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badgeworn-arc · 2 years

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𝐉𝐈𝐌 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑 : 𝐀 𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝟏𝟗𝟓𝟔-𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐. ↳ ft. his parents, his high school years & career, his military career, & his relationship with diane. triggers: mentions of addiction, alcoholism, war, ptsd, cancer, & child death.

JAMES & CINDY HOPPER: james and cindy hopper ( formerly williams ) met in hawkins, indiana where both were born and raised. shortly before james would be whisked off to fight in wwii just like his father had been before him, the couple married and in 1942 , three years before the end of this war, they welcomed their first & only child : JAMES ‘ JIM ’ HOPPER III. his father was exactly how you’d expect a military man of this time to be, his mother stayed at home for it was much more important for her to keep the house and their son in order. jim’s relationship with his parents was mostly . . . neutral. he had a harder time with his father than his mother ━ perhaps we’re all just hardwired to reject our fathers or perhaps they just truly never saw eye to eye especially on what jim’s future would and wouldn’t hold. the hoppers were an upper middle class, white picket fence, american dream sort of family. it used to be something jim looked up to , it was something he wanted and dreamed about ... it later becomes something he resents. maybe he still wanted the family, but the idea of being a carbon copy of his father scared the shit out of him. JIM WAS A GOOD KID. he got in normal kid trouble and scuffles with the other boys in the neighborhood, he let his father persuade him into sports and he helped his mother around the house and overall he was just ... good. it wouldn’t be until later that his parents would label him as anything else.

HAWKINS HIGH ( 1956 - 1960 ): jim hopper , better known simply as hop or hopper , was never on the outskirts of hawkins high. he knew everybody and everybody knew him. hopper was your jock, your popular kid, your ‘ king ’ of the school ━ far from your stereotypical one though. with a c average and a heart too big for its body .. jim hopper could honestly say he was friends with almost everyone. he had his favorites of course, you never saw him without benny hammond or joyce byers horowitz by his side. honestly he couldn’t tell you where either of those friendships truly began, well, benny maybe. they’d grown up not far from each other forced together in the ways that boys were told to go outside and get dirty in the same way girls were kept inside and taught how to stay prim and proper. JIM’S HIGH SCHOOL DAYS CONSISTED OF football games and stealing kisses from cheerleaders under the bleachers and ditching class to smoke cigarettes with a certain brunette who everyone reminded him was nothing but trouble. they just didn’t know her like he did. people would say it’s so he could keep his grades up or his reputation clear , it was true that if he hadn’t had someone to stay on his ass about classwork and homework ━ he might not have graduated at all. he was smart but he didn’t apply himself all the way unless it was for football. he’d drag joy out to social events and she’d drag him to the library, but it was never for show, he truly enjoyed her company even though they couldn’t have been more different. as for the social aspect of high school, he needed no help with that, much like he would in the future jim left a string of broken hearts behind him ━ never really keeping a girl around long enough for them to be considered going steady. chrissy carpenter and he had a weird on and off, back and forth, that carried him through his four years. nothing ever happened with the girl glued to his side, besides maybe a couple of drunken fool arounds & a game of spin the bottle at the future mrs. ted wheeler’s house. it would be too late before he realized why his relationships never went much further than his dad’s ( and later his own ) car and he would watch that reason waltz into the senior prom on the arm of someone else. he and joy didn’t talk much after that.

VIETNAM ( 1960 - 1965 ): following graduation, jim knew there was one thing his father wanted out of him that he wouldn’t be able to avoid: military service and in an attempt to halfway rebuild a relationship he’d let crash and burn during his teen years, he takes it upon himself to volunteer rather than wait for the draft that would inevitably come. just like his father and grandfather before him, jim set off for the army where he would be shipped off to vietnam and begin work within the chemical corp. ( involved in operation ranch hand primarily ) it turned out to be a lot harder on him than he imagined ━ he longed for the hometown he claimed to hate and the girl who he’d left without so much as a goodbye ( he was a nice guy but he was still a guy ) he kept tabs on this town and those people through communications with his mother. he never really talks about what went on when he served, he’d rather not think about it when he can help it but there was no denying that jim hopper came back to indiana a different person. a boy once warm, happy, & friendly now a man who was cold, distant, & kept to himself.

THE RISE & FALL OF JIM AND DIANE HOPPER ( 1965 - 1979 ): hopper returned home to hawkins in 1965 following his stint in vietnam and upon this return, he meets diane summer. new in town because he would’ve remembered seeing someone like her around before he left . . . he began to let her melt some of the ice that had settled in his chest. he was still tied to the military for a little while longer which he thinks played into how fast, hot, and heavy his relationship with diane was. all he knew is eventually he wanted to get out of hawkins for good and he wanted her by his side. in 1971, the couple welcomed a daughter who gave the perfect reason for the family to make their move to new york shortly after the two wed in 1972. for the next six years, jim hopper could say he was truly happy. he had his wife, his daughter, and a good job in a city he’d grown to love ... what else did he need ? as if on cue , in 1978 , the picture perfect family image began to crumble when sara fell ill. everything jim had pushed away about his time in the army began to bubble back up , every fear he’d told diane about following finding about sara’s conception, every bad dream returning tenfold and sometimes he can hear sara’s voice calling out to him. they say if a marriage can survive a child’s death it can survive anything . . . he wasn’t surprised when he and diane didn’t make it a year after she was gone. no matter how times she’d said it wasn’t his fault over the days that followed, he didn’t believe it. how could it not be ? he knew what he had done in vietnam and he knew the risks attached to what they were doing now and no amount of chemotherapy had been able to help .. towards the end of his marriage is when jim started using valium & whiskey to keep the bad thoughts and feelings away ━ some nights that’s the only thing that would help him sleep it wasn’t long until his nighttime ritual became an all day one.

THE PRODIGAL SON RETURNS HOME ( 1979 - 1982 ): after being excused from the nypd and his marriage now officially over, new york had nothing left to offer jim hopper and he went back to the one place he knew would take him: hawkins, indiana. maybe if he hadn’t fought so hard to get out of there he wouldn’t be back there now but who else would take in a childless father who drank liquor like water and popped pills like candy ? long gone was the james hopper hawkins knew . . . no this was a different jim hopper, a colder one, a more of an asshole one, one who ran through women like he ran through packs of camels. he didn’t think he’d ever see the jim hopper he used to be again.

that is until november 1983 when he rounded the corner to his office and found her sitting there.

#this took 12 years #between my own adhd brain & people needing me to do this and that #and run to the store #holy shit #i dont even know if i LIKE it at this point but here #╰ ‘ 𝘐 𝘚𝘛𝘐𝘓𝘓 𝘞𝘖𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 𝘞𝘏𝘈𝘛 𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛 𝘞𝘙𝘖𝘕𝘎 … ’ › introspective.#hc *

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attheexactlyrighttimeandplace · 2 years

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I was tagged by the coolest tumblrina @wvnjo to answer this ask game. Each time your personal tags show up on my dash, i think about how much someone as full of energy and ambition like you deserves to reach her life goals. I can't be more than a groupie who is cheering for you from the side, but i'm doing it with all my heart. 💗

Name: Imane

Sign: Lion sun, Taurus moon, Capricorn rising,

Height: 1,58m

Time: 18:45

Birthday: july 27th

Favourite bands/artists (the ones i always returned to in difficult times): Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabaté, Fayruz, Umm Kulthum, Cesaria Evora, Médine, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and so many more

Last movie: US by Jordan Peele

Last show: Severance (an instant favourite: series that mix sci-fi/political concept+ philosophical/metaphysical questions about the nature of identity+ impossible love stories will always have a special place in my heart)

When I created this blog: I think in 2011 but it's not my first blog on Tumblr

What I post: What my mood dictates me. I see my blog as kind of stream of consciouness created to calm and to relax. I reblog quasi exclusively (since i have no talent) all sort of arts (photography of nature, architecture, paintings, poetry, music, gifs of films) and sometimes current news about the world (Palestine), but in a specific order because my brain needs a visual/aesthetic connection to what i reblog and more importantly an invented (by me) narrative continuity between the posts. That's why i don't reblog immediately what i like or bookmark. I search/create in my mind the stories that gives sense to me to the flow of the pics/gifs i pick.

Last thing I googled: Algeria

Other blogs: Fandom blogs. It's pure nostalgia for my childhood favourite tv shows.

Do I get asks: Very rarely. That's why i rarely post personal thoughts. I think most of my followers prefer this blog to speak for itself, without additional thoughts...

Following: I don't get this one. Am i is supposed to say how many people i follow or who i follow?

Average hours of sleep: usually 6-8h. I can't have less: i'm too old to endure sleepless nights anymore.

Instruments: None

What I’m wearing: A cute blue dress i received as a gift from my mother who just came back from her holidays in Algeria.

Dream job: Quoting my muse @wvnjo "I don’t dream of labour". I studied law and worked in the field for years because i have a strong sense of justice. I loved to defend people but lost a lot of my illusions, so i quit. These days, i daydream of some activity, (not necessarily a job, volunteering would be very okay), with children: helping in a children library (i love to share books and stories with children) or teaching some after classes lessons to children of primary schools.

Nationality: algerian the only one that matters in my heart and forever. I have been born, raised and lived my entire life en France. I have the french citizenship but i don't feel i belong here. If my health condition was better, i would pobrably try to leave France.

Favourite songs (currently, it changes all the time): Sun May Shine by Tamino, all because my favourite music librarian @wvnjo rebloggged it and got me hooked. it's so melancholic and so soft at the same time, i think i will never be not haunted by Tamino's voice (and the notes of arab influence in his music certainly helped a lot).

Last book I read: The Willow Tree by Hubert Selby Jr. A very powerful modern story on revenge, grief and forgiveness about a young black american boy whose life is shattered when his hispanic girlfriend and him are attacked by a street gang enraged by the fact they are a racially mixed couple. I loved how the author used such a musical and poetic language to tell a a seemingly hopeless and dark tale, until grace comes from an unexpected place and enlightens again life.

3 fictional universes: Middle Earth. Battlestar Galactica. All poems and plays related to the House of Atreus: The Illiad, The Odyssey and The Oresteia.

Tagging all my mutuals and everyone who feel inspired by this ask game.

#ask games #personal

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purplesurveys · 1 year

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1589

Are you obsessive over Edward Cullen? Uh, maybe when I was 11 I could say that yeah. I’m definitely no longer as obsessed with the character nor the series, apart from my annual rewatch of the movies haha. Team Cullen all the way though – I hated Jacob’s anger issues.

Ever written that you were going to end your life? Yeah, it doubles as a will. I am fairly certain it’s still here on my laptop, just under a completely random and unrelated title. I haven’t seen it in years.

If you had one wish, what would it be? And you can’t wish for more wishes. Money.

Name one of your second cousins. Margaret.

Diamonds or rubies? Diamonds.

Would you date someone 8 years older than you? Someone who’s 32...maybe not. The gap is personally too large for me. Can you take a bra off with one hand? Nah.

How old is the last person you texted? She seems a bit younger than me, from what I’ve seen. I’m guessing anywhere between 18-23.

Who was the last person you fell asleep with? Fell asleep with and not sleep with? Hmm I guess Angela from the last time I slept over at her place.

Have you ever punched a hole in the wall? I’ve felt the urge but have never done it. I don’t want to end up in pain and with bloody knuckles lol. If you were in the hospital on life support, would the last person you hugged visit you? It’s possible, but it’s not a 100% chance of visiting.

Have you ever fallen asleep in school? Not while in class but I have napped in a few spots here and there – mostly in my car. There were very few times I fell asleep at my org’s lounge area but in general I hate sleeping in public.

What kind of car does your most recent ex drive? I have no idea. I know her parents gifted her her own car straight out of college, but I don’t remember what make and model it is.

Have you ever dated someone you met online? Nope.

Do you wish you were taller or shorter? I could be a little taller but overall I’m not the type to complain about my height. Filipinos are on the shorter side anyway and around here I’d still be considered average lol, so.

What financial class are you? Middle.

What poster is hanging closest to you? I’m at a Starbucks right now so all the posters and tarps here are just promoting their new drinks.

Are you more comfortable with men or women? Women. I find them easier and more relatable to talk to. I think we’re also naturally more emotional and expressive, which is kind of what my energy needs when talking to people. How much older than you have you dated? I’ve only ever dated someone of the same age, and even she was a couple of months younger than me.

Do you have a pet cat? I do not.

Who did you last shoot a dirty look at? Probably just some dumb driver.

Is there somebody in your life that you could not survive without? Angela.

What do you currently hear right now? Change pt. 2 and all its angry bass sounds through my earphones.

How do you feel about school? I largely didn’t care for it throughout grade school and the early years of high school, knowing that my scores in those years wouldn’t matter anywhere. I started taking it seriously in junior year, since in my dream university they look at your grades starting from that grade. I did well enough to pass that university, and from then on till college I gave a crap about and enjoyed school since that’s the point where you typically get to have more independence in the classes you pick.

Does the person you last kissed still like you? No, I have had no reason to remain in their life in like the past two years now.

When was the last time you used a pay phone and who were you calling? I’ve never even used a payphone, I think. The last time I encountered one of them was in grade school, but I never had to use it.

How many rings do you wear, if any? I don’t wear rings.

Grilled cheese or peanut butter & jelly? Grilled cheese. Peanut butter and jelly is so weird and I remember being so underwhelmed by it when I tried it for the first time, after seeing all my favorite American shows hype it up so much.

Have you ever jumped in a pool with your clothes on? No, I don’t like getting my clothes wet on purpose.

Do you prefer being called your actual name or a nickname? My first name. Only close family members use the shortened version of it, and I’d be pretty weirded out if any non-relative called me that. Where is the person you love/like? I’m not into anyone.

Future tattoos? Seven tiny dots in the order of BTS’ microphone colors, and now I’m thinking of an Indigo-themed tattoo...still thinking of which lyric to tattoo-fy though.

Name of your first relationship? I don’t like recalling the person in any extent anymore, so let’s move on.

Do you like scary movies? Sure! I don’t watch them a lot these days, but I definitely don’t hate horror.

Do you think your last ex deserves to die? No, but I don’t wish them well either.

Have you ever wanted to believe in something, but couldn’t? Yeah, like when I’m in denial about deaths of loved ones.

What was the last animal/pet that you met? Besides my own? An adorable shih tzu puppy named Tammy that I met when I dropped by a BTS-themed café last Tuesday! She’s 3 months old and had the cutest little diaper on her. She was roaming freely around the store and the owner told me it was okay to play with her, so I did :)

What’s the last thing you promised yourself? Uhhh not sure. Something insignificant, I’m guessing.

Have you ever written a review for a product you bought online? Not really products but more on services, so like if I got my hair done at a salon or ate at a restaurant. With products I mostly just rate.

What was the last board game you played? Can’t remember, I rarely play those.

Would you ever marry someone who was lower class? Yes. This really such a big deal?

Is there a guy you wish you hadn’t let slip away? No. Have you ever written to an advice columnist? No.

Who is a singer that has given you chills? Cho Youjeen’s range is insane and listening to her notes on Wild Flower was an experience I’ll never forget.

What act would you perform in a talent show? My main talent is writing...and I don’t think that would fly in talent show.

What area are you the most gifted in, do you think? ^ That.

What is your state’s bird (if you live in the US)? Well, I don’t.

What did you go to college for? Journalism.

Tell me about someone that you know dislikes you. What do you think is about you they don’t like? This one girl from work seems to have never liked me from that time in 2020 when we miscommunicated over something. I was a few weeks into the job and was at the starting stage of being familiar with my tasks; one day she asks me something that I apparently misunderstood, and from then on her demeanor towards me changed even though I profusely apologized. I’m never one to back down though so I also just give her a cold shoulder back when we have to have encounters at work.

Tell me about something you’re afraid of. Why does it frighten you? Plane crashes. Because I’ve heard too many audio snippets of passengers’ last thoughts/words/exclamations moments before their plane dove into the ground. And also just because I react terribly with anything that causes the slightest bit of motion sickness so I just know a full-blown crash would send me into a panic within seconds.

Does the last person you kissed live within walking distance? Thankfully they do not. They live at the opposite end of the city, and it’s super out of the way from where I am so I never have to pass by the area.

Do you think the last person you kissed has ever lied to you? They directly told me that they have.

Is there a certain song that never seems to get old, no matter how many times you hear it? Outro: Tear by BTS is a good example.

Do you think the last person you kissed is capable of breaking your heart? They did. Can we stop asking about the same person? LOL

Do you want to have any children? If so, how many? I’d love to have one or two but the possibility is quite bleak now. I act like I don’t want kids largely so that people wouldn’t worry or hover but the truth is that it devastates me from time to time.

How many piercings have you had in your life? Two.

Do you have a problem with bisexual, gay, or bicurious people? ????? No?

Are you a good babysitter? I’m the eldest female child in an Asian family; we’re practically required to be good babysitters.

Is anyone overprotective of you? My parents used to be but they’ve certainly been looser the older I’ve gotten.

Who was the last person you kissed? The ex that we have been talking about a trauma-inducing amount at this point.

Have you ever made a boyfriend or girlfriend cry? Yes. What colors would you like to have at your wedding? White and beige.

The person you like comes up and kisses you, what would you do? I’m not into anyone. Ever known anyone who could “see right through” you? Yes.

Have you ever broken a couple up? No.

When was the last time you changed in front of someone? Idk. Years ago.

What’s something you think should be legalized? Divorce and same-sex marriage. Who usually takes out the trash in your family? My parents or sister. Have you ever experienced a friend or partner that was jealous of you spending time with other people? How did you handle the situation? Yeah, they generally weren’t a fan of me hanging out with guy friends. I obviously didn’t take too kindly to it and kept hanging out with them anyway because why the fuck not.

How old do you think is too old to sleep with a stuffed animal? There really shouldn’t be an age limit for things like this... Are either of your parents retired yet? If not, what do they do? Nope. My dad is an executive sous chef; my mom’s an office secretary. Do you know anyone named Matt? It rings a few bells but I can’t seem to remember where I know them from.

When did you/do you want to move out of your parents house? Before I’m 30.

Are there any books that you’ve been meaning to read? Not really, no. There’s Almond by Son Wonpyung but I’ve never been in a rush to read it.

Have you slept over at a member of the opposite sex’s house in their bed? Nope.

Who has/had the most mature romantic relationship you’ve seen with your own eyes? This couple that I’ve known and have been together since the early years of high school.

When was the last time you got something for free (legally)? What was it & have you enjoyed it so far? I briefly mentioned it earlier but I visited a BTS-themed café last Tuesday; and when I got settled the owner handed me and this other girl who was there a bunch of freebies, which included a cupsleeve from their last event + a BTS photocard + Indigo photocards. I love them all – the photocards are in my wallet and the cupsleeve has found a home at the corkboard in my room.

What is the one fruit you can’t stand to eat? How about vegetable? The taste of mango is unforgivable to me. I’m generally a bigger fan of vegetables but I will never try ampalaya as I’m not fan of bitter. Is your last ex still someone you care about? Not if they were the last person on earth and a horde of zombies is chasing after their ass.

Biggest annoyance in your life right now? I go back to work tomorrow. The good news is that I’m on leave again from Monday to Wednesday next week ha so I’ll just have to swallow down the gross stuff I have to handle tomorrow.

When did you last eat pizza? Around a month ago, I think.

Is there a girl you absolutely can not stand? Not really.

Name the person that has honestly hurt you the most in life? Said ex.

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chrisevansluv · 3 years

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Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

#chris evans #cevans #Details Magazine #2012 #interview

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bloodbenderz · 3 years

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humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

#this is 2.1k words LMFAOO #asks #analysis #do i have an analysis tag?#crit #lok crit

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missmentelle · 3 years

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Just some small ways that the system keeps people down

When we think about social justice, we often think about it in terms of huge, sweeping reforms that happen on a national level: the nation-wide legalization of gay marriage. The end of segregation. Loving v Virginia. Roe v Wade. Many people only vote in federal elections and only keep up with federal politics, thinking that the federal government is what “really matters” when it comes to progress and human rights.

Federal-level politics and landmark court rulings are important, but oppression often happens in much smaller, less obvious ways. It’s in the fine print of the eligibility criteria for disability benefits. It’s in municipal zoning laws. It’s in bank mortgage eligibility policies. It’s in the enforcement of public park bylaws. The things that make life difficult for marginalized communities often come from local bureaucracy, and look something like this: Disabled people effectively do not have the right to marry.

In the United States, when a disabled person marries a non-disabled person, they gain a spouse, but they risk losing something immensely important - namely, all of their benefits. Currently, the government assumes that a non-disabled spouse takes full responsibility for all of their disabled spouse’s needs; it becomes their job to provide the disabled spouse with healthcare, housing, basic needs and assistive devices that they require, regardless of their ability to actually afford any of these things. Obviously, this is completely out of the question for most couples. Medical costs for a person with complex needs can be exorbitant, and the average person just cannot provide things like private home health services and out-of-pocket medical expenses for their spouse.

Unless a disabled person is marrying someone who is independently wealthy, marriage is often out of the question.

As a result, many disabled people simply have no meaningful access to marriage or the legal benefits and protections it provides. Without a wedding certificate, your partner cannot stay with you in the hospital, access your medical information or make decisions for you while you are incapacitated - something that people with complex medical issues may desperately need their partner to be able to do. International couples may have no means of being able to live in the same country. It may not even be possible for couples to live together at all, as the state may decide that that’s a “common-law” situation and strip away disability benefits even without a formal certificate. The people who are most in need of companionship and legal protection are denied access to it because of cruel and outdated laws that were designed with the false assumption that disabled people cannot desirable partners for non-disabled spouses.

Domestic violence victims can be evicted for being abused.

Some cities across America have implemented “nuisance laws” - these are laws originally designed to punish “slum landlords” who don’t try to stop criminal activity or loud parties in their buildings. In cities with nuisance laws, the city tracks how many 911 calls are made to (or about) each address in the city; if an address goes over their yearly limit of 911 calls, the city goes after the property’s landlord, fining them or even threatening them with criminal charges if they don’t make the calls stop. The point of the law is to encourage landlords to keep an eye on their tenants and evict “problem” tenants that disrupt the neighbourhood, and these policies have definitely resulted in a lot of 911-related evictions. And that’s a problem. Because you know who calls 911 a lot? Domestic violence victims.

These laws have made it so that many people experiencing domestic violence have to choose between “help” and “housing”. If your partner is violently attacking you but your landlord has told you “one more 911 call and you’re out on the streets”, what do you do? How do you navigate such an impossible situation? Many victims simply hold off calling for help unless they’re reasonably certain that their partner is going to kill them, which is incredibly and almost indescribably dangerous, and still results in threats of eviction. Even victims who never call for help themselves can still find themselves out in the cold because of these policies - nuisance laws count any 911 calls made about an address, which means that a well-meaning neighbour calling the cops because they hear screams can cost you your housing. The end result is that an already-vulnerable population are either losing their housing or losing access to lifesaving emergency services, and everyone is worse for it.

It’s worth noting that these policies also disproportionately affect disabled, elderly and chronically ill people. When you are medically fragile, you tend to have increased medical emergencies and a decreased ability to safely transport yourself to the hospital without an ambulance. So if 80-year-old diabetic woman uses her LifeAlert bracelet to call 911 three times in a year because she’s fallen down or having a hypoglycemic episode, she could face eviction for going over her 911 limit and being a “nuisance” to the city.

Redlining has shut black people out of wealth-building for decades. How do you build wealth in America? You need credit. If you want to achieve real financial security, you need to convince someone to loan you large amounts of money at a low interest rate so you can use that money to purchase something that will build wealth for you. Let’s say you only have a little bit of money - you go to the bank and convince them to give you a mortgage (which is effectively just a large low-interest loan) so you can purchase a house for yourself. Once you’ve paid off the mortgage and showed the bank how reliable you are, you can go back and ask them for another loan against your house, and use that loan to buy a business, or a second house to rent out for income, or just save your money while your paid-off first house continues to increase in value. When you eventually die, your kids get all the property you amassed with those loans, and they start life in an even better financial position than you did - they can use that property to get even more credit and invest in even more businesses and property. This is how most American families clawed their way into the middle class after the Great Depression - your great-grandfather buying a house in the 1940s is the reason your parents could afford to pay for your college today.

But there is one group that have been systemically left out of that process for decades, thanks to a practice called “redlining”.

Banks decide whether or not they are going to loan you money by deciding how much of a “risk” you are. In the 1930s, bankers determined risk by looking at maps of their cities and drawing lines around particular neighbourhoods to determine how much of a risk they were. Bankers would draw red lines around predominantly-black neighbourhoods to signal that people who lived in those neighbourhoods were not eligible for credit - this was done regardless of their income. Poor white neighbourhoods could get loans, but middle-class black neighbourhoods could not. This meant that black people could not improve their situations - they could not afford to move out of cramped black neighbourhoods, they could not get the money to start a business, and they could not afford to renovate their houses to sell them at a profit. They were effectively shut out of opportunities that their white peers were granted.

Redlining has been illegal for decades, but the cumulative impact of generations of redlining persist to this day. Experts estimate that an average black homeowner today has missed out on $212,023 in personal wealth because of the impacts of redlining. “Zero-tolerance” policies have harmed marginalized and neurodivergent children without making schools safer.

If you’ve attended or worked in a grade school in the last 20 years, you’re probably familiar with so-called “zero tolerance” policies. These policies emerged as a result of the 1999 Columbine school shooting, and are pretty much exactly what they sound like - in the wake of Columbine, schools began taking an extremely hardline stance against violence and bullying, assuring worried parents that they would not tolerate even the smallest hint of violence. In schools with zero-tolerance policies in place, punishments are extremely harsh - just about everything will get you suspended at a minimum. Get in a fistfight at school? Doesn’t even matter who started it, everyone involved is suspended. Throwing food? Suspended. Shouting at someone? Suspended. It doesn’t tend to matter if you were joking around or if you'd been pushed to the brink by a student who has bullied you for months - “zero tolerance” means absolutely zero tolerance, and you are suspended.

But if you ever actually attended a zero-tolerance school, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that these policies don’t actually have any impact on school safety. What they do accomplish is higher rates of school failure and worse overall student outcomes, especially for marginalized students.

And it makes sense. Which students are the most likely to be acting out in school? Students with ADHD, autism and learning disorders. Students with turbulent home lives. Students in foster care. Students dealing with abuse or trauma. These are the students who need to be in school the most, and need extra support from staff and teachers - instead of getting that support, though, zero-tolerance policies send them away from school for several days at a time, where they are unable to access support and fall further behind their peers. School quickly turns into a vicious cycle; students act out because they’re frustrated, they get suspended, they fall behind in class, which leads to more frustration, which leads to more acting out, which means more suspensions, which puts them further behind, etc, etc. Eventually they become so disillusioned that many of them leave school altogether, putting them at a permanent increased risk of unemployment, poverty, and incarceration.

Parking requirements are making cities unaffordable and unlivable for the poor.

Many cities - like Toronto and Vancouver - have mandatory minimum parking requirements written into their city zoning laws. These policies usually require that all residential buildings have at least one parking space available for every unit of residential housing - if you build a 60-unit apartment building, you need to make sure that you also buy enough land for a 60-stall parking lot or build a 60-space underground parking structure.

When you think about the reasons that housing is unaffordable, “parking” might not be one of the first things you think of, but these laws have huge impacts on the cost of housing, and they negatively impact both the city itself and the working-class people who live there. Parking spaces are not free, especially in major cities like Toronto where land is at a premium - an above-ground parking space in a city costs an average of $24,000, while a below-ground space costs $34,000. Every unit of residential housing has $24-34k in parking costs tacked onto it - whether the tenant needs a parking space or not - and you can bet that landlords and developers are passing every penny of that cost onto their tenants.

Parking requirements also decrease the number of units available, which is a problem, because the best way to keep housing affordable is to make sure that you have a lot of it available. A developer who might want to build a 300-unit apartment complex has to factor in the cost of creating at least 300 parking spaces.... so they might scale back to a 100-unit complex instead. Downtown areas that have huge demand for housing and low demand for residential parking are being underutilized because of zoning laws that were created decades ago and no longer reflect today’s reality. Young people, elderly people and urban poor people are increasingly unlikely to own a car, but they are being priced out of walkable neighbourhoods with good public transit for the sake of unwanted parking spaces.

Food safety laws and public property usage laws are making it illegal to feed the homeless.

“Feeding the homeless” should be one of the most uncontroversial things you can do. Giving food to a person who is hungry is one of the most basic ways that humans care for one another. Everything from cheesy Hallmark movies to the Bible reinforces the importance of giving to others in need. But in dozens of cities across America, you can be fined, arrested or even jailed for giving out food to the homeless.

Cities use different justifications to shut down or even arrest community service workers for trying to feed the homeless. Some pass increasingly restrictive “food safety laws”, stating that charities are only allowed to give away hot food, or that they are only allowed to give away sealed and individually-packed meals, or that they are only allowed to feed homeless people indoors (something that community organizations like mine do not always have the resources to do). Restrictions continue to get tighter every year in some places, despite the fact that there are virtually zero recorded cases of a homeless person being harmed by food they received from a registered charity. Food safety laws can also force restaurants and stores to destroy their unsold food instead of passing it out; some have to go as far as pouring bleach over the food they throw out in their dumpsters.

Other cities have used public property bylaws to ban food-sharing on public property, forcing charities to apply for permits to hand out food (which are rarely granted). Justifications for these bylaws vary - some cities give vague excuses about “safety” while others admit that they’re trying to drive homeless people out of their cities - but the end result is the same. Cities are so desperate to be rid of their homeless populations that they’ll criminalize trying to help the homeless, rather than offering stable, affordable housing solutions.

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #social justice #social work #socialjustice #oppression #sociology #mental health #mental illness #poverty #homelessness #homeless #working class #classism #domestic violence

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harveywritings92 · 4 years

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Someone flirts with you in front of them: Shay, Edward, Shaun.

Shay Cormac: Y/n's father had hired a new assistant undertaker at the funeral home, a one Mr. Ronald McFinley he was an average looking brown hair, gray eyes freckles and a somewhat spoiled man from a upper-middle class upbringing, His parents had asked (begged) Y/n's father to take him on as an apprentice as favor due to Ronald being barred from other medical education and practices.

*e.I. he's a spoiled brat who thinks he knows everything.*

Mr.L/n reluctantly agreed to take him on the Scotsman wasn't a bad worker but he wasn’t a good one either as Mr L/n or and another worker would have to fix any mistakes he had made in his haste and laziness.

Another thing that started to show was Ronald's very obvious affections for the undertaker's pretty daughter Y/n, often starring at her from afar or slacking in his studies daydreaming about an imaginary life together, he'd often abandon his post at work just to waste time and talk her.

The young y/ec woman however found him annoying she had a dislike for men like Ronald flashy, rich and obnoxious. men who only wanted a woman like herself; simply because she's pretty.... not because of her personality or her intelligence, No... Men like Ronald just want a pretty little ornament to hang off his arm and make babies for him.

Evident by the expensive gifts, clothes and money he would flash at her in hopes she'd swoon into his arms and every time she would send it back and every time she would say "No." each time Ronald would never get the hint.

That was until Shay came home, it seemed like any other day, Ronald was slacking in his studies trying again trying vain to get Y/n's affection and hand which her father had rejected when the young Scotsman had asked for his permission to marry her, it's was a silver and pearl necklace this time.

He cleared his throat to get the y/ht woman's attention and she sighed rolling her eyes waiting for his "My lovely or dear Y/n" spiel again only to noticed someone come in the funeral home someone who Y/n greatly missed tears welled in her eyes as a happy smile slowly found it's way on her face.

Ronald not seeing the man behind thought he'd finally done it and won Y/n's heart opened his arms wide thinking she was going to leap into his arms with happiness instead he was blindsided when she shoved him aside and tearfully called out

"Shay!" and watched as she ran into the arms of a very large dark haired stranger dressed in black with a scar on his face the gray eyed man stared slack jawed as the object of his affection pulled this "Shay" into a passionate kiss before pulling away eyes locked lovingly on each other.

Only for their moment to be broken by a seething Ronald who cleared his throat getting their attention, Y/n's mood dropped having her reunion with her lover interrupted. "Oh... still here um...Roy?" Ronald blinked in disbelief one kiss with this filthy street dog, and she couldn't remember his name?! a vein appeared on the Scotsman's neck.

"Ronald Howard McFinley." he hissed venom dripped on every word as he glared daggers at Shay who looked like he was about to say something only for Ronald suddenly reach out and slap him with a glove. "And challenge you... to a duel!?!?" he screamed as Y/n and Shay looked at each other than at Ronald"Are you serious?" the Irishman snorted but the brown haired man started rambling pistols at dawn and all that, before Shay sighed calmly lifted his left hand like he was going to ask a question.

Ronald quieted down to hear what the Irishman had to say only to get a palm-Strike to the forehead knocking Ronald flat on his arse, the gray eyed man rolled around on the floor holding his forehead and wailing all while the couple shook their heads at the spectacle.

"I thought your father was exaggerating, when he wrote you were being tormented by a man-child." Shay said as they stepped over the rolling man, Y/n clung to his arm affectionately. "Oh, Shay you know my father's bad at jokes." she stated as they when to somewhere private to be reacquainted. From then on, Ronald. Who was sporting a ridiculous bruise on his forehead started behaved himself and take his job seriously (Shay had few words with him) stayed away from Y/n and was best warn any other potential suitors of her scary husband to be.

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Edward:

They weren't together per say... mainly due to Edward's wife Caroline and Y/n respected that boundary no matter how much it hurt, But that still didn't stall the bubbling rage Edward felt the second redheaded man sat down next to Y/n taking up much of her attention away from him, he watched at the man said something that made his lass laugh...

Edward's lips curled into a snarled and averted his eyes to look at his ale not even paying attention to the barmaid who kept trying to get him to look at her and left in a huff when Edward wouldn't budge, Then Edward noticed something was askew in Y/n's voice her laughter seemed tight and forced, Edward swallowed pride and looked back at the the Y/hc who disappeared from her original spot he scanned the tavern and found her a few tables down from his, he grimaced seeing the y/nat woman squirming in in her seat as she shrugged the red haired man's arm off her for what seemed to be the umpteenth time on her end.

The assassin Y/n tried move away Red would follow her and plant himself right next to her. Finally Edward had enough the next time Y/n went to find somewhere to sit the assassin nodded at a few of his crew to sit up and start walking around in a cluster effectively blocking Red's view of Y/n.

Edward took this opportunity to grab her arm and pulled Y/n into his lap and shushed her, just as his men sat back down, they sat back to chest as Edward's larger frame hid Y/n from the Red haired man who looked around the tavern confused before noticing Edward.

"Oy mate you see where that tarty bar wrench went?" Y/n felt a growl rumble in Edward's chest Next thing she knew Adéwalé had lifted her out of Edwards lap she heard Red let out a girly "Eep!" as the blond pirate suddenly grabbed him by his collar and had pinned to the counter down by the back of his neck.

"That Lady is named Y/n and she no wrench, if I see you any of your friends near her again." Edward unsheathed his hidden blade and lowered it towards the red haired man's crotch. "I will cut your instruments off and feed em' to a shark, do you understand?"

Red went ghost white and nodded before Edward threw him of the counter. "Good. Now get out of my sight!" the blond hissed retracting his blade Red did as he was told before Edward grabbed his tankard gulped down his ale and got Y/n out of that tavern and back to the Jackdaw to help Y/n get Red's stench of her.

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Shaun: Takes place in AC III: before heading to the temple the Assassin's had stopped off in a very small rural town that acted as a base for the american assassin branch almost everyone in this town was an Assassin. Reader is a Civilian who got pulled into their group by accident.

They were in the laundromat/pizza parlor waiting for food and their spare clothes to dry, when Rebbeca alerted Shaun to Y/n's situation seems his girlfriend (no matter how much he denies it) has attracted a very unwanted guest, Shaun looked up from his lap top to see what Rebecca was prattling on about to see Y/n at her washing machine being hounded by a pimply faced teen who looked 16-19 years old who was getting very lewd and grabby with his unwanted flirting.

Desmond shot the British man a look and mumbled "say something to the little creep!" a Shaun lips formed a thin line as he observed them for a moment before going back to his computer seemingly not caring what was happening, Rebecca and Desmond were taken aback by this seemingly cold act they wondered if they had it wrong and that Shaun and Y/n weren't together?

Desmond was about to go scare the guy off, when Suddenly there was a shriek Y/n's back was pressed up the machine she held her arms against her chest, her bra strap were slipping of which pretty much told her friends that the perv had unhooked and tried to pull her bra off, Desmond got up only for Shaun to speed walk passed him with an eerily calm look on his face.

Rebecca and Desmond watched Shaun take his jacket off give it Y/n before turn to the teen who took a swing at the bespectacled assassin who dodged grabbed the boy's free arm spun him around pinned him to the wall, Shaun had the boy arm twisted painfully around his back. The blond's face was still eerily calm as he whispered something to the boy who's face contorted into horror before Shaun let him go the boy ran out of the Laundromat.

Shaun check on Y/n who went back her laundry and went back to Rebecca and Desmond who were gawking at the brit curiously. "What...What ya say to the little creep?" Rebecca dared to ask as Desmond went over Y/n to keep watch while awkwardly eyeing Shaun.

"I told Carmen Schultz, if he didn't back off now I was going to break into his house; 7555 Dune street , and I was going scope out his eyes with a melon-baller and then his rich parents would have to get him a eye pig to dragged his blind ass around town."

"Why a pig?"

"He's allergic to dogs."

"...Okay, I'm going to write a reminder for D to never to hit on Y/n."

Shaun just huffed and went back to his research as William returned from the the used car-lot with their new van.

#assassin's creed x reader #Shay Cormac x Reader #shaun hastings #edward kenway #edward kenway x reader #shaun hastings x reader #Assassin's Creed Black Flag #assassin's creed rogue #Templar x reader #assassin x reader #assassin's creed scenarios #assassin's creed imagine

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rabbitcruiser · 2 years

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World Fiddle Day

Schedule a lesson or find a performance to enjoy one of the classic instruments of the working class, the fiddle. Or sit down to watch Fiddler on the Roof!

World Fiddle Day is an annual music celebration day celebrated on the Third Saturday of May. This year it will be observed on May 19. Even though World Fiddle Day was created in 2012, it gained popularity all over the world within a few years. It was created to celebrate and to teach the playing of bowed string instruments throughout the world by conducting participatory and inclusive events. The fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, used by the players in all genres including classical music.

World Fiddle Day happens once a year and is meant to celebrate everything that everyone loves about the chirpy, fun and feisty art of fiddle music. You’ll see it being celebrated on the third Saturday of each May. The fiddle is always known to be something positive, with all the songs and notes it produces high energy, entertaining, and bringing something positive. Making the room dance, wherever the sound of a fiddle is played.

Around the world, this day is celebrated with dancing, music, and of course plenty of fiddle playing!

History of World Fiddle Day

Before we speak about the day, it may be best to get a better idea of the Fiddle that is being celebrated! The fiddle is a four-stringed musical instrument of the string family, also often referred to as a small type of violin. Like the violin, it is also played with a bow. The terms fiddling or fiddle playing actually refer to a style of music, most commonly folk music. The origins of the name ‘fiddle’ are not known but is believed to be derived from an early violin or the Old English word ‘fithele’. The fiddle is common to English folk music, Irish folk music, Scandinavian music, Austrian, French, Hungarian, Polish, American, Latin American, African, and even Australian music. There is no difference between the fiddle and small violin aside from the name and type of music the instrument is used for.

A fiddle has many parts including the neck, fingerboard, tuning pegs, scroll, pegbox, bridge, soundhole, strings, fine tuners, tailpiece, bass bar, soundboard, chinrest, button, backplate, and bow. The earliest fiddles (or violins) were derived from the bow instruments from the Middle Ages.

When it comes to building a high-quality fiddle, it can take as many as 200 hours for craftsmen to handcraft a professional fiddle, showing that for a relatively simple looking and fun instrument, a lot of craft and workmanship has to go into building one.

Traditional fiddle strings were made of pig, goat, horse, or sheep intestine. Today they are made from steel or aluminium over a nylon core. Now, the last fiddle fact that you may want to take down for your next game of trivia, is that the fastest fiddler/violinist on record is Ben lee who played ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ in just over a minute in 2010. He played an average of 13 notes each second for a total of 810 notes in all. Now that is pretty impressive, so now the fiddle has been explained, what about the day?

The day was founded in 2012 by one Caoimhin Mac Aoidh, a professional fiddler from Donegal in Ireland. The day was birthed from a deep respect for one of the most expert and revered violin makers in history.

This month was chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the death of the Italian violin craftsman Antonio Stradivari’s way back in 1737.

Stradivari is today considered the most significant creator of violins in history, with his surviving instruments today seen as the most prized and finest ever created. Although he also made the larger string instruments cellos and violas, it’s the violins that he lovingly crafted that he is most well-known and remembered for.

Though only a couple of hundred of his works still exists, they have been known to capture some huge prices at auction and are especially sought-after amongst professional violin players.

How to celebrate World Fiddle Day

If you ever learned how to play the violin in school, or you frequently play it either for pleasure or for work, today is a great day to get out your fiddle and play a couple of tunes! Perhaps play a little for friends or family, or show your children how to play some simple themes. If you do not own one, or do not know how to play it, then this could be a great time to learn. It is always fun and engaging to learn a new musical instrument, so why not start to learn the art of the fiddle, and maybe at next year’s celebrations you can play to the world what you have managed to learn!

If you aren’t lucky enough to have learned how to play this string instrument, you can celebrate its day by listening to some of the fantastic performances by string artists easily found on Youtube or Spotify. Add a spring to your daily commute with some Mozart, Barber or Brahms!

And if you’ve always fancied trying your hand at the violin, perhaps today you could take a trial lesson learning how to play? Who knows – by the time the next World Fiddle Day comes along, you could be able to play along with everyone else who is fiddling away!

Whatever you get up to, have a great World Fiddle Day!

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thatbloodymuggle · 4 years

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READY TO RUN (prologue)

SUMMARY: in a world where everyone has a predetermined match, JJ Maybank and Y/N Montgomery want nothing to do with theirs. it has to be a cruel joke; the universe forcing two people to love each other when they don’t know how.

PAIRING: jj maybank x reader / soulmate au

WORD COUNT: 1.6k

MASTERLIST

✰✰✰

The Montgomery Mansion is the pinnacle of Figure Eight. Built sometime between the American Revolution and the Civil War, it is one of the few remaining antebellum homes in the Outer Banks. The massive white pillars and evenly spaced windows lined by a balcony are a paragon of beauty. Through the daunting doors of the center entrance lies an extravagant chandelier and sweeping, marble staircase leading to dozens of rooms. The beauty of the surrounding garden and Grecian-style symmetry is picturesque. A Kook’s dream. The Montgomery Mansion encapsulates the affluence of the elite community of the Outer Banks.

Inside the magnificent mansion lives an even more magnificent family. The Montgomery family; deep-rooted in the South and dripping in old money.

The Montgomery family has passed down the beautiful property through generations. Today, it is home to Clyde and Margaret Montgomery.

Clyde and Margaret are the epic Nicholas Sparks novel every teenage girl dreams of. They attended Princeton University together in the same class. Despite their strong soulmate bond, the pair didn’t find each other until the end of their 4 years when they were named co-valedictorians. Clyde, a smart, southern gentleman, and Margaret, a strong-willed, southern lady. Both battling for the top spot, but also each other’s perfect match as decided by—well, no one really knows who determines soulmate bonds.

Along with their Princeton degrees, Clyde and Margaret’s pride and joy are their daughters.

Ellie-Mae Montgomery is the oldest of the bunch at 24. After spending four years at UVA and passing her MCAT with flying colors, she was admitted into Johns Hopkins medical school where she studies currently. She lives in her own estate in the surrounding DC area with her soulmate, Andrew, whom she met her sophomore year of college. Andrew is the son of the CEO of a major tech development company, which he will be inheriting soon. A doctor and a future CEO--Clyde and Margaret couldn’t be happier. Despite living away from home, Ellie-Mae makes sure to visit her loving family in the Outer Banks every now and then.

Next is Dixie Montgomery at 21. The second-oldest is about to start her senior year at Duke playing for the field hockey team. After being named to the U.S. national field hockey team several years in a row, she is training with Team USA as an Olympic hopeful. In addition to being a top-rated athlete, Dixie is also a political science major who has interned with Fox News in New York City for the past 4 summers, where she met her soulmate, Brad. Clyde and Margaret Montgomery love Brad: a former quarterback for Alabama, where he graduated with high honors in hopes of going into politics alongside Dixie. The (debatably) perfect conservative, southern couple, some would say.

The youngest of the bunch is Georgia Montgomery, an energetic 14-year-old. Despite her young age, she too has an impressive résumé. Valedictorian for her 8thgrade class, class president, a state title-holder in tennis, and a Stanford hopeful. Although she is yet to meet her own soulmate, Clyde and Margaret are sure she will have a smart, handsome young man join the family. Georgia is the Montgomery baby, and could never do wrong.

Finally there is Y/N Montgomery at 17 years old; older than Georgia, but listed last (she suffers from a severe case of middle-child syndrome). Her parents and teachers could tell even from a young age that Y/N wouldn’t be like her sisters in any regard. She was never quite so quick to pick up on math, and was always a grade-level behind with her reading. An average student at best; even with the thousands of dollars her parents spent monthly on her private tutor. Clyde and Margaret quickly realized their third-born didn’t have the wit of her two older sisters, So, they enrolled her in piano lessons and a multitude of sports to compensate for where she lacked in school. Y/N was quite good at field hockey and lacrosse, but Y/N was also greatly uninterested in both. The chronic disappointment clouding her parent’s eyes forced down her complaints. It was already embarrassing enough being the average daughter of Princeton graduates, so the least she could do was attend practices without complaint.

But piano, well, piano was another story. Y/N loved playing piano. It was clear from the moment a shy, 7-year-old Y/N stepped into Madame Ivanov’s studio that she was dripping with musical talent. Despite being a little slower when it came to numbers and letters, Y/N zoomed through sheet music and her fingers fell naturally onto the keyboard. As Y/N grew older, she advanced at a rapid pace. Now, at 17-years-old, her bedroom wall is completely covered in medals, trophies, state titles, and even national awards.

Yet despite her accomplishments, her piano trophies never quite amounted to Dixie and Georgia’s field hockey and tennis ones, or Ellie-Mae’s academic medals and diplomas. While Y/N’s talent on the piano was great to show off at house parties in the ballroom of the Montgomery Mansion, Clyde and Margaret never believed it was anything to make a career out of, let alone study in college. They believed the arts were virtually useless skills.

What troubled Margaret and Clyde most of all about Y/N wasn’t her lack of motivation or her obsession with futile things. It was her soulmate bond.

It’s normal to feel your soulmate’s pain. Margaret and Clyde could remember when Ellie-Mae cried to them at 15-years-old when Andrew broke his leg, and when Dixie had to sit out of a few field hockey games after Brad got a concussion. Even Georgia had begun to feel occasional twinges of papercuts and bruises. These instances never bothered Clyde and Margaret. Everyone gets injured sometimes.

Y/N, on the other hand, was a different story.

It felt like every other week she was gritting her teeth through the pain of her soulmate breaking a bone. Not to mention the almost daily punches to their face, kicks to their side, and splitting of their knuckles from fighting back. Whoever her soulmate was, they were constantly getting into trouble. This severely worried Clyde and Margaret. Not for Y/N’s, well-being, no. They worried for what scum their daughter may be destined to be with, and how it could tarnish their perfect reputation in Figure Eight.

Y/N trained herself since she was about 10 or 11 to hide the pain of her soulmate. But sometimes, it was just too much. Sometimes, she couldn’t help but cry out when that invisible, bone-crushing punch hit her square in the nose in the middle of dinner. Her parents’ reactions were always the same. Margaret’s face would pale while Clyde’s would redden in anger and embarrassment. Margaret would yank her daughter aside, nails digging into her arm, and scold her for embarrassing the family if they were in public. If they were alone, Clyde would snap at her and send her up to her room.

Y/N tried her very best to conceal it, for the disappointment clouding her parents’ faces was far worse than the physical pain of her other half.

For years Y/N blamed herself. It was her fault she wasn’t as smart as Ellie-Mae, Dixie, or even Georgia. And why couldn’t she look forward to field hockey and lacrosse practices? Why did the one thing she love have to be the one thing her parents didn’t care about? And above all, why couldn’t she just have a normal soulmate?

Y/N grew to detest her soulmate. She was already enough of an embarrassment to a perfect family. To top it all off, she had a soulmate who was an embarrassment as well. All Y/N ever wanted was approval from her parents. She just wanted to make them proud. But she never would—all because of someone she no longer wanted. In Y/N’s eyes, they were the reason for so much of her pain—physical and emotional—and she dreaded the day she would find them.

To most, soulmates are a blessing.

To Y/N Montgomery, soulmates are a fucking curse.

JJ Maybank feels guilty. He always has. He feels guilty for not being a better friend, for not being a better son, and for stumbling along his father’s path. Above all, he feels guilty for inflicting pain upon his soulmate.

JJ can take the punches. In fact, he deals them out half of the time. But the knowledge that someone else is getting a beating they definitely don’t deserve weighs on him. It weighs even heavier when he feels his soulmate place an ice pack over his bruises to ease the pain. It makes him feel horrible, but he doesn’t stop getting into fights. And he still comes home every night to his father.

What JJ feels guiltiest about isn’t the pain he inflicts upon his soulmate daily; it’s the impending pain they will feel when they realize he doesn’t want them back.

JJ doesn’t want a soulmate. He doesn’t need anyone else to leave him, and he doesn’t need anyone else to disappoint. Everything he touches he destroys.

JJ only has the Pogues, and he wants to keep it that way. It’s not just about some French Revolution-like class war; he can’t afford to let anyone else get close to him. John B, Kiara, and Pope don’t expect anything from him. They don’t expect him to do good and they aren’t phased when he fucks up. They don’t ask him for anything. That’s why it works. Because every time JJ gives, he loses.

To most, soulmates are a blessing.

To JJ Maybank, soulmates are a fucking curse.

#jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x you #jj maybank smut #jj maybank series #jj maybank x y/n #jj maybank fanfic #Rudy pankow x reader #jj maybank imagine #outer banks #obx #outer banks fanfic #outer banks imagine #outer banks series #Rudy pankow

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papermoonloveslucy · 3 years

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REMINISCING

August 14, 1977

By Frank Swertlow, Chicago Daily News

BEVERLY HILLS - During the first years of television, Ed Wynn, the radio and stage comic, was trying to break into television with a half-hour comedy on CBS. (1)

One night, he invited a couple of second echelon performers to make an appearance: a comedienne, known as "Technicolor Tessie" for her blazing red hair, and a song-and-dance man, best remembered for hollering "babalu."

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were the couple, and they, like Wynn, were sampling the waters of the new medium. CBS had asked Miss Ball and her conga-drum pounding husband to develop a comedy show for television. Later, after months of thought and testing their ideas on the vaudeville circuit, the couple came up with "I Love Lucy," the misadventures of Lucy and Ricky Riccardo. (2)

It made its debut on CBS in October 1951. More than a quarter of a century afterwards, "I Love Lucy" easily can vie for the honor of television's most successful show. It was the archtype [sp] domestic comedy, the bumbling husband and his daffy wife. It gave birth to two other Lucy shows, a host of specials and a giant production company, Desilu.

"We spent months thinking about what we should do," Miss Ball recalled. "We didn't want to be the average Hollywood couple. Nobody would think you had any problems if you had a car and swimming pool and a nice house.

"Ultimately, we wanted a show in which people could identify with us. Everybody could understand what it was like to struggle for a buck. I was an ordinary, everyday, middle class housewife. I wore the same dress often. My husband worked and tolerated my mistakes. It was something that everyone could identify with."

With the debut of the TV series, Lucille Ball, the former Goldwyn girl who started her film career in the 1930s, had a new career.

"I never expected the show to go more than a year," said Miss Ball. "I wanted to do the show on film so I could use them as home movies. Who knew about television then? It was a no-no to do TV work. The movie studios were against it."

To Miss Ball, who was not a new face to the public, the impact of her show was incredible. "We went to New York on a trip once and we were unprepared for what happened. People rushed up and wanted to touch you. They knew you, and called you by your first name. I had been in pictures for years, and most of the time I was never identified."

If the movers and shakers of the film industry who gave Miss Ball her start during the 1930s were alive, they would have been shocked. To them, simply and kindly, Lucille Ball was a B-movie queen, one of the many second-line actresses who never attained star billing, but who was an important ingredient to the motion picture industry.

Unlike many performers who labored under the cruel studio system, Miss Ball fondly remembered her early years in Hollywood. "It was nice to be under the umbrella of a studio. You always had a poppa. I loved it. I loved being part of the business. I would have swept floors just to be in it."

Miss Ball, however, did not forget the tactics of the brutal and disgusting lords of movieland. Harry "King" Cohn, the ruler of Columbia Pictures, stood out. "He made the biggest dent in everybody. He was ruthless. He always had to take a devious route." (3)

Miss Ball, who is not exactly a pushover, laughingly recalled the time she outwitted the sly Cohn.

Miss Ball had received an offer to work in a Cecil B. DeMille film, but Cohn refused to loan her to the producer. He was being mean. Then, Cohn decided to drop her contract. To do it, he sent the actress a horrible script something that the trade called a lease breaker. "Oh, everybody was dying to play opposite John Agar and Raymond Burr," she recalled jokingly. "I was going to be a harum [sp] girl." Naturally, Cohn expected her to refuse and it would be the end of her contract. (4)

The savvy Miss Ball decided to do the film and collect her check. When she made this announcement there was an uproar. She coyly told her bosses: "Oh, I want to do the film. It's a wonderful film."

Meanwhile, Miss Ball, who had been trying to get pregnant for years, found out she was going to have a baby. Now, she was in trouble. If Cohn found out, he would break her contract. "I only told my mother and my husband I was pregnant."

Keeping her lips sealed, she went ahead with Cohn's film. "The wardrobe girl kept looking at me in my harum [sp] girl costume and saying, 'What's wrong with you, you are getting so big.' "So, I told her, 'Don't worry, I ate a big meal last night. Just put a little more taffeta on my dress.' Well, I finished the film and I collected my $85,000."

"Then I had to go to Mr. DeMille and tell him I couldn't do his film. I was pregnant. 'What,' he said. And I replied. 'I'm going to have a baby. 'Get rid of it,' he said. And he was serious.' She declined. (5)

While Miss Ball's career as a TV star is secure (she still has a contract with CBS) (6) she is not so certain about the state of the industry. Today, unlike when she started on the air, shows are yanked off the screen within a couple of weeks. This, she said, destroys performers.

"If a show is canceled, the actor takes the blame. He or she suffers for it. They suffer inside. The rejection - they failed. (7)

"I would fail. You can't protect yourself. It's out of your hands. It's always Lucy failed or Rhoda failed or Farrah Sauset Fawcett Sauset, whatever her name is, failed. It's rough." (8)

Even so, Lucille Ball, the red-haired girl from Jamestown, N.Y., would still be on top.

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FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) Ed Wynn (1886-1966) was a vaudevillian who hosted “The Ed Wynn Show” on television from 1949 to 1950. Lucy and Desi guest-starred on the show.

(2) ‘Riccardo’ is probably a misspelling of ‘Ricardo’, but it was also the way their surname was spelled on “I Love Lucy” in early episodes!

(3) Harry Cohn (1891-1958) was a much-despised executive at Columbia Studios. Lucille Ball once facetiously told Louella Parsons that she liked Harry Cohn too much to ever sign a contract with him. What Lucille meant is that Cohn had a reputation for being difficult. Despite that fact, a casting draught forced her to sign with Columbia in 1949.

(4) Lucille Ball had often complained to Cohn about the quality of the pictures she had been doing at Columbia. At the time The Magic Carpet was made, Ball was only obligated to Columbia for one more film, and Cohn had producer Sam Katzman, who turned out most of Columbia's low-budget "B" pictures, concoct a cheap Arabian Nights fantasy as a punishment to Ball for her constantly challenging him. More salacious writers insist that Cohn’s frustration with Ball was due to the fact that she would not submit to him sexually.

(5) The DeMille film in question was The Greatest Show on Earth, a movie set at the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus. Lucille was set to play the elephant trainer, a role that went to Gloria Graham. It was a film Lucille really wanted to do - but she wanted a baby more. Later in life, Desilu created a TV version of the film. Lucille also guest-starred as the ringmaster on “Circus of the Stars II” in which Lucie Arnaz was featured as.... the elephant trainer!

(6) Lucille Ball had started working at CBS on radio and was considered their premiere star. In 1980, after her television shows had ended, she signed with NBC, a partnership that yielded very little except that Ball was obliged to appear on Bob Hope’s many specials, something she frequently did anyway. Both CBS and NBC declined her final series “Life With Lucy” which producer Aaron Spelling finally convinced ABC to air.

(7) Although this article was written ten years before “Life With Lucy”, Lucille could very well be describing her own devastation when the series was cancelled even before all the initial episodes aired. She was widely criticized and the series often turned up on “worst show” lists.

(8) Rhoda refers to a character on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” that was played by Valerie Harper, a performer that appeared on Broadway with Lucille. In 1974, the character was spun off into its own eponymous sitcom which aired for four seasons.

Farrah Fawcett-Majors was a beautiful blonde actress and poster girl that burst onto the TV scene in the mid-1970s. A year after this interview, she was in the hit series “Charlie’s Angels” entering American iconography for her feathered hair and curvaceous figure the same way Betty Grable had in the 1940s.

#Lucille Ball #Valerie Harper #Harry Cohn #Farrah Fawcett #The Greatest Show on Earth #Life With Lucy #Cecil B. DeMille #The Magic Carpet #Lucie Arnaz #Gloria Graham #Desi Arnaz #Ed Wynn #1977 #Frank Swertlow

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