skipperdahl

For some reason this week while the day job dragged on and on and on, time spent not at work flew by. Isn't that always the way of it?

I did a lot of reading this week, mainly in short bursts, earmarked several more items to read because my TBR pile wasn't already precariously tottering even in digital format, and really felt a renewed sense of love of reading that both intrigued and infused me with happiness.

I fall in and out with reading where sometimes I read more and sometimes less, but this week was the first time in a long time that I wished I could clone myself and spend 40 hours reading while other me spent 40 hours working. If you could clone yourself, what would you do with your two halves?

As for where this renewed sense of reading love is coming from, I'm tracing it to some highly enjoyable Tinyletter subscriptions. You see, past me, in her infinite wisdom signed up for some Tinyletters. I'm not really sure when or how I found them, only that it happened in that vague and wonderful way one finds lots of enjoyable things on the internet, click holes. One of these is written by Haylin Belay who has the most gorgeous sense of description. Her entire letter is filled with a sense of reassurance, calmness, and most gorgeous centering of self that you could ever wish to emanate.

Ruth Franklin wrote about correspondence between Shirley Jackson and a fan that turned into a yearlong letter writing relationship between two women with similar interests. Her detail of finding copies of the letters thought lost to time made me long for more stories of the connections between women that history often ignores and has forgotten.

Speaking of connections between women, Carrie Frye shared a gem of a story about Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor visiting and the discussion of Morrison's Beloved. The very idea that Morrison said, "I don't know, I'm just gonna write and see what happens to it" about Beloved is absolutely believable and awe inspiring at the same time. After reading this, I felt two things. One, a renewed sense in my own struggles to write, and two, interest in Naylor's writing which wasn't anything I've read before. And so, Mama Day was added to my TBR list.

I read a fic this week that made me smile the entire time. I don't read much MCU fic, but when I do it's almost always Darcy-centered. I've seen some arguments that she gets turned into a Mary Sue or self-insert, and I can understand why some people aren't enamored of that. However, I love the examination of "normal character forced into extraordinary circumstances" and how they cope. If it's a little Mary Sue-ish, I really don't care as long as I find it entertaining. So when I was clicking through the bookmarks of an author I was interested in reading a story from and saw that they had bookmarked the best life is but intoxication about Steve and Darcy being BFFs, I couldn't click fast enough. It's a short and charming story that I recommend you take a look at if you like friendships, misunderstandings, mild jealousy but all treated in a light-hearted way.

Here's hoping we all read something this week that challenges us, delights us, and makes us feel less alone in the world.

I'm a sucker for a good romance story. In fact, in my entertainment, I love, well, love. This is part of the reason why I enjoy fanworks so much because they take canon and, oftentimes, flesh out the love story a lot more, and voila! More smoochies for everyone. And smoochies make everything better.

I've spent some time lately thinking about those romance tropes that I enjoy the most because while I'm a sucker for most any good love story, there are certain tropes that draw me in a little more than others. One of those is the famous person falls for the normal person. I think the draw of this is the wish fulfillment fantasy of it all. Who wouldn't want to have someone who is famous and desired by so many to have eyes that follow you across a room? The idea that with all the flash and fervor surrounding them, this person sees through it all to find you. It's a very heady idea and easy to see why it features prominently in many love stories. And the reverse, of course, is that the normal person sees through all the celebrity trappings to the person underneath and finds them worthy of love.

One of my favorite recent examples of this is the movie, Beyond the Lights. Given how much of this trope relies on seeing someone for who they are, whether it's through the glare of the camera lenses reflected at you, or underneath the trappings of celebrity, it's no wonder that phrase features prominently in the initial meeting of Noni and Kaz.

Dance movies are one of my very top entertainment choices, so obviously I have watched the Step Up movies in all their cheesy glory more times than I can count. And in between all the mediocre acting, fun dancing, and paper thin plots, Step Up 2 has this special little place deep in my heart. It's where we first meet Andie and Moose and Jenny who all appear in later installments. Channing reprises his role from Step Up for one spectacular dance scene involving trampolines and makes baggy gray sweats look criminally hot. There's the Humpty Dance and street crews and that finale. Oh man, that finale dance is the best dance scene set in rain since Gene Kelly splashed in the gutters.



The romance plot of Andie falling for MSA-royalty Chase was never my thing, because see, I liked Chase's prickly, strict brother, Blake. Andie and Blake were never a possibility for me because of the student/teacher thing (gross) so I've always entertained this head canon where Andie somehow ends back up at MSA working with Blake and sparks fly between them.

I'm not sure if I'll ever write the full thing, but I did write a ficlet in my head canon verse for Andie and Blake meeting again that I posted over at AO3.