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hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

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Harringrove April Day 16- Nostalgia

On just about every flat surface in their mansion, Steve’s mother had put out some fancy Tiffany light fixture.

Steve’s room was the only place in the whole house he got to have any day in the interior design, and his lamp, well it didn’t quite have a stained glass shade, or ornate detailing to fancy up the mansion, his happens to be an old nursery lamp from when he was six and still had a themed bedroom.

At the peak of his too cool for school teenager bullshit, he’d attempted to throw it out, sent it away to the curb with a bag of stuffed animals he claimed he didn’t need anymore, but the very same night he started having nightmares again, so he scrambled to get it back before the raccoons found it first.

That dusty old lamp had saved him from countless nights spent awake and terrified, and he wasn’t one to say he was ashamed of that.

Except, now Billy Hargrove, the pinnacle of badass, is in his room, and there it is, still plugged in on the nightstand.

Of all things too, it couldn’t have just been a generic race car lamp or something he could play off as not really being for kids, it had to be stupid Bambi.

There’s a story behind it, that when he was a toddler, his first venture out of Indiana was to go see his gramma over in Maryland, and, after one look at his big brown eyes and his fluffy brown hair, she immediately nicknamed him Bambi.

After that the name just sort of stuck with him, his parents using it when they wanted on his good side, to make up for forgetting his birthday, or as an apology for leaving him alone so long the babysitter left, so of course his mom thought it would be adorable if his bedroom was themed around it.

Somewhere in a dusty corner of the attic, he still had the curtains and the quilt and the wall hangings, and under his bed was a pillow embroidered with his name and a picture of the clumsy cartoon deer made by his gramma. And of course, there was the brightly shining lamp.

He would never admit that he kept them there for when he was at his most frightened, clutching the pillow to his chest during a nightmare, or wrapping the soft material of the tiny old quilt around his shoulders when he felt an imaginary pair of eyes watching him.

Because Steve had seen some shit, he felt that after witnessing a ten-foot tall faceless monster come through the ceiling and try to kill him, and having a herd of baby versions of that same monster charge at him with nothing but a baseball bat to protect himself and a group of defenseless children, he had earned the right to use a damn nursery lamp in his bedroom.

But, that ass-backwards swell of pride at still using his childhood comfort items at 19 years old is definitely crushed by the fact that, after being in his room for a grand total of five minutes, that’s immediately what Billy drifts to.

A drunken apology at a New Year’s party might have made up for the concussion and proved he was probably not going to beat his face in again, but it didn’t change the fact that he was in Steve’s bedroom with the edge of the printed lampshade pinched between his fingers, and a contemplative look on his face.

It was a little while after their truce was reached, that Billy just started showing up at the Harringtons’ door unannounced. Sometimes it was to borrow Steve’s first aid kit. Sometimes he’d steal some of his weed. Once he’d come over just to watch something on Steve’s TV. Whatever his reason, Steve had let him in every time.

In this particular instance, it had been Steve who had called Billy, because he had a math project and an essay due first thing tomorrow morning, and Nancy was too busy to help him.

At first he’d considered just not getting the work done, but he decided Billy would do. He was smart enough that the co-ed teacher in the math class they shared had begged him to switch to the advanced classes, so Steve figured his help wouldn’t be so bad.

But his desk where all of his school stuff is is upstairs in his bedroom, where he’s left out the dumb baby lamp, and of course that would be exactly what Billy goes straight for. Steve feels himself start to panic a little, unsure if he could trust Billy’s reaction, and convincing himself that Billy might beat his ass for being a fragile little fairy or something.

It never comes, Billy just sits down all casual on the bed next to Steve, pulling one of his legs up so he could cross it over his knee, and nods over at the lamp again. “Wish I still had something from when I was little.”

The weight of the entire universe is lifted from Steve’s chest, knowing that Billy isn’t going to tear his head off. He lets out a sharp breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Yeah?”

Billy nods and looks down, fidgeting with the pendant he always wore around his neck. “My dad threw everything out. All I have is one little picture of my mom.”

Steve knew he lived with his step-mom, but had never even thought about what happened to Billy’s real mother. He realizes the pendant was probably a locket, the very one that holds the aforementioned picture, and asks “Can I see it?”

It looks like Billy has to think about it, as he keeps twisting the locket between his fingers, before he nods and opens it. Steve leans towards him, putting his hand up under it and holding it in his palm, straining to see the tiny, aged picture.

Even though he’s never seen this woman, it makes Steve incredibly sad, seeing her little face all worn out in that locket around her son's neck. He wonders if she was dead, or if maybe she’d lost custody for some reason, or if maybe she had just left, but whatever happened, when his eyes flicker back up to Billy’s face, the tears shining in his eyes and the way he avoids his gaze, he knows better than to ask.

Steve lets the locket fall and watches Billy snap it shut quickly, and he realizes he has no idea what the right thing to say is.

What he wants to say is that he’s sorry, for him losing his mother and having nothing but one yellowed and tear stained picture to remember her by, but that seems too much like prying, somehow not really appropriate.

Instead, he remembers what Billy said about his dad throwing his stuff out and says, “Your dad must be a real asshole, huh?”

Billy scoffs and blinks away the last of the tears in his eyes. “You’ve got no idea, Harrington.” There’s a long awkward pause, until Billy asks, “You know how I’m always coming over here with like, all kinds of shit wrong with me?”

Steve thinks he knows where this was going. “Sure.”

Chewing on the corner of his nail, Billy takes a moment to get his thoughts together, his eyes flitting nervously across the room, focusing on pretty much anything but Steve, mostly the picture frame behind him. “I lied. It’s not, like, fights or whatever I say. At least not with other kids.”

Steve himself was no stranger to conversations like these, he himself had to confess something of a similar calibre to Nancy, when they were still dating, because his father had come home from a business trip pissed off about something, and slapped him across the face just a little too hard. The sturdy silver ring that he wore on his middle finger had split the skin on Steve’s cheek, and he couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse to cover his tracks.

Admitting to it out loud was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, so he decides he won’t make Billy say it. Maybe they weren’t on the best of terms, only here to do homework or whatever, but if he was going to open up about this, he definitely wasn’t going to make him experience that same humiliation he had.

“Is it your dad? That does that to you?” Nancy hadn’t been kind enough to spare him, forcing him to tell her once that the scar he so proudly sported wasn’t actually from a fist fight with Tommy like he said, and he wouldn’t do the same to Billy.

In lieu of a response though, Billy sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, his hands starting to shake ever so subtly, and Steve knows he’s got to keep pressing. “Do you need help? I can call the chief-“

“No.” Billy shakes his head and makes eye contact with Steve for the first time since he started talking. “Cops only make it worse.”

Steve could understand that, had tried once when he was about eight or so, with the assistance of one of the housekeepers, to call the police when his father twisted his arm so far behind his back his shoulder popped out of place, but they wouldn’t dare arrest a public figure like his father, especially not for a little corporal punishment. The first thing they’d asked was what Steve had done wrong, not why his father had felt it fitting to beat on his eight year old for a tiny mistake. He never asked for help again.

“Well is there anything I can do?” Despite their differences and the fact that he only called him here to cheat on his homework, he truly did want to help Billy. Something about repeatedly surviving horrific monster attacks made him a lot more protective of those around him, and now that they were over their dumb pissing contest, Billy was included in that too.

“Think you’ve done enough letting me into your mansion, unless that’s not good enough for your hero complex.” It was a pathetic jab, there was no bite behind his broken tone, and Steve would almost rather have him at his worst than see him so vulnerable and sad.

Steve tries to reason with him softly, “You know it’s not like that, Billy.”

“Do I?” Walls had been put up as Billy made his last ditch efforts to protect himself from being weak in front of Steve. “Cause where I’m sitting, it seems like you get off on charity cases like mine. You tryin to swoop in and save me, King Steve? Feed your ego so you can feel like the savior you were always meant to be?”

He was baiting him, trying to pick a fight so he’d push him away, Steve had seen it all before in himself and wouldn’t fall for it. “Listen. I just want to help you.”

Everything about Billy suddenly seemed to make a whole lot more sense. That whole part animal, tough guy thing was just an act, and Steve knew because he had done essentially the same thing.

Before Nancy Wheeler had taught him to be better, he and Billy really weren’t so different. He’d let high school bullshit bother him, beat up the nerds and fucked all the cheerleaders and mocked anyone lower than him on the social ladder like he was supposed to, but it always made him feel off.

In the end, it had been so easy to get him to the other side, to show him what to do instead, he supposed all he needed was a little push to help him actualize what he already believed.

And then it hits him, in that moment, that this was Billy’s push in the right direction. That he was Billy’s Nancy.

“I don’t expect you to tell me everything and I’m not doing this for me, just,” It became extremely important to him to not set Billy off, to say just the right thing to keep him on the right track. “my door is always open, Billy.”

At first, it seemed to have worked, Billy sat staring at the floor, his lip quivering as he mulled over Steve’s words, but, when he stood abruptly and snatched his leather jacket from where it was draped over the back of Steve’s desk chair, Steve knows he messed up.

“Where are you going?” He stands up fast enough to give himself a head rush while Billy shrugs his jacket back on and yanks the door open.

“Need a smoke.” That’s all he gets before the door slammed in his face, and he hears Billy's heavy boots stomping down the stairs and the sound of him slamming his front door.

He waits with bated breath and tears pricking the corners of his eyes for the sound of Billy’s car starting and tearing out of his driveway, but it never comes.

Still, he feels immensely guilty and selfish and stupid as all hell for not just biting his tongue. He should’ve just fought back, argued with him like was expecting him to instead of trying to be comforting like he was his fucking therapist or something.

Because this was Billy fucking Hargrove, stereotypical meat head bully. Why he even felt the need to help him, other than their similar upbringings and coping mechanisms, or the fact that Billy had obviously been reaching out, hoping for someone to care, was beyond him. Or maybe it really wasn’t, he knew exactly why, he just felt weak and stupid for trying, and especially so for failing.

Apparently he’d been so caught up in his little pity party that he missed the sound of the door opening back up, and didn’t notice Billy had come back until his bedroom door was open.

Steve was so relieved that Billy came back, that he hadn’t pushed him too far or fucked everything up, even if he reeked of too strong cigarettes, and growled at him when he came in, “Don’t we got fucking work to do, Harrington?”

They don’t end up finishing the essay. Steve was hopeless with numbers, and they were too busy goofing off, so the math project didn't get done very quickly. It was okay though, Billy wasn’t much help at all when it came to English anyways.

Steve walks him outside when he has to go, beating a curfew of midnight. He stops on the porch, immediately crossing his arms against the frigid cold of the night air. Billy stops too at his car, his fingers through the handle, and turns around, calling across the yard. “Hey Harrington?”

He hardly waits for Steve’s response, a quick “Yeah?” to tell him, “Thank you.”

There isn’t time for Steve to respond before Billy’s yanking open the door of his Camaro and backing out of the driveway, but he knows he’d still made astronomical progress tonight.

It makes him feel incredibly dumb, laying in his bed that night, illuminated by the warm light of that very same Bambi lamp and trying to put his thoughts of Billy to rest like he was some cheesy teenage girl, but he’s just happy to have found a friend, to have made a difference in somebody’s life, and he knows that on the other side of town, laying in own bed with his locket left open on the pillow beside him, Billy feels the same way.

#harringrove #harringroveapril #billy hargrove #steve harrington #billy x steve #ej writer #story by ej!#love how I had something completely different planned but ran out of time and had to dig in my drafts for this fic #and it still took me forever to edit it

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kariachi · 5 years

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Okay, before I start working on shit for the day, Ben 10 thoughts. Because if I had a dollar for every opinion I’ve had on this show I would never have to worry about money again.

Okay, two topics for the day that I want to get out, both I’ve mentioned before but want to reiterate because they fucking annoy me.

1) Personal Opinion: one of this show’s biggest flaws is that is that it kept throwing shit out there and expecting us to ignore it because they didn’t mean it.

Seriously, do you guys know how hard I struggle when you’re poking at characters and going “well, we know by the way the show handled this and the way the writers spoke about shit that they don’t mean for us to view this character as someone who would do this/say this, but they did”? They kept either throwing things out there as jokes or just breeze past the implications of shit and then acting like it shouldn’t affect our views of the characters, but that’s... It’s lazy and bad writing and also really doesn’t work? Like

Ben repeatedly makes prejudiced statements regarding other species (including a comment about how Argit’s ‘fake death’ ability explains “how such an annoying species has survived this long”), does this mean he has some ingrained prejudices he’s going to need to overcome before he can truly become a hero for the entire galaxy?

No! Those are supposed to make the audience laugh and everybody knows that if the audience is supposed to laugh it doesn’t count towards characterization!

Gwen on at least two occasions (three if you don’t give her a pass for Undercover, which honestly we probably shouldn’t) has used physical violence as punishments for behaviors and opinions from Kevin she doesn’t like, something that is- legally- physically abusive behavior, should we be concerned?

No! She’s not that sort’ve person! Again, this is supposed to be funny and anyway doesn’t making a joke at someone else’s expense really earn you getting shoved out of a plane?

This one is doubly fun because not only does it continue the trend in the show, but also continues the trend of media normalizing the concept of abuse towards men not being serious, especially when done by women. Same with the next one.

Seriously, imagine Undercover with Kevin and Gwen’s roles reversed- with Kevin taking pleasure in physically hurting Gwen after she’s been a teasing little shit all episode. Then answer me this, would we have even gotten to the next episode or would this show have been taken off the air with a quickness.

Charmcaster’s only canon ‘love interests’ have been teenage boys despite her being very much an adult, should we be concerned?

No! Kevin was business and it’s in no way suspicious that she decided the best way to fuck with Gwen was to gun for and kiss her boyfriend (is it just me? is it a ‘my ace ass’ thing that at 20 you couldn’t have paid me to kiss a 16-yo?) And Mike doesn’t count because he’s Evil. Besides, Charmcaster isn’t evil anymore (we’ve had this rant before) so she can’t be a creeper.

And I like these characters for the most part! I don’t love them, but I like them well enough. Or more, I like the characters the show was trying to give me. The ones they actually gave me are shit. But that’s the problem. Sometimes it’s like they’re handing you a shit sandwich and telling you it’s tuna salad.

2) It’s been a while since I’ve gone on this one- Kevin shouldn’t have been the muscle on the team and Gwen shouldn’t have been the smart one.

Mind, I am not saying Gwen or Ben is stupid, but the way the team was set up Kevin would’ve slotted in better as the information guy than as the team muscle like they tried to make him. He’s badass but, in the end that ended up getting downplayed to make Ben and Gwen seem better (and then Gwen got downplayed so Ben would seem better), and I feel like it would’ve done them all better if the roles had been reassigned some.

It makes sense for Ben to be the muscle, it’s constantly shown that his aliens out class Kevin at damn near every turn. He’s got great instincts, especially when it comes to a fight, and he really kicks ass. When we’ve got Kevin as the team’s muscle, Ben overshadows him in the category anyway, so why not give it to him?

The only reason Gwen isn’t the leader of the team is because Ben’s name is on the logo, that’s it. She’s brilliant, and a great fighter, but as a fighter she’s also overshadowed by Ben a lot so fuck it, and a lot of the time they want to play up how smart she is they do it with things that logically Kevin should be the most in the know about. Gwen’s a planner, Gwen’s smart, make her leader, make her strategist. Let her keep the magic focus for fuck’s sake too!

And so we get to Kevin. Successful con artist. Tech whizz. Logically should have had more experience with various alien species in the first year after OS than the Tennysons had by AF. Has been several species, same as Ben. Make him the one with the information. Make him the guy they send in when they need stealth or someone to talk to somebody. You’ve got a career criminal with a load of experience with aliens and you under-utilize these things!

Not that any of this works perfectly, but it would’ve been more interesting and fitting than what we got, with the team being shoved into these sort’ve roles anyway. Honestly they would’ve been done better if things had been more even keel (they’ve all got their specialties in each field and rotate position depending on the episode) but working with what we got...

If nothing else try to tell me you wouldn’t want more Kevin&Gwen interaction like we got in Alien X’s premiere. I fucking loved that shit, give me more of Kevin knowing shit about other species and using that to the team’s advantage.

#achi rambles #ben 10 analysis #now i have to lunch and then spend an afternoon rewatching shit #be on the lookout for liveblogs

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alexsbrain · 6 years

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Victim (1961)

A commercial film done in the style of a thriller about a blackmail ring targeting homosexual men. No, it’s not the latest film at Cannes, it’s an English film from the sixties. Victim was made at a time when the physical love between two same-sex partners was punishable by law. By the late fifties many politicians and activists were questioning this law and fighting for decriminalization. Victim is a product of the nascent Queer rights movement in post-war England and the dramatic personification of the Wolfenden report which urged lawmakers to decriminalize homosexuality. Starring Dirk Bogarde, a gay actor and England’s favourite matinee idol, Victim not only transformed his career but helped sway public opinion, which resulted in the passing of the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 effectively decriminalizing homosexuality. The film would receive criticism upon it release and throughout the years, yet it remains the first English language film to openly portray the terror of being Queer.

Barrett on the run

The film begins with a man on the run. Jack Barret has stolen thousands of pounds from his firm and the police are closing in. On the run ‘Boy Barrett’ contacts his friends in an effort to elicit help or find temporary lodging. He continually contacts the barrister Melville Farr, who refuses to help him. While hiding in a road house café the police nab him in a men’s lavatory trying to flush pages from his scrap book. At the police station the two detectives spell out the trouble, they believe Barret is being blackmailed because he is gay. When the police piece together his scrap book they find articles about the famous barrister Farr. As Farr arrives at the station he is told Barret has hanged himself. Panic sets in, Farr and Barret had been involved. As Farr returns home his wife senses his anguish but he shrugs it off, not wishing to tell her about his double life. Meanwhile the black mailers are starting to get greedy, demanding larger amounts of money from their victims and start setting their sights on Farr. Farr is determined to find the black mailers and put an end to their tyranny, even if it means fighting against those who want to remain in the closet and at the cost of his reputation.

After the war there was a new sense of creative freedom in Europe, a cultural explosion in every artistic medium. European cinema was in a position to tackle themes and subjects considered too risqué for puritan American audiences. England’s penchant for theater positioned itself for the first English language post-war take on Queer rights. Unable to compete financially with the American industrial movie machine (Hollywood), England could instead craft films of high quality and a progressive social agenda.

Victim is a product of the post war cultural boom, it’s not only an important film socially, it is also a well-crafted piece of cinema. Its use of film language is daft, and it never feels awkward or shoddy, a testament to the technical proficiencies of the English film industry. After modest success with a similarly progressive film, Sapphire, the crew reunited for Victim. With a script penned by Janet Green and John McCormick, the husband and wife writing team, director Basil Rearden and producer Michael Relph of Allied Film Makers started preproduction on Victim then entitled Boy Barrett. John Trevelyan of the BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) had several notes on the touchy subject. The BBFC’s role was not to asses a films commercial potential, only it’s content and even though, “to the great majority of cinema-goers homosexuality is outside their direct experience and is something that is shocking, distasteful and disgusting,” but since homosexuality was not forbidden by the board, unlike in America, and “the story was told with sympathy and compassion,” they were granted a seal with little reservation.

“You knew of course that Barrett was a homosexual.”

After several actors turned down the main role of Farr, for various reasons not all of which were legitimate, Dearden approached Bogarde in December of 1960 and he jumped at the chance to play the closeted barrister. Principal photography commenced on January 30th, 1961 to little fan-fare nor protest. Despite its controversial subject matter the film would wrap without much incident from the public or press.

Some criticism of the film surrounds the restrained ‘tact’ which was used to tell the story. Today it can seem old fashioned or too subtle, yet the filmmakers knew that with such a racy subject matter limits had to be enforced to ensure the films success. Instead they cleverly disguised Victim as a thriller, the opening scenes invoke a Hitchcockian sense of danger, a panic-stricken suffocation as the police close in on Barrett. By using a well-known genre, known for it’s riveting audience response, the film could then tell a story which otherwise might have seemed too daring for cinema-goers. By introducing the familiar clichés of suspense, a man on the run and detectives, Victim can make audiences feel comfortable while introducing characters that in other terms might seem revolting. The compassion evoked from the viewer is one of the films strengths.

Farr’s wife right before the confession

The pivotal scene of film is when Farr confesses to his wife. It is a scene of great cinematic staging and blazing performance. After entering the parlor Farr’s wife demands he tell her the truth. Standing in the dark, she watches Farr walkover and turn on a light as her tells her about his ‘sordid’ double life. Unable to fully comprehend vague answers she pushes him for the truth, asking him if he loved Barrett like a man loves a woman, resulting in the famous dialogue delivered by Bogarde.

Quiet a scandalous admission for the early sixties. Bogarde thought of this film as incredibly personal, and it is one of his best performance which was responsible for transforming his career into the heavy avant-garde powerhouse he is known as today. In the opening scenes Barret calls Farr repeatedly. Farr answers the phone at his desk and tells Barrett he cannot help him then hangs up. Bogarde’s hand has a soft daintiness in the wrist while hanging up, this subtlety of gesture speaks volumes, at this moment the audience realizes that Farr is gay. It’s one of those brilliant moments for an actor where body language and staging reveal more than any line of dialogue could.

The compassionate detectives

Several characters in the film represent the various levels and dichotomies of English society. The two main detectives in the story serve as a metaphor for the civil servant middle class. The lead detective displays remorse at Queer men’s predicament, even turning around his younger detective by paralleling puritan prosecution with homosexual persecution. They foreshadow the gradual, albeit lengthy, acceptance of the middle class of gay rights.

The common bartender

The bartender in the local pub serves his Queer patrons but is secretly disgusted by them. A female patron scolds him for his views, yet the bartender serves as a representation of the less educated working-class attitudes, or the mercantile class. They are more skeptical of homosexuals yet will still take their money.

The closeted elitists

There are several Queer characters in the film who try to stop Farr from foiling the blackmailers. It is an analogy to those who wish to stay in the closet, usually wealthier men of the ruling class who do not want to risk losing their inheritance, or public standing, and will gladly live a double life, paying the blackmailers because they can afford to as it is preferable than living a public life of shame. These characters are portrayed unsympathetically and serve as juxtaposition to Farr’s noble outward attempts to right a wrong.

An unwelcome guest

The female characters are split between disgust and acceptance. The girlfriend of one of Barret’s school chums is revolted by Barret and will not allow him to stay at their house while he is on the run. The lead blackmailer is also female, she too is revolted by homosexuals and enterprisingly exploits their wicked sins to her capitalistic advancement. Farr’s wife is surprisingly open to her husband’s sexuality. They share a broader love more akin to the sister brother relationship than man and wife. While the news of her husbands love for Barret shocks her, in the end the bond between the two characters is greater than sexual identity. The female pub patron, a model by trade, is open and accepting, in many scenes she is surrounded by Queer men sharing a laugh over a pint or a glass of sherry. He profession in the arts gives her a broader understanding of human desire, even if she is part of the working class.

The sympathetic model

Queer cinema has evolved exponentially over the last sixty years, but when Victim was released it was one of the first films to, “start the adult and serious approach to dealing with homosexuality.” Daring for 1961, it was the first English language film to have the word homosexual spoken aloud, and it does not hide behind metaphors or clever symbology. As a young man dealing with his own sexual identity English filmmaker Terence Davies recalled seeing victim in theaters as a teenager, “gay men, who for the first time saw credible representation of themselves and their situations in a commercial British Film.” With social media chattering over the last few years about the subject of representation among minorities and members of the LGBTQ community, filmmakers could take a cue from Victim. The act of including members of society that do not normally have broad representation goes a long way in normalizing those groups not only for themselves but for others as well.

One has to commend the makers of Victim, co-star Sylvia Sims called the film and Bogarde “brave,” and “revolutionary,” it gave a voice to a community that was still oppressed. Perhaps the greatest compliment an actor or filmmaker could be paid was found in a note sent to Bogarde. Lord Arran, the man responsible for sponsoring the bill that later became know as the Sexual Offence Act of 1967 in the house of Lords, thanked Bogarde for, “helping to push the public opinion in favour of decriminalization.” Today Victim stands as a fictional testament to some of the struggles faced by the Queer community and serves as a remainder to our history of persecution. Not only is Victim a time capsule, it is also a wonderfully crafted piece of cinema.

#queer cinema #dirk bogarde #english film #gay movies #lgbtq rights #pride month #victim 1961

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