fandom old and very tired. she/her. defining life philosophy is "let people enjoy things." did not realize how controversial that one was going to be.
things i love (right now): the umbrella academy, witcher, shadowhunters, and supernatural, much to my eternal dismay
things i loved (once upon a time): marvel, mad max, teen wolf, inception, pacific mothafucking rim, harry potter, doctor who, white collar, star trek, x-men, the hunger games, suits
things i don't much care for: mayonnaise, misogyny
♥♥ live long & prosper
it is the year of our lord 2024 and I am going to finish the final chapter of the mad max fic i started writing in 2015 or die trying
I've had the outline of this sitting on my computer for the past, like, six years, but i somehow never felt like I was quite happy with the ending so I kept putting it off. and now they've released furiosa and i REFUSE to watch it without finishing this first.
I actually think the vision i had for this chapter in 2018 is going to end up pretty much holding true. i've already drafted about 2/5 of it. god i hope this burst of inspiration lasts. FINGERS CROSSED.
i mean they did also kill jesus. that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you’re coming from here but they very much did kill jesus.
As always, more background for nothing up my sleeve can be found here.
This one is going to be less of a coherent explanation and more of a list of funky things I discovered while researching this chapter. I’ll follow up with more links to info on the Children’s March later -- I’m still searching for this one documentary I saw years ago that was phenomenal, but also not the one from the SPLC, argh -- but in the meantime here’s what I’ve got:
“The means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek” is from MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I had actually never sat down and read the whole thing through until I wrote this fic, embarrassingly, but I strongly recommend it. The good Reverend put some BANGERS in there.
I went through roughly 30 pages full of alcohol ads from the 1960′s and the only ones that had black people in them were Scotch whiskey and bourbon, so I felt reasonably comfortable making Ray drink that. Also, check out the bottom of this post for some gorgeous vintage decadence & sophistication.
Interestingly, studies of alcohol use in the 1960′s showed that nearly half of black women in the US abstained entirely from drinking, compared to 34% of white women, 29% of black men, and 24% of white men (this is, of course, based off a too-small sample size since medical studies in the 1960′s often didn’t bother to include black people, sigh). The relatively higher rate of abstinence among African-Americans can apparently be traced back to the temperance movement having strong anti-slavery ties; however, that relationship began to break down after the Civil War. Found that fascinating! I still had Allison reference drinking martinis with her friends, though.
This is more of a meta note, but: I don’t think Allison has ever had friends. She went straight from unbridled sibling dysfunction to Hollywood, where she used her powers to control the people around her until she became mega-famous (which then becomes its own kind of control). Her entire life has been divided between family (the only people who matter), hired help, hangers-on, and "workplace proximity associates.” I don’t think she knows what to do with people who don’t fall under the “family” bucket, but also don’t provide a paid service or particularly want anything from her. I can see her trying to recreate this pattern with Ray and him (essentially) forcing her to go get a life.
The Shining didn’t come out until 1980, so Ray just thinks Allison is really into old-school proverbs.
By 1963, 91% of American households had a television, but Ray and Allison might be in the 9% because none of the screenshots I’ve got of their house have a TV in the background. Instead of writing one in anyway, though, I had them all go over to Miles’ parents place because in times like this, you want to be with your people.
I have now gone completely insane and started looking up “what was the weather like in Dallas in April 1963?” Y’all what does it MATTER, nobody is fact checking my writing like this! I could literally make up anything and you’d roll with it!! Why am I worried about whether 54 degrees is cold enough to need a coat?!?
Cleopatra really is four hours long. Good lord.
Part of my current problem is balancing cute stuff about Allison & Ray’s relationship with the Civil Rights stuff, which I originally intended to be more of an occasional backdrop for all this. However, 1963 was an insanely eventful year for the Civil Rights Movement. After MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail in April and the Children’s March in May, Kennedy announces the Civil Rights Act in June, Medgar Evers is assassinated the very next day, the March on Washington takes place in August, and the 16th St Baptist church bombings happen in September. Trying to figure out a way to honor all this and the impact it would have had on Allison & Ray, while at the same time trying to figure out how to give them some of those more lighthearted character moments, is -- actually, it’s a pretty good metaphor for some of my day to day struggles, so at least it’s familiar. Ok, bedtime, no more thinking about this right now.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Raymond’s wife is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, and he’d spend the rest of his life unraveling them if she’d let him.
Then he gets bailed out of jail by a very unique character who claims to be his brother-in-law.
“They’re so young,” Allison hisses, watching the children huddle against the spray of the fire hoses. “God, they’re just babies.”
They’re standing next to the kitchen door, too tense and furious to sit. She’s gripping his hand so tightly that he’s losing feeling in his fingers. Ray prays harder than he ever has, more fiercely than he knew he could, that none of these brave, precious children lose their lives today. He’s so untethered that he almost misses Allison’s distraught whisper.
#like . i havent really flushed out my point here but like#the break room would be the place to use audio to drudge up some form of remorse/dread/pain#like to illicit some sort of emotional response/manipulate the workers#and a crying baby for dylan and an angry mumbly guy for helly makes sense#i wonder what it would be for mark and irving hmmmm#severance#severance spoilers
Mixed with a little bit of meta for funsies ;) FYI that more background research for nothing up my sleeve can be found here.
The February 1963 portion of this chapter makes a few references the nonviolent direct action philosophy of the Civil Rights era. Since this is super important to me -- and, I recognize, a very easy thing to fuck up -- I wanted to take some time to dive into how I’m tackling this and some of the background research involved.
Everyone is probably familiar with the broad strokes of the Civil Rights movement: Rosa Parks & the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins at Woolworth’s lunch counter, Ruby Bridges & the Little Rock Nine, the Freedom Riders, the Children’s March in Birmingham & Bull Connor, the March on Washington, etc. Even if you maybe don’t know the names, you know the images that go with them.
But! The majority of these actions took place in the Deep South. Segregation was its most entrenched, most brutal, and most violent in states like Alabama and Mississippi, so national organizations like MLK’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) focused their efforts there.
Neighboring Texas, meanwhile "did not represent such a desperate situation... in fact, Texas ranked first in the number of black voters among southern states” [Source]. So with the SCLC, CORE, SNCC, and NAACP busy with the Deep South, desegregation in Texas was mostly left up to local organizers -- like Allison & Ray’s fictitious SJCC -- until around 1964.
All of this is to say that, as the story starts to focus a little more on Ray & Allison’s activism, its important to me that my writing draws from real first-hand accounts specific to this time and this place -- not cliches or generalizations. And I’m doing a lot of work to find that information!
I’m actually going to take a second to bitch about one unexpected wrench in the works: it turns out Selma -- the site of MLK’s famous 1965 march to Montgomery -- is located in Dallas County, Alabama. This makes googling Dallas-specific information SO DIFFICULT YOU GUYS. ARGH.
Ok so now that I’ve provided some of the high-level background, here are some actual research notes:
I name-dropped the Majestic theater protests, which were efforts in 1961 to desegregate the Majestic Theater in downtown Dallas (still there today!). Aside from department store sit-ins, theater sit-ins were some of the first organized nonviolent direct actions taken in Texas during the Civil Rights era. The method for doing so actually originated with college students in Austin! Source.
CORE stands for the Congress of Racial Equality, who pioneered the use of nonviolent direct action in the Civil Rights era. This included training activists on nonviolence, which was an incredibly brutal process. You can see their training syllabus here -- I highly recommend reading through it, so much of it is still relevant today. CORE (and the SCLC, for that matter) technically didn't come to Texas until 1964, but I've decided to fudge the timeline a little bit.
I know the term "throw hands" feels quite recent, but it's actually been around since the 60's! One of the references I found was in the book "Seize the Time," written in 1969 by Bobby Seale (co-founder of the Blank Panthers, and coincidentally also from Texas so I feel the slang is extra legit).
"Old Man Segregation is on his deathbed; the only question is how expensive the South is going to make the funeral" is from an MLK speech made in Austin, TX in March 1962. In another speech given in 1965, he had a VERY interesting addendum: "Old Man Segregation is on his death bed, but history has shown that social systems have a great last-minute breathing power. The guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their oxygen tents to keep the old order alive."
The songs that play in the car are “You Don’t Know Me” by Ray Charles and “Ramblin’ Rose'' by Nat King Cole, both of which were top of the charts in 1962. Are the lyrics maybe a little bit on the nose? Yes, absolutely. But I regret nothing.
The dish that Allison fucked up was Julia Child’s beef bourguignon, because Julia Child’s The French Chef debuted on American television in February 1963 to massive success. But then the whole chapter ended up being about sibling stuff instead, and I never figured out how to drop “bourguignon” into the conversation. So here you go.
Meta-wise: By the time we meet Allison in the show, she's fully committed to the nonviolence movement with Ray and doing a great job of muscling through some horrendous racist bullshit. BUT. Homegirl is still a 21st century black woman who's been dropped into the Jim Crow South, and a deadly child soldier who spent her youth solving all her problems with violence. Sooner or later she is absolutely going to try and cut a bitch. I wanted to spend some time dwelling on that learning curve.
Will add to these with time -- or, more likely, break them out into a separate post -- but for now I need some sleep. Hope you enjoy!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Raymond’s wife is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, and he’d spend the rest of his life unraveling them if she’d let him.
Then he gets bailed out of jail by a very unique character who claims to be his brother-in-law.
“That man doesn’t deserve to lick your boots,” she hisses.
“He’s a jackass,” Ray says. “No shortage of those around these parts.” He takes a tentative step in her direction, then another. “But baby, you cannot go around throwing hands at every idiot in Dallas.”
“Can too,” she snaps back on reflex. “Watch me.”
He almost finds it in him to smile – but not quite yet. Instead, he eases his way across the living room, makes sure she sees him coming. Puts his hands on both of her shoulders so they’re looking at each other square. “Allison,” he says, as seriously as he knows how. “Please.”
I’ve kept a journal since I was a kid and something inspired me to open them back up yesterday, my heart went out to this precious baby & felt like I wanted to write some of these down in case they ever get lost in a flood or something:
I pretty desperately want to love someone. I want all the different kinds of love. I want young love, summer love, love at first sight, unrequited love (which I guess I’ve technically already lived through). I want to trip into it unexpectedly and I want to feel it building like a slow burn, and I want it to fade. I want to have a rekindled fling. I want to have an open relationship, and a fiercely private one, and one where we don’t even speak any of the same languages except for touch.
I think that, given half a chance, I could love someone pretty fast. I’m not particularly discerning in that regard. I don’t say the words terribly often ‘cause they make me so uncomfortable, but I know the feeling, or at least an approximation of it. After all, I love JJ, and what I feel for her is pretty hard to beat, even if some fantastic boy does miraculously come along.
Here’s the thing -- I’m already quite sure that I don’t want to fall in love with the next (see: first) boy I date. He’s a practice run, whoever he is. I want to make all these mistakes and be with different people so I know who I am in a relationship and what I need to be happy. I haven’t exactly got a lot of faith in marriage as an institution, so I’m not gonna go signing my life away to the first guy who knocks on the door. So on the one hand, no pressure. On the other hand, I still don’t have a fucking boyfriend. It preoccupies my thoughts almost constantly, isn’t that pathetic? It’s a perpetual, low-level obsession that I know isn’t helping. But how old to I have to be before I find someone who’s not-shitty enough for my standards? My standards aren’t even that exacting.
I guess I don’t see the point in going after anything that I don’t really want. That’s how I’m going to look at it, anyway. I’m not saving myself for marriage, or true love, or any higher ideal like that -- I’m doing it for someone I think is worthwhile.
“Worthwhile” is not a particularly hard adjective to live up to, really.
thinking about how likely it is that adam did not exist in-universe until 5 minutes before jump the shark. and that was just the concept of adam as played by ghoul. chuck created an adam-shaped hole to be filled. adam, meaning his personality and backstory, probably didn't exist until season 5 when he came back and chuck had to flesh him out a bit. this is crucial bc post-canon adam goes with michael to confront chuck and chuck drops the bomb that adam is like. not real.
chucks like yeah i made you up bc the story was stagnating and my idiot son couldnt seal the deal with dean. so i guess it kind of makes sense you ended up dating
adam FREAKS OUT and michaels like do you get it now. do you get my weapons-grade daddy issues now. its like all those kids you went to school with whose parents did their science fair projects for them without even letting them try except the science fair is all of existence and the project, broadly speaking, is the apocalypse but also instead of a baking soda volcano its a whole person created to call attention to my deficiencies. also if those parents were never home but the whole house was wired with cameras.
