#but Manuel had a very hard time not only being big but also Black | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

annazverina · 3 years

Text

2020 Letter to the World

In 2015, I began writing annual Letters to the World to reflect on what I learned during the year. I shared my first one publicly in 2018, and since then I discuss certain topics that were relevant during the year and what they taught me. Enjoy.

***

I typically don’t start writing my annual Letter to the World until October or November at the earliest, but this year has already been a huge whirlwind for the entire world. I started writing this in April and edited it until the day it was posted. At that point, we had been in isolation for a month. A few weeks later, yet another revolution sparked within the United States. As soon as the riots and protests started, I knew this would be the hardest letter I’ve ever written.

This year I will discuss coronavirus, racism, social media, and the importance of face to face communication.

Around the time I finished writing last year’s letter, a new illness was taking over Wuhan, China. This new, mysterious strain of coronavirus was infecting people left and right. But like any other American, I didn’t worry about it, though I kept track of it on Twitter. I remember the time when there were only 600 cases, and it hadn’t spread outside of Wuhan yet. Man, those were the days. It’s amazing how much the world changed within a month, a week, and a few days.

A month before isolation, my friends and I drove down to San Antonio for the TMEA convention. Tens of thousands of music educators in the same building. At that same time, San Antonio had its first cases of COVID-19. Less than a month later, SXSW was cancelled. That’s when I realized that this was becoming a big deal. The same day the WHO declared the pandemic, my university announced it was moving to online instruction for what would eventually be the rest 2020. My first day of quarantine was 14 March. I began vlogging occasionally to document the experience.

I barely left the house during quarantine. For the first five months, the only reasons I left were to go walking, move out of the dorm, or to pick up food. My family took a trip to Colorado right before I left for school, which was our first time eating at a restaurant in 150 days. None of my family or our friends officially tested positive. At school, my roommate did, which led to a two week isolation for me. It really bothered me that those who could stay home weren’t. I get that the United States was founded with freedom in mind (even though we’re not free yet), but I don’t understand why people weren’t willing to give up a little bit of freedom and wear a piece of cloth on their face. Sometimes, you have to give up freedom for the sake of the big picture. I learned that many Americans don’t understand that. The United States shut down too late and reopened too early. Those above us care too much about money. The economy is important, but so are people. Human lives matter, including Black lives.

We all know what happened.

Every January in elementary school, we learned about the Civil Rights Movement. However, they did not mention that racism was still an ongoing problem. They implied that it was a thing of the past. God, I wish it was. I don’t think it ever will be, but the things we can do to eliminate it as much as possible are promoting anti-racism and teaching those who come after us that no matter where someone comes from, they can’t form any opinions about them until they know what’s in their heart.

That entire week after the murder was very overwhelming. It made me wonder what kind of families racist people grew up in to think that it’s okay to not be good to everyone. I live my life with one thing in mind all the time: be good to myself and others. And I think everyone else, regardless of socioeconomic background, race, religion, whatever, should do the same. And we must teach those who come after to follow those footsteps.

There was never a class in school dedicated to being good citizens. They just yelled at the students doing bad things to stop, but never explained why it was bad, nor did they tell them how to be better. Common human decency is something that should be taught K-12, and I honestly think it’s more important than STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). We cannot force the students to rely on their parents for something like this, because some parents are uneducated, some are not good people, some suck at parenting, and way too many children in the world don’t even have parents. Schools are the ones that need to teach kids how to be good… all the way through.

WE MUST BE THE CHANGE. Those currently in power appear to not be doing anything, so those who want change must RISE UP. For us civilians, signing petitions and donating is great, and being good, like I mentioned above, is also something we should do. We must change our behavior for the better. We cannot rely on other people to do stuff for us. We must do it ourselves. Change is not a process that can happen over night. So far it’s taken decades/centuries of work, but someday we will be there. Even if we don’t live to see it, the work we do now will help our future descendants.

After George Floyd’s murder and the explosion of social media, I was super overwhelmed with everything I was reading. I decided to take the month of June off of Twitter, and man, I’m glad I did. Social media in general is a toxic place to be, and cutting out Twitter and Facebook was healthy for me. In terms of toxicity, Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion, are the worst platforms. On Twitter, it’s hard to control what you see in your feed. Most of the tweets in my feed are from people I don’t follow. They’re tweets I never signed up to see, and they flood my feed with posts that sometimes feel like propaganda. Sometimes I feel like celebrities are worshipped like a deity. I often feel like I’m not allowed to have my own personal beliefs on Twitter, rather I have to conform to what the loudmouthed users believe. If I don’t, I’m racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc. Facebook is similar, but most of the people I follow are my friends or family, so I can’t unfollow them.

Surprisingly, I like Instagram. Reposting is very uncommon, and posting more than once a day is unofficially considered spam, therefore people have to put all their politics into one single post, which I can scroll past and never see again. You never see posts from people you don’t follow, (except for the occasional advert) and overall I think people use it mostly to share photos of their lives. Most of the flaws that come from Instagram are the people who use it, but it’s easy to avoid them.

My brother shared some statistics with me recently. Only about 10 percent of Twitter users tweet on a normal basis. About 40 percent of people in the United States have a Twitter account. With that in mind, theoretically, the loud mouthed Twitter users only make up about 4 percent of the U.S. population. Or… something like that. I don’t know how accurate these statistics are, nor do I know where my brother got them from. Regardless, social media does not represent everyone in the world. Not even close.

The nice thing about living in a world of social media is being able to keep in touch with friends and family while quarantined. This whole quarantine process made me ever so grateful for face to face meetings. Some people believe no one will ever want to work again once everything ends. That’s not true. I think most people like working. Being able to leave the house every day and do something, even if it’s something you don’t like, is what keeps us sane. When it came time to return to school, I was initially really mad due to COVID. I ended up being okay with it. My school did a fantastic job at keeping COVID cases down for the entire semester (we only had an average of 20 cases a week, compared to some schools who had hundreds). Not only that, but I was able to see my family away from home again. Even though we wore masks and social distanced most of the time, things felt somewhat normal.

If you are the kind of person who could care less if you see your friends and coworkers in person, don’t forget that most people don’t feel that way. It’s hard to have group conversations on Zoom. You certainly can’t have a party where multiple conversations happen. Don’t assume everyone feels the same way about something. Let people have their social gatherings when it’s acceptable again, and don’t belittle people who feel different from you.

Everyone must do the right thing… all the time. Even when no one is watching. It’s our job to develop the habit of being good to ourselves and to others regardless. If we do that, we’ll be able to go back to a normal-ish life sooner. Lin-Manuel Miranda called America a “great unfinished symphony” in Hamilton. America, you great unfinished symphony, we still have unfinished business to take care of. The change we need won’t come tomorrow. The amount of work we have before we reach the double bar line will take generations to get to. We cannot allow a repeat sign. We must start today. May 2021 be a year of healing.

#2020 #just reflecting #reflections #fandom #lams #destiel #phan #johnlock #important #healing #beautiful #covid #fuck covid #blacklivesmatter #acceptance #respect #quarantine #zoom #2021

5 notes · View notes

regrettablewritings · 4 years

Text

Podcasts, Youtubes, and TV Shows to Distract Yourself With Because Why Not, and Also Because I Wanna Blab About Some of These

Since I can’t go to work and horrify my coworkers/make them realize I’m a mess and/or nerd by telling them about the type of media I’m into, I’m foisting my recommendations on all of y’all who choose to read this. I frankly do not care how many people have actually heard of these things because I’m also sure there’s plenty of people who, like me, are very slow and oblivious to entertainment, or who have heard of the property but were never that convinced.

Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts

Type: TV series

200 years after a mysterious yet earth-shattering event, much of humanity has taken to living beneath the surface in communities called burrows, wherein life goes on, if effected somewhat by the bizarre fauna that exists above them (referred to as “mutes”, short for “mutant”). One burrow girl, Kipo, founds her world turned almost literally inside-out when she finds herself not only separated from her father and the only world she’s ever known, but on the surface, no less. What ensues is her trying to find her way back home with the help of a stony-faced little girl with a massive chip on her shoulder; a music enthusiast and his literal gadfly friend; and some . . . unusual allies that only an oblivious optimist like Kipo could make. All to a kickass soundtrack, a beautiful backdrop of art, and a world where animals have basically evolved into gangs under a looming threat known as Scarlemagne. If you can’t already tell, I love this series to bits and now is the perfect time for people to get into it and encourage another season of it. Just . . . don’t think too hard that whatever happened to cause the Event in the show happened in October 2020 . . .

Available on: Netflix

My Dad Wrote a Porno

Type: Podcast

This should go without saying, but this podcast is definitely meant for more mature audiences. Or somebody with a strong stomach. Not that it’ll always be easy to tell with the type of content this series gives. When Jamie Morton’s father handed him his manuscripts for his self-published books, he had no idea he was being given a pinnacle of a polished turd: It was erotica. Really, really, really bad erotica. But the ear’s trash is the heart’s pleasure with this bad girl, as Jamie enlists the company of friends Alice and James to provide commentary on “Rocky Flintstone”’s series Belinda Blinked, a drama chronicling the sexcapades of Belinda Blumenthal as she climbs the ladders (and men and women) both in and out of the cut-throat world of pots and pans sales. What follows is a goldmine of awkward metaphors, strange bedmates, and just an overall stampede of whiplashing events that somehow exceed expectations. Listen in if you dare . . . And make sure you’re in good company for it. Fun Fact, though: Daisy Ridley, Ben Barnes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Sheen, Mara Wilson, Elijah Wood are but a few well-known fans of this series! Nobody is safe . . .

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

Lore

Type: Podcast

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. And what better way to be reminded of that, then to have the dulcet tones of Aaron Mahnke tell you about the lighthouse incident that the 2016 movie The Lighthouse was loosely inspired by? Suffice to say, this podcast could also be interpreted with some advised discretion, but definitely in a way that’s different from My Dad Wrote a Porno. In the centuries humankind has existed, we’ve managed to create a menagerie of beasts, both fictional and in ourselves. Lore explores all the many different kinds of events and persons and creatures we have to offer. In any given episode, we could be talking about anything from the bizarre story of a lady who convinced 18th century physicians that she was giving birth to rabbits, to something more disturbing like the life of H.H. Holmes. Or something as relatively innocuous as the relationship between gremlins and flight. Regardless of the subject, however, you’ll definitely walk away knowing something new, if bizarre. And perhaps slightly terrifying.

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

The Amelia Project

Type: Podcast

Congratulations: You have been made aware of The Amelia Project. If you’re not interested in this, exit the page. Now. If you continue, there’s no unhearing it. Good choice! A new interest awaits. If you don’t enjoy it, please consider the whole thing a hoax. Okay but in all seriousness, there’s no way to do The Amelia Project justice in just a simple description. The plot sounds quite simple, really: People want to disappear and start a new life, The Amelia Project is there to help – with a price. And that’s if you can actually get a hold of them! What really makes the show, however, are the people and the writing, and I’m not just talking about the almost childlike Interviewer with an obsession for hot cocoa. I’m talking about the clientele: I’m talking about the macabre-obsessed theme park owner who’s out for revenge; the cult leader who’s in way over his head; a Santa impersonator stuck in a miserable marriage with his own manager; an actual podcast character trying to outrun his creators. And obviously this would all be nowhere without the spectacular writing! I really can explain this series without blabbing on and potentially spoiling things; The Amelia Project is an experience!

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

LegalEagle

Type: Youtube channel

To be frank, I just like learning for the sake of learning, even if I may not always necessarily understand the topic or have any plans to use it in the foreseeable future. The big difference here being that at least this channel makes learning about the law fun and breaks it down. Headed by a certified lawyer (because what an age we live in, where professionals actually take time out of their lives to teach us common folk), there’s a multitude of series D.J. Stone uses to help break down the complex world of law, from reviewing the realism of procedural favorites (Law & Order, The Good Wife, HTGAWM, etc), to analyzing real-life situations, to even watching childhood media that has nothing to do with the law and determining how much money, say, Willy Wonka would owe in a lawsuit. In short, it is one of my worst subjects done in one of my favorite ways to learn! Plus, Stone hates business students and is perfectly willing to poke fun at law students so it’s all fun, frankly.

Available on: Youtube

Nando v Movies

Type: Youtube channel

Sometimes, movies are bad. Sometimes, they’re good. And sometimes, they could use a few adjustments in hindsight. Especially the nerdier movies where the directors may or may not have tried way too hard or way too little. And that’s where Nando comes in: Whether it’s explaining why a different villain might have worked better for a hero’s origin story movie, or analyzing how one seemingly small adjustment could’ve potentially made more sense in explaining characterization, this channel is always providing a new perspective on a movie or show you’ve probably seen and maybe weren’t necessarily too pleased with. (Or maybe you were – I enjoyed Justice League okay but I love the version he rewrote more.) Oh, yeah: Sometimes he does rewrites of movies or even series. So if you’re anything like me and you’re way into that, this is a channel you don’t want to miss out on.

Available on: Youtube

DEATH BATTLE!

Type: Youtube channel

Does anyone remember Deadliest Warrior? No? . . . How about that one time during lunch where you and your friend got into it over who would win in a death match between Superman and Goku? Good news: A buncha geeks did the math for you and have come out with the results! Specifically, hosts Wiz and Boomstick have analyzed the weapons, armor, and skills of each combatant in every episode, resulting in an ongoing series of absolute nonsense and satiation of bloodshed. The description is admittedly nothing crazy, but the amount of detail applied is honestly where it’s at: From calculating how loud Black Canary’s screams are to approximating Scrooge McDuck’s speed (I’m not kidding you), there’s actual thought put into the characters being assembled and how they might fair with their respective combatant. And it all comes together for an actual fight, often animated but always amazing. So if you’ve ever wondered if Thor could beat Wonder Woman, or if McGruff the Crime Dog stands a chance against Smokey the Bear (I’m…I’m being honest), then this is the show for you!

Available on: Youtube

Sideways

Type: Youtube channel

If there is music in that movie or show, it will be analyzed to a degree that, unless you’ve been trained in music, you would’ve probably never thought about. There isn’t necessarily much rhyme or reason to Sideways’ videos in terms of themes beyond music, but really, must they? Is it not enough that this man is screaming to the internet these wack and awesome trends he’s noticed in certain pieces associated with movies and musicals and the genius behind them? Could life not just be him explaining the symbolism of the instruments associated with the Crystal Gems of Steven Universe, or breaking down the cultures explored by way of the Black Panther soundtrack? Also, here’s a fun drinking game: Take a shot every time he mentions leitmotifs or the Dies Irae.

Available on: Youtube

Craig of the Creek

Type: TV show

In the woods of suburban Maryland, there exists a kid’s utopia: A place where horse girls are free to roam the fields, where a boy can be a king of garbage, and where children travel the sewers completely unsupervised. That is, until the dinner horn rings; then they have to go home until the next time they can return to The Creek. The show focuses on one specific trio (Craig, JP, and Kelsey) as every day, The Creek (and their own childish naivete) brings them new hijinks to experience. There’s a blissful lightheartedness to the show, in addition to a lot of creativity that feels like it was ripped straight out of your own imagination as a child (robots made from cardboard boxes, building portals using lights, etc). But beneath it all, there’s something just plain wild brewing. I don’t want to spoil anything, but CotC has some G-rated GOT shit going on the further along the series goes and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds!

Available on: CN app, wcostream.com

And that’s probably enough for now, I think. Lemme know if you want any other suggestions, or how you’re findin’ ‘em if you take any of them up! Stay safe, stay healthy my dudes!

56 notes · View notes

swanlake1998 · 4 years

Link

Dance Magazine Article: PNB’s Amanda Morgan Is Raising Her Voice Against Injustice

Date: June 15, 2020

By: Lydia Murray

On June 4, Pacific Northwest Ballet corps member Amanda Morgan posted an Instagram video of her impassioned speech at a Seattle protest in response to George Floyd's death.

After introducing herself to the cheering crowd as the only Black ballerina in her company—an accomplishment, yet an indictment of ballet's progress in increasing diversity—she championed accountability for action and inaction.

"Society may have tried to silence the voices of the marginalized, but you will never silence me," she finished, fist raised.

The clip has received over 14,000 views.

Dance Magazine spoke with Morgan about her activism; her hopes for diversity, equity and inclusion in ballet; and her advice for other dancers who want to speak out against injustice.

You're the only Black female dancer at PNB. What has that been like?

I started in the school when I was 15 and didn't see anyone in the company who looked like me. I remember feeling down at times, because other students would say, "I'm like this dancer," when we were watching the company. I would think, Oh, I'm not like anyone. That was hard, and I didn't think I'd get into the company because of it. But I really wanted to get in, not just for myself, but so that other little boys and girls wouldn't have to experience that.

What led to that change in your mindset?

I've always been very determined, gone after what I wanted and stood up for what I believed was right. But I had a teacher at PNB named Le Yin who pushed us to do the kinds of turns and jumps that guys did, and didn't talk to us like we were students. It gave me that confidence to say, "I shouldn't hold myself back because of what I look like, even though it may be harder."

You've been very vocal about racial injustice, especially in recent weeks, and you've protested against racism and police brutality.

In the dance world, we're realizing that there are injustices within ballet, but it's so much bigger than ballet. It's bleeding into every part of Black and brown lives and the Black and brown experience. Part of it was, "I want my ballet company and the ballet world to realize that this is important," but I also need the world, my government and my country to listen, and realize that we clearly have a system that is not benefiting all communities. It never has. We need a way to dismantle that, because we have the capacity to do so now.

Being the only Black ballerina at PNB, I've always been talking about race. I feel like it comes with the job.

On Instagram, you recently posted a video of yourself speaking at a protest, sharing words you'd written in response to George Floyd's death. And you thanked your arts family for protesting alongside you. Were the artists from PNB?

Some of the artists were from PNB, but the other people came from Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony and other small arts organizations in the area.

I've gone to the protests every day except for about two or three days. The protests and protesters have been peaceful, but the police have not been peaceful. As someone who grew up in Washington state, it's upsetting to me that the police are not really protecting us.

Another reason I'm protesting is that the brother of the only other Black girl at my old dance studio was murdered by the police in March. His name was Manuel Ellis. It really hit me that anyone that I know could get murdered in that way. So I'm marching for him as well, and hoping that he gets justice.

It's so important to use our platforms to let people know what is actually happening.

You've directly called on leaders in the ballet world to be more vocal about addressing racial injustice. Can you talk about your decision to do that and what you want to happen as a result?

I think a lot of people need to realize that everyone wants to say the right thing, but at the end of the day, you need to just get it out there.

I know that people are doing things outside of social media and behind the scenes. I don't want to discredit that. But I'm paying attention to who is speaking out and who isn't, who is highlighting other Black artists and who isn't and who is using their platform to educate their followers, rather than doing it as a performative act, like just putting up a black box and saying "Blackout Tuesday" with no additional resources.

In an Instagram post, you recommended Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me. At one point in the book, Coates writes that he wishes for his son to "feel no need to constrict" himself "to make other people feel comfortable." That reminded me of your speech, when you said, "I hope for a world in which I will not have to explain to my children how to act in public around police for fear of their lives being taken away."

As a Black woman in ballet, have you felt a need to constrict yourself?

Before all of this happened, I was working on a piece for Seattle Dance Collective with another Black woman named Nia-Amina Minor. We were making a piece about spatial injustice, and the Black female voice and perspective in the city and in dance. Working on that piece made me realize that, a lot of times, I've felt myself shrinking. I'm not just a Black woman, I'm a very tall Black woman. I also have a unique quality of movement, in addition to being able to do ballet.

I didn't necessarily have my voice shrink, but I felt my dancing shrink. I tried to fit in with the corps, I tried to dance smaller, I tried not to move as big because I didn't want to stand out as much. I think my body naturally adapted to that environment, and shrank.

Ballet is restrictive, but I realized that you can be expansive within these restrictions. I'm looking forward to eventually dancing again and playing around with that idea.

I've been choreographing with a contemporary style, but it's a little bit softer in the way that it's danced. I've never been able to do things that are more soft and vulnerable and elegant, so I want people to do that in my pieces.

We have to base casting on more than how someone fits into a mold. We want to push people to be the best artists they can be, and make a part their own. If we hold onto that idea, then maybe race or gender will not stick as much in people's minds.

I haven't been used in a lot of things that choreographers have come and staged, because they've already made the piece on another company. They say, "She doesn't really fit into any of these parts," but there's barely anyone I look like in the dance world. That doesn't mean that I can't do it just as well, and make it fully my own.

Shortly after you debuted as a choreographer, you wrote on Instagram, "Life has shown me that if you don't see what you want to see around you, create it." Was there a relationship between creating what you want to see through choreography, and pursuing social change as an activist?

Yeah, I think there's a direct relation. As a choreographer, I don't want to use my art to deflect, but to reflect on the world around me.

I've only had a dance career for four years, but I decided to start choreographing early in my career because of visibility. Even though I stand out due to being the only Black woman, having my voice or narrative heard was not a thing. I had to assert myself in these spaces in a different way. And I realized a way to do that was by being the person at the front of the room, making the piece.

What do you think ballet organizations should do going forward to continue the work of diversity, equity and inclusion?

To create more connectivity within organizations, because that can lead to conversation about more difficult things to talk about, like race or gender.

During the pandemic, I started a mentorship program at PNB with Cecilia Iliesiu, where we spent six hours each week speaking with dancers in the school. The students were all talking about what's going on in the world. A lot of them are white, but they wanted to know what I was feeling. Everyone at PNB is talking about how we're going to implement things differently. I'm hoping that happens in other companies.

Organizations need to think critically about, What are we showing as a ballet company? What are we saying, visually, and who are we leaving out? Whose story isn't being told? In most of our ads, it's always white people. Black dancers could see that and think, I don't really want to audition there. It's the same thing with audience members. We need to serve not just one community, but all communities.

For so long, ballet has just given a white narrative. We need to give different types of people the opportunity to choreograph in ballet companies, because then you're going to see different stories.

A lot of people say that we need to hire more Black dancers, and yes, that's important. But we also need to have more Black artistic directors, and Black female executive directors or Black board members. I also think we need to have racial equity coordinators or managers, so that if an institution does step out of bounds or something is a little iffy, that person can speak up about it.

I recently met with over 70 Black dancers from professional companies all over the world via Zoom, which really gave me a sense of our power as Black artists. Even though we can feel so tokenized and alone in our own companies, we're not alone in this, and we never have been. So many people have paved the way for us, and we're just continuing that work. We have to pay homage to that as well.

I've always stuck by the Nina Simone quote that says it's an artist's duty to reflect the times. I think if we do that, like with what's happening right now, people are going to be more inclined to see ballet, and that's how we'll keep our relevancy going into the future.

Do you have any advice for other dancers who want to speak out against injustice?

I've been reading Audre Lorde lately, and she said that we think of silence as protection, as a way to shelter ourselves from pain. You're still going to feel that pain and anger regardless of whether you speak out. I hope that people speak out in a constructive way, of course. I don't think rehashing the past continuously is the best way to do it without having action items in that conversation.

This is a global movement and a pivotal moment that's happening. If you're not talking now, but you have in the past, I don't understand the reason. This is the most important time to do it. Before, some people were paying attention, but now, everyone is. There are no distractions. People have the time to sit down at home and think. So get their attention and say what you need to say now, especially if you have a platform. And vote!

#amanda morgan #ballet #ballerina #article #dance magazine #dancemagazine #anti black racism /#police brutality /#murder /#irl death /#death /

25 notes · View notes

alicedoessurveys · 3 years

Text

Doctor Who Tag

yes im a nerd...

CHILDHOOD

1. Did you like DW as a child?

I was 10 when it came back on telly with Eccleston and the first episode with the autons scared me so much my mom wouldn't let me watch it again until a couple years later, but yeah my teens I was obsessed with DW... still am at age 25

2. Your age at the time of the revival?

3. First DW episode you ever saw?

‘Rose’

4. Did you have any of the toys?

I still have the eleventh doctor’s screwdriver... I used to have some of the figures but there in storage now somewhere

5. Which DW character did you play on the playground?

didn't play it on the playground

6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child?

all of them! the ones that still scare me now are the Cybermen and the Autons... genuinely cant walk past a shop mannequin without being suspicious

7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid?

as a kid, any of the innuendo type jokes

8. DW opinion that has changed since you were a kid?

idk I think I still have the same opinions

9. Who introduced you to DW?

parents

10. Did you like Sarah Jane Adventures as a child?

I LOVED SJA!! I miss that show, and Elizabeth Slade :(

DOCTOR

11. Who is your Doctor?

Ten was the doctor that made me fall in love with Doctor Who

12. Your favourite Doctor?

omg why not just ask me who my favourite child is... (I don't have kids but you know what I mean) if I had to chose my top three are ten, eleven and thirteen

13. Least favourite Doctor?

purely just because he doesn't have enough episodes... nine...

14. Best regeneration?

none of them I hate regenerations :( they make me sad, im too emotionally invested in every single one

15. Do you like “Doctor-Lite” episodes?

they're not my faves

16. Who is the most human Doctor?

I think nine maybe? or twelve?

17. Best multi-Doctor story?

the 50th anniversary special

18. Best Doctor monologue?

“Hello Stonehenge! who takes the pandorica, takes the universe. but bad news everyone, cause guess who? HA! You lot you're all whizzing about- its really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING. Question of the hour is, who's got the pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question, who's coming to take it from me? Come on, look at me! No plan. No backup. No weapons worth a damn. oh and something else, I don't have anything to lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the pandorica tonight... just remember who's standing in your way. remember ever black day I ever stopped you and then- AND THEN- do the smart thing... let somebody else try first.”

not copied and pasted, remember that from the top of my head... its always there waiting in my mind incase I ever need an epic monologue :’)

19, What do you think TenToo/MetaCrisis Doctor is doing now?

hopefully living his best life with Rose

20. Best Doctor/companion pairing?

ten and donna

COMPANIONS

21. Favourite companion?

Donna, Clara, Amy

22. Favourite secondary companion?

is Mickey classed as secondary? idk

23. Least favourite companion?

Ryan

24. Best TARDIS Team?

Doctor, Amy and Rory

25. Most underrated companion?

Graham, but that may just be cause I love Bradders

26. Most overrated companion?

Rose... I like her but idk, I think she gets more hype than she deserves.. don't @ me

27. Favourite companion’s family?

Rose’s mom

28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t?

idk I cant think of anyone

29. Favourite (canon or non-canon) DW universe relationship?

Amy and Rory

30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now?

wasn't keen on Bill at first but by the end I really liked her, same with Rory

EPISODES

31. Favourite episode ever?

girl in the fireplace

32. Least favourite episode?

most of Chibnall’s episodes tbh sorry not sorry

33. Which episodes do you skip?

the regeneration episodes

34. Best two-parter?

Human Nature - Family of Blood

35. Historical, present day or futuristic episodes?

I like them all in there own way but I think present is fave, then historical, then future

36. Episode that will always make you smile?

all of them

37. Episode that will always make you cry?

Rory and Amy’s last episode :’(

38. Best run of episodes?

ugh I cant answer this theres too many

39. Best cliffhanger?

the end of Spyfall part one when the Master reveals who he is... I was SHOOK

40. Favourite Christmas special?

Voyage of the Damned

SERIES

41. Classic Who or New Who?

new who

42. Favourite series?

four or five

43. Least favourite series?

eleven, I just cant with the writing

44. Which series do you skip?

none

45. Favourite series opening?

eleventh hour

46. Favourite series finale?

Doomsday

47. Best series arc?

Bad Wolf

48. Thoughts on series 11/12?

I adore Jodie Whittaker and her doctor, and although I think 3 companions is too many I do love Yaz and Graham (Ryan is hit & miss). I just think theyve been massively let down by the stories/writing... they’ve tried to hard to tick certain boxes and completely missed what Doctor Who is about for a lot of people.. an escape from the real world into these outrageous unbelievable but lovable fun alien adventures

49. How much of Classic Who have you seen?

not a lot

50. Who should have had another series?

NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE

MONSTERS

51. Favourite monster/villain?

the master

52. Most creative monster?

Weeping Angels, whoever came up with monsters that look like statues and only move when you're not looking at them is genius

53. Monster(s) that scares you most?

Autons, Cybermen, the creepy dolls from Night Terrors, the ones from Waters of Mars, Weeping Angels

54. Monster you think is too easy to defeat?

idk

55. Least favourite monster/villain?

absorbaloff

56. Monster you want to return?

The Master, I really hope that isn't the last we see of Dhawan

57. In your opinion, what makes a monster good?

being genuinely scary,

58. Daleks, Cybermen or Weeping Angels?

Weeping Angels

59. Best Dalek story?

Daleks in Manhatten

60. Best one time villain/monster?

my brain has gone blank I cant think of an answer right now

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures?

SJA

62. Favourite Torchwood Team member?

I haven't watched it all so I couldn't say

63. Which Torchwood death made you saddest?

again, not watched it all

64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?

huh

65. Favourite SJA Team member?

Sarah Jane

66. Mr Smith or K-9?

K-9

67. Maria or Rani?

Rani

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?

Nope

69. If you do, your favourite additional stories?

n/a

70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)?

yes

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

71. Favourite piece of alien tech?

the sonic, I love how it is so multipurpose except for when it comes to wood

72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music?

I am the Doctor - gets me pumped every time

73. Favourite TARDIS design?

Ten’s Tardis

74. Has the 2005 era CGI aged well?

actually yeah, I was rewatching the ‘are you my mummy’ episodes the other day and my God when the gas masks emerged from the faces... ooooooof I was like omg how

75. Favourite Doctor outfit?

eleven or thirteen

76. Monster with the best design?

not really a design more of a costume.. I live Dhawan master’s costume. that shade of purple, oof he so stylish

77. Best show runner?

idk

78. Best writer?

Gatiss

79. Best opening titles?

eleven’s titles where the Tardis is flying and being zapped is cool but thirteens music hits different

80. Will DW age well/stay popular in the future?

I hope so, I feel like its lasted this long surely it can last forever.. if the writers don't fuck it up...

IF YOU WERE IN THE SHOW

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?

whatever time means Id get to wear the most beautiful costumes

82. Planet/place you’d want to go with the Doctor?

Galifrey, pre-desctruction

83. Doctor you’d most like to travel with?

any of them, please and thank you

84. Companion you’d most like to travel with?

donna, sceso a good laugh but also I feel like she’d look after me

85. Monster you’d like to defeat/fight?

The Master

86. If you could go back on your own history (like Father’s Day), where would you go?

back to when I was a toddler, I wanna see what I was like

87. If you could ask the Doctor anything, what would you ask?

theres too many to ask

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?

Shakespeare

89. How do you think you’d meet the Doctor?

id probably be rescued from doing something stupid and then the doc would be like you know what the bitch clearly needs supervision she's coming with me

90. Would you travel forwards or backwards in time first?

backwards

IF YOU MADE THE SHOW

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?

Hamilton

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?

idk

93. Who would you completely erase from the DW universe?

Ruth

94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to?

where is Clara now?

95. Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor?

Phoebe Waller Bridge (or Lin Manuel Miranda)

96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?

Andrew Scott (yes I did just basically recast fleabag and hot priest)

97. Is DW “too political”?

series 11 got a bit like that

98. Which characters fate would you changed?

Danny Pink

99. What about DW could be improved?

I think ive made my options about Chibnall pretty clear...

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do

bring back Jenny, the Doctor / Daughter adventures they would have. I’m actually writing a fic about it if you wanna read.... here

#doctor who #tag #doctor who tag #doctor who questions #survey

4 notes · View notes

trespeak · 5 years

Note

What's your favorite house album?

Wow, that’s a toughie. Might just have to give you a list instead.

This ended up being pretty long so I’ve put all the big descriptions I wrote for each of ‘em under the cut, but here’s the gist:

Daft Punk, Discovery (2001)

Kaskade, Fire and Ice (2011)

deadmau5, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) and 4x4=12 (2010)

Phantoms, Phantoms (2017)

Justice, † (2007)

Lazy Rich’s singles

Porter Robinson/Virtual Self – Spitfire (2011) and Virtual Self (2017)

I like a lot of deep house and electro house, so most of my picks here are within either or both of those subgenres (as well as progressive house, in deadmau5′s case).

For more of my thoughts (and there are many!), see below.

Daft Punk, Discovery (2001)

Accept no substitutes. For Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, making quality tunes seems to just be second nature. Their second album replaces the underground, city-street feel of Homework with a shiny, discotheque-ready sound that stands on the shoulders of giants but does so as a means of updating and widening the reach of their own influences (with “Harder Better Faster Stronger”’s use of “Cola Bottle Baby” as a perfect example thereof). My favorite track on the record, “Digital Love,” perhaps only barely qualifies as house, but between the earnestness of the vocoded lyrics and the heart-stopper of a guitar solo, I don’t even mind – who cares about genre conventions when you’re a smitten robot? It’s utterly brilliant and its era exists as the gold standard for many DP fans, myself included among them.

Kaskade, Fire and Ice (2011)

Ryan Raddon’s seventh album and the one I hold the most nostalgia for. An ambitious effort on Kaskade’s part, Fire and Ice is a double album, with original tracks on one side and remixed, chilled-out versions of the same songs on the other (geddit?). The ICE mixes are something of a mixed bag, with some having more reason to exist than others, but the Fire side of the album earns it a place here on its own, with Skrillex and Raddon giving us their own brilliant take on a classic track from Guy Manuel de Homem Christo on “Lick It,” as well as the smooth vibes of Ryan’s collaboration with his band Late Night Alumni and Inpetto on “How Long.” Another standout track: “ICE,” a big, bumping jam Ryan made with Dan Black and Dada Life.

deadmau5, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) and 4x4=12 (2010)

Oh, Joel. These days he’s earned a controversial status as full-time internet troll alongside his career as a musician, but he’s still had a palpable impact on the industry at large (pop juggernaut Marshmello more or less owes his entire career to the allure of the man in the cute mask, and while Daft Punk did it first, Mello’s own interpretation is particularly and explicitly influenced by the way deadmau5 did it). These two albums dropped when I was twelve/thirteen and still opening my eyes to the wide world of electronica, and I think they’re particularly significant as the point where I went from being a casual fan of it to a devotee, sparking an investment in the Scene® that I still have to this day. The degree of control Joel flexes over his work at its peak was unprecedented for the time and still holds up now – “Strobe,” the album closer on For Lack Of, is particularly notable in how it makes ten minutes feel like no time at all in how it builds and shifts with just a few simple, powerful elements in play at a time. “Ghosts ‘n Stuff” earned Joel and vocalist Rob Swire a crossover hit, and “Raise Your Weapon” stands as an early illustration of what the North American take on dubstep would sound like in the years to come.

Phantoms, Phantoms (2017)

Kyle Kaplan and Vinnie Pergola’s debut record is a clever mission statement for their work. Their deep house tunes are infused with pop sensibilities, placing them in company with contemporaries like Jamie xx and Disclosure as house DJs making an effort to bridge the gap between the radio airwaves and the dance floor. My favorites include “Just a Feeling” with Verite, a modody track called “Downtown,” and the utterly brilliant “Need You Closer,” a collab with Hayley Kiyoko that easily converted me into the Church of Lesbian Jesus. (Their recent work is also worth a nod as well – they’ve been building up singles to drum up interest in a new EP, including one of their best tracks to date, a driving progressive house tune called “Designs for You.”)

Justice, † (2007)

Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay’s debut record remains their best. There’s so many iconic tracks on this one: The slick vibes of “Genesis” and “Newjack,” the ever crowd-pleasing “D.A.N.C.E.,” the pumping “Phantom” and its sequel, the nu-disco sleaze of “DVNO”, and the ear-splitting delight of “Waters of Nazareth.” The record earned them a positive, if daunting, comparison to fellow French house pioneers Daft Punk, and while their work on it shares an obsession with taking diverse samples and reconfiguring them into their own image, Justice’s fascination with the macabre aesthetic of 70′s horror films and the rock ‘n roll ethos of T. Rex earned them a distinct spot in the pantheon of electronic acts with this record (as well as its followup, the different-but-still-great Audio, Video, Disco).

Feed Me - Feed Me’s Big Adventure (2011) and Calamari Tuesday (2013)

Jon Gooch was one of the earliest musicians to emerge under deadmau5′s mau5trap label, and still shines as one of its leading acts today (High Street Creeps, released earlier this year, has jams for days). While he started his career making drum ‘n bass tracks as Spor, the bulk of his work since 2009 has been under the Feed Me alias, where he’s dabbled in all manner of electronic but mostly hews close to the realm of electro house. Gooch’s experience in making complex tunes meant that Feed Me came out swinging, with tracks like “Grand Theft Ecstasy” and “Muscle Rollers” exhibiting a confidence and technical skill from the outset that most producers would kill for on their first record. By the time his first proper full length released two years later, he’d developed a consistent feel that made collaborations with indie bands (”Love Is All I Got,” with Crystal Fighters) and soulful singers (”Last Requests,” with Jenna G) feel as natural as hard-hitting bangers (”No Grip” and “Death by Robot”). Mix in a little bit of both and you get “Ophelia,” a anthemic ballad made with YADi – my favorite song from the record, and a earworm that still sticks with me six years on. Love, don’t let me drown…

and some honorable mentions!

Lazy Rich’s singles! Richard Billis is a Canadian DJ who retired from producing tunes in 2017, but for the decade or so he was releasing music, the electro house singles he released were nothing short of iconic. Songs like “Blast Off” (with Hirshee and Lizzie Curious) and “Flash” (with Hot Mouth) are energetic, breezy and danceable. There’s nothing quite like a good Lazy Rich drop; his beats hit the dance floor with the weight of a truck, and have a sonic diversity among them that would predict the electronic scene’s shift toward the dynamism of future bass. It makes me sad that we won’t get any more of them, but Billis left behind such an evergreen catalog of singles that it’s hard to be down for very long. (I used to use his remix of Zedd’s “Stars Come Out” as a theme song of sorts on an old website where you could be a DJ with your friends. The fond memories are strong with this one.)

Porter Robinson/Virtual Self – Spitfire (2011) and Virtual Self (2017) – Leave it to Porter Robinson to carve out a completely separate musical persona just to hearken back to his halcyon days as a young producer. My initial introduction to him was just after he’d emerged from the hands-up scene, while he had his eyes set on stardom through what he called “complextro,” and it was surprising to find that his work not only lived up to its genre classification but actively carved out a market for its sound, even before Porter had dropped an album. If the dubstep and house feel of Spitfire was a revelation, the DDR vibes of the Virtual Self EP are a revitalization; similar in ethos, but with an owned, Serial Experiments Lain-styled technological aesthetic. Porter does a lot of work to keep the two projects separate (even going as far as to delineate live shows between the aliases), but rather than fragmenting his work the distinction only ends up strengthening his catalog, in much the same way Jon Gooch’s work as Feed Me complements his earlier collection as Spor.

JOYRYDE’s singles and upcoming album - John Ford Jr. is an English DJ who knows what he likes: fast cars, bumping house beats, mean-muggin’ rap jams, and making tunes that blend all of the above in one way or another. His JOYRYDE project is only a few years old, emerging in 2016, but it’s very much the culmination of years of diggin’ in the crates and building a sound that blends the hip-hop influences of trap with the boogie-bounce sensibility of house. No sooner is this evident than the “parental discretion is advised” warning (and subsequent punchy opening bars) that welcomes you into “HOT DRUM,” though his other tracks (including “MAXIMUM KING” and the Rick Ross-assisted “WINDOWS”) share that kinetic energy. He’s one to watch!

Also worth your time:

Oliver’s Mechanical EP and their album Full Circle

Mord Fustang’s All Eyes On… compilations

Botnek’s singles from 2016 onward

Chris Lake’s releases with his label Black Book Records

Self Help by Walker and Royce

pretty much everything by Ellie Herring and Chrissy (Murderbot)

Fantasmas by Zavala

anything Wolfgang Gartner has made (particularly his early 2010s singles)

That’s all I got for now. If you made it this far, you’re an angel. Thanks for indulging me :)

#Anonymous #treman's world #this post took a long time and I lost it once (almost twice)#i love... house music #askhole answers

5 notes · View notes

bunk12bear · 5 years

Text

I learned it from the pizza man chapter 4: The Continued Adventures of Olive Bro

Okay, this is the third time I've tried to post this. I tried twice last night but Tumblr crashed both times _______________________________________________________________

Lance was freaking out, Keith was going to pick him up in less than an hour and he still didn't know what he was going to wear on this freaking date. He rifled frantically through his closet rejecting shirt after shirt, too casual, too casual, not casual enough, why the hell did he even still own this shirt, too casual, not casual - oh, god why was this so hard?

Ten minutes later he'd managed to pair his options down to two. Option one: a dark blue button-up with the sleeves cuffed at the elbows, nice jeans and dark brown leather loafers. Option two: a dark blue Star Wars t-shirt with a blue suit jacket and pants and blue Converse high tops.

Hunk. He needed Hunk to make the final decision. He knocked on the door to Hunk's room, both outfit options folded carefully over his arms. Hunk emerged from his room and seemed to know instantly what Lance needed.

“Hunk, my buddy, my man, my absolute favorite person in the world”

Hunk interrupted,“Lance, you don't have to butter me up to get me to choose an outfit for your date tonight. You're my best friend, of course I'm gonna do that for you. Just show me what you got.”

Lance laid the two options down on Hunk’s bed and stepped back to let his friend take a look and consider both outfits.

“I'd go with the button up, the last time you wore that shirt the girl in the apartment next door wouldn't stop staring at you. I also overheard her saying something about how it apparently did things to your shoulders.”

“Thanks bro!” Lance yelled while running to his bedroom to change and throw on a last-minute face mask.

========================================================================

Keith was practically pacing a hole in the floor of the living room, much to Shiro's annoyance.

“Are you absolutely sure about this outfit?”

“Yes Keith, you look great and I would know, I picked it out.

“Do you think I should get him flowers, or would that be weird?”

“Do you think he'd like flowers?”

“Yes."

“Then buy him flowers, or do I have to pick those out too?”

“Shiro, I'm being serious.”

“Keith, relax. He clearly likes you. I mean, he did ask you to ask him out.”

“What if it's a prank?”

“It's not a prank.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“He wouldn't be keeping it up for so long if this is a prank.”

“Yes but do you know that.”

“KEITH!”

“Fine, fine, fine, whatever.” Keith took a deep breath. “'m okay, I'm fine.”

“Listen, Keith, if it somehow is a prank, witch it absolutely isn't by the way, then he's a jerk and not worth your time are your sadness, okay?” “You sound like one of those stupid inspirational text posts mom and her friends post on Facebook.”

Shiro laughed. “Hey at least you're not freaking out anymore.”

“Yeah, thanks for the pep talk. I should go now if I want to get him flowers.”

“Okay, text me when you're heading home.”

“I will”

“If you're taking your motorcycle remember a helmet!”

“Yes mom,” Keith huffed rolling his eyes

“Hey, this is a direct order from Mom. If she finds out I let you ride on that thing without a helmet she'd kill me. Slowly and painfully”

“Okay, okay I'll bring the helmet!”

“And bring the spare one for Lance.”

“Okay,” Keith replied impatiently

“I'm just worried about you. As your big brother I kind of have to be, it comes with the job”

“Goodbye Shiro."

Keith parked his bike in front of a little flower shop and walked up to the checkout counter. There was an old woman behind the register. She looked sweet, plump, vaguely grandmotherly, and was wearing a straw Hat and floral shirt. Exactly the kind of person you'd expect to run a little flower shop. “How can I help you, dear?” “I need to buy flowers for a date.”

“Aw, who's the lucky lady.”

“Um, it's not.. it's not a lady. He's not a lady”

“Oh my mistake, terribly sorry did you have something in mind?”

“Um, not really This is actually a first date but we've been kind of talking for a while. so I know that his favorite color is blue, I think he mentioned licking Hydrangeas. I don't know that much about flowers”

The lady laughed. “Well then it's very good that I have a bouquet of blue Hydrangeas on hand.”

“I'll take those then.”

After the flowers were wrapped and paid for the lady smiled at him. “Good luck on your date dear.”

“Thank you.” And with that Keith's set off to Lance's house. ======================================================================== The doorbell rang and Lance shot up from the couch to answer the door.

Wow. Just wow. If Lance thought Keith was gorgeous in that ridiculous uniform he wasn't prepared for the way he looked dressed up for a date.

He was wearing a dark red button up, a leather jacket, tight fitting black jeans and black boots. “Hi Oh these, these are these are for you,” he he stuttered holding up a bouquet of blue Hydrangeas. “I love Hydrangeas, My mom has them in her garden. Oh and they're blue, blue is my favorite color! You remembered.”

“I'm glad you like them.”

“Let me go get a vase for these. Come in and sit down on the couch while I go find one.”

When Lance finally found a vase for the bouquet - it was tucked away on one of the highest shelves, he literally needed a stool to reach it he placed it on the counter for a minute to take a look .Keith had gotten him Blue Hydrangeas. He'd actually remembered Lance talking his favorite flowers and color. Could this guy possibly be any more amazing?. He smiled to himself before checking the time on the stove clock. 'Oh shit if we don't leave now we're going to be late!

========================================================================

Lance walked away and Keith sat down on the couch only to be greeted by a tiny girl with short brown hair and a tall dark-skinned dude who looked like he could be a linebacker, Lance's roommates, Keith presumed. It was good to finally put faces to names and voices.

The girl-Pidge, if he remembered correctly leaned closer narrowing her eyes menacingly. “Listen here, dude. Lance may be an idiot but he's our idiot and he's one of my best friends. You know the deal, if you hurt him we will destroy you.Got it?”

The big guy Hunk presumably, nodded along, “Seriously, I usually hate violence but you don't mess with my friends.”

“Oh, okay.”

“And if you think I'm scary, he has four older siblings and like a whole bunch of cousins. You don't even want to know what they'd do after I’m done with you”

“I'm not going to hurt him, I swear!”

“I'm going to take you on your word. For now.”

“Um, th- thank you I guess.”

At that point, Lance walked back in from the kitchen with the Hydrangeas now in a vase and placed them on the side table by the couch.

“Hey so we gotta leave now if we're going to make the five o’clock movie,” Lance said and reached for Keith's hand. Together they began to walk towards the door. Keith took one last look back only to see Pidge Shot him an “I'm watching you” gesture”.

========================================================================

They arrived at the movie theater on Keith's motorcycle. Yes, Keith had a motorcycle and Just when he thought Keith couldn't get any hotter. Lance had already bought the tickets so all they needed to do was present the printed out receipt to the bored looking teenage girl at the ticket booth.

She sighed and rolled her eyes but didn’t even bother to look up at them. “What movie do you want to see?”

“Moana please, we already bought our tickets, here's a receipt. They told me to give it to you so you could print out the physical tickets.”

“Okay fine whatever, just give me the receipt and…” she stopped halfway through her sentence as she finally actually looked up at Lance. She perked up instantly and immediately went to print out the ticket while looking up at Lance every couple of seconds. She grabbed the tickets and handed them to him obviously attempting to touch Lance and giggled. “Enjoy the movie, Sir, I hear it's super good,” she said dreamily while wrapping a lock of hair around her finger.

“Um...Thank you?" Lance might have been flattered by her flirting if it weren't for the fact that, one, she couldn't have been older than sixteen and two, it was incredibly obvious he was on a date.

Once she was out of your shot Keith began to laugh. “Okay what was that about?”

“Seriously, it’s soobvious I am on a date with you,’ Lance said, indicating their intertwined hands. “Let's go in before anyone else decides to hit on you.”

“Besides you, of course.” Lance winked at him.

“Oh, obviously.”

======================================================================== The movie was, as predicted, incredible. The animation was gorgeous the music was great and Keith was genuinely surprised at how much he liked Dwayne The Rock Johnson as Maui.

Lance definitely seemed to agree as he emerged from the movie theater dancing and singing an odd fragmented mix of whatever he could remember from “How Far I'll Go” and “You're Welcome”. Some people, including his teenage self, might have found it annoying but honestly, it was quite cute. Besides, any excuse to watch Lance was a good one, especially now with him all dressed up. The shirt hugged his shoulders just right and showed off his arms and his pants made his legs look a mile long.

They walked along towards the restaurant, Lance stopping his impromptu concert so they could chat about the movie.

“Can you believe Auliʻi Cravalho is only 16? Imagine being able to sing and act like that at 16! I did theater in high school and I can think of like four different girls who would legitimately have killed a man to get a voice like that at her age.”

Judging by his few interactions with the theater kids in high school Keith wasn't sure if that was much of an exaggeration.

“Yeah she was great. I was mostly surprised by The Rock, who knew he was so talented?”

“Actually I did know that, this girl who did hairspray with me in high school was obsessed with him, obsessed I tell you. Oh, and speaking of theater kids, did you see the SNL episode with Lin-manuel Miranda? God, he was brilliant! I swear Crucible Cast Party was taken from hidden cameras for my high school theater days.”

“Oh yeah, I saw that it was funny. I never really did any theater so I'm not sure if I got all of the jokes but it was still funny.”

They continued chatting, with Lance looking down occasionally to check the directions on his phone. The walk to the restaurant wasn't that long, 10 minutes at most - a fact that Keith was thankful for because he didn’t want to be out in the cold for longer than necessary. Three years of going to college up north and he still wasn't used to the winters.

When they got to the restaurant Lance talked to the hostess in rapid-fire Spanish, apparently, she was more comfortable with it than English. He didn't understand most of it. He hadn't bothered to take a foreign language class in high school. His father had taught him enough Korean before he died for Keith to opt out of it.

The lady seated them at an intimate table toward the back and handed them their menus.

“What do you think you're going to get?” Keith asked.

“Hunk says fajitas are incredible, I'm going to get them with chicken. He also recommends the tamales, will you share an appetizer of them with me?”

“Yeah sure, sounds great. I've never l had tamales before but they sound good. I think I'm going to get the Pollo con mole poblano.”

“Oh, good choice mole poblano is delicious.”

The waiter came by to take their order and dropped off a little round pan full of tortilla crisps. Keith hesitantly tasted one. It was warm and surprisingly flavorful, nothing like the store-bought ones. Lance grabbed one too and took a bite, his eyes lighting up. “Hunk was right, these are incredible! Maybe I should go back and ask for the recipe for him, turn up the Lancey Lance charm.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Keith.

“Really?” “I'm joking! And hey, it worked on you, didn't it?”

“That and you being incredibly handsome.”

Lance's cheeks darkened at the compliment.“Seriously though, if they wouldn't give it to Hunk they're not going to tell anyone. I swear, that boy is an angel from heaven! Always has been and I've known him since we were kids.”

“He seems like it. Your second roommate on the other hand... What's her deal?” “Pidge, she's a gremlin but we love her. She's actually two years younger than me but she's some kind of genius who went to college at like 16. We actually met at orientation. I mentioned my sexuality to some sorority sister and she made a face and told me that she didn't have time for” Lance's voice dropped to a whisper “sissy f-a-g-s.” His voice went back to normal. “Pidge came over and said: “And he doesn't have the time for dumb homophobic bitches but here we are!” Then I bought her a burger and we've been friends ever since.”

“I already met your roommates, any other friends I should know about?

“Yes! Hunk’s girlfriend Shay. She's also an angel, ooh and she's demisexual - not really relevant or anything but fun fact. Then there's Allura, she's bi like me. I used to have a huge crush on her. We actually went on a couple of dates but she was getting over a bad breakup and I was really homesick and it just didn't really work out. Don't worry though, that was a long time ago. Then there's her girlfriend Romelle who's a trans lesbian and the nicest person you'll ever meet, aside from hunk and Shay of course. They live in this really nice house because Allura is this fancy British heiress.”

“An heiress?” “Yeah, but she's like really cool and hard-working. She's getting a business degree so she can take over her father's company - well, technically her uncle's company. Her dad died a few years ago and her uncle was like his advisor or something so he took over the company in her stay until she was old enough and also took care of her. He has a weird name. Karen or Kran, something like that”

“Anyone else?”

“That's my immediate circle of friends. I mean Pidge's brother Matt visits sometimes but he graduated already so he's off doing some smart people thing, I don't know.”

“They sound great” “They are. They're also like super queer. I mean I've already told you about the others and Pidge is Aro Ace”

“And Hunk?” “ Hunk is our token straight person!”

Keith shrugged. “Every group needs one.”

“Exactly, how about you? Let's talk about your friends!”

“To be honest with you I don't actually have a lot of friends.”

“Oh well, I'm sure my friends will have no issue adopting you into the group.” “That sounds nice.” Keith hesitated for a second before continuing. “Can I can I be honest with you for a second?”

“Yeah, shoot.”

“You have to promise you're not going to think of me differently after you hear, ��after what I have to say.”

“What could you possibly say that would make me think of you differently?. You don't have some like crazy stalker ex or something, right?”

“No, no. it's just... You know I'm adopted right?”

“Yeah, I already said that doesn’t make a difference.”

“The thing is, I haven't told you the full story. I wasn't adopted as a baby like most people. My dad died when I was nine and I don't know what happened to my mother. I spent a few years in foster care and I was 14 when the Shirrogaines adopted me."

Lance was quiet for a bit. “Wow, that's- wow.”

“I can leave now and pay if you're uncomfortable.”

“No, no, I'm not uncomfortable! It's just, you've been through so much. Thank you for sharing this with me.”

“Thank you for reacting so positively.”

“Wait, did other people react negatively?” Lance tried to keep his voice down but failed. Why in the world would people react badly to that?

“Yeah, a lot of people don't know how to react. Some people just cut me out of their lives altogether, it's one of the reasons I don't have a lot of friends.”

“Well, forget about those people, they're jerks and not worth your time. You are handsome, smart, funny, kind and you drive a badass motorcycle. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.” “Thank you, that's actually really nice to hear.”

Lance grabbed Keith's hand “I can't pretend I understand what you've been through but I know what it's like to be judged for things out of your control. I'm an immigrant actually, we moved to the United States from Cuba when I was five, my oldest brother was going to go to college in the states and I don't remember exactly why but we relocated with him. When I went to kindergarten I didn't speak English very well because I'd only just learned it and Hunk was the only kid who bothered to talk to me. I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay that kindness.”

“Something tells me you already have.”

There was a loaded feeling in the air between them Keith found himself leaning in for a kiss. Before their lips made contact, however, they heard someone clear their throat.

The pair jumped apart and looked towards the sound. It was the waitress, she arrived with their food.

They ate their food while continuing to chat, Keith regaled Lance with the continued adventures of olive bro and Lance offered to feed him a bite of his meal which was far cuter than Keith would ever admit. Keith found out that Lance's full name was actually Leandro but he had chosen the nickname Lance after reading about the Middle Ages because his classmates were having trouble pronouncing his full name. Keith responded with a story about one foster kid from a group home who told him to go back to China after hearing him speak Korean and how he'd been utterly schooled by one of the older foster girls. They were so wrapped up in the conversation that they didn't notice the waitress coming over after they were done eating to clear the table, she gave a long-suffering sigh, muttered something about something about young love then walked off to fetch the bill.

Lance had paid for the movie so Keith paid for dinner and they left the restaurant hand in hand. Keith was about to get on his motorcycle and but Lance stopped him. “I had a really nice time tonight, do you think we could go on a second date after the winter break?”

“Yeah, yeah that sounds great!”

“Just so you know, there are no waitresses here to interrupt us.”

“You're being rather a cliche.”

“Shut up and kiss me mullet.”

“I don't have a-”

He didn't finish the sentence because Lance's lips were suddenly on his.

He lost track of time as they stood there kissing, he couldn't say there were fireworks or angels singing but god it was a really nice kiss. After a while, they finally pulled apart pressing their foreheads together.

Lance spoke first: “Wow.”

“I haven't been kissed like that in ages,” Keith confessed.

“Oh, who's cliche now, hmm?"

“Shut up,” Keith said and then laughed leaning in for another kiss. This kiss was shorter than the first, Lance pulling back prematurely with a shiver.

“We should probably go, I'm getting really cold.”

Keith had been too wrapped up in the kiss to notice but he was freezing too.

“Of course, I'll drive you home now.”

When they arrived back at Lance's apartment he couldn't help but notice two figures silhouetted in the window. Apparently, Lance was in for a long night.

Lance handed him the spare helmet and Keith grabbed his arm lightly pulling him in for a quick kiss.

“See you after the break.”

“Yeah, can I text you while I'm away?” “Yeah sure”

“Hey, just you wait our next date is going to be amazing, I have an entire break to plan it after all!”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

“Good,” he giggled.

Lance leaned over for one last kiss, then walked into his apartment

Keith watch him go with a smile.

Nope, definitely not a prank.

_______________________________________________________________

I actually have a beta reader now thank you to Calliopestories for making my writing a lot more polished. http://calliopestories.tumblr.com/ and yes I did make that entire section about Lance's friends and their sexualties just so I could make that token straight friend joke.

#klance #vld laith #vld keith #vld lance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #laith #college au #first date #first kiss #first kill comes up before first kiss what the f*** Tumblr #fluff

1 note · View note

ecsundance · 3 years

Photo

A very Long (yet very awesome) Week of Sundance

Organisers of Sundance say in Tryon’s discussion that “If a filmmaker wants to create his or her own idiosyncratic vision, it’s often not worth looking around for a big budget, waiting for others to say it’s okay to make it. You have to stand up and make the film yourself…” (pg.164) and Kevin MacDonald in Tryon’s discussion talks about how basically all you need to make a movie is a laptop and a video camera, and how amazing it is that we live in a time which we can do this (pg.156)

This is similar to the idea that you can complain about not having enough time or experience to do something, but if you get over yourself and do it either you fail and learn, or you succeed and gain confidence. If you have a great idea then nothing should hold you back from making it a reality. Movies with billions of dollars behind them have fallen flat. So it stands to reason that a movie made on weekends with only a couple bucks could be amazing.

According to Chuck Tryon’s discussion of “Reinvented Festivals” (pg. 160), because there are a lot more independent bloggers/critics now due to newspapers not hiring many, there is a consistent stream of new reviews being released even minutes after a film finishes premiering.

Taking part in this class and festival and constantly thinking about what I thought about a film plays into this as I (along with my classmates) were some of the first to review some of these films. It’s such a fun experience to think and talk about film as everyone will have various ways of perceiving and connecting to each film.

Favourite Film From the Festival

It feels hard to choose a favourite because there were so many incredible films which affected me in different ways like Coda, How it Ends, Flee, and honestly most of the films I saw in this year's festival . However, I fell in love with The World to Come when it wasn’t even a movie I initially planned on seeing.

The world to come felt like a poem. It made my heart ache deeply, marinating in feelings of melancholic love, and unexpected loss. Maybe it hit me especially hard because I lost one of the most amazing people I’ve ever had in my life along with family and pets (since they are family too) since the start of Covid: I have regrets and things I never got to say. Maybe it’s because I’m fiercely fighting with my own identities right now. Either way, it was hard to watch. Parts of it still haunt me and still leave me breathless on the brink of tears. It struck a chord in me which I have a hard time fully putting to words. I didn’t originally even want to watch this film, it somehow ended up on my list of on demand films, and my mom convinced me to watch it (and I’m so glad she did).

It is a story which about two women which takes place in the 1800s, together in their loneliness who fall for each other behind their husbands’ backs. They secretly rendezvous in the forest and tucked away corners of their homes when their husband’s are working. It is beautiful in story and dialogue; it doesn’t get stale. It feels modern somehow, though it is set in the 19th century, and I’m still processing it all to figure out why exactly.

Least Favorite Film from the Festival...

Eight for Silver by Sean Ellis wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it was certainly not the best; I would not actively choose to watch this again. It had interesting concepts such as only natural lighting being used throughout the film and those turned into the werewolf emerging, negatively changed, from the dead animal. The movie would have gotten 4 stars rather than 3 from me simply by not having a CGI werewolf (unless it was so brilliantly terrifying and amazing it had to be shown) and by keeping the original plot of the Roma’s spells/curses (fueled from the massacre which the targeted village caused). The scarecrow and buried teeth, and the strange dreams which followed were such a great piece, but they just fell away more and more. The addition of the religious text (which mentions 30 pieces of silver is unnecessary, and just recycles old vampire movies/myth ) took this film from a great timepiece and cheapened it in combination with the subpar CGI creature, while also making it feel far too Hollywood in a bad way. Again, some of the ideas, like the person within the wolf were great, but they could have kept it that way and not shown the monster otherwise.

A list of All Feature Films I Saw:

During the 2021 Sundance film festival I have seen and rated the following:

Coda ***** Sian Heder

The story of a teenage hearing girl who wants to be a singer living with her otherwise deaf family who run a fishing boat.

Cryptozoo **** Dash Shaw

A woman’s attempt to protect mythical creatures in a world where everyone wants to harm them or use them as weapons.

Misha and the wolves ***** Sam Hobkinson

A chilling documentary about holocaust tale with a twist.

Users **** Natalia Amada

A mother’s view of the world, global warming, technology, her children and the relationship between all of this.

Prisoners of Ghostland **** Sion Sono

Samurai meets the gunslinger Western World in this colourful action-horror (featuring Nicholas Cage).

Censor **** Prano Bailey-Bond

The story of a woman whose sister disappeared as a child and how her job as a horror film censor helps her uncover the truth.

How it ends ***** Daryl Wein, Zoe Lister-Jones

A walk through the last day on Earth with a woman and her younger self as they make peace with their lives, relationships with others, and their own inner selves.

Strawberry Mansion ***** Dan Deacon

A dreamy/nightmarish surreal tale of a dream tax collector as he falls in love with the younger version of his client.

Cusp ***** Isabel Bethencourt, Parker Hill

A documentary on the lives of teen girls in Texas which delves into rape culture, poverty, and what it’s like to be a young woman.

Eight for Silver *** Sean Ellis

Werewolf lore set in the 19th century.

John and the Hole **** Pascual Sisto

A young teenage boy puts his family in a hole in the woods as he tries to deal with the stressors of being a kid and what adulthood holds, entwined with fable.

R#J ***** Carey Williams

A modern retelling of Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet through the age of social media, with a twist or two.

Coming Home in the Dark ***** James Ashcroft

A horror story of a family who are abducted by two strangers who they later learn they share a deeper, darker history with.

We’re All Going to The World’s Fair **** Jane Schoenbrun

A showing of loneliness and desperation through an online roleplaying game and it’s after effects.

First Date **** Manuel Crosby, Darren Knapp

A story of a first date gone VERY wrong.

The World to Come ***** Mona Fastvold

A 19th century story of the growing connection between two farmhouse wives.

Violation ***** Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Dusty Mancinelli

A film about a woman’s trauma and how she… Deals with it.

Marvelous and the Black Hole ***** Kate Tsang

A story about how a young teen girl gets through the loss of her mother through forming a connection with a local magician.

The Blazing World ***** Carlson Young

A traumatised young woman tries to bring her sister back from “the other side” but must really fight her own inner demons.

Mayday ***** Karen Cinorre

A story of a young woman overcoming trauma and fighting back against the man in a dreamlike state.

Night of the Kings **** Philippe Lacote

A new storyteller is anointed in a prison run by its inmates and he must keep telling these stories until the moon sets to stay alive. (It helps to understand the specific culture more with this one, otherwise it sort of goes over your head.)

Life in a Day 2021 ***** Kavin Macdonald

A grounding compilation of scenes from across the world on the same day, July 25th, with scenes one after the other which either connect or contrasted in an impactful way.

Flee ***** Jonas Poher Rasmussen

A biography told through animation of a young gay immigrant.

Short Films

Bj’s Mobile Gift Shop- Jason Park

A story of a young guy in Chicago who makes money to support himself and his grandparents by running a mobile gift shop out of a large suitcase.

Flex - Josefin Malmen, David Strindberg

A visual telling of a bodybuilder rubber-banding between insecurity and self obsession through surreal imagery and dialogue.

The Affected- Rikke Gregersen

A retelling of a college student preventing the deportation of a man back to Afghanistan through the interactions of the bystanders.

You Wouldn’t Understand- Trish Harnetiaux

A time-warp involving a picnic, a strange character looking for “horsey sauce” and a grocery store clerk armed with a food scanner.

Animations

Ghost Dogs- Joe Cappa

A family's new dog is “haunted” by the family’s many deceased dogs in squishy colourful 90s/early 2000s style animated short.

GNT- Sara Hirner, Rosemary Vasquez-Brown

A woman obsessed with social media tries to make yeast infections popular.

Trepanation- Nick Flaherty

A showing of depression through a disturbing hole ridden entity emerging from a hole and taking the place of the house's owner.

Little Miss Fate- Joder Von Rotz

A cleaning bird interrupts the fate of a couple going out on a date, leading to disastrous consequences.

Indie Series

I had really wanted to see Seeds of Deceit by Miriam Guttman and Would you Rather by Lise Akoka, (I tried viewing 4 Feet High by María Belén Poncio and Rosario Perazolo Masjoan but there was an issue which Sundance staff never got back to me about, sadly) but I ran out of time.

However, I did see These Days by Adam Brookes which takes place in New York City during Covid, showing a young woman living alone and how she survives living alone and being unable to work as a dancer.

New Frontier Experiences

Sadly, I kept thinking I’d have endless time. I did not engage in the New Frontier experience except for in class on one occasion. I think it was a great idea and fantastic opportunity and I regret not planning my time better for this specifically.

Talks or Events

Ignite x Adobe featured shorts films from artists aged 18 to 25 and was very inspiring since I’m in the age range of these artists.

A few I especially enjoyed were Vigincita, Personals, and Joychild (Although I honestly enjoyed the whole compilation).

Virgincita - A sexual coming of age/ look at mother daughter relationship mixed with religion.

Personals - A sexual encounter between two insecure individuals who find comfort with one another by the end.

Joychild - A documentary piece showing a child discovering and opening up about their gender identity.

Q&As

I attended a few Q&As, but my favourite I believe was CODA’s.

They spoke about how they worked around language barriers and learned sign language before and throughout production. Everyone just seemed at ease and like they had a great time in production of the film.

- - -

Overall, I’m quite pleased with how this festival went virtually. It was a truly amazing experience which I am so glad I was able to take part in. It was as Immersive an experience as I think could be created virtually and seemed to go relatively smoothly for the most part for having it be the first time this has happened.

I’m also extremely grateful for the inclusivity which allowed for those who may not be able to travel as easily due to disability, financial reasons, or anything else. I don’t know if I’d have been able to go otherwise.

This experience was more amazing than I even hoped it would be. I feel so inspired that I plan to find out how to submit to Sundance so that I can possibly try to get a short film idea I have done for the short film/18-25 year old category. I feel like I can actually do this now and I have so many new ideas.

Thank you!

Tryon, Chuck,

On-Demand Culture: Digital Delivery and the Future of Movies

Mae McCloskey

#sundance sundance2021 sundancefilmfestival indie indiefilm

0 notes

sangled · 7 years

Note

Sorry if this comes off as rude: but can I ask why you won't do hamilton animatics? I'm not here to beg you to do one, because I'm not big into Hamilton either. Just curious as to why you wouldn't ever do one.

two main reasons, one simple and one a little more complex.

1. artistically, it’s been done. there are already soooo many hamilton animatics out there, and i don’t think i would bring anything new to the table.

2. personally, hamilton makes me uncomfortable. i support broadway people of color getting jobs and recognition, but it’s in a musical that glorifies historical figures with issues that aren’t addressed. lin-manuel miranda preaches about ‘learning history’ while he clearly focuses only on specific, patriotic elements. essentially, characters are washed of historical flaws to make them more palatable for a viewing audience.

the decision to swap races for the theme of ‘modernizing an immigration/anti-authoritarian story’ has potential, but it’s ignores the very important detail that These People Owned Other People. rebelling against king george shows some of america’s freedom-fighter roots, but also the hypocrisy of white colonists preaching independence while i dunno Institutionalized Slavery Was The Thing. washington and jefferson are treated as dynamic and fun when they actually did a lot of Shit Things that are never addressed because whoops who wants to see that am i right

i’m especially frustrated about this because i drew the schuyler sisters earlier this year (before i knew better) and one of my followers messaged me to address the problems with hamilton. i felt awful because i was ignorant of the musical’s problems and a black follower had to reach out and educate me! i wasn’t a good ally at all! so i care more about my followers of color feeling uncomfortable than some die-hard hamifans who think dusty white guy so and so being gay with Ritz Deluxe is something they want to devote their time to

y’know what’s really progressive? using history from actual immigrants of color and putting it to a stage! casting people who have backgrounds that reflect their character’s history! a part of me is happy to see phillipa soo getting a somewhat lead role but i’d be much happier if there was a historical musical about actual east asian people and their culture >:0

for example, korea has such an layered, tragic history of fighting against imperialism, and it’s more sympathetic because a lot of them actually /became/ slaves. bitch where’s my yi soon shin musical! i want to see japanese shits get blown out the water while general yi sings Fuck You Samurai (Reprise) in his dying breath!! get me a screenwriter stat!!!

okay i know this post is supposed to be about disliking hamilton but i’d much rather focus on my own country so in conclusion: american history sucks and yi soon shin is korean jesus

#sangspeaks #hamilton /#homeland #of course this goes into the korea tag lmao #and this is on a pettier note but lmm can't sing #he literally raps on one specific note and it rattles my mind #anyway the two things i'm most passionate about is criticizing white history and talking about korean history #so this post derailed in the most logical way tbh

99 notes · View notes

reactingtosomething · 7 years

Text

Reacting to Grey’s Anatomy (Part 1 of ?)

“Why Do We _____, Dr. ____?”

The Setup: Kris’s writing teacher doesn’t watch more than one season of most TV shows in real-time, so that she can keep up with the big picture of the industry, but she does stay current on Grey’s Anatomy. She was annoyed with the structure of the season 13 finale, so it was homework for Kris’s class. Marchae and Miri have wanted Kris to react to Grey’s for a long time -- this was actually, indirectly, part of the origin story for Reacting to Something -- and Kris didn’t want to jump in TOTALLY blind so he figured he could just watch a handful of earlier episodes to ease in. Silly boy.

KRIS: So I have now seen the nine episodes of season 1, plus episodes 1-5 and the “code black” two-parter of season 2

And the most recent season finale, because [Writing Teacher] told us to watch it

MARCHAE: You nailed the rewatch!

KRIS: And in freshman year of college I saw a few scattered episodes of whatever season fall 2005 was

or maybe sophomore year?

MARCHAE: And to be transparent I am two-ish seasons behind

KRIS: Did you watch the last finale?

MARCHAE: No but I knew most of the players in this episode

Of the recent season I watched more episode from where I was in season 12

But am committed to finishing and being caught up after this season

KRIS: OK I guess we shouldn’t talk about that one then

But I do have some Opinions about the earlier stuff I’ve watched

MARCHAE: Oh I will watch as we text!!

So I do want to know what you think of the show in general

I've wanted your opinion for a long time now

KRIS: It’s hard for me not to compare it to early ER, which was one of my first major TV obsessions (I watched those seasons in syndication when I was in high school)

I low-key refused to watch House or Grey’s when I first learned about them after moving back to the US after high school in Europe, because I was like “why do these need to exist if ER is still on the air?”

(And if anyone does want to seek out those early ER seasons I think they probably hold up surprisingly well)

It has Young George Clooney!

And when I did eventually watch House I loved the first 3 - 5ish seasons

MIRI: Moment to remind us all that Lin-Manuel Miranda had a significant arc on a late season of House. I have nothing substantial to say about it right now, but I think we all collectively forget about that fact most of the time and we should be reminded.

MARCHAE: Yeah I think she talks about ER in one the master class episodes

She=Shonda Rhimes, whose online Master Class Marchae is taking

And house is awesome

KRIS: But all that said, I do like what I’ve seen and will probably very slowly make my way through 12 more years worth of it

MIRI: VICTORY!!!!

MARCHAE: Yessss

KRIS: VERY slowly

Like that’s a lot of TV

MARCHAE: Ohhhhhh come onnnn

It's only taken me four years to get where I am you can do it!!!

KRIS: I feel like it might be a little hard for me to binge because there are some stylistic things that annoy me

MARCHAE: Tell me!!!!

KRIS: Four needle drops an episode

is a lot

I’m also not sure the voiceover is really doing enough to justify itself?

MARCHAE: That's often my critique is how are these people doctors

KRIS: I feel like you can have all those needle drops OR you can have heavy-handed VO but both is too much

Do we need to define needle drop for our readers, you think?

MARCHAE: Perhaps I was looking for a good link

That explains to put here but can't find one

KRIS: So a needle drop is when a show plays non-diegetic (usually) pop music that they have to license, as opposed to an instrumental score composed for the show

And diegetic means sound that comes from the action that’s happening onscreen, or off-screen but still in the world of the scene/story--dialogue, sounds from the environment, anything that the characters are hearing too.

And it’s not an unusual thing at all

But I feel like Grey’s does SO MANY songs

And I’m vaguely aware that a fair number of singer-songwriter type artists were first “discovered” by a lot of fans through Grey’s, like maybe Ingrid Michaelson

MARCHAE: They do and they even have an album, I think there have even been interviews with Shonda Rhimes (SR)

She says she wanted music to be just as much a character as the people

Which I find interesting thematically

KRIS: I get that theoretically, but it’s one of those things that’s the hard opposite of Show, Don’t Tell

when it’s lyrics

And especially for a show with bookend voiceover to tell you exactly What An Episode Is About, it’s just... it’s a lot

MIRI: I CANNOT WAIT for Kris to get to the musical episode, which is both amazing and so on the nose it hurts at multiple points.

MARCHAE: That's so interesting considering your like of shows like CEG which is quite musical

KRIS: I actually do like voiceover when it’s used well throughout a thing (thinking Burn Notice, or Dead Like Me)

MARCHAE: Did you watch sex and the city

KRIS: But in Crazy Ex the music is dialogue, it’s written by the writers and it’s spoken by the characters, it’s not a third party thing

I’ve seen a little

I guess I’m also just curious about the choice only to use voiceover at the beginning and end

although I think maybe it was there throughout the pilot episode

MARCHAE: Yeah I was about to say there may have been a few where it's through out

KRIS: In the pilot there was this conceit that at least some of the VO was addressed to Meredith’s mom

But other times (most times?) Meredith is clearly addressing the viewer

MARCHAE: I think it's to keep reminding us that this is Merediths world

KRIS: Meredith is interesting

Which I realize is super vague

MARCHAE: That's my theory or has been at least since the beginning

KRIS: But I’m having trouble landing on really clear descriptors for her

I like her

I think Ellen Pompeo is good

MARCHAE: I have a few but I'll wait

KRIS: But she’s harder for me to pin down than Izzy or Cristina or George

MARCHAE: Ellen Pompeo is AMAZING

KRIS: And I think maybe this is deliberate?

But again the VO would make that a strange choice

MARCHAE: I Honestly think she's supposed to be

KRIS: But I do sort of like the idea that she keeps a lot to herself

I think she’s a pretty good example of a lead who has to ground the more eccentric performances of the rest of the ensemble

MARCHAE: She does-ish it's weird I love and hate her simultaneously and that's what I love about her

KRIS: At least in these earlier seasons

MARCHAE: I think she does also as the show progresses you're right on

KRIS: Then again I did just watch the Pick Me Choose Me Love Me speech

Which is as demonstrative as anything the others do

But still there’s a restraint in how she generally presents herself to the rest of the world that I identify with

I guess what I’m having trouble figuring out with her is what her fundamental drive is

MIRI: I would argue that this is because Meredith’s fundamental drive is a quest to understand and accept herself, which is a tough main character to pull off and it works better in some stretches than others. But overall I am really pleased with Grey’s willingness to let her flounder and be wrong sometimes.

Also I would not have called Kris identifying with Mer but it makes SO MUCH SENSE.

MARCHAE: That is really eloquently stated

She has a tremendous amount to prove

And she has a tremendous amount of hurt and she is guarded because of those things - I think as the show progresses (I'm trying not to spoil too much for you)

But we learn it's a lot more than mom and dad

It's Webber and her own crap too

Meredith's drive is summed up in that choose me, pick me statement

And it gets the best of her often

KRIS: (Of the few original characters still around in season 13 I’m most surprised Webber is still there)

MARCHAE: (Really!!!!! I'm surprised by Alex)

KRIS: I guess just because it seems like he would’ve retired

MARCHAE: Ha!

I suppose that makes sense

KRIS: Do you think Meredith is a little bit of a cipher at first because she’s supposed to be sort of an audience surrogate? Or is it just that she’s stuffing a lot down where no one can get to it yet?

I guess I could look at the bible to figure this out

MIRI: The show bible, not the Christian one. A show bible is a big ass document explaining the world of the show--a deep dive on who the characters are, the setting, the vibe, etc. It also usually contains some episode and season plots.

MARCHAE: I can send it to you (maybe I already did)

KRIS: You did

MARCHAE: I think it could be a by of both to answer your question

Bit*

I think we learn the most about her as the show progresses that justifies somemof the things I find most annoying about her

However, she is kind of our guide into this world

I read the Bible and it's a bit different than what's on screen not much

I'm most impressed by how developed she is and and that SRs intention is that her characters (when she writes) have no end they are infinite in terms of story because they have to be (except in the case of scandal which had an end from the beginning)

KRIS: Sure, and that also makes sense for a setting that has continuing education built into the characters’ lives

MARCHAE: Which is kind of brilliant on her part

KRIS: It was part of why I liked ER

MARCHAE: I know you said you liked Bailey but I was curious about why and also your thoughts on Christina Yang

KRIS: Which was specifically at a teaching hospital

MARCHAE: (Did you ever watch St. Elsewere)

KRIS: no

Part of why I like Bailey is that in these earlier episodes when I haven’t really found my way into all of the central intern characters yet is just that she thoroughly has her shit together

MARCHAE: (Such an amazing show- set in the 80s)

YESssss

KRIS: As someone who has never disagreed with a character yelling at George, I just appreciate that there’s a blunt authority figure with a really dry sense of humor

MARCHAE: (Oh Kris promise you'll keep watching!!!!!!!)

KRIS: And that she also has basically that same comportment toward the attendings

MARCHAE: Ummm excuse me!!!! George is awesome and it infuriates me he gets yelled at!

KRIS: I will, I think it’s one of those things that’ll be easy to return to between other shorter things

Oh man

I mean I don’t dislike George

If I’m being honest there’s more of George in me than I’d like

Which is on some level probably a reason I like when people take him to task

MIRI: Wait guys this is actually enormous progress for Kris to “not dislike” a character he thinks he partially embodies.

MARCHAE: He just so freaking kind that I feel like they poo on him because they can

MIRI: Just because he’s kind doesn’t mean he’s without flaws. Also he is not always kind! Which is good because no one is, but let’s not pretend he’s a saint.

KRIS: I have trouble with Designated Kind Characters though

MARCHAE: And that bothered me a tremendous amount as a person who rarely yells at people even when I'm mad

Kris what is happening

KRIS: Because those characters are also often very squishy

And I’m impatient

MARCHAE: So you weren't an Izz fan either?

Squishy

KRIS: And I think you can have Very Kind characters who aren’t pushovers

Hmm

I like Izzie fine

K: I didn’t want to do much annotation here, but on this point I want to be clearer. Obviously George has stories and an arc about becoming a stronger, more assertive person. What bothers me not necessarily about George specifically, but about how Nice characters are often written, is a conflation of kindness with weakness or timidity, and this seems to me how we’re supposed to read George’s default setting, or at least his starting point. Not that kind characters should never be weak or timid! To address Marchae’s question a little further, I think there’s an interesting distinction between how Izzie’s kindness or “softness” makes her seem less of a doctor (to someone like Cristina) and how George’s seems to be more a reflection of his overall character.

MARCHAE: *insert Marchae DYING GIF*

MIRI: Marchae has what has been described as an “unhealthy attachment to Katherine Heigl”

KRIS: So okay, yes, if I had to pick an intern I most identify with it’s Cristina

There are just a lot of feelings flying all over the place

MARCHAE: I KNEW IT!!!!

KRIS: And Cristina has no time for that

And Cristina doesn’t like babies

MARCHAE: She is my favorite!!!

(She does....ish)

These people are incredibly emotional which sometimes makes me uncomfortable so she is often the voice of reaso

Reason*

KRIS: Right, me too

And I realize there’s some masculinity/patriarchy baggage here too that I’m always in the process of dealing with myself

But yeah, I feel like a lot of the characters are not just emotional but very NEEDY

Which brings me to Shepherd

MARCHAE: I will also give you that

They are needy

KRIS: That man is super needy, specifically in how he wants to be liked

MARCHAE: I often feel like they don't listen very well to one another

KRIS: Oh for sure

Which is also often used effectively for laughs

Like in the episode I just watched, Izzie has just gotten home from her first date with Alex and Meredith has just dumped Derek

and they go into George’s room and are just having their own “Seriously?” monologues

MIRI: This kind of moment on Grey’s is usually done SO well and I really want to go watch some season 2 Grey’s right now and avoid all of my responsibilities, ok? Ok.

What did you think of Derek’s initial courtship of Meredith?

MARCHAE: I don't love it to be honest

KRIS: Even setting aside the professional inappropriateness, which I think we can just grant a TV drama

I don’t either

MARCHAE: I couldn't understand why she was smitten with him to begin with to be honest

MIRI: It does work better for me once they’re established and have a weight of history to cite re: their mutual obsession and problems. I think that’s the dynamic SR was always interested in for them.

It reminded me of a more

Or I guess less childish Carrie and Big relationship

KRIS: I didn’t find the Can’t Take No for an Answer thing charming, and I feel like the show really wants us to find him Needy-BUT-Charming

MARCHAE: I don't find him likable in later seasons

KRIS: I’ll grant that the performance is less grating than the equivalent character in a lot of rom-coms

Patrick Dempsey does Quiet Charm and Quiet Intensity really well

oh interesting

MARCHAE: He forgets Merediths needs often

KRIS: I’ll keep that in mind

In the code black/bomb squad two-parter, that runner where he keeps nagging Burke about why they can’t use first names for each other eventually pays off, but in the first couple scenes of it I was like “Ugh, classic Derek”

MARCHAE: LOL

KRIS: I actually really like Burke, most of the time

MIRI: Ugh, you would

MARCHAE: Derek, I will say this, has a long stretch where I don't mind him

Burke I forget about him sometimes

I like him as he relates to Christina

KRIS: Isaiah Washington was written out for unpleasant interpersonal reasons, right?

MARCHAE: Yes he was!

He and yang have an interesting dynamic and she owes her success (in small- very small-part) to him

But he also softens her a bit but not in an icky way

MIRI: Um I would say some of it is very icky, when he is steam rolling over what she actually wants because he’s too busy seeing the version of her he wants. I’m glad for her to have the chance to grow personally, but not for her to be forced to do so in any particular direction.

In a way I think that gives her a bit more depth

KRIS: I really liked the B-story where they tried to go on a date and it was just super awkward until someone else at the restaurant collapsed

MARCHAE: Because it's them LOL

KRIS: What I like about Burke is that his vibe is what I guess we would stereotypically call “Zen”

I always like the Zen guy

And one of the things I generally really like about the show is how it portrays teaching and mentorship

MARCHAE: I never thought about that really until you just said it

Hmmmm

It is kind of interesting

I always appreciate the friendship aspect- I think that's what I note

Like how much these people love each other so so much

And would do anything

MIRI: Any time they dance it out is an amazing time

But that teacher /mentor relationship is also a really neat dynamic

Thanks

KRIS: I mean the teaching is often couched in very technical things (“Why do we _____, Dr. ____?”), partly for audience benefit, but they also use those moments to show how that bonding happens

MARCHAE: Yes!!

KRIS: And I think Burke’s personality lends itself particularly well to those beats, but I like it with everyone

It’s when they show that they can put aside all their relationship stuff and be professionals, and I think that’s really important for a show like this

MARCHAE: YES! Again while you don't love the music I don't love how unprofessional they are sometimes

KRIS: Like in front of patients, or just how they fight a lot?

MARCHAE: The patients, each other, all of it

Discussing other patients with patients

I'm like REALLY GET IT TOGETHER -FICTIONAL LIVES ARE COUNTING ON YOU

it's my biggest critique

MIRI: Marchae really does not approve of her fictional hero people being people--see our Captain America: Civil War reactions.

Though I guess I would be watching some other show if it was all about being professional and not the bonus stuff

KRIS: Yeah, I guess I just assume a certain amount of Hot Mess in almost any TV, but especially network

(I guess NCIS is a show with less of that, I don’t really know it)

MARCHAE: Criminal minds too

Any cbs show really

MIRI: Hard disagree--those people are all Hot Messes. Gibbs does nothing but Emote Grumpily and have discolored flashbacks of his dead wife and daughter, and the whole Criminal Minds team is full of emotions and PTSD.

KRIS: I guess most crime procedurals will tend to be more [self-]serious

But ER definitely had lots of friendship and romance stuff

Oh, there is one little thing where I compare Grey’s unfavorably to ER

And it’s that even though there are nurses we see fairly often, no one ever addresses nurses by name

And look, I STILL remember the names of some of those early ER nurses

Haleh

Chuny

Malik

Lydia

MARCHAE: Now that is impressive

Derek dates one nurse

KRIS: Olivia got to be a person for a bit because of the syphillis thing

But just like, give them names

MIRI: Bokhee and Daniel Sunjata have names. I’m not sure about anyone else, and Daniel Sunjata isn’t for a few seasons.

MARCHAE: Yeah

Ha!

You could start a campaign

Lolol

KRIS: I feel like it’s also a thing that could be used to show character

Cristina and Burke might not bother to learn names

But Meredith would

MARCHAE: So would Izzie and George

KRIS: George and Izzie definitely would

MARCHAE: Alex not so much

KRIS: Derek would

Yeah not Alex, unless he was trying to hook up with them

MARCHAE: Derek might I think unless he's flustered

KRIS: Webber would have at least absorbed everyone’s names through osmosis at this point

MARCHAE: HAHAHAHAHAHHAAH

LOL

KRIS: Okay I can end this rant

MARCHAE: That is hilarious

So were you completely lost with the finale you watched

KRIS: Not as much as I was worried I’d be

But for sure the character turnover was like, oh, maybe I should’ve just jumped right into this season

MARCHAE: Yeah she kills or lets go of lots of people (it's usually where I have to take a break out of frustration with the show)

KRIS: I mean I totally get it, it’s a long time to be on the air

MARCHAE: I don't they should do this for the rest of their lives

Long live #teamgeoizzie

MIRI: ANY PORTMANTEAU THAT INCLUDES “JIZZ” IS NOT OK, MARCHAE. WE’VE HAD THIS CONVERSATION

KRIS: Marchae

MARCHAE: *sorry*

MIRI: SHE’S NOT SORRY. SHE’S LYING, READERS.

KRIS: You know Miri will have to annotate that

MARCHAE: I know but I feel like since we're here and it came up-she'll be fine

KRIS: Do you know if those four leads who are still around have done much other high profile stuff while it’s been on the air?

Even Noah Wyle was in and out of ER for the last few seasons

MARCHAE: Ummmm hmmm I know that Owen was involved in an indie film

But he's the only one I know of

KRIS: But like Meredith, Alex, Bailey, and Webber

MARCHAE: I forget he came later my bad

KRIS: Oh wow, looking at Ellen Pompeo’s IMDB page, not a lot at all besides Grey’s post-2005

MARCHAE: No I just check Chandra Wilson because I thought she'd done broadway

But nope

KRIS: Pompeo’s in a Taylor Swift video and she did a little bit of voice work for a cartoon

and that’s it

I wonder what that’s like

MARCHAE: Oh yeah she was in bad blood for six seconds

KRIS: You become an actor to be different people and then you end up just being this one other person

MARCHAE: You know Sandra Oh said she went to therapy when she decided to leave

KRIS: I believe it

MARCHAE: I have thought about that too

It becomes legitimately a different part of you I'd suspect

Because it's been forever for some of these people

KRIS: Yeah. I wonder if it’s just too exhausting to like go do a feature or something in between seasons when you’re the lead on a 22-24 episode show

MARCHAE: That does seem like a lot

KRIS: Although I would also believe if Ellen Pompeo has trouble getting cast just being a woman over 40

MARCHAE: Which is mind boggling - because she's dynamic

KRIS: She is great, but again it’s not a very showy part

Most of the time

(I mean I don’t want to speculate, I obviously don’t know her life)

MARCHAE: Yeah

So you mentioned that your instructor had some things about the finale

KRIS: Yes

MARCHAE: I'm curious what they were

(By things I mean opinions)

KRIS: She said that the thing the episode is supposed to be about doesn’t really get the act breaks

And that the story that does get the act breaks isn’t really substantial enough to justify it

The most obvious candidate for what the episode is About is Meredith’s VO thing about your world “exploding”

But Stephanie also has a little speech about clenching your fist through necessary pain that seems like it could be a thematic statement

I agree with her that most of the act breaks are not very strong

There’s not much real suspense in whether Stephanie and Erin are going to get through the fire or whatever

And most of those beats just come back right where we left off, and the beat gets resolved without any twist or new information

MARCHAE: I could see that

KRIS: Just, yep, Stephanie made it into the stairwell

Yep, Stephanie got her keycard

MARCHAE: I think my notes even say this isn't their strongest finale

KRIS: Not knowing most of these new characters, it seems like it would have been stronger for Nathan and Owen to get the act breaks?

MARCHAE: I thought there was tension because she's notorious for killing people in the end - so I didn't know if she was going to die

KRIS: But I’m not sure what those would have been either, because they’re mostly just reacting to information they can’t do much with

I thought it was possible Erin would die on the roof

But not before

MARCHAE: But she couldn't die At all because she was keeping Stephanie alive

And Stephanie had to have a reason to live thus leave

So ultimately I can agree with your teacher on all accounts my note says the episode seems weird

I think you may have articulated what I couldn't put my finger on

KRIS: Yeah, and I do think that from what I’ve seen Grey’s is usually really good about tying its storylines together with the theme of the episode

MARCHAE: (I also thought the dialogue was odd - stating something we'd already seen)

KRIS: Heavy-handed but effective

And here there was no real emotional link between the fire story and the Megan story

K: Now that my class has met I do want to clarify what Writing Teacher meant. Writing Teacher is usually a big proponent of Grey’s; along with The West Wing and Friends it’s one of her most frequent touchstones for story structure and theme, and how those things work best when they’re in concert. She talks about having a “tree” when you write anything, the thematic and emotional core that can and must stay intact no matter what else you change in the course of writing and rewriting. And the tree here was, or should have been, that story about Megan and how her homecoming affects the relationships of Meredith, Owen, et al. To her guess, the problems of poor/no suspense were not the real problem, but symptoms of “draft drift” as the writers lost sight of the Megan tree and tried to manufacture artificial drama out of a Finale! gimmick that was doomed to fail precisely because they didn’t relate it to the theme they started with. (Except literally, I guess, in terms of your world exploding.)

MARCHAE: I may have to watch the episode before to see what was happening

KRIS: And whatever was going on with Jackson trying to be a hero

MARCHAE: I thought it was a call back to an episode before he saved a kid from a bus and scared Kepp to death

(Also the perpetual beeping almost made me shut the episode off)

(Complete aside)

KRIS: This isn’t totally related but it’s a great piece about writing suspense/action that everyone should read

By one of my favorite showrunners

The gist of it is that you need to have multiple live possibilities for how an action scene should end if it’s not going to just be taking up time

“Don't write action sequences. Write suspense sequences that require action to resolve. ... every action sequence has its own internal three act structure. Objective, complication, resolution. And not only that, but the complication needs to be something which forces a choice on the character, not just a complication in physical circumstances.”

And this was generally not the case in those Stephanie scenes

MARCHAE: Ahhhhh

So my argument for her is that we just needed an event/thing to get her off

KRIS: You could sort of see how it could’ve been, with the stuff you said about Erin keeping her alive

MARCHAE: The show and make her realize she needs to be away from the hospital

KRIS: But it didn’t feel like the emphasis

What’s her story?

MARCHAE: Stephanie? She comes as an intern in season 9

Her group loses several interns by way of death

KRIS: Geez

MARCHAE: She and Avery were kind of a thing

I never thought it was as serious as she did

KRIS: HA

MARCHAE: But he breaks up with her after at Kepps wedding

When He decides hey I want Kepp

Embarrassing her and making her feel like an idiot

She's not, in my opinion, liked much by all of her peers at first but they end up getting to be better friends

I stopped there because I'm in the middle of that season

(And yang leaves and I'm not ready for that nonsense)

I like her but from 9-11 I don't feel like she's terribly well developed and the relationship with Avery isn't either

KRIS: It seems like the cast also just got a lot bigger

It didn’t seem like all the regulars were even in this

MARCHAE: They revolve really we lose interns and doctors go

KRIS: But also it felt like there were characters currently there and in the credits who weren’t part of the story. I think Alex is only in that one scene where Meredith tells him to help look for Erin?

MARCHAE: I think in this episode you saw most everyone except a few

Yeah jo also wasn't there

She's in Stephanie's class

KRIS: And Jo is one of the few people whose (actor) names I recognized so I was weirdly disappointed

MARCHAE: I need to watch the episode before the finale I bet they were in that one

KRIS: I do like Kevin McKidd; Rome on HBO was great

I don’t think I have any other season 1-2 notes, but I can take questions

Man we didn’t even cover Ellis, but I feel like there’s more stuff Meredith is about to learn in season 2

MARCHAE: So much

And Merediths half sister and her other half sister

KRIS: Right, Miri wants to do one of these after I meet Lexie

MARCHAE: YES!!!!

MIRI: For the first few episodes of Supergirl I called Alex ALexie because I couldn’t let go of my Chyler Leigh associations, despite how different the roles are. And I’m excited for Kris to see those differences! But also come on--both are the sister of the blonde lead/title character, both named some variant on Alexandra/ria. It’s a lot.

KRIS: Oh I do like Joe the bartender and Joe’s the bar

MARCHAE: Oh kris

KRIS: But I feel like they probably should’ve introduced Joe before the episode where he was a patient

MARCHAE: You get to know him I think

KRIS: You know, before watching for this reaction I’d probably seen at least as much of Private Practice as I had of Grey’s

Which is to say five or six episodes

Private Practice had more actors I already recognized

MARCHAE: Oh that's another good one I didn't finish it though

MIRI: I did finish it, because my loyalty to Addison Montgomery runs DEEP

KRIS: Like, almost everyone, really

Tim Daly voiced Superman in the 90s animated series

MARCHAE: I LOVE HIMMMMM

he's on madam secretary

It's good

KRIS: Amy Brenneman, obviously

MARCHAE: I agree watch more and I want another reaction!!! Stat<---see what I did there

Yeah taye diggs I think is also in that show

KRIS: Yeah, I knew him from something

Oh I guess that’s it actually

Okay so like half the cast

OK I’ll keep watching Grey’s

And I’ll pick up Private Practice when Addison gets spun off

MARCHAE: YES

YESsssss

I wanna react to that with you also!

KRIS: I do like Kate Walsh

I feel like that’s actually not a super popular opinion but I’m not sure

MARCHAE: She just had an article out a couple of days ago about watching herself on tv

I like her a lot

KRIS: I don’t have much interest in 13 Reasons Why but I know she’s in that

MIRI: She is???

I thought the pilot of Bad Judge was fun but didn’t see more of it

MIRI: I loved it SO much

MARCHAE: I haven't seen 13 reason the book was traumatic but I'm confident she's stunning in it

So let's say we check back in on august for reaction part two!!!!

KRIS: We’ll see

Maybe if I’ve gotten to season 4 we bring the others into this

MARCHAE: I was just throwing it out there

🤓🤓

KRIS: But if we do a Grey’s check-in we also need to do either a Crazy Ex check-in with you or an Orphan Black check-in with Lemon

And OBVIOUSLY our Sweet/Vicious check-in

MARCHAE: That's very fair!

I also started the Tina Fey show

KRIS: I’m not even going to identify it here, that deserves an annotation

MIRI: Does she mean 30 Rock??

K: She 1000 percent means 30 Rock

I feel like we have a lot that’s sort of vaguely on the docket but not a lot of For Sure We’re Going to Talk About This Next

Lemon mentioned something yesterday or the day before

Oh, Hello--2 man Broadway show now on Netflix

Miss Sloane, The Leftovers, possibly Cable Girls

...

Spider-Man

MIRI: YES!!!

MARCHAE: I can't react to spider man so I'll leave you and Miri for that

And atomic blonde

MIRI: YES!!!!! Y’all, the first trailer for Atomic Blonde is still my favorite movie of the year. I’ve watched it 16 times. One of those times was right now, because I had to pull it up to do the link and then obviously I couldn’t not watch it. I would do a whole reaction on just that first trailer.

KRIS: YES

Okay dear readers

I’m personally a big fan of The AV Club and Vulture and Vox Culture

but if those aren’t your thing

we hope you’ll Pick Us, Choose Us, Love Us for your pop culture reaction needs

(too much?)

(I’ll show myself out)

MARCHAE: YESssssss

MIRI: Amazing

Not enough Kris, not enough!

#Grey's Anatomy #Shondaland #Shonda Rhimes #Meredith Grey #Ellen Pompeo #Marchae #Kris #TV #pilot #Miri after the fact #reaction

6 notes · View notes

one-additional-time · 7 years

Text

Intro - June, 2013 [Translated]

Here is a great RAM-era interview I found on Issuu.com! There’s discussion about the guest musicians, real instruments vs electronic equipment, the lyrics, why new music takes them so long, and the RAM marketing campaign. Fair warning that I do not speak German, and this was done via Google Translate and WordReference.com, so it’s loosely translated at best, but it is nice readable English.

“ONLY THE MUSIC” Intro Magazine, June 2013

Eight years ago, Daft Punk released their last studio album Human After All. Now, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are back: Random Access Memories, their most elaborate work, is completely without outside samples and is based on a cross-generational guest list. Together with Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams, and six other guest musicians, they explore a spectrum of sounds ranging from West Coast Pop to disco, to contemporary house and R&B.

The Random Access Memories project was subject to extreme secrecy. Following a strict schedule set by the two Frenchmen, it was revealed to the public little by little via advertising clips on Saturday Night Live and at the Coachella Festival. Sebastian Ingenhoff and Thomas Venker speak exclusively with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo about the album’s different production methods, the slow work pace, the guest musicians, and the long-awaited lyrics.

Daft Punk, why did you choose the title Random Access Memories? Thomas Bangalter: It is about the interrelationship between computer memory and human memory, which is more and more being replaced by digital technologies. Technological progress plays an important role nowadays, it is being integrated into everyday life more and more and so has a real impact on human behavior. We have always been interested in futuristic ideas, as you can tell from the robot personas we assume on stage. Robot figures, which shift between artificial intelligence and human behavior, are a recurring theme in science fiction.

On your album, however, you did not use computer technology. The tracks were done with analog equipment and guest musicians. So you are “human after all”! Thomas: That’s true, but it’s still the same music. You can achieve precise craftsmanship in an analogous way and also have a certain robotic quality. It works on a different level than artificial intelligence. The human aspect of electronic music has always interested us. How do you make music that is mainly produced with synthesizers and sequencers come to life? Lifeless electronic music is synonymous with bad music.

You were able to get two pioneers of dance music together as guest musicians, Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers. Moroder, for example, took up techno at the start with Donna Summer’s 1977 production “I Feel Love”. Thomas: We wanted to represent a broad spectrum to carry the past into the future, to draw a connecting line through the decades. Not in an archival sense, but with a clear view of the future. Giorgio Moroder may be over seventy years old, but he still has something to say, and he does more contemporary work than a lot of young producers. We wanted to create something that is timeless but also contemporary.

The piece with Giorgio Moroder is a good nine minutes long. It starts with a monologue in which he first reflects on himself and his work, before handing the stage over to a meandering track that shows what freedom music can have. Did he come up with that idea himself? Thomas: We wanted to document the history of his music. Where did Giorgio come from? What kind of circumstances did he face when he invented techno? Did it come about by accident or was it due to his ideas of futuristic music? This is of course something archival, but then comes this incredible song with incredible synthesizers and a great hookline. You can immediately recognize Giorgio Moroder’s style. But also our style – at least I hope so. It was about the line connecting us. We want to show that today’s dance music would not be possible without the dance music from the 1970s.

The other disco-era icon on the album is guitarist Nile Rodgers, who is still very busy – he was just on tour with Chic and in the studio with Tensnake. How was it collaborating with him? Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo: He is now over sixty years old, but insanely energetic and young at heart. It was incredible to be able to work with him. He still comes across as a child, totally enthusiastic and engaged. If you feel Nile Rodgers’ energy, then you realize that physical age says nothing about a person. He was very ill, he had cancer. When you have conquered a disease like that, you live your life more consciously and intensely. He is incredibly productive and always wants to do three things at a time. Thomas: He told us an incredibly beautiful story about the making of Chic’s “I Want Your Love”. When Nile first heard “I Feel Love” by Moroder and Donna Summer, he thought, “Wow, this guy’s playing is super tight, this is incredibly fast and precise.” When he realized the tightness came from the sequencer, he wanted to bring that into his guitar playing. So he followed the sequencer. And this is how “I Want Your Love” by Chic came about! Listen to both pieces one by one and pay attention to the guitar playing. It’s amazing. No one knew that until now. Nile is a huge fan of Giorgio Moroder. And vice versa, Giorgio is also a big Chic fan. But they never really worked together. On Random Access Memories they have finally come together. Obviously that makes us proud!

On the other hand, you recruited young producers like Gonzales, Panda Bear, and Pharrell for the album. Thomas: Exactly: “Past, present, future”. They are all producers we like and who have touched us somehow. Take the tracks with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers – the most innovative R&B producer of the past decade meets the most brilliant disco guitarist in the world. The guests on the album are virtuosos in their field and were able to make a real contribution to our ideas. Neither Guy-Manuel nor I are outstanding at the piano — Gonzales, however, is certainly one of the best pianists in the world. So he was able to contribute something that we could never have done in our lives. We did not just want big names, but rather contributions that made sense.

The lyrics are about the search for love, the essence of life, the hedonistic escapism of the night — and all the abysses connected with it, the dramas and losses. That’s typical of disco, that the music is often very uplifting but the lyrics are contradictory. That is tradition, even so for Chic. Thomas: Dance music needs that emotional depth, that contrast of sadness and happiness. It is always easier to create something that is sad or happy. But to combine both in a song, that is art. Guy-Manuel: That’s the great thing: you can be incredibly happy and be crying at the same time. Ideally when you’re dancing, you feel like a volcanic eruption, bubbling over in all directions. It’s not just black and white, but many shades between. Our albums have always tried to represent a broad spectrum of feelings. There are very dark tracks from us, but you can still play them in a club because they might have an uplifting bass line or a nice melody.

This year is your anniversary: 20 years of Daft Punk. Yet you have announced you will not be performing live this year. Why? Guy-Manuel: There is no need to rush. We have completely invested the past few years in the record, now we want to enjoy the anniversary. Thomas: We want people to focus on the album and not on us standing on stage. It should be something special with a very particular value — after all, it was a very ambitious undertaking. Guy-Manuel: For many, a new album is just an excuse to go back on tour. That’s where they can make money. But we want it to have a special appreciation and not be just a flashy stage show. That’s why we’ve said from the outset: Here’s the record, and it stands on its own. No music videos, no tour, only the music.

You started in 1993 as young bedroom producers. Now for the new album you have worked in several big studios like Ampex in Los Angeles and Electric Lady in New York. How did that affect writing the tracks? Thomas: Was our songwriting process really different than before? We have never thought of electronic music as computer music, as something that you sort of spit out. It has always been about capturing and preserving a special moment. When we started, it was much more chaotic than it is now. We had a bunch of drum machines and a couple of good ideas we could feed into them. But we never wanted to control the equipment like a computer, rather appreciate it as a living thing. As an organism. Now we are doing the same thing with real instruments. If you do punk rock and suddenly everyone else starts doing punk rock, it would get boring at some point. Then maybe you want to compose an opera, just to see if you can bring punk rock into it. Then opera becomes the new punk rock. Guy-Manuel: Now electronic dance music has become very uniform. With the computer, anyone can put tracks together, but often they are only presets that have been strung together. It’s not a challenge. We want to make music that is more than a few mouse clicks. We want to have emotion and soul. Just something human. Bangalter: It’s hard to program emotion on a computer. Analog synthesizers give you a mix of different sounds, but they never sound sterile. It is much different than a computer. If you then add in elements like a Fender Rhodes and a keyboard, you can create poetry. You can’t produce an album with a few mouse clicks. Obviously this is a very conservative point of view. But just imagine what would have happened if the few people who make interesting music on the computer would have used real instruments.

But Chicago house, which greatly influenced you, relied on this difference. It was a statement against submissiveness, a revolution in the sense that you no longer had to master instruments to produce music. It was about being creative with something simple like a drum machine and a sampler. Guy-Manuel: Of course, and the music always sounded very warm. Chicago House had soul and depth, something you find in few dance tracks now. Maybe because at the time they were using real synthesizers and real drum machines. It might have been produced quickly, but it was made with a lot of attention to detail. When I’m at a club and there’s a Robert Armani track on, I can instantly distinguish it from the mush of beats. However I cannot tell most contemporary dance tracks apart, a lot of it just sounds boring to me.

Your first album Homework was the blueprint of a somewhat more brutal sound that was cultivated a few years later by the label Ed Banger. Pedro Winter was also your manager for a while. Are you following the Parisian scene now? Thomas: Ed Banger is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Pedro comes from our generation, we started at the same time and have been experiencing similar advancements. We share the same interests and preferences. It’s nice to see that they’ve found their way and that this sound lives on. It’s hard for artists and labels to stay on the ball for years and years, because the scene changes: younger people grow up and want different sounds. If you’re still around after so long, then you’ve done something right.

In twenty years you’ve only released four studio albums. You take a lot of time. Thomas: We have to do it like that, because it gets increasingly more difficult to reinvent ourselves. You want to become more complex and not a caricature of yourself. Many older musicians keep making the same thing out of convenience, because they are afraid to lose their fans. But that’s bullshit. If you don’t have any challenges to face as a musician you might want to retire. We take a lot of time because we want to reach a higher level with each album. Like a video game. That’s why the latest album is always the most difficult for us.

As a marketing gimmick you aired two fifteen-second commercials on Saturday Night Live. What was the idea behind the campaign? Thomas: It was supposed to be very small teasers that don’t give away too much but arouse curiosity. Like a good commercial. We intentionally didn’t want anyone to hear any songs in full. Physical marketing through print magazines, TV stations, and billboards just has a better vibe than online marketing. It fits better for us, because we grew up with that. All of this online marketing is not very poetic. We make the tools available to people and they can do with them what they want. We don’t use the internet much ourselves. Of course we shot an elaborate video that we put on YouTube, but that’s not exactly what we wanted this time.

But at the same time you are known for your spectacular music videos. You’ve worked with major music video directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry in the past. Thomas: Many say our clips were revolutionary, but the revolution was that we didn’t make any. After the two fifteen-second videos came a slightly longer performance video with Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams, and our two robots. But it’s not a music video, it’s more like an advertisement. In either case it’s pretty funny. I don’t think you can really surprise people with music videos anymore in the internet age. That’s why you have to move forward, giving yourself challenges and new formats to utilize, both on a musical and an aesthetic level. Random Access Memories is a complete piece of artwork that must first be absorbed. For me that could go on for more than a year. What comes after that? A tour? A film? We’ll see.

—

THE HISTORY OF DAFT PUNK Through the years with Homem-Christo and Bangalter

1974 On February 8th Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo is born in Paris.

1975 On January 3rd Thomas Bangalter is born in Paris.

1992 de Homem-Christo and Bangalter form the rock band Darlin’ with Phoenix musician Laurent Brancowitz. The British magazine Melody Maker described their demo as “a dafty punky trash” - a historically significant phrase.

1993 Bangalter and de Homem-Christo change their sound, creating a techno house group and naming it Daft Punk.

1994 Scotsman Stuart McMillan reacts euphorically to their hand-delivered demo “The New Wave” and signs the two to his label Soma. As a result the three singles “The New Wave / Assault / Wave”, “Da Funk / Rollin’ & Scratchin’”, and “Into Silver Club” are released.

1995 Daft Punk move to the major record label Virgin, sending Da Funk up the charts with a bigger marketing campaign.

Thomas Bangalter forms the label Roulé.

1996 The last photo of the two in which you can see their faces is shot in May 1996.

1997 Daft Punk’s first album is released on January 17th. Homework makes them well-known outside the club scene. Among the biggest hits of the album are Da Funk, Around The World, and Revolution 909.

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, together with Eric Chedeville, forms the label Crydamoure and the group Le Knight Club.

1998 Bangalter, together with Alan Braxe and Benjamin Diamond as Stardust, releases the hit single “Music Sounds Better With You”.

Bangalter and de Homem-Christo go into the studio with Romanthony. One of the songs from this session, “One More Time”, is released two years later as a single and, with more than four million copies sold, becomes the duo’s biggest hit so far.

2001 On March 9th their second album Discovery is released. In addition to Romanthony, there are guest appearances by DJ Sneak and Todd Edwards. It will go on to sell three million copies.

For music videos of Discovery’s single releases Daft Punk use excerpts from Interstella 5555, a musical they produced with anime director Leiji Matsumoto.

2002 Thomas Bangalter’s partner, the actress Élodie Bouchez, gives birth to their son Tarra-Jay on January 22nd.

Bangalter produces part of the soundtrack for the controversial French film Irreversible by Gaspar Noé. He also later worked on the soundtrack of its successor, Enter The Void [Note: Not really true, Thomas did help a little bit but was busy with Tron at the time; he is credited on this film as a “sound effects director”].

On July 8th, LCD Soundsystem releases their song “Losing My Edge”, in which James Murphy sings about being the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.

2005 On March 14th their third album Human After All is released. It’s a harbinger of Daft Punk’s later period of sampleless-ness.

On February 21st LCD Soundsystem released their hit song “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”.

2009 Daft Punk produce the soundtrack of Tron: Legacy. The album is released on December 6th.

2010 On October 20th Daft Punk make a guest appearance at the Phoenix show at Madison Square Garden. They play a mix of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, “Around The World”, and “1901”.

2013 On May 17th Random Access Memories is released. For the duo it is one of the most important moments of their career, “because the best is always yet to come,” says Bangalter. “You must not think retrospectively.”

#daft punk #interviews #translations #RAM

108 notes · View notes

becomeungovernable · 7 years

Text

CSSSA Writing Application

So, here it is! I noticed a grammar mistake in my B, and descended to Hell but hopefully they’re looking for content not grammar quality. Also, I interpreted the B as a memoir reflecting back on something, so that was the way I wrote it and I’m terrified I did it wrong.

Assignment A

Writing is vastly complex, a process of finding the right words to string together to convey a message or an image. For myself, writing is a coping method. I’ve never been exactly open about how I’m feeling, or very good at conveying those emotions. However, when I was fairly young, around eight, I picked up Harry Potter for the first time. I adored it, and still do, and I soon found myself creating my own characters, building stories whenever I had the chance. Of course, they were not very good, seeing as I was nine at that point, but reading various authors taught me to grow as a writer. From Lin Manuel Miranda, to Suzanne Collins, to George R.R. Martin, I grew from those I read, using their creativity and much more superior knowledge to fine tune my characters into actual people. I also find myself applying lessons of psychology and history I learn from school into my characters and worlds, paralleling people and events into fictional places, and having them overcome the odds. That’s why I write, to create real people who can overcome standards set upon them, whether it be from others or society.

Assignment B

At the age of fourteen, I was uncertain of many things about myself, most prominently my sexuality and gender identity. They were constant nagging questions at the back of my mind, a weight upon my shoulders that I could not shake no matter how hard I tried, the feeling of falling with no ground in sight. These questions bore strange consequences, some of which were reflected on the depression that would fall upon me eventually, but most came from other people. Lingering looks, slightly too loud whispers, but never to my face. That was, until about three weeks until my fifteenth birthday. By then, I had established that I was most certainly some form of gay as well as a form of transgender, thought I did not know what form yet, and had come to terms with it. However, when I was shopping with my older sister, I encountered a person who openly despised me for who I was. It a woman, with a strange amount of hatred in her face for a child she had never met. It was the first time the slur “faggot” was thrown my way, and it shattered my heart. I left there, hurt and confused, but rather than letting it make me angry, I made a decision. I want to spread love and tolerance, even to those who will not return it. That is the way I can feel welcome, and hopefully that woman who threw that slur my way will be able to find the way to extend the hand of brotherhood to me in return.

Assignment C

Scene opens on a lavish room, adorned with exceptional paintings and decorations. ADRIAN, a prepossessing man in his late late teens, sits forward in an armchair by a fireplace, eyes fixated on the flames. Enter ROSELYN, ADRIAN’S elder sister and current guardian, a woman in her mid twenties. Her eyes linger on the armchair as she moves into the room.

ADRIAN: Can I ask you something, Rosie?

ROSELYN: Shoot away, little brother.

ADRIAN: So, these guys I know are having a party, and I was wondering if I could go. It’ll be...

ROSELYN: (Interrupting) Who? Anybody I know?

ADRIAN: Oh, y’know, Matthew, Danny, Micah, Jonathan, … (Mumbling) Michael…

ROSELYN: (Fiercely) Absolutely not.

ADRIAN: Oh, c’mon, Rosie! It’ll be the biggest party of the year, everyone will be there!

ROSELYN: Which almost certainly means there will be people doing illegal things there! Drugs, alcohol, so many bad influences. Especially Michael, what was he expelled for again?

ADRIAN: Having a gun on campus and gang affiliations…

ROSELYN: I don’t want you getting mixed up with people like that, you might end up in a gang! Then you can kiss your full-ride scholarship goodbye, it would be gone in an instant. What would dad say if he were here?

ADRIAN: Fine! I won’t go! (Muttering bitterly) You’re almost as bad as mom. (Suddenly, he looks mortified with himself) Christ, I didn’t mean that Rosie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

ROSELYN: Don’t. (She picks up what she was looking for, looking extraordinarily hurt) I’ll order a pizza for tonight, make sure you get your homework done.

Assignment D

The young woman had never been so afraid.

Scrawny, shaking knees, a slender blade in slim, quivering hands, yellow irises darting to any sound she heard, she had never felt fear like this before. A lithe form hunched over, trying not to be significant in any way. Constantly, she adjusted her footing, unable to find any particular position she was comfortable with. Creator, she was a fool.

She could never know her people would be under attack in such a way. They were a peaceful folk, farmers and fishermen, who never expected anything very exciting to come their way. They lived, they worked, they died. That was, until the creature showed up.

Nobody really knew what it looked like, because if you saw it, you were more than likely dead. It lurked in the wetlands of Exandria, preying mostly on the fishermen. Her people would only find melted skeletons, with bits of flesh clinging to them. The young woman quivered at the thought.

The square of the town was abandoned, excluding the woman waiting alone for her fate. Everyone with sense, that being everyone except for her, were in hiding as soon the effulgence of the moon crested over the horizon. Curtained windows and barred doors were in every direction, as those inside awaited her screams of agony.

She brushed a lock of unpigmented hair from her eyes, tucking it behind one of her horns as she shifted her footing and her grip on her sword. With one hand, she released the blade and reached up to touch the holy symbol around her neck. Creator, give her strength and wisdom to defeat this foe born far from your kind gaze.

Out of the corner of her eye, the woman saw a small child being ushered away from a curtained window, and was suddenly reminded of her brother, barely ten, horns just beginning to sprout from his brow. Curious blue eyes, an innocent optimism that his big sister would succeed in defeating the creature. For his future, she thought fiercely. For his hopes and dreams.

Suddenly, she heard a low hissing behind her, and the woman turned slowly, fingers tightening around the hilt of the sword. Behind her there was a black scaled creature, pointed teeth bared and coated with what she assumed was some sort of acidic solution. The woman was suddenly filled with fury and courage, and she lifted her sword.

“Creator, give your daughter the strength she needs to defeat this abomination born far from your gaze!” She shrieked, baring her own painted teeth to the lizard-like obscenity before her. “Cloak me in your light, guide my sword true, and let this creature fall to avenge those of your children that have already fallen!”

And with a fierce battle cry, the woman barreled forward, swinging her sword in an arc of deadly metal. As she moved, the blade burst into white, divine fire, and she knew the Creator looked down upon her with favor.

Assignment E

I was red and she was blue

She was light streaming through a window

A ship sailing through fog

The sky at daybreak, streaked with pink

The brief moment before the break of dawn

The soft sound of a pencil beginning a sketch

The first snow of the season

Being curled in a corner with a favorite book

A secluded and private garden

The satisfaction of finishing important work

The first dance between spouses at a wedding

‘The beach on a rainy day

A gentle sea breeze on an exposed face

An entirely empty house

Light being reflected on the surface of water

A gentle rainstorm on a summer’s evening

An empty library after school got out

A lazy Saturday morning spent in bed

Gentle background music at a family dinner

A vacant forest glade, abandoned by the world

A content night with a lover

I was a booming, sold-out concert

The moment at the top of a rollercoaster

The lights of the city, late at night

Instinct driving each step further

The buzz of a crowd at a sporting event

The rush of adrenaline whilst going down steep slopes

A sports match between rivals

A sudden clap of thunder

A city street, bustling with people

The tense moment before a race

The crash of waves on rocky cliffs

A breath held in suspense

Falling through open air

A storm about to break

The sky at sunset, streaked with reds and oranges

Pulls for air between breathless pants

The instant before an anticipated event

Teasing chides from a good friend

Exhilarated laughs while being daring

The thick air of a horror movie

A moment waiting to happen

I was red and she was blue

And I found that I loved blue

And that’s it! My E is a two tone poem, so formatting is weird on Tumblr, but it’s fine on my app.

Edit: Oh my god what has this hellsite done to the formatting on my poem I can’t even fix it.

#CSSSA #CSSSA 2017 #csssa creative writing

7 notes · View notes

hexiewrites · 7 years

Text

we will never be satisfied

pairing: narcissa black / lily evans setting: georgian era / ~1790s. a winter’s ball. word count: 1837 written for: the femslash february trope bingo and my free space, which I have decided is a “regency era” au, except it’s more like georgian era (#historymajorproblems) so I dunno anymore whatever. It’s also a hamilton au - is that a thing yet? and hp femslash february in general! a/n: yes okay things I am aware of: I shamelessly ripped a bunch of dialogue and other things from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton’s “Satisfied” (preemptive warning, this ends just about how you expect it’s going to). I split both Eliza and Hamilton into two people, basically. (a formal apology to Peggy, who unfortunately here is portrayed by Bellatrix Lestrange neé Black). I also completely and utterly without shame stole, butchered, and modernized the brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft’s work (and, a bit of herself as well) A Vindication on the Rights of Men and its sequel A Vindication on the Rights of Women. I fucked with timeline and historical accuracy, and more importantly I made some characters pretty damn gay. welcome to hell, babes. as always, a big thanks to my beta/inspiration @nymphadoraholtzmann! this was her idea and she has been very patiently waiting for me to write it for like… probably at least a month so. you can also see the beautiful graphic she made for this concept right here!

(my bingo card) (my other writing)

Narcissa Black was bored. It didn't usually happen, especially not at such a lovely ball. Soldier's red coats brightened the ballroom and their brass buttons glimmered in the flickering candlelight. Narcissa brushed a hand down over the green and silver brocade of her dress and sighed, rather despondently. Her eyes flickered the room and spotted her oldest sister Bella dancing with her husband, Rodolphus, and her middle sister Andromeda giggling next to a soldier.

Once again, she was reminder of her father's stern words, before the ball. There would be no grinning soldiers or pretty peasants in her future, no following her heart or joining the swiftly growing revolution. No matter that she was educated, intelligent, and ambitious. There would only be a marriage to a wealthy man, a continuation of his family line, and the reminder - again and again and again - that she was supposed to be a boy and since she hadn't managed that, the least she could do was uphold her family’s honour by marrying a Lord.

Scanning her eyes across the room again, she couldn't help but notice a redhead woman who happened to be walking in her direction. The woman's dark auburn hair probably should have clashed with her red dress, but instead the two seemed to compliment each other, offsetting the woman's pale creamy skin. Narcissa forced herself to look away, glancing back at the ball.

"You strike me as a woman who’s never been satisfied," said a voice from her left. It was musical and magical and Narcissa had to swallow at the way it sent tingles down her spine. She turned and there was the redhead, more beautiful up close with large intelligent green eyes that Narcissa knew would be burned into her brain forever. Narcissa had never seen anything like them and it took her a moment to remember herself, her place.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she managed, in her best aristocrat voice. "You forget yourself."

The woman smirked, stepped closer. She radiated a confidence that was striking and terrifying, bold and courageous and something about it burned so brightly it nearly hurt.

"You're like me," the woman continued, lifting a hand to brush a strand of long red hair away from her face.

"Oh?" Narcissa asked, lost in green eyes and soft words and some underlying promise of more.

"I've never been satisfied." The woman continued, a grin tugging at her lips.

Narcissa couldn't help herself. She tipped her head back and laughed, her own lips quirking up in a matching smile, before she leaned in a little closer. "Is that right?"

The beautiful green eyes darkened just a bit, and the grin tugging at the woman’s pink lips shifted into something that should have been terrifying. “I will never be satisfied.” Something about the way she said it, the way her voice dipped lower and that look in her eyes tugged at something low in Narcissa’s abdomen and she shifted her legs slightly and fought the urge to bite her lips.

Deciding she couldn’t go another minute without learning the woman’s name, she extended her hand. “My name is Narcissa Black.”

A pale hand extended and caught hers, and Narcissa noticed almost immediately that the woman’s skin wasn’t quite as soft as hers. The woman lifted Narcissa’s hand and brushed her lips over the skin carefully, then looked up and smiled again. “Lily Evans.” She introduced herself, and Narcissa ran back through her mind of the hundreds of other wealthy families she knew. Clearly not Royalty, or nobility – Narcissa had had the family tree of every other family deemed acceptable burned into her brain since she was old enough to listen.

“Where’s your family from?” She asked, almost disappointed when Lily dropped her hand. The woman paused at the question, flicked her eyes to the side, and something in Narcissa’s stomach crashed.

“Unimportant,” Lily hedged, waving a hand as if dismissing it quickly. “There’s a million things I haven’t done.”

Narcissa swallowed, closed her eyes quickly. When she reopened them, Lily was still standing there, looking at her, tracing her eyes over Narcissa’s face and lips and Narcissa knew she had to drop this, to turn and run right now before she got stuck but she couldn’t seem to.

Instead, she kept her eyes on Lily, tried to determine why the woman was there. “Are you one of the soldier’s wives?” She asked, tipping her nose up in slight disdain, unable to help herself.

It was Lily’s turn to laugh, and Narcissa couldn’t help that her eyes were drawn down to watch as the woman’s chest bubbled up and nearly spilled over her corset as she did so. Narcissa’s mouth went dry and she swallowed, and forced herself to look up.

“Goodness no.” Lily shook her head now, and then she shrugged simply. “I’m an author.”

Narcissa raised a delicate brow. “And what, pray tell, do you write?” She had never met an author before, she didn’t think. But she was interested to know if Lily wrote more about cooking or housekeeping – not that she’d ever personally had to do either.

“My current piece is titled A Vindication on the Rights of Women.” Lily stated, something akin to a twinkle in her eye.

“Hmm. And what, exactly, are the rights of women, in your opinion?” Narcissa asked, trying to figure out what exactly a text with such a long name would be about.

Lily smirked and a self-satisfied air settled around her. “Nothing too radical,” she promised, though the lilting tone in her voice seemed to suggest otherwise. “In my previous work, I wrote against the aristocracy – instead, I believe that the people should have control over the state. I believe that the arrangement of our society, in which some individuals benefit by climbing over the backs of others, is horrendous.”

Narcissa choked. She was standing here speaking to a revolutionary. What on earth would her father say, to know that she was speaking to someone who, in all likelihood, supported the war that was going on! That supported this nonsense of revolution, of killing the monarchs. Who wanted to destroy the very lifestyle her ancestors had worked so hard for. Unfortunately, Lily’s emerald eyes were drawing her in and she couldn’t help but ask another question. “But what does all of that have to do with women? We’re not the ones fighting.”

Lily seemed to almost take this as a challenge and she rested a small hand on Narcissa’s arm, and Narcissa’s skin nearly burned under her touch. “I believe that, if a woman were to wish to, she should be able to be involved in whatever she so wishes. We, as women, are essential to our nation. We are more than just… just property to be sold to the highest bidder.” Narcissa was already thinking of her older sister’s engagement, a flurry of paperwork and a lack of meetings. Of her sister, in line next with similar arrangements already being set, and herself – the discussions of Lucius Malfoy that filtered up the stairs and into her bedroom. Lily was still speaking. “As long as we, as women, think rationally – there is so much more that we could all achieve.”

Lily had clearly gotten worked up speaking, her hand had tightened around Narcissa’s arm and her cheeks and chest were starting to flush. Narcissa wanted to catch the woman’s hand and run, take her away from this awful party full of people who would destroy her ideas, who would crush her enthusiasm and try to teach her her proper place. She had the brief idea that perhaps they could run, that she could spend the rest of her life watching the redhead’s skin flush and drawing laughter from her lips.

And then reality caught up to her, crashed into her like a pile of bricks and she remembered who she was. She was Narcissa Black. The third daughter and third disappointment for her family. To make up for her unfortunate gender, her primary goal in life was a good marriage to a rich man – not to spend her days with a woman who was likely penniless. None of this could ever work and she tore her eyes away from the green ones staring back at her and then scanned them across the room.

When they landed, what she had to do suddenly became clear to her and she turned back to Lily to scan her eyes over her beautiful face one last time. “Come with me.” She insisted, and slid her hand down into Lily’s, relishing in the feeling of small fingers and slightly rough skin.

“Where are you taking me?” Lily asked, laughter clear in her voice as Narcissa led her across the dance floor.

Narcissa paused, looked back at her destination. “I’m about to change your life.” She insisted.

“By all means.” Lily replied, and they crossed the last few steps of the dance floor in silence.

When they arrived, she flashed a smile to the men that now stood in front of them

"My cousin Sirius Black," she introduced, gesturing to a man in a soldier's uniform and long shaggy hair. "And his friend, James Potter." She didn’t know James well, but she did know Sirius and she knew that despite his redcoat, he believed in the revolution and their actions. That he had joined the war effort here in hopes that he could pull it apart brick by brick. His parents were disgraced, and he looked more pleased than she had ever seen him. She only assumed that James was the same.

James scanned his eyes across Lily's form and Narcissa held the sneer back from her face. He looked like a lovesick puppy. He looked helpless. She wanted to send him away, to catch Lily in her arms and do… something. Something that she was sure she was not supposed to want to do with anyone other than her husband – let alone another woman. Especially one with such dangerous ideas.

"Lily Evans," the redhead said, extending a hand and offering a small smile. "Pleasure to meet you."

James grinned and caught the hand, pressing his lips to Lily's smooth skin. Lily flushed and then flicked her eyes back to Narcissa, who was still looking steadily at James. She had known it would work – not that she was sure why, but she had known it all the same.

"James Potter. The pleasure is all mine." He assured her, stepping closer. Narcissa closed her hand into a fist, dug her nails into her palms, inhaled.

"Thank you for your service." Lily said, polite interest in her voice, nothing like the confident undertone from when she's spoken to Narcissa.

"If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it." James purred, and Sirius snickered beside him.

Lily giggled, and Narcissa's heart shattered.

"I'll leave you to it." Narcissa nearly whispered, and she never looked back.

32 notes · View notes