#jackson crawford is such a king i love him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qsdblogging · 3 years

Text

10 More TV Shows You Need To See

This is the second installment of my recommendations of shows for you to add to your own lists. I watch a lot of television and I’ve got, what I consider to be at least, a wide variety of shows under my favorites.

If you haven’t seen the first list, you don’t need to unless you want to see another list of ten shows you may want to check out if you’re looking for anything new to watch.

Warning, though, some of these don’t end the best way and may end up more as a disappointment. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

I. Warehouse 13.

Pete and Myka, U.S Secret Service Agents, are deployed to South Dakota’s Warehouse 13 with a new assignment from an authority above and outside the government.

Intrigued?

With the Warehouse comes assignments regarding objects that hold some sort of abilities that can cause people to do wild and crazy things. It’s their job to find the artifacts (as they all hold significance to history) and bring them back to the Warehouse for safe keeping.

Things get wild and some serious topics get handled, but the show isn’t alone. It’s connected to another on this list, Eureka. More on that when you get to Eureka.

Some familiar faces are Eddie McClintock who played a part in Bones, one episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Joanne Kelly who played a role in The Dresden Files television series, Allison Scagliotti who played roles in Stitchers, The Vampire Diaries, and Drake & Josh, Aaron Ashmore (twin brother to Shawn Ashmore, who has been in the X-Men movies alongside appearing in The Boys, and voicing Conrad in Man of Medan) from Killjoys, Lost Girl, and Smallville, and Jamie Murray from Castelvania, Gotham, The Originals, Once Upon a Time, Defiance, and Dexter.

I highly recommend, especially because the dynamic of the characters is really interesting and covers a lot.

II. Eureka.

As mentioned above, this is connected to Warehouse 13. But only in the last two seasons of this show are the two connected.

Eureka is a town full of geniuses and advanced technology that the government funds, and when a new sheriff comes to town, he’s exposed to all the daily occurrences the locals get up to. And maybe a couple instances of time travel that may or may not have to do with the connection.

The town is full of faces you may recognize. Colin Ferguson who has roles in Haven, The Vampire Diaries, and Maytag commercials, Erica Cerra who has roles in The 100, Supernatural, Deadly Class, and the first Percy Jackson film, Felicia Day who has roles in The Magicians, Supernatural, Con Man, The Guild, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Trevor Jackson who has roles in Grown-ish, and a couple Disney productions.

It’s a huge science fiction show and if you’re into that, give it a watch.

III. Alphas.

Now, like the two above is, Alphas is a science fiction packed drama. And it’s rumored to be connected, like be in the same universe, as Warehouse 13 and Eureka. It’s never been confirmed, but there is one character (same name and job) that plays a part in both Alphas and Warehouse 13, which is the stem for the theory. (Plus, some other ideas floating around).

But Alphas focuses on a team that investigates people with supernatural abilities while they, themselves, have abilities. These powered people are referred to as Alphas, due to their nature.

Unfortunately, this show ends on a cliffhanger in its second season.

Yet, I still recommend giving it a shot because it truly is an interesting show and it’s got some people you may recognize.

IV. Haven.

If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s “Colorado Kid”, you’ll most likely enjoy this show since it’s loosely based off of it.

Set in the coastal town of Haven, Maine, FBI Agent Audrey Parker comes to town to find that the residents have dormant curses, or rather troubles, that can be triggered at any given moment. She, along with the Sheriff and the town’s black sheep, must deal with the troubles’ deadly effects. And a few things may be revealed about herself too along the way.

It’s pretty interesting and I enjoyed it quite a lot when I first watched it. I’m not the biggest fan of Stephen King, and the connection seems to barely be there, but I wouldn’t know given my dislike for King.

I highly recommend giving Haven a shot, however, especially if you’re a crime and fantasy fan.

V. Lost Girl.

Lost Girl focuses on the gorgeous and charismatic Bo, a supernatural being called a succubus who feeds on the energy of humans, sometimes with fatal results. Refusing to embrace her supernatural clan system and its rigid hierarchy, Bo is a renegade who takes up the fight for the underdog while searching for the truth of her own mysterious origins. (Taken from IMDB).

Plus, there a lesbian romance or two.

Now, the show itself is pretty strong holding in its own storyline and lore, but the last season does get a bit rocky feeling. It could’ve been better, and it definitely feels a little rushed, but it wasn’t too bad of an ending. However, it’s not a show that got cancelled before it could wrap things up and it leaves things pretty open-ended.

In my books, that’s a point. I highly recommend this is if you’re a fan of fantasy.

VI. Almost Human.

Unfortunately, this is one of the ones in the list that only has one season (that seems to be out of order and frankly I’m not entirely sure of the order myself, so rely on googling it yourself and hopefully you find the right order) and was cancelled not long after airing.

BUT, it’s a good watch. It’s set in the distant future, where cops are assigned an android partner to protect and serve. Things get pretty wild and I’m quite sure there are some bombs involved at some point, but there’s a bonus to all the madness of Almost Human.

Minka Kelly and Karl Urban. Two incredibly beautiful human beings.

I highly recommend bingeing this single season show.

VII. American Gods.

This shows feels very confusing. But it’s still a good watch.

It centers on a recently released ex-con named Shadow Moon. He runs into a man full of mystery named Wednesday (and you’ll later come to find out who he really is, or you may already know given your knowledge on the book of the same name or just how well you know mythology) who seems to know more than Shadow about his own life and past.

There are Gods, mischief, and a lot of crazy shit in this show. So far it’s on it’s third season as far as I know (I have to rewatch the first two before I pick it back up).

You should give it a shot, but I won’t blame you if you feel way too confused about the whole thing.

VIII. The Boys.

Now, there’s a lot of controversy regarding this Amazon Original Series, but honestly, I think everyone should at least give it a chance. I know a lot of Tumblr users were put off on trying to due to the advertisements on the site.

If you don’t know what this series is about, it follows a group of vigilantes set on taking down the corrupt superheroes that are abusing their powers and status.

It covers a lot of ground. Murder, sabotage, terrorism, capitalism, and a lot more. Feminism and sexual harassment occur, but there are warning before each episode for what you may see in the contents.

Some familiar faces include Karl Urban, who’s known for his roles in Thor: Ragnarok, the newer Star Trek movies, Almost Human, Lord of the Rings, and more, Erin Moriarty from Jessica Jones, Laz Alonso from The Mysteries of Laura, Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl and The Covenant, and Jensen Ackles from Supernatural has been confirmed to be joining the cast for its third season.

The Boys is currently on it’s second season, being released on a weekly schedule. So, if you like superheroes and graphic content, this show might be it for you.

IX. Chuck.

Chuck is the result of when a twenty-eight year old computer geek inadvertently downloads critical government secrets into his brain, the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. assign two agents to protect him and exploit the knowledge, turning Chuck Bartowski’s life upside down. (Taken from IMDB).

This is one of the shows I cannot recommend enough to people. It’s the right mixture of action and comedy, plus a little romance. Spies, love, and murder, oh my! What more could you want?

Plus, Zachery Levi plays Chuck. If you don’t know him by name, you probably would recognize him from some of his roles with the most recent being in Shazam!, Fandral in the second and third Thor films, voicing Eugene Fitzherbert (or Flynn Rider) in Tangled, and Heroes: Reborn.

If Zachery Levi playing a lovable computer geek turned spy doesn’t interest you, maybe some more familiar faces will.

Yvonne Strahovski from The Handmaid’s Tale, The Astronaut Wives Club, acting as Daenerys in a Princess Rap Battle on Youtube, and Dexter. Adam Baldwin from Firefly/Serenity, Bones, Angel, The Last Ship, and Independence Day. Brandon Routh who plays Ray Palmer from the DC Shows. Matt Bomer from Doom Patrol, American Horror Story, White Collar, Magic Mike, and True Calling.

X. Deadly Class.

Unfortunately, I have a truly bad streak with new shows. Deadly Class, like others that have been mentioned in these lists of mine, got cancelled and on a cliffhanger no less. However, that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the action-packed coming-of-age story set in the 1980s.

Following a new recruit for a high school training assassins, things get pretty wild when you pair death and teenagers.

#deadlyclass #watchlist #tvshows #chuck #eureka #americangods #alphas #theboys #almosthuman #lostgirl #haven #warehouse13 #qsdblogging #qsdbloggingpopculture #qsdpopculture #findingqsd

6 notes · View notes

nahalism · 4 years

Note

Songs that make you want to experience love (of any kind) or remind you of it??

u just opened pandoras box.. like.. u think ur ready, but ur not ready. and i cant apologise for what im about to do because what song isnt a love song?.. you have proposed an existential question & for that i refuse to keep this uncompletable task concise. hold on 2 ur toupee, clutch ur peals 🤧

verdena // valvonauta

the nerves // hanging on the telephone

dionne warwick // walk on by

luther vandross // anyone who had a heart

stevie wonder // all in love is fair, never dreamed youd leave in summer, lately, superwoman (where were you when i needed you)

ms lauryn hill // i gotta find peace of mind

lenny williams // cause i love you

donny hathaway // ill love you more than you ever know (& the amy winehouse cover of this)

eva cassidy, autumn leaves

nina simone // you dont know what love is, just say i love him, you can have him, everything must change

chet baker // my funny valentine, almost blue, the autumn leaves

the police // roxanne

amy winehouse // take the box, wake up alone, you sent me flying, stronger than me

nat king cole // nature boy, smile, the very thought of you

etta james // id rather go blind

gladys knight & the pipps // midnight train to georgia

al green // how can you mend a broken heart, lets stay together

janis joplin // maybe

anita baker // angel

simply red // holding back the years, you make me feel brand new

luther vandross // a house is not a home

deniece williams // free, silly

boyz II men // i cant make you love me

michel’le // something in my heart

patrice rushen // remind me

toni braxton // another sad love song, breathe again

tamar braxton // all the way home, love and war

the delfonics // lala means i love you, hey love

bobby womack // if you think your lonely now

rick james ft teena marie // fire and desire

the gap band // yearning for your love

jahiem // ghetto love, could it be

mariah carey // anytime you need a friend, my all

tamia // stuck with me, so into you

shai // if i ever

new edition // can you stand the rain, if it isnt love

ATL // make it up with love

blackstreet // dont leave me

bow wow // let me hold you, my baby

jhene aiko // feel like a man, wait no more, my mine, you vs them

twenty88 // 2 minute warning

corrine bailey rae // the whole of her self titled album

yebba // my mind

neyo // do you, part of the list

erykah badu // green eyes, other side of the game, next lifetime, in love with you, out my mind just in time

keyshia cole // send from heaven, love, i should have cheated, trust and believe

whitney houston // i learned from the best, run to you, saving all my love, im your baby tonight

michael jackson // lady in my life, break of dawn, butterlies, baby be mine, keep it in the closet, who is it, give in to me, rock with you .. etc etc etc

abba // lay all your love on me

seal // kiss from a rose

patrick swayze // shes like the wind

phil collins // in the air tonight

the police // roxanne

tracy chapman // fast car, baby can i hold you

james blunt // 1973

chris isaak // wicked game

fleetwood mac // rihannon, dreams janis ian // at 17

googoo dolls // iris (duh)

oasis // wonderwall (duhh x2)

dido // white flag

joni mitchell // both sides now, a case of you

randy crawford // almaz, one day ill fly away

little dragon // never never, twice

lana del rey // video games, blue jeans

london grammar // hey i, wasting my young years

ellie goulding // starry eyes (acoustic), guns & horses (acoustic)

avril lavigne // when your gone, im with you

paramore // misguided ghosts, decode

hiatus kaiyote // the lung

jorja smith // wandering romance, goodbyes

kelsey lu // dreams

kelela // all the way down, turn to dust, enough, better, take me apart

king krule // slush puppy, many more

SiR ft masego // ooh nah nah

fka twigs // papi pacify

steve lacy // dark red

iamddb // more

abra // pride

sonder x brent faiyaz // lovely

pharoah sanders // harvest time

james blake // wilhelm scream

portico quartet // the visitor

kokoroko // ti de

funkadelic // maggot brain, ill stay

collard // everglade

feng suave // honey theres no time, by the poolside

mac demarco // still beating, my kind of woman, let her go, let my baby stay, one more love song

connan mockasin // do i make you feel shy

gas dapperton // prune, you talk funny

blood orange // saint, out of your league, best to you, never good enough

majid jordan // her, u, king city, warm

japanese breakfast // triple 7, the woman that loves you, everybody wants to love you

frank ocean // higgs *or just insert his whole discog*

daniel ceasar // japanese denim

xavier omar // speculate

sza // pretty little birds, caretaker ft dram, babylon, warm winds, 2 am, passport

jeremih // british headboards, worthy ft. jhene aiko, raindrops, & obvs bday sex

j cole // runaway, shes mine pt1 & 2

travis scott // astrothunder

drake // come winter, cameras/good ones go, doing it wrong, east district... anything ending in interlude .. *again, insert practically any of his songs*

tory lanez // 1 call

partynextdoor // tbh, wus good/curious, west district, rendezvous, wednesday night interlude, persian rugs, spiteful, cant let the summer pass, her way, thirsty, muse, the right way

serani // do you good (!!!)

miguel // girl with the dragon tattoo, pussy is mine

vybz kartel & gaza slim // anything a anything

movado // when yuh feel lonely

nicki minaj // save me, i lied, autobiography

tokio hotel // monsoon

my chemical romance // the ghost of you, helena

nickelback // how you remind me & someday

whilst she sleeps // seven hills, our courage our cancer

pierce the veil // stained glass eyes and colourful tears, i dont care if your contageous, im low on gas and you need a life jacket, southern constellations, the new national anthem, bulls in the bronx, caraphernalia, disasterology

(& lol dont roast me but id b lying if i didnt include dem)

vanessa ann hugends // say ok :)

lmnt // open your eyes

edward mccain // ill be

jesse mccartney // im leavin (lol dont roast me)

lindsay lohan freaky friday songz (?) // the ultimate, take me away

#ask #🖤

43 notes · View notes

cargopantsman · 4 years

Text

Norse Read-A-Long

Week 1

So the prompt I'll roll with is

5. Why do you think Hallstein Thorolfsson was so adamant about not accepting any land granted by his father?

though... I'm going to ramble about a bit.

I want to riff a little on Harald Finehair, aka Fairhair in some translations, because he shows up as a sort of Lex Luthor character in many of the Icelandic Sagas. While the sagas will typically deal with the trials and tribulations of people and communities within Iceland itself, Harald is a shorthand for the big, bad enemy that is Norway.

Of course, with all things Old Norse, there is debate as to whether Harald Finehair actually existed or was a literary amalgamation for the sake of a cohesive oral tradition. I'll continue on as though he were real, since as far as the sagas-as-stories go, he's as real as Lex Luthor is in the DC Universe.

So what does this have to do with Hallstein? The "historical" backdrop of the settlement of Iceland gives us a good framework to build profiles of the mindset of the characters presented to us in this prologue to Eyrbyggja Saga. Having an understanding of what was culturally, morally, and socially acceptable and commendable helps to put context to a [SPOILER] upcoming battle spurred on by Dritsker for instance (which, if translated with an eye to connotation, is better understood as "shit-reef" but I'll take a page from the Saga Thing guys and refer to it as Poop Rock as it comes up).

So what kind of people can engage in battle over something called Poop Rock?

Much of the drama in the sagas tends to be a commentary on the flaws of the rules, laws, and norms that structure Icelandic society. While the conflicts in Eyrbyggja saga are more subtle in how a small issue can erupt into brutal violence, other sagas will more visibly display how laws and social expectations can gridlock people into a vicious cycle of feuding.

The Old Norse world was driven primarily by honor and reputation, as illustrated in Hávamál stanzas 76-77

[76] Cows die, family die, you will die the same way. But a good reputation never dies for the one who earns it well.

[77] Cows die, family die, you will die the same way. I know only one thing that never dies; the reputation of the one who's died

(trans. Jackson Crawford, The Poetic Edda. 2015)

Self-sufficiency, responsibility, and keeping oaths were the core mores that could hold a community together while allowing individual freedoms. Holding court, or a thing, could be a bit of an ordeal, and while Icelanders loved litigation, problems were often solved on a one-on-one, or family-on-family, basis, sometimes with lethal resolutions. The law was typically an "after-the-fact" event, due to travel and seasonal constraints, and was usually a matter of damage control moreso than damage prevention. As such, much of the functioning of society was up to individuals, for the most part, behaving civilly.

This is why there's a certain attention to detail in the passage

On this platform lay a solid ring weighing twenty ounces, upon which people had to swear all their oaths. It was the business of the temple priest to wear this ring on his arm at every public meeting.

(trans. Pálsson and Edwards, Eyrbyggja Saga. 1972)

in the description of Thorolf's temple to Thor at Hofsvág. Oath rings pop up consistently enough in the mythology and the sagas that we can be pretty certain they were a Big Deal and that oaths were taken very seriously, and being sworn in public assemblies, whether at a temple or a thing or, eventually, the Althing, kept the oath-sworn accountable in society.

The wrench in the gears comes mostly from the cultural heritage of Iceland's initial settlers.

Norway, back in the 8th to 10th centuries, was a collection of scattered, independent kingdoms, or chieftainships, governed by very locally minded chieftains, jarls, goði, or other such self-determined titles. Harald, as the stories usually go, had his eye on a woman, Gyða Eiríksdóttir of Sweden, but she refused to marry him unless he had united all of Norway. He swore to this, and part of that being he wouldn't cut his hair until all of Norway was under his control, and so got the nickname hárfagri (fair, fine, or beautiful hair).

There are political arguments offered for this mission, aside from marrying the popular girl, in some sources. Since most of Northern Europe was being Christianized, and Christian kingdoms had this pesky tendency for organization, cooperation, and concerted military endeavors due their new-fangled literacy, a unified Norway stood a better chance of surviving incursions from the continent. (And if I recall correctly, even Sweden was semi-unified at this point.)

The problem is that many of the jarls, goðar, etc. were not keen on giving up their own independence and authority. There are stories that display a certain irony in many separate lordships allying in order to better fight off Harald's advances (which, really, just proves Harald's point), but highlights that the mentality of Norwegian nobility was that cooperation could be advantageous, but should be temporary. Debts are paid as needed and independence is maintained. Eventually, as Harald began to gather more supporters under his banner, his campaign snowballed until the hold-out nobility couldn't fend him off neither individually nor as small alliances, and many chose to flee with whatever assets they could carry than bend to the will of an overlord.

While the story of the settling of Iceland is that of a predominantly Norwegian diaspora we shouldn't imagine these settlers as poor, dispossessed pilgrims, but of a noble elite loading up ships with riches and family and staffing. These are people that are accustomed to power, authority, and self-determinism.

So Hallstein Thorolfsson, while being offered land from his father, struck out to stake his own claim for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they were in a new land that was mostly unsettled. Hallstein didn't have to be confined to what he could inherit from his father. There were no neighbors to constrain his borders, and by claiming his own stake, no one could say of him that he only succeeded because of what he was given. He carved out his own home, his own destiny, and could rightfully say he was a self-made man.

Secondly, much of what kept people, especially the nobility, in check was a sense of debt, both financial and abstract. It's not far-fetched to overlay a Godfather-like stereotype over the goðar ("Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as gift on my daughter's wedding day."). The sense of not owing anyone anything for your success was a key part of the honor system that kept people accountable. The same logic that drives Hallstein to forge his own territory; to not piggyback on his father's power, to not owe his father anything for his own success, is that need to be neither beholdened nor indebted to an overlord king.

#norsereadalong #eyrbyggja saga #week 1 2020

5 notes · View notes

jacksdunnit · 4 years

Photo

UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 22nd, 2020

@tupeloextras

KANE // 24 // SHE/HER // EST

DISCORD: whiskey#6583

I work nights so my replies on the dash and in discord are kind of all over the place time-wise

JACK DUNN

Full Name: Phillip Jackson Dunn

Nickname(s): Jack, JD, Dunner

Birthday: April 1st, 1986 (34)

Hometown: Tupelo, Mississippi

Education: Bachelor of Science in Equine Science & Management from the University of Kentucky

Occupation: Head Trainer at Dunn Performance Horses out of Whiskey Hollow

Faceclaim: Chace Crawford

Content Warning(s):

N/A

BACKGROUND:

His full name is Phillip Jackson Dunn but he has always gone by Jack Dunn. It’s been one of those things that everyone kind of just knows but has a tendency to forget about

No real reason as to why he has always gone by “Jack”, just that he never wanted to be called Phil/Phillip when he was a child

Jack is the only son of Judah and Lyla Dunn

He has four sisters (Oldest taken by Louella Dunn, others are open wanted connections!)

Growing up on the Whiskey Hollow property meant that Jack, as well as all of his sisters, were introduced to horses at a very young age

Whether or not the Dunn children wanted to be actively involved in the ranch or with horses was left entirely up to them but every opportunity was offered to find their personal niche with it

Jack started riding the minute that he could and from there he never stopped

The only other sport that Jack participated in was baseball which he played pretty much every year that he could manage it

He was offered an opportunity to play varsity but declined the offer to focus on his riding instead

Jack attended the University of Kentucky and majored in Equine Science & Management

He played baseball recreationally while in college with a club team when he could

Jack continued to ride and compete all throughout college on a horse named U Kan Cash a Chek (“Cash”)

After graduation, Jack moved to California to follow his at-the-time girlfriend whom he met at school

“Cash” was moved back to Whiskey Hollow and Jack was gifted another horse named Lena Bit of Diesel (“Lena”). Lena was moved to California with Jack and began training with him there

While in California Jack worked under a top NRCHA trainer located there and also competed at many events

After a year in California, Jack moved back to Tupelo as he couldn’t stand living in California

At age 26 Jack was declared a Million Dollar Rider with the NRHA (National Reining Horse Association)

Jack has been back in Tupelo for many years now (roughly 10 years) and has taken on the role as the head trainer at Dunn Performance Horses out of Whiskey Hollow

WHISKEY HOLLOW:

The Dunn Family owns and operates Whiskey Hollow which offers 3 main components

Judah and Lyla Dunn offer trail riding and take care of boarding the horses and so on, they also help with training of those who are looking for lessons but are not competitive

Louella Dunn is the eldest Dunn child and operates the rescue portion of Whiskey Hollow, often bringing in neglected animals to help provide them with a new lease on life and put them with forever homes

Jack Dunn runs Dunn Performance Horses which is highly competitive training for both students and horses alike. There are a few horses under Jack’s care which were born and bred to be at Whiskey Hollow and compete

The name was agreed upon as both brothers were equal investors and had equal responsibility with running the ranch

The property is vast and is home to more than just horses (such as donkeys and a whitetail deer)

The facility spans many acres and also houses trails that have small lakes and creeks running through it

A large farmhouse sits on the property near the barns which both Judah and Lyla continue to live

There is another smaller “caretaker’s house” on the property where Lou stays

The property also hosts an indoor and outdoor arena and is looking to expand/update the barns

PERSONALITY:

He can definitely be very flirty and charming (hence how he has about 900 ex girlfriends)

HOWEVER... He also is kind of a dickhead sometimes

Ego is astronomical

But it’s kind of charming and cute that he loves his animals and would do anything for them and they are his top priority

But them being his top priority means that his horses and his work will come before basically anyone else

Otherwise he tends to be fairly relaxed (or at least appears that way)

FAST FACTS:

Jack is a Million Dollar Rider (NRHA, National Reining Horse Association) which is a title given to riders who have winnings that accumulate to $1M from showing

He hopes to meet the mark of a 2 Million Dollar Rider and also a Million Dollar Rider in the NRCHA (National Reined Cow Horse Association)

He was also part of the US Team for the FEI World Equestrian Games in reining

Jack has 2 dogs and 1 cat - the dogs are Stone (Blue Heeler) & Armada (Catahoula Mix). His cat is George (orange tabby) who is also slightly overweight but they are working on it.

He drives a beefy Ford F-250 King Ranch

Yes his name is actually Phillip. No, he doesn’t want to talk about it

CONNECTIONS:

Friends! Childhood, High School, College, Show Circuit

Enemies! There’s probably a fair number of people who are not necessarily fans of Jack (Could be other competitors, etc)

Ex-girlfriends/ex-flings (Could be on good, bad, or decent terms! He has a tendency to have a lot of 3-month girlfriends)

The girl who he met in college and followed to California (x) This will be a WC

A girl from the circuit (another rider) who he competes against often and they are pretty good friends (but they definitely make fun of each other all the time, y’know). He’s probably (definitely) gotten into a fight with one of her ex-boyfriends over some BS that included her. (This’ll go up as a WC soon!)

Cousins! All of that family shit

His other 3 sisters! They are going to be open wanted connections so hit me up

All of it

#.tag1 #.tag2 #.tag3 #.tag4 #.tag5 #.jackintro

3 notes · View notes

tabloidtoc · 4 years

Text

Star, January 27

Cover: Alex Trebek wants to enjoy life

Page 1: Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix are trying to get pregnant even before getting married

Page 2: Contents

Page 4: Now that Pat Sajak has returned to Wheel of Fortune Vanna White isn’t satisfied with going back to her letter-turning role and she’s angling to keep hosting

Page 6: Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban and their family flee the terrible fires in Australia, Cuba Gooding Jr. reputation has taken a beating in the wake of sexual assault charges and he’s hoping his former costar Tom Cruise will help rehab his image but Tom is laying low, Star Spots the Stars -- Taron Egerton, Sterling K. Brown, Alysia Reiner, Scheana Shay and Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix

Page 7: Kanye West has purchased two expansive spreads in rural Wyoming for his doomsday bunker to keep his family safe, Demi Lovato devastated that her ex Wilmer Valderrama is engaged to Amanda Pacheco after dating only 8 months when he dated Demi for 6 years, Sharon Stone blocked on the dating app Bumble

Page 8: Star Shots -- Marisa Ramirez and Donnie Wahlberg on the set of Blue Bloods, Vivica A. Fox and Taraji P. Henson and Tasha Smith at Fox’s Winter TCA party

Page 9: Jason Momoa, Julianne Moore

Page 10: Happy Couples -- Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian and their daughter Alexis, Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson, Rose Leslie and Kit Harington at LAX

Page 12: Golden Globe Awards -- Tiffany Haddish and Snoop Dogg, Glenn Close and Jennifer Lopez, Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres

Page 13: Patricia Arquette and Joey King, Awkwafina, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio and Julia Butters, Taylor Swift, Michelle Williams

Page 14: Olivia Wilde at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Katharine McPhee Foster and Sara Bareilles at the final curtain call of Waitress, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence

Page 15: Angelina Jolie and daughter Vivienne walk their dogs in LA

Page 16: Adriana Lima in Miami, Marilyn Manson and Jack Black at the Art of Elysium’s annual Heaven event, Josh Duhamel playing golf

Page 17: Amber Heard in Hawaii

Page 18: Reese Witherspoon, Mandy Moore and husband Taylor Goldsmith, Jamie Chung

Page 19: Katie Morton takes a selfie, Ben Platt shooting The Politician

Page 20: Normal or Not? Kate McKinnon on Ellen, Mark Zuckerberg

Page 21: Katharine McPhee and her chihuahua

Page 22: Fashion -- Best of the Week -- red gowns at the Golden Globes -- Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, Busy Philipps

Page 23: Nicole Kidman, Helen Mirren

Page 26: Justin Timberlake quitting booze to save marriage to Jessica Biel

Page 27: Denise Richards had a fling with Brandi Glanville but it went wrong leading Denise to walk off RHOBH, Jonathan Scott is ready to propose to Zooey Deschanel but his friends are urging him to slow down after two major heartbreaks, Rachel Bilson’s long road to true love started in 2013, Greg Vaughan and Angie Harmon have already overcome one of the hardest parts of remarriage -- Angie’s 3 daughters and Greg’s 3 sons already get along

Page 28: Cover Story -- Alex Trebek -- I’m enjoying the time I have left

Page 32: ‘80s stars then and now -- Tom Cruise, Cindy Crawford, Christina Applegate, Rob Lowe

Page 34: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry choosing love over duty

Page 36: 2020 Love Predictions by numerologist Glynis McCants -- Justin and Hailey Bieber

Page 37: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, Katherine Schwarzenegger and Chris Pratt

Page 38: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Cody Simpson and Miley Cyrus

Page 39: Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn, Chris Martin and Dakota Johnson

Page 44: Style -- Getaway Chic -- Olivia Culpo

Page 48: Entertainment

Page 60: Parting Shot -- Eva Longoria and son Santiago in Los Cabos

#tabloid #tabloid toc #alex trebek #duchess meghan #meghan markle #prince harry #bethenny frankel #rose leslie #kit harington #rose and kit #kit and rose #game of thrones #got #jon snow

9 notes · View notes

ojamajoprincess · 4 years

Text

comfort characters in no particular order

aziraphale and crowley. imlove those soft fluffs

eric | the phantom of the opera— have you heard michael crawford on the original recording? his voice is just *chef’s kiss*

i immediately forgot about the rest when i started writing

my ocs. so many ocs to project on. so many ocs to imagine being safe and accepted and tender and softly loved

speaking of soft, jim kirk and spock and leonard bones mccoy

sofia the first and cedric the sensational

studio ghibli protagonists like shizuku and sophie and ohhh ponyo! everything in sousuke’s house looks so homey. you would think id never seen a couch before.

Anne of green gables. And Sarah Crewe. And Heidi— oh my gosh heidi is a comfort character if i ever knew one

Kit Kittredge even tho I haven’t finished her books

Severitus au adopted parent Snape and his son Harry (or really any Fandom! Snapes. He belongs to the collective who actually fleshes him out as a character instead of just pretending to)

Oooh! Ooh!!! Louis du Pointe du Lac!!!!

Black Jack | Kuroo Hazama

Lots of the Percy Jackson characters but especially Nico di Angelo and Lester | Apollo and Alex Fierro

Too many rando anime characters to list. Select ones are Kai and Heine from royal tutor and arakita yasutomo, mob, ichijouji ken, willis from digimon. kisaragi and noda from GA geijutsuka art design class

My Melody and Kitty-chan and Kiki Lala and pompompurin and bonbonribbon

alucard hellsing. king of vampires and pet dog who just wants scratches

hermann gottlieb!! newton geiszler!! lieblings!!!

Snufkin!! And moomin!! I’ve never seen the show but they look so comfy!!

this post is more a reminder to myself of characters i like since it’s a reminder there’s still things to be happy about in this moment in time.

#mimis life #comfort characters

2 notes · View notes

elfnerdherder · 5 years

Text

The Unquiet Grave: Chapter 16

[Support My Patreon] [Read on Ao3]

A special thanks to my patrons: @evertonem @starlit-catastrophe @kenobi-is-king @frostylicker @sylarana Mendacious Bean, Superlurk, Duhaunt6, and Cecily!

Chapter 16:

Beverly is walking away from his doorstep when Hannibal pulls into the driveway. The dogs are going nuts inside, and Will uses that as the perfect distraction to avoid her bemused expression at seeing him get out of his therapist’s car.

The dogs rush about, and Buster frantically sniffs at him, begging treats. Will crouches to rub his belly, and he stares at the toe of Beverly’s shoe just at the corner of his eye. Beverly has always been a surefire read, a genuine one. She has something to say, and she’s radiating with an energy of something bordering antagonistic.

Will imagines his walls, where they rise high. He can’t handle channeling her anger right now. He has his own, something a potent bled of antagonistic and afraid all in one.

“Was wondering where you were.”

“I didn’t know you knew where I lived.”

“Do you know where I work?”

They both smile, and she accepts Buster’s affection and excitement, reaching down to scratch behind his ears.

“I’m getting insight into the rogue empath that Jack asked me to look into. He pulled me away for something else, but I’ll be back to hunting Dolarhyde soon, promise.”

It was a shitty promise, but he wasn’t feeling too awful about it.

“Bull shit, you’re coming out with me,” she replies easily, and she picks Buster up, much to his delight. “We haven’t gone out for a beer in awhile.”

“Now isn’t exactly…”

“Will and I were going to go out to dinner, actually. Would you care to join us, then go to drinks after?” Hannibal cuts in smoothly. His smile is as warm as his tone, and Will barely manages to repress a look of utmost disdain. He really doesn’t have time for this shit.

“Where were you thinking of going?”

“I haven’t had taken either of you to an excellent Greek restaurant just a on the edge of Baltimore. Are there any allergies I should be aware of?”

There are no allergies to fear, and the plan is set. The dogs make their rounds, and Will apologetically ushers them back into the house, giving them an extra treat each on the way out. They take Hannibal’s car, and maybe it’s a calculative move on Hannibal’s part as much as a political one because now someone is less likely to kill him if they think he has company over for the evening.

Beverly is quiet only through the appetizer. She seems to be observing as much as she is enjoying the ambiance of an artificial waterfall in the corner, as well as the tangy scent of olive oil and vinaigrette. That buzzing energy sits with a cloud around her, and Will imagines her leaning in with aggression, hearing something she’s not entirely pleased about.

He blinks away the thought, the Dream. If he looks too closely, he’ll fall in, and sometimes falling in is scary when you’re not quite sure where you’ll land. These days, it’s unsettling enough that he can’t account for how he’ll react once he’s inside, either.

Just Mr. Jackson, now.

Will picks at his cloth napkin idly, and Hannibal informs them of the best of the menu, along with some of the recipes he’s attempted to replicate. The air hums with socialites’ laughter and the clatter of fine china. Live music plays, Beverly hums along. It’s the setting to a perfect scene of three friends from wildly varying lifestyles coming together, and if he was in more control of himself and his surroundings, Will would have laughed out loud at it.

“Sometimes, Will, I think it’s a shame that you can’t eat meat. Some of the flavors Greek cuisine bring out linger in a way that is difficult to mimic in other dishes.”

“They have a roast lamb that I’m going to have to devour,” Beverly says by way of agreement. Her eyes lighten at something, and she taps the menu pointedly. “This was a good suggestion, Dr. Lecter.”

“I’m happy you could come along.”

“Well this guy usually makes a point to clam up and avoid social situations, so this is one of the few times I get to have a conversation with the illustrious Will Graham outside of work,” Beverly says with a laugh.

It’s light, not unkind. Will manages a smile and accepts the wine from the waiter as he returns. The waiter’s eyes linger, focus on his gloves still on inside the restaurant. Will tucks his hands under the table and waits for him to leave. While empaths aren’t hated within society, they aren’t entirely enjoyed, either. He can sense the immediate assumption and judging.

Far different from the taxi driver that supposed him to be cold but far too polite to voice it.

“Have you been waiting for a moment to question him extensively on something?” Hannibal asks.

“What’s on your mind?” Will asks distractedly, looking back to them.

Sometimes, he thinks about how Hannibal had looked, standing so close to him in the house of mirrors. Perhaps he Dreamed it, something his mind created because it wanted to be, and yet; there was something in the way he spoke words that would be treason should Jack Crawford hear them, and here he was ensuring that Will was in a position to be protected. His question now is much the same, and Will swears he can see that same hint of hunger as he studies Beverly with a keen attention to her squared shoulders despite the casual setting.

I’m fond of you.

“I was wondering what your thoughts were on the empath Jack’s having you track on the side.”

Can you see?

“What do you mean?” Will frowns.

“I just want to hear what you have to say,” she says, but that’s not quite how it sounds.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he retorts, and it grants him a laugh.

“You’re going to probably think I’m an ass hole after this,” she warns. “But I like taking things head on.”

“I’ll live,” Will promises, taking a sip of white wine. It is light, buttery on the palate as the server said when he first suggested it. He notes Beverly tracking it, and he forces a smile.

“When you first put your hands in the victim’s chest cavity, afterwards you described this as being some sort of homage to you. You said that the person asked you if you could see.”

He thinks of Slowinski, how his life hangs in the balance of whether or not Dolarhyde can find him. He tastes the bitter burn of monkshood, and it takes another long sip of wine before he can sound perfectly normal.

“It was a disorienting experience, but I recall” he says. Barriers. Compartmentalize. “What about it?”

She takes a sip of her wine –to steady herself, Will notes –and she accepts a plate and an offering of hummus from Hannibal. “The second time, you tell Jack he’s an empath, but you make no mention of this person saying anything specifically. Just that they were weaponizing their gift.”

Will could see where this was going. He busies his hands with his food, and he savors the warmth of the naan in his palms.

“Did he say anything that time? Or did it go from him reaching out to you to nothing at all?”

One thing Will both loves yet loathes is Beverly Katz’s tenacity for diving right to the point. Maybe, if Will hadn’t yet felt such a distinctive…need to protect this person in the moment, odd as it was, he’d tell her the words ringing in his head, nudging, pushing? And yet it would be a disservice, somehow, to tell her how protective, almost endearing it was that in the midst of all of this someone is attempting to save him from himself. From the institution that holds him.

He can’t quite say it like that to Jack, though. That’s a surefire way to fail his psyche-evaluation. To retirement.

To turning out like Dolarhyde.

“He likely lost interest when I didn’t respond. I think Jack was right to pull me. No action led to boredom, so he’s escalating,” Will says, swiping the bread through the hummus. He won’t look at her eyes.

He’d hissed to Lecter that the rogue empath was taunting him. It seemed Hannibal had kept his secret, left it there among the distorted glass and tilting halls.

“Do psychopaths do that? Or rogue empaths, for that matter?” Beverly asks, confused.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Hannibal admits, cutting in smoothly. “It depends on the ultimate intentions of the empath. Are they attempting to draw Agent Graham out specifically, or are they comfortable so long as they have someone’s attention?”

“I guess that’s what I’m wondering if you gleaned something the second time. I’m confused that it’s so…contrasting from the first time they struck.”

Will polishes off the rest of the wine and tears into the hummus with a single-minded vengeance. “That, and you had to ensure that if I drank tonight, it wasn’t alone.”

She snickers rather than blusters, and maybe that’s why he likes her, for a neurotypical.

“If he strikes again, get me there asap, and you’ll get the reaction in real time so you trust the source,” he suggests. “I’m thinking back now, and what I said in the moment would have been the most honest. In the moment, we say what we see, we say what we feel. If that’s what I said, that’s what I said.”

“Thanks for the permission,” she replies after a beat, saluting him with her glass. “Now, I’ll make up for the interrogation with a round of drinks after dinner. You’re always a good sport, Graham.”

It’s not alcoholism if he drinks with others. Will allows himself to relax.

It’ll look good right before the evaluation.

He’s drunk by the time Hannibal safely returns them to his humble abode. Everything is slippery, falling away, and he thinks of the first time he watched a fish die. How his father hit it, and he’d barfed later, unable to peel the death from his eyes.

“Are you comfortable walking by yourself, Will?” Hannibal asks, and everything’s damp to the touch. Will isn’t sure if he sounds angry or if he’s amused, and gloved hands tuck themselves into pockets. Beverly had gone home in an Uber, promising to pick up her car in the morning. If she felt liquor as much as Will currently did, she was going to regret her life choices in the morning. He would, too, but right now he feels nice. Things feel nice. Damp, but nice. Why damp? He inhales, and the air is wet. He wonders if he’s thinking too much about that fucking fish. How it gaped, staring, dying.

“Yes, thanks, Dr. Lecter.”

“Please, call me Hannibal.”

Will likes the feel of that, how it compresses in his chest and makes his heart constrict. He thinks of how close they’d pressed together in the wardrobe, his cheek to the woolen coat, and Hannibal had held him so tightly.

He’s drunk, and it sounds like a god damn dream. He needs to hold it together but he can’t, and this was the sort of drunk he’d once told Hannibal about, the kind of drunk where being an empath wasn’t so bad. The dangerous kind. The kind where reality can be a dream, the dream being a life where one could touch someone whenever they wanted.

He doesn’t often think about touching people, but dreams are like that. You want something you don’t allow yourself to normally think of. You long for it. You hope for it.

“Dreams,” he manages to say –out of all of that –and he follows Hannibal into the house, taking his jacket off and allowing it to hang in the hallway. “How did you follow me into my headspace? I thought to ask at the time, but I…”

He inhales the taste of Hannibal Lecter’s home, and he trails off, studying the warm tone and how it continues to constrict his heart, panging tight and hungry. He wonders what Alana would say, if she could see him now. Obsessed, indeed.

“You grabbed my hand. I’ve heard it sometimes possible with E-2’s, so I supposed it plausible with an E-3. It’s never happened to me before, but it’s an experience I’ll never forget. I thought to thank you for it after, but it seemed a tasteless thing to thank you for.”

Hannibal leads him straight to the guest bedroom. It makes sense, given how he struggles up the stairs, but it makes Will think of how closely they’d been pressed, how lightly he’d been touched. Fuck, he’s too drunk. He can’t handle the overwhelming sense of his own feelings at the moment. He’s once again grateful he can’t sense anything from Hannibal.

He’d eaten monkshood within the shabby shelter of Will’s crumbling brain. Hannibal Lecter truly was something else.

He wants to say as such, but he forgets to, somewhere between shuffling into a spare set of pajamas and having a glass of water forced down. He watches Hannibal’s ease, how his vision wavers in and out but still continues to fixate solely on him.

Alana thought of it as obsession. Will wonders what Hannibal would think of his breaking into his office.

“You didn’t tell them what I said about the empath,” he recalls, just before Hannibal leaves the room.

Hannibal pauses and acknowledges it with a tilt of his head. Will’s vision swims, and he fully accepts he will be vomiting in the morning. “I am in your corner, Will. I wouldn’t have you doubt that.”

A rogue empath hunting him down to make him Become wouldn’t look good while his mind crumbled as he chased Dolarhyde. Hannibal is protecting him.

“Do you remember when you asked about my sex life, Dr. Lecter?” Will asks, unprompted.

Hannibal’s amused, and Will’s too drunk to yet feel shame. “Good night, Will.”

“No, I’m going somewhere with this. For your study of empathy.”

There’s something about Hannibal, how he looks at Will. Sometimes Will thinks it’s that he’s intrigued or amused, or he wonders if he is a puzzle that the doctor is trying to put together. Perhaps there is something less professional in how his eyes darken perceptively, but this is the sort of thing that is dangerous for Will. He’s only feeding off of his own emotions, and his own emotions are terrible at best and terrifying at their worst.

“I spoke of being able to numb myself enough that another person’s emotions and skin didn’t overwhelm me.”

Hannibal’s smile is lethal. “I recall.”

“This is how drunk I have to be in order to bear it.”

Hannibal takes that information with the same expression he had when he first found Will stumbling through the hallways of the house of mirrors –hunger. Something a little wicked, and Will thinks of bare hands passing over poetry, tasting the first sense of the good doctor for who he was behind such a normally modest façade.

Will falls into a drunken stupor that could be called sleep, if it wasn’t for such wonderful Dreams.

He dreams Hannibal is behind his sturdy walls. They rise high, and the stag paces along the tree line, watching. Somehow, the space feels bigger, a little more room for another row of herbs to grow. The poisoner and the healing hand. The air has a hint of thyme.

He isn’t sure how they are naked together, only that they are. There is something in the way of his dreams that he blinks, and he is there, as though it always was. Then he blinks again and it is another place that he always was, but one thing that is for certain is that Hannibal is there, his kiss is enough to get drunk off of; Will is certainly drunk off of it, and it is to the early morning he wakes, still drunk, puking into the first toilet he can find.

He thanks whatever God is listening at the moment that he managed to get to a toilet in time. He’s not quite sure he’d live down the shame of having to clean vomit off of Hannibal Lecter’s woven rug that belonged somewhere in a museum rather than someone’s floor.

His dreams pass over his eyes, but mornings are the best times to forget dreams. They become hazy, odd, and as he digs through the cupboards and is relieved to find mouthwash, Will is able to convince himself that he didn’t have wildly inappropriate dreams about his therapist, that he didn’t dream that they pressed monkshood to one another’s lips, that they didn’t dare and share a kiss.

It takes another round of dry-heaving and a good scrubbing of cold water to his face, but Will Graham walks out of the guest bathroom having managed to do what most people are able to do with dreams –forget them entirely. He thinks instead of the row of thyme that’d sprouted since his last trip into the bone arena of his skull.

“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asks the moment Will walks into the kitchen.

He’s already prepared a breakfast that was surely made with drinking in mind, a healthy helping of grease wrapped in lemon and honey-glazed salmon with eggs on the side. Will accepts it and sits up to the bar where Hannibal is busy with finishing his cup of coffee, newspaper in hand.

“Nothing I haven’t felt before,” Will reassures him.

“Were you ill?”

It’s a nice way of asking if he vomited. He shrugs a shoulder and focuses instead on the scents of the breakfast, testing the water. Is it safe to eat? The lingering flavors sit in the back of his throat before he swallows them down and deems them safe.

“Anything good?” Will asks, nodding to the paper.

“I woke thinking about your killer,” Hannibal replies, and he sets the paper down, smoothing the creases along the article he’s reading. “He’s made the front page.”

It’s the house of mirrors where Randall Tier was found. Police tape sections it off despite the fact the body is long gone and the stains are removed. The scene was a symbol, but the location in of itself is irrelevant because it was only a prop, used merely to mock Will as his mind attempts to rend itself in two.

Will remembers vaguely mentioning the killer, but it’s like attempting to look through a windowpane in a downpour. Everything is streaked, grey somehow, and he absentmindedly takes a bite of food, gloved hand gripping the fork with just a little too much pressure.

“Why did you wake thinking about him?”

“You never explained why you thought he was taunting you.”

Will chews the salmon to a paste before he swallows. “Why didn’t you tell them what I said?”

“Because I first wanted to understand what you said,” says Hannibal without missing a beat. He tracks Will’s next bite, lips pressed to a flat line. “How can I relay something I myself don’t know?”

Will manages another two bites before he thinks he can explain himself in a way that doesn’t make him sound just mentally unstable enough for Hannibal to turn him in. Despite the richness of the food, it’s not overwhelming. The tightness in his stomach seems to be hunger rather than nausea.

“He spoke to me,” he says, spearing a bite of egg.

“You heard him?”

He glances up and studies the curiosity on Hannibal Lecter’s face. So perfectly neutral, and Will is tempted to remove his gloves just to reach out his bare hands and maybe see something for once.

“With noise and clarity.”

“What did he ask you?”

“He asked if I could see.”

Can you see?

“What is it he wanted you to see?” Hannibal wonders, and he presses his palms to the warm coffee cup. He leans back against the counter and props himself up, a generally rumpled appearance for the good doctor.

This takes somewhat longer for Will to share, and he forces a few more bites of salmon down, the lemon bitter but welcome on his tongue.

“Myself.”

Hannibal’s head tilts just slightly to the side, but the corners of his eyes tighten, and Will can see that hint of hunger, of craving for something.

I’m fond of you.

“Did you see yourself in the house of mirrors? Or did you see yourself in Randall Tier?”

“Both. I…Randall Tier is the house of mirrors. Every time he contorted himself into some shape that wasn’t his, every time he made himself into something else for every person he came across, I’ve done something like that.”

Hannibal’s laugh was light, not unkind. “You have refused to contort yourself to many of us.”

“No, but I can’t help but take just enough of everyone along with me that I can’t separate it anymore. He…he knows how Hobbs…”

He doesn’t want to say it. How he and Hobbs are the same, even now with him six feet under. He needs to see Abigail today, needs to prepare for the evaluation. He needs to see Abigail, but in his most terrifying dreams he is Abigail –but aren’t they? They both died that day, died then returned not completely whole. Maybe there is something to the thought, that he has to see her because it seems to be the only way he can marginally feel whole.

“What does he gain from making you see? What is he wanting from you?”

Will finishes the eggs and lets the tines of the fork drag through the honeyed sauce. That is perhaps what is the most terrifying aspect of it, alongside somehow sympathizing with the monster murdering these people. Tools, he reminds himself. He thinks of these people as tools.

“He wants me to see what they’re trying to make me become,” he admits, and this isn’t like before when fear and adrenaline forced him to be intimate and confined in tight spaces with Hannibal. It’s a quiet, immaculate kitchen, nothing in the world to distract him from honestly apart from his own blunt, stubborn refusal. “I think that…that this person is trying to save me from dying at the hands of the FBI. I think he knows something that we don’t.”

He chances a look to Hannibal’s face. It’s contemplative, his brow furrowed as he makes quick work of wiping down the counter where his mug left a ring of fog on the granite. Hazy, grey streaks of dreams come, unprompted, and Will wonders if he managed to mention that the night before, or if he’d said something otherwise embarrassing that’s caused the talk this morning.

He finishes his plate, and there’s something bordering on domestic as Hannibal takes it to rinse it in the sink.

“Why didn’t you feel comfortable telling me then?”

Will thinks of the hunger in Hannibal’s eyes that day, that tenseness as though he’d been prepared to hold Will there until he fucking talked. “I wasn’t sure if I could trust you.”

Hannibal’s smile is graceful that time. He offers coffee and makes short work of preparing he grounds, fresh from this morning. “You trust me now, though?”

“Dr. Lecter –”

“Hannibal.”

“Hannibal,” Will corrects, “you literally have every reason in the world to call Jack Crawford right now and have me arrested for at least four felonies. Why haven’t you?”

Hannibal doesn’t miss a beat, focused on the espresso machine. “I’ve already told you that, Will. I’m fond of you.”

“Yeah, well,” Will huffs, “I’m fond of you, too.”

And then it’s said, and it’s too big for the room they’re sitting in. It’s too big for his lungs that quite suddenly deflate, and it’s too big for the way he’s entirely sure Hannibal’s smile is more telling than it should be. He likes that smile, though. There’s something nice about it, and there’s something nice about not quite being able to read him despite the complaints to the contrary. Dr. Lecter is interesting. Dr. Lecter is different.

Dr. Lecter is staring at him.

He offers Will the cup of espresso, his lips curved ever-so-slightly. “Will you drink this without your gloves on?”

For a wild moment, Will thinks of dragging his hands over Lecter’s office, craving every inch and marveling at the vast sensations. How close he felt, yet far enough away to only catch imprints. And now he’s suddenly being given permission? He wants to rip his gloves off, touch his palms to the surface of the kitchen where Hannibal so clearly loves to work; wants to press his palms to cheeks with hollowed, cruel edges that seem sharp enough to cut.

If Alana could see him now…

He removes his gloves slowly so that the good doctor can see and understand the motion. Then, he reaches out and accepts the piping hot cup, small enough that his palms encase it.

There is a hunger there, something that drags across his ribs as a bow along cello strings. He blows on the cup, both resigned and wickedly excited for the way it’s going to burn all the way down. When his lips press to the edge of the cup, there’s a wild feeling that he’s somehow sharing a kiss, and without anymore preamble, he tilts his head back and sucks the piping hot drink down.

When he looks back at Hannibal, there’s an intimate expression on the planes of his face that suggests Will had done everything Hannibal could have hoped for. Will’s palms are still tingling, stinging from the heat, but it compares nothing to the fire in his throat that claws down to his stomach. He has the briefest moment of indulging in a bad habit, and it’s difficult to say if he picked that up from the cup, or if it’s something much his own.

Either way, he’s drowning in it, that feeling. Something that is pronounced enough it lingers long after the heat does, after his throat stops complaining from the onslaught.

“To Abigail?” Will suggests hoarsely, when Hannibal makes no comment.

“To Abigail,” Hannibal agrees.

#LiaS scribbles #hannibal #nbc hannibal #hannibal au #hannigram #hannibal x will graham #empath au #someone help will graham #hannibal fanfic

16 notes · View notes

freddie-my-love · 6 years

Video

vimeo

THE COMPLETE ASTAIRE COLLECTION A visual love letter to Fred Astaire

For two years I have worked on a Fred Astaire project that I finally finished today. I call it The Complete Astaire Collection, a tribute video I put together from clips from every single dance number he did for the big screen between 1933 and 1968, and they’re presented in chronological order. The music is provided by Astaire’s second biggest fan and friend Michael Jackson.

After an almost 30-year-career on the stage, Fred Astaire made his film debut with Dancing Lady in 1933, introduced by Clark Gable and dancing his first routine with Joan Crawford, who took a cast off a broken ankle for a day just so she could dance with him. Watch him as he dances his way through the decades, in top hat and tails, with rolled-up sleeves and an old tie around his waist, or that one time he wore blue denim jeans. Dancing over chairs and tables, gliding over the ceiling or skidding around on his knees, on top of a roof or under a gazebo in the rain, dancing as a sailor or a soldier, a shoemaker or a king, a fake Russian or a guardian angel, incorporating his talents as a drummer and golfer, chewing gum or with a cigarette dangling from his lips, dancing with his own shadow or surrounded by firecrackers, on ships and in barns, in toy stores and fun houses, in the woods and at the gym, on roller-skates or in cowboy boots, in numbers that are romantic and elegant or comedic and eccentric, but always inspired and innovative, in a manner that was neither tap nor ballroom nor ballet, but distinctly his own ‘outlaw’ style, as he liked to describe it. Movements that look completely effortless and spontaneous when in truth there wasn’t a single move that he made that wasn’t written down in his notebook and planned with the precision of an engineer (often at 4 o'clock in the morning), and rehearsed with the tireless drive of a perfectionist to the point of bleeding feet and sweaty tears.

When working on a film, he prepared for months, often working sixteen hours a day and never eating during rehearsals. ‘Moaning Minnie’ was his nickname given by his sister, because he was constantly worried about his work. Full of self-loathing and insecurity, he was his own worst critic. “He was a very worried man”, remembered one of his leading ladies. You wouldn’t know it when you watch him dance—like all great artists, he was transformed when he did what he was meant to do. When he dances he seems so carefree he’s barely touching the ground, unless of course he’s ‘beating the floor to a pulp’, with an intensity and a deeply masculine anger that is rarely talked about. People prefer to call him ‘debonair’, quite possibly his least favorite word and one he never identified with.

Another thing he hated was sentimentality and repetition. Ever the innovator, he never looked back, refused to talk about the past and had a keen interest in new technologies and sought to incorporate them in his choreographies. Already as a teenager he had ideas how dance should be filmed—ideas that have endured and still inspire filmmakers today. Many people don’t know that Astaire was the director of most of his dances on film.

His final years weren’t particularly happy—ironically he began struggling with his balance and couldn’t turn his head to the left anymore or he’d get really dizzy, but he could look back on an extraordinary career that spanned almost 80 years—one of the longest careers in show business. There’s a reason why it lasted that long, and why he will never be forgotten. To me he’s the greatest artist of the 20th century (Buster Keaton being a close second), a man of generous spirit, boundless creative energy and limitless inner strength, a man who brought and still brings healing and joy to millions of people around the world, and who can pick you up with just his smile. More than anything, Astaire was a hypnotist, and his true genius was not so much his technical brilliance but his ability to feel profound joy and letting you in on it. All of this can be seen in my tribute.

Watch him dance alone and with his many partners, some of them dancers, some not, and how he held them in his arms in the way only he could—so loose and yet so completely in charge, with his big hand almost entirely covering the small of their backs. Several of his dancing partners have said that all he had to do was to put his hand on your back, and you knew just what to do and where to go—he was that good at leading. They compared it to telepathy. His musical career ended with Finian’s Rainbow in 1968, the first major film by director Francis Ford Coppola, who later admitted that the film wouldn't have been such a flop if he had listened more to Astaire.

(If you’re not in the US, you can also watch the video on YouTube, or via my Google Drive which also allows you to download the file. I recommend these two options over Vimeo, since I had to compress the video there a bit.)

#fred astaire #personal #tribute #video #cinema #supercut #oldmovies #hollywood #classic #michael jackson #vimeo #youtube #my youtube #old hollywood #30s #40s #50s #60s #dancing #movies #musicals

126 notes · View notes

viskumal · 6 years

Text

Hávamál: Trust

Trust; a fundamental pillar of any relationship, be it romantic, platonic, business or otherwise. Without it there is nothing. In this post I will include stanzas from the Hávamál (Words of Odin) that mention trust, wether directly or indirectly. Source taken from the English translation of the Poetic Edda by Dr. Jackson Crawford. (More Hávamál posts can be found here).

— Hávamál 1 At every doorway before you enter, you should look around, you should take a good look around— for you never know where your enemies might be seated within.

— Hávamál 9 A man is happy if he finds good advice within himself. Many men have received bad advice by trusting someone else.

— Hávamál 38 Never go even a single step without a weapon at your side; you never know when you might find yourself in need of a spear.

— Hávamál 43 If you have a good friend. and you really trust him, and want good to come of your friendship, you should speak your mind with him, exchange gifts, visit him often.

— Hávamál 45 But if you have another friend, and you mistrust him but want to benefit from him, nonetheless— you should speak to him kindly, flatter him, and repay his treachery with your own.

— Hávamál 46 This same friend, if you mistrust him, and suspect him to be false in his words: you should talk with him, laugh with him, but repay just what he gives you.

— Hávamál 63 If you want to be called wise, you should know how to ask and answer wisely. Tell your secret to one person, never to two— everyone knows, if three people know.

— Hávamál 73 Two men will defeat one; your tongue can endanger your head. In every hand hidden by a cloak, I expect to see a weapon.

— Hávamál 84 No man should trust the words of a girl, nor anything a woman says Women’s hearts are molded on a wobbly wheel. Deception lurks in their words.

— Hávamál 88 Do not put too much trust in your newly planted crops, nor in your child too early— weather will shape the field and whim will shape the child, and neither will stay the same.

— Hávamál 85-89 (A list of things not to trust) - 85 A breaking bow, a burning fire, a howling wolf, a cawing crow, a grunting pig, a rootless tree, a swelling wave, a boiling kettle, - 86 a flying spear, a crashing wave, one-night-old ice, a striped snake, the words of a bride in bed, a broken sword, a playful bear, the child of a king, - 87 a sick calf, a stubborn servant, a prophet who foresees good things, a corpse on the battlefield, - 89 your brother’s killer (even if you meet him in public), a half-burned house, a horse that’s too fast (remember, a horse is unusable if only only one foot breaks)— may you never be so trusting that you trust all these things.

— Hávamál 90 Take care not to love a deceitful woman, it is like driving an unshod horse, a playful, young, poorly-tamed foal, across slippery ice, or like sailing a ship in a wild wind, or trying to catch a reindeer on foot after the mountains thaw.

— Hávamál 91 I’ll speak plainly now, since I know both men and women: men lie to women. We speak most eloquently when we tell the biggest lies., and seduce even wise women with lies.

— Hávamál 117 I counsel you, Loddfafnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: Never let a bad man know of your misfortune, for you will never profit at all for telling him about it.

— Hávamál 119 I counsel you, Loddfafnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: If you have a friend, and you trust him, go and visit him often. Weeds and high grass will grow on a path that nobody travels.

— Hávamál 124 Men become friends when they can share their minds with one another. Anything is better than being lied to: a real friend will disagree with you openly.

— Hávamál 130 I counsel you, Loddfafnir, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll profit if you learn it, it’ll do you good if you remember it: If you want to win a good woman, speak cheerfully with her, and enjoy it while you do, make promises to her, and keep your promises you’ll never regret winning such a prize.

Sigrdrifumal, a part of the hero story concerning Sigurth, mentions some advice on trust as well:

— Sigrdrifumal 7 “ You should learn beer-runes if you don’t want another man’s wife to abuse your trust if you have a tryst. Carve them on the drinking-horn and on the back of your hand, and carve the rune for ‘N’ on your fingernail.

#hávamál #havamal #viskumal #viskumál #trust #asatru #*Havamal

172 notes · View notes

pemdasblog · 4 years

Text

PEMDAS -- 11•19•20

Welcome to the new PEMDAS Blog! My work on PEMDAS keeps expanding each week so it needs a bigger home. She loves The Overwhelm.

My main goal is to have a one glance spot for all things news/entertainment. I want it to contain as much detail as possible without being too cluttered. Striking the balance is hard. If you have feedback, please share it with me.

Open below for PEMDAS!

POLITICS/NEWS

U.S. Coronavirus Numbers

More than 11,695,500 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 251,100 have died.

The number of people who have died from Coronavirus in the U.S. is equivalent to 84 times the number of U.S. citizens who died in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It is 56 times the number of U.S. soldiers who died in the war against Iraq. It is 7 times the number of U.S. citizens who died from the flu last year.

On Nov. 18: 1,923 deaths (+52% 14-day change), 172,391 infections (+77% 14-day change)

The rates of infection and death remain disproportionately high in the Native American communities across the country. Just last weekend, 600 Native people died on the Navajo reservation.

Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa has contracted coronavirus. The nation mourns :-(

Global Coronavirus Numbers

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 56,661,800 people, according to official counts. As of Thursday afternoon, at least 1,355,100 people have died.

On Nov. 18: 11,133 deaths (+13% 14-day change), 598,877 infections (+25% 14-day change)

Election 2020

President-Elect Biden claims that Trump’s refusal to concede the election is preventing him from accessing critical data about the U.S. outbreak and that this could slow the vaccine distribution process.

President-Elect Biden names Cecilia Muñoz as part of his transition team. Muñoz served as a top immigration advisor for Obama, justifying harsh immigration policies, including the deportation of thousands of Central American children and the killing of an executive order that would have halted deportations.

Nancy Pelosi is re-elected as Speaker of the House.

World News

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo toured an illegal Israeli settlement and said he has plans to tour another in the occupied Golan Heights. This violates multiple U.N. resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. He also labelled the B.D.S. movement “anti-Semitic.”

In Central America, at least 30 people have died from Hurricane Iota. About 160,000 Nicaraguans and 70,000 Hondurans were forced to flee from their homes.

The head of the Australian military has apologized to the people of Afghanistan after Australian special forces committed war crimes by killing 39 noncombatants in Afghanistan over the past 4 years.

A nearly three-decade-old ceasefire has ended in occupied Western Sahara — what many consider to be Africa’s last colony. Fighting has broken out in several areas between the Moroccan military and the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi liberation movement seeking independence, after the Moroccan military broke into a no-go buffer zone in southern Western Sahara.

Winners of the National Book Awards 2020

Fiction: Interior Chinatown •• Charles Yu

Nonfiction: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X •• Les Payne and Tamara Payne

Translated Literature: Tokyo Ueno Station •• Yu Miri and Morgan Giles

Young People’s Literature: King and the Dragonflies •• Kacen Callender

EDUCATION — Topic: this Candace Owens tweet

“There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this.“

Both of these sentences separately are not true; both of them together are not true.

Here is an article about a village in China (”the East”) with women running the show.

Here is a list of several others, mostly in “the East.”

“In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence.“

First of all, Marx has not been an outright advocate for a gender-queer society.

Second of all, I think she’s right. Socialism and gender/queer theory are intertwined in so many ways.

“It is an outright attack.“

And I think she’s right about this, too. Socialism and gender/queer theory all are an attack on the cis-hetero white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

“Bring back manly men.“

Okay, this is where I think she’s wrong again.

1) "Manly men” haven’t gone anywhere...

2) Is she basically arguing that a couple of men wearing dresses means every man is no longer “manly?” This makes no sense.

3) In a society, “manly men” can coexist with “feminized” men. There is enough room for everyone. And there will always be men who want to take up the “manly” MANtle. And there will be queer/trans masc people who will want to do the same, though I’m sure Candace would hate that.

MEDIA (OTHER)

BOOKS - Tuesday, November 24

Ready Player Two •• Ernest Cline

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (Folk of the Air) •• Holly Black

Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization •• Joe Scarborough

Bright Shining World •• Josh Swiller

Ruinsong •• Julia Ember

The Awakening (Dragon Heart Legacy #1) •• Nora Roberts

Dark Tides •• Philippa Gregory

Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology •• edited by S.B. Divya & Mur Lafferty

The Thirty Names of Night •• Zeyn Joukhadar

MOVIES

Friday, November 20

Jiu Jitsu •• Dimitri Logothetis •• In Theaters

The Last Vermeer •• Dan Friedkin •• In Theaters

Run •• Aneesh Chaganty •• Hulu

Soros •• Jesse Dylan •• In Theaters

Sound of Metal •• Darius Marder •• In Theaters

The Twentieth Century •• Matthew Ranking •• In Theaters

Vanguard •• Stanley Tong •• In Theaters

Sunday, November 22

Belushi •• R. J. Cutler •• Showtime

Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square •• Debbie Allen •• Netflix

Monday, November 23

Shawn Mendes: In Wonder •• Grant Singer •• Netflix

Tuesday, November 24

Hillbilly Elegy •• Ron Howard •• Netflix

Wednesday, November 25

The Christmas Chronicles 2 •• Chris Columbus •• Netflix

The Croods: A New Age •• Joel Crawford •• In Theaters

Happiest Season •• Clea DuVall •• Hulu

Stardust •• Gabriel Range •• In Theaters

Thursday, November 26

Mosul •• Matthew Michael Carnahan •• Netflix

Superintelligence •• Ben Falcone •• HBO Max

TV SHOWS

Friday, November 20

Animaniacs •• Season 1 •• Hulu

The Mandalorian •• Season 2, Episode 4 •• Disney+

Marvel’s 616 •• Season 1 •• Disney+

The Pack •• Season 1 •• Prime Video

Small Axe •• Mangrove •• Prime Video

Voices of Fire •• Season 1 •• Netflix

Saturday, November 21

Between the World and Me •• Special •• HBO

Sunday, November 22

American Music Awards 2020 •• Special •• ABC

Host: Taraji P. Henson

Performances

Bad Bunny x Jhay Cortez

Bebe Rexha x Doja Cat

Bell Biv DeVoe

Billie Eilish

BTS

Dan + Shay

Dua Lipa

Jennifer Lopez x Maluma

Justin Bieber x Benny Blanco

Katy Perry

Lewis Capaldi

Lil Baby

Machine Gun Kelly

Megan Thee Stallion

Nelly

Shawn Mendes

The Weeknd x Kenny G

Monday, November 23

Black Narcissus •• Miniseries •• FX

His Dark Materials •• Season 2, Episode 2 •• HBO

Tuesday, November 24

Big Sky •• Season 1, Episode 2 •• ABC

Wednesday, November 25

Saved by the Bell •• Season 1 •• Peacock

The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration 2020 •• Special •• ABC

Hosts: Derek Hough, Julianne Hough, Trevor Jackson

Sneak peek of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure attraction and of Pixar’s Soul

VIDEO GAMES

Friday, November 20

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity •• NS

Katamari Damacy REROLL •• PS4, XBO

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin •• PS4, NS

The Skylia Prophecy •• NS

Monday, November 23

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands •• PC

Tuesday, November 24

Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues •• NS

Football Manager 2021 •• XBX, XBO, PC, Mac

Just Dance 2021 •• PS5, XBX

Wednesday, November 25

Out of Space: Couch Edition •• PS4, XBO, NS

Star Renegades •• PS4

Vigor •• PS4

Thursday, November 26

Maid of Sker •• NS

DIRECT ACTIONS/DONATIONS

Give $5 to... Unicorn Riot: on-the-ground journalists covering and capturing footage of the revolution!

ALBUMS

separated from her twin, a dying android arrives on a mysterious island [EP] •• Ada Rook

distanceless gentleness

time dilation

total memory failure

otherworld

Self Help •• Badge Époque Ensemble

Sing a Silent Gospel (ft. Meg Remy & Dorothea Paas)

Unity (It’s Up to You) [ft. James Baley]

Cloud

The Sound Where My Head Was

Just Space for Light (ft. Jennifer Castle)

Birds Fly Through Ancient Ruins

Extinct Commune

BE •• BTS

Life Goes On

내 방을 여행하는 법

Blue & Grey

Skit

잠시

병

Stay

Dynamite

Hypoluxo •• Hypoluxo

Seth Meyers

Ridden

Nimbus

Tenderloin

Appetizer

Night Life

Pointer Finger

Shape Ups

Shock

Sweat

Harmony •• Josh Groban

The World We Knew (Over and Over)

Angels

Celebrate Me Home

Shape of My Heart (Duet with Leslie Odom Jr.)

Your Face

Both Sides Now (Duet with Sara Bareilles)

She

The Impossible Dream

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

It’s Now or Never

I Can’t Make You Love Me

The Fullest (feat. Kirk Franklin)

Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞ •• Kali Uchis

la luna enamorada

fue mejor (w/ PARTYNEXTDOOR)

//aguardiente y limón %ᵕ‿‿ᵕ%

¡aquí yo mando! (w/ Rico Nasty)

vaya con dios

que te pedí//

quiero sentirme bien

telepatía

de nadie

no eres tu (soy yo)

te pongo mal (prendelo) [w/ Jowell y Randy]

la luz (Fín) [w/ Jhay Cortez]

ángel sin cielo

III •• Lindstrøm x Prins Thomas

Grand Finale

Martin 5000

Small Stream

Oranges

Harmonia

Birdstrike

Good News •• Megan Thee Stallion

Shots Fired

Circles

Cry Baby (ft. DaBaby)

Do It on the Tip (ft. City Girls)

Sugar Baby

Movie (ft. Lil Durk)

Freaky Girls (ft. SZA)

Body

What’s New

Work That

Intercourse (ft. Popcaan)

Go Crazy (ft. Big Sean & 2 Chainz)

Don’t Rock Me To Sleep

Outside

Savage Remix (ft. Beyoncé)

Girls in the Hood

Don’t Stop (ft. Young Thug)

Copycat Killer [EP] •• Phoebe Bridgers x Rob Moose

Kyoto (Copycat Killer Version)

Savior Complex (Copycat Killer Version)

Chinese Satellite (Copycat Killer Version)

Punisher (Copycat Killer Version)

Euphoric Sad Songs [EP] •• RAYE

Love Me Again

Change Your Mind

Regardless (ft. Rudimental)

Secrets (ft. Regard)

Natalie Don’t

All Dressed Up

Please Don’t Touch

Walk on By

Love of Your Life

Dimensional Stardust •• Rob Mazurek - Exploding Star Orchestra

Sun Core Tet (Parable 99)

A Wrinkle in Time Sets Concentric Circles Reeling

Galaxy 1000

The Careening Prism Within (Parable 43)

Abstract Dark Energy (Parable 9)

Parable of Inclusion

Dimensional Stardust (Parable 33)

Minerals Bionic Stereo

Parable 3000 (We All Come From Somewhere Else)

Autumn Pleiades

While the World Was Burning •• SAINt JHN

Sucks to Be You

Switching Sides

Freedom Is Priceless

Gorgeous

High School Reunion, Prom (ft. Lil Uzi Vert)

Monica Lewinsky, Election Year (ft. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie & DaBaby)

Roses (Remix) [ft. Future]

Pray 4 Me (ft. Kanye West)

Quarantine Wifey (ft. JID)

Time for Demons

Ransom (ft. 6lack & Kehlani)

Back on the Ledge

Roses (Imanbek Remix)

ALIAS •• Shygirl

TWELVE

SLIME

FREAK

TASTY

LENG

BAWDY

SIREN

Coping Mechanisms •• Tayla Parx

Sad

Dance Alone

System

Stare

Fixerupper

Bricks

Residue

Justified

NonChalant

Nevermind

Last Words

You Don’t Know

LIVE DRUGS •• The War on Drugs

An Ocean Between the Waves (Live)

Pain (Live)

Strangest Thing (Live)

Red Eyes (Live)

Thinking of a Place (Live)

Buenos Aires Beach (Live)

Accidentally Like a Martyr (Live)

Eyes to the Wind (Live)

Under the Pressure (Live)

In Reverse (Live)

SINGLES

NEW

“Revolutionary Love” •• Ani DiFranco

“Dido’s Lament” •• Annie Lennox

“My Head & My Heart” •• Ava Max

“Endless Me, Endlessly” •• Baio

“What Do You Say When I’m Not There?” •• Baio

“45” •• Bleachers

“chinatown” •• Bleachers x Bruce Springsteen

“Thousand Pills” •• Boldy James x Stove God Cooks

“gf haircut” •• dad sports

“Scratchcard Lanyard” •• Dry Cleaning

“Angel Rock” •• Dua Saleh

“Best Rapper in the Fuckin World” •• GoldLink

“Anywhere” •• Hannah’s Little Sister

“Love Not War (The Tampa Beat)” •• Jason Derulo x Nuka

“Pick Up Your Feelings” •• Jazmine Sullivan

“Daddy Boyfriend” •• Jessica Lea Mayfield

“Emotional Abandonment” •• Jessica Lea Mayfield

“Hitman” •• Kelly Rowland & NFL

“Summertime The Gershwin Version” •• Lana Del Rey

“Undone” •• Lande Hekt

“Man’s World” •• MARINA

“Prisoner” •• Miley Cyrus x Dua Lipa

“The Lighthouse Keeper” •• Sam Smith

“Is It Just Me?” •• Sasha Sloan x Charlie Puth

“Shameika Said” •• Shameika x Fiona Apple

“Monster” •• Shawn Mendes x Justin Bieber

“Hey Boy” •• Sia

“nhs” •• slowthai

“Plead Insanity” •• Spring Silver x Sad13 x Bartees Strange

“feel good” •• Tierra Whack

“Peppers and Onions” •• Tierra Whack

“Flawed” •• Wale x Gunna

“Tried to Tell You” •• The Weather Station

REMIXES

“Valley of One Thousand Perfumes (Orchestral Version)” •• Mary Timony

“Lifetime (Planningtorock ‘Let It Happen’ Remix)” •• Romy x Planningtorock

“Boys Who Don’t Wanna Be Boys (U.S. Girls Live from The Peppermint Lounge Remix)” •• Seth Bogart x U.S. Girls

COVERS

“Waverly” (Samia cover) •• Anjimile

“Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” •• Betty Who

“Deacon Blues” (Steely Dan cover) •• Bill Callahan x Bonnie Prince Billy x Bill McKay

“Christmas Will Really Be Christmas” •• Black Pumas

“Clementine” (Elliott smith cover) •• Bonny Light Horseman

“The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” (Roberta Flacke cover) •• James Blake

“The First Noel” •• Jazmine Sullivan x Cory Henry

“A Dreamer’s Holiday” (Perry Como cover) •• Julien Baker

MUSIC VIDEOS

“JUMPING SHIP” •• Amaarae x Kojey Radical x Cruel Santino (dir. Remi Laudat)

“34+35″ •• Ariana Grande (dir. Director X)

“Shameika” •• Fiona Apple (dir. Matthias Brown)

“Don’t Underestimate Midwest American Sun” •• Kevin Morby (dir. Johnny Eastlund x Dylan Isbell)

"Star” •• LOOΠΔ (dir. MOSWANTD)

“Waverly” •• Samia (dir. Samia Finnerty x Matt Hixon)

“Kerosene” •• Yves Tumor x Diana Gordon (dir. Cody Critcheloe)

#pemdas

0 notes

aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

Text

categorized and generalized all the types of tumblr aesthetics i have come across.

I have been going through archives for the last five years on tumblr now, and i can’t help but notice that a lot of blogs are the same. There seems to be a pattern in the sorts of aesthetics i run up against. So, in my exhaustion, i tried coming up with all the different aesthetics, and i tried to put them into certain categories. Obviously, some of these categories are mixed with others.

PORN TUMBLR

-general porn

-lesbian/gay general

-kinky stuff

-daddy dom stuff - tied up boobies

-bears

-just unrealistic nudes

-just realistic nudes

-vintage porn, and occasionally porn that is so old that it was drawn by someone in the 1800′s

- hentai and erotic animal people cartoon characters going at it

-person who took about five pictures of themselves naked five years ago who has not come back

RICH KID TUMBLR

-super modelesque kids in their super rich cool kid clothes and fashion in Starbucks taking pictures of their food and their trips to Europe in 1st class

- incredibly expensive looking sunglasses

-rich kid travel blogs with hundreds of thousands of notes of pictures from rich people buildings

-quotes that say 'be happy' or stuff about saying anyone can just travel anywhere at any time, just the general advice you might get from someone who doesn't know how the other half lives

- cats

VINTAGE TUMBLR

-the greatest generation stuff, forgotten early hollywood actors/actresses, very old movie gifs, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Carol Lombard, early Joan Crawford, Gone with the Wind ect..

-50's, 60's and 70's, Nancy Sinatra, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn – generally a lot of Audrey Hepburn

-Posts old advertisements and old cars, sometimes old toys, a few pinups, vintage comics, kinda weird

- vintage toy blogs - just toys, named and dated

-sometimes retrospace stuff

-sometimes just old comic book stuff

FEMINIST/ GENDER STUDIES TUMBLR

-intersectional feminists who post mostly text and back and forth writings, sometimes they fight

-radfems and turfs, unpopular minority of angry at the intersectional feminists

- Fat Acceptance movement, chubby bunnies

-other girl's selfies, lots of girl power related drawings of gender symbols and the like, Grimes, being a witch, Courtney Love, sailor moon, and so forth, sometimes bleeds into soft grunge

-topics on transgender, gender fluid and others that have informative

- asexual community

BLACK LIVES MATTER TUMBLR

-black lives matter awareness, police brutality, pointing out flaws in legal system

-lovely stylish selfies

-call outs of racism, lots of dialogue, and the extension of twitter

80's + 90's GIF TUMBLR

-like gifs of scratched up VCR obscure film openings, and repetitious obscure 80's gifs in general, everything is fuzzy and looks like it came from an 80' infomercial, kinda makes you feel scared

-90's gifs of Pee Wee Herman, Catdog, Clarissa Explains it All, Chucky Cheese, Fruit by the Foot, Beavus and Butthead, Bart Simpson, and so on

HIPPIE TUMBLR

-just like the rich kidz, only they have white kid dreads and post a lot of vanlife stuff, lots of festivals

-mostly psychedelic gifs, with occasional trippy art, Foster the People is their favorite band

-real hippies, who post pictures of communes and people making tyed dye things, nonsexual nudes with hairy women, Grateful Dead stuff

-Buddhist and Hindu quotes, sometimes lilies

SOFT GRUNGE TUMBLR

purple and pink skies, water, windows with lace

girls with pale skin and perfect make up, and chokers, bruises, sparkly skin

mermaid texture, mermaid hair colors

Lana Del Rey

kind of like 90's only more melty and pink

quotes about good vibes

Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless mind reference

moon print

dream pop bands from the early 90's

GROWN UP SOFT GRUNGE TUMBLR

picture of Uma Thurman overdosing in Pulp Fiction

lots and lots of flowers

lots of sensual pictures of pale skin under certain lighting

albino people

albino animals

pictures of sunrises

Reykjavic

kind of like the Soft Grunge, but just a little bit more subtle and film tumblry

ART BLOG TUMBLR

old roman art

chinese, japanese and korean art from long ago

renaissance and medieval art with religious context

just like medieval art of specifically torture

18th and 19th century portrait paintings

Scenic paintings of hills, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet

Dada, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Adolph Wolfie

Modern art that is squiggly, slimy, and bizzare, breaks art rules but looks good, David Shrigley

Modern Surrealists

ARTIST BLOG TUMBLR

posts really great homemade gifs that nobody knows about infrequently

blogs that only have the artwork of the blog owner – generally post infrequently and not given enough credit ever, except maybe one of there works has a whole bunch of notes

person who keeps painting the same thing over and over again and does it a lot for years at a time, 0 notes usually – who are you??

collage artists that mix 50's scenes with hyperspace backdrops

FILM BLOG TUMBLR

-Stanley Kubrick, Jean Cocteau, lots of black and white french films

-that movie where the two people are sitting on the ledge of a building and the other one jumps off

Clockwork Orange

-Paris, Texas

David Lynch

Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks (gets stolen by other kinds of blogs frequently)

Wim Wenders,

Rare film art from Poland in the 70's

Jans Svankmajer

Man Ray, Max Ernst,

cool quotes by philosopher, artist, psychologist, or film director

Amelie

sometimes Wes Anderson

PHOTOGRAPHY TUMBLR

abandoned places, gas stations, archaic cafes, falling apart amusement parks

uses too much dark fade out in the background pictures of fields and stuff, overused filtering – posted a ton three years ago and then left

just photostock

girl who takes pictures of herself in costume

Nature pictures, animal pictures ect..

person who just takes pictures of textures and minimalist buildings – usually colorful

person who's personal Instagram picture just automatically post to tumblr also, probably never checks up, usually pictures of them with friends as a pub

Indigenous pictures from around the world, some of them from books, some from National Geographic, some from other places

Super old pictures from old newspapers, the great depression, WW2 – generally black and white

MUSIC TUMBLR

Really likes Led Zeppelin, The Doors and The Who, sometimes mixed with other vintage, often posts the same pictures and songs for years – you feel bad because no new music will be coming out from these artists

super cheesy Van Halen, Kiss, Styx, Ozzy person, Big Hair, likes 80's pin ups and skulls, sometimes into martial arts

super cheesy death metal fan, lots of pinups, corny black and white pictures of skulls and such

REALLY likes British Invasion, The Zombies, The Kinks, The Hollies, The Animals, will occasionally post Detroit girl groups from the 60's, some Velvet Underground, pictures of the Beatles girlfriends

Just David Bowie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop. Maybe some New York Dolls

Old Blues and Jazz, Etta James, Son House, Nina Simone, pictures of Leadbelly and Howlin' Wolf and especially Miles Davis

really into post punk, Nick Cave, Siouxsie, Bauhaus, The Cure, Einsturzende Neubauten, Lydia Lunch, PJ Harvey and Rowland S. Howard, sometimes Morrissey. also generally mixes film and art blog stuff in with occasional feminist things

Just Morrissey, they call him Moz.

Fan clubs for specific bands that are newer and popular like Arctic Monkeys or Fallout Boy, but also ones blogs that really like emo lyrics from early 2000's and such – scene kids that are still scenin' it up

loves Jens Lekman, Belle and Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Cigarettes After Sex. Usually posts really cute modern art, and uses tumblr mostly for writing, has the cutest hair cut and can pull off overalls, never posts too little or too much, extremely twee

HISTORY TUMBLR

ancient mesopotamia, greek and Egyptian history and relics

Blogs that are specifically about one place in one era - Ancient Russia, Ireland before it was taken over, precolonial India and so on

Samurai, Geisha, and scrolls

Swords, knights, castles, kings of Europe in general

Specific Wars, examples: 7 Years War, Revolutionary War, WW1 + 2

France from before the revolution – pictures of wigged men, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette

Jane Austen time era anything 18th and 19th century, slight excuse to post lots of Pride and Prejudice gifs with Keira Knightly and that Mr. Darcy in the rain

Outfits – just outfits that are really old

person who is obsessed with the Nazis and seems to like Hitler

Flappers and earlier 20th – often an excuse to post gifs of Downton Abbey

Vintage books, often children books, but sometimes others

DESIGN TUMBLR

really fucked up pictures of the Simpsons melting and stuff

gradient graphic art with symbols or words meant to convey a product that I don't understand for an obscure magazine subscription

graphic squiggles without form, minimalist graphic pictures of beach balls, tennis bats, and sneakers

bizarre smiley faces made from smaller smiley faces

80's inspired design

odd looking models with undercuts and no eyebrows

cartoon dogs and cats

just static and glitches. Nothing more, nothing less

either they make their own graphic designs and they rarely post, or they compile reblogs of everyone else's and they post all the time

WEIRDO TUMBLR

insane family pictures of family who all has mullet dressed as bumble bees

Lots of Robert Crumb, some vintage stuff, but nothing remotely main stream

Some of the modern art, but only the weirdest of it

claymation masks

Comix

Moebius

art from early Power Point

100 piece sculptures with melted toys

paintings of monsters

Steve Brule

children's fan art of Smokey the Bear – looks disturbing

Items that are too kitschy to be accepted by your average vintage indie blog

sometimes a specific blog centered around some kind of crazy event where everyone dresses completely insane

POLITICAL TUMBLR

the communists and Marxists

a mixture of BLM and LGBTQ stuff

the libertarians, anarchocapitalists, Ayn rand folk

the left wing anarchists, freegans, graffiti punks, garden punks, possums

informative left wing news that explains to us everyday how the GOP is fucking us

alt. right creeps who are simply here to be trolls and upset everyone else – anti SJW, that stupid frog, nationalists, trump supporters and such – irrelevant poorly thought memes

I miss Obama memes

Bernie Sanders forever and always folk

RAINBOW TUMBLR

pictures of rainbow candies, toys, designs, clothing and so forth all of it rainbow

people who post one color at a time, so when you go through their archive it's all gradient and neat looking – usually the pictures are a little stock photoish though

HALLOWEEN TUMBLR

Betty Page

The Cramps. Reverend Horton Heat

Psychobilly pin ups, old cars, burning skulls, vintage B horror movies, The Swamp Thing

Legitimately obsessed with the activities of Halloween – posts witches, devils, trick or treat candy, Bella Lugosi, The Monster Mash, Halloween decoration - and doesn't ever forget how many days away Halloween is

Jack the Skeleton

Freddy Krueger

FANCLUB TUMBLR

Superwholock

Hannigram

American Horror Story

K Pop and J Pop + Korean Drama

boy bands in general

Hamilton

My Little Ponies

Ghibli Studios

Various anime shows

fat Disney princesses

Super heroes

Pokemon

Big Bang Theory

Mighty Boosh

Monty Python

Phantom of the Opera

Labyrinth

Vampire Chronicles

Orange is the New Black

Breaking Bad

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter

Star Wars

Steven Universe

Adventure Time

Game of Thrones and Walking Dead

any television show really

Furry cartoons

lots of spacy quick anime chibi versions of characters who are hooking up and wouldn't normally in the show

scenes from movies with subtext that comes from a different movie or show

probably countless others i am not thinking of.

SPECIALTY TUMBLR

serial killer blogs

unexplained mysteries, ghosts, ufo's

pictures of galaxies with information (not sparkly silly ones with no context)

sewing and yarn

precious stones

cars

just gardening

just cats

religious blogs, either Islam, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist

specific animal blogs, snake, spiders, wild cats and such

science blogs about technology and stuff

NATURE TUMBLR

stock photoish pictures of camp grounds and misty mountains – often taken by the hippies

angelic looking deer, and occasional animal burials with flowers'

person who takes pictures of flowers all the time

granola type fellow who loves juicing and backpacking – doesn't get on tumblr much

BLACK AND WHITE GOTH TUMBLR

slenderman fan art, actually just about anything creepypasta related

you have to turn off the music when you visit their page because it's just too much

fan art of black eyed children

slit wrists

pictures that were turned into Gifs because they shake

taxidermy

screamo lyrics

Alice in wonderland with X's for eyes

gothic models

occasional serial killer

skulls and references to Edgar Allan Poe

GIF MEME TUMBLR

just a sea of Gifs and memes relating to anything about life ever – almost shitposting but not quite

eventually one of the gifs got 100,000 notes for it's relatability so they get a lot of traffic

lots of pictures and circumstances from The Office, Parks and Rec, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Nihilist memes

SOFTY TUMBLR

kind of a little girl dom thing going on

Kawai and lots of Japanese girls

cute colorful make up

plushies and toys

references to fantasy cartoons from the 80's, the last unicorn, or that one with the girls in that band

Polly Pockets, Furbies, trolls

gifs of stars and hearts

Sailor Moon

pink bedroom

baby animals

occasionally more on the vintage kitschy side

WICCA TUMBLR

ravens, bats, candles

pentacles and other symbols

crystals

sometimes there is dreads

occasionally, it is a serious practicing Wicca who posts spells and gives witch advice

lots of personal reflections

boobs

GROSS TUMBLR

Tim and Eric, Steve Brule centered blog that are mostly in the act to make you feel queezy

like, people eating cheerios with ketchup and people wearing shoes with the soles cut out, people putting their feet in spagetti, bad tattoos on foreheads

snails, beetles, bird doing mean things to people

mostly moldy things, moss, strange dolls

things that look like they came from the dark crystal,

delapitating bedrooms that once belonged to a little girl, torn wall paper, old porcelain dolls that are slightly upsetting

Clowns

occasionally a blog so gross you will be ruined for having seen it – Two Girls one Cup sort of thing

NERD TUMBLR

old video game start up pages

Super Mario Bros.

Other video game characters

chibis of video game characters interacting with one another

Final Fantasy references

randomly doesn't post for a year

SELF HELP TUMBLR

blog that gives dumb advice that only works if you were already happy anyway

either semi fake or oversimplified 'psyche facts'

blogs from people who suffer from addiction or mental illness and want help and use their blog to vent

blogs ran by people who enjoy crystal meth and don’t give a fuck.

worthy of mentioning, blogs that nobody ever posted a single thing or just one thing, like, really cryptic blogs that nobody could ever understand, blogs that were taken over by some kind of virus and they are trying to sell you male pattern baldness remedies, or they are now call absurdly pornographic things because the virus took over and now they are like blonde cumfuck creampie or something of that nature, and blogs were the person was basically saying they have found a girlfriend/boyfriend now and don’t need tumblr anymore so goodbye

and in my experience ...

anybody can post pictures of jiggly boobs

anybody can post Grace Jones

anybody can post a Bjork song

these seem to be universal truths that defy limitations

#text

593 notes · View notes

v4viola · 6 years

Text

AHS: CULT Season 7, Episode 1 Election Night [unpublished review]

Tuesday, September 5th, 2017, just days before Stephen King’s IT hit theatres worldwide, the anticipated clown-centred new season of Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk’s anthology series, American Horror Story, premiered its seventh season, Cult, on FX.

The past six seasons of American Horror Story (AHS) have catapulted viewers into the depths of the horror genre; every season tells a different story at a different time with different characters and themes. The popular show features returning and seasoned actors like Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates, as well as guest stars like Gabourey Sidibe, Lady Gaga and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Countless characters have left lasting impressions on AHS and every fan has their favourite: Lana Winters of Asylum (Season 2), Fiona Goode of Coven (Season 3), Elsa Mars or Twisty the Clown of Freakshow (Season 4), The Countess of Hotel (Season 5), or The Butcher of Roanoke (Season 6). The sinister list goes on and on.

American Horror Story may stand alone but it is no stranger to acclaim as it’s been nominated for an impressive 300+ awards. Jessica Lange and Lady Gaga both won Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at the 2012 and 2016 Golden Globe Awards for Murder House and Hotel. The Primetime Emmy’s have awarded the show as well.

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have managed to garner a cult following. Pun intended. Together, they’ve created “Teen TV” juggernauts like Glee and Scream Queens, and are the executive producers of the critically acclaimed first season of American Crime Story: The People VS. O.J. Simpson, starring AHS alumni, Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. The series sweeped award shows and the second season (The Assassination of Gianni Versace, starring Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin) is slated to air in the early months of 2018. Last but not least, who can forget the return of Jessica Lange (alongside Susan Sarandon) earlier this year in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Bette & Joan. The debut season of another anthology series (also produced by Brad Pitt) reimagines the tensions between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of the movie What Ever Happened to Mary Jane? in 1962. Murphy and Falchuk are clear forces to be reckoned with when it comes genre television. When they hit, they hit big.

So when the countdown to Season 7’s premiere was over, fans erupted. Some loved it, some hated it, and some threatened to boycott it because of an irrational fear of tiny holes. Yes, tiny holes. The unique fear is called trypophobia: an intense fear, distress or anxiety caused by irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps. The term is believed to have been coined in 2005 on an online forum and AHS has decided to showcase its abilities to make your skin crawl in a way we’ve never seen before. Hence the trigger warnings. Seriously, people are freaking out!

The title of this premiere episode is Election Night and the opening scene takes viewers back to the night of November 8, 2016, flashing some of the most viral and ludicrous presidential campaign snippets of Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, one after the other.

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” an actual clip of Donald Trump flashes, reminding viewers how screwed the United States is with this clown in office. It’s clear that AHS is using the real-life 2016 election as the focus for this year’s horror tale, set in Michigan.

“FUCK YOU WORLD! USA! USA! USA!”

Kai Anderson (played by AHS heavy-weight, Evan Peters) shouts this as the 45th president of the United States of America is announced. Kai is a blue-haired loner celebrating Trump’s win in a dingy basement, dry-humping his big screen TV like a fanatic. “Freedom!” he yells, and his glee for Trump’s victory is a tough pill to swallow.

Evan Peters is a returning AHS all-star and his acting chops shine brighter from season to season. In the opening of this new season, Cult, Peters grips us from the get-go, and throughout the hour-long first episode, we begin to see why his character is so happy with Donald Trump’s victory.

Kai emulates the far-right narrative with precision. Scenes throughout the premiere (where he blatantly disrespects women and Mexicans) reveal a very real and twisted perception that men are superior to women and that “white is right.” Kai is indicative of what Trump spews to the public, and what makes it so uncomfortable to watch is that this series is a lot more than a just a scary TV show now. It’s about our social and political climate, today. This is art is imitating life, in real time.

Kai is maniacal from the opening scene where - in celebration of Trump’s victory - Kai makes a cheeto smoothie, rubbing the orange paste all over his face, mirroring Trump’s infamously orange glow. His mannerisms are reminiscent of the legendary comic villain, The Joker, with his creepy stare and smudged cheeto “face paint”. Perhaps the sub-theme of coulrophobia (fear of clowns) influenced a nod to the king of crime. After all, The Joker is one of the ultimate clown villains of the last century. It is rumoured that DC Comics is looking to solidify Leonardo DiCaprio as The Joker in an upcoming origin story set in the 1980’s. If that doesn't work out, Evan Peters would be perfect!

Across town, we see Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson), and her wife, Ivy (Alison Pill), in what reads as a parody of a wealthy, white, lesbian couple. They’re hosting a viewing party with their neighbours, a liberal heterosexual couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Marylin Chang (Tim Kang and Nanrissa Lee). When Trump is announced president, Ally has the complete opposite reaction from Kai Anderson, and that familiar AHS Sarah Paulson shriek fans grew to love in Asylum and Roanoke tears through her living room, directed at the flatscreen television. She’s absolutely mortified, as many of us were that night, but the results trigger Ally in a way that leaves her out of breath and panicked. Soon afterwards, we understand why.

Ally suffers from multiple phobias, high anxiety, and hallucinations. “Ever since the election, it’s been getting worse,” she says to her therapist, Dr. Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson).

“The coulrophobia?” He asks.

“Yes. The clowns...” she trails off, “but also,�� she continues, “confined spaces, and blood... Particles in the air, the dark, that coral thing that's been staring at me since I came in here!” Ally appears to be dizzy. Nauseas even.

“You have a fear of coral?” Dr. Vincent asks.

“No. I-I… Its the holes,” she takes a deep breath, “it’s repulsive!”

Ally tells Dr. Vincent that coping with the election results has triggered all of her old phobias. It’s almost as if AHS is mocking the right-winged notion that those on the left are automatically fragile and plagued with political correctness, but by bringing these unconventional yet very real phobias to the table, we see that this season’s theme isn’t just about the current events in American politics, clowns, or tiny holes. No, this season is about the fear in politics and what it can do to people on both ends of the political pendulum. Ally Mayfair-Richards’ character shows us how these conditions and phobias can provoke mental health breakdowns with a raw and in-your-face delivery.

The premiere also marks the return of Freakshow’s Twisty the Clown, but only as an imagined character in “The Twisty Chronicles” comic book. Oz Mayfair-Richards (Cooper Dodson), Ally and Ivy’s son, secretly admires the clown’s comics and he is nothing more than a fictional character in Cult. So far, anyway. The gruesome Twisty scene unfolds, reminiscent of the clown’s murderous debut in Season 4, and we think we’ve seen the actual return of Twisty until Ally interrupts and it’s realized that this was just a scene in Oz’s comic book. Since Ally has an irrational fear of clowns, the cover illustration of the savage Twisty prompts her to have a full-on panic attack. If you have any inclination of what Twisty looks like, it's understandable for a coulrophobe to freak out. Twisty is what nightmares are made of and fans are patiently awaiting the mayhem Twisty might be getting up to this season. Another character that’s sparking intrigue is Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd), Kai Anderson’s younger sister. In the beginning of the episode, when Kai covers his face in the cheeto mask, he storms into his younger sister’s room and jumps on her bed, staring her down as CNN announces that Hillary Clinton will not be speaking after conceding to Donald Trump. She looks up from her laptop into her brother’s eyes, his orange face smudged with tension, and begins yelling at him to get out, hitting him repeatedly. He starts laughing at her screaming, uncovered by the blows. She's lost some sort of bet and now she has to follow through with some elaborate scheme after admitting that children are her worst fear. [Unfinished first rough draft]

2 notes · View notes

yasbxxgie · 4 years

Photo

‘Watchmen’ Recap: The Greatest American Hero In a staggering episode that upends the ‘Watchmen’ universe — and the wider world of superhero lore — Hooded Justice is unmasked

A review of this week’s Watchmen, “This Exceptional Being,” coming up just as soon as I read Action Comics #1 for the first time…

Many of the most distinct and beloved American art forms were invented by black artists who were then quickly eclipsed in the public imagination by their white imitators. Elvis Presley borrowed liberally from Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, among many others. When they were starting out, white rappers like the Beastie Boys and Eminem often found it easier to get radio play than more established black hip-hop veterans. A large chunk of Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-winning aesthetic was modeled on blaxploitation films whose own directors of color didn’t get nearly the same level of acclaim.

If cultural appropriation is woven into the fabric of American music, movies, and life, why not superheroics? What if the first costumed hero of them all was an African American man who inspired a wave of white heroes? What if that hero had to hide his true identity not for all the corny comic-book reasons about protecting his loved ones, but because he knew the color of his skin would get him lynched for daring to put himself above the law?

That Hooded Justice, the O.G. costumed vigilante of the Watchmen universe, was secretly black — was, in fact, Angela’s grandfather, Will Reeves — is the big idea at the center of this episode, and of the series as a whole. When I interviewed Damon Lindelof (who co-wrote “This Exceptional Being” with Cord Jefferson) before the show premiered, he alluded to “the idea that made me want to do this take on Watchmen” as one coming up later in the season. And now it’s here. And it is, well, exceptional.

It takes a while to get to this huge revelation, which is at the heart of a trippy, time- and mind-bending episode that evokes The Leftovers‘ “International Assassin,” Lost‘s “The Constant,” and various other sci-fi drama classic installments (say, “The Inner Light” from Star Trek: The Next Generation) where the hero finds him or herself in a place, time, and sometimes body where they do not belong.

By swallowing Will’s entire stash of Nostalgia pills, Angela’s mind is cast back to the start of his police career in 1939, and to the events that inspired him to become Hooded Justice. At first, it seems we’ll be getting a Quantum Leap-style trip through time, where the other characters see Will Reeves while we in the audience see Angela wearing his clothes and living his life. Quickly, though, the image of her is replaced by the genuine article, played as a young man by Jovan Adepo(*). Angela briefly reappears at crucial, pointed intervals — say, when Will insists that he isn’t having problems with his memory — but for the most part, we are immersed in his world just as much as she is.

(*) On The Leftovers, Adepo played Regina King’s son. Here, he’s her grandfather. Between Jack Ryan, Sorry For Your Loss, and this, he’s among the busier actors on television this fall, but I look forward to another family reunion with King down the road.

Even before Angela’s mind slides back 80 years into the past, we are being primed for the reveal. The episode opens not with the familiar Watchmen logo, but with the same font (now in purple) spelling out Minutemen, before we dive into the latest installment of show-within-the-show American Hero Story. As two FBI agents grill Hooded Justice — played, of course, by a white actor (30 Rock‘s Cheyenne Jackson), because how could the American Hero Story producers even imagine otherwise? — about his affair with Captain Metropolis, my eyes kept being drawn to his costume. I’ve read the Watchmen comic at least a dozen times over the last three and a half decades, yet it felt like this was the first time I was really looking at Hooded Justice’s outfit. The name, the noose around the neck, and the hood to me had always evoked a royal executioner — a man who conceals his face as part of the process of meting out rough justice. Seeing it in the context of a series whose first episode opened with Klansmen slaughtering black people and ended with Judd Crawford dangling from a mighty oak tree, all I could now think of was Klan hoods and lynching. Was Hooded Justice, I wondered, just another closet white supremacist?

Following the American Hero Story clip, Laurie tries to warn Angela about what the Nostalgia will do to her — how, to borrow Lindelof’s own words in our aforementioned interview, nostalgia is literally toxic. The product was developed to help Alzheimer’s patients, but quickly found a more illicit market, because, as Laurie puts it, “Who wants to live in the present when you can be in the past?” Later, the young Will tells his girlfriend June (Danielle Deadwyler) — who is a reporter, because of course a superhero has to have a reporter girlfriend — that he has moved past the horrific events that killed both of their families. “That was a long time ago,” he insists. “I don’t want to live in the past.”

Living in the past is dangerous, Watchmen argues again and again, in part because the past is never quite what we remember it as. White supremacists, whether they’re wearing Klan robes or MAGA hats, want to take us back to a version of America that never really existed — or at least never existed that way for everyone. In the case of “This Exceptional Being,” though, the past is inverted in a different way. Racism is still rampant, especially in the corridors of power — the commissioner of the NYPD won’t even stop to look at Will at the graduation ceremony, much less shake his hand — but the episode tells the story of a black man who seized power for himself in this difficult time, and who motivated a host of white people to follow his example, even if they had no idea who was really leading the way.

Remember what Laurie said back in the third episode about heroes’ masked identities being shaped by childhood trauma? The last good memory of Will Reeves’ childhood before his world was destroyed — with the parallel to Superman and Krypton made clearer than ever when a news vendor shows Will a copy of Action Comics #1 — was of him watching Trust in the Law. He has modeled his whole life on Bass Reeves — taken on his name, even — become a cop because that’s what the real Reeves did. But while Reeves is still a U.S. Marshal in the film, he also wears a hood to conceal his identity(*).

(*) This was something the real-life Reeves did sometimes to maintain a low profile in a territory where a black lawman would attract too much attention — much of it dangerous attention. As we’ve discussed, his story was appropriated too, as he became the white Lone Ranger, whose own (very Captain Metropolis-esque) mask is less essential to protecting his life.

So when Will’s white colleagues conduct a near-fatal lynching to discourage him from looking into the activities of their secret racist organization, Cyclops, Will staggers away with the noose still around his neck and the hood they’d slipped over him in his hands. He impulsively puts it back on to conceal his identity while rescuing a white couple from a mugging(*). But in the aftermath of that event, he and June realize that he can reclaim the hood and the noose, using them against their persecutors in a manner not that far removed from the way oppressed minority groups turn slurs against them into slogans of pride. To make it work, though, June argues, Will has to conceal not just his face, but his entire racial identity, using makeup to lighten the skin around his eyes (the only part of him visible under the mask and elaborate head-to-toe costume they cook up).

(*) It’s not quite saving Bruce Wayne’s parents from being murdered (this couple doesn’t have a kid with them, and there’s more than one attacker), but the scene is evocative enough to dovetail nicely with the early Superman discussion.

It’s an inspired choice — by June and by the series. The makeup (which looks convincing enough in the episode’s black-and-white photography) allows the TV show to remain largely faithful to the comic, which kept Hooded Justice’s true identity a mystery. Who’s to say he wasn’t a black man who held himself apart from the rest of the Minutemen (other than their leader, that is) because he was afraid of having his race exposed to the world? And the makeup creates the appearance of an inversion of the Lone Ranger’s mask — and, for that matter, of the very dark makeup that Angela puts around her own eyes when she’s operating as Sister Night. Grandfather and granddaughter are both cops who dress up on the side, but under very different circumstances. He’s operating wholly outside the law, while she is mostly trying to operate within it. He has to keep his race hidden; she wears hers proudly, in open defiance of the Seventh Kavalry.

But whatever the reason and the context, Watchmen — both comic and TV series — repeatedly insists that wearing a mask is as unhealthy as nostalgia. Will wears his as a way to channel his rage at a racist world — and perhaps at the world that forces him to keep his sexuality as secret as his skin color — but over time, it only makes him angrier. Nelson Gardner wears the Captain Metropolis mask less out of a desire to battle injustice than a more adolescent wish for adventure, mixed in with it being a kink. (Like Agent Petey, he likes to wear it in bed.) The episode doesn’t even get into the pathologies of the other Minutemen — they’re blurs in the background of the group photo we see being taken — but we know that Laurie’s father was an attempted rapist. The longer that Will wears his interlocking masks (the hood and the makeup), and the clearer it becomes that his lover Nelson won’t do anything to help fight Cyclops, the more the fires of his rage are stoked. After discovering that Cyclops is using subliminal images and other forms of mesmerism to trick black people into hurting themselves, he decides to attack the group’s headquarters on his own, wearing both his NYPD uniform and his superhero hood. Like his granddaughter, he is playing cop and vigilante at the same time, and it has long since ceased to be fun and games (if it ever was for him). He’s just shooting racists in the head, and then, once the bullets in his service revolver run out, strangling the last one and lighting all the bodies on fire.

Even that action doesn’t burn the rage from his soul, and instead he winds up taking it out on his poor son (Angela’s father), whom he finds putting on the white makeup — a little boy just trying to imitate the dad he loves and respects so much. He chases his wife and son away in the process, and while there was little healthy about the relationship — which began with Will literally caring for June when she was the crying baby in the field outside Tulsa — it leaves Will once again alone, unable to get back to the only family he knows. From here, the Nostalgia trip leaps ahead to 2019, so that Angela can witness the murder of Judd — who hangs himself, with some coaxing from the Cyclops device that Will hung onto — which means we don’t know what he’s been doing over the decades in between. But based on the look on his face as he clutches that old noose to his midsection while waiting for Judd, it doesn’t seem to have been a happy life for him. After the unexplained glimpse of an old woman promising to take someone — Will? Angela? — home with her, Angela finally wakes up as herself in one of Lady Trieu’s labs, perhaps not far away from the man whose life she just got to know with great, horrifying intimacy.

Thematically, it’s easy to understand why Lindelof was so excited by the idea of the first superhero being black. It recontextualizes a lot of what’s in the comic book without unfairly altering any of it, and it ties in beautifully to the ideas percolating in the show’s vision of 2019 America. Given that Hooded Justice’s sexuality is now public knowledge, 7K probably doesn’t have much use for him as an icon; their own inspiration, Rorschach, was an avowed homophobe. But it would still probably rock their worldview to find out that it was a black man who inspired Rorschach, and, by proxy, them to don masks in pursuit of their own interpretation of the law(*). They’re concealing their identities in indirect tribute to him, even as they’re continuing the vile traditions of all the people Hooded Justice put on his own masks to fight. It transforms everything we’ve seen (and, for some of us, read) before in this world, and unlocks a deeper meaning to the whole series. Now it’s not just incidental that there’s a superhero race war in the show’s 2019; it’s history painfully repeating itself again and again, just as it has in our America.

(*) Or maybe they’d just compartmentalize? The whole thing conjures up memories of that great scene in Do the Right Thing where Mookie points out to his racist coworker Pino that all of Pino’s favorite celebrities are black, forcing Pino to contort himself to explain why Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy, and Prince are “more than black.” Never underestimate human beings’ capacity for cognitive dissonance.

Beyond a thematic stroke of brilliance, the episode — directed by Lost and Leftovers vet Stephen Williams — is a technical marvel. The black-and-white photography (by Greg Middleton) and big band soundtrack neatly take us back to the late Thirties, even as other production choices keep reminding us that this is a memory and not a time machine. As a tribute to Steven Spielberg’s use of the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List Pale Horse, there are occasional splashes of color, particularly whenever Will’s mother is seen playing the movie theater piano. Certain aspects of the production design, like the precinct doors, are presented as completely false stage sets, as further evidence of the artificiality of Angela’s presence here. When June asks Will to again tell her the plot of Trust in the Law, the movie irises open on the wall behind them. The transitions between Adepo and King appear seamless, I’m told, because they were: As the camera spun around the other actor in those scenes, Adepo quickly stepped out and King in (or vice versa). It’s a special effects technique almost as old as Trust in the Law. And though she’s not in the episode a lot, Regina King does amazing physical work at evoking both Adepo and then Lou Gossett Jr. in the scene with Judd; the way her posture mimics Gossett’s in the wheelchair left my jaw on the floor.

The edits feel more purposeful — like the cut from June (who appears to have some suspicions about her man’s sexuality) telling Will “No!” about joining the Minutemen, followed immediately by Nelson screaming “YES!” while in bed with Will — as does the absence of them in certain spots. The fight in the American Hero Story clip again looks like a Zack Snyder parody, but most of the real Hooded Justice fight scenes are presented as continuous takes, with Will a relentless whirling dervish who nonetheless does only things within the realm of what’s physically possible for an ordinary (if very strong and angry) man. We get an inversion of the American Hero Story clip from episode two, where instead of Hooded Justice crashing into a store to save the shopkeeper from some dastardly robbers, he is instead leaping out of the window because the shopkeeper himself is the criminal. (It’s only as he smashes through the glass that the Snyder/bullet-time effects come back, but as a way to illustrate Laurie and Cal’s failed attempt to pull Angela out of this dangerous trip.)

Even for a series that is already a huge departure from the source material, “This Exceptional Being” is an enormous gamble. It barely features any of the regular cast. It largely makes do without that hypnotic Reznor/Ross score (which comes roaring back as old man Will prepares to deal with Judd), and is told in a completely different visual language from the previous five chapters. And it completely recontextualizes all that’s happened before.

But it’s a gamble that pays off spectacularly, in one of the best hours of television that Damon Lindelof’s ever been involved in. When you consider the peaks of Lost and The Leftovers, that is a very exceptional being, indeed.

Some other thoughts, several of them comic book-related:

* With most of the regular cast on the bench or limited to cameos, we got a bunch of familiar guest stars besides Jackson as the TV version of Hooded Justice, including ER alum Erik Palladino as one of the two homophobic FBI agents from the American Hero Story scene, TV’s Jake McDorman (recently seen as Murphy Brown’s son in the short-lived revival) as Captain Metropolis, and ubiquitous HBO player Glenn Fleshler (Boardwalk Empire, True Detective, Barry) as Fred the racist shopkeeper.

* A Veidt interlude would have felt even more out of place here than it did in last week’s Looking Glass spotlight, where at least he was connected to the plot down on Earth. So we don’t bother going to Europa at all. But Will arranging the Cyclops corpses in a tableau before lighting them on fire very much evokes what Veidt did last week with all the clones — which in turn was was an homage to the scene in the pirate comic within the original comic, where the hero has to build a raft out of the bodies of his dead comrades. (Like Veidt, he chose to use corpses to escape exile.)

* The episode’s title comes from a line in Under the Hood, the memoir of the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason, that ran as bonus material at the end of the comic book’s first few issues. It’s part of Mason’s description of Hooded Justice, who inspired Mason — himself a member of the NYPD — to put on tights and a mask. Mason is interesting as an outlier to the psychological dysfunction of almost every other costumed character in the comic (and now in the show). He’s just a well-adjusted, morally upright guy who adopts a costumed identity because he sees how effective Hooded Justice is and wants to help people in the same way.

* That group photo, by the way? It’s one of the more famous images from the comic, where both Mason and Laurie’s mother Sally have framed copies in their homes. (And it literally accompanies the Snyder film’s title.) It’s also an important plot point, because Edward Blake’s attempted rape of Sally happens a few minutes after the photo is taken.

* Beyond largely sidelining the usual synth pieces of Reznor and Ross’ score, the episode’s soundtrack naturally leans on vintage songs, even if some of them are anachronistic. The Eartha Kitt cover of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” that plays over Will’s assault on the warehouse, for instance, was recorded in 1952 — in the same session where she sang the version of “Santa Baby” that played during the White Night flashback from Episode Two, further linking Will to Angela. (And linking both of them to one of the performers who famously played Catwoman.) There’s also an original song, “Used to Be,” with music and lyrics by Reznor and Ross, that plays as the cops abduct Will and hang him from the tree, and reprises as the older Will makes Judd hang himself.

* Finally, this isn’t exactly Watchmen-related, but Hooded Justice’s new origin story reminded me of perhaps my favorite DC Comic since Watchmen came out: New Frontier, written and drawn by the late, great Darwyn Cooke. Set mostly in the 1950s as Green Lantern, Flash, Martian Manhunter, and more battle the paranoia of the era as much as they do aliens and supervillains, the miniseries also includes a new hero named John Henry. Inspired by the steel-driving African American folk hero of the same name, both his origin and his costume have several things in common with Hooded Justice. This is a coincidence — Lindelof had never heard of New Frontier until I mentioned it to him — but anyone who liked this episode might want to give it a read.

#watchmen hbo #watchmen #american hero story #bass reeves #lone ranger #cultural appropriation #hooded justice #recap #rolling stone magazine #tv #television #hbo series #long read #long reads #this exceptional being

1 note · View note

cargopantsman · 7 years

Text

Catching Up On Week One

In reading chapter one I must note that I hope during multiple times in history that this epic was also referred to as Sigi Saga.

Maybe a bit of forewarning, a lot of my writings may seem wandering and essentially brain noise. I really don't source anything unless I know where I'm going with something, so by all means call me out on things I have wrong so I can do further research.

Time and Space From the start of the saga (at least within the first three chapters), there is no indication of a specified time period. For the moment, I'll stick a pin 460 CE based solely on the fact that I read that "somewhere." So at this point we all know Sigi (son of Odin, which I'm not sure how literally to take this given that Odin is All-Father and patron of Kings) did a bad thing, got exiled, then went war-crazy and carved a kingdom for himself amongst the Huns. And what’s with the Huns? Depending on the time of the saga, a lot. If indeed 460 is a good rough guess, the Hunnic empire spans from the Caucasus mountains in the east to well into Frankish territory in western Europe. This unfortunately gives us a very wide expanse of land to pin down where Sigi could have landed from his exile, waged his wars and built said kingdom. Having done some cursory Googling, it seems that Hunnic territory closer to the Franks is a favored locale for Sigi's kingdom. [Again, sources] Given that I have noted some discussion of Burgundians being involved, this would make more sense than the traditionally imagined region of the Huns being solely east of the Danube.

Skipping the narrative a bit and moving onto the topic of: Gothland (as translated by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson) Gautland (Gavin Chappell,2012; Finch,1965) [... Add more. Figure out what Dr. Jackson Crawford (❤️) is calling it.] [Look up some scans of the original manuscript and see how it is spelled, cross ref with pronounciation]

Depending on who's translating it, it is either an island off the eastern coast of Sweden in the Baltic Sea (as spelled Gotland) or a large swatch of land that is roughly the lower third of modern-day Sweden (Götaland).

As to whether Siggeir is a Goth, I'd say undoubtably (so far) yes. The question is what kind of Goth? If Götaland, home of the Geats appears to be cognate with Goth, as does Gotland, home of the Gutes, we need to split hairs as to where Siggeir is coming from. This is mainly going to be important in possibly trying to find what kind of historical wars and battles we may be able to link with the legendary events of the saga. Especially considering that as Attila pushed his armies westward to Frankia, he picked up other Gothic tribes along the way.

Notes for later [ripped from Wikipedia]: Bornholm, Denmark- In Old Norse the island was known as Borgundarholm, and in ancient Danish especially the island's name was Borghand or Borghund; these names were related to Old Norse borg "height" and bjarg/berg "mountain, rock", as it is an island that rises high from the sea. Other names known for the island include Burgendaland (9th century), Hulmo / Holmus (Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum), Burgundehulm (1145), and Borghandæholm (14th century). The Old English translation of Orosius uses the form Burgenda land. Some scholars believe that the Burgundians are named after Bornholm; the Burgundians were Germanic peoples who moved west when the Western Roman Empire collapsed and occupied and named Burgundy in France.

Beyond Time and Space A theme I'll want to keep an eye on is that Sigi's story takes up very little space. There's him, a guy named Skaði (which is there any correlation between this man and the giantess that hates the sea?) and a thrall/slave Breði. We're taken to see that Breði is an all around good guy. Has talents beyond his "betters" but seems to take his station in life in stride. His sin is that he killed more and larger deer than Sigi on a given hunting trip and so he gets killed and his body hidden in a snow drift. It is not a slaying on a field of battle or a duel. It is a crime of passion so to speak on a matter of pride. There is an attempt to hide the murder, to say that the slave was dishonorable and escaped. The truth is quickly found and the society exiles Sigi.

A point to keep in mind is that after this judgement is passed, Oðinn, All-Father, king of the gods, helps Sigi cross over to Hunland with an entourage of warriors. While society punishes Sigi, Oðinn (at first glance) is rewarding him (or at least softening the punishment).

Sigi is then said to have amassed power and wealth and it is envy of his kinsmen that brings about his demise. A son then exacts revenge and takes his father's place.

Onto Rerir, I'm actually going to @ellerian-raina on this for her(?) comment "Though to me a burial mound and having a child don’s seem to have much in common." In many mythologies the concepts of death and life/sex/fertility get mixed up an awful lot (putting the romance back in necromancy). So while Rerir pleading with the gods on a burial mound makes sense in that Samhain/the-veil-is-thinner-near-the-dead kinda of way there's also a strong tradion of the god of death also being the god of sex. Consider Osiris & Isis, Hades & Persephone, and Oðinn Gallows-God & Archetypal Momma Frigg. One could even consider that Freya, also called upon in matters of love (though traditionally the more lusty kind of love) and childbirth, she takes for herself half the battle-slain the Valkyries bring to Asgard. It's all very much the cycle of life is fed by a spiral of death kind of thing. Speaking of Valkyries (casket-bearing maid as translated by Morris and Magnusson, which I love) it is one of those deadly women that is sent to deliver the apple to Rerir for his wife.

With that done, Rerir dutifully goes off to war and dies, leaving his wife to carry around a fetal Völsung for six freakin' years. Völsung's birth is your typical mythological hero birth. He isn't "born" natural but is instead cut from his mother's womb (Caesar), practically grown up (Athena) and immediately kisses his mother goodbye as she dies. He is born, becomes an orphan, and just takes the throne like it ain't no thang. "From his early years he was big and strong, and full of daring in all manly deeds and trials, and he became the greatest of warriors, and of good hap in all the battles of his warfaring." Hercules! Hercules! Hercules!

It is interesting to me also that Völsung's wife, Ljod, is the self same Valkyrie responsible for delivering the apple that allowed his birth.

Crap. Bedtime...

#norsereadalong #projectnorsemyth #norse mythology #week 1

5 notes · View notes