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unpopularwiththepopulace · 3 years

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Don’t I Get a Dream for Myself ? – Bernadette Peters and the 'Gypsy' Saga

Gypsy. It’s perhaps the most daunting of all of the projects related to Bernadette Peters to try to grapple with and discuss. It’s also perhaps the most significant.

For someone notoriously guarded of her privacy and personal life, careful with her words, and selective of the questions she answers, the narrative around this show provides some of the most meaningful insights it is possible to derive in relation to Bernadette herself. The show’s ability to do this is unique, through the way it eerily parallels her own life and spans a large range in time from both Bernadette Peters the Broadway Legend, right back to where it all began with Bernadette Lazzara, the young Italian girl put into showbusiness by her mother.

The most logical place to start is at the very beginning – it is a very good place to start, after all.

(Though no one tell Gypsy this, if the fierce two-way battle with The Sound of Music at the 1960 Tony Awards is anything to be remembered. Anyway, I digress…)

Gypsy: A Musical Fable with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, burst into the world and onto the New York stage in May of 1959. After closing on Broadway in March 1961, Ethel Merman as the world’s original Mama Rose herself led the first national tour off almost immediately around the country. Just a few months later, a second national touring company was formed, starring Mitzi Green and then Mary McCarty as Rose, to cover more cities than the original. It is here that Bernadette comes in.

A 13-year-old Bernadette Peters found herself part of this show in her “first professional” on-the-road production, travelling across the country with her older sister, “Donna (who was also in the show), and their mother (who wasn’t)”.

The tour played through cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, New Haven, Baltimore and Las Vegas before closing in Ohio in 1962. Somewhat uncannily, its September 1961 opening night in Detroit’s Schubert Theatre even returns matters full circle to the 2003 revival and New York’s own Schubert Theatre.

Indeed this bus-and-truck tour was somewhat of a turning point for Bernadette. She’d later remember, “I mostly thought of performing as a hobby until I went on the road with Gypsy”.

But while this production seminally marked a notable moment for the young actress as well as the point where her long and consequential involvement with Gypsy begins, it’s important to recognise she was very much not yet the star of the show and then only a small part of a larger whole.

Bernadette was with the troupe as a member of the ensemble. She took on different positions in the company through the period of nearly a year that the show ran for, including billing as ‘Thelma’ (one of the Hollywood Blondes), ‘Hawaiian Girl’, and additional understudy credits for Agnes and Dainty June.

The above photo shows Bernadette (left) with another member of the ensemble (Sharon McCartin) backstage at the Chicago Opera House as one of the stops along the tour. Her comment on the stage of the Chicago theatre – “I’d never seen anything so big in my life!” – undeniably conveys how her experiences were new and appreciably daunting.

Along the tour, she assumed centre-stage once or twice as the understudy for Dainty June, but playing the young star was not her main role. Unlike what more dominant memory of the story seems to purport.

Main credits of June went instead to Susie Martin – a name and a tale of truth-bending that’s now well-known from Bernadette’s concert anecdotes. While performing her solo shows as an adult and singing from Gypsy, Bernadette has often been known to take a moment to penitently atone for historical indiscretions of identity theft or erasure where her mother long ago conveniently left out the “understudy” descriptive when putting down Dainty June on her resumé, in an effort to add weight to the teenager’s list of credits.

Whatever happened to Susie Martin? – many have wondered. Well, she soon left the theatre. But not before appearing in two more regional productions of Gypsy and a 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward with Liza Minnelli and Christopher Walken.

Bernadette too went on to other regional productions of Gypsy. She spent the summer of 1962 in various summer stock stagings with The Kenley Players, like in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and this time she did indeed get to play June.

Above shows photos from different programmes for these productions. While some may have featured odd forms of photo editing, they at least also bring to attention Rose here being played by none other than Betty Hutton.

The two women couldn’t have been in more different positions when they coalesced in these rough-around-the-edges, small-scale productions. A young Bernadette was broaching summer stock in starting to take on bigger roles in the ascendency to her bright and long career. Meanwhile, Betty found herself there while navigating the descent that followed her sharp but fickle rise to Hollywood fame in the ‘40s and early ‘50s. Top billing Monday, Tuesday you really are touring in stock after all.

While details aren’t plentiful for these productions, it was recounted Betty apparently struggled in performing the role. And understandably so. Following the recent traumatic death of her mother in a house fire, and the birth of her third child shortly before the shows began, it’s not hard to see why her mind might have been elsewhere. Still, she was apparently impressed enough by the younger actress who turned in one of the show’s “creditable performances” to make comment that she would’ve liked Bernadette to play her if a movie were made about her life.

Bernadette might not have done this exactly, but she did go on to revitalise Betty’s best-known movie role, when stepping into Annie Oakley’s shoes in the 1999 Annie Get Your Gun revival. With Bernadette’s first Ethel Merman show under her belt, the ball was soon rolling on her second.

The 2003 production of Gypsy was imminently beckoning as her next successive Broadway musical and it was Arthur Laurents who lit the match to spark Bernadette’s involvement. Laurents, as the show’s original librettist, drove the revival by saying he “didn’t want to see the same Rose” he’d seen before. Going back to June Havoc’s description of her mother as “small” and a “mankiller”, and Arthur’s take that Bernadette sung the part “with more nuance for the lyrics and the character than the others”, the choice of Bernadette was justified. Moreover, “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

So Bernadette also had her own baseline of innate physical similarity to the original Rose Hovick, in addition to her own first-hand memories of the women she’d acted alongside as Rose in her youth to bring into her characterisation of the infamous stage mother.

But there was a third factor beyond those as well to be considered in the personal material she had access to draw from for her characterisation. Namely, her own real life stage mother.

Marguerite Lazzara did share traits with the character of Rose. She too helped herself to silverware from restaurants, and put her daughters in showbusiness for the vicarious thrill. Marguerite had “always wanted to become an actress herself”, but had long been denied her desire by her own mother, who likened actresses to being as “close to a whore as you could be without, you know, getting on your back”.

In that case, to “escape a housewife’s dreary fate in Ozone Park”, Marguerite channelled her latent dream through her pair of young daughters instead, shepherding them out along the road. Thus was produced a trio of the two children ushered around the theatre circuit by the driven mother, forming an undeniable parallelism and a mirror image of both Bernadette’s reality and Gypsy’s core itself. Bernadette didn’t see some of these familial parallels at the time when she was a child, considering “maybe I didn’t want to see” – “didn’t want to see a mother doing that to her daughter”.

It was coming back to the show as an adult that helped Bernadette resolve who her mother was and some of the motivations that had propelled her when Bernadette was still a child. She realised, “I think she thought she was going to die very young”, as her own father died young. So “she was rushing around to get as much of her life as she could in there”.

When she herself returned to the production in playing Rose, Bernadette conceded to sometimes bringing elements of her mother and her driven energy into her portrayal, and admitted too she looked “like her a lot in the role”. You can assess any familial resemblances for yourself, from the images below that show a young Marguerite next to Bernadette in costume as Rose, and then with the pair backstage in 1961 in a dressing room on the tour.

Marguerite was ambitious. From her own personal position and with the restrictions imposed upon her, it was ambition that materialised through her children. Irrevocably, she altered them. She placed Bernadette on TV as a very young child (“I was four when my mother put me in the business”); changed her daughter’s surname (“She told me my real name was too long for the marquees,” or really – “too Italian”); doctored her resumé (“Somehow the word ‘understudy’ vanished. ‘No one will know,’ said Marguerite”); and lightened her hair (“She’d say, ‘Oh, I’m just putting a little conditioner on it.’ But slowly my hair got blonder and blonder!”). All in the hope of giving her child a more favourable chance at the life she’d always wanted for herself.

On paper, a classic stage mother. “When I was a kid, she fulfilled herself through me,” Bernadette would say. “She put me into show business so she could get a taste of the life herself.”

But it’s important to consider Bernadette often qualifies that her mother wasn’t as brutal as Rose, nor was she herself as traumatised as June.

Bernadette didn’t begrudge her mother for her choices – at least by the time she was an adult, she’d rationalised them, explaining “naturally it was more exciting [for her] to go on the road with me than staying home and keeping house”.

As a child, Bernadette hadn’t necessarily wanted to be on stage, but there was a sense of ambivalence – not resentful belligerence – as she “didn’t care one way or the other” when she found herself there.

Like June, Bernadette may have been entered into and coaxed around a path she hadn’t voluntarily chosen. But unlike June, Bernadette had a deal with her mother that “she had only to say the word”, and she could leave.

Most crucially, she never did.

But that’s not to say Bernadette was enamoured with acting from the beginning.

She seemed to feel ‘outside’ of that world and those in it. And others saw it too.

It was in 1961 in Gypsy that Bernadette first met Marvin Laird – her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger. The way he put it, he “noticed this one young girl, very close with her mother” who, during breaks, “didn’t mix much with the other girls”.

Beneath the effervescent stage persona, there’s a quieter and more reserved reality, and a sense of separation and solitary division.

When asked by Jesse Green in 2003 for the extensive profile in The New York Times if she thought her experiences on the road in Gypsy were good for her at that age, she gives a curious, somewhat abstract, predominantly dark, potentially macabre, response. He wrote:

She doesn’t answer at first but seems to scan an image bank just behind her eyes for something to lock onto. Eventually she comes out with a seeming non sequitur. “I didn’t know how to swim. I remember, in Las Vegas, I fell in, once, and they thought I was flailing, but I felt like: ‘It’s pretty down here!’ I might have been dying and I was thinking: ‘Look at the pretty color!’ And suddenly my fear of water was gone, and I could have stayed in forever.” After a while, I realize she’s answered my question. Then she dismisses the image: “But I had to get my hair dry for the show that day, so up I came.”

I’m still not entirely sure I know what she’s trying to convey here. My interpretation of this anecdote changes as I have re-visited and re-examined it on multiple occasions at different time points. It’s arguably multiply polysemic.

Was she simply swept up in a moment of childlike distraction, lost in the temporary respite alone away from the usual noise and clamour? Was she indicating comprehension that her feelings and perspectives came secondary to any practical necessities and inevitable responsibilities? Was she using the water to depict a muffling and fishbowl-like detachment from others her age who got to live more ‘ordinary’ lives in the ‘normal’ world above that she felt separate from? Was she referencing the pretty colours she saw as a metaphor for show business and how she became bewitched by them even despite potential dangers? Was she trying to legitimately drown herself, or at least exhibiting an ambivalence again as to whether she lived or died, because of what the highly pressurised demands on her felt like?

The underlying sentiment through her response in answer to Green’s primary question was that, in essence – no. Being a child actor was not “over all, a good experience for a youngster”.

Acting might have been something she fell in love with over time, but not all at once, not right from the beginning, and not without noting its perils.

It was a matter of accidental circumstance that landed Bernadette in the show business world to begin with at such a young age in the first place – “I just found myself here,” she would offer.

Her mother, who was “always crazy about the stage”, “insisted” that her sister, Donna take lessons in singing, dancing and acting.

A further point of interest to note is that, although it was Bernadette with her new surname who would grow up to be the famous actress, look to the cast lists from the 1961 touring production of Gypsy that featured both sisters in the company (see photo below) and you’ll find no ‘Lazzara’ in sight. Donna too, appearing under the novel moniker of “Donna Forbes”, had also already become stagified (nay, ethnically neutralised?) by her mother. As such it is clearly demonstrated that Marguerite’s intention at that point was to make stars of both her daughters. Correspondingly so, when her sister returned from her performance lessons some years before, “Donna would come home and teach me what she had learned,” Bernadette remembered. She may have gotten her “training second hand”, but the key element was that she got it.

For Bernadette, it was a short jump from emulating magpied tricks from her sister as well as routines from Golden Age Busby Berkeley musicals on the ‘Million Dollar Movie’ in front of the TV screen, to her mother getting her on the other side of the screen and actually performing on TV itself – belting out Sophie Tucker impressions aged five for all the nation to see.

The photos below show Bernadette in performative situations at a young age (look for criss-crossed laces in the second for identification).

“At first, as a toddler, Bernadette enjoyed performing; it came naturally, a form of play that people inexplicably liked to watch.” It was “just a hobby” and she “wanted to do it”.

But while she may not have detested it, she didn’t entirely comprehend what was going on either. “I didn’t even know I was on TV,” she said. “I didn’t know that those big gadgets pointed at me were cameras and that they had anything to do with what people saw on the television set.”

When she started gaining more of an awareness of how “such play [was being] co-opted for commercial purposes”, she grew less enthralled. “She didn’t care for the bizarre children, accompanied by desperate mothers, she began to see at auditions: ‘They spent their whole time smiling for no reason, you know?’”

Being a child who had become sentient of being a child performer began to grow wearisome and grating to the young girl who had her equity card, a professional (and strange, new) stage name, and an increasingly long list of expectations by the time she was nine. There’s a keen sense she did not enjoy being in such a position: “I wouldn’t want to be a child again. When you’re a child, you have thoughts, but nobody listens to you. Nobody has any respect for you”.

Gypsy did indeed mark a turning point for Bernadette as mentioned above – but not just in the way that seems obvious. Looking back at it now, it does appear the monumental turning point at which she started appearing in significant and reputable productions, beginning what would be the foundation to her ‘professional’ career. However it was also the turning point after which she nearly quit the business altogether.

When she returned from performing in Gypsy, Bernadette felt like she’d had enough. One way of putting it was that she “then retired from the business to attend high school”, wanting to have some semblance of a normal scholastic experience “without the interruptions”. But whatever dissatisfaction she was feeling as an early adolescent on stage, she didn’t resolve at school – going as far as saying that while at Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, “she was in pain”.

“When you’re a teenager you’re too aware of yourself,” she recalled. Being a teen and trying to come to terms with of the expectation of the ‘60s that “you are supposed to look like Twiggy, and you don’t, you feel everything is wrong about you”. Everything “was all about tall, skinny, no chest…[and] hair straight”. Little Bernadette with her “mass of [curly] hair and distracting bosom”, as Alex Witchel put it, was never going to fit that mould. “That was not me,” she stated. “At all.”

Her self-consciousness grew to the point that it became overwhelming and asphyxiating. “I was trying desperately to blend in and be normal, but that doesn’t allow creativity to come out,” Bernadette said. “I knew I was acting terrible. The words were sticking in my mouth and all I could think about was how I looked”. It was hard enough just to look at herself (“I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror”), let alone to have other people gawk at her on stage. So she stopped trying. She “didn’t work much from age 13 to 17” in the slightest. Bernadette would later reflect in 1981 in an atypically open and vulnerable interview, “I was very insecure. Insecurity is poison. It’s like wearing chains”.

It was a combination of factors that helped her overcome these feelings of such toxic and weighty burden to draw her back into the public world of performing and the stage. “The two people who helped her most, she says, were David LeGrant, her first acting teacher, and her vocal coach, Jim Gregory.” Jim helped with “[opening] a whole creative world for [her] with singing”; and it was David who’d give her the now infamous and often (mis)quoted line about individuality and being yourself.

Having these kinds of lessons, she reasoned, was “really a wonderful emotional outlet for a kid of 17”. The process of it all was beneficial for her therapeutically – “you have a lot of emotions at that time in your life, and it was great to go to an acting class and use them up”. And Bernadette felt freer on stage than she did out on her own in the ‘real world’, saying “[up there] I don’t have to worry about what I’m doing or saying because I’m doing and saying what I’m supposed to be doing and saying”.

Finally then and with considerable bolstering and support, she grew comfortable with the notion of being visible on stage and in public, and realised she was never going to blend in as part of the chorus so it was simply better to let go of such a futile pursuit.

David LeGrant’s guiding advice to Bernadette (“You’ve got to be original, because if you’re like everyone else, what do they need you for?”) wasn’t just a trite aphorism. For her, it was a life raft. It was the key mental framing device that allowed her to comprehend for the first time that she might actually have intrinsic value as herself. And that it was imperative she let herself use it.

She had always stuck out, yes, but she had to learn how to want to be seen – talking of it as a conscious “choice” she had to make when realising she did “have something to offer”.

Thus soon after Bernadette graduated, she stepped back into productions like in summer stock and then Off-Broadway as she made her debut at that next theatrical level at 18. It wasn’t long before she was discovered in what’s seen as her big break in the unexpected smash hit, Dames at Sea. And so Bernadette Peters, the actress, was back. And she was back with impact and force.

Besides, as she’s also said, she couldn’t do anything else – “if I ever had to do something else to earn a living, I’d be at a total loss”. An aptitude test as a teenager told her so apparently, when she “got minus zero in everything except Theater Arts”. So that was that. Her answer for what she would’ve done if she’d never found acting is both paradoxically exultant and macabre – “I don’t know, probably shot myself!”

Flippant? Maybe. Trivial? No.

Acting is thus undoubtedly related highly to Bernadette’s sense of purpose and self-worth. This is what makes it even more apparent that a show with such personal and historical connections for her, as in Gypsy, was going to be so consequential and impactful to be a part of again as an adult and perform on a public stage.

She’s called inhabiting the role of Rose in the 2003 revival many things: “deeply personal”, “life changing”, “like going through therapy” – to name a few.

In interviews regarding Gypsy and playing the main character, when asked what she had learnt, Bernadette would frequently say something like, “It taught me a lot”. Pressed further about specifics, her answers often hem close to vague platitudes as she maintains her normal tendency of endeavouring to keep her privacy close to her chest.

On one occasion, she actually elaborated somewhat on what she’d learnt, giving a fuller answer than the question is normally afforded anyhow. Beyond all it revealed to her about her mother, she extended to admitting “my capacity for love and my capacity for anger” as aspects in her that the show had permanently altered. Moreover, Rose to her was undoubtedly the “most rewarding and fulfilling acting experience” she had ever had.

But while such deep, personal and emotional depths and memories were being stirred up beneath the surface in private, she was getting vilified in public singularly and repeatedly by New York Post columnist, Michael Riedel.

Even before she’d set foot on stage, Riedel set forth in motion early in the 2003 season a campaign of vocal and opinionated defamation against Bernadette as Rose that she was miscast, insufficiently talented, and would be incapable of executing the role.

Too small, too delicate, too weak, too many curves (and too much knowledge of how to use them). Not bold enough, not loud enough – not Merman enough. Chatter and speculative dissent begun to grow in and around the Broadway theatres.

For such a prestigious and historic musical theatre role, it was always going to be hard to erase the large shadow of an original Merman mould. Ethel was woven into the very fabric of the show, with the rights to Gypsy Rose Lee’s memoirs being obtained at her behest in the first place, and the idiosyncrasies of her voice having been written into the songs themselves by their very authors.

To step out from such a domineering legacy would be a marked challenge at the best of times. Let alone when battling a respiratory infection.

Matters of public perception were certainly not helped when Bernadette then got ill as the show started its preview period and she started missing early performances.

Nor did it help with critical perception that the Tony voting period coincided so synchronously with Gypsy’s first opening months – giving Bernadette no time to recover, find her feet, and settle more healthily into the show for the rest of the run before the all important decisions were made by that omnipotent committee.

The tale of her illness is actually undercut by a more innocent and unsuspecting origin than you’d expect from all the drama and trouble it engendered. Bernadette decided nearing the show’s opening to treat herself to a manicure. In the salon, she was next to a woman very close to her with a frightful sounding cough. Who could’ve known then that this anonymous and inconspicuous lady through a fateful cause-and-event chain would go on to play such a part in what is among the biggest and most enduring Tony Awards “She was robbed!” discourses? Or even more broadly – in also arguably playing a hand in the closure and financial failure of an $8.5 million Broadway show after its disappointing performance at the Tony Awards that ominously “[spelled] trouble at the box office” and led to its premature demise?

Bernadette did not win the Best Actress in a Musical Tony that night on June 6th 2004. The award went instead (not un-controversially) to newcomer Marissa Jaret Winokur for Hairspray.

She did however give one of the most indelibly resonant and frequently re-referenced solo performances at the awards show just before she lost – defying detractors to comprehend how she could be unworthy of the accolade with a rendition of ‘Rose’s Turn’ that has apocryphally earned one of the longest standing ovations seen after such a performance even to date.

Even further and even more apocryphally, she reportedly did so while still under the weather as legend as circulated by musical theatre fans goes – performing “against doctor’s orders” with stories that have her being “afflicted with anything from a 103-degree fever, to pneumonia, to a collapsed lung”.

Seeing then as unfortunately there is no Tony Award speech to draw on here, matter shall be retrieved fittingly from that which she gave just a few years earlier in 1999 for her first win and previous Ethel Merman role in Annie Get Your Gun to wrap all of this together.

As has been illustrated, there are many arguably scary or alarming aspects in Bernadette’s Gypsy narrative. There’s undeniably much darkness and an ardent clamouring for meaning and self-realisation along the road that tracks her journey parallel to the show. But unlike Rose’s hopeless decries of “Why did I do it?” and “What did it get me?”, there was a point for Bernadette.

As her emotional tribute in 1999 went: “I want to thank my mother, who 48 years ago put me in showbusiness. And I want to finally, officially, say to her – thank you. For giving me this wonderful experience and this journey.”

Whatever all of this was, maybe it was worth it after all.

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annonmaly · 3 years

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Ok, It's Not Red. So What? (continuation)

Noé and his left eye

At this point, I'm wondering why I decided to do this. At first, I just saw this official artwork collection, and I'm like: "These are cool, let me post something short about what I think (cos' I got a lot of time). Some of these ideas may already be out there. But still, I may drag someone else in this 'what if' hole I'm in". I meant this to be one post with 500 words only. But lo' and behold! I'm now on the fourth part of this thought dump. My lazy brain is so proud of me right now.

These posts could be read separately. But if you have some minutes to waste and have nothing better to do. Check out the previous parts here:

Part 1: Regarding some of VnC Artwork

Part 2: Oh, It's Not Red

Part 3: Ok, It's Not Red. So What?

No promises that it's worthwhile tho'.

Hopefully for the last time, a friendly reminder that best in writing is an award I never received. I'm not the person who could analyze, explain, or theorize things. Please bear that in mind while reading. Photos are not mine, of course. Also, spoiler alert to be safe.

Now that I said everything I want to say. Let's finish this thing. This would be the last absurd idea that I want to share.

I read this theory a while ago that Noé's left eye was partially blind. This was the result of his injury during his childhood. As proof, Noé always received an injury on the left side. I totally agree with this theory. There's something wrong in that left eye of his. What if Noé's left eye lost its original power? Or What if it's not his eye to begin with? Sounds farfetched? Yeah, it is, but give me a break here. This was on my head for a long time now, and this needs to be out of my system.

Ok, first, let me tell you why I think his left eye is suspicious.

1. Noé had an eye injury when he was a kid. But after a while, it healed as nothing happened. This could easily be explained. It was healed totally by his vampire's power.

2. How and when he received that injury is questionable. (Actually, that whole story is suspicious) Did he receive it before or after being kidnapped? I don't much about slave trade in VnC world. But, if you're going to sell something you don't want it to have visible damage, right? (Sorry if the comparison sounds offending)

3. This may be for artistic purposes. However, there are panels where Noé's left eye was hidden by his hair or something. Most of them are when he is emotional. Or, more precisely, when it's about Vanitas. This is not always the case, and maybe I'm just reading to it more than necessary. But let me give you some examples:

(I had a hard time in this cos' I'm confused about what is left and right)

Let me briefly explain the picture from left to right

Bal Masque Arc: (It is not noticeable in this arc, actually. But when Noé is scolding Ruthven, we can't see his left eye.) The image above is when human Vani told Noé to leave him alone Then the one beneath is the moment when Noé declared that he will stay with human Vani.

Catacombs Arc: This is the time when Noé forgot to cut his hair. His left eye is hidden at about 90 percent of this arc. I only saw it again when Noé got angry with the weird doctor because he keeps calling human Vani by number "69". Even after the conclusion of this arc, his left eye is hidden.

Pre-Gevaudan Arc: We all know what happened the night before this. In the panel above, his eye was hidden when he was expressing his guilt. Then when he's being honest, Mochijun-Sensei showed his left profile.

Misha Arc: I know it's still fresh in your memories. To make this short, they are fighting to the death. The above panel is when Noé's reevaluating the events that happened. Then below is when he realized that he did not look at human Vani properly.

I'm a VaNoé shipper so I could go on all day, but I think I already get my point across. There's a pattern here when human Vani and Noé are having an issue. Or when Noé can't understand the former, his left eye is hidden. After they kiss and makeup Mochijun-sensei shows Noé's left eye.

I think I already established that Noé's left eye is weird, so let's move on. If you encountered my prior post, I assumed that Luna and Noé are twins. Let's ignore that notion. For now, I will settle with the idea that the blue vampire and Noé are related. They could be siblings, parent-child, or kinsmen. I'll believe that Noé is related to the blue moon vampire until Mochijun-Sensei says otherwise.

So, I emphasized Noe's hidden eye a moment ago. Who else out there that we don't see her left eye? Yup, the vampire of the blue moon. (I already mentioned this on my previous post)

This is not related but look at these panels:

After hearing human Vani's childhood story, Noé and Luna both asked the question about hating the vampires. Take note that Luna is on the right, the eye that was she's not hiding. Noé on the left profile, the hidden eye at times. I don't know if there's a meaning in this or what, it's just interesting.

Going Back,

If Noé is related to the blue vampire and the cursed book. (I think Grandpa DeSade won't ask him to observe the book without reason, he possibly be the real owner). Maybe at some point, his eyes are blue. Or maybe one of his eyes is blue. The left eye, perhaps?

So far, we only saw Noé gazing at the blue moon in the first chapter.

Left profile, left eye, interesting. (I'll say this again and again, Sensei is shady. Even that smile)

Well, it's his right eye. However, it's his left that noticed the moon first.

Next...

The whole sentence is "and see for yourself with your own eyes..." Is it just a coincidence that the panel with the words "with your own eyes" was a close-up of Noé's left eye? (He's still looking up the blue moon here)

Now, assuming that his eyes are blue before. What happened? As I said earlier, maybe he lost the power of his left eye or just transferred it to someone. Is there someone heterochromatic that is always with Noé? Oh, yes, Murr.

So, in a nutshell: What if Noé has the power of a blue and red moon vampire before the series' timeline started? (He's kind of special since it would only show when he's using his vampiric powers) Then, something terrible happened that we don't yet. And they had no choice but to transfer that power to Murr?

At one point, I imagined that Noé and Murr exchanged eyes, but dismissed it since I thought that Murr's eyes are red. But now that I changed my mind about Murr's eye color, I think this could still be a possibility.

I'll leave it up to your imagination as to how everything happened. This is just a half-boiled theory I had that needs to get out of my mind. I'll try to expound it furthermore when I found out more (or maybe I would already change my mind)

This scene would negate my thousand words post entirely. Because the injury Noé had is shown when he met Sensei for the first time. This means he should still be heterochromatic here. The old man knows that he's a vampire. So, it's either, Noé told them, or the couple saw his vampiric characteristics. They would tell Noé that his eyes was strange, right? But it looks like had no idea at all.

(I'll just copy and paste from my previous post)

I believe that Mochijun-sensei is keeping the timeline vague since it would reveal too much information. I mean, we don't know how long time passed from the day Noé was found by the old couple to the day Sensei brought him to the castle in the forest. Keep in mind that the vampire's growth differs for each person, as well. Also, is the story the Noé and Sensei told trustworthy? As far as I could tell, Sensei is shady, like really. Besides, Noé's memory is also not reliable. After all, someone out there may have the ability to manipulate memories. What if Noé was was born ages ago and was induced to sleep for a long time for whatever reasons?

(Copy Paste ends here)

I really love Noé and Murr. You see, the title of the series is The Case Study of Vanitas, but I'm more curious about Noé. My guts tell me that he would unexpectedly surprise us in the future chapters. Do you have any ideas or thoughts you want to share about VnC? tell me, I'm so bad at digging gold here.

That's the end folks, I warned you this might not make any sense. I'm just a person who has a lot of time on hand got bored waiting for the next chapter. Still, I had fun writing this. It's entertaining to crack our heads with the possibilities of what would happen in the story. But remember to always respect the authors. It's their work and art.

Note: I wrote this to indulge my over-thinking self. This is just a random theory, thoughts, assumptions, and/or head-canons. Thank you for taking the time to read and understanding if I made any mistakes or post whatever it is you don’t agree on.

#thoughts about vnc panels

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duchessofostergotlands · 3 years

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Hi, jess! A couple of months ago I sent you an ask about a reality tv show (the farm) and a participant who has bpd (she didn’t win the 1 million price, btw - but she was so happy when she found out that a good portion of the public supported her, specially women ❤️ she’s famous because of only fans and most of her followers on social media, before her participation on the show, were men. So she said she was happy to see so many women supporting and following her now). Anyway while watching the show, I realized many of her behaviors were so similar to mine. Then my mom and sister, who live with me, told me they noticed that too. I decided to ask my psychiatrist and psychologist (I’ve been dealing with depression for the past 10 years), but both didn’t give it much credit. At the time I agreed with them - they said I probably don’t have bpd because the behaviors I was describing only happens when I’m home, with people I trust. I’m very “controlled” when I’m with other people, including my dad (who hasn’t lived with me since I was a kid). The point is, I’m ALWAYS making a huge effort trying to control myself in public - it’s exhausting and I believe it’s one of the reasons I tend to isolate myself. I think I’ve actually learned to camouflage my feelings and to avoid things that trigger me. I used to be more “uncontrolled” as a kid, before I created this deep rooted fear that people’d leave me because of these behaviors and reactions. Do you think it’s possible to camouflage some of bpd’s symptoms? And, if so, do you have any tips on how I could talk to my psychiatrist and psychologist about it? —— I didn’t want to make this ask any longer than it already is, but one of my childhood friends was recently diagnosed with autism. We don’t talk much nowadays, but she messaged me last month to tell me about her diagnosis and to ask if I felt I had some of the same treats - thinking retrospectively, we were very alike. It made a lot of sense and I remembered you said sth about bpd and autism sharing some similarities in some aspects of how the brain works. She also told me about recent studies showing the underreported diagnosis in women. My psychiatrist and psychologist also dismissed it, because I don’t avoid eye contact and have friends. I’m really confused right now, but it’s also kinda relieving to get to know myself a bit more and to think that the struggle I’ve felt my whole life is real. (Sorry for the long text!)

Hey :) Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. Just like to be able to dedicate a bit of time to longer messages like this and I rarely have the attention span for it! But of course I remember the conversation, it was really interesting to hear about what the contestant went through.

So yes, BPD and autism are often misdiagnosed as each other as there are similar traits that are often found. Usually around attractions to patterns and structure and also around empathy. Like I don’t generally feel empathy for people in the same way most people do. I’d say unless you’re a close friend or family member - or maybe if you’re a child - I probably wouldn’t feel empathy towards you. I generally make decisions about moral standpoints and such based on what logically makes sense to me rather than any kind of emotional connection because I just don’t really feel that. I think the reasons autistic people may sometimes struggle with empathy are different but to an external person would seem very similar so can often be confused.

To address your two points that made you unsure about the diagnoses, BPD is definitely highly interpersonal so it can change drastically depending on who you’re with. I can be friends with someone for quite a while and they have no idea but if I’m in a romantic or physical relationship with someone they’ll know within a few days. Romantic relationships are my personal trigger so they’re where I struggle the most. Then in terms of autism, lack of eye contact doesn’t really mean anything. I think that’s a common misconception people have but two of my cousins are autistic and they were both very outgoing and friendly, they were incredibly tactile, I didn’t notice them not looking me in the eye but I probably don’t look people in the eye much because that feels weird haha. Women in particular are not well studied when it comes to autism as you kind of mentioned. They are generally better at “masking” and so are often misdiagnosed or their condition isn’t picked up until well into adulthood. So even if you have friends and can look people in the eye it wouldn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t fit the criteria.

I wouldn’t want to diagnose you with anything myself as I’m not a professional and I don’t know you personally. The DSM outlines the criteria for being diagnosed with BPD. You have to demonstrate at least five of the following and as with all mental illnesses they have to cause a significant impact on your ability to carry out your responsibilities and go through daily life:

Chronic feelings of emptiness

Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

Identity disturbance with markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

Pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as "splitting")

Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

Those are the criteria that would most likely be used to assess you. In the UK we can be diagnosed with depression and anxiety by a GP but have to go to a psychiatrist or psychologist to get a PD diagnosis. It sounds like you’ve already been in contact with them. I’m not too sure how it works where you are. Can you get a second opinion? Are there other doctors you could make an appointment with? Could you go private? I’m very aware of the fact that having the NHS in the UK means that my experiences are not applicable to everyone’s circumstances but for me when I first went to get help I was given meds and a depression and anxiety diagnosis and sent on my way. When that didn’t help I went back and got a higher dosage. And then it still didn’t help and finally I was kind of at rock bottom (or I thought so at the time) and needed help and so what I did on that occasion was have a friend accompany me into the room. They had created a list of things they’d seen me do or heard about me doing that were concerning to them and gave them to the doctor, and they kind of backed me up and gave me moral support. It shouldn’t have taken someone else being in the room for me to be taken seriously but having someone there who could express what I might have been too shy or self conscious to say was really helpful. In the end I got referred for treatment and it wasn’t right for me ultimately as my problems were more complex but it helped for a bit. I don’t know if there’s anyone in your life you trust to be able to be there to support you but I think it can be really intimidating to push back with doctors and professionals and having someone there who knows you and cares about you can be the thing that gives you that extra bit of courage you need.

I’m not sure how helpful that is but I’m available if you want to ask me any questions about BPD or any explanations of how I experience the symptoms or anything like that :)

#ask #anon #non royal #mental health #mental illness #actually bpd #actually borderline #bpd #borderline personality disorder

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aawesomepenguin · 4 years

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“[The Sonic Movie] was always one of my dreams”, Takashi Iizuka and Sonic Movie staff reveal new details

The Sonic Movie release in Japan is very close, and in order to celebrate, 4Gamer has done an interview with Takashi Iizuka (Head of Sonic Team), Nakahara Toru ( Senior Executive Officer of SEGA SAMMY, and also SEGA’s Lawyer), Jeff Fowler (director of the Sonic Movie) and Toby Ascher (Sonic Movie Producer), and in it, they gave us some details about the movie and what the experience was like.

Remember that the translation isn’t 1:1, but it gets the point across.

Q: What advice did Sega give to the movie staff in the making of the Sonic movie? Iizuka: Advices related to Sonic in various situations, such as how he looks and moves, and his character, as in "Sonic would never say that". Sega has some guidelines for giving advice to people who do not know Sonic, but it is not a comprehensive guide, so I commented a lot during production. Toby: Mr. Iizuka's advices on Sonic's personality and design were very helpful. I wanted to make Sonic the correct Sonic that fans know. Iizuka: Since this work is a hybrid movie that combines live-action and animation, there are many scenes where actual actors and Sonic are involved. The movie isn’t set in Sonic’s World, so I proceeded to think on how he would react to all of it. The biggest challenge for us this time was that we had to think about Sonic from a completely different perspective when compared to the games.

Q: What did you pay most attention to not betray your fans? Toby: I was under pressure because I knew that the expectations of fans were very high because we are from a generation that played Sonic games when we were kids. But at the same time, I also wanted to make a movie that a newcomer to the series could also enjoy. I was very concerned about that balance. I wanted to make it possible for people who don't know Sonic to enjoy the world of Sonic, while putting in a lot of material that fans can still enjoy. Nakahara: That was the mission behind this movie. To please our generation raised in Sonic and children who have little experience playing with Sonic. I hope this movie will create a new generation of fans.

Q: Are there any differences between the Sonic from the games and the one from the movie? Jeff: This is the first time we're introducing Sonic's backstory! Iizuka: Baby Sonic is a young Sonic that hasn't appeared in games. In the movie, it’s shown how his experiences as a baby changed him, and how his personality was formed. The games feature an already grown up Sonic, so it's good that the story up to that point wasn’t very clear [in the games, allowing the movie team to be creative with Sonic’s backstory].

Nakahara: Baby Sonic is being compared to Baby Yoda's in Star Wars. They’ve become big rivals. Jeff: Let me tell you, Baby Sonic is an idea that we came up with before Baby Yoda was revealed (laughs). It takes time to make characters and CG... Nakahara: Baby Sonic’s design was created under the supervision of Mr. Iizuka, but the actual CG animation was created by Marza Animation Planet Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the SEGA SAMMY Group. Hollywood companies are included in the special visual effects of this movie, but Japanese companies such as Marza and Sega played a central role in the animation of Baby Sonic and Sonic. Toby: That's one of the great things about this film. As a fan of Japanese animation, a collaboration between Japan and the United States made me very happy.

Q: When you hear that it's a joint production movie between Hollywood and Japan, there are some movies that didn’t succeed, but this time it seems different. Nakahara: Most of the Japan-US collaboration in movies so far involved only the Japanese content holders signing IP licenses. So Japan doesn't get involved with the production, and they don't pay much for the production. As a lawyer, I've seen many contracts where you only get a license fee. That's not really the case. However, this time, we have invested in the production costs for Sonic, and we are on an equal footing with Original Film, the company that has produced the blockbuster movie series, Fast and the Furious, the director of "Deadpool," and Paramount Film Company. There was also a big discussion, "Can you do a movie with an equal partner with so many different creative visions?" That's a big risk. But in the end, including the terms of the deal, the decisive factor that brought all of us together was that Sonic needed to be a movie star. Sonic is a big star in America. Because of that background, we joined hands in conditions that everyone was satisfied with. As SEGA, they jumped over the license agreement and suddenly became an equal partner, and there was a mix of expectations and anxiety. As a lawyer, I've been involved in a variety of works, but I was able to establish a relationship of trust that surprised me, "How can we collaborate so well?". Of course, small issues have come up every day, but I feel that we have been able to overcome them comfortably throughout.

Q: Weren't you able to make a case against Hollywood because you Nakahara-san, are a certified American lawyer? Nakahara: I may not be the one to say it, but this all truly is Sonic. Everybody loves Sonic. Whenever some big development occurs, a lot of it can be attributed to Sonic. Sonic is like Tom Cruise in the way that he has this presence of greatness that makes him feel like a star from throughout the years. Q: Is there any reason for making it a hybrid movie? Jeff: I thought it would be more fun and more enjoyable for the audience to get into Sonic's sense of speed when it gets put into the live-action world. From Sonic's point of view, the world is always slow, but from a human perspective, he is always moving at super-fast speed. The important thing was to express the power and speed of Sonic in a fun way. The baseball scene in the trailer is my favorite, and he uses his speed to enjoy baseball alone. From a child's perspective, if you were to move at that speed, you would want to play all the positions yourself, right? Q: Sonic has established a star position in the West, but what do you think was the reason why Sonic is particularly popular with Westerners? Iizuka: Sonic is a character born in Japan, but from the beginning we were aware of the West. With a Californian image of the blue sky, blue sea, and palm trees, we added a sense of speed with a deep blue appearance. Sonic’s character of strongly sticking to his morals and to his justice without ever being affected by anything else was also a characteristic of Western characters. And also, Sonic’s World doesn’t take much elements from Japan, or Japanese culture. In fact, Sonic’s World is more Western, and the coolness of the Western people we always see around have been incorporated into Sonic's world, so it has been accepted by Westerners and supported so far. Sonic has always been western in nature, so our goal in a way has always been making Western-style games, create characters with Western-ness, and that eventually landed us a Hollywood movie... so I feel like I've finally arrived there in the 27th year.

Q: Please tell me about the character that Jim Carrey plays. Iizuka: Dr. Robotnik, the villain in the movie is called Dr. Eggman in the games, but in them, he has a round body and thin legs, and a figure that can’t be seen in a live-action human being. So if we wanted someone actually human, we had to create a new Doctor Robotnik look. Should Dr. Robotnik in the movie resemble Dr. Eggman from the games? Would they talk in a similar way? Jim Carrey splendidly created a new Doctor Robotnik! Dr. Robotnik always was a crazy scientist, but Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik is crazy, unlike anything we had imagined. That's very interesting. Did Jim Carrey bring half the fun for the movie? I think he played a really good Dr. Robotnik. Nakahara: Jim feels like a gentleman and a calm philosopher during the breaks. But once the camera turns, he becomes a different person and a lot of energy comes out.

Q: What are the highlights of this work? Jeff: Jim Carrey and James Marsden, of course, but the star of this film, Sonic, is definitely the highlight. Laughs, charming, confident and laid back. Fans will definitely enjoy it. There are many easter eggs. If you send me a list of how many you have found, I will tell you that there are still some that have not been found yet (laughs). Toby: It's a movie designed to be enjoyed over and over again, so every time you watch it, you'll discover something new. Also, Dr. Robotnik's dance! It's great!!

Q: Please tell us about your future plans for Sonic. Iizuka: This year, we finally made a movie about Sonic. That was one of my dreams, and since we are about to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sonic next year, many people will have been brought in by the movie, and then they’ll have more opportunities to come into contact with the series through the [30th Anniversary] game. I hope we can get you a better game. Sonic is evolving with the evolution of game technology, so I hope we can continue to release surprising game titles.

SPECIAL thanks to @dizzydennis for helping in the translation in some parts.

Source

#Sonic News #Sonic the Hedgehog #Takashi Iizuka #Sonic Movie #Toby Ascher #Jeff Fowler

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petersasteria · 4 years

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Think of Me - Tom Holland (2)

Pairing: rich kid!Tom x Reader, architect!Haz x Reader

Requested? Yes! From Wattpad x

This is for my 5k reads celebration on Wattpad.

Part 1 || Tom Holland Masterlist || Ultimate Masterlist

* * * *

Seven years. A lot can happen in seven years, but you and Tom kept your word; thinking of each other all the time. From each year that passed, Tom kept wondering about how you were doing, how the baby was doing. He mostly wondered about the baby, though. He wanted to know who the baby looked like and if it was a boy or a girl. You really went off the grid after the wedding. He tried to find you, but it's like you just disappeared.

He was utterly heartbroken and seven years later, he still is.

During those seven years, he and Anastasia became good friends. They relate to each other especially in the part of their lives where they had to break up with their lovers, because of the arranged marriage. All the mushy stuff was just for show for their families, but when it's only the two of them, they hang out like best friends.

Anastasia grew curious about you too, because Tom always talked about you. She also wondered what your baby would look like so together, they imagined what the baby would look like in their heads. Anastasia wanted to meet you too.

Like Tom, she also wondered about how her ex girlfriend was doing. Her ex girlfriend went off the grid too.

Sadly, they'll never know the truth.

The truth is, the day after the wedding, you and Leia, Anastasia's ex girlfriend, were called by Tom and Anastasia's parents.

"Hi, I'm Y/N." you smile at the girl next to you. She's the only nice thing in the meeting room you're both in. She looks at you and smiles back, "I'm Leia."

Just as you're about to talk, the door opens and in comes Nikki and Dom with Anastasia's parents. You knew it was them, because you heard Leia gulp in fear as soon as she saw them.

"Thank you for coming, ladies." Margot, Anastasia's mom says with a fake smile. "You both nearly ruined the relationship of our children, but we forgive you."

"Let's just cut to the chase," Dom starts. He glances at you and nods before talking, "We want both of you to disappear. Go off the grid or whatever you call it. We don't need you ladies ruining our plans for the company."

"We made a contract for you to sign." Nikki says, giving you and Leia the papers. "To summarize, the contract says that you will never be in contact with Tom and Anastasia. You are also not allowed to see them. We allowed you to enter their lives as lovers, but your time is up. I think I speak for all of us when I say, we want you out of their lives completely."

"You are not allowed to speak about this to anyone. This is absolutely top secret." Margot says sternly.

"I-I'm sorry, but I can't sign this." you say.

"Why not, Ms. Y/L/N?" Dom asks coolly as he looks at you with no sympathy. "Is there a problem?"

"Yes, actually." you take a deep breath, "I'm pregnant and it's Tom's. He deserves to be in his child's life."

"Keep your bastard child away from him and our family!" Nikki raises her voice. "It won't be good for Tom's image and he doesn't need a child at the moment. We'll only accept children from Tom and Anastasia. Now sign the goddamn contract or we'll send you to jail."

"You wouldn't want your child to be raised in jail, would you?" Dom asks. You shake your head as tears clouded your vision. "Then sign the papers."

You and Leia wordlessly sign the papers and after that, you and Leia received five thousand pounds each as a thank you for officially staying away from Tom and Anastasia.

You and Leia kept in contact and remained good friends. She constantly checked up on you when you were pregnant and she was there for you when you gave birth. She became your best friend! There was someone there for you too whenever Leia wasn't around. You met him when you were five months pregnant and he's been there for you ever since.

He's also your fiancé.

You were standing in line to buy yourself some hot chocolate at a café. You missed the taste of coffee, but the doctor said caffeine isn't good for the baby so you opted to drink hot chocolate everyday in lieu of coffee.

The man in front of you is ordering and is taking some time to order. Kind of annoyed and irritated (mainly because of your mood swings), you mutter under your breath, "You should've thought about your order before falling in line."

Unfortunately, he hears you and turns around. He had a scowl on his face but it quickly faded once he saw you. He smiled and turned to the cashier, "I'll take a latte; the large one please. Also, two slices of cake please. I'll have a red velvet."

He leans a bit closer to the cashier and whispers, "And ask the lady behind me what she wants to drink and what slice of cake she wants. Tell her it's already paid for." He smiles and hands the cashier an approximate amount of the bill.

You let out a sigh of relief when the man leaves and occupies one of the tables in the corner. You ordered your hot chocolate and you were about to pay when the cashier interrupts, "Your drink has already been paid for by the gentleman before you. He also bought you a slice of cake and instructed me to ask you what slice of cake you wanted."

"....Is that also paid for?" you ask, just to be sure. The cashier just nods. "Oh, okay. Um, I'll have a slice of Y/Fave/Cake."

Realizing that the man gave too much money, the cashier shyly asks if you could give him his change. You nod and made your way to the man who was smiling softly at you. He lets you sit in front of him and you gladly accept, because your back has been aching.

"Thank you for the treat." you smile as you give him his change. He nods as he puts the change in his wallet, "It's the least I could do for making you wait."

"I'm Harrison, by the way." he smiles. "And you are?"

"Y/N."

"I hope your husband won't kill me." he chuckles.

"Oh, I don't have a husband. I'm single, actually." you say softly, your mind drifting to Tom.

"I see." Harrison realizes that you probably don't want to talk about it, "Um, how many months are you pregnant?"

You glance at your belly and smile before looking at him, "Five months."

"Do you know the sex of the baby?"

"It's a boy."

Both of your orders arrive and you feel yourself getting comfortable around Harrison. You exchanged numbers after that and you met up a lot. You learned that he was studying to be an architect and that he's currently doing a year of work experience before getting a postgraduate degree.

He instantly became a part of your life and he held your hand when you gave birth to Theo.

After two years of friendship, he asked you to be his girlfriend. Of course you said yes. After five years of being together, he finally proposed.

Did he know about Tom? Yes, he did. You told him as soon as you said yes to being his girlfriend.

Did he know about the contract? Yes. You didn't want to hide anything from him.

Did he know about your letter to Tom? Yes.

Did he know that you still think of Tom? Yes. You didn't need to tell him. He just knew and somehow, it made you feel guilty. You love Harrison, but you still loved Tom. Your heart ached for Tom.

Harrison knew that too. It hurt him sometimes to know that you would think of another man; to think of being with Tom. He completely understood your love for Tom. But sometimes he just wants you to think of him too.

He kind of feels neglected, but he never told you that because he knew you'd feel guilty and that might result to you thinking of him out of guilt and not out of love. So sometimes when you're sleeping, he would silently cry himself to sleep.

Sometimes you hear him.

Sometimes you pretend you don't.

You felt really bad.

Regardless of what's going on in his head, Harrison loves you with everything in him and he loves Theo like his own son. Theo treats him like a father.

Theodore Hayden Y/L/N is an amazing kid. He's smart, he's talented, he's funny and he's really adorable. He doesn't really look like Tom, but if you look at him long enough, you'll see a resemblance.

You and Harrison love Theo and he loves both of you, his parents. You're a teacher for kids and Harrison is a successful architect. He bought you a house for the three of you to live in two years ago. You talked about expanding your little family before and Harrison loved the idea of kids running around with the family dog while both of you prepared snacks for the children in the kitchen.

You're at the grocery store with Harrison and Theo, because you needed food at home and Theo's 7th birthday is in three days.

"Tyler texted me, because he couldn't reach you. He's asking if you've decided on the center piece for the tables at the reception." Harrison informs you as he waits for your reply. Tyler is the wedding planner. You met him through Mitch, your co-worker. They're dating.

"Yes, I have. Tell Tyler that I-"

"Y/N?" you turn around to see someone who you were surprised to see.

"Anastasia!" you gasp. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"We just moved in the neighborhood." she smiles.

"Oh, welcome to the neighborhood, then." you smile back.

"Ana, I found the-" Tom stops in his tracks as soon as he sees you. "Y/N?"

You just stare at him. He was someone who you thought you'd never see again. Harrison wanted to kill himself at that moment. He just witnessed the love of his life seeing the love of her life. He could've sworn he heard her heart beat fast. It makes him wonder if your heart beats fast whenever you see him, if his appearance takes your breath away. He wonders why it hurts so much, but he realizes that when your heart hurts, it's because it's real.

His heart hurts, because after all this time, Tom is still your number one guy.

His heart hurts, because you don't love him as much as he loves you.

And maybe that's why he finally snapped.

He didn't react badly at the grocery store, In fact, he kept it under wraps. He would never want to humiliate all of you in a public place. He never spoke to you in the car which was weird and Theo was asleep. So as soon as you got home, you immediately asked what the problem was.

Harrison is putting the groceries away while you put Theo in his bed. You make your way downstairs and help Harrison, "Okay, cut the shit. What's wrong? I know something's wrong."

Harrison glares at you before looking away and mumbling under his breath. You roll your eyes and ask, "What's wrong, Haz?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

"I said it's nothing! Can't you just drop it?!" he raises his voice, knowing that if he yells, Theo will wake up.

"No, I'm afraid we can't. I'm your fiancé, goddammit! Why can't you just be honest with what's bothering you?" you say, matching his tone. "Is this about Tom?"

He just looks at you and stays quiet.

"Oh my god." you sigh heavily, "It is, isn't it? What the fuck is wrong with you?? He didn't make a move on me, did he? Haz, he's married and you know about the contract!"

"I know!" Harrison finally cracks as tears stream down his beautiful face, "It just hurts, because I saw the way you looked at him. It was so full of love and- and longing. You looked at him as if he was the last bucket of water in the desert. You don't look at me like that, Y/N."

He cries, "And I know you don't love me as much as you love him, but-" He gasps for air, "It's just so painful to know that if you were given a chance to pick between me and him, you wouldn't hesitate to run to him. That, above all, hurts the most."

"Sometimes I ask myself if I ever really matter to you or if I cross your mind sometimes, but then I realize of course you don't. You're too busy thinking about him and loving him that you forgot all about me." he sobs. You're staring at the broken man in front of you and you didn't know what to say.

"There are times when I've wanted to reach out to Tom and ask him, 'how come she loves you?'. I know it's stupid, but I just wanted to know how you were able to still love him while being with me. I also wanted to know what if felt like to be loved by you." he sniffs. "All my mates were telling me to leave you, but I didn't."

"Why didn't you?" you ask. If he was feeling this way for such a long time now, why didn't he leave you?

"Because when I imagined what my future would be like, you were in it. You're my future, Y/N. I planned on marrying you and having kids with you and just being domestic with you. And I love Theo like my own. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me. I love him as much as any father loves their son. I would do anything for him." he cries once more.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're only with me, because I'm the only one available. Sometimes I think that you're scared of leaving me, because you wouldn't have anyone else." Harrison sniffs and wipes his tears away.

"There's only so many times I can mend this heart and this time, the damage is so broken that even I can't mend it anymore." he sobs. "I'll stay at my mum's place for a few days. I'll leave alone to think. I'll come back when you tell me to, because I don't want to come back here and your mind isn't made up yet."

You didn't stop him, because he was right. You needed to think and it won't help if he was around. Harrison went up to your shared room and packed a few clothes in his duffel bag. He came down a few minutes later and you were cooking dinner.

"When I come back, I want to know if you still want to marry me." Harrison says softly. You look at him and frown, "You're leaving now?"

He gives you a tight-lipped smile and a small nod, "I'll see you in a few days." Harrison immediately leaves after that.

It's been a week since Harrison left and for the first time, you thought about Harrison and how he's doing. You wanted to know if he's hydrated or eating well. You're getting really worried about him, because ever since he left, he didn't text you for random updates like you normally would.

Today's the day of your scheduled cake tasting with Harrison and you wonder if he'll show up. You dropped off Theo at your parents' house and you drive to the venue of the cake testing where you see Harrison's car already parked there. You smile to yourself and immediately park your car and locking it.

You walk inside the venue and smile when you see Harrison talking to Tyler.

"The bride to be is here!" you were too busy looking at Harrison to realize that Tyler's looking at you. Harrison looks at you and smiles. You smile back and sit next to him. Tyler walks off to inform the baker about your presence, leaving you two some privacy. You lean and whisper in his ear, "I finally made up my mind."

Harrison looks at you and nods. He kind of already accepted it on the way there.

"You pick Tom."

"I pick you."

You look at each other and say, "What??"

"I thought you'll pick Tom?" he asks. You shake your head, "He's my first love, yes. First loves never really go away, but I'm ready to move forward with you... if you'll still take me back?"

"Of course. I'll pick you everyday, love." Harrison smiles and pecks your lips.

You're officially an Osterfield. It felt so great and everyone had fun at the reception. You and Harrison figured that it'd be best to open your gifts now and save the best for the honeymoon ;)

"Y/N, you got something from Tom."

"You mean for both of us?"

"Nope." he shakes his head and hands you a box, "Just you."

You shrug and take off the lid of the box. You recall that you did the exact same thing to Tom when he got married to Anastasia, you smile at the memory. Tom's gift is a scrapbook for you and him. You take scrapbook from the book and flip through the pages and smile. It was full of pictures and little notes. You look at the box to see an envelope. You glance at Harrison only to see him checking out the new things you've been gifted.

You take a deep breath before opening the envelope and unfolding the letter.

Dearest Y/N,

Congratulations on your wedding day! I wish you all the best and happiness in the world. I hope you liked my present, darling. It was hard to make with my tight schedule and all.

As promised, I thought of you all the time. There was never a day where I didn't think of you. I was also thinking about our baby too.

I assume it was him when I saw you again at the grocery store. He didn't look like the child I pictured in my head, but I didn't care. He's mine and it was such a great feeling to see him!

Tell Harrison I said thank you for being such a great man and lover for you, for being such a great father to Theo who isn't even his in the first place. It takes a lot of courage to do that and at this point, I salute Harrison.

Darling, please know that I'll always love you and I know that you'll always love me. But I think it's time for us to move on now. We could become friends again and I would love that. I want to be part of Theo's life.. or for the rest of his life (considering I never got to meet him for 7 years).

Harrison really loves you and I'm happy; I'm genuinely happy that you found a good man to settle down with. I want to get to know him. Is that alright? I figured we could become mates or something. He seems like a cool guy.

Anyway, congratulations again and have fun at your honeymoon.

I want to be a godfather HAHAHA!

I'll always love you and you'll always have a special place in my heart.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas x

* * * *

wow this is so long but I hope you guys liked it xx

lol i need sleep it’s nearly 3am so, im sorry for the typos

Feedback would be lovely x

Tagging my mutuals: @fanficparker @myblueleatherbag @sweetdespairbarnes @justasmisunderstoodasloki @tommysparker @lcvelyparkers @marvelousell @lovingsiriusoswald

#tom holland #tom holland one shots #tom holland imagines #tom holland blurbs #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic #tom holland x reader #rich kid!tom x reader #haz osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield x reader #in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh

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frywen-bumbles · 4 years

Text

The Way to a Man's Heart Goes Through His... Cat? Ch2

Days 6-7: Jaskier gets some unexpected messages and looks after house plants

AO3

Master of Music.

Jaskier loves the sound of it.

What he doesn't love is the half-empty document staring at him from his laptop screen.

'Historical Facts, Recent Myths, Current Connections: The Witchers in Historical and Contemporary Music'

He has all of his research material on hand. He has read through it. Several times. But writing the actual research down isn't happening.

Gods above how much he wishes he could just compose new songs and throw his brain out of the window. He doesn't even believe in any gods but if praying will help writing to happen he's willing to try.

Roach sits on top of the bookshelf, in one of her favourite places to... stare at him. And judge. Or maybe Jaskier feels like the cat is judging him. She hasn't warmed up to him during the first week at all, all she does is stare at him whatever he does but doesn't let him close enough to touch yet alone to brush.

"You know, Roachie if you won't let me touch you soon your owner will have to shave you naked when he returns."

Roach doesn't answer.

Of course, she won't answer. He must be going bonkers. Maybe a walk will help. He doesn't hold high hopes, everything is going shite anyway, what good could one walk do?

He snaps a quick silly selfie of himself and Roach and sends it to Roach's owner, like every day. It doesn't take long for the mark to turn blue to note the message has been seen. No answer, but at this point, Jaskier is not surprised. There has been no answer in the previous days, why break the tradition now? Some people just aren't made for small talk and Jaskier isn't going to force it. Not that he'd want to see the man. No, that would be ridiculous.

He gets lost in his thoughts, trying to figure out how to put together his thesis in some sort of coherent way as he walks to the nearby park. His phone buzzes in his pocket for a new message. He digs it out, not giving it much thought expecting to see a message from Essi or Pricilla. What he sees makes him almost drop his phone in his shock.

Cat dad answered? And with a photo?

A honk makes him realise he's standing in the middle of the road like an idiot and he crosses to the other side to reach the park. Only it feels like he doesn't need to have a walk anymore, this is more excitement than he's had in the entire week.

He opens the message.

A selfie with a blonde girl and a man stare back at him. He feels like his heart will stop.

"Essi?" Jaskier has to talk to someone. He knows he shouldn't, he promised absolute confidentiality. But he will burst if he doesn't talk about this to someone. He will absolutely without a doubt die.

"What is it, Buttercup?" Essi drawls like she has all the time in the world.

"Cat dad it insanely hot!"

"Whaaat? He texted back?"

"Yes! He's off the wall hot? I can't deal with this! How am I supposed to just sit working on his desk knowing what the man looks like? He will haunt my dreams, Essi!"

"Well, spill the tea! What does he look like?"

"You know I can't tell you, just know he's the hottest dude I have ever seen, okay? I can't deal with this. How am I supposed to write academic bullshite when his picture sits on my phone and I could just... look at it whenever I want to?

"Jaskier, for fucks sake. Your thesis is already a year late. You have been promised a place in the doctoral programme. If you keep sitting on your arse with this, instead of being the brightest student at the Uni, you will fail, understand? Get your shite together and stop falling in love with every person you happen to see."

"But, Essiiii... He's really hot!"

"I know, darling. Just keep it in your pants until you've finished with your thesis. Then I give you my permission to go chase the hot cat daddy."

"Melitele forbid, Essi, you're no fun. I wasn't going to chase him! I don't even know where he is. I just can't get over the hotness, okay?"

"Mm hmm, I know you too well. Get back to work or do I need to remind you why you took up pet sitting?"

"No. I'm sorry. I'll take a small walk and then get right back to writing, I promise."

Jaskier does not get back to writing.

He stares at the picture in his phone trying to figure out how a gorgeous man like that could have such an impersonal home. The man has his hair tied back in a messy bun, revealing an undercut which tells the milky white locks are natural. Jaskier didn't know he had a thing for blonds, but he sure as hell does now.

The girl's young, maybe around ten years old, Jaskier isn't sure. Kids aren't exactly his forte, all of his friends are still firmly stuck in their studies instead of having families of their own.

The picture had been taken by the girl, the grin wide on her face suggesting taking it had been her idea. But the soft smile the man has as he looks at the girl is melting Jaskier's heart.

If only someone would look at him like that he could die happy.

A crash from upstairs startles him enough to put down his phone and look at the time. Jaskier tries and fails not to fall into despair. He has wasted another day, not a single word written and how he wishes he could just throw up all of his ideas into coherent text but it is not happening.

He closes his laptop. It's no use. Going like this he'll never graduate.

Roach stares at him from the door, covered in dust and... definitely more dust.

"I'm a mess, aren't I, Roachie?"

Roach doesn't answer. Instead, she screams and runs downstairs, expecting him to follow like a good servant. His phone buzzes for a new message and Jaskier taps it open.

Remember to what the what now? He stares at the message, trying (and failing) to ignore the image above it.

"What the fuck?" he mutters to himself as he makes his way downstairs to stare at the house plants he has given no thought at all up to this point. On the windowsill in the kitchen is a lone cactus, right next to where Roach likes to sit and look to the yard. A cactus completely covered in cat hair and Roach is happy to provide how that particular thing happened. She jumps next to the plant and rubs her head against it, leaving even more hair on the spines.

"Brush the cactus. Okay then..."

Jaskier snaps a picture of the cactus and sends it to the group chat with Essi and Pricilla.

He gets no response. ... appears on the screen several times before crying laughing emojis fill the screen.

He goes to dig through the cabinet where he found cat things and discovers a comb.

"That'll have to do," he sighs and gets to combing the cactus, careful not to harm it. In the end, the cactus comes unharmed from the endeavour but unfortunately, Jaskier doesn't. His palm is adorned with spines he spends a good five minutes plucking out with tweezers.

<lmao>

<lmao???? I'm suffering and you're laughing??? Essi, Pris is being horrible>

Jaskier looks up from his phone when he hears water splashing. He doesn't even want to know what toy the cat has decided to drown now but if he doesn't hurry the whole kitchen will be filled with water.

Roach is happily playing with a toy mouse dunking it in her water bowl and tossing it around, spreading water everywhere.

"Roach, please? Could you just... not do that?" Jaskier begs as he fishes the mouse out of the water bowl and puts it to dry in a cabinet. "This may come as a surprise to you but I do not enjoy mopping the floors after you." He complains as he dutifully takes kitchen towels and dries the kitchen. At least it's better than the time Roach tucked the entire kitchen rug in the water bowl while he was out.

"You are a menace," Jaskier tells Roach after he has cleaned up everything. Roach meows.

Jaskier feels like he has barely fallen asleep when he wakes up. At first, he doesn't understand what woke him, but another yowl has him wide awake. What has him jumping out of the bed and run is the sound of pumping, like someone was trying to unclog a toilet.

"Roach you bastard, where are you? Please don't throw up on a carpet!!" Jaskier tries to find the cat based on the noise, stumbling in the dark. To his horror, the noise is coming from the second floor, where he was absolutely forbidden to go.

"Roaaaaach...!" he whines and makes his way up the stairs.

The view that awaits him when he flips the light on is totally unexpected. It is so unexpected Jaskier has to pinch himself to believe he's actually standing in a real room.

It is, and really the only way to describe it is every little girl's dream room. The room spans the entire second floor, ceiling low on the sides showing it was renovated from an attic, pinks, purples and blues adorning the furnishing.

And right on the middle of the white rug is the vomit.

"Fuck."

Jaskier collects the rug and carries it in the bathroom and spends an ungodly amount of time washing it, hoping against all the odds, the stain would leave.

It doesn't.

Come morning and Jaskier is sure it's all been a weird dream. Unfortunately for him, the stained rug awaits him in the bathroom when he goes to brush his teeth and he groans in frustration.

Roach meows at the closed door and scratches it until he lets her in so she can stare at him. Jaskier sighs and snaps a quick selfie, hair mussed and toothbrush still in his mouth and sends it. No need to prolong it, now he can hopefully focus on writing.

He's drinking his third cup of tea when his phone buzzes for a new message.

<Roach's hair is as messy as yours>

Jaskier stares at the message, sent from an unknown number.

<You're the girl! From the picture!> <I'm Julian but you can call me Jaskier> <Wait you shouldn't text strange men does your dad know you've texted me?>

<You're not strange you just told me your name> <I'm bored daddy went out with grandpa and im left with uncle> <Hes no fun> <I'm Fiona>

Jaskier doesn't know what else he's supposed to say. How does one talk with children? Just like normal people? Right?

Wait!

Jaskier comes to a sudden realisation; now he has the perfect opportunity to ask cheat codes for Roach to get the cat to, well maybe not like him but to tolerate him.

The screen fills with laughing emojis earning a sigh from Jaskier. No help then.

Of course, why hasn't he thought to give the cat cheese? Maybe because it doesn't make any sense. Who gives cat cheese when there are perfectly good cat treats available?

Nothing else about this makes any sense either and since writing isn't happening nor is Fiona texting anything else he makes his way to the fridge and digs out a block of cheese and cuts a piece.

Roach runs at him screaming. She thrills and screams and rubs herself against the drawer where all of her brushes are.

Roach doesn't purr when he combs through her fur, but feeding her bits of cheese every time she gets too annoyed helps and like a miracle Jaskier manages to brush a cat-sized pile of loose fur to show for his efforts. He gives Roach the last piece when he has finished and tries to pet her, but she sprints away from him with an annoyed meow.

Maybe Roach doesn't hate him as much as he thought after all.

#the witcher #the witcher fanfic #geralt of rivia #Jaskier #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #cirilla fiona elen riannon #frywen writes

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avieelliot · 3 years

Photo

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: aveline rosemary fox-harker (changed her surname to elliot once she got to america)

Nickname: avie

Race: white

Ethnicity: french, german

Nationality: english (UK)

Age: 34

APPEARANCE & MANNERISMS

Hair: straight, chestnut brown, reaches her shoulders

Eyes: blue-grey on the outside, hazel around the irises (central heterochromia)

Skin: fair and smooth

Height: 5'2" (157cm)

Build: slender, soft

Scent: jasmine

Gait: leisurely pace, often stops to literally smell roses, or just stare at a pretty view

Clothing/Style: flowy lines, muted colours, soft fabrics (silk, cashmere)

Style of Speech: soft, light voice, but commanding. like you know you’re supposed to stop and listen.

Key Possessions: she has very little attachment to material things. her dogs are her life.

CITIZENSHIP

Social Status: well liked, but little known

Occupation: veterinarian / sanctuary owner

Education: Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree

Residence: a quaint little apartment in a century home

PERSONALITY

Likes: animals, nature, good food, good wine, good conversation, walks in the woods, quiet meditation, stargazing

Dislikes: instability, dishonesty, greed, money, power, being told what to do

Hobbies: working at the animal sanctuary, volunteering at shelters, reading

Personality Summary: kind, altruistic, nurturing, guarded, stubborn, afraid

RELATIONSHIPS

Friends/Allies: TBD

Enemies/Rivals: Alessandro Di Natale, her ex-husband, most men.

Family: estranged from her disinterested parents and her long-lost brother

Romantic Interest: TBD

Pets: three rescue dogs, named Flora (a golden), Fauna (a husky mix), and Merryweather (english bulldog)

BIOGRAPHY

tw: child neglect

Nothing in Aveline’s life has ever been particularly stable, but the one comforting constant in her childhood was everyone always insisting that everything was completely fine. Her parents, devastated to be born a decade or two late to the hippie movement, dove headfirst into 80’s political activism - violence in the name of peace, or something along those lines. He went by Barkley Fox, she went by Buttercup Harker. They met during a riot, and they never slowed down.

Aveline herself was… a surprise, to say the least. Her parents were young and wild and free, but not quite smart enough to realize a child would change that. Or rather, that a child should change that. It didn’t change much for Buttercup and Barkley, who brought tiny Aveline to riots with them, smiling for the photojournalists, and reassuring nosy child welfare workers that everything was, as always, completely fine.

Sure, sometimes they forgot to pick her up from school until the sun had set, and they went on “vacations” to war zones, and she saw much more than any ten year old child should see the time they couldn’t find a babysitter and brought her to the Filthy Lucre tour. And yeah, maybe sometimes they went out and didn’t feed her, or they tried to cure infections with leaves and tree bark, or she missed a couple months of school here and there… but everything was fine, they had it all under control. She was a free spirited child, like them.

Needless to say, everything was not completely fine. Aveline wasn’t fine. She was lonely, and scared, and small. She was forgotten about by the people who were supposed to love her most. The only reason she ever learned what real love was, is because her grandmother (with whom her parents would often drop her for undisclosed amounts of time) had an animal sanctuary.

The animals were hurt. Wounded birds, orphaned squirrels, that kind of thing. They were small, and scared, and lonely. Forgotten about by most of the world. Aveline’s previously unused heart filled up with the love of these tiny helpless creatures, and she found her calling.

When she was eleven, another tiny helpless creature was dropped in Aveline’s lap. His name was Elliot Fox-Harker - her new baby brother. Their parents didn’t know what to do with him any more than they’d known what to do with her. But she was old enough to babysit now, they decided. So they left their oldest child alone to parent their infant. Avie was overwhelmed, and even more scared than before. Somehow, she kept Elliot alive - with the help of their brilliant grandmother. But she was a baby herself, and their grandmother was blind, and it took three years before anyone noticed that Elliot couldn’t hear them. He was deaf.

Aveline was fifteen then. She knew what she had to do. She called the NSPCC Helpline and reported her own parents for child endangerment. The people who came to rescue her brother ripped him, screaming, from her arms, and though she knew she’d done the right thing, to this day, she can’t escape the guilt of that. Elliot was the only person in the world who loved her and needed her, and she let him down. She loved him as much as she resented their parents, so when she moved to America, she changed her last name for him.

She was sent to live with family in Brooklyn, and really struggled to finish high school there. The distraction of her guilt and sadness mixed with the combined years of school she’d missed in her tumultuous childhood meant she was constantly behind... but she put all of her time and energy into studying. The other students in New York were interested in her - they saw her as a mystery of a person with a pretty face and a cute accent, and were fascinated - but she couldn’t relate to any of them. They wanted her to go to parties and pep rallies, but the only person she found herself relating to at all was the weird quiet kid with his walkman on.

After graduation, she went back to England and studied veterinary medicine in London, almost reaching the top of her class. Almost. Top 5%, anyway. But it was an incredible achievement for someone who statistically shouldn’t have survived childhood. She was on top of the world when she graduated... until she realized that she had no idea where to go from there. She was entirely alone in, and besides wanting to be a vet and not wanting to think about her family, she’d never had any real plans. Her mind reeled with images of herself turning into her parents - lost and forever wandering - and she panicked… until she met The One.

He was American - the CEO of his own company, a self-made man. He was gorgeous and charming and driven and best of all: he was stable. She figured the best decision she could make in her life would be to find someone who craved the same stability and authenticity she needed, and to be a team. The exact opposite of her parents. So when he proposed, she said yes.

And when every red flag in the world popped up and waved itself in her face, she smiled, went to work, and constantly insisted that everything was… completely fine.

She had a job she loved, her own veterinary practice in Portland, Maine, a big goofy dog named Flora, and what she thought was real love. She was happy. All the warning signs and nagging thoughts were just echoes of her parents’ voices telling her she needed to be free, and she shouldn’t tie herself down. She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t listen. For seven years, she went through the motions, comatose, hibernating, putting up with more bullshit from him than even her parents could carry. Then one day he came home from a business trip. He’d barely set his bags down when she said it.

“I know you don’t love me. And I know you never really did.”

She was talking to him, but she also saw her parents as she said it.

Everything broke, then. He broke, she broke, the walls that they’d both been carefully building, the personas they’d been curating, all of it, just crashed to the ground with a violent, angry, thunderous bang.

She tried to move on. After the divorce finalized, she tried to have hope, and to try again to find the stable, true, safe Forever Love she still believed was out there. She met a beautiful boy named Alessandro, reeling from heartbreak himself, and thought that maybe this time it could last. He made her feel beautiful, and wanted, for the first time, really, ever... and then he broke her heart.

She gave up entirely after that. She moved to Boston with Flora, adopted two more dogs (Fauna and Merryweather) and poured herself once again into work and nothing else. The animals were the only important thing - they could bite her, but they couldn’t break her heart. She was kind to people, but kept them at a distance, not willing to risk falling into the trap of love again.

Earlier this year, she was offered a job at Familiar Friend Veterinary Clinic, and moved to Salem. She’s has opened her own animal sanctuary for hurt/abandoned pets and wildlife in the area, and has even ventured to make a friend or two. She’s wounded, but in rehabilitation, and she’s sure she’ll fly again soon.

#srphqintro

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kindred-is-obsessed · 5 years

Text

Reasons you should be watching Craig of the Creek

Not enough people are watching this wonderful show, so I thought I’d do my best to introduce people to it. It’s made by former Steven Universe crew Ben Levin and Matt Burnett, so if you’re missing Steven Universe while it’s on hiatus this is a great way to keep away the hiatus blues, or if you just enjoy in cartoons. It’s great for a whole list of reasons, which broadly fall into the two categories of great representation and great storytelling:

Canonical queer representation

- The witches premiere in the episode The Curse. If you aren’t sure if you want to watch this whole show definitely watch this one at least! It’s my absolute favourite not least of all because it’s about teen goth girls in love. It has a sequel The Last Kid in The Creek which is also wonderful, and the witches cameo throughout the series. I don’t want to spoil too much but The Curse is essentially about the two not wanting to be separated and struggling to admit their feelings for each other. (Spoilers: they do and walk off alone, blushing, staring at each other lovingly, while the kids aww at them)

- Bernard and his girlfriend watch a cooking show hosted by a gay couple.

- Other cameos, hints and coded queer kids such as JP’s sister (who has fancy dinner reservations with Kat, a woman with a shaved head who compliments Kelsey’s fake sword). There’s also Raj and Shaun (two very close friends), as well as several very boyish tomboys, including Handlebarb and Turner.

- All public bathrooms I’ve spotted in the show have gender neutral signs on them which is nice.

POC representation

- Craig, the main character, is black and has a loving family explored in depth, including an activist grandmother working for the council, a wise and fun grandfather, a supportive fun dad who loves his amazing wife, an adorable assertive little sister, and an angsty overachieving older brother who just wants to be a good grownup who loves his family and girlfriend.

- There are MANY characters of colour. There are black and brown characters, Raj is Indian, Stacks is Hispanic (and it’s implied she is an immigrant), there are several Asian characters, Kelsey is Hungarian and Jewish, a persistent background character wears a hijab (I’m pretty sure she was named at some point but I can’t find her name anywhere. She definitely has lines at one point). I’m sure there are others I have missed. No one is a stereotype as far as I am aware.

Subtle neurodivergent representation

- JP is possibly on the autism spectrum. I’d love neurodivergent people’s opinions on this, but while the representation isn’t canonical or obvious I think it’s good that while JP is represented as having different thought processes from his friends, he isn’t made fun of for it, at least not by them. It’s noteworthy I think that he’s the eldest of the core trio, probably because he finds it easier to relate to younger people who still share his imagination and care less about his unique way of thinking. His neurodivergence is explored most explicitly in the episode Jextra Perrestrial, so if you’re interested in this kind of representation definitely check that episode out.

Non-nuclear family representation

- While the main character is a member of the typical nuclear family you see on TV (except black, and actually interesting) most of the other families we see are not.

- JP is raised by his mother and older sister. His father is never mentioned and their house is definitely in worse condition than the others we see. His family works hard to take care of each other. His sister is a nurse and both her and her mother are away a lot of the time, but they both love JP very much. JP’s sister also happens to be really openly body positive. I love them a lot.

- Kelsey’s father is an only parent. There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding how Kelsey’s mother passed away. It’s a very subtle but important part of Kelsey’s character and comes through in really bittersweet adorable ways (not limited to Kelsey using her “half-orphan”ness to guilt trip a man into giving her money)

- Other kinds of families are scattered throughout the show, including families that move around a lot, a home-school kid with a strict mother, and more.

Unique approach to fantasy and sci-fi

- You know how most kids show will take a kid’s fantasy and bring it to reality? Well Craig of the Creek keeps the fantastical and nostalgic element of that line of thinking but never confirms or denies whether the kids fantasies are real or in their heads. And not in a Scooby Doo way where the fantastical elements are explained away, but are hinted as a possibility right at the very end. Instead, two perspectives (the fantastical perspective and the realistic perspective) are woven into every episode.

- This means there are two ways to interpret every episode. You can view the witches as real witches, or as goth teenagers. You can view Helen as a kid from another dimension, or a home-school kid who is never at the creek at the same time as the other kids. You can view Deltron as a cyborg from the future, or as an imaginative kid from a big city.

- This is super unique and fun to watch. They come up with so many new ideas and its always fun to figure out what’s actually happening, while still getting to relive childhood fantastical nostalgia.

- Almost all of these episodes use this to talk about an issue, but these issues can get quite complex and are definitely not shoved down your throat.

Overarching mystery plot about a colonialist kingdom / cult

- Love the slow burn storytelling of Steven Universe’s Diamond Authority? Love putting together the mysteries of Gravity Falls? Then you’ll love this plot about colonialism, classism, bullying, peer pressure and more and its mysterious build up including cryptic graffiti art and flower symbolism.

- Even before this arc properly begins, Craig of The Creek primarily centers around the microcosm of the Creek. Many of the episodes have a lot of commentary on society, politics and how different factions of people form and interact.

- The show is over 50 episodes in and this arc is only just starting to kick off so now is the time to catch up and watch.

- Fun complex villain(s)

Complex relatable characters

- Want commentary and nostalgia about horse girls, children’s tea parties, weird kids, angsty teens, young weebs, dweebs and more!? Every childhood obsession is represented in this show.

- Adults! All the parents and older teens in this show are just as rich and complex as the kids. They are all so interesting and fun.

- Want characters with arcs, aims, fun relationships and complexity!? Look no further! Redemption arcs! Revelations! Found family! It’s all here!

Great art and soundtrack

- Cute background and character designs that make you nostalgic as hell and are also beautiful and well thought out.

- Sometimes the art design is changed up for a particular episode to portray a certain fantastical / sci fi element. It’s very fun and engaging.

- An opening song that’s fun to sing along to, bittersweet ending song that makes me want to cry, a couple of musical episodes including a super fun rap musical episode, and a great OST

Queer headcanons

- There are tons of ways to interpret the show but here’s some of my head canons just to get an idea.

- (Note that despite my headcanons I use the pronouns for the kids that they use in the show cause I’m not certain about any of it and they’re kids who haven’t come out yet and also for clarity and consistency’s sake – I’m not saying trans people are not their genders. Don’t worry I’m nonbinary)

- I headcanon that all the main trio grow up to realise they are queer. They strike me as that weird group of friends that doesn’t fit in with the other kids and aren’t quite sure how they all came to be friends, only to later realise they all showed early signs of breaking gender roles and that’s why they stuck together.

- Craig definitely grows up to realise he’s gay, bisexual or queer. His admiration for characters like Deltron and Green Poncho are definitely crushes that he mistakes for a strong sudden and eager desire for friendship.

- Kelsey probably grows up to realise she is nonbinary, a trans boy or a WLW. I mostly headcanon this because I relate to her a lot and I’m nonbinary and queer so I said so. She reminds me a lot of myself as a kid. She throws herself into books, mostly fantasy for escapism. She fantasises and writes a lot for the same reasons. She dresses like a tomboy (She always wears her hair up in the same bun which strongly reminds me of my own childhood hair dysphoria) and she hangs out solely with male friends.

- JP gives me strong trans lesbian vibes, or to a lesser extent nonbinary vibes. (I know his sister is WLW coded but take it from me there can be more than one queer in a family). He is interested in girls, specifically Maney the horse girl (he even joined the horse girls for one episode). He wears a long V-neck shirt that is essentially a dress ALL the time. He’s aware that he’s different and while self conscious sometimes, mostly just wants to express himself the way he wants to. He also chooses to go by initials JP over his very gendered name Johnathan Paul (In a recent episode he names a ship after himself, calling it “The SS Johnathon Paulina”).

- (Sidenote if you do start watching this show and I see any nasty shipping of these characters in non puppy-love fashion so help me god)

Other reasons

- The show is at times very intertextual and references Princess Mononoke, Super Smash Brothers, Sailor Moon, Lord of the Rings, and a billion other things. It also has some fun cameos, including background images of the Tres Horny Boys from The Adventure Zone, a TARDIS from Doctor Who, and a Cookie Cat from Steven Universe.

- Honestly, this post hasn’t done the best job explaining why I love this show so much. You honestly just have to watch an episode to understand fully what I’m talking about, so give it a go! Watch The Curse at least, it only goes for 10 minutes.

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prolestariwrites · 4 years

Text

Interlude

Fandom: Devil May Cry Rating: T Characters: Nero, Kyrie, Nico Tags: Canon-related, Hurt/Comfort, Angst Words: 1918

Summary: Nero wakes up in the hospital to find his arm is gone and his future thrown into chaos. But there are two people there to help in completely opposite ways.

Just a oneshot about what I think happened after Nero is hurt pre-DMC5. Thanks to @solynacea for feedback on this. Please enjoy.

Also posted on AO3

Freak.

“No…”

You’re evil. You’re a demon.

“Please… Kyrie…”

Do you even know what you are?

“Kyrie!”

“I’m here, I’m here. Shhh, it’s okay.” Hands press to his forehead, soothing and soft. “You’re safe, it’s okay.”

“Kyrie?” Nero opens his eyes, the too harsh light making him wince, and he peeks through his lashes as Kyrie’s face swims into view. “What happened?”

She doesn’t answer, instead wrapping her arms around him, leaning over to press her face to his neck. He can feel her quietly crying, the sound making his stomach turn the way it always does. He frowns in confusion, trying to lift his own arms so he can hug her close. But his entire body hurts all of a sudden, his limbs too heavy, so he turns his head to rub his cheek against her hair with what little strength he has. “Hey, it’s okay,” he sighs. His voice cracks, his throat dry. “What happened? Can you tell me?”

Kyrie lifts her head, tears rolling down her face as she smiles. Nero realizes he is laying in a bed as she strokes his cheek, but it’s not his own. Hospital, he immediately thinks. The smell of disinfectant fills his nose and he groans internally at how much this will cost.

“You were attacked,” she whispers.

“A demon?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It was gone. You were screaming…”

Her voice fades, and Nero swallows uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Bits and pieces come back in images: he was in the garage, working on the van. A silhouette in the door. Kyrie cooking something inside.

Then the rest comes, and he jerks out of Kyrie’s touch to look, his eyes widening and a strangled kind of sound escaping him when he sees bandages where his cursed arm should be. “You’re okay,” Kyrie says in a rush, her hands still trying to soothe him. Nero can feel the blood rushing from his face as he stares. “You’re alive. We thought you were dead, there was so much blood. But you’re alive.”

“What the fuck?” he breathes. He remembers the strange man who had stumbled in, looking for change and maybe a meal, and his arm glowing as warning bells went off in his head. Kyrie called his name and he reached out to tell her to stay out—then it grabbed him.

Nero’s back spasms in pain as he remembers flying through the air and hitting the shelves. “It’s okay,” Kyrie murmurs. Gently she pulls his face towards her, and Nero blinks up at her. “Hey. Stay with me,” she says, firmly this time.

“I’m… I’m fine,” he says, his heart beating too fast.

“The doctors stopped the bleeding. You’re healing fine. They gave you stuff to keep you asleep so you wouldn’t be in pain, so we were just waiting for you to wake up.” Kyrie’s smile seems genuine this time, and he tries to settle back and keep it together in front of her. “Please rest,” she says quietly. “I’m going to let the nurse know you’re awake, and see if I can get Dante.”

“Dante?” Nero frowns in confusion.

“Yeah. I called him when you got here, but I haven’t been able to reach him.”

“Why would you call him?”

Kyrie sighs, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “I’m sure he’d want to know.”

She stands and leaves the room, keeping the door open. Nero glances around, taking in the stark white walls and the ugly yellow tile. She probably took him to the new hospital in Fortuna, built after the Order had left their main one damaged beyond repair. His mind starts to spin a million miles a minute, overwhelmed with questions. How long has he been here, asleep? Did Kyrie drive, or did she call an ambulance? She must have been so scared… Nero makes a fist, anger pulsing in his veins at the idea. He swore to protect her, and after they had been used by the Order, he had promised himself that she’d never be that afraid again. Now he is injured, in the hospital, and she has to take care of him and everything else on her own.

He closes his eyes, trying to fight off panic. What the hell is he going to do now, with only one arm? He can’t fight demons this way, and without that he’s out of a job. Once Dante finds out, he’s not gonna let him run the mobile branch, and he can forget his contracts in Fortuna. Why the hell would something just take just his arm?

Freak… Demon…

No, that was a dream, the same one that he has always had ever since he was a kid. Nero groans as he tries to think, tries to remember, and the nightmare that he was having before he woke up swirls through his thoughts, making it a jumble, scattered in pieces from whatever the doctors had given him. He remembers a blue light, cutting through the air itself. What even was that? It looked like some kind of portal, made using his arm. Only his arm had… changed somehow?

What demon would know the truth about him? Hell, he didn’t even fully understand it.

“Hey, you really are awake!”

He jerks out of his thoughts to see Nico standing at the door, her hands behind her back. She grins and steps forward, pulling a bouquet of flowers out to show him. “Brought you these. They’re nice, aren’t they?”

She presses her face to the flowers and takes a deep breath as she smells them, and Nero asks, “What are you doing here?”

Nico huffs. “Some gratitude. You scared us half to death, you know that?” She puts the flowers on the bed tray and wheels it away so she can drag a chair over. “Never saw a guy lose an arm before. Does that happen a lot?”

She plops in the chair and stretches her legs out. “Yeah, all the time,” Nero hisses. “I just grow a new one each time.”

Her eyes pop wide. “Get the hell out of here!”

“Nico, what do you want?” He feels exhausted, but she usually leaves him tired and agitated on a good day.

“I told you, I wanted to see how you were.” She actually seems serious, tilting her head to examine him. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Nero confesses. “I’m not in pain, just like I got hit by a train. Then the train ripped off my arm.”

Nico snorts. “So dramatic. Doctor says you’re healing fine. Really fast too. You uh…” She nudges his bed with her foot. “You always heal like that? Faster than a human does? Normal one anyway.”

Nero shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, I’ve always been—”

“We never talked about that arm of yours,” she interrupts. He shoots her a warning look, but Nico ignores him, her hands moving as she talks. “You know, how it was all weird and blue and glowy.”

“It’s gone now,” he growls. “No need to talk about it.”

“Right.” She pulls out a cigarette and slides it between her lips, but she only leaves it hanging there, thankfully not lighting it. They fall into an uncomfortable silence, and Nero scowls at the ceiling, wondering how he can tell her to get lost without being too rude. He really is tired now, and can feel sleep pressing on his head, fighting a bit to keep his eyes open. Before he can think of something to say, she asks, “So what’s the plan now?”

Nero rolls his eyes. “I have no idea. Why, you got one?”

“Sure do.” She leans forward, and he eyes her suspiciously as she uses two fingers to pluck the cigarette out before propping her elbows on her knees. “You know that research you gave me? Mentioned you in it.” Nero frowns as she nods towards his bandaged arm. “That too. Got some ideas. Doctors probably will want to give you a prosthetic, but I think I can do better. Make you better. Plus, you’ll need help. Kyrie can’t run that wild household of yours on her own while you recover. And I need a place to stay.” She grins at him. “Interested?”

Nico waits as he considers. They had just met a couple of weeks before, and honestly he found her pretty annoying. Knowing she was Agnus’ daughter didn’t help things, either. Yet Kyrie had embraced her like she was some long-lost cousin or something despite what Agnus had done to them, and to Credo. As is often the case, Nero makes his decision based on what he thinks Kyrie would do, so he nods slowly. “Maybe, yeah. What do you want?”

“We go half,” she says. “You got this Devil May Cry thing going on, right? I’ll make your weapons, help you out. I’m an excellent driver, and I got a real sweet van.”

Nero grits his teeth. He already gives Dante a cut, and if Nico takes a part too, that means less money. But he could use the help, especially now. “Not half. I’ll give you ten percent. I’m the one busting my ass and risking my life.”

Nico laughs. “Twenty-five percent. And you pay for the special gadgets separately.”

“Okay. But you gotta do something for me.”

She shrugs. “Sure, what?”

“Kyrie is trying to get in touch with Dante. He’s the one who is in charge of the Devil May Cry.” Nico’s brows go up in surprise. “I don’t want him to know what happened. Not yet, anyway. It’s uh… bad for business. Can you keep her from calling him?”

Nico stares at him for a minute before blinking out of a daze. “Dante, huh? Dante who?”

“Does it matter?” he snaps.

They gaze at each other for a long moment, and Nero can feel the secrets growing. But he’s not ready to tell her everything: his past, his arm, what really happened in Fortuna. And he for damn sure isn’t ready to explain who Dante is, especially since Nero doesn’t understand it himself. It’s been three years since Fortuna was wasted by the Order, and in that time getting to know Dante and working with him has only made things more confusing, made more questions that needed answers. But deep down he cares what Dante thinks of him, and has kept from asking those questions in case they were met with derision, or worse, led to Dante ditching him. Plus, he figured if there was something worth knowing, Dante would have told him.

More secrets, he thinks, and his head aches as he studies Nico. Does she recognize his annoyance for the fear it actually is? Her eyes are laced with suspicion, and he can see the wheels turning in her head, like she wants to ask something.

“Guess not,” Nico finally says, but there is something weird in her voice he can’t pinpoint. “Yeah, I’ll make sure he stays away.”

“Good.” With that decided, he sighs and closes his eyes. “You really think you can make me a better fighter?”

“Hell yeah!” she cries excitedly, and Nero chuckles. “My old man was an asshat, but he left some good notes. And I know how to make a damn weapon. Combine the two and you got some real work of art shit going on. You ever heard of a Devil Arm?”

“No,” he sighs, sleep pulling him under as he listens to her drone on about demons and guns.

#dmc #devil may cry #nerokiri #dmc nero #dmc kyrie #dmc nico #nero sparda #fanfiction #myfic #oneshot #interlude

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miscellaneous-miraculous · 4 years

Text

Painted Lady Chapter 4 - Threads and Jesters

Sorry it's a bit longer than usual, some scenes in this chapter were being difficult. I'm still not 100% satisfied but at this point I just need to move on or I'll never publish it XD Hope you enjoy! - Min

Read on AO3 here

“Hey, Tikki, do you think going out to dinner next Tuesday would be okay?” Marinette set down her tape measure and pulled down her schedule. She’d gotten into the habit of making one every month during collège and marking down events for all her classmates. Balancing only four or five schedules at a time now was a piece of cake. “Most of the festivities should be wrapping up by then and celebrating the end of classes would be a good way to keep Adrien’s mind off things.”

"You could ask your parents about using the bakery,” Tikki added. “It’ll be easy to keep any triggers away there and Adrien loves baking.”

“And you love cookies,” Marinette giggled, poking Tikki. “That’s a great idea though.”

“I should hope so, ideas are my domain.” Tikki handed Marinette her phone.

“Along with – aiyah!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nino sent me a text twenty minutes ago about an akuma!” Marinette said, sending a quick reply before transforming and leaving from the balcony. One of the things they looked for when apartment hunting had been an easy exit for superheroing. Nino had been thinking along the lines of a window that was open to a more secluded area, but Adrien had wanted a balcony specifically and Marinette had gone along with it, remembering how convenient her own at the bakery had been. Later she’d found out his real reasoning.

Their first anniversary there had Adrien dramatically reciting love declarations from below. Her birthday had been a poem. Valentine’s was a candle-lit picnic like the one he’d set up for her all those years ago. You know you love it, Bugaboo Adrien’s voice teased in her head as she felt her cheeks flare up at the memory of his last attempt at poetry. The rose he’d given her was still sitting in a vase on her desk – soon she’d have to decide if she wanted to press it or dry it out.

Focus, there’s an akuma on the loose!

She spotted Chat Noir first, standing beside – Ladybug? No, she shook her head, scanning around until she found Rena Rouge, hidden behind a nearby tree with her flute. Carapace was holding up Queen Bee, who looked rather dazed, and the akuma was addressing Chat Noir and the Illusion-bug. As she moved closer, Ladybug recognized Lila’s voice coming from the akuma. “Hand over the miraculous to me. Otherwise, all of Paris will suffer, starting with your pathetic little sidekicks. I’ll finish them off one by one until the entire city sees how weak and useless you are. Then, once you’re all alone with your reputation in tatters, I’ll rip the miraculous from your ears myself.” Ladybug tried to push away the images her brain began conjuring. Lila hadn’t succeeded in her threats during collège and lycée – she wouldn’t succeed now.

“You’ll never win, Lila!” Illusion-bug shouted. Carapace spotted the real Ladybug and made a motion to his head. The hairbow.

“Oh, Ladybug, haven’t you heard? It’s Painted Lady now.” The akuma raised her signpost, but before she could do anything else, Ladybug swooped in and snagged the hairbow, landing beside Chat Noir and Illusion-Bug. “No!” the akuma snarled.

“Yes,” Ladybug grinned, breaking the object and allowing the butterfly to escape. The Illusion-bug vanished with a bow as the real Ladybug captured the akuma.

“Lucky charm!” Ladybug called and a small plastic horse fell into her hands. “Miraculous ladybug!”

As the ladybugs began repairing everything, she turned to Chat Noir. “Sorry I was late.”

“Nothing new, right?” Chat Noir teased. Ladybug rolled her eyes, giving him a playful shove.

“W-what happened? Where am I?” the girl asked. She looked six or seven at most, a floral-patterned band-aid on one knee and a bit of dirt smudged on her nose. Tears began welling up in her eyes, “I want my mommy!”

“We’ll help you find her, I promise,” Chat Noir said gently, leaning down so they were eye level. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Camille,” Chat Noir smiled. “You were akumatized. What’s the last place you remember being?”

“At the – at the park,” she sniffled. “The mean kids were teasing me, t-they said I was too little to play with them because I’m not strong enough, but I’m super strong! I help my mommy all the time.”

“I’m sure you do,” Chat Noir said. “Your mommy is really lucky to have such great helper.” Camille smiled at that and Ladybug thought her heart might melt from the cuteness.

“I’m going to lie down,” Queen Bee whispered, pulling Ladybug’s attention from the girl. While her miraculous cure fixed everything, it didn’t erase injuries so much as heal them. They’d discovered that when Adrien had needed to get glasses and the doctor had asked how he had sustained so many repeated head injuries. When Adrien admitted he wasn’t sure, she’d explained that they’d seen several cases where there was evidence of akuma related injury that had been quickly healed, not removed. Ladybug thought it would have been nice to know that sooner.

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t pass out on the way or anything,” Carapace added. “Meet back at the apartment after.”

“Okay, Rena, Chat, and I will take care of Camille.”

When Ladybug turned around, Camille had a firm grip on Chat’s hand, “Camille says we’re looking for a park with a carousel and a fountain.”

“With ducks!” she added.

“With ducks,” Chat Noir nodded seriously. “She was also very clever in figuring out the lucky charm.”

“My mommy said to meet by the carousel if one of us got lost and Chat Noir said your lucky charm was horse and the carousel has horses!” Camille was bouncing on her toes, her smile showing off a missing tooth.

“Good job, Camille,” Ladybug said. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome!”

Before they could move, several news vans pulled around to corner and Camille shrunk closer to Chat Noir, partially hiding behind his legs. “Chat, why don’t you take Camille to her mom? Rena and I will stay behind to answer questions. I’d rather get some answers out now before people have a chance to panic and rumors begin flying around.”

“Is that okay with you, Camille?” the girl nodded, still tightly clinging to his hand. Chat turned to Ladybug, taking her hand with his free one and kissing the back of it. “Farewell, my lady, I shall count the moments till I can see you again!”

It seemed to have the desired effect with Camille giggling and Ladybug rolling her eyes, unable to hide the pink dusting her cheeks.

“All the cheese Plagg eats must go to his brain,” Rena laughed as he vaulted away.

“I’d agree if he wasn’t like all the time anyways,” Ladybug said, unable to wipe the fond smile from her face as they moved towards the reporters. She recognized many of them by now, though there were a few new faces in the mix. Not for the first time, Ladybug wished she could do every interview with Alya. It was easier when she could think of it as just talking with her friend, and when she was able to watch the footage before Alya posted. Otherwise she usually ended up in a spiraling panic in their apartment because she couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said or what her expression had been. It had gotten better over the years, but interviews still weren’t her favorite thing.

“Ladybug! Ladybug! Was that an akuma just now?”

“I thought you had defeated Hawkmoth?”

“What happened?”

“Is Gabriel Agreste responsible for this? What about his son, Adrien?”

“This was an akuma,” Ladybug said evenly, trying to keep her temper under control. She hated when they brought Adrien into it. A small voice in the back of her head reminded her they didn’t know Adrien was Chat Noir. They didn’t know just how ridiculous the claims of his helping Hawkmoth were. They didn’t know he’d been forced to arrest his own father and testify twice at the trial. They didn’t know.

continue on AO3

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elizadoolittlethings · 4 years

Text

Graves is a prime example of the coda “action is character.”

Rupert Graves as Harold Guppy in Philip Doodhue’s Intimate Relations. Photo by Sally Miles. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. [x]

Rupert Graves by

Nicole Burdette

BOMB 61Fall 1997

full interview

[MORE]

Whether he’s sucking on hard candy, contemplating suicide, or limping slightly in boots two sizes too big, Rupert Graves is ever graceful. At once a mixture of the violent and the poetic, Graves’ film characters are compared to the kings of the tortured handsome, Montgomery Clift and John Keats. It’s an odd and wonderful thing to spend the afternoon with a stranger speaking of the near obscurity and perfection of Robert Donat, Che Guevara’s hands, and what exactly it is to be brave.

Graves is a prime example of the coda “action is character.” He, like all great actors, is highly physical. We can see his characters—literally we recognize them. In Intimate Relations, Rupert as Harold Guppy clings to Julie Walters, feeding himself sugar cubes like a child. In Mrs. Dalloway, his Septimus Warren Smith stumbles through life; again, literally and emotionally. It is all the way Rupert Graves turns his characters inside out, so what you see is what you get. He manages to become Virginia Woolf’s subconscious—he materializes the description of his character, Septimus: “…with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too.” Graves has five films coming out this fall: Mrs. Dalloway with Vanessa Redgrave, Different For Girls, The Revengers’ Comedies with Kristen Scott Thomas and Helena Bonham Carter, Bent, and Intimate Relations with Julie Walters, for which Graves was awarded the Best Actor Award at the 1996 Montreal Film Festival. But that is just this year, his other credits include extensive work on British television and other films: Louis Malle’s Damage, Nick Hytner’s The Madness Of King George; and Merchant Ivory’s Maurice and A Room With A View. In addition to his film work, Graves has consistently worked on the London stage, where he is returning this fall to do Hurly Burly.

Nicole Burdette Now, how did you grow up?

Rupert Graves I grew up in a little English town in a poor-ish family. I went to a comprehensive school which is the same as public school here, I think. My father was a bit posher than my mum, who was a working-class girl from Wales. He’s a pianist.

NB How did they meet?

RG My mum used to sing in amateur shows. They met at a choral society that my dad used to conduct. She saw him, and she can’t have thought, “What a beauty,” so it must have been, “What a genius,” because she loved the music.

NB Were you musical as a kid?

RG No, no. I was brought up quite religiously Catholic and was a choir boy and an acolyte. I used to sing, but it’s a horrible sound.

NB I read that you were in the circus.

RG Yes, I joined when I was 15. I had just left school.

NB How did that idea come to you?

RG It didn’t. It came through the city employment bureau. I knew a girl whose mum used to work there—it was a small town I come from—and she knew I liked acting. And so when the circus came into town and their clown disappeared, I became a trainee. A trainee clown through the job center.

NB Were you a good clown?

RG No, not really.

NB Could you do flips and jump off high things and do daredevil stuff?

RG I didn’t jump. I did slackwire. Do you know slackwire?

NB Tightrope?

RG It’s lower than most tightropes and it’s not tight. It’s very loose, about 15 feet high, and it’s harder to do. It’s like walking across a chain.

NB And you were good at it?

RG I was a clown. I would practice in the ring during the performances, and everyone would laugh because I fell off—but I was actually seriously trying to get across.

NB I ask because I got to see three of your movies in one week, and I noticed that in each one you have a different walk. Your body changed completely. But it wasn’t like method acting where one, say, gains fifty pounds and obviously one’s walk changes. With you it’s subtle. There are an actor’s usual bag of tricks—beards, haircuts, accents… Yet, in all three movies your voice, your haircut are all intact, but you are completely unrecognizable—that’s quite an accomplishment. You don’t rely on the visual—you actually act, imagine that!

RG You do have to understand what your part is, and it’s difficult to intellectualize that. But you can feel it and you know it the moment you see it. It’s accessing some part of your own. I’m completely uneducated, untrained, as an actor, but I do have a fundamental belief that one is capable of pretty much anything. That’s a first principle: One is anything. So I kind of feel that I’ve got George Bush and Che Guevara in me.

NB I’ve been thinking about Che Guevara, just so you know.

RG Are you into The Motorcycle Diaries? They’re great. Guevara went around South America and up to Mexico on this terrible old Enfield motorbike with this other doctor, they were specializing in leprosy. And you know, Castro has Guevara’s hands in his house. They found his body in Bolivia just in the last few months, and it’s gone home to Cuba. But it was handless. The story goes Guevara’s hands were sent to Castro to prove it was him, and Castro kept them. Anyway, that gets back to “One is anything.”

NB So that’s your theory for acting?

RG I think you access different parts of the brain. It’s slightly different for different things. For example, for Intimate Relations I wore shoes that were two sizes too big. I wanted to feel clumsy.

NB I read that in explaining your role (Harold Guppy in Intimate Relations) you said, “I think it’s dangerous as an actor to ever judge a character as stupid.” It seemed to me, watching you in the film, that you played against Harold’s violent tendencies—constantly trying to play down his destiny. You are so powerful at this that even though we can see this story (based on a true murder case) turning dark and darker, we still are hoping that tea and sympathy will win out for Harold—which of course it doesn’t. How did you create such a layered portrait of a possibly less layered person?

RG My starting point with Harold was a lack of will. What happens when your will is taken from you, when you become quite suggestible? It’s not that he’s very innocent. I don’t think he’s an innocent person, but I do think he was institutionalized and his will was taken. He had this blood-sugar problem and when the levels went down he would get violent; but he hadn’t really done anything, it was just a behavioral problem. So I imagine from an early age he didn’t have much love or comfort. Nobody would want to hug a child who would head-butt you. His mum threw him out because she couldn’t cope with it. So he’s been in this kid’s prison—not like a home, a prison for bad children.

NB A reform school.

RG Yeah.

Rupert Graves and Steven Mackintosh in Richard Spence’s Different for Girls. Photos by Luis Lazo. Courtesy of First Look Pictures. image not loading :(

NB What was it like working with Julie Walters in the film?

RG Fan-fucking-tastic. She’s a genius. She’s a very working class girl, and she used to work as a nurse and now owns a hog farm down in the south of England. But anyway, she’s a really lovely lady, deeply, all the way from her toes to her head, and she has a great facility at getting the saucy aspects of people. She’s kind of naughty, so mischievous. At the time of Intimate Relations, I had been doing a lot of work and I was getting a tiny bit cynical as an affectation. I thought the more films you did, the more you had to pretend it was boring. And I kind of started to believe it. But she came along and she was like this gremlin, a little troll living under the bridge. Any cynicism that comes over the bridge, she’ll get it. It’s so infectious. She completely gave me my love for doing stuff back.

NB She gave it back to you?

RG Well, only by example, because she’s no time for any of that cynicism.

NB Would you say she’s your favorite person to work with so far?

RG Yeah. She’s great. She really is, she’s so lovely. That’s my Julie Walters rant.

NB If you were for example—and this is hypothetical, obviously—given you as a character, you the man, not the actor, how would you prepare? What qualities would you consider important to examine under the surface?

RG God knows. I’d look at the environment of myself.

NB Which is?

RG Which is London theatricality. Psychologically I would look into background, and try and determine what he was missing or wasn’t missing.

NB Would you want to play you? Would it be interesting?

RG I don’t know. Everyone is interesting in their own funny way.

NB What I noticed in these three characters, and this really sounds corny, but you seem to love these people. It’s old fashioned, to love your characters; Michael Redgrave, the sort of actors I really love, they loved their characters. Did you ever see The Browning Version?Michael Redgrave plays this really tortured, almost bad person, but you can tell Redgrave loves this man and it is the most bizarre thing to watch because he loves this person who is ruining everything. You also give your characters the benefit of the doubt, and you give them nobility. Is that something that just comes to you?

RG I find it difficult playing a part that I don’t have any empathy with at all.

NB Is there such a part?

RG Well, I played a Nazi in Bent. It was a very, very small part but I researched like fuck, because I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t get my head round what it meant to be a Nazi. Here’s a guy taking Jews and homosexuals in the trains to Dachau, the camps. They were just brutal. How do you get to that place? So I researched, what does Nazism mean to Germany, and what state was Germany in that a leader like that could take them in? Not all Germans were bad, but a collected evil gathered speed. And when I played that character, I realized that for him it was just efficiency, that this was the practical thing to do. And somewhere in my soul I had to find something that could understand that.

NB If you were to play Richard III, which you very well might do in your lifetime, what then? That’s pure evil, from beginning to end. Would that be the ultimate challenge?

RG Certainly, with Richard III, there’s an awful lot more context and more individual motivations and desires. Rather than just here’s a nasty guy who’s killing somebody, whacking them up and beating them. The part’s so damn small in Bent, there’s not much actually in there. Whereas Richard III is very articulate about what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. You’ve got to have a reason to be the character. I like mess. That’s why people become so intellectual, because it’s all a damn mess.

I did a funny thing the other day. I’ve got a friend in England who’s an actor and he bought a new house in the countryside, right on the foot of this steep hill which is made of slate and flint, so the ground is really hard. It’s got this path which is almost vertical coming down and which is covered by trees so there is no moon at night. We went to the top and got absolutely stoned out of our faces—and it’s darn hard getting up there, and if you fall the flints can rip you open—and then he said, “Come on, we’ve got to go back, we’ve got to be really careful.” And I said, “No, let’s just run. Let’s just close our eyes and run down this path as fast as we can. Just trust that we can do it.” He said, “No, no, no,” and I said, “Come on.” We were all right, but it was just this moment of going, “Waaa!” into this sheet, which was quite dangerous. I know it’s quite a mild story really, but I’m not really given to wild things.

NB You’re not?

RG No, normally I’m not. But it’s an interesting thing to me, to just trust it. To just go with the message that if you fall over and you cut your hand you’re not going to die. If you cut your fucking hand, so what? Be brave. It’s like in Mrs. Dalloway — the young clerk who says, “Take the plunge.”

NB Are you brave?

RG I can be, and I can be hugely cowardly. But if I’m deeply pissed off or deeply offended I can be brave.

NB Sometimes it’s the opposite with people. When they’re relaxed they can be brave, and when they’re upset that’s when they find that they’re cowardly.

RG That’s true of me too. Maybe I was being disingenuous there.

NB No, I think you’re better off if you’re brave when you’re angry.

RG Yeah, but now I don’t know if that’s true.

NB It’s complex. But you have some braveness in you.

RG Yeah, some. I break things. I’m a good breaker of things.

NB Do you feel better?

RG No, because I only break my things, which pisses me off. Sometimes, I think I do it because I get tongue tied. When I was a kid I used to have a bad stammer, it’s probably one of the reasons I went into acting, because I had to go to elocution lessons to get over going, “Uh-uh-uh.”

NB And that’s how you got into acting?

RG Do you know an actor called Robert Donat?

NB Oh my God! One of my favorites.

RG What strikes me about him is a kind of grace.

NB The Winslow Boy.

RG Isn’t that the most beautiful portrayal of any character ever?

NB That’s what I was trying to explain to you about the love of the character, and that is the most beautiful…

RG His mood is so moving. You can watch him doing Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Thirty-Nine Steps… He has such deep grace. Even The Winslow Boy, that is such a hard part. But there’s this absolute nobility, and it’s not to do with class, but with human nobility.

NB It’s so funny that you bring up that actor. As I was watching your movies I was thinking: Robert Donat. That’s my favorite era of films, English films of the ’30s and ’40s, and you hearken back to that.

RG He was my hero. I’ve always thought, if I could tune into that, if I could take whatever that man was taking, I’d be a happy boy.

NB But that’s a different legacy. It’s just a different kind of acting.

RG Yeah, it is. I did a very bad film called Damage, which Louis Malle directed. And Louis Malle, who was a lovely man and has made some great films, was always going on about grace. You know, (imitating a French accent) “Rupert, there is something of a big grace in you, something that is very beautiful.” But at other times he’d say, “You can’t do acting, forget it!” I looked at his old films and you can see that sensibility, that grace, in some of his really early films.

NB Absolutely, he had a wonderful sense of grace.

RG It’s an overworked word now, grace.

NB No, it’s not. It’s an underworked word.

RG Is it? I’ll fight you for it. (laughter)

NB Let’s get back to Robert Donat. It’s very important.

RG It is, because it’s like having a bag full of nudie magazines in England. You can’t refer to him, because it’s old-fashioned.

NB But old-fashioned is where it’s at.

RG But England is very admiring of American, brash acting.

NB If you could play anybody, or a couple of people, who would it be? This is not an acting question. For instance, I asked a jazz musician what he would be, and he said, Abraham Lincoln, Bobby Fischer, the chess player, and Seymour Glass, a Salinger character.

RG I would like to play Caligula, in Camus’ version. Do you know the Camus version?

NB No.

RG It’s interesting. It’s not a great play, but you can do it if you open it up. You have to really put a bomb under that thing. There’s a lot of existentialist “yadda-yadda-yadda.” It’s about corruption, I suppose, the corruption of a soul.

NB And who else?

RG That’s it. I’d like to play a great sports person. With a kind of absolute grace and ease. (laughter)

NB If you were to come back as an inanimate object, what would you be? You have to say what came to your mind instantly.

RG A stone.

NB A stone? Why a stone?

RG I don’t know, you said whatever came into my head. I don’t know why I said a stone…

NB What does it look like?

RG It’s smooth…

NB What color?

RG I don’t know, do you need me to define it?

NB Yeah.

RG A large pebble.

NB A large pebble. What color?

RG It’s a bit blondish, kind of ash colored, beech-wood color.

NB And where was it, was it alone?

RG It was on a dusty road. On a road with smaller little pebbles around, but it was…

NB You knew that was you?

RG Yeah.

Rupert Graves as Septimus Warren Smith in Marleen Gorris’ Mrs. Dalloway. Photo by Roberta Parkin. Courtesy of First Look Pictures. pic not loading :(

NB What about your work in the theater?

RG I’ve never trained at all. I mean, I did things like ‘Tis Pity, She’s a Whore at the National Theatre in The Olivier when I was 21. Which is a fucking hard play to do. It’s a lovely, hard play, but it’s a really tricky one. And I really fucked up on that. I didn’t know about Jacobean drama, I didn’t know how to speak. I don’t know if you’ve been to The Olivier in London, but it’s massive, an open theater in the round. It’s huge, like three thousand people, and I just ran down this corridor onto the stage and thought, “Ahhh…,” and forgot my lines. I wanted to say, “Come back in five years.”

NB And then what happened?

RG I fell over. I started shaking and then fell over. I got the first word, and then I just stood up and shrieked. (shrieking) I did the play like that.

NB But you got through it?

RG I got through it, but…

NB What did your other actors think? Were they mad?

RG They were just like, “Rupert, what are you doing? Hello!!??”

NB Well, there comes the bravery thing again. That was brave at least.

RG No, that was ignorant, that wasn’t brave. Brave is different, brave is trying to push as many different things, take risks, being open.

NB Playing Septimus in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, what was that like?

RG It was great. I read the script and I didn’t know what the hell it was about. Septimus suffers from a lot of abstracted neuroses, and I needed to find out what that was about. I went to speak to a lady at the Hospital for Psychological Disease. She worked with people who were in the Gulf War and had post-traumatic stress. But it didn’t really help, in that I knew you could be brave with shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorders, it’s not an internal thing. PTSD is actually a physical manifestation. So I wasn’t lacking in confidence, but I didn’t understand what the dialogue meant, things like, “The birds, they’re speaking in Greek to me.” So I looked at everything that Virginia Woolf wrote. Her letters, and biography, and I realized that a lot of her personal trauma had been put into her male characters. That kind of threw me a bit, as she’s acknowledged as a feminine, or feminist writer.

NB As a female writer I do it all the time.

RG But interestingly, I do it as a male. When I used to write songs, and I still do write sometimes, I often have a female character, and put my truth into a female. Woolf puts it into male characters. Things that Septimus says connect very directly to things in Woolf’s life. For example, “The birds are speaking Greek to me.” She was abused when she was a girl during Greek lessons. And when she had a breakdown when she was older she used to hear Greek birds talking to her, or birds talking in Greek. Finding out about those pieces of her life gave me the emotional plane to work on. So it didn’t have to just be, you know, jabber.

NB Actors rarely realize that the playwright or the writer is in all of the characters.

RG Yeah, the most honest stuff and her most personal stuff went into her male characters. Because Septimus is the other side of what Mrs. Dalloway would have been if she’d taken the plunge, like what she said she should have done when she was 17…

NB And married Peter? He would have been the brave choice.

RG Yeah. She took the easy route and married Dalloway. And the day in which the story takes place is her looking back, and thinking, “Am I where I had hoped to be when I was seventeen? Was I brave, or did I do the easy thing?”

NB How do you relate to that? In your life?

RG I don’t know, I’ve never had a plan. I mean, I wanted to act and I’ve done that. And I’ve gotten better as I’ve gotten older, so I’m progressing. I don’t feel I’m getting worse. Sometimes I do, sometimes I think my experience has overcome my naiveté and my naiveté is interesting in a certain way. Do you know what I mean?

NB Yes, I do.

RG You want to know what you’re gaining and what you’re losing, don’t you? Every time you take a step somewhere. That’s what I do anyway. Maybe that’s why running down the hill was so important, because normally I’m looking at stuff pretty carefully. And sometimes you just need something like that. And you can do that onstage sometimes, you can just dive—Bang! it might be into a nest of snakes or it might be a lovely work. It’s essential. I did one play which I loved doing. And the reviews came out, and I’d meet people after the play, and it was like the embodiment of everything that I’ve wanted to do with acting. It was really intense. They were going, “That was the most fucking intense thing. I never had that feeling before.” And then the reviews came out saying, “What a crock of shit.” And in one way it seemed like people were saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry about the reviews.” I was saying, “No, honestly, I don’t know what’s happened, but it’s just fantastic. People love it. People fucking love it.” You would go through the bar, and people were actually shaking sometimes, and that was so wild. It was the wildest thing I’d ever seen.

NB Sure, and the opposite happens too.

RG Yeah, absolutely, all the time. Unnervingly often, too often.

Nicole Burdette is a writer and an actress based in New York. This fall her short stories will appear in Jane magazine and the QPB Literary Review; as an actress she appears in the upcoming Digging to China directed by Timothy Hutton.

source: bombmagazine [x]

#RG #rupert graves #interview #bomb magazine #1997 #the man who made me like men #all things MG #wanted to post a quote #but #may never get this net speed again #so #here's the whole interview #i simply love the man!#i've bolded the bits i like ..

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miss-mishka · 4 years

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The Old Guard (Image, 2017) vs Youth (comiXology, 2020): A Completely Biased Comparison

I don’t really know what this is, kind of a crack review, because I had more to say about these two recent reads than I could fit in my Goodreads reviews. So it will be a long read if you opt to proceed. Be warned: ADULT LANGUAGE BEYOND THE CUT, I make no promises that my words will be coherent throughout & sarcasm will abound as I discuss two mini/limited issue comic series’ that I’ve recently bought into.

They are:

1)The Old Guard, 2017 Image Comics 5 issue miniseries release, written by Greg Rucka, illustrated by Leandro Fernandez

Main cast, above, left to right: Sebastien le Livre aka Booker; Nile Freeman (no alias, currently); Andromache the Scythian aka Andy; Nicolo di Genova aka Nicky; Yusuf al-Kaysani aka Joe. Noriko is also a related, but not pictured, character.

2) Youth, 2020 comiXology Original 4 issue miniseries, written by Curt Pires, art by Alex Diotto

Main cast, above, from left to right: River, Jan, Kurt, Frank. Trixy is also a main character, but not featured on this group cover. (That wasn’t deliberate on my part. Since it’s a new series, I wanted a cover shot to help you if you want to shop for the series & this was the only one with most of the group clearly visible.)

So now let’s get to some plot.

The Old Guard is a group of warriors that are much harder to keep dead that your average person. Their ages range from Andy, estimated over 6,000 years old, to Nile, 27 per issue #4. The hows & whys of their ability to recover from injuries up to & including death, are completely unknown, but the ability can end with the same lack of understanding as it began. Andy has found 6 others like her in her time on Earth. 1 has died.

Youth is the teenaged couple Frank & River running away from their home town, meeting up with the older teenaged, possibly early 20s,trio that comprises rest of their group. While fleeing cops, drunk & high after a party, the group’s van is struck by what appears to be a meteor. It does, but doesn’t kill them. They each get a special power from it & all can suddenly fly.

Their enemy/obstacle/villain:

For The Old Guard, it’s big pharma bro Steve Merrick; his security chief, former CIA agent & the one who led Merrick to Andy’s team, James Copley; and the ‘mad’ scientist Dr. Ivan.

For Youth, this is it. Bootleg Nick Fury and the government resources at his disposal. (Take note, this is the one clear win that Youth has over ToG. I love & want more Don.)

Relationships:

Joe & Nicky

Andy & Noriko

Frank & River

Frank & Trixy (just hooking up to help ruin the actual relationship above)

While both comics have their group dynamics, they also have a clear gay couple at the center of their storylines. For The Old Guard, it’s Joe & Nicky. For Youth, it’s Frank & River. But Frank seems to be questioning, as he’s drawn to his new female acquaintance, Trixy. Kurt & Jan also seem attracted to Trixy, but the relationships between those three are not explored in these issues. River is most definitely immune to Trixy. So, Frank & River fall into the dysfunctional relationship category while Joe & Nicky, together over 900 years, are #RelationshipGoals.

So what’s the 411?:

For The Old Guard, Andy, Booker, Joe & Nicky sign on for a job from Copley to rescue some kidnapped schoolkids. Izza traaaaaaaaaaap! While the team decides to go on the offensive & track Copley down after he’s learnt their secret, Nile is killed in action only to find that she’s one of the ones that don’t stay dead easily. Andy goes to retrieve the new ‘recruit,’ the first since Booker in 1812, while the guys go to a safehouse to search for Copley. When Andy & Nile finally arrive at that location, they find Booker recovering from severe injuries while Joe & Nicky have been taken. It becomes a rescue mission for their captured brothers in addition to the seek & destroy goals for Copley. Along the way, Booker & Nile bond. Andy’s a tougher nut to crack. While Booker tries to locate their targets, Joe & Nicky are being tortured by the mad Doctor “for science” in hopes of discovering a profitable immortality drug for Merrick’s biz. Booker conveniently finds the whole Merrick operation taking place in Dubai, so off they go for their rescue mission & revenge. But...well, IZ ZA TRAP! Booker’s done with this undying thing & has sold the team out to see if Dr. Ivan can cure him of life while using the others to defeat death. Andy & Nile, though, aren’t helpless lil ladies. Neither are Joe & Nicky. With rescue under way, Joe & Nicky convince the doctor to let them go, then kill him, then find the others, meet Nile for the first time, kill Merrick as one happy new family, take off for Malta(yeah, in the comics, they’re THERE again), vote Booker off their island for 100 years & then leave him alone to be found by one very salty Noriko - she’s well-brined after 500 years in the ocean & batshit insane, to boot. That’s the first of three arcs planned for this group. About 160 pages over the 5 issues & not a panel wasted, in my opinion.

For Youth, River’s got a lousy step-dad, Frank has a lousy job; together they hate their town & lives, but maybe kind of love each other. So River says let’s steal my stepdad’s cherished old Mustang & run off for California. The car gets a flat, but there’s no spare to replace it & they ran away with no money because they’re teenagers. While broken down in a Walmart parking lot, the car draws the attention of Kurt, who grew up learning some mechanical stuff, appreciating the classics & is willing to offer help. Upon hearing that it’s a flat tire & the couple has no means to replace it, the decision is made to torch the car (it’s a Mustang, HOW DARE YOU?!) & get into the van with Kurt & his two female travelling companions. The five barely exchange names before they’re off to a party where alcohol & drugs mix to make Frank & Trixy horny for one another. River sees them making out & starts to leave when the cops show up to raid the party with all it’s underage & illegal happenings. River, such a sweetheart, is ready to leave Frank & Trixy to be arrested, but Kurt makes sure they all get away together in the van. A high (emphasis on high cause Kurt did some cocaine at the party) speed chase ensues with just a little awkwardness among the group as they realize that Frank & River were together & Trixy only kind of cares that she was pulled into their mess. Before there can be arguments, hairpulling slapfights or other drama over the man, the speeding vehicle is demolished by a meteor slamming to Earth. Except it may have been aliens? In issue #2 we see this:

After this faceoff, these celestial beings go at it, destroy what appears to be their home planet & create the space debris that hits the van & gives the youths powers. It totally killed Jan for a little bit, but that’s ok because Jan has the best powers. She came back from death & can track other powered people without Prof X’s massive Cerebro setup, which is handy when you’ve got Bootleg Nick Fury tracking you down because of the ‘anomaly’ that hit you. Trixy? She’s got a temper. When Don Thunder descends upon them with a small army of soldiers, Trixy turns them into twisted piles of gore and metal. I’m not sure what she did, but it was messy. I imagine in a movie the squish, crack, snap, pop, burst & splat sound effects would reign in that moment. With that dealt with, the group makes plans for what they should do next. Which is apparently, rob an armored truck (can anyone guess whose idea it was?) because they have no money for food or lodging. The heist does not go to plan because the guard driving the armored truck is distracted so he doesn’t see River standing in the road trying to stop the vehicle until the newly powered kid STOPS the vehicle. I’m pretty sure the guards, especially the driver whom they made sure we knew had a pregnant wife, are dead. Frank’s upset about this, blames River, who honestly could have flown off as soon as he realized that the truck wasn’t stopping as planned & the now very strong River smacks Frank into a wall. This pairing is not destined for 900 years together, I imagine Yusuf would continuously chop off his hand rather than strike Nicolo in a non-fun & consensual way. But the Youth gang still grabs some money bags and flies off. While multiple people capture it on their cell phones. Modern technology is an enemy to both the Youth & Old Guard. The kids take their money & go party. Alcohol & drugs again. Frank & Trixy making out again. This time when River sees his man with the girl, he declares the relationship over & storms out of the club. Killing a few people & knocking a sizable hole in the building to fly off while Frank freaks out & Trixy realizes this guy might be too much drama for her edgy self. We’re at the end of issue #3 which closes with this gem:

The more you know, right? Issue #4 has Don recovering from his injuries after Trixy’s finishing move failed to eliminate him (Dictionary: fore*shad*ow, verb: be a warning or indication of (a future event)). He sees video of the armored truck robbery on the news (O! these pesky kids with their cell phone cameras & viral videos) & he’s back on the hunt for the gang. River’s gone back home to the place he always went to to be alone when his stepdad was too much to deal with at home. Frank finds him there, because he had been shown that spot. It was their spot. It’s a sweet reunion where Frank still loves River despite the carnage so long as River still loves Frank with the cheating. A win-win lost-lost. And our Bootleg Nick Fury has his remaining eye on the lovebirds & is ready to attack! Jan, Kurt & Trixy see breaking news of the fight Frank & River put up against the government goons & Trixy is outvoted by the other two that they’ll go help their acquaintances of like 48 hours. The time they take deciding & getting there, though, puts them unfashionably late. Frank is seriously injured causing River to go Dark Phoenix so that the others can get Frank to safety. It fades to black, skips forward 3 months & implies that Frank’s going it alone in California where he was meant to be with River, but River is gone. (So obviously not dead, but captured by Thunder who clearly has his own powers because River’s Phoenix fire definitely didn’t kill this Superspy.) But Trixy’s all consoling and explains how Jan is locating other kids with powers - posthumans, they’re called - all around the world & they’ve decided to start searching for them to create a bigger group. Frank says it’s like the X-Men, but Jan isn’t quite Xavier level leader, so I say more New Mutants. Frank declines to be part of it. Trixy leaves him on a nice, sunny beach & goes to find Jan who portals them here, the most obviously “Not X like” structure in the world for their not a Bootleg X-Men/New Mutants series to take place in in the future:

(JFC, the colors alone are classic Wolverine! Originality. Did you maybe want to try that with this series?)

For the end of “Season 1″ of Youth, which implies there will be more. The single issues of the 4 part mini account for 125 pages & I consider several of those pages wasted.

Final Verdict:

With powerhouse publishers like DC & Marvel having decades worth of this content, Youth was entering a very crowded arena. The only thing it focused on as a lure to draw attention from the big leagues was the relationship between Frank & River, but representation has come a long way & Youth needed more. More story development, more group dynamics, more SOMETHING. Because I read the series in a world where I now know that The Old Guard exists & what Greg Rucka did with that series in simple & overt representation is a master class that Curt Pires needs to attend before any 2nd season talk for Youth. The world, my world, is ready for immortal gays. We’ve seen it, we need more. If River’s still alive, as I suspect, then there’s potential, but it shouldn’t magically erase all the issues that Frank & River had as a couple. They are not anywhere near the level of Joe & Nicky. And if/when Youth returns it needs to focus on the characters that we’re supposed to engage with & keep the focus on ALL OF THEM. Comics take art, with or without words, to tell some incredibly entertaining & complex stories. Don’t waste the space on blackness & block quotes, no matter what Marlon Brando is doing with mailboxes. Create the visuals & worlds in your head & tell the story with your heart so it comes to life for all of us. That’s what Rucka did with The Old Guard & I want to see more writers, artists & publishers striving to attain that level for us. I’m spoiled to it now & you can expect this kind of insanity from me if you fail to reach for this bar.

If you cannot tell by the end of all this, I am completely biased in favor of The Old Guard & if you can afford it, but haven’t done so yet, BUY THE BOOKS! Youth gets points for effort & dragged for everything else.

#comic review #youth (comixology)#the old guard #sleep deprevation does this to me

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myrskytuuli · 5 years

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Goldie O’Gilt and Her relationship with Children Over the Years

So the most obvious reaction to this episode was write a ficlet. Obviously. Yes, this is way too angsty and serious, but you know me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a child, there has been a special type of fear that educational pamphlets aimed for little girls had roused in her. The world of print had been populated solely by glowing mothers, surrounded by litters of rosy cheeked children, all advising young girls to stay away from bad literature and suffragette movements. They had unnerved her childish mind, this army of almost identical women in the almost identical living room. She had imagined them preserved inside a great big glass cube, rows and rows of them kept inside the office of the man who printed the pamphlets.

Tell us a story Goldie’mama!

Goldie doesn’t like children. They are small, and easily breakable, and needy. They get everywhere, are always on the way, and trust you unconditionally if you just show them the smallest bit of kindness.

Goldie herself grew out of childhood very quick, and zoomed past her girlhood in one fast flash, taking the mantel of womanhood maybe too early. But that is all ancient history by now and therefore unimportant.

When Goldie is trapped in Pandemonium, the imps jab her with thousands of splinters all over and talk to her about her son.

Goldie doesn’t like it that Scrooge has suddenly decided to dedicate his life to raising two small twins. Della and Donald are suddenly all there is in his life, and Goldie’s flirtations are no longer enough to draw him to leave Duckburg. There are more important things, like the kid’s school plays and taking care of them when they are sick and helping them with their homework. Goldie doesn’t especially like being jealous of ten-year-olds, but she is.

Women who got their education from pamphlets with the mothers in glass-cubes in them might have not known what their own bits looked like, but being part of the profession Goldie had had an entirely different education. She knew all about vinegar-soaked sponges and chemical syringes and douches. She always knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who can get you illegal rubbers. She’s careful with this, if not with anything else in her life.

It’s why she feels so stupid laying down in her room at the Blackjack saloon, missing a certain sourdough and his uncomfortable cabin in the woods. She never does this anymore, not without a sponge and a rubber both, the men who pay themselves to bankruptcy to afford her eager to comply with every restriction that she throws at them.

But this time she had been too caught up in her own desire to manage any rational thought to filter through her brain. She spends a minute imagining a little duckling with Scrooge’s eyes and her hair.

Then she gets up and goes looking for the stash of syringes and chemicals that the girls keep in the dressing room.

Goldie is subscribed to her granddaughter’s beaktube channel and watches all of her videos religiously. DickieDee94 does not know that she even has a grandmother, and Goldie aspires to keep it that way.

When the green one calls her, she is too surprised to end the call then and there. That turns out to be a mistake, as the child turns out to be amusing enough to keep her interest piqued. Plus, he has a valid point in that it will make Scrooge very annoyed.

Returning back to Klondike after decades is harder than she expected. There is a certain weight in Dawson, the city that made her in so many ways. Gave her taste of the stars, of things that will haunt her forever. Money, power, glory, the L-word.

But the shadows in Klondike are also starker, deeper, and the memories of her at her worst are what makes her drop by the local orphanage and dumb the entire prize of her latest heist into their office. Goldie is under no illusion that you can buy your way out of sins, but there is something about the little girls playing queens and princesses with crowns made of tin-cans that touches even her.

She blames the drugs, as in both the weed she had been on when she joined in the orgy, and as in the ease of birth-control pills in this modern world of wonders. The weed made her forget about condoms and the birth control pills were so small, and easy to use that it was easy to forget whether you had taken one or not.

She is already in the hospital lobby, when she hesitates. She imagines a little girl, with her eyes and eyes of…someone, following in her footsteps. Helping her in her cons. Her teaching the child all her tricks. Travelling with a companion who accepted and understood her completely and perfectly.

She’s not afraid of the procedure, like the doctor suggests when she decides to cancel her appointment. She knows that this is not the traumatic and painful experience that it was before, but the image of the little version of Goldie O’Gilt at her heels is too tempting.

When Goldie is 18, her customer says that he won’t pay her if there is a rubber involved. She is still a child in many ways, and bends, believing that bad things don’t really happen to her. But they do, and her fellow girls take her to a secret doctor. He is barely older than she is, and just as scared. In a way, it is just as much his life on the line as hers. She might die for his mistake, and he might lose everything for her slip of a tongue.

It is as painful as she has heard, but the fear is worse. The knowledge that others have died on this table. Biting the cloth in her mouth, the small room with a mould stain in the ceiling that she keeps staring.

She is feverish for a week afterwards, but that is manageable. After the week she can work again and that is all that matters.

Snakehips’ husband still comes to the Blackjack every evening. Goldie still remembers the excitement in the dancer’s voice when she had told Goldie that she wouldn’t be coming to work anymore, she was getting married. Goldie didn’t believe in marriage, but she tried to be happy for Snakehips.

She wished that Mr. Storkesby had proven her wrong, but he hadn’t. There he was, buying Goldie’s whisky and getting close the percentage girls on Goldie’s dancefloor.

Goldie visited Mrs. Storkesby one night on a whim, in their small cabin at the outskirts of Dawson. She was there, tending to their son and smiling.

“Oh, I don’t mind that he still goes to the saloon. I have this little angel to keep me company!” She smiled down at her baby in a way that Goldie found incomprehensible.

Goldie’s egg hatches a son, which throws her off the loop instantly. It hits her then and there, that it won’t be a small version of her that she has to raise, but a person. Individual, helpless person that she has no idea what to do with.

The green triplet keeps sending her text messages where he wheedles, begs, argues, and whines about how much he wants to be her new apprentice. Goldie tells herself that she is keeping them for comedic value only.

“Well done sweetie! You will make a splendid mother one day.” her mother compliments seven-year-old Goldie when she brings her ailing mother tea to her bed.

The child welfare services take her son from him when Jaden is nine. She can’t exactly blame them, as she was the one who contacted them. Jaden is heartbroken, as he is still too young to realise that it is not normal that his mom leaves him alone for days at end and that he has almost died two times in the last two weeks.

“Give me my aunt back!” The green triplet yells, as brave as a lion, releasing Goldie from the glass-cube that she has been imprisoned in. He is clever, brave and sharp. There is a suggestion of young Scrooge in him, but not enough that Goldie cannot admit that it is mostly her sentimentality talking. He is a child who has been raised by extraordinary good parental figures. He is a child who despite having such great parental figures, has still chosen Goldie as an honorary aunt.

Goldie slips the photograph of Louie Duck in her wallet, and for the first time ponders about the grey area between full motherhood and full stranger-hood. The avenues that honorary aunt-hood might open. The beautiful muddy ground of extended familial relations. She doesn’t stay of course, but she does think about it all a lot.

#my fanfic #goldie o'gilt #louie duck #ducktales #fanfic

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balancingdiet · 5 years

Text

Tabula Rasa

Detective Conan & Magic Kaito Characters: Shinichi/Kaito Words: 1600ish Chapter: (1) ... (11) (12) (13)

Shinichi always finds his neighbour weird. But he didn’t expect to find his neighbour lying on a patch of grass and donned in Kaitou Kid’s costume, too.

Shinichi had been to the hospital enough times to know where the lifts were, remember some of the doctors’ names, and even noticed if the hospital change the paintings on the walls. But most of his trips here were always on the first few floors, where the wards of all the serious crimes’ victims resided in. Or worse, where he’d be waiting at the lobby and hoping the victims made it through their first surgery.

Today was the first time he made it past those floors.

Shinichi stepped out of the lift and glanced around. Even though he was still in the same hospital, the difference between the floors were vast. Doctors weren’t running around, the air didn’t smell like heavy iron, and there weren’t any patients yowling in pain or nurses shouting about the need of a blood pack somewhere…

He glanced at his watch, realising this wasn’t the time to think about anything else. He was about to ask a passing nurse where the waiting room was when he heard a burst of muffled laughter around the corner. He followed the giggles and chuckles until he found the place he wanted to go.

At the corner of the large space was a playroom for kids, and all of the children had gathered there. Not around toys, though.

It was around Kuroba.

Shinichi didn’t realise he was blatantly staring until the claps broke his blur train of thoughts. He blinked out of his trance and quietly joined the crowd. He wasn’t sure if Kuroba had noticed him before, or that he did and was pretending he didn’t. Either way, Kuroba’s attention now was all on the kids, as though his life mission was to never let their smile fade away.

There were a few adults and nurses watching the show too, and Shinichi camouflaged perfectly in there. He would occasionally follow and clap along with the crowd, but no matter what, he could never resist a smile when the children exclaimed out their enthusiasm for Kuroba’s tricks, regardless of how small or big.

Being so used to hearing crying and terrors, it was nice for a little change.

Not long later, Kuroba concluded his show and finished it by levitating his shuffled cards in mid-air. He thanked the audiences and supplied them with parting souvenirs—all the children got different animal balloons of their favourite colour, and even the adults audiences got something too; he offered the first nurse a rose, and then another rose to a mother…

“And here’s one for you—"

Kuroba blinked, the stalk of rose frozen in between his fingertips as he stood face to face with Shinichi.

(Shinichi supposed Kuroba didn’t notice him earlier, then.)

Kuroba recovered fast as his parted lips turned into a huge grin. But he still didn’t turn away. He tilted the rose, signalling Shinichi to take it.

Narrowing his eyes, Shinichi relented and pluck the rose out of Kuroba’s hand. He knew if he didn’t take it, Kuroba would refuse to move on and pass his “souvenirs” to the other audiences behind him, so he did what he'd done for the sake of the time.

Yes. Nothing else.

Shinichi glanced at the red rose. Given his pathetic attempts at maintaining his two potted plants, he was definitely no expert, but something told him this rose belonged to the plantation in Kuroba’s backyard.

After Kuroba finished distributing and the crowd had long dispersed, he approached Shinichi with a grin plastered on his face.

“You came,” he said, his statement sounded more like a question. It wouldn’t be as absurd if it wasn’t Kuroba that invited him to come in the first place.

“You asked me to.” Shinichi muttered, clearly remembering the exact moment when Kuroba did: With a propped elbow over their fence, he'd disturbed Shinichi’s quiet morning and told him he was free to come to today's event.

Kuroba’s confused look faltered and he smiled instead. “Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to.”

Shinichi frowned. “Why not?”

He shrugged, saying nothing more.

Now Shinichi felt stupid to be here. Not to add that he even took a half day off from work and shifted his meeting with Shiho earlier because of this. Then again, it could be his fault for treating Kuroba’s words of any importance in the first place.

“Are you disappointed?” he remembered Shiho asked.

He found this situation more relatable than any other ones he had been in.

Deleting Shiho's words from his mind, Shinichi pushed the rose into Kuroba’s chest. “I don’t want this.”

“Aw, why?” Kuroba took the rose from Shinichi’s fingers. He looked hurt, or feigned it well to be.

“I’m not going to walk around carrying a rose.”

Kuroba stroked his chin and glanced at the ceiling. “To be honest, the image looked quite cute in my head.”

Shinichi rolled his eyes and walked out of the waiting room. He didn’t intend to slow down even though he heard Kuroba asking him to “Hold on!” while he scrambled to pack his remaining props. But that feeling quickly changed when he reached the lift, and he realised Kuroba was nowhere in sight behind him.

After two lifts had passed their floor, Shinichi decided he had enough of waiting and backtracked to the room to see what Kuroba was up to—

Round the corridor, Shinichi found Kuroba talking to a woman in a wheelchair.

He stopped, hiding behind the wall.

“Thank you so much Kaito-kun,” the woman said, her eyes held more gratefulness than what her soft voice had already expressed.

Kuroba shook his head. “This isn’t anything much.”

“But not for Kanna and I.” The woman turned, looking at a little girl sitting on a sofa and playing with a dog balloon that Kuroba gave earlier. “My illness has brought nothing but gloomy years for her, but you’ve gave her plenty of sunshine.”

"It's the least I can do."

They fell into a mutual silence for a while, but it wasn't long before the woman spoke, "Just the other day, Kanna also said she missed Aoko-chan."

Shinichi straightened.

Aoko?

As though she'd just realized what slipped out of her mouth, the woman suddenly looked regretful and guilty. She bit her lower lip. "I'm sorry—"

Kuroba smiled, his eyes half-lidded with patience and something that almost seemed…

Sad.

He turned to look at the little girl, his face now blocked from Shinichi’s view.

“It's okay," he said, "It's good to know I'm not the only one too.”

----

After feeling he’d intruded the conversation enough, Shinichi left for the lift, got out of the hospital, and walked into the streets. He had no idea how far he’d gone or where he was actually walking to, but it was definitely not anywhere near his parked car.

Shinichi glanced at his watch with a sigh. His plans for the day had stopped right after finding Kuroba, and now he had no idea what to do for the rest of his evening—

A sound of a flap or two later, Shinichi found a white dove sitting on his right shoulder

He nearly shrieked.

Nearly.

Shinichi spun around, not-so-surprised to find Kuroba jogging towards him.

“Good job Tamago!” Kuroba gave a thumbs up. “You have located Cinderella.”

If Shinichi hadn’t known better, he would have been fooled by Kuroba's facade and thought the entire conversation and that look he’d witnessed earlier on his face was all an illusion.

Just like Kaitou Kid.

“For your information, this is my favourite shirt.” Shinichi glowered and curled his fingers, threatening to flick Tamago away. “And if your dove shits on me…”

“Alright, alright. You have no chill.” Kuroba shook his head and waved Tamago over, but a long moment had passed and Tamago still refused to move, until Kuroba had to call and snap his fingers for the fifth time then it did. It slipped back into Kuroba’s sleeve.

Shinichi peered over his shoulder.

“It’s clean,” Kuroba said.

Shinichi returned Kuroba his signature side-eye look.

Kuroba chuckled. “Anyway, since you don’t want my rose, how about a treat? You came all the way for my performance after all.”

“Did you get paid for the performance?”

There was a brief distant look that flashed across Kuroba’s face, and Shinichi tried to investigate the shift, like reaching out for a balloon that slipped away. But it was too late, and it had already flew away.

Gone.

“No.” Kuroba cocked his head to his side. “It’s voluntary work.”

Shinichi had long figured that out, but since he felt it was appropriate to ask, he thought it’d be nice know his guess was right

“Then you don’t need to,” Shinichi said and turned, prepared to head to… who-knows-where. He should probably get back to his car—

“You know…” Kuroba sighed as he rubbed a hand behind his neck. “You’re making it hard for me to ask you out for dinner.”

Shinichi blinked, his head turning back in a robotic fashion. “...What?”

“You heard me well.” Kuroba crossed his arms, “So do you want to have dinner or not?”

“Uh,” Shinichi paused, feeling the hot, tingling pricks rising from his back and to his neck.

“I know a good Ramen restaurant around here.” Kuroba wiggled his eyebrows and jabbed a thumb across the street. “They sell the best dumplings too.”

It could be because he hadn’t had ramen for a long time, or that he'd missed eating good dumplings, but Shinichi wasn’t sure if he could entirely factor Kuroba’s grin out as the reason why he decided to say “Ok” to the dinner plan in the end.

#dcmk #detective conan #kudo shinichi #Kuroba Kaito #kaishin #Tabula rasa

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