

But, she said: "When I left university, I didn’t get a proper job because I thought if I did that, I’d never make it as a writer. You see people who get used to the 9-5 and a proper income, so I thought I’d just keep trying to make the writing work.

"I was working as a cleaner and was with the Edinburgh Playwrights’ Workshop, who did public readings of new plays.

"I worked with a couple of actors to put on a play, at what’s now the Scottish Storytelling Centre. That got decent reviews and good audiences, then I received commissions from Scottish Television and the Traverse Theatre, and that was back in 1981/82.’

In 1989, Rona also achieved another ambition, when she wrote Survival, the final Doctor Who story of the original series, starring fellow Scot Sylvester McCoy.

She said: "We didn't know it at the time, that it was going to be the final one for a number of years.

"I wish I'd known in advance it was going to be the final one, because I could have put that into the story in a few places, but unfortunately it wasn't to be."

Rona became involved in the show after being spotted by script editor Andrew Cartmel.

She explained: "I did one of those BBC training things that they do every so often, and this one was for writers. Andrew was the script editor on Doctor Who and he came along and worked with us, six potential writers.

"When I announced I was a Doctor Who fan, that was when his eyes lit up - and we took it from there."

Rona was a long-standing fan of the series, having watched it since its launch in 1963.

She said: "I remember the very first episode - I was very young, which is a real tribute to the power of it. I don't remember specifics, just William Hartnell as the Doctor and Carole Ann Ford as his granddaughter Susan in a spooky corridor with cobwebs.

"We actually had a special Doctor Who cushion in our house, which was available when I was growing up. If I got too scared, I hid behind it!"

Writing for Doctor Who caused a few problems for Rona, now an acclaimed playwright.

"I remember I was a bit worried about the science fiction aspects when I was writing it, but I was pleased when I was told I could do something that was a bit more emotional and fantastic, rather them having to worry about the space-time continuum!

"The thing is, if you tried to pitch to the BBC at the moment, you would get short thrift, but back then, we had some lovely organic conversations and the story grew out of that, talking about things we were interested in.

"I was writing for Sylvester and Sophie as a team on screen. Unfortunately I was out the country when they were recording it, which was a shame as I would love to have been there and maybe altered the lines for them slightly.

"Sylvester got a lot of stick in his time as the Doctor, but I rather like him - he's a Tom Baker or Patrick Troughton type of Doctor, with a quirky side but has a serious edge too.

"He was a good Doctor to write for, and Sophie was a much edgier companion at the time. As a young woman myself, I really liked writing for her."

Ace came from the London suburb of Perivale, coming from a single-parent family - a first for Doctor Who.

Rona continued: "I was given that story element for Sophie, to bring her back home to Perivale. I'd never been there, but I got it into my head it was a gritty, urban wasteland, and when I got to go there, I was really surprised to see it was quite nice, a contrast to what I'd been expecting with leafy streets!"

Survival also featured the first appearance of the Doctor's old foe the Master, a rival Time Lord.

Rona said: "I can't remember if it was Andrew's suggestion or my choice to use him.

"I know I enjoyed writing for him, though, as he's one of the most interesting characters in the whole Who lexicon, as it were, so that was another big plus."

Rona added: "When Andrew found out it was going to be the last story, he wrote a wonderful speech for the Doctor at the end, so there was something there for the fans for the next few years."

Last year, Rona had her work on television once more, when she became the first person to write for 20th and 21st century Doctor Who, this time starring another Scot, Peter Capaldi, in the story The Eaters of Light.

She explained: "I was really surprised when I got the call. Our initial conversation was along the lines of 'What do you like writing about, and what gets you excited?' We discussed a few things, and I came up with the Picts and north-east Scotland.

"I’ve love to write something for the stage with Peter in it – then again, I think most writers would like to have him perform their work."

In her long career, Rona has many highlights.

She explained: "I’ve been in the fortunate position where I’ve been able to work fairly constantly over the years.

"One of my favourite works is The Maiden Stone, which is set in rural Aberdeenshire, in the early 19th century.

"Another favourite are The James Plays. I was so lucky with The James Plays as I was working with an extraordinary cast and director for nearly a year, and was very rewarding in the end."

Having written countless plays in her career, Rona still regards her 75 minutes of Doctor Who as one of her highlights.

She explained: "I'm immensely proud of it. Along with the Stanley Baxter Playhouse shows I've written for the radio, it's right up there.

"Sometimes, I have to pinch myself and think, 'Did I really do that?' It's amazing to be involved with something you admit to intently, from a young age, and sometimes it's good to get a wee bit starstruck about it."

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

Dear Cyrus Goodman

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Summary: A letter than was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never meant to be told, a life he never dreamed he could have. Cyrus Goodman is about to get the one thing he’s always wanted; a chance to finally fit in.

Chapter Word Count: 1,476

Chapter Trigger Warnings: Cursing, Self-Hatred, Minor Death Mention

Author’s Note: All dialogue comes from the Dear Evan Hansen script. I own none of the dialogue, credit goes to Pasek and Paul. I’ve written the way things are said, actions, and anything not dialogue. Also for the sake of this fic, the names of the Kippen parents (the Murphys in DEH) will be Martha and Lucas. Thank you!

Cyrus lay on the ground frozen; all he could notice was that his hands were shaking, his heart was humming, and there was a few flecks of dirt on the ground. After laying there for what felt like ages, he propped himself up and reached for his backpack.

“Hey, I’m sorry about my sister. I saw her push you. She’s a psychopath. Cyrus, right?” TJ rushed up to the boy, looking him up and down to make sure he was okay.

As if this day couldn’t get any worse, Cyrus was now face to face with TJ, who he had a not-so-secret crush on. Great. And his hands were sweating. “Cyrus?” he squeaked, almost having forgotten his name.

“That’s your name...?” TJ pried, his brows knitting up in confusion.

“Oh. Yes. Cyrus. It’s Cyrus. I’m sorry,” he fumbled over his words, mentally scolding himself. How could he have forgotten his own name? Probably because he was lost in TJ’s seagreen eyes.

TJ let out a breathy laugh. “Why are you sorry?”

“Well, just because you said Cyrus, and then I said, and then I repeated it, which is, that’s so annoying when people do that,” he rambled, his nails digging into his sweaty palms.

“I’m TJ,” he greeted, extending his hand for Cyrus to shake.

“No, I know,” Cyrus insisted, wiping his palms on his shirt instead of shaking TJ’s. He was not about to come off as sweaty and awkward. Well, sweaty; awkward was inevitable.

“You know?” he questioned, pulling his hand back.

You sound like a stalker, Cyrus thought to himself. “No, just, I’ve seen you play guitar in jazz band. I love jazz band. I love jazz! Well not all jazz, but definitely, like, jazz band jazz. That’s so weird I’m sorry,” he breathed out, his heart beating so loudly he thought TJ could hear it.

“You apologize a lot,” TJ noted lightly, a gentle smile gracing his face.

“I’m sorry...or, I mean. You know what I mean,” Cyrus sighed in resignation.

“Well, it was nice meeting you-”

“You don’t wanna sign my-”

“What-”

“What, what’d you say?”

The words clashed, and Cyrus was regretting his decision of trying to keep the conversation going. Not his forte.

“I didn’t say anything. You said something,” TJ pointed out, rocking back on his heels and waiting for Cyrus’ reply.

“Me?” the shorter boy squeaked, “No was...José,” he joked weakly, dodging the question.

TJ smiled uncertainly. “Okay... José,” he replied, turning to walk away. Cyrus watched him leave, rounding the corner. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and hurried on to his next activity; printing out his letter. And finishing it. Curse his procrastination.

On his way there, he tried to get someone, anyone, to notice him. He even tried making eye contact with people, but to no avail. Buffy was blabbing to someone about her college plans, Andi was working on some sort of school project, and TJ...well TJ would never notice him, so there wasn’t that.

Although Cyrus didn’t notice, Amber noted his presence in the hallway.

“Shit, honey. I know I was supposed to pick you up for your appointment. I’m stuck at work. Sharon called in sick with the flu and I’m the only other nurse’s aide on today, so I volunteered to pick up her shift,” Leslie explained, sighing in frustration.

"It’s fine,” he said through the phone, opening up his letter on his computer with his free hand.

“It’s just...they announced new budget cuts this morning, so anything I can do to show that I’m, you know, a team player,” she said with mild bravado, and Cyrus could practically hear her smiling on the other end.

“It’s fine. I’ll take the bus,” he told her. This was expected; his mom was never there when he needed her, but could he blame her?

He heard his mom sigh on the other side of the phone. “Perfect. That’s perfect. Oh, and I’m going straight from here to class, so I won’t be home until late, so please eat something. We’ve got those Trader Joe’s dumplings in the freezer,” she suggested gently.

“Maybe,” he mumbled, opening up his letter and scrolling to the bottom.

“Did you write one of those letters yet? Dr. Sherman’s expecting you to have one, ‘Dear Cyrus Goodman. This is going to be a good day and here’s why’?” she pried.

“Yeah, no, I already finished it. I’m in the computer lab right now, printing it out,” he lied. Well, half-lied. He was in the computer lab right now.

“I hope it was a good day, sweetheart,” his mom cooed.

“It was..” a silence fell over him, and lasted much more than it should have. “Yeah, it was really great,” he lied again.

“Great. That’s great,” his mom exclaimed, “I hope it’s the beginning of a great year. I think we could both use one of those, huh?” she joked, clearing her throat, “Shit. I have to run. Bye. I love you,” she said, hanging up.

“Bye,” Cyrus croaks out, but his mom had already hung up. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he thought for a moment before continuing his letter.

“Dear Cyrus Goodman. It turns out, this wasn’t an amazing day after all. This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year because...why would it?” he said to himself with a sad laugh.

“Oh, I know. Because there’s TJ, and all my hope is...pinning on TJ, who I don’t even know, and who doesn’t know me. But maybe if I did, maybe if I could just talk to him then..” he lingered on that thought for a moment, before he continued, “maybe...maybe nothing would be different at all. I wish everything was different. I wish that I was a part of...something. I wish that anything I said, um, mattered to anyone,” he chuckled, nervous and sad laughter building inside of him.

“I mean face it; would anyone notice if I disappeared tomorrow?” he wrote, and sat there in stunned silence. Would anyone notice if he disappeared tomorrow? ...Probably not. “Sincerely your best and most dearest friend...me,”

“So,” Amber’s voice shattered the delicate silence that built around Cyrus, “What happened to your arm?”

“Oh, um, I fell out of a tree, actually,” Cyrus replied, trying to comprehend the fact that someone was talking to him.

“You feel out of a tree,” Amber asked, but it sounded more like a statement, “That is just the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Oh my God,” she snorted, a paper rustling in her hand.

“I know,” Cyrus agrees.

“No one’s signed your cast,” she notes after a beat.

“No, I know.”

“I’ll sign it.”

Those were a few words he didn’t expect from Amber.

“Oh...um, you don’t have to,” he suggested, backing away slowly.

“Do you have a Sharpie?”

After another beat of silence, Cyrus pulled out a Sharpie from his pocket and handed it to Amber. She grabbed his cast and pulled it towards her, causing him to wince. She scrawled ‘AMBER’ really big, and smiled at her penmanship.

“Oh, great. Thanks,” Cyrus replied, not amused.

“Now we can both pretend that we have friends,” she said suddenly, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“Good point,” Cyrus mumbled, rocking back on his heels as he was ready to leave.

“Is this yours?” she says suddenly, holding out a freshly printed piece of paper, “I found it on the printer. Dear Cyrus Goodman, that’s your name right?”

Cyrus felt a surge of fear take over his body. “Oh that’s just a stupid, it’s a paper I had to write for a, um, for an assignment,” he spat out, scrambling to find an explanation.

“Because there’s TJ?” she paused, narrowing her eyes at Cyrus, “Is this about my brother?”

“N-No. Not at all,” he lied again, panic taking over his body.

“You wrote this because you knew that I would find it,” she stated firmly, the paper shaking slightly in her clammy hand.

“What?” the boy balked, his mouth slightly ajar.

“You saw that I was the only other person in the computer lab, so you wrote this and printed it out, so that I would find it,” she fumed.

“Why would I do that-”

“So I could read some creepy shit you wrote about my brother and freak out, right? And then you can tell everyone that I’m crazy!” she shrieked, her breaths choppy.

“No. Wait! I don’t even, what?” Cyrus stammered, feeling his breath come quicker.

“Fuck you!” she shouts, running out of the room with the paper in hand. His letter. His letter.

“But I really, I need that back! Please. Can you just, can you please give it back?” he begged, running after Amber and hearing his feet slam against the floor with each step. This was a nightmare.

tag list: @shortstackofpeaches || @seanna313​ || @geekingbeautytx​ || @heavenlybyers || @ghostswasp || @wlwandimack​ || @giocondasstuff​ || @lemonboytyrus​ || @adorejrizzle || @swingsetboys​ || @ifellintotyrushell || @idk-dude-17 || @rbf-lesbian ||​ @marianara-sauce​ || @kaptainjinxz 

[aimmyarrowshigh]

@reliand @marysuewhipple -- I was midway through this response when you blocked, but let’s just bear this out after all, because you genuinely an actually seem to be confused on some of your canon and you might, like, want to know, for real, in a not-mean way.

Wow, you really bought into your own fanon and forgot that it literally is FANon, didn’t you.

No one knows what happened after Luke was knocked unconscious except for Kylo and the other students that left with him (presumably who became the Knights of Ren).

We literally see what happened in TFA. Remember? Kylo, and his knights, surrounded by the dead bodies of the other students in the mud. Kylo kills one of them. We saw that happen. We watched him kill them. That was on screen. That was canon.

I mean, you act like he is just plain evil and started training with Luke as an adult[.]

I can’t speak for Dan @raptorific​, but I have never said that Ben’s training STARTED as an adult -- just that his decision to end his training with Luke and his choice to become Kylo Ren happened as an adult. He started training with Luke at ten, as far as canon has said, but canon has also presented two different timelines for Ben’s training with the Jedi because of the changes made to canon between TFA and TLJ.

Granted: in the Road To TFA materials, Ben “Jedi Killer” Solo became Kylo Ren at age 15; in the Road To TLJ materials, starting with Bloodline, this was changed to age 23 -- whether this change is because of actual canon-bearing narrative choices or just because Adam can’t play 15 because he’s 34, IDK, and it ultimately doesn’t matter.

The current canonical age that Ben Solo slaughtered all of his classmates except any who became the KoR -- and we only know for sure that they lived long enough to assist in the massacre, because we’ve only seen them in that singular flashback -- is 23. An adult.

An adult man who man the choice to kill all of his classmates.

That is what is canon.

First, Ben has had Snoke preying on him since he was in his mother’s womb. Keeping him up for days on end as a toddler, and getting into his head nonstop. Snoke has been grooming this kid from day one…

You guys straight-up invented this.

It is not even ALLUDED TO in any actual canon materials. Leia senses the Dark side of the Force while she’s pregnant, but guess what? EVERY Force-sensitive person is equally affected by the Dark side and the Light side. Their choices are what “choose their side.”

She does not sense Snoke, at least as far as any current canon has said, and Pablo Hidalgo -- I know you guys hate him, but he’s still the guardian of the SW bible -- has said that it has not been stated, or alluded, in canon. Will it turn out to be true? Maybe. It’s certainly a popular enough fanon that I could see LF throwing up their hands and surrendering to it.

But guess what else?

Even if Snoke were grooming Ben from the day Han’s sperm met Leia’s egg, it would not excuse Ben’s adult, agential choices.

Actual canon, in the films -- because Kylo and Ben have not appeared older than toddler-age in real-time in the extended canon materials yet -- makes it explicit that Kylo Ren’s actions are his own. He has a choice every time.

At Tuanul, Phasma asks him what to do with/to the villagers. It is Kylo’s directive to kill them all. Not Phasm’as. Not Snoke’s.

When Kylo Ren attacks and kidnaps Rey, he says -- in a defense TO SNOKE, so it clearly was NOT Snoke’s choice -- that it was his choice to take The Girl because she had seen the map rather than continue to search for The Droid. He’s chastised for this choice, sure. But he still made it.

When Kylo Ren murders Han, it is because Han is giving him the option to come home and come back to the Light. Kylo Ren does not want to be saved. He does not want to be loved. He was given the challenge by Snoke to kill Han because Ben Solo’s “greatest test” would be to kill the father he had loved and who loved him -- arguably, with that language, the person Ben Solo had loved most in the world.

Kylo Ren makes the choice to kill Ben Solo once and for all by choosing to reject Han’s offer of continuing love, welcome, belonging, and Light. The choice to remain Kylo Ren, NOT Ben Solo, was 100% Kylo’s agential choice. Snoke needed him to make that choice of his own free will for the Dark side to actually embrace it. He wasn’t controlling Kylo’s hands.

He wasn’t some kind of Kilgrave, Imperius Curse mind-controller. He was your average, run of the mill charismatic sociopath who radicalizes sensitive, smart, gifted, young men from loving families every goddamn day.

That is the metaphor that JJA set up. On purpose. As a writer, who is not an idiot, who wrote things on purpose in the script that he wrote with very unsubtle metaphors that he made on purpose.

The SW villains have always been mirrors of political and social threats in the era of their trilogy’s writing. The OT cast the Empire visually as Nazis, and included the Holocaust-analog event of the genocide of Alderaan, but the villain Lucas was critiquing, particularly through ESB and ROTJ, was the U.S.’ military-industrial complex and the war on Vietnam. (“Back in a 1973 note on “Star Wars,” Lucas made clear which side he was rooting for in the Vietnam War: 'A large technological empire going after a small group of freedom fighters.’”) In 1981, Lucas literally said in a press conference that Palpatine was based on Nixon; he’s held since that his inspiration for the series was less A Space Opera than “How do democracies turn into dictatorships?” Discussion of exactly how racist it is that he considers the ewoks to be based on the Viet Cong is for a totally other post...

This was also super unsubtle if slightly contemporized with the PT, when Palpatine became less Nixon and more Bush, working to create a global economic crisis that would precipitate a war against his own long-hated enemies. At the same time, it’s been pretty widely believed that part of what muddles the PT’s storytelling is Lucas’ dual focus on criticizing the Catholic church, who at the time that the PT was being written and filmed -- late ‘90s through mid-2000s -- was finally being publicly held to account for centuries of corruption and abuse that had been downplayed as just being part of the status quo because of the Church’s obsession with ritual and dogma. While a worthy thing to criticize, trying to go for moral ambiguity and “both sides are bad from a certain point of view” while also trying to adhere to Campbell’s schema while ALSO trying to make people sympathize for a character that the entire audience already knew grows up to be a mass-murdering cyborg was... a lot to tackle. Lucas arguably failed a lot of his intentions with his execution in the PT, but he still HAD intentions, and again: they weren’t subtle. ROTS literally ends with Anakin cribbing one of Bush’s jingoistic declarations post-9/11: “You’re either with me, or you’re my enemy.” In some ways, the most successful criticism Lucas made through the PT was that this kind of dichotomous sociopolitical dialogue eventually causes you to get three of your limbs chopped off as you backflip into lava to your own downfall -- and yet, it doesn’t cause you to die -- it just makes you come back stronger and angrier than before. Which leads us to the ST.

Although Lucas has nothing to do with the ST, it’s honestly rude to the Storygroup, JJ, Kasdan, and even RiJo to pretend like it isn’t following the same edict to use the fantastical setting of a Galaxy Far Far Away to level harsh, and super overt, criticism of the sociopolitical power structures of the real world contemporaneous to the trilogy’s release.

Snoke -- the gold bathrobe-wearing charismatic fascist megalomaniac who smooth-talked his way into a figurehead position of power despite functionally having others do all of the actual work of both “governance” and violence.

Hux -- the far-right neo-Conservative political schemer who actually WAS raised from bith to idealize the explicit, intentional SW-universe analog for Nazism and thus became a powerful and Dapper Haired neo-Nazi leader.

And Kylo Ren, the violent angry entitled man who sees the kind of power his life position (wealthy, male, Force-sensitive AKA educated and gifted) would have garnered in previous generations but doesn’t today in a Star Wars Analog For Democratic And Increasingly Diverse Landscape*) and is enraged by it, so thus turns to the rhetoric of the megalomaniac and the Neo-Nazi to find afocus for that anger beyond, idk, trying to fucking just be better.

SUPER UNSUBTLE METAPHORS FOR THE POLITICS OF MODERN AMERICA.

* See: Bloodline, and the differences in policy/goals of the Centrists and the Populists; as the Populists have more Senatorial power at the time directly preceding the destruction of Luke’s school and the chief schism between them and the Centrists is that the Populists believe in giving more planets and more sentient species equal rights to vote and self-determine governance, and the Centrists -- many of whom are secretly funding the First Order, not unlike how many Republican senators and congressmen IRL have turned out to have very strong ties to the Klan, the NRA, the TWP, the Proud Boys, various neo-Nazi groups, and alt-right supremacist organizations and militias, fwiw.

THIS PARALLEL WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT.

All of the insistence y’all make to it being Just A Kids’ Movie This Shit Is Just ~Ess Jaw Dubbayoo~ Reaching!!!! is a) something you have to know, truly, is just borne of wanting to stan for Kylo, and honestly, it’d be less irksome if you just... stanned for him without trying to rewrite canon and insult everyone else? and b) Insulting, both to fellow fans and to the SWST writers.

While TFA was written long before The Election, it was still written within the modern sociopolitical landscape. Trump already was out there leading the idiot Birther movement. Sarah Palin was a thing. Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and Fox & Friends had 24/7 airtime. Antisemitic hate crimes were on a steep rise both in America and overseas, and homophobic and Islamophobic hate crimes were still happening far, far too regularly. Police brutality and the unlawful extrajudicial lynchings of Black men and boys by Klan-affiliated police officers and unjust Thin Blue Line that protected their murderers was already (finally) a daily headline. Standoffs between the government and far-right fringe militia groups lasted months; conflicts between armed militias and civilians over access to statehouses and public spaces was on the rise. Mass shootings by angry disaffected young white men were happening every fucking day. Gam/e/r/g/ate was a thing, exposing the depths to which angry entitled young men could sink if they felt like their stranglehold on All Media Things was threatened. The writing for 2016 was on the wall long before the campaigns on either side officially began.

And you know who probably was not an unaware dumdum just scootin’ along without a clue of what was in the air?

Two Jewish men, one of whom was the son of a man who won two Emmys for a docudrama about the Nuremberg trials -- gee, wonder where JJ came up with the imagery for Hux’s Hosnian rally on Starkiller, though? -- and the other of whom does interviews of Holocaust survivors for the HMH.

Denying that is both to assert that JJA/Kasdan don’t have the right, as Jewish writers, to react to the world authentically, and to assume that they are too stupid to know what they wrote. You gotta stop pretending like everyone who fucking sees what they wrote into the ST on fucking purpose is either lying or crazy. Seriously. Stop it.

~*Antis*~ don’t en-masse see these parallels and metaphors just because wE tHiNk EvErYoNe We DoN’t LiKe iS A NaZi!!! It’s because that’s what they’re fucking overtly intended to be.

And guess what? Hitler was in the ear of the Hitler Youth from infancy, too.

It 0% absolves anything they fucking did.

SW is not subtle. The only thing LESS subtle than SW is Harry Potter, and they’re both the same fucking story. With the same fucking villains. The difference is that JKR is white and goyishe and you can tell. (As you can, tbh, in TLJ being written by RiJo. RiJo goyishe as hell and it, uh, shows. A lot.)

For all of RiJo’s faults and lazy writing, he ultimately did not undo the metaphors that JJ/Kasdan set up. He handled it in maybe the most circuitous and sloppily written way possible, but honestly, the longer since TLJ came out, the more it becomes clearer that RiJo really wasn’t trying to make Kylo seem heroic, or trying to subvert TFA’s storyline insofar as giving Kylo depth that belied his character’s setup. He was showing the audience just how easy it is to be hooked into a narrative like the one that suckered in Ben Solo, and that he tries to use to sucker in Rey -- and nearly succeeds.

In TFA, it couldn’t have been more overt if he were straight-up just constantly watching snuff film porn or something, but in TLJ, Rian’s cues -- which I STILL will always maintain are poorly executed -- are less “out on the street in Charleston with a tiki torch in hand” than “on Twitter sealioning female journalists until they delete their account, and then retreating back into anonymity on /pol.” It’s still Kylo Ren as the toxic masculine underbelly of rage, violence, and entitlement that is part of the current sociopolitical nightmare hole, even though he’s actively trying to seem like an empathetic #normie. Every single frame of Kylo Ren in TLJ, especially after Snoke makes him remove his helmet, is in service to the Dark and to all of the real-world metaphors of toxic masculine rage that Kylo represents.

Because when given the choice between being free and usurping Snoke’s power, Kylo chose to the power. That is Dark.

It isn’t even Dark inherently because he First Order are an explicit Neo-Nazi parallel, although they are -- and FWIW you don’t get to be antisemitic by rejecting JJ Abrams’ and Lawrence Kasdan’s right, as Jewish artists, to create fantastical metaphors for their Jewish pain and name them as such [“The original name for the First Order was the Neo-Empire,” etc.] in the name of ~protecting Jewish feelings~ when the entire schema was created by Jews and the fact that y’all are excited to claim that theyre are “six Jewish reylos” is... just yikes; I gotta say, as a Jewish ~anti~, there are more than six of us -- it’s Dark because it is the self-serving choice at the expense of the Galaxy.

And, truly, at the expense of what Ben Solo would have known was moral and ethical. Ben Solo was raised by Han and Leia. He was educated by Luke. He grew up with three parental/guardian figures, plus Uncle Lando and Uncle Chewie, who ADORED him and doted on him. He canonically had happiness and friendship in his childhood (per Bloodline). He isn’t a sociopath devoid of empathy; I’ll give you that, because it’s true. He knows exactly how much he is hurting people, both emotionally and physically, with his actions. And he chooses those actions anyway, because they further his goal of becoming the literal Master of the Universe.

Kylo Ren considers his own desires to be of higher value and priority than the well-being of the Galaxy or his own sense of morals/ethics, and that is a Dark choice. (See also: Anakin killing Mace Windu.)

(Cue Palps cackling about “POWAAAAA!”)

Being brainwashed by a fascist lunatic to murder for them does not absolve you from that murder.

Are you out campaigning for the release of Manson’s girls, too? Because they were brainwashed. Psychologically, medically, truly brainwashed to the point where they were unable to perceive the fact that Manson’s beliefs and orders were objectively fucking batshit and evil. But they still were responsible for their actions. They committed the murders. They are in prison for them because of the choices they made.

How about Allison Mack sex trafficking and branding women for NXIVM? Is she an innocent lamb-flower who could not possibly have made any other choices because her charismatic leader was in her ear for years and years? I’m sure that in her trial, her lawyers will make the same exact arguments about her relationship with Renier than y’all make about Kylo and Snoke, but uh, it ultimately doesn’t fucking matter. Allison Mack is the one who slowly and torturously branded her victims with a goddamn laser-pointer. That was her choice. That was her action. She will be held accountable for her choice.

...and his parents didn’t know what to do with him. They have a super force sensitive child, who has a presence constantly poking at him, and he’s highly emotional…

This just literally isn’t canon.

All of Ben Solo as a child’s appearances in canon have shown him as a happy, playful, mischievous child who knows that he is loved and is responsibe to the emotional cues of his parents and others. He is exactly as upset by things that would upset any child as... any other child. He doesn’t have a Presence Constantly Poking At Him in canon. You guys invented that, and it isn’t backed up by his largest pre-Kylo canon appearance, which is Last Shot. Ben, in Last Shot, is loved and knows it, and he loves back. He is happy. He is a normal, good-natured child. He babbles, he plays, he cuddles, he goes outside and gets muddy with his friends and beams and laughs. He has toys and watches cartoons.

He cries a) when he gets woken up, which is when all babies cry and frankly everyone else wants to cry when they get woken up lbr; b) when he doesn’t get to do exactly what he wants to do, and, tbh, it could be interpreted as foreshadowing of the way that Kylo Ren uses the display of emotion to manipulate people into letting him do what he wants in both TFA and TLJ. Or it could just be him being, you know, a normal toddler.

I will give you: he IS highly Force-sensitive. SO IS LEIA. Leia is the granddaughter of the Living Force for fuck’s assing sake. You really think that Luke and Leia are LESS Force-sensitive than Ben??? Being highly Force-sensitive doesn’t, and literally in canon did not, turn Ben into a hyperemotive mess as a child. He’s just, you know, two years old.

“But Kylo Ren is hyperemotional, so what happened HUH!?” you cry.

Well -- for one, the main emotion that he canonically shows as Kylo Ren is anger. He is an angry man, and he acts like an angry man, because he is in a social environment -- by his own choice as a 23-year-old thru 30-year-old -- that encourages violent expressions of male anger. He punches walls. He chokes subordinates. He destroys property. He yells at people. He SCREAMS at people. He is angry, because he feels entitled to more than he has, always more, more power, more respect, more control over others, and he has been encouraged to believe that acting on that anger will help him get what he feels he is owed.

That ain’t special. And it’s hardly even a scifi metaphor. That’s just how violent, angry men ARE.

“But he cries so much!” He cries once in the movies. Once when he is about to kill the father he still loves, because he craves the power he sees as his due more than he cares about anything or anyone.

The other time that it looks as though he might cry -- in the elevator after Snoke’s mocking and the Force lightning -- he instead does what violent, angry men DO when they live in a culture or subculture that glorifies male violence and disrespects all other emotions: subverts actual emotional processing or catharsis by turning it into an act of violence. He destroys his mask, the symbol of his obeisance to Snoke. RiJo even confirmed that was the moment he started to plan Snoke’s murder more concretely. His reaction to feeling sadness, or rejection, or guilt, or WHATEVER, in the face of his killing Han not actually getting Snoke to give him more control and power and leadership, was to PLAN A MURDER.

(AKA: It wasn’t to save Rey; Rey was only there because, using Snoke’s playbook of manipulation, Kylo got her to believe what he wanted her to believe and come to the First Order because Kylo couldn’t kill Snoke alone, and Snoke had to die for Kylo to get what he wanted: ULTIMAAAATE POWWWWAAAA.)

(And FWIW, I’m not saying Snoke’s murder was unwarranted, I’m just saying that it was borne of the same exact cocktail of toxic hypermasculinity that caused Ben “Jedi Killer” Solo to kill Luke’s students and flee to Snoke in the first place. Kylo Ren’s sole motivation, in canon, is the pursuit of total power over others, which he feels is his due because he happened to be born to the family he was and with the genetic makeup [Force sensitivity] that he has.)

[B]ut his parents are also war heroes and they’re trying to build a government and just rebuild in general after a war, so they can’t be there for their son. They’re not the best parents, okay. They leave him in the care of a kitchen droid instead of one suited for care giving. (Also, this kitchen droid tries to murder him as a toddler due to a…let’s call it a computer virus or malfunction. so that’s extremely terrifying).

They literally left him with BX for like 20 minutes because his actual nanny droid had to run an errand.

This argument is so tired and it also kind of proves that you don’t even actually read/watch canon, you take all of your beliefs and cues from what Reylo BNFs with vested interests in keeping y’all brainwashed to believe that Bennyboo is a Pure Sweet Angel Baby Who Never Did Anything Wrong so that they can maintain the social capital of having lots of followers.

Gee, I wonder if that’s similar to anyone we’ve been talking about?

That said, this argument is also exhausting because it places blame on working parents for being working parents, and that’s misogynistic bullshit. Han was Ben’s primary caregiver. In canon. T-2 is really only ever in full-on Nanny Mode during Last Shot, when Han has to leave the house for more than a day or so.

Otherwise, it’s literally canon that Han is a stay-at-home parent whose full-time vocation is caring for Ben until Ben leaves for Luke’s school. After that, he STILL is a full-time househusband, but does some charity ship-racing on the side to raise money for galactic orphanages. He does mentorships for junior pilots, too, and once one of them -- Greer Sonnel -- starts to seem like she has a terminal chronic illness that will keep her from flying, Han helps to place her in a safer job opportunity rather than have to go back to her impoverished home planet. MAN, what a BAD GUY who HATES KIDS and is BAD AT CARING FOR THEM.

Not even the nanny droid -- they kept T-2, who had programming for obstetrics and pediatrics, around because he was a protocol droid just like Threepio but with the benefit of specialized programming that would help them better care for Ben, from early on in Leia’s pregnancy at least through when Ben left for Luke’s school. God forbid parents have specialized, knowledgable help raising their child!  

It is only after Ben “Jedi Killer” Solo destroys Luke’s school and becomes Kylo Ren that Han leaves, and that’s alluded to in canon -- although I’ll give you that it isn’t confirmed at this juncture in either Road to TFA or Road to TLJ material/timeline -- to search for Luke, search for Ben, and/or help raise and gather capital for the burgeoning Resistance. He isn’t a deadbeat who’s never around for his son. His son’s disappearance is the only thing that could make Han leave the domestic home and life that he’d wanted since before he even met Leia.

Second, his powers are erratic and POWERFUL and when he’s like a preteen or something he hears his parents discussing him behind closed doors…like he’s some sort of monster.

And what, exactly, did Ben do before they said this?

We don’t know.

We have had hints in both Road to TFA and Road to TLJ canon that something Ben Solo did, at age 10, was sufficiently powerful and Dark enough that Leia and Han did the best thing they could as parents to a child who did a Dark thing: get them help from a source who has the training and knowledge to help them in ways the parents themselves cannot.

That is not bad parenting. That was the right thing to do.

We don’t know what Ben did that caused his parents to worry about how Dark his behavior, in that act at least, had been, but parents admitting that they are out of their depth and getting their child help from a professional is not neglect, or a lack of love, or a lack of empathy. I get it; being forced to get help, when you view your own actions as justified, is scary and painful and embarrassing. When I was teaching, I had an eight-year-old male student who had been expelled from public school after breaking another kid’s arm and was in a specialized school for students with violent behavioral issues because he had kind-of-accidentally killed his toddler cousin by hitting him over the head with a chair when he was angry. I’m 100% sure that his parents talked about that event, amongst themselves, behind closed doors, with horror and the kind of language that would be immensely hurtful to this boy if he overheard it. That’s a human reaction. A monstrous thing happened, hard to comprehend, and like... parents are allowed to react like humans about complicated emotions of trauma or shock or horror, even though they are parents. But then they did the exactly right thing for their profoundly violent son by getting him professional help. That specialized school was not fun. The boy definitely saw it as, and talked about it as, a punishment. But it wasn’t a punishment. It was loving him enough to try to save him from himself.

Sending Ben to Luke’s school was not a punishment or some way to ~throw him away. Ben DID need help, objectively, although we haven’t yet been told exactly what the final straw was. I believe, IIRC, that the Road to TFA referred to whatever he did as a “great family tragedy,” but I don’t 100% remember -- I only recall that was part of why most people assumed that the incident occurring right around the time of Rey’s birth would ultimately be significant, and who knows, it may yet be. We don’t know. There’s no canon about it.

Also --

You guys act like Luke was some mean, scary stranger who hated Ben on sight, but Luke was Ben’s uncle. Leia and Han adored him, and he adored them, and he loved Ben. We don’t have any canon about Luke’s feelings towards whatever child!Ben did to warrant the intervention, but even in TLJ, there’s no actual objective statements of Luke hating Ben, or even Kylo.

The only person who asserts that Luke hates/hated Ben Solo is Kylo.

And frankly: he needs to believe that. Just like he needs to believe that killing Han will cause Snoke to finally respect him and give him more control/power/leadership. These are things that, honestly, he’s gotta KNOW are not true, but has to create the believe of their truth to continue acting as Kylo Ren.

So this belief, and those actions as Kylo?

Are agential, active choices. As an adult man.

Further:

Re: the moment with Luke in the hut, any interpretation that doesn’t take into account the filmmaking and CANONICAL choice to present it twice, once in Kylo’s POV and once in Luke’s POV, is missing the point of its being shown at all.

Kylo has already begun his manipulation of Rey in service to the eventual murder of Snoke and usurpation of the throne when he tells Rey about that night. He knows that Rey is frustrated with Luke on her own merits, so she will be receptive to a telling of that story that frames Luke as all of the things that Rey is already annoyed with Luke for being: stubborn, afraid of the Force, afraid of the Dark, quick to anger, irresponsible, whatever.

In the flashback from Kylo’s POV, he is telling Rey the story, so it is being presented to her for the purpose of garnering her sympathy in order to manipulate her. It isn’t even necessarily how Kylo remembers that moment when he’s just remembering it to himself, late at night, or whatever! We have never been privy to what’s actually in Kylo’s mind about that night. While you guys are using that as evidence that his mind was good and guileless and sweet, it’s equally (or more) likely that he was so Dark that night bcause he was, just like with Rey, already planning his next Dark act. In both TFA with Han and TLJ with Rey, Kylo’s choices in Dark actions tend to rely on someone else -- someone Light -- falling alongside him because he is a skillful manipulator of empathy.

Han steps closer and takes the lightsaber, blade-end pointed at himself, because he believes that Kylo Ren is choosing the Light and will come home.

Rey mails herself to the First Order, becoming a pawn in the takeover of Snoke’s throne, for the exact same reason.

When Kylo is telling Rey about the night that he destroyed Luke’s school and killed the other students, he is relying on the same tactic -- using someone’s own goodness and Lightness against them.

Han, on the bridge, even as he was dying, believed the best in his son and believed 100% that if given the choice, Kylo Ren would be Ben again, and that he wanted the Light and just felt like he couldn’t have it anymore.

So when he’s manipulating Rey with the story about that night with Luke, in Kylo’s POV, we can visually see from the filmmaking choices that he is telling it in a way tailored to her belief in inherent goodness. Rey, until after the throne room, believes that people are ultimately and innately good and Light -- it’s stated basically outright iirc in her Survival Guide -- and Kylo knows that because he mind-raped her and saw her thought processes and viewpoints and knows, exactly, how to mold his story to ply her. When we see that night with Luke as Kylo tells it to Rey to get her to come to the First Order, he tells it in a way that casts his choice to flee to the Dark as being borne of fear and confusion, not desire. (And y’all reylos buy that??? Okay.)

But if Rey herself weren’t being so muddled by her own confusion and sadness, honestly, TLJ itself presents her with enough evidence that wasn’t true: she knows Leia and Han loved him, and he tells her that he didn’t hate Han. And yet, he stayed. He stayed in the First Order for six years after that night. He didn’t destroy Luke’s school by accident out of shock and fear and pain in a whirlwind of Dark energy that he couldn’t control, and then, you know, feel bad and atone and try to make amends and acknowledge his bad deed and accept consequences and try to redeem himself.

He destroyed the school and fled to the First Order and stayed. He destroyed the school and kept on destroying.

But he IS a skillful manipulator, and he also knows that Rey most likely assumes that he wants to come home because, he’s seen in her mind AND she’s reaffirmed, that all she wants is a loving home and parents. If he tells about that night in the hut in a way that casts himself as the victim, his hand forced so that he doesn’t feel he can come home, she’ll believe it (despite literally having seen him in front of her face reject the invitation to come home with his dad, but whatever Rian).

So that’s how he tells it: Luke, fallen to the Dark side, his face twisted into something demonic in his fear and hatred, and Ben, still innately Light inside, only acting in the Dark basically by accident. THAT IS KYLO REN MASTERPIECE THEATER PUPPET STORYTIME, AS HE ACTIVELY MANIPULATES REY TO LEAVE LUKE AND COME HELP HIM KILL SNOKE.

It is, in the world of the story, and in the narrative through-line of TLJ, not the truth.

Personally, as with a lot of the things that Kylo claims to believe, I don’t think even he believes it’s the truth. It is what a convenient truth would be in that moment to further his progress towards his goal of supremacy. He KNOWS that he was steeped in the Dark side (by choice, as an adult) when Luke entered his hut that night. Even though you’re trying to insist that he was an innocent lamb that night, even your own pro-Ben Solo arguments rely on the idea of his being fully and totally steeped in Darkness by then -- don’t you think he was 23 years and 9 space months into being groomed by Snoke by that night? If Snoke really had been grooming him for so long, then by default Ben Solo was already Dark by then, and the Dark has no power unless you choose to act on it.

And to that end: what, exactly, if not kill all of the other students, destroy Luke’s school, and help to destabilize the New Republic in favor of the neo-conservative fascist junta of the First Order, was Snoke grooming him to do or be?

If you believe that Snoke was grooming Ben Solo to the level that ALL of his Dark actions were really Snoke, and not Kylo Ren actually making agential active choices to further his own agenda, then what was Snoke’s plan for him before that night? Because unless his plan for Ben Solo involved the destruction of Luke’s school... wouldn’t Kylo be starting out his tenure under Snoke’s tutelage with Snoke HELLA PISSED at him for doing something so rash and stupid?

So yeah, granted, it IS only an assumption that the Ben “Jedi Killer” Solo actually consciously and actively planned the destruction of the school and the murder of any classmates who refused to join him... but it’s an assumption based on all of his actions since that night. He has made zero efforts towards self-aware atonement or culpability, and if he truly did not mean to destroy the school and kill other students, one would think that someone who ultimately wants the Light and to be Saved Ben Solo Again would, idk, feel bad about it. Not try to blame someone else as a tactic to get a partner in another murder.

And you might hate the comparison to a school shooter, but that was as unsubtle in Ben’s destruction of Luke’s school as the comparisons to Neo-Nazis are in Hux’s rally in TFA.

He is an angry and entitled man, already steeped in Darkness and resentful that he doesn’t have all of the power that he feels is his natural due, and he scapegoats the adults in his life for making him get professional help that he didn’t want and was angered by because one of its tenets (if Luke was adhering to at least basic Jedi teachings) was that no one person should have that much power.

When he is caught continuing to act/think/speak/etc. in Dark ways -- like, IDK, someone’s loving parents trying to disconnect their internet access because they were so deeply entrenched in alt-right conspiracy theory that they were functionally insane and had become frighteningly violent -- his reaction is extreme violence (like stabbing to death the father trying to protect you from your own delusional conspiracy-driven subculture) in service to leaving his life for a literal, in-world neo-conservative fascist slave-owning militia planning a political coup through the equivalent of an atomic bomb in the capitol. Again: the parallel that JJA and Kasdan wrote and created for Kylo is not an accident, nor is it subtle. We’re MEANT to see him as a toxic masculinity-driven, entitled, violent white man, and we’re meant to view his slaughter of his classmates as having been driven by his rage and his quest for the power he feels is his due.

That is a school shooter. Trying to pull the “you can’t compare this overt fantastical metaphor to a real-life bad thing to the bad thing it’s meant to be because that would mean acknowledging the bad thing!!!!” card is really tired.

Like. There is no realistic, actual, canon-based scenario in which Ben Solo, by the night of the hut, DIDN’T have plans for violence against any who would not join him.

Remember? Star Wars has already cribbed-and-canonized the reactionary mindset once: you’re either with me, or you’re my enemy.

[crownoyami]

Prologue

New Story!

Title:  Writing the Stars Pairing: Gabriel/Sam Winchester Rating: E Archive Warning: None

Warnings/Tags:  Public Display of Affection Anal Sex Anal Fingering Angst with a Happy Ending Switch Sam Winchester Switch Gabriel (Supernatural) Rimming (mentions) Fluff and Angst Famous Sam Winchester Famous Gabriel (Supernatural) Author Gabriel Actor Sam Winchester Actor Jessica Moore Author Chuck

Summary: Gabriel is a famous author who has been known for his multiple blockbuster hits. He never misses his mark and keeps out f the spotlight but for one interview given per movie/book. Until his newest novel adaptation has him spending time on set, and with the leading male actor Sam Winchester a newly discovered star. Gabriel may have tried to avoid the spotlight, but he’s thrown into the media whether he likes it or not.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15813849/chapters/36810918

Author’s Note: Hello ^_^

 For those not used to my writing, please note that warnings are posted at the beginning of each chapter (should any be needed). All my stories have the general warning of angst, also please note the pairings section (most will be M/M).

 This work was initially supposed to be my submission to the Gabriel Big Bang, but alas that was canceled so here it is!

 **This has been beta’d by JDL71! ~All remaining typos and edits are my error, not hers.

     Prologue

Writing was hard. Despite what everyone had told him before he began, Gabriel knew how demanding those pages were. He spent most of his teen years trying to teach himself how to write, most of those years being pressured by his family to do something else, to be anything else. By the time he was in his early twenties, Gabriel had written more short stories and novels than he knew what to do with.

 Thankfully his high school English teacher was also a published author. While he couldn’t do much for the young man, Chuck had taken Gabriel under his wing, and more importantly to his editor. The first two novels Gabriel presented were rejected, and while they had a special place in the young man’s heart, they weren’t what people wanted to read.

Book three was a success. It didn’t have the full-blown Harry Potter popularity, but Gabriel had several thousand fans who wanted more. Getting his agent to agree to take on more novels was easy after that. While his books were doing well, at the age of twenty-five, Gabriel found himself on his former teacher's doorstep once again. Writing had lost the edge the blond craved. Just like actors, Gabriel had realized authors were typecast as well. James Patterson wrote crime stories; Stephen King wrote horror, and Gabriel Novak wrote Dystopian novels. With Chuck’s encouragement, Gabriel was able to throw aside what he knew and take up a new genre.

Once his new books began to sell, Gabriel found himself in a place he had always dreamt of. People started to ask him if they could use his books for movies. The movies were small at first, but Sci-Fi was in, and everyone wanted to bring the next blockbuster to life. Eventually, over the course of five years, Gabriel was fully embraced by the film industry, and while he didn’t get to write the scripts, he made one thing clear; if they were going to use his books, they were going to have to deal with Gabriel having a say in what modifications were made and how it went. After his third movie hit the top of the charts, Gabriel was given even more leeway as his books were converted to film.

“And that’s where I am now, this book was co-written by the same guy who helped me get my start, and we’re really looking forward to seeing it put into action.” Gabriel smiled at the woman across the desk from him.

 She was probably in her mid-forties with blond hair and brown eyes, and while friendly enough with a smile on her face, Gabriel had the impression he should never piss her off. It was probably how she landed the gig of her own show, people you could walk over never made it far, but Gabriel had a feeling anyone who tried with her would find themselves unable to walk at all.

“That’s what we’re all wondering about. This book is so different from your other hits. We’re used to seeing large worlds and big effects, I mean didn’t your last movie get filmed with about ninety percent green screen?” She asked while leaning forward slightly.

 Gabriel shrugged before answering. “Yes, it was, and while it’s different from what you’re used to seeing from me, I want to remind everyone that I wouldn’t have this chance if the series didn’t sell so well.”

Glancing at the woman for a moment, Gabriel leaned back in his chair. “Chuck has an amazing mind, one I could never replicate, and you better believe this is a stroke of his genius.” Gabriel gave the woman a smirk then. “I’m just there to add some flare to it, Ellen.”

 Ellen didn’t pause before pouncing on the opening, their time was almost up, and while Gabriel loved how in demand his books were, it was rare to catch him in an interview. “Not only your flare but from what I hear you’ve cast Sam Winchester and Jessica Moore. Those two are a hot topic wherever you go, and you managed to snag both.”

Gabriel laughed slightly, keeping his posture relaxed against the chair. “Trust me that was all the casting department, though I do look forward to working with them. Chuck made most of the decisions with the cast, the characters had been his vision, but I have to say I’m pleased with the results.”

 Ellen was about to comment when the light went off by the primary camera indicating they were out of time. Gabriel went through the motions of letting Ellen finish her show which would fade off into a commercial for his latest movie. Once the camera was cut, Gabriel stood from his seat and stretched. “You know they may look comfortable, but these chairs are shit,” he exclaimed while glancing at Ellen who laughed.

 “I like having my guests a bit uncomfortable, so they know who’s in charge, you’d be surprised how an uncomfortable chair manages to tone some people down.”

Gabriel nodded his head and thanked her before leaving the room. She didn’t try to stop him; once the cameras were off he was nobody to her again; someone who she would never think of. If he made another appearance, she would probably have to re-watch the episode to remember what was said, and if his ratings went down, she could pass Gabriel on the street and not recognize him. That’s how it was in Hollywood. You were either everyone’s favorite, or you were a stranger on the street.

Writing was hard. Writing for Hollywood was harder.

   P.S. If you want to keep up to date on my writing add me to Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter or Instagram as CrowNoYami ;-) Also, if you want to see what I’m reading (I always review so you know what you’re getting into) I’m on Goodreads as well, the same name as always.