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otterskin · 3 years

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Dumb Details From the Loki Trailer I noticed but then got too serious about

First - apparently it’s not a trailer, so I guess we’ll get ‘Trailer 1′ later? ‘Exclusive Clip’ hardly seems accurate, but hey, I’m not Disney’s marketing division. I wouldn’t live in a shoebox if I was.

Dumb detail no. 1:

Owen Wilson’s jacket is...weird. Look closely.

And another shot:

Yeah...his jacket has a ‘reversed collar’. It’s a cut-out rather than cloth folding on top. Huh. What a strange design choice. What could it mean?

I’ve no idea, but that I watched the trailer enough times to notice this should concern you.

Detail No. 2

In this scene, we see what we can presume to be President Loki’s ‘Throne’. Notice the candy-canes. This is a Santa Claus throne, presumably from some mall Santa. This whole place might be in a mall, judging by the stuff in it.

But the Loki in this shot is not President Loki. Notice that he’s wearing brown pants, a thin brown tie, and the beige shirt he’s seen wearing in other parts of the trailer after he's apparently joined the TVA. President Loki wears black pants, a green vest and a wide green tie with a golden clip that resembles Loki’s little chevron he always has (more on that later).

So it would seem that Loki might meet President Loki here. President Loki might even be addressing him at the end of the trailer. It’s possible that his minions turn on him because there’s two Lokis and they don’t know which is the ‘imposter’.

Speaking of, there’s a minion with bicycle handlebars grafted to a football helmet here, likely meant to resemble Loki. I dig it. There’s also cans of food scattered among the rubbish here. Makes sense that food production is non-existent since everyone has resorted to wearing license plates and spoons. Love how tattered the whole aesthetic is.

This reminds me of the opening Michael Waldron’s script ‘Worst Guy of All Time’, which featured a similar post-apocalyptic setting after the ‘worst guy’ ruins everything and makes himself king of the ashes. That’s likely what’s happened here, but I hope that Loki isn’t anything like Logan Paul, who was the inspiration for that title character.

Ah, the mysterious female character watching a meteor shower WAY TOO CLOSE UP. But my eyes are drawn to one thing...

What is that oblong object with a shiny handle? Could it be...

A sword? I do love swords. Did you know there’s a bunch of pictures of me in the stock photos for ‘Fencing?’ That’s my cred for loving swords.

I suspect that this female character will be an amalgamation of Amora (shudder) and Sylvie and an alternate Loki of some kind. This sword is currently in her possession, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it or another timeline version of it becomes the Loki Show’s Loki′s weapon.

Loki has lacked a ‘weapon of his own’ in the MCU for quite some time. I mean, yes, he has his little knives, but they are many and disposable and something he chose for himself, rather than the two legendary weapons wielded by Odin and Thor, Gungnir and Mjolnir. In fact, throughout his appearances, Loki has seemed to want such a thing of his own - he briefly had Gungnir, and then the Gungnir-like scepter, and even tried to lift Mjolnir.

One might ask why Odin would’ve overlooked such an obvious show of favouritism. Why give Thor a storied weapon and leave Loki empty-handed? Heck, even Hela had the Necroblade.

In Thor 1, we might’ve assumed that the Casket of Ancient Winters was perhaps intended one day to be given to Loki, as it is shown with Mjolnir in the Vault and thus connected to it and the children who would inherit it. But in the comics, Odin did have another weapon of storied history put away for his second son: Gram the Sword.

It was locked for eons by Odin in a special vault which required five keys to be opened, and it was meant to be for Loki if he be worthy.[2] The five keys were infused by Odin with the powers of "journeys", "endurance", "secrets", "new beginnings", and "brotherhood", respectively.[3]

The sword, like everything else in comics, has a complicated history full of take-backs and twists, but let’s just leave it at ‘it’s a representation of Loki’s worthiness and belonging in the trifecta with Odin and Thor as a King of Asgard’. It gives him ‘equality’.

In the original mythology, it’s wielded by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir, and the only relation it has to Loki is that Loki is partially responsible for Fafnir existing in the first place (my username is nod to this myth by the by. Sorry Ottär.) But hey, maybe that means we’re getting a dragon? The Fafnir would be very cool.

Or it could just be a bit of rebar in this mining quarry.

Then again...it appears somewhere else...

It’s easier to see in motion, but that’s a sword swinging on this person’s back.

So the hooded figure is this lady...shall we call her Amylkie? Does that mean she’s the antagonist of this show? Well...maybe, but I suspect the true antagonist is foreshadowed here -

So, what’s going on here? A young girl (Young Amylkie? Some other TVA prisoner that the guard is watching over? An oracle, A Norn, or a kid who wandered off from the tour group in a basilica somewhere?) She’s giving Mobius M. Mobius a...piece of chocolate. Maybe he saw a Dementor, I dunno. I suspect it’ll be a MacGuffin of some kind later. He looks pretty concerned here, which contrasts with his ‘another day at the office’ blaséness when dealing with Loki. But of course this is the eye-catcher:

So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.

Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and black.

So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.

...Dammit; I live there.

So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?

But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?

It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.

Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there.

So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.

This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.

So, we see Amylkie literally start a fire in the trailer -

- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -

It’s fire, fire everywhere and she’s setting them!

It’s possible Amylkie’s our big bad, but I think there’s a chance she’s either a red herring, or, much like how Loki ‘worked’ with Thanos in The Avengers, she is the pawn of a greater foe -

- a Loki bent on destruction, for some reason or other. The TVA is obviously aware that this is the case, and it seems like they might be trying to ‘fight fire with fire’ by enlisting one Loki to combat another. The villain could be President Loki, since there's evidence of 2 Lokis in that scene - or maybe that's one of many Lokis, and the Big Bad Loki is being played by Hugh Grant as Old Loki. In any case, it would appear that Loki will be coming face-to-face with the worst versions of himself, and many of them. And, if I’m right about this scene:

...Loki will likely eventually discover that even his ‘good’ timeline ended in the destruction of his people and home, plus his own gruesome and torturous death. Although I think the TVA will keep that from him, and just show him the happy parts in an effort to inspire ‘good behaviour’. Until Loki inevitably discovers the rest of how that timeline played out and realize he’s been lied to. I don’t imagine he’ll take that very well...

Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?

Well...let’s go back to that stained glass.

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.

What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too...

Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.

That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?

Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?

ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ -

And ENHANCE on that third letter!

This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:

Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?

Primarly, it means ‘torch’.

And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’

...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.

More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.

There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -

Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.

(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)

Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.

So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...

...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

#loki #trailer #details #meta #theories #theory #explanation #thor #tva #santa #devil #snorri sturluson whinging #christmas #fire #kaunaz #loki trailer

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bisluthq · 3 years

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honestly the think about gaylors - the young impressionable sapphic ones lmao not ttb - that makes me so sad is that they’re often just very desperately looking for representation and cling to taylor to find it but like…. she’ll never be the representation they look for and that makes me sad for them :/ like she’s probably going to end up marrying this man she loves to death, i doubt she’s ever gonna come out and she almost definitely leans towards men and if it wasn’t joe she probably would’ve ended up with another (british) man rather than a woman. like i really just wish them a happier relationship with their own sexuality and a healthier look at representation because they’re just not going to find what they look for in taylor

1000000% this. Like I fully think she might be Kinsey 1/2 and she might have explored that a bit and it might be a part of her identity that’s extremely important to her because bi women with a preference for men are valid and part of the community, even though they’re often made to feel like they aren’t (and if Tay is bi she was certainly made to feel that way).

But like this girl was always going to find her Hugh Grant, you know? That was always on the agenda. And - if she is bi which we don’t know, and tbh only she can know for sure - that doesn’t make her less so.

There are INCREDIBLE out sapphic singers. Tegan and Sara, Hayley Kiyoko, Phoebe Bridges, girl in red, Kehlani, Janelle Monaé, Halsey, Brandi Carlisle, Melissa Etheridge, Gaga, Miley, Demi, Angel Haze, King Princess, all three girls from MUNA, Angele, Romy from the xx, Brandy Clark, Fletcher, Lynn from PVRIS, Dodie, 070 Shake, Clairo, Shura, Charlie Hanson, Victoria from Maneskin, Julia Michaels… like I can probably go on tbh.

And these girls are OUT and like PROUD and RIGHT THERE and clinging to this one singer-songwriter who might be a little fruity as “but the representation!!” is worrying to me. I’ve said before I think for some baby gays it’s specifically the closeting that appeals right like they relate but ehhhhhh on that idk it doesn’t seem super healthy.

I also think a lot of these girls need to be explained that relating to a song in a gay way or picking up queer themes doesn’t need to mean that was the artist’s intention. Like I played Dua’s Homesick a ton in clinic and related it to my girlfriend and myself, but like… Dua and Chris Martin didn’t write it about a wlw longdistance relationship lmfao. Like you’re allowed to relate to something in a particular way without that being the artist’s intention. It doesn’t even need to be your own life - you can imagine literally whatever the fuck you want when you listen to music. I love Champagne Problems for Jo x Laurie from Gerwig’s Little Women. It doesn’t matter whether or not that’s what they meant. I love Tolerate It for Di x Charles in S4 of The Crown. It doesn’t matter whether Taylor ever watched one minute of that show. It’s what *I* think about listening to it.

You’re allowed to enjoy Tay’s music in a gay way but there’s a danger to trying to make her into representation for gays because like… if she’s bi she’s never fucking coming out idk and she’s never gonna date a girl on main so what’s the point of it all idk? And that’s a common enough experience - plenty of bi people, especially those who prefer the opposite gender, never fucking come out - but like… why get that invested in it, you know?

#nat talks gaylor #nat talks swiftdom

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grigori77 · 3 years

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2020 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 2)

20. ONWARD – Disney and Pixar’s best digitally animated family feature of 2020 (beating the admittedly impressive Soul to the punch) clearly has a love of fantasy roleplay games like Dungeons & Dragons, its quirky modern-day AU take populated by fantastical races and creatures seemingly tailor-made for the geek crowd … needless to say, me and many of my friends absolutely loved it. That doesn’t mean that the classic Disney ideals of love, family and believing in yourself have been side-lined in favour of fan-service – this is as heartfelt, affecting and tearful as their previous standouts, albeit with plenty of literal magic added to the metaphorical kind. The central premise is a clever one – once upon a time, magic was commonplace, but over the years technology came along to make life easier, so that in the present day the various races (elves, centaurs, fauns, pixies, goblins and trolls among others) get along fine without it. Then timid elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) receives a wizard’s staff for his sixteenth birthday, a bequeathed gift from his father, who died before he was born, with instructions for a spell that could bring him back to life for one whole day. Encouraged by his brash, over-confident wannabe adventurer elder brother Barley (Chris Pratt), Ian tries it out, only for the spell to backfire, leaving them with the animated bottom half of their father and just 24 hours to find a means to restore the rest of him before time runs out. Cue an “epic quest” … needless to say, this is another top-notch offering from the original masters of the craft, a fun, affecting and thoroughly infectious family-friendly romp with a winning sense of humour and inspired, flawless world-building. Holland and Pratt are both fantastic, their instantly believable, ill-at-ease little/big brother chemistry effortlessly driving the story through its ingenious paces, and the ensuing emotional fireworks are hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure, while there’s typically excellent support from Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine from Seinfeld) as Ian and Barley’s put-upon but supportive mum, Laurel, Octavia Spencer as once-mighty adventurer-turned-restaurateur “Corey” the Manticore and Mel Rodriguez (Getting On, The Last Man On Earth) as overbearing centaur cop (and Laurel’s new boyfriend) Colt Bronco. The film marks the sophomore feature gig for Dan Scanlon, who debuted with 2013’s sequel Monsters University, and while that was enjoyable enough I ultimately found it non-essential – no such verdict can be levelled against THIS film, the writer-director delivering magnificently in all categories, while the animation team have outdone themselves in every scene, from the exquisite environments and character/creature designs to some fantastic (and frequently delightfully bonkers) set-pieces, while there’s a veritable riot of brilliant RPG in-jokes to delight geekier viewers (gelatinous cube! XD). Massive, unadulterated fun, frequently hilarious and absolutely BURSTING with Disney’s trademark heart, this was ALMOST my animated feature of the year. More on that later …

19. THE GENTLEMEN – Guy Ritchie’s been having a rough time with his last few movies (The Man From UNCLE didn’t do too bad but it wasn’t exactly a hit and was largely overlooked or simply ignored, while intended franchise-starter King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was largely derided and suffered badly on release, dying a quick death financially – it’s a shame on both counts, because I really liked them), so it’s nice to see him having some proper success with his latest, even if he has basically reverted to type to do it. Still, when his newest London gangster flick is THIS GOOD it seems churlish to quibble – this really is what he does best, bringing together a collection of colourful geezers and shaking up their status quo, then standing back and letting us enjoy the bloody, expletive-riddled results. This particularly motley crew is another winning selection, led by Matthew McConaughey as ruthlessly successful cannabis baron Mickey Pearson, who’s looking to retire from the game by selling off his massive and highly lucrative enterprise for a most tidy sum (some $400,000,000 to be precise) to up-and-coming fellow American ex-pat Matthew Berger (Succession’s Jeremy Strong, oozing sleazy charm), only for local Chinese triad Dry Eye (Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding, chewing the scenery with enthusiasm) to start throwing spanners into the works with the intention of nabbing the deal for himself for a significant discount. Needless to say Mickey’s not about to let that happen … McConaughey is ON FIRE here, the best he’s been since Dallas Buyers Club in my opinion, clearly having great fun sinking his teeth into this rich character and Ritchie’s typically sparkling, razor-witted dialogue, and he’s ably supported by a quality ensemble cast, particularly co-star Charlie Hunnam as Mickey’s ice-cold, steel-nerved right-hand-man Raymond Smith, Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as his classy, strong-willed wife Rosalind, Colin Farrell as a wise-cracking, quietly exasperated MMA trainer and small-time hood simply known as the Coach (who gets many of the film’s best lines), and, most notably, Hugh Grant as the film’s nominal narrator, thoroughly morally bankrupt private investigator Fletcher, who consistently steals the film. This is Guy Ritchie at his very best – a twisty rug-puller of a plot that constantly leaves you guessing, brilliantly observed and richly drawn characters you can’t help loving in spite of the fact there’s not a single hero among them, a deliciously unapologetic, politically incorrect sense of humour and a killer soundtrack. Getting the cinematic year off to a phenomenal start, it’s EASILY Ritchie’s best film since Sherlock Holmes, and a strong call-back to the heady days of Snatch (STILL my favourite) and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Here’s hoping he’s on a roll again, eh?

18. SPONTANEOUS – one of the year’s biggest under-the-radar surprise hits for me was one which I actually might not have caught if things had been a little more normal and ordered. Thankfully with all the lockdown and cinematic shutdown bollocks going on, this fantastically subversive and deeply satirical indie teen comedy horror came along at the perfect time, and I completely flipped out over it. Now those who know me know I don’t tend to gravitate towards teen cinema, but like all those other exceptions I’ve loved over the years, this one had a brilliantly compulsive hook I just couldn’t turn down – small-town high-schooler Mara (Knives Out and Netflix’ Cursed’s Katherine Langford) is your typical cool outsider kid, smart, snarky and just putting up with the scene until she can graduate and get as far away as possible … until one day in her senior year one of her classmates just inexplicably explodes. Like her peers, she’s shocked and she mourns, then starts to move on … until it happens again. As the death toll among the senior class begins to mount, it becomes clear something weird is going on, but Mara has other things on her mind because the crisis has, for her, had an unexpected benefit – without it she wouldn’t have fallen in love with like-minded oddball new kid Dylan (Lean On Pete and Words On Bathroom Walls’ Charlie Plummer). The future’s looking bright, but only if they can both live to see it … this is a wickedly intelligent film, powered by a skilfully executed script and a wonderfully likeable young cast who consistently steer their characters around the potential cliched pitfalls of this kind of cinema, while debuting writer-director Brian Duffield (already a rising star thanks to scripts for Underwater, The Babysitter and blacklist darling Jane Got a Gun among others) show he’s got as much talent and flair for crafting truly inspired cinema as he has for thinking it up in the first place, delivering some impressively offbeat set-pieces and several neat twists you frequently don’t see coming ahead of time. Langford and Plummer as a sassy, spicy pair who are easy to root for without ever getting cloying or sweet, while there’s glowing support from the likes of Hayley Law (Rioverdale, Altered Carbon, The New Romantic) as Mara’s best friend Tess, Piper Perabo and Transparent’s Rob Huebel as her increasingly concerned parents, and Insecure’s Yvonne Orji as Agent Rosetti, the beleaguered government employee sent to spearhead the investigation into exactly what’s happening to these kids. Quirky, offbeat and endlessly inventive, this is one of those interesting instances where I’m glad they pushed the horror elements into the background so we could concentrate on the comedy, but more importantly these wonderfully well-realised and vital characters – there are some skilfully executed shocks, but far more deep belly laughs, and there’s bucketloads of heart to eclipse the gore. Another winning debut from a talent I intend to watch with great interest in the future.

17. HAMILTON – arriving just as Black Lives Matter reached fever-pitch levels, this feature presentation of the runaway Broadway musical smash-hit could not have been better timed. Shot over three nights during the show’s 2016 run with the original cast and cut together with specially created “setup shots”, it’s an immersive experience that at once puts you right in amongst the audience (at times almost a character themselves, never seen but DEFINITELY heard) but also lets you experience the action up close. And what action – it’s an incredible show, a thoroughly fascinating piece of work that reads like something very staid and proper on paper (an all-encompassing biographical account of the life and times of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton) but, in execution, becomes something very different and EXTREMELY vital. The execution certainly couldn’t be further from the usual period biopic fare this kind of historical subject matter usually gets (although in the face of recent high quality revisionist takes like Marie Antoinette, The Great and Tesla it’s not SO surprising), while the cast is not at all what you’d expect – with very few notable exceptions the cast is almost entirely people of colour, despite the fact that the real life individuals they’re playing were all very white indeed. Every single one of them is also an absolute revelation – the show’s writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (already riding high on the success of In the Heights) carries the central role of Hamilton with effortless charm and raw star power, Leslie Odom Jr. (Smash, Murder On the Orient Express) is duplicitously complex as his constant nemesis Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson (In the Heights, Moana, Bull) oozes integrity and nobility as his mentor and friend George Washington, Phillipa Soo is sweet and classy as his wife Eliza while Renée Elise Goldsberry (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Jacks, Altered Carbon) is fiery and statuesque as her sister Angelica Schuyler (the one who got away), and Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) consistently steals every scene he’s in as fiendish yet childish fan favourite King George III, but the show (and the film) ultimately belongs to veritable powerhouse Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting, The Good Lord Bird) in a spectacular duel role, starting subtly but gaining scene-stealing momentum as French Revolutionary Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, before EXPLODING onto the stage in the second half as indomitable third American President Thomas Jefferson. Not having seen the stage show, I was taken completely by surprise by this, revelling in its revisionist genius and offbeat, quirky hip-hop charm, spellbound by the skilful ease with which is takes the sometimes quite dull historical fact and skews it into something consistently entertaining and absorbing, transported by the catchy earworm musical numbers and thoroughly tickled by the delightfully cheeky sense of humour strung throughout (at least when I wasn’t having my heart broken by moments of raw dramatic power). Altogether it’s a pretty unique cinematic experience I wish I could have actually gotten to see on the big screen, and one I’ve consistently recommended to all my friends, even the ones who don’t usually like musicals. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t need a proper Les Misérables style screen adaptation – this is about as perfect a presentation as the show could possibly hope for.

16. SPUTNIK – summer’s horror highlight (despite SERIOUSLY tough competition) was a guaranteed sleeper hit that I almost missed entirely, stumbling across the trailer one day on YouTube and getting bowled over by its potential, prompting me to hunt it down by any means necessary. The feature debut of Russian director Egor Abramenko, this first contact sci-fi chiller is about as far from E.T. as it’s possible to get, sharing some of the same DNA as Carpenter’s The Thing but proudly carving its own path with consummate skill and definitely signalling great things to come from its brand new helmer and relative unknown screenwriters Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev. Oksana Akinshina (probably best known in the West for her powerful climactic cameo in The Bourne Supremacy) is the beating heart of the film as neurophysiologist Tatyana Yuryevna Klimova, brought in to aid in the investigation in the Russian wilderness circa 1983 after an orbital research mission goes horribly wrong. One of the cosmonauts dies horribly, while the other, Konstantin (The Duelist’s Pyotr Fyodorov) seems unharmed, but it quickly becomes clear that he’s now the host for something decidedly extraterrestrial and potentially terrifying, and as Tatyana becomes more deeply embroiled in her assignment she comes to realise that her superiors, particularly mysterious Red Army project leader Colonel Semiradov (The PyraMMMid’s Fyodor Bondarchuk), have far more insidious plans for Konstantin and his new “friend” than she could ever imagine. This is about as dark, intense and nightmarish as this particular sub-genre gets, a magnificently icky body horror that slowly builds its tension as we’re gradually exposed to the various truths and the awful gravity of the situation slowly reveals itself, punctuated by skilfully executed shocks and some particularly horrifying moments when the evils inflicted by the humans in charge prove far worse than anything the alien can do, while the ridiculously talented writers have a field day pulling the rug out from under us again and again, never going for the obvious twist and keeping us guessing right to the devastating ending, while the beautifully crafted digital creature effects are nothing short of astonishing and thoroughly creepy. Akinshina dominates the film with her unbridled grace, vulnerability and integrity, the relationship that develops between Tatyana and Konstantin (Fyodorov delivering a beautifully understated turn belying deep inner turmoil) feeling realistically earned as it goes from tentatively wary to tragically bittersweet, while Bondarchuk invests the Colonel with a nuanced air of tarnished authority and restrained brutality that made him one of my top screen villains for the year. One of 2020’s great sleeper hits, I can’t speak of this film highly enough – it’s a genuine revelation, an instant classic for whom I’ll sing its praises for years to come, and I wish enormous future success to all the creative talents involved.

15. THE INVISIBLE MAN – looks like third time’s a charm for Leigh Whannell, writer-director of my ALMOST horror movie of the year (more on that later) – while he’s had immense success as a horror writer over the years (co-creator of both the Saw and Insidious franchises), as a director his first two features haven’t exactly set the world alight, with debut Insidious: Chapter III garnering similar takes to the rest of the series but ultimately turning out to be a bit of a damp squib quality-wise, while his second feature Upgrade was a stone-cold masterpiece that was (rightly) EXTREMELY well received critically, but ultimately snuck in under the radar and has remained a stubbornly hidden gem since. No such problems with his third feature, though – his latest collaboration with producer Jason Blum and the insanely lucrative Blumhouse Pictures has proven a massive hit both financially AND with reviewers, and deservedly so. Having given up on trying to create a shared cinematic universe inhabited by their classic monsters, Universal resolved to concentrate on standalones to showcase their elite properties, and their first try is a rousing success, Whannell bringing HG Wells’ dark and devious human monster smack into the 21st Century as only he can. The result is a surprisingly subtle piece of work, much more a lethally precise exercise in cinematic sleight of hand and extraordinary acting than flashy visual effects, strictly adhering to the Blumhouse credo of maximum returns for minimum bucks as the story is stripped down to its bare essentials and allowed to play out without any unnecessary weight. The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elizabeth Moss once again confirms what a masterful actress she is as she brings all her performing weapons to bear in the role of Cecelia “Cee” Kass, the cloistered wife of affluent but monstrously abusive optics pioneer Aidan Griffin (Netflix’ The Haunting of Hill House’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who escapes his clutches in the furiously tense opening sequence and goes to ground with the help of her closest childhood friend, San Francisco cop James Lanier (Leverage’s Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter Sydney (A Wrinkle in Time’s Storm Reid). Two weeks later, Aidan commits suicide, leaving Cee with a fortune to start her life over (with the proviso that she’s never ruled mentally incompetent), but as she tries to find her way in the world again little things start going wrong for her, and she begins to question if there might be something insidious going on. As her nerves start to unravel, she begins to suspect that Aidan is still alive, still very much in her life, fiendishly toying with her and her friends, but no-one can see him. Whannell plays her paranoia up for all it’s worth, skilfully teasing out the scares so that, just like her friends, we begin to wonder if it might all be in her head after all, before a spectacular mid-movie reveal throws the switch into high gear and the true threat becomes clear. The lion’s share of the film’s immense success must of course go to Moss – her performance is BEYOND a revelation, a blistering career best that totally powers the whole enterprise, and it goes without saying that she’s the best thing in this. Even so, she has sterling support from Hodge and Reid, as well as Love Child’s Harriet Dyer as Cee’s estranged big sister Emily and Wonderland’s Michael Dorman as Adrian’s slimy, spineless lawyer brother Tom, and, while he doesn’t have much actual (ahem) “screen time”, Jackson-Cohen delivers a fantastically icy, subtly malevolent turn which casts a large “shadow” over the film. This is one of my very favourite Blumhouse films, a pitch-perfect psychological chiller that keeps the tension cranked up unbearably tight and never lets go, Whannell once again displaying uncanny skill with expert jump-scares, knuckle-whitening chills and a truly astounding standout set-piece that easily goes down as one of the top action sequences of 2020. Undoubtedly the best version of Wells’ story to date, this goes a long way in repairing the damage of Universal’s abortive “Dark Universe” efforts, as well as showcasing a filmmaking master at the very height of his talents.

14. EXTRACTION – the Coronavirus certainly has threw a massive spanner in the works of the year’s cinematic calendar – among many other casualties to the blockbuster shunt, the latest (and most long-awaited) MCU movie, Black Widow, should have opened to further record-breaking box office success at the end of spring, but instead the theatres were all closed and virtually all the heavyweights were pushed back or shelved indefinitely. Thank God, then, for the streaming services, particularly Hulu, Amazon and Netflix, the latter of which provided a perfect movie for us to see through the key transition into the summer blockbuster season, an explosively flashy big budget action thriller ushered in by MCU alumni the Russo Brothers (who produced and co-wrote this adaptation of Ciudad, a graphic novel that Joe Russo co-created with Ande Parks and Fernando Leon Gonzalez) and barely able to contain the sheer star-power wattage of its lead, Thor himself. Chris Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, a former Australian SAS operative who hires out his services to an extraction operation under the command of mercenary Nik Khan (The Patience Stone’s Golshifteh Farahani), brought in to liberate Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal in his first major role), the pre-teen son of incarcerated Indian crime lord Ovi Sr. (Pankaj Tripathi), who has been abducted by Bangladeshi rival Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli). The rescue itself goes perfectly, but when the time comes for the hand-off the team is double-crossed and Tyler is left stranded in the middle of Dhaka with no choice but to keep Ovi alive as every corrupt cop and street gang in the city closes in around them. This is the feature debut of Sam Hargrave, the latest stuntman to try his hand at directing, so he certainly knows his way around an action set-piece, and the result is a thoroughly breathless adrenaline rush of a film, bursting at the seams with spectacular fights, gun battles and car chases, dominated by a stunning sustained sequence that plays out in one long shot, guaranteed to leave jaws lying on the floor. Not that there should be any surprise – Hargrave cut his teeth as a stunt coordinator for the Russos on Captain America: Civil War and their Avengers films. That said, he displays strong talent for the quieter disciplines of filmmaking too, delivering quality character development and drawing out consistently noteworthy performances from his cast. Of course, Hemsworth can do the action stuff in his sleep, but there’s a lot more to Tyler than just his muscle, the MCU veteran investing him with real wounded vulnerability and a tragic fatalism which colours every scene, while Jaiswal is exceptional throughout, showing plenty of promise for the future, and there’s strong support from Farahani and Painyuli, as well as Stranger Things’ David Harbour as world-weary retired merc Gaspard, and a particularly impressive, muscular turn from Randeep Hooda (Once Upon a Time in Mumbai) as Saju, a former Para and Ovi’s bodyguard, who’s determined to take possession of the boy himself, even if he has to go through Tyler to get him. This is action cinema that really deserves to be seen on the big screen – I watched it twice in a week and would happily have paid for two trips to the cinema for it if I could have. As we looked down the barrel of a summer season largely devoid of blockbuster fare, I couldn’t recommend this enough. Thank the gods for Netflix …

13. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 – although it’s definitely a film that really benefitted enormously from releasing on Netflix during the various lockdowns, this was one of the blessed few I actually got to see during one of the UK’s frustratingly rare lulls when cinemas were actually OPEN. Rather perversely it therefore became one of my favourite cinematic experiences of 2020, but then I’m just as much a fan of well-made cerebral films as I am of the big, immersive blockbuster EXPERIENCES, so this probably still would have been a standout in a normal year. Certainly if this was a purely CRITICAL list for the year this probably would have placed high in the Top Ten … Aaron Sorkin is a writer whose work I have ardently admired ever since he went from esteemed playwright to in-demand talent for both the big screen AND the small with A Few Good Men, and TTOTC7 is just another in a long line of consistently impressive, flawlessly written works rife with addictive quickfire dialogue, beautifully observed characters and rewardingly propulsive narrative storytelling (therefore resting comfortably amongst the well-respected likes of The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War, Moneyball and The Social Network). It also marks his second feature as a director (after fascinating and incendiary debut Molly’s Game), and once again he’s gone for true story over fiction, tackling the still controversial subject of the infamous 1968 trial of the “ringleaders” of the infamous riots which marred Chicago’s Diplomatic National Convention five months earlier, in which thousands of hippies and college students protesting the Vietnam War clashed with police. Spurred on by the newly-instated Presidential Administration of Richard Nixon to make some examples, hungry up-and-coming prosecutor Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is confident in his case, while the Seven – who include respected and astute student activist Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and confrontational counterculture firebrands Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Succession’s Jeremy Strong) – are the clear underdogs. They’re a divided bunch (particularly Hayden and Hoffman, who never mince their words about what little regard they hold for each other), and they’re up against the combined might of the U.S. Government, while all they have on their side is pro-bono lawyer and civil rights activist William Kunstler (Mark Rylance), who’s sharp, driven and thoroughly committed to the cause but clearly massively outmatched … not to mention the fact that the judge presiding over the case is Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella), a fierce and uncompromising conservative who’s clearly 100% on the Administration’s side, and who might in fact be stark raving mad (he also frequently goes to great lengths to make it clear to all concerned that he is NOT related to Abbie). Much as we’ve come to expect from Sorkin, this is cinema of grand ideals and strong characters, not big spectacle and hard action, and all the better for it – he’s proved time and again that he’s one of the very best creative minds in Hollywood when it comes to intelligent, thought-provoking and engrossing thinking-man’s entertainment, and this is pure par for the course, keeping us glued to the screen from the skilfully-executed whirlwind introductory montage to the powerfully cathartic climax, and every varied and brilliant scene in-between. This is heady stuff, focusing on what’s still an extremely thorny issue made all the more urgently relevant and timely given what was (and still is) going on in American politics at the time, and everyone involved here was clearly fully committed to making the film as palpable, powerful and resonant as possible for the viewer, no matter their nationality or political inclination. Also typical for a Sorkin film, the cast are exceptional, everyone clearly having the wildest time getting their teeth into their finely-drawn characters and that magnificent dialogue – Redmayne and Baron Cohen are compellingly complimentary intellectual antagonists given their radically different approaches and their roles’ polar opposite energies, while Rylance delivers another pitch-perfect, simply ASTOUNDING performance that once again marks him as one of the very best actors of his generation, and there are particularly meaty turns from Strong, Langella, Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (as besieged Black Panther Bobby Seale) and a potent late appearance from Michael Keaton that sear themselves into the memory long after viewing. Altogether then, this is a phenomenal film which deserves to be seen no matter the format, a thought-provoking and undeniably IMPORTANT masterwork from a master cinematic storyteller that says as much about the world we live in now as the decidedly turbulent times it portrays …

12. GREYHOUND – when the cinemas closed back in March, the fate of many of the major summer blockbusters we’d been looking forward to was thrown into terrible doubt. Some were pushed back to more amenable dates in the autumn or winter (which even then ultimately proved frustratingly ambitious), others knocked back a whole year to fill summer slots for 2021, but more than a few simply dropped off the radar entirely with the terrible words “postponed until further notice” stamped on them, and I lamented them all, this one in particular. It hung in there longer than some, stubbornly holding onto its June release slot for as long as possible, but eventually it gave up the ghost too … but thanks to Apple TV+, not for long, ultimately releasing less than a month later than intended. Thankfully the film itself was worth the fuss, a taut World War II suspense thriller that’s all killer, no filler – set during the infamous Battle of the Atlantic, it portrays the constant life-or-death struggle faced by the Allied warships assigned to escort the transport convoys as they crossed the ocean, defending their charges from German U-boats. Adapted from C.S. Forester’s famous 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by Tom Hanks and directed by Aaron Schneider (Get Low), the narrative focuses on the crew of the escort leader, American destroyer USS Fletcher, codenamed “Greyhound”, and in particular its captain, Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks), a career sailor serving his first command. As they cross “the Pit”, the most dangerous middle stretch of the journey where they spend days without air-cover, they find themselves shadowed by “the Wolf Pack”, a particularly cunning group of German submarines that begin to pick away at the convoy’s stragglers. Faced with daunting odds, a dwindling supply of vital depth-charges and a ruthless, persistent enemy, Krause must make hard choices to bring his ships home safe … jumping into the thick of the action within the first ten minutes and maintaining its tension for the remainder of the trim 90-minute run, this is screen suspense par excellence, a sleek textbook example of how to craft a compelling big screen knuckle-whitener with zero fat and maximum reward, delivering a series of desperate naval scraps packed with hide-and-seek intensity, heart-in-mouth near-misses and fist-in-air cathartic payoffs by the bucket-load. Hanks is subtly magnificent, the calm centre of the narrative storm as a supposed newcomer to this battle arena who could have been BORN for it, bringing to mind his similarly unflappable in Captain Phillips and certainly not suffering by comparison; by and large he’s the focus point, but other crew members make strong (if sometimes quite brief) impressions, particularly Stephen Graham as Krause’s reliably seasoned XO, Lt. Commander Charlie Cole, The Magnificent Seven’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Just Mercy’s Rob Morgan, while Elisabeth Shue does a lot with a very small part in brief flashbacks as Krause’s fiancée Evelyn. Relentless, exhilarating and thoroughly unforgettable, this was one of the true action highlights of the summer, and one hell of a war flick. I’m so glad it made the cut for the summer …

11. PROJECT POWER – with Marvel and DC pushing their tent-pole titles back in the face of COVID, the usual superhero antics we’ve come to expect for the summer were pretty thin on the ground in 2020, leading us to find our geeky fan thrills elsewhere. Unfortunately, pickings were frustratingly slim – Korean comic book actioner Gundala was entertaining but workmanlike, while Thor AU Mortal was underwhelming despite strong direction from Troll Hunter’s André Øvredal, and The New Mutants just got shat on by the studio and its distributors and no mistake – thank the Gods, then, for Netflix, once again riding to the rescue with this enjoyably offbeat super-thriller, which takes an intriguing central premise and really runs with it. New designer drug Power has hit the streets of New Orleans, able to give anyone who takes it a superpower for five minutes … the only problem is, until you try it, you don’t know what your own unique talent is – for some, it could mean five minutes of invisibility, or insane levels of super-strength, but other powers can be potentially lethal, the really unlucky buggers just blowing up on the spot. Robin (The Hate U Give’s Dominique Fishback) is a teenage Power-pusher with dreams of becoming a rap star, dealing the pills so she can help her diabetic mum; Frank Shaver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of her customers, a police detective who uses his power of near invulnerability to even the playing field when supercharged crims cause a disturbance. Their lives are turned upside down when Art (Jamie Foxx) arrives in town – he’s a seriously badass ex-soldier determined to hunt down the source of Power by any means necessary, and he’s not above tearing the Big Easy apart to do it. This is a fun, gleefully infectious rollercoaster that doesn’t take itself too seriously, revelling in the anarchic potential of its premise and crafting some suitably OTT effects-driven chaos brought to pleasingly visceral fruition by its skilfully inventive director, Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Nerve, Viral), while Mattson Tomlin (the screenwriter of the DCEU’s oft-delayed, incendiary headline act The Batman) takes the story in some very interesting directions and poses fascinating questions about what Power’s TRULY capable of. Gordon-Levitt and Fishback are both brilliant, the latter particularly impressing in what’s sure to be a major breakthrough role for her, and the friendship their characters share is pretty adorable, while Foxx really is a force to be reckoned with, pretty chill even when he’s in deep shit but fully capable of turning into a bona fide killing machine at the flip of a switch, and there’s strong support from Westworld’s Rodrigo Santoro as Biggie, Power’s delightfully oily kingpin, Courtney B. Vance as Frank’s by-the-book superior, Captain Crane, Amy Landecker as Gardner, the morally bankrupt CIA spook responsible for the drug’s production, and Machine Gun Kelly as Newt, a Power dealer whose pyrotechnic “gift” really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Exciting, inventive, frequently amusing and infectiously likeable, this was some of the most uncomplicated cinematic fun I had all summer. Not bad for something which I’m sure was originally destined to become one of the season’s B-list features …

#onward #onward movie #The Gentlemen #spontaneous #spontaneous movie #hamilton #hamilton movie #sputnik #sputnik movie #The Invisible Man #Extraction #extraction movie #the trial of the chicago 7 #greyhound #greyhound movie #project power #2020 in movies

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theniftycat · 4 years

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Some queer media recs that you likely haven’t seen and that will make you feel warm and nice for a change.

1. A Taste of Honey (1961). It was my favourite film when I was 17. It’s about a girl who has a pretty bad mother and more problems than she could handle. She gets pregnant and then abandoned by her mum. Then she meets a gay young man and he becomes her best friend.

It’s not a gay-centered film, but it’s very relatable for teens who have troubled relationships with their parents and who don’t know what to do with themselves. It has no depicted homophobia. It’s basically a story of two friends and how they make each other’s lifes better. The ending is pretty sad, but it still will leave you with a sweet aftertaste.

2. The Crying Game (1994). My favourite film when I was 18 (I didn’t even come out to myself till 19). I won’t spoil this movie, it’s interesting enough to watch it for the first time without knowing what it’s about.

It has depictions of transphobia though, but the trans character is the least problematic character and gets a happy ending. This is quite a gritty realistic movie, so, it was a great thing to see.

3. Maurice (1987). Look, I even doubt it belongs in this list because you probably have seen it. If you haven’t, what are you doing with your life?

It has everything: dark academia, young Hugh Grant, reading of Plato, gay relationships to kill you and resurrect you, cottagecore gays and a happy ending.

4. Tipping the Velvet (2004). A very beautiful and fun story of a young woman who looks for her way in life in Victorian England. That way appears to be a number of romances with other women that ultimately leads her to finding her happiness with someone right.

There’s not that much lesbian media, so, this show was truly a gift. I remember watching it in my early 20s and absolutely loving it. It’s very light hearted, but deals with serious stuff well. Plus, Anna Chancellor as a dark dominatrix??? Sign me up.

5. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). It’s a sweet story of two lovers who manage a laundrette. The main character is Omar who has to keep his face before his family who expect him tio have a model life.

I love British movies of the 80s, they had this style that wasn’t as filled with despair as what we had in the USSR back then (especially the late 80s), but still relatable. Not as glossy and escapist as American films of the era, but on the contrary very realistic and human. Easy to connect to. This film is very much of that kind. Oh, and a happy ending is there too.

6. Touch of Pink (2004). Now, this movie hit very close to my heart, as a story of a fellow Asian queer who loves old movies. See, Alim talks to the ghost of Cary Grant who supports him through all kinds of hijinks. Alim lives in London with his boyfriend when his mother comes to finally find him a wife. This film might be seen as a successor to My Beautiful Laundrette, but the mood and the humour are quite different, and for me personally it was like a breathe of fresh air, I’ve never seen a film like this.

It is a pretty basic romantic comedy, but sometimes that’s just what one needs. Plus, seeing Kyle MacLaghlan do a Cary Grant impression is pretty funny on itself.

7. Oh My General (2016). I spent this entire summer obsessed with this show, but I wasn’t active online back then after the rona hit me. It’s about a female general who, as a punishment for not disclosing that she was a woman, has to marry a good-for-nothing playboy. However as they go from enemies to lovers, the show becomes a tense political drama (and I love that shit) in which my then already favourite het couple of all time, become pawns who later become queens. The queer part is not only the subversion of gender roles (that stays there the entire show without disappearing as soon as the general gets married) that can be read as the general being trans, but also the fact that she has a female cousin who’s in love with her. And that cousin’s story is alas, tragic, but her tragedy is worthy of Shakespeare.

I genuinely loved the main couple so much by the time they finally got together, I’m emotional even as I’m typing this. They had so much character growth because of each other and then started supporting each other no matter what. But even so, the show still reads very queer. The general can very well appreciate beauty of women and it’s even shown that she thought of herself as a boy since childhood (I’m calling her a ‘she’ because that’s what she’s called in the show). There are also touches on many unpleasant sides of femininity and it’s refreshing to see them addressed. The show has its bad moments, but they are so rare that they are negligable in my opinion.

I wanted to mention some other things, but got too tired writing all this down. I’ll also mention Mr. Wakefield’s Crusade (1993) (don’t spoil yourself, but it begins with his wife leaving him for a woman), Breakfast on Pluto (2005) (might be seen as problematic, but it’s an old film and it’s filled with joy) and Fantaghiro (1991) (a tomboy princess dresses as a man and wins in a duel with a prince who falls in love with her. I was obsessed with it as a child. haven’t rewatched it tho).

#film recs #queer media

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alcalavicci · 3 years

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1988 interview with Dean. This is a really good one and helps bring more of his life into perspective. Note: the newspaper originally censored his swearing, but I’ve put it back.

Guthman, Edward. "Dean Stockwell: Third Time's a Charm." The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California), August 14, 1988.

“Six years ago, Dean Stockwell's acting career had turned to dust. Reduced to playing parts in unreleasable, made-in-Mexico movies that now make him cringe, Stockwell decided to chuck it all and get out of Hollywood.

“Along with his second wife, Joy, Stockwell moved to Santa Fe, settled down under the wide New Mexico sky and applied for a real estate license. He even placed an ad in Daily Variety to announce his exile: 'Dean Stockwell will help you with all your real estate needs in the new center of creative energy.'

“Stockwell never sold a house; he didn't need to. Instead, almost as soon as he'd relocated, things started happening to the former 1940s child star. It began with a small part in David Lynch's 'Dune,' and escalated with an important supporting role in Wim Wenders' highly regarded 'Paris, Texas.'

“Moving back to California to cash in on his fortune, Stockwell acted in 'Beverly Hills Cop II,' 'Gardens of Stone,' and 'To Live and Die in L.A.' He also played a cameo role, as Howard Hughes, in the newly released 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream.' And in 'Blue Velvet,' David Lynch's American nightmare, he delivered a chilling cameo as Ben, a waxlike, sexually ambiguous drug dealer.

“And now, at 52, Stockwell says he's found 'the favorite role I've had, by far.'

“The picture is 'Married to the Mob,' a dark, romantic comedy by Jonathan Demme ('Melvin and Howard,' 'Stop Making Sense') and Stockwell plays Mafia don Tony 'the Tiger' Russo. Wearing an Al Capone fedora and full-length vicuna coat, Tony is a rich, sardonic, larger-than-life character -- the kind Stockwell has never had a chance to play until now.

“Opening Friday at the Galaxy and UA the Movies, 'Married to the Mob' has been touted as Demme's first shot at a genuine box-office winner. Set in Long Island, New Jersey and Florida, it stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Angela DeMarco, a young Mafia wife who tries to start a new life when her husband, Frankie 'the Cucumber' DeMarco, is pumped full of lead during a hot-tub tryst at the Fantasia Motel.

“When Stockwell's character isn't ordering hits, drug deals and the dumping of toxic waste, he's lusting assiduously after the gorgeous widow. Meanwhile, bumbling FBI agent Mike Downey (played by Matthew Modine) is jumping through hoops trying to shadow Angela and 'catch Tony with his pants down.' Instead, he falls in love with Angela.

“During a recent luncheon interview, not far from his central California home, Stockwell spoke about the film, about his new happiness as the father of two children and about the bizarre trajectory of his long career. Dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and slacks, wearing a Panama hat and drawing first on a cigaret, later on a cigar, Stockwell emanates prosperity and calm.

“'I don't know why I was unemployed so long,' he says, reflecting on a fallow period that started in the '60s and lasted the better part of two decades. 'The only thing I can figure out in my own mind is that, for some reason or another, I was being made to wait until a certain time in my life when my talent would reach its full maturity and fruition.'

“Ironically, he says, he felt just as equipped 10 years ago to do the work he's doing now -- 'only I couldn't get fucking arrested.'

“Today, Stockwell sees harmony in the fact that his new success coincides with the arrival of two children. His son, Austin, will be 5 in November, and his daughter, Sophia, turns 3 this month. Inordinately proud and protective, he refuses to allow his children to be photographed, and also requests that the town in which he and his family reside not be named. (There were no children from his first marriage, to Millie Perkins, which lasted from 1960 to 1962.)

“'I want to make a lot of money and I want to put it away for my children,' he says. To that end, Stockwell has been snapping up job offers. 'A lot of people ask me, "How have you been able to choose these wonderful things you're doing? Have you been very selective?" And I have to tell them, "I haven't been choosing what I'm doing." Things have been coming and I've been accepting virtually anything that's come.'

“Stockwell's ambition is so great that, for the first time in his life, he actively pursues aspects of his career that he once shunned- interviews, for example.

“'My entire motivation in life is my family,' he says. 'I don't need to get an award. I don't need recognition. I've had that already. What I need is to provide. The best way I can provide is to be successful, and the best way I can be successful is to take advantage of all the things at my disposal to achieve that, one of which certainly is press.'

“Take a look at the young Stockwell, specifically the version that emerges from old magazine and newspaper interviews, and you meet another person altogether.

“Robbed of a normal childhood, Stockwell had made 22 films by the time he was 15 -- including 'The Boy with Green Hair,' 'Kim,' 'Anchors Aweigh,' and the Oscar-winning 'Gentleman's Agreement.' Working nonstop, he had a privileged life that millions of children probably envied, but he loathed it nonetheless.

“The son of show-business parents -- his father, Harry Stockwell, was the voice of the Prince in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' and his mother, Betty Veronica, was a former stage dancer -- Stockwell made his professional debut at 7. It all happened by a fluke: when Stockwell accompanied his older brother, Guy, on a Broadway audition, the casting director took a liking to both boys, and cast each one. The play, aptly enough, was called 'Innocent Voyage,' and it led to an MGM contract for curly-haired Dean.

“From the beginning, the pressure on young Stockwell was intense. His parents had divorced when he was 6, and when his father defaulted on child-support payments, Dean reluctantly became the family provider. Over a six-year period, he averaged three to four films per year.

“At home, he says, 'There was a lot of friction... I was getting all the attention, but I hated it. [Guy] couldn't appreciate that, because he wasn't getting the attention. He had all these friends, his peer group, that he took for granted. I had none and I resented him for being able to live that way. I was fucking lonely.'

“When he was 13, chained to a seven-year contract, Stockwell was described by one magazine as 'a young rebel who despises acting and resents every moment it takes from his fleeting boyhood.' Many years later, Stockwell told columnist Hedda Hopper, 'Child actors exist in a sort of limbo between childhood and maturity and belong to neither. Adults take them too seriously and other children are either awed or hostile. A child actor can find friends in neither group.'

“Finally, Stockwell fled Hollywood when he was 16. He cut off his curly locks, started using his real name, Robert Stockwell, and for the next five years roamed the country, working menial jobs and disavowing his true identity. 'People that might have known me from seeing my films knew me as a young child,' he remembers. 'Now I was 17 and I wasn't that recognizable.'

“Around the time of his 21st birthday, Stockwell was pushing papers as mail boy to a Manhattan plumbing firm. 'Of all the jobs that I'd had in those intervening years,' he remembers. 'I think I hated that worse than anything. I came to the realization I had no training at anything. My primary education was very skimpy, very poor, and happened under the worst type of conditions. I was literally at the mercy of the world.'

“Most of Stockwell's childhood earnings were squandered by crooked accountants, he says, and he knew that the tiny sum being held in a trust wouldn't last forever. 'So I thought, "What am I gonna do? Well, let's go back and attack this [acting career] again, and see if I can do it a little more on my terms."'

“What followed for Stockwell was a brief but impressive 'second career.' He starred in the 1959 film 'Compulsion,' based on the Leopold-Loeb case of the '20s, and won a joint acting award with Orson Welles and Bradford Dillman at the Cannes Film Festival. He played the lead in the 1960 film of D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers,' and in 1962 scored the plum role of Edmund Tyrone in Sidney Lumet's film version of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night,' holding his own alongside Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards.

“Stockwell was winning the best parts, but found his attention drifting elsewhere. What was happening, he says, were the first signs of the '60s youth revolution. 'It captured my imagination as much as anybody's. And it represented to me -- I can see this in retrospect -- something in childhood that I had missed: the freedom and loving being alive, without responsibilities and work and having to report to the studio every day, and deal with fans and interviews and shit that I hated when I was a kid.'

“So Stockwell called his agent, said, 'I'm not workin',' and dropped out once again. When he tried to come back three years later, though, 'I found it very difficult, 'cause I'd been out-of-sight, out-of-mind.' What followed was a long period of marginal employment: He found some TV work, took parts in low-budget trash ('The Dunwich Horror') and occasional oddities (Dennis Hopper's 'The Last Movie') and co-directed a film with musician Neil Young ('Human Highway') but often just didn't work at all. At one point, he went 18 months without a job.

“Today, along with his buddy Hopper, Stockwell is enjoying a major career renaissance. And with his starring role in 'Married to the Mob,' he says, he's never felt more confident.

“'I knew before I started the film that this character was going to work in spades,' he says, adding that Demme, as director, deserves credit for taking a risk with such offbeat casting. Instead of picking Peter Falk, Vincent Gardenia or another ethnically identified actor to play the Mafia don, he went with Stockwell (who is actually half-Italian on his mother's side).

“Demme's inspiration occurred on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, when he opened a copy of the Hollywood Reporter. Stockwell had just changed agents, and in order to announce the fact, had taken out a full-page ad. Demme saw the picture, and instantly recognized his Tony.

“Weirdly enough, Stockwell made another film immediately prior to 'Married to the Mob': a Canadian feature called 'Palais Royale,' due for an October release, in which he plays a character almost identical to Tony Russo.

“'It's very curious,' he says. 'For all my years I'd never had a role like this come my way, and here it was twice. The Mafia don in New York, the Mafia don in Toronto, both of them colorful and charming and also threatening. And I just thought, "What am I gonna do? It's the same character." So I decided to do the same character in both those movies.'

“To take the coincidence 'one nauseating step further,' Stockwell says he's also got a part in the recently completed 'Backtrack,' Hopper's next film. This time he plays a corrupt mob lawyer, dropping the Italian accent for a generalized East Coast sound.

“It would be difficult to find a film actor who's busier than Stockwell at this moment. And it would be difficult to find anyone whose job history better illustrates the vicissitudes, serendipities and insecurity of a Hollywood career.

“Looking back on his misfortunes -- at the career that he was forced to accept as a child, and the humiliation he felt when he couldn't maintain it as an adult -- Stockwell says he's not bitter. 'When you reach your maturity, I think it behooves you to accept the fact that it's absolutely futile and fruitless even to speculate on changing anything in your life. All you can do is get embittered. So I accept everything that's happened as part of my life, and try to push it in a positive direction from the moment right now.'”

#dean stockwell #article #i hear the kid who had plans to get a ranch again in this article :)#i've also been trying to reconcile his working in NYC when he was 21 with what parts he had around then #i think he tried acting again at 19/20 #hated it #got out went to NYC worked that job also hated it #so he went back to acting #then Compulsion helped him accept acting more

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alpaca-writes · 3 years

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Mystics, Chapter 8

When Arch becomes hired on at Mystics by Lyrem, everything seems to be going well- their life nearly becomes perfection. Soon enough, however, Arch realizes that perhaps not everything is as perfect as they think...

Directory: [chapter one] [chapter two] [chapter three] [chapter four] [chapter five] [chapter six] [chapter seven]

Tag list: @myst-in-the-mirror

CW: car accident, misgendering, emotional whump, psychological whump, PTSD, manipulation, actually a bit fluffy before the real pain starts

CHAPTER EIGHT: A FULL MOON RISES

Arch spent the last afternoon they would have in their hospital bed writing a letter. It wasn’t much, and as they were writing they were feeling rather childish. The letter was sweet, for what it was worth, and they had to believe that it was worth all the effort they were putting into it.

They made sure to make note of the dinosaurs and how Arch enjoyed looking at them rather than thinking about the accident-

Well, they said ‘accident’ but it wasn’t an accident. The truth was that Arch would have rather been killed on the highway than in a creepy man’s cabin out in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t include the details. It probably would make everyone uncomfortable to reveal how close their family might have come to being in mortal peril because they had chosen to help.

Arch placed the folded paper in and licked the envelope before pressing it down to be sealed firmly. They heard through the grapevine that the woman who had saved them was working as a pediatrician in a connected unit, but she hadn’t been able to meet them properly. The front desk had the information from the family that called in the accident. They would see to it that the letter reached the right people.

“Time to get a move on, gi- sweety.”

Arch raised a brow to their mother who was standing adjacent to the wheelchair. A skinny male nurse stood nearby as well, to help Arch into it.

Arch challenged the idea needlessly. The nurse insisted. Without the energy to fight any further, they climbed from the bed and into the chair. The rest of their healing would be done at home. As they checked out, Arch made sure to request the letter be sent away.

“I made up the futon in the living room for you until you’re ready to climb the stairs again.” Their mother said. She furtively checked her phone, before tossing it into her large black purse.

“The futon’s just going to make my back worse. I’ll be able to get downstairs fine.”

“Only trying to help,” Charlotte huffed.

She thanked the nurse as he released them through the exit. She supported Arch by the arm as they stood on their own two feet on the way to their old silver minivan; easily identified by the distinguishing rust marks around the rims. Charlotte led them to the passenger side, intent on opening the door for them when Arch stopped her.

“I can open a door, mom.”

“I’m helping,” she countered with a turn of her head.

Arch swallowed. This was mom. This was the van. This was daylight in a busy parking lot. They were not alone, they were not in an alley, and they were not with…

Arch forced their way to the door, opened it and lifted themselves inside.

“So independent,” Charlotte chided as she started the van. She checked the rear-view mirror and continued to speak as she was driving. “I bet you’ll be running off the moment you graduate, won’t you? Leaving me and Maleficent to our own devices.”

Arch took a moment before responding. “I was thinking about Strathford Community College, actually. One of the nurses brought me some pamphlets yesterday. They offer business and finance courses”-

“Not with your grades they don’t,” Charlotte finalized condescendingly. “You should upgrade, but you know that you don’t have the attention span for that. It’ll just be a waste of money and time for you.”

Arch didn’t feel like saying much after that comment. What they would have followed up with was an explanation that they were quite inspired to start their own business. But what was the point in any of that, if their mother would be shooting down every idea Arch had like a trophy hunter on safari?

-------------

A couple days of needed recovery passed Arch by. To their dismay, the futon was much more welcoming than the stairs to the basement suite. Waiting on a call to the police station, Arch remained securely by their phone. The call never came, nor did any calls from friends or relatives to see how they had been coping. Everyone was too busy, they thought. It was better that others didn’t speculate much anyway and be disturbed by the gory truth.

In addition, due to the unfortunate experience they had endured and that no one wanted to mention, all of Arch’s final projects had been waived by their teachers. All in all, Arch was on the road to graduating with a C overall, which was more than was expected of them. All they needed to do was study for their finals and that would be the end of it.

Arch was focusing on their math’s portion when Charlotte entered the front door with an array of plastic bags, and dropped them down in the middle of the room, right beside the futon.

“You wanted a romper?”

Arch closed their textbook, studying their mom suspiciously.

“Yes…” they breathed out hesitantly.

“I wasn’t sure what colour you’d want so I picked out a few designs in all sorts. Some have sparkles, and it’s your graduation dance, so of course I had to”-

Arch knelt down beside the bags, wincing as they twinged their arm on feeling the fabric. Some satin, some chiffon, danced through their fingers.

“Mom…” Arch was left speechless. She had listened to them. For the first time ever. They were heard. “You didn’t have to”-

“Yes, I did. For goodness sakes’ it’s your prom. Put one on already. I’ll be returning everything you don’t choose so keep the tags intact!” Charlotte ran into the kitchen, intent on placing an order for Chinese food.

Arch pulled out the first one that met their fingers. A bright purple chiffon number, beaded around the neck in silver and flowy with a cold shoulder. The pant legs were wide enough that when walking, it was almost as though they were wearing a dress. Arch popped into the kitchen, and twirled, causing their mother to sputter.

“Oh god, not that one!” Charlotte corrected herself over the phone, “Oh, no, no, not you… Number 66 please. And one 14. For two. Thank you.”

She finished the order and hung up the phone as her child double over in laughter.

“Why did you pick this thing out!?” Arch interrogated.

“I thought it would be great for a giggle. There’s a cream and mocha coloured one in there somewhere, I thought it might suit you best.” Charlotte advised with a toothy grin.

Arch tried on a dozen rompers gauging many different reactions from their mom and themselves. Both of them did their best to ignore the many cuts and bruises that were still healing. In the end, Arch agreed, the cream and mocha coloured romper suited them best. It was simple in its elegance and matched their eyes fittingly.

“You look fantastic.” Charlotte said as she leaned over the kitchen table, unloading dinner from brown paper bags. “That one’s also floor length, so you don’t have to worry about finding the right shoes for it.”

“You know me too well!” Arch hollered as they posed in front of the bathroom mirror. There was a buzz from their phone, which sat on the edge of the vanity.

Store meeting. 8pm tonight.

It was Lyrem. Arch grimaced. It was 7:30 now.

“Seriously?” Arch muttered as they changed out of their romper and into some street clothes. They returned to the kitchen.

“Lyrem wants me at the store for a meeting… tonight.”

Charlotte stared at them disappointedly.

“Oh. Does it have to be tonight? He’s required to give you notice if he wants you to attend a meeting. You can tell him to reschedule. I swear, that man is getting on my nerves with what hours he’s asked of you.”

Arch brushed off the comment. “I should still go…” There was a strange feeling in the pit of their stomach telling them that it wouldn’t be a great idea to refuse.

Charlotte raised a brow. “Alright, I’ll drive you in a bit. I was hoping we could stay in and have a movie night like we used to. I picked out Music and Lyrics. Hugh Grant’s adorable in that one, and young Drew Barrymore; oh, Arch, you’ll love her.”

Arch smiled lightly as they tugged on their sneakers. “I’ll walk, mom. And I’ll text you when I arrive, and again when it’s done. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

Charlotte stared at them with a worried façade, wondering if she should fight their child on this. Any mother would, but she also didn’t want to pick a fight. Not tonight.

“Here,” she rifled through her black bag. “Mace. It’s a single use canister,” She handed over the small tube to Arch as they stood by the door. “Take it and use it if you have to.”

Arch accepted it, nodding. After planting a kiss on their mom’s cheek, they started on their journey to Mystics.

Omw.

#writeblr #whumpblr #writing blog #mystics by alpaca #mystics #arch #OCs #Alpaca writes #whump blog #whump #whumpwriting #creative writing #writing #original work #urban fantasy

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myhauntedsalem · 4 years

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Ghosts of Hollywood

Marilyn Monroe The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard is said to be the current residence of several ghosts of popular film stars. Marilyn Monroe, the glamorous and funny star of such pictures as Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, was a frequent guest of the Roosevelt at the height of her popularity. And although she died in her Brentwood home, her image has been seen on several occasions in a full-length mirror that once hung in her poolside suite. The mirror has been relocated to the hotel's lower level by the elevators.

Montgomery Clift Another respected star who died before his time, Montgomery Clift, was a four-time Oscar nominated actor who is best known for his roles in A Place in the Sun, From Here to Eternity and Judgment at Nuremberg. His ghost has also been seen at the Roosevelt. According to some of the hotel's staff, Clift's spirit haunts room number 928. Clift stayed in that suite in 1953, pacing back and forth, memorizing his lines for From Here to Eternity. Loud, unexplained noises have been heard coming from the empty suite, and its phone is occasionally found mysteriously off the hook.

Perhaps it's fitting that the Hollywood Roosevelt should be the stirring place of celebrity ghosts since it was the site of the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. In fact, the Blossom Ballroom, where the ceremony was held, has an unexplained cold spot - a circular area measuring 30 inches in diameter that remains about 10 degrees colder than the rest of the room.

Harry Houdini Houdini is best known as a magician and escape artist, of course, but at the height of his fame he was also drawn to Hollywood, where he made a handful of silent films from 1919 to 1923. With such titles as The Man from Beyond and Haldane of the Secret Service (which he also directed), the films were not regarded well enough to give him much of a Hollywood career. Houdini's interest in the occult was well known, and although he earned a reputation as a masterful debunker of séances, he earnestly sought contact with those who have passed on to the other side. Shortly before his death, Houdini made a pact with his wife Bess that if he could, he would return and make contact with her from the other side. Perhaps he truly has attempted to return. Some claim to have seen the ghost of the great Houdini walking around in the home he owned on Laurel Canyon Blvd. in the Hollywood Hills. Film historians Laurie Jacobson and Marc Wanamaker, in their book Hollywood Haunted, dispute this story, saying that "Houdini most likely never even set foot in the Laurel Canyon mansion he is said to haunt."

Clifton Webb Clifton Webb was a very popular star of the 1940s and '50s, earning two Oscar nominations for his roles in Laura and The Razor's Edge. He may be best known for his portrayal of Mr. Belvedere in a series of films. It's not too often that a ghost haunts the place in which the person is buried, but this seems to be the case for Webb. His ghost has been seen at the Abbey of the Psalms, Hollywood Memorial Cemetery, where his body is interred. But it seems to be a restless spirit, as his ghost has also been encountered at his old home on Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills.

Thelma Todd Thelma Todd was a hot young star in the 1930s. She was featured in a number of hit comedies with the likes of The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and Buster Keaton. But that all ended in 1935 when Todd was found dead in her car, which was parked above the café she owned on the Pacific Coast Highway. Strangely, her death was ruled an accidental suicide, but many suspected murder and a coverup by powerful Hollywood figures. The building that once housed the café is now owed by Paulist Productions, and employees have reportedly witnessed the starlet's ghost descending the stairs.

Thomas Ince Ince is considered one of the visionary pioneers of American movies. He was one of the most respected directors of the silent era, best known, perhaps, for his westerns starring William S. Hart. He partnered with other early Hollywood giants such as D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, and founded Culver Studios, which later became MGM. Ironically, Ince's death overshadowed his film legacy. He died aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924, and although the official record shows the cause of death as heart failure, the hot rumor is that he was shot by Hearst in a fit a jealousy over Hearst's wife, Marion Davies. Ince's ghost - as well as several other ghostly figures - have been seen in the lot that was once Culver Studios. Film crew members have seen the specter of a man matching Ince's description on several occasions; in one instance, when the workers tried to speak to the spirit, it turned and disappeared through a wall.

Ozzie Nelson Ghosts and hauntings are the last thing that come to mind when you think of the perpetually cheerful Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. The couple, with their real-life sons Ricky and David, were stars of the long-running sitcom "Ozzie and Harriet," noted for its good-natured, gentle humor. Yet poor Ozzie doesn't seem to be as contented in the afterlife. Family members, it is said, have seen Ozzie's ghost in the family's old Hollywood home, and it always appears to be in a somber mood. Perhaps he's unhappy about how another Ozzy and his family have gained notoriety on TV.

George Reeves From 1953 to 1957, George Reeves was TV's Superman. Reeves had been around Hollywood for a while, playing bit parts in such films as Gone with the Wind and dozens of B-movies, but it was "The Adventures of Superman" on TV that brought him fame. Reeves died of a gunshot at his home in 1959. The official cause of death was suicide, but that conclusion has been hotly disputed, with some believing that Reeves was murdered. Whether it was suicide or murder, Reeves ghost has been seen in his Beverly Hills home. A couple claims to have seen the ghost of Reeves - decked out in his Superman costume - materialize in the bedroom where he died, after which it slowly faded away. Others believe that Reeves succumbed to the "Superman curse," in which those associated with the fictional character over the years allegedly have met with disaster or death. But is there really a curse?

More Celebrity Ghosts

Rudolph Valentino - This silent film heartthrob has been seen in the bedroom and stables of his old Hollywood home. Jean Harlow - The spirit of this blonde bombshell is said to haunt the bedroom of her home on North Palm Drive, where her husband allegedly used to beat her. Mary Pickford - This legend of the silent era - actress, writer and producer - was co-founder of United Artists with her husband Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin. Comic Buddy Rogers, who lived in the house Pickford once owned, saw her ghost appear in a white ruffled dress. Grace Kelly - Princess Stephanie of Monaco believes that the ghost of her mother, Grace Kelly, helped her write a song from the spirit world.

Celebrities Who Have Seen Ghosts

Nicholas Cage - This Oscar-winning actor (Leaving Las Vegas) refused to stay in uncle Francis Ford Coppola's home after seeing a ghost in the attic. (Cage was also cast as Superman in director Tim Burton's film project, which was never made.) Keanu Reeves - The star of The Matrix films and Devil's Advocate was just a kid in New Jersey when he saw a ghost that took the form of a white double-breasted suit come into his room one night. He wasn't imagining it; his nanny saw the phantom, too. Neve Campbell - She's been in more than her share of paranormal-themed movies (The Craft, Scream), but she's had real-life encounters as well. A woman was murdered in the house she now lives in, and friends have seen her ghost walking around. Matthew McConaughey - This popular actor (Contact) says he freaked out the first time he saw the ghost of an old woman, whom he calls "Madame Blue," floating around his house. Tim Robbins - Robbins, who was nominated for an Oscar in Mystic River, didn't see ghosts, but strongly felt their presence when he moved into an apartment in 1984. Following his instinct, he moved out the next day. Hugh Grant - British romantic comedy lead Hugh Grant (Love Actually) says he and friends have heard the wailing and screaming of some tormented spirit in his Los Angeles home. He even speculates it might be the ghost of a former resident - Bette Davis. Dan Aykroyd - The Ghostbusters star (and Oscar-nominated for Driving Miss Daisy) has long had a fascination with the paranormal. He believes his home, once owned by Cass Elliot of The Mamas and The Papas, is haunted. "A ghost certainly haunts my house," he said. "It once even crawled into bed with me. The ghost also turns on the Stairmaster and moves jewelry across the dresser. I'm sure it's Mama Cass because you get the feeling it's a big ghost." Sting - Rock star Sting (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and his wife Trudie have seen ghosts in their home. "I was absolutely terrified," he said. "I now believe those things are out there, but I have no explanation for them." Jean Claude Van Damme - The Belgian action star (Timecop), also known as "Muscles from Brussels," swears he saw a ghost in his bathroom mirror while he was brushing his teeth. Richard Dreyfuss - He won an Oscar for The Goodbye Girl, but at one time had a cocaine problem. Visions of a ghost, he said, helped him kick the habit. "I had a car crash in the late 1970s," Dreyfuss said, "when I was really screwed up, and I started seeing these ghostly visions of a little girl every night. I couldn't shake this image. Every day it became clearer and I didn't know who the hell she was. Then I realized that kid was either the child I didn't kill the night I smashed up my car, or it was the daughter that I didn't have yet. I immediately sobered up." Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman - This Hollywood couple was forced to flee their "dream home" in Sneden's Landing, N.Y. when it became all too apparent that it was haunted. They still are reluctant to talk about their frightening encounters. Belinda Carlisle - This pop singer and founding member of The Go-Gos, who appeared in Swing Shift and She's Having a Baby, says she saw a "misty shape" hovering over her as she lay in bed one night. She also says that when she was 17, while nodding off to sleep in a chair in her parents' home, she levitated and had an out-of-body experience. Elke Sommers - This German-born actress, who appeared in the 1966 film The Oscar, claims to have seen the ghost of a middle-aged man in a white shirt in her home in North Beverly Hills. Guests in her home have also seen the specter. So much paranormal activity was reported in the house that the American Society for Psychical Research was brought in, and which verified the unexplained events. The severely haunted house was bought and sold more than 17 times since Sommers vacated it, and many have reported ghostly phenomena. Paul McCartney - Ex-Beatle and Oscar-nominated songwriter ("Live and Let Die") says that he, George Harrison and Ringo Starr sensed the playful spirit of John Lennon when they were recording Lennon's song, "Free As A Bird" in 1995. "There were a lot of strange goings-on in the studio - noises that shouldn't have been there and equipment doing all manner of weird things. There was just an overall feeling that John was around."

#Ghosts of Hollywood #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits

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the-busy-ghost · 4 years

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TSP S02E06 Thoughts

Ok I’m late to the party today so I assume everyone has commented on most of this already and therefore I was just going to quickly sum up any other observations. But I’m only twenty minutes in and I already have SO MANY THOUGHTS

- Apparently Cardinal Wolsey is not allowed to speak to anyone now and if he does this is Suspicious. But since Katherine isn’t exactly talking to her daughter either, tbh Henry is actually quite fair to be all ‘Why would you care’.

- When Henry gets all bitchy towards Wolsey re: the chancellorship, both Wolsey and Katherine’s poker faces should be a reaction image.

- Poor Mary at least she has Margaret Pole

- Ok I would love to go back in time and save all the historical infants from an early death if I could but I STILL don’t understand how the Duke of Ross is still alive. Poor kid should have left the scene six years earlier. AND STILL NO MARGARET DOUGLAS. While I’d like to be hopeful and assume that @glorianas hatesex idea is going to pan out, tbh with the way they’re developing Angus’ character I worry this will be another badly handled r*pe scene, IF they bother to add Margaret Douglas’ birth in at all.

- Smol James is Smol. I would die for all of the children in this show. Protect them at all costs.

- But anyway who tf is ‘Hal’ Stewart. I might be wrong (I haven’t read every source ever) but tbh ‘Hal’ is not a common abbreviation of Henry in Scotland- Harry (Harrie) is much more common as a form of Henry, and is indeed the nickname that Margaret’s third husband was commonly known by. Sadly, ‘Hal’ just makes me want to snigger and make ‘England and St George’ type speeches (though even in that line, tbh, it’s Harry not Hal). “Hal Stewart” sounds like he should have a handlebar moustache and say ‘jolly good’ and fly spitfires. Or like he’s the descendant of expat Scots living in Canada.

- I would be a lot more surprised that Angus is sneaking in and out of places if you weren’t all literally living in a very open house which would be very difficult to defend, I mean what do you expect to happen if you have obvious enemies, very few attendants, and you park yourself in HOLYROOD PALACE

- Cut it off Meg

- Oh wait so YOU’RE not safe there and your own children aren’t safe there but you’re perfectly happy just leaving James IV’s kids there? I should say ‘kid’ singular but I think we’re past waiting for the TSP writers to use google and realise that all of James IV’s other children are over the age of eighteen by 1520. But if Margaret DID have custody of them (which seems unlikely) she’s just dumped a young girl (maybe nine years old? We don’t know but that’s my guess) in a palace with her apparently shitty ex-husband and buggered off up to Edinburgh. Agnes Stewart come pick up your daughter please, don’t leave her here, or at least send your niece back to do it since she already knows the way

- Why are they even including so many offhand remarks bout James IV’s kids so much at all if they plainly don’t know anything about them? Is this ever going to be relevant to the plot? Or did they just want to have them in the first episode to show how ‘hard done by’ Margaret is but then realised they couldn’t just ditch them without losing the audience’s sympathy for her.

- Margaret getting the conveniently placed big old book on marriage law down from the shelf (every household should have one)- but really Meg, you must have seen enough shady divorces in 16th century Scotland to know the name of a good lawyer who could do this for you

- Once again though, does Angus have NO kinsmen or retainers any more? Or was he just cutting about the Canongate on his day off from Being Evil and thought ‘I’ll go check in on the wife then shall I, she’ll have Drink which is also now something I am to be associated with’

- I am LOVING the blatantly Georgian architecture at the gates to a very disappointing Field of the Cloth of Gold. Really TSP should have just gone full Reign and embraced its inaccuracies to make a fun teen show with a load of ridiculous modern dresses, would have been more bearable than this

- I would like to address however, the fact that this show has been going on about how terrible it is for princesses to be married off to older men all season, but what are we now supposed to root for four-year-old Mary to be betrothed to the much older HRE, rather than the dauphin who is MUCH closer in age? Can the writers make their minds up? Who are we supposed to think is in the right?

- Wee Mary’s face when Katherine spoke to her for the first time- that’s probably the first time the kid has ever heard the fancy queen lady actually talk to her though, so I’m not surprised but genuinely it was quite funny.

- Someone save this child please.

- IS THAT CHARLES V- WHY IS CHARLES V HERE?? GOD IT IS JUST UNINVITED GUESTS GALORE THIS EPISODE

- Also I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure he can’t just ride across France to get to the English Pale with only a couple of attendants and w/o a safe conduct or any other notification that he’s coming? This is just Margaret Tudor riding unattended through the Borders all over again.

- Gotta love Katherine just producing him out of nowhere though, the writers really do not care about the holes they dig themselves into but the implication that Katherine can just summon emperors whenever she likes is fantastic (does she keep him in a box??)

- Katherine about the horse- “He’s trained to kill a man with a single kick”. Don’t even hesitate Guerrero, you have four legs and there’s apparently three sixteenth century kings in the area, go to town

- Charles V just buggering off again, fading into the background like he was just Katherine’s own personal imperial amazon delivery man

- Have they decided to have the Evil May Day in 1520? Why?

- *Henry and Francis approach* *Theme from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly plays*

- FUCK WOLSEY’S DAVID ATTENBOROUGH NARRATION REALLY MADE ME LAUGH, CHRIST I THINK I BROKE SOMETHING

“What a magnificent sight, two kings meeting for the first time, this rare species, almost never seen in daylight, both approach the watering hole...”

TBH I think their coordinated bow should also have had some narration Wolsey, if you really want Attenborough’s job after him. But it’s even funnier because they both genuinely looked so awkward stepping slowly towards each other, I just can’t

- Henry’s been buying his crowns from the same Burger King Autumn Range as Chris Pine in Outlaw King I see

- FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT PLEASE BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER I GENUINELY THINK THAT WOULD BE FUNNY I HAVE SEEN POSH BOYS FIGHTING THEY’RE TERRIBLE BUT IT’S REALLY FUNNY

- Pfft Wolsey’s evident panic is funny but I would like to copyright Stafford’s little eyebrow twitch where he’s obviously thinking ‘Let me hold your coat Henry’

- Katherine of Aragon following at a slower pace while Claude gives her a sideways glance is also mildly amusing, like KOA could not look less bothered. I know the wrestling was historically accurate but honestly Henry and Francis being all aggressive like they’re actually willing to kill each other when I bet they just get outside and hug weirdly is probably going to be hilarious.

- Once again Maggie, please take that child and RUN

- I was right, it IS funny. Please Wolsey we need more Attenborough narration for this fight.

- Everyone standing around occasionally clapping awkwardly and looking vaguely unimpressed is like what would have happened in Bridget Jones if Hugh Grant and Colin Firth’s fight scene wasn’t soundtracked.

- Yeah so the wrestling was accurate but tbh I’m not sure that Henry staggering out of the ring looking like James II right before a stabbing is. In my experience if a ginger monarch in tights is wearing that expression you run, no matter who you are.

#TSP #Margaret Tudor #Ranting again #There was just too much nonsense and we're not even halfway through #I am genuinely enjoying how ridiculous this is though

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russian-romanova · 5 years

Text

hill house

title: hill house

pairing: none, female crain!reader

word count: 9.1K (longest one yet bbysssss)

warnings: spoilers, mentions of death, suicide, intense scenes and images, language, mature themes explored by ‘the haunting of hill house’, also timelines that don’t match up that great.

notes: thank you so much to anyone who reads this. i’m sure the audience is going to be very small, but i absolutely poured my soul into this for a while and you simply looking at this fills me with joy. feedback is appreciated!

summary: to the remaining five crain siblings and their father, the death of a close family member seems to bring a renewed remembrance of the nightmarish hill house that haunted their childhoods.

She was the youngest. This was one of those indisputable facts that Y/N was forced to cling to in life, such as the intangible fact that she would never be mature as Shirley or as smooth as Theo, but she was the best listener out of all of them.

She was the youngest, and she would always be the youngest. What Y/N Crain never expected, however, was that she would become the youngest of five Crain siblings.

There was supposed to be six of them, eight with their parents. Mom, Dad, Steven, Shirley, Theo, Luke, Nell, and Y/N. Eight was the magic number, she had been sure of it all 32 years of her life. She would use eight to brag about how big her family was in elementary school (counting Aunt Janet instead of Mom, but no one needed to know that), just as Luke would find himself counting to eight every time he got too anxious or scared. It was supposed to be six siblings, at least until Hugh Crain had called his youngest daughter to tell her the news, to tell her that her sister was gone. Y/N hadn’t understood him at first, but she found out later how normal that was.

It had been late at night, and Y/N had found herself restless and annoyed. She had shot up at three o’clock in the fucking morning, feeling like she couldn’t breathe. For the smallest moment, after her eyes had opened, the air just wouldn’t move into her mouth and she worried she was dying. Less than a second passed before it rushed in, and her lungs filled up and let it out. Maybe she had been having some sort of a nightmare, Y/N had reasoned to herself in the cold emptiness of her apartment room. Like the ones that Nell would get about the Bent-Neck Lady. A shiver ran through her just thinking about it, and she suddenly became more aware of her surroundings than she had been. The moonlight from the window pierced her view, bringing her back to earth and leading her to her bedroom door. Slippers on her feet, Y/N Crain made her way away from her warm bed and into the unknown.

She had put on water for tea, a trick her aunt had taught her what felt like forever ago and moved slowly to her counter in search of something to do. She hadn’t brought her cell phone with her from her bedroom and didn’t see much point in going back to get it. ‘Phones make it harder to sleep,’ Theo had pointed out to some degree of what Y/N suspected must have been hypocritical. ‘Something about the lights and radiation and shit like that.’

Her eyes fell on already opened mail, a copy of a magazine she had been meaning to read, ads for windows and preschools to potentially work at in the area, her ongoing shopping list, and other various papers she didn’t have the energy to sort through. Halfheartedly, she picked up the magazine and flipped through the pages.

From behind her, the tea kettle began to already let out a growing whistle, the sound coming much sooner than she had expected it to. Pulling her robe closer, she shuffled towards the sound and pulled the kettle off, the sound dying down and the steam dispersing. For some unknown reason, she thought back to her middle school science classes.

The cup was light blue and warm. Her mind was fuzzy as she moved to her spot at the table, pushing aside the unchosen reading materials and placing her teacup and magazine down.

Then she was awake. Blinking, she felt the feeling of blind confusion for the second time that night, realizing that the hard surface under her arms and head wasn’t her pillow, but the table. She had fallen asleep, and the cup of tea remained practically untouched.

Some asshole outside was playing music, she thought as she turned to glance out the window. It was loud. It was loud and it was coming from inside her house. Murderer? Kidnapper? Pop-up DJ? Clarity came and with it a single word: phone.

Who the hell was going to be calling her at this hour? Sighing, she pushed the chair away from the table and made her way to her bedroom. Sure enough, the screen was lit up and the phone itself was buzzing in place. ‘Dad,’ it read in bolded white letters, and Y/N felt the instinctual drop in her stomach that accompanies a late-night call, especially one from her quiet father.

Her hands were already shaking when she picked it up. “Dad?” The word came out less calm than she had intended. For a minute, Hugh Crain was silent on the opposite end and Y/N hoped that it was a mistake, that her father had never meant to call her. She was close to hanging up when his voice buzzed from the other end.

“Are you sitting down?”

“Yes,” Y/N lied. “Yeah, Dad, what’s up?”

“Y/N, honey,” The other end filled with breathing for a moment. “Nell’s gone.”

“Gone? I-” Any fear in her mind froze for a moment as she processed his words. “What do you mean gone, Daddy?” The younger woman’s voice was small and childlike.

“She killed herself. Nellie’s dead.” His voice cracked, and Y/N found her own voice couldn’t do even do that. It was completely gone. Somehow, this seemed worse than the numerous endings she had seen in her head. Nothing specific ever came to mind, but visions of horrible accidents and even death floated in the back of her mind. Y/N couldn’t have imagined this. Never, not in a million years.

“No,” The word broke the silence that had accompanied the confirmation. She wished she had sat down and her feet stumbled for footing. Landing on her bed, her hands moved to her mouth. “No, no. Nell. Nellie. Not Nell.”

It was too much at that moment. Y/N felt like she was going to explode, but she couldn’t breathe enough to do so. Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes began rapidly blinking away tears. Her father said something to her from far away, but she couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything past the buzzing in her ears that seemed to want to block out all other sounds, leaving her feeling small and alone. She could feel the distinctive lump in her throat growing, urging her to a complete breakdown. “Dad, I have to go,” Y/N spoke, though unable to hear herself talk. Hanging up before he could respond seemed the only way to save both of them from Y/N’s breakdown, and she opted to instead have it alone on the floor next to her bed.

Nell had fallen into the role of big sister so quickly and so perfectly. It was as if she was born for it, possibly even more than Shirley or Theo had been. Any minutes she could spend watching Y/N were minutes Nell considered a success, although Y/N never knew this. All that she knew, and all she needed to know, was that Eleanor Crain had loved her so much, and now she was gone.

Y/N didn’t remember when her mother had died, but if she did she would know that how much she cried then was nothing compared to her screams now. Perhaps she hadn’t understood it as a small child, with her h/c hair still in the braids her mother had done them in before she had gone to bed. Her pajamas wrinkled and warm, her eyes sore with sleep as she rubbed them. She had been sleeping with Theo that night, at least when it all happened. It was a strange pull that brought her to Theo that night and not Nell as she had gone to often times before, but it seemed to make sense to Y/N in her young age.

That brought about another thing Y/N Crain didn’t know, nor would she understand, was that she would have been in the Red Room with her siblings if she hadn’t had a nightmare, one where they sat around their mother’s coffin as it rained and that her nightmare had effectively saved her.

If not Nell, Theo was the one Y/N went to when she was scared. This lingered in her mind, somewhere behind all of the pain, and she grappled for the phone. Y/N knew Theo’s number by heart, as she knew all of their numbers, but she went first for the contact containing it and paused. What would she say? Y/N didn’t think she actually wanted to talk, and she was almost positive Theo didn’t either. It would be nice to not be alone, but if she called Theo she would have to be alone after anyway. The pain of hanging up from that call might have been worse than she felt now.

With a click, the phone’s screen went black. Y/N sighed a rough and uncomfortable sigh that bounced around in her throat as tears pushed against it. There was nothing left to do except cry, because what else can you do? After losing someone so close, so suddenly, and so horribly, there’s no way to process that. This must have been what Nellie felt like after her husband died, Y/N thought, before the picture of Nell she formed in her mind brought tears to her eyes once more.

She would have to book a flight. It hurt, but one could only spend so much time wallowing before you have to move on. Isn’t this what being an adult was like? When Olivia had died, Y/N couldn’t remember seeing her dad cry at all. Granted, there wasn’t much she could remember about that day, but Y/N remembered how every single Crain around her had been so strong. And now, even she had to be strong.

• • •

Y/N Crain remembered very little about leaving Hill House, but she remembered almost all of the day they had arrived. The days in between blurred, and her four-year-old memory struggled to keep straight what was important and unnecessary. She remembered the buttons that Nell loved and cared for with such insistence, the time the siblings had all shown up to breakfast with their shirts backward to see if Mom and Dad would notice (Y/N was too giggly and practically gave it away), or the dresses that their mother would wear. No matter how hard Y/N had tried, however, she could never remember the warning signs towards her mother’s death, the horrible storm that shook Hill House, or the day Luke thought he saw a zombie in the cellar.

The wallpaper in the hallways was etched into your mind, the greens and blues that resonated and showed up in your most vivid dreams. ‘One could lose themselves in the memories of that house,’ Y/N reasoned, and yet she remembered almost nothing at all.

As a child, she had followed Theo around through the dingy halls of Hill House. Theo had always been vocally annoyed by the younger Crain and the constant shuffle of her feet behind her, but secretly Theodora Crain was incredibly proud. And who could blame her? The twins had each other, Steven and Shirl seemed to get each other, and Theo liked to keep to herself, but where would that put Y/N? Nowhere fair, surely. So Theo was the obvious answer, she would just have to sacrifice her free time for a while.

“Theo,” She remembered asking her from a yard or so behind her, Theo’s gloved hands swinging back and forth in her view. “Why can’t we get a puppy?”

“Mom’s allergic,” She replied in the way that only Theo seemed to be able to do, without pause or thought but lathered in confidence. “Besides, I think a dog would be kind of annoying.”

“Annoying?” Y/N repeated, turning the word over in her mind. “Why would it be annoying?”

“I don't know. They’re loud and get mud everywhere.”

“Daddy said they do poop a lot,” She added, ever eager to please Theo. Agreeing with her point seemed like the easiest way to do so.

Theo huffed. “I guess,” Y/N supposed that Theo did a lot of huffing, at least from her experience with the sound. Sometimes her huff was more of a sigh, but Y/N didn’t understand the difference yet, so she assumed they were all huffs.

“We could get a fish,” Y/N continued with the idea. “Stevie said he wanted a fish, ‘member?” The word ‘remember’ was long for Y/N to say when she was excited or nervous, the times when her voice sped up and words blurred together, so it came out more like ‘membeh’.

“Fish are dumb,” Theo said, walking towards the black, spiraling staircase. “They don’t do much.”

With her dreams crushed, Y/N nodded solemnly. “I guess.” She joined Theo on the staircase, her small hand gripping to the railing. She would never admit it, but this staircase scared her, at least slightly. With its steps painted black and the handrails always feeling cold, Y/N could swear she felt like she was a single misstep away from falling every time. Theo seemed unnerved, skipping up the staircase with such speed that Y/N struggled to keep up. With a final huff, Y/N reached the top steps after her sister, although the two went in different ways. While Theo turned to the left, Y/N’s eyes spotted the younger children’s biggest mystery of Hill House: The Red Room.

The name encompassed most of what they knew about the mysterious room. The door was a vibrant red, with the same lion on the handle that the other rooms had. Hugh, even with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, had failed to produce a key that could open the door. It hadn’t admittedly been high on his list of priorities, and the younger children seemed to be having a good time guessing what was inside. They would get there eventually and likely be disappointed, so their father had figured there was no rush.

The locked door had confused Y/N. Sure, she had encountered things that wouldn’t open before, but then she would just ask her parents or Steve and it would open eventually. She understood the concept of not being allowed into a room, but she knew that they were allowed in here.

Her legs brought her to the right. “Let’s go in,” Y/N urged her older sister, her hand jittering the door. “Help me open it.”

“It’s locked, Y/N. We don’t know what’s in there. We can’t open it.” Theo said from a distance.

Y/N frowned. “Mommy was in there.”

“No, she wasn’t. It’s locked.”

The younger of the two turned to look at Theo, her own stubbornness coming out to match Theo’s. “Yes, she was. I saw her in there. Luke and Nellie, too.”

“Okay, well go ask her. She wasn’t in there.” Theo crossed her arms, her eyebrows raised. This was one of the many times she was right -- she was sure of it. Y/N liked to be stubborn lots, but she wasn’t usually right. Theo, on the other hand, seemed to have an ‘intuition’ (a big word that she had caught from a book Olivia was reading to her) when it came to these types of things. As if to drive this point, she added: “I know what I’m talking about.”

Y/N paused before walking towards the staircase. “Mommy?” She called out, unsure of where Olivia had planted herself in the large house. Her mother responded that she was working on somethings, but Y/N knew that was just an answer to let the young girl follow her voice.

They arrived in one of the bedrooms, their mother with her back facing the door as she scrubbed furiously at a stain in the corner of the hardwood floor. “Mom, Y/N thinks that you were in the Red Room,” The name felt natural as if she had been saying it as long as she had known colors. “But it’s locked.”

Olivia paused, turning to look at her two daughters. They stood in the doorway, Y/N squished against her older sister’s legs as they fought for space. It took their mother a moment to realize what Theo was talking about, but when she did, a laugh crept out of her lips. “No, I haven’t been in there,” She meant to continue, telling her daughters about how the moment that she or Hugh got in there, they would all get a proper look around and see that it was probably nothing to get nervous over. Before she could, Theo muttered something to Y/N about being right and walked away, probably to hide away so she could read in peace.

“But Mommy, I know you were in there,” Y/N tilted her head, and Olivia smiled at the action. It would be years before Y/N would grow out of it, moving her head left and right whenever she was confused. “I know it. I saw you with Luke and with Nell. You were having a tea party, ‘member?”

Olivia Crain looked into her daughter’s eyes, watching with curiosity as she insisted. The ‘special’ talk she had given Theo remained fresh in her mind, and Y/N’s ‘again?’ played in the back of her mind. “Can I give you another really big word?” She spoke softly, gesturing for Y/N to come closer. Her daughter complied with a nod. “Okay, this one is déjà vu.”

“Dé-jà-vu,” Y/N repeated slowly.

Olivia smiled. “Déjà vu is just a way of saying that something you see, or hear, or experience, is something you remember, but you just don’t know how,” Y/N nodded, her eyes not leaving her mother’s. It was these images that Y/N would cling onto later in life when Olivia was long gone. Her dark brown hair, practically black, falling in waves over her shoulders. Eyes bright and soft, her face aged but perfectly so. Her mother was perfect. “I think-” Olivia began slowly and hesitantly. “I think that when you walked into Hill House for the first time, you felt déjà vu, right?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I think that’s because you’re special.”

Y/N was conflicted by the word. Her parents used it with such praise, but sometimes Steve or Theo would say it sarcastically, with a negative connotation as they teased their siblings. She repeated it, feeling stupid as she continued to say the same things her mother had said but unsure of what else to say. Looking back, Y/N remembered so many of the vivid points her mother had brought up as the two of them crouched in the corner. They had blown her mind; sent her reeling. The reason why Nell always seemed to understand things the others didn’t, how Theo had to start wearing gloves, her mother’s headaches and Shirley’s sleep talking. Special. There was no other way to describe it without sounding dumb, and Y/N appreciated her mother giving it a word so many years back. Y/N was special, just as her sisters were, and just as her mother was.

Whatever Olivia was, Y/N was fine with being. “I think we’re going to get into the Red Room, and to celebrate we’ll have a tea party. I think your déjà vu just gave us hope, huh?” Olivia’s voice finished in a pleasant whisper, and Y/N nodded without even thinking about it. When her mother looked at her like that, with so much love and pride, how could you not?

Politely, Y/N said thank you before moving out of the room to look for better things. Olivia watched her daughter leave, her small bare feet leaving momentary prints on the wooden floor before vanishing like mist. Her youngest was growing up so quickly, she realized. Moments like this confused Olivia so much, the mixture of joy and pain as she thought of how only yesterday it was Steven being born, and tomorrow they would all be gone and through college. ‘We have to enjoy the time we are in now,’ Olivia reminded herself before turning back to the stained carpet. ‘No one knows if we’ll ever get to come back.’

• • •

Y/N Crain did a lot of thinking on the plane, trying to distance herself from the woman and her toddler to her immediate right, and the man who kept moving from his seat to the bathroom in the aisle next to her left side. In all of those thoughts, Y/N came to this conclusion:

The house had always wanted Nell. From the moment the family had laid its eyes on it, it knew it would be her. But it could never get the young girl, not then, because she had all of them. Her family. Their poor mother, in her beautiful green and blue dresses and sun hats was vulnerable. Y/N was there, and all of your siblings were there, but the burden of motherhood was too much for Olivia. She was weak, though none of them would ever know it, and the house took her before it could ever get to Nell.

But it did get to her, and now Eleanor Crain was gone. Y/N’s beautiful older sister, with her buttons and long hair, her converse and sweaters, her visions and her worrying. Y/N didn’t realize this until later, much later, but every time she ‘dreamed’ of the house, Nell was there too. Sometimes the others would be there — Shirley leading the way or Steve telling her to be careful. But Nell was always there, watching Y/N with smiling and empty eyes.

She had been thirty-one, six months before Nell would die and she had fallen asleep into Hill House. It was crazy how much Y/N dreamed about it, about the details that she unknowingly got correct, down to the number of patterns in the carpet under her feet. In these dreams, she was never younger than her own age. Y/N floated somewhere between who she was then and who she could grow into, but her siblings were always adults. They would act like children sometimes, and Y/N’s mind seemed to blend fiction with reality.

This time was different.

She had arrived at an empty exterior. It was an empty shell of a nightmare, the windows dark and the door opened just enough for her to see it was dark in there too. In this dream world, it never occurred to Y/N that she may have been in danger. She was only curious, so she kept walking. Her feet froze at the entrance. The door pushed out winds somehow colder than her surroundings. Every bone in her body urged her to run away from the door, telling her that she wouldn’t like what was inside. With cold hands, Y/N pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was like walking into a different house entirely. Where Hill House had looked dark and intense from the outside, the interior was warm and well-lit. Her eyes traced the staircase, the ceilings that seemed to blend into the sky. Slowly, her feet brought her along towards the center of the room. Her siblings were standing there, Y/N realized once she had leveled her vision. Steven, Shirley, Theo, Luke, all standing in one line that blurred near the end. There were more people, she just couldn’t make out faces.

All of the Crains were dressed in white. White dresses, white suits, white shoes. Y/N’s own outfit, if she had thought to look at it, was a faded white as well. They smiled at her warmly, and she felt comfortable. Y/N always felt comfortable in these dreams, never frightened or unsure. She was confident in her actions, walking her to greet her eldest brother at the head of the line. His hands were crossed in front of him, his whole face smiling. The bags under his eyes were gone, and he had seemingly left the tired author look behind him.

“I saw her,” Steven smiled at his sister. “I saw her.” He leaned down to give her a hug, warm and comforting. Y/N secretly thought that Steve gave the best hugs, although Nell had been a close runner-up. Steve just had that very loving and caring feel that came from a lifetime of being the older brother. ‘He was never the youngest,’ she realized. ‘He never got to be me.’

From next to her, Shirley pulled her sister in for a warm hug, her eyes smiling in the way Y/N hadn’t see them do for quite some time. As they embraced, Shirley leaned into her ear. “Nellie’s in the red room,” Her voice was soft and comfortable, alright with the unusual statement. Y/N nodded as if she understood, moving onto Theo.

The dark-haired sister paused when Y/N moved in front of her. After looking Y/N over, Theo seemed satisfied enough and pulled her in for a hug as the other two had done. “Oh, Y/N,” Breaking away from her, Theo took Y/N’s hands in her own pale, gloveless ones. She never wore gloves in these dreams. “I touched her. I touched Nell, and I touched death.” Her blinks were slow and calm, her voice as jovial as everyone else’s.

“I knew it,” Luke admitted from next to them. “I never thought about it, but I knew it without touching her or hearing her or seeing her.” Y/N nodded and pulled her brother in for a hug, wrapping her arms firmly around his. His face was clean, his hair brushed. Luke’s words were terrified, but his eyes smiled at her. Y/N couldn’t help but smile at the dream of her older brother, almost too sad to know she would move on again.

“Y/N, honey,” The voice of her father spoke from next to the two women, and Y/N turned in the direction of the older man. When she saw him, however, Hugh Crain wasn’t older at all. He was the same age as the rest of the Crains, the age that the house remembered him as, and he looked brighter than Y/N had ever seen him look before. He extended a hand to her shoulder, his lips turning up in a soft smile on both sides. He looked calm, all-knowing. So much like her father, but a foreign being all the same. “Nell’s gone.” Y/N nodded, smiling softly back to him.

In that second, it was if she understood it all. They would see Nell in her casket, in the same autumn-colored dress she would find herself in over ten years later. It wasn’t sad: they were all smiling. It wasn’t sad because it was a dream, it wasn’t real. “Y/N,” A voice floated down from next to them, a voice like a song if it could talk. Y/N Crain gave her father one more smile before turning her head and letting her feet walk.

Their mother stood at the end, smiling. Y/N’s breaths continued on normally as if her dead mother wasn’t in front of her. It was a dream, Y/N reminded herself. Only a dream.

Olivia Crain smiled at her youngest daughter. “She came home,” She whispered softly and simply, although Y/N heard every sound.

“She came home,” Y/N echoed, mesmerized by this dream of a mother.

“You have to see Nell,” They spoke from behind her, their voices in unison. When she turned back to look at them, her siblings were all children. She guessed that they must have ranged from young teens down to kindergarten ages, although her parents remained the same. Her mother with her soft dark hair, never to be cut. Her father with his blue eyes that seemed to have dulled from this young man to her current image of him. “You have to see Nell.”

“I have to see Nell,” Y/N turned around slowly, the smile painted on her face. She didn’t know where Nell was, yet she wasn’t lost. There was no rush as her feet moved slowly, her family wordlessly trailing behind her. She walked right of the staircase, the short hallway lit with white Christmas lights, twinkling on and off in rotating sequences. On the other side, they shot off in both directions, lining the top of the room and twirling around the statues that kept her sister company.

Nell Crain lay in a bed in front of all of them, the white sheets neatly made under her body. She was dressed in red, starkly contrasting against the monotone white of your sibling’s outfits. She could have very well been asleep, but her chest was still. She looked fake like a doll would after she was lovingly dressed and her hair brushed.

This was not her sister, but she smiled despite herself. “Nell,” Y/N whispered. The body before her didn’t move to answer, but she hadn’t expected that it would. The younger of the two reached down a hand -- a shaking hand, although she hardly remembered this -- and touched Nell’s shoulder, wrapping her grip around it as if it could wake her up with a squeeze.

“She’s not sleeping,” A young Theo spoke from behind Y/N, suddenly closer than the others had been. Y/N turned to look at her, although her sister’s eyes fixed on Nell.

Olivia stepped closer. “She’s awake now. Nellie’s awake.” In the fleeting moments of a dream, Y/N looked at her mother. It was when she saw her here that she realized the extent to which she missed her. Y/N had grown up motherless for the better part of thirty-two years, and she spent every moment of that time missing Olivia. She hardly remembered the last few days, when Olivia hadn’t been herself but some evil version of their mother, brought on by the wicked house. The memories Y/N had of Olivia Crain, although few, were all good. This was chiefly because she was a good mother. A great mother.

She stood before Y/N now, her dress spilling out in folds of cloth across her legs and onto the floor, the sleeves flaring out only to tighten around her wrists. Her dark hair starkly contrasted the outfit, falling across her shoulders and back as if it was carefully placed there. Her mouth moved, repeating the last phrase Y/N had heard her utter, although no sound came out. Turning to where Nell had been, Y/N saw only darkness. It surrounded her, as it always did near the end, and Y/N woke up.

• • •

Y/N had landed late at night, and gone straight to get a rental car. Shirley had called her the night before, to talk and check-in, and also to tell her that she had a room she could stay in at her house. It was an extremely nice, extremely Shirley thing to do, and Y/N appreciated it more than words could say. The rain that had been falling as she landed turned quickly to a storm and Y/N arrived at her sister’s house wet. She waited in the car for what felt like minutes, scared of going inside. Shirley had warned her that they would be setting everything up -- including Nell. She didn’t want to see her sister, not like this. It was a little funny, in a dark way, that Shirley was the one with a funeral home. She had been the one so scared to see their mom in her casket, which Y/N remembered so vividly because her sister being scared had scared her. Y/N had been attached to Hugh every moment she could since they left Hill House, and she had been holding her father’s hand as he had tried to convince Shirley to go up. They had all been scared, but none of them as much as Shirley.

Once she got out of the car, she found herself hurrying more than she had been to get inside. The rain was coming down in bullets now, pounding against her jacket with such forces she felt she was practically soaked. Y/N hadn’t thought of bringing an umbrella, so she would just have to push through it.

She rung the doorbell, thankfully waiting now under the cover of a porch. Shirley opened the door, Theo standing not too far behind her. Y/N sniffed from the cold, smiling at her older sisters. Her only sisters.

“Y/N, hey,” Shirley spoke Y/N’s name first, her voice pleasantly surprised at the younger Crain’s appearance. Her mouth moved as if to habitually ask how Y/N was doing, before realizing the situation and moving in only for a hug. It was Y/N’s first hug since she had found out, she realized as Shirley wrapped her arms around her. They stood there for a moment, and Y/N had to remind herself to take deep breaths as her eyes watered. In the presence of her siblings, she felt younger than she did every other day, and she had to push to not fall into the role of younger sister waiting to be comforted. “Steve’s going to be here soon. He’s bringing Dad and Luke.”

“How is Luke?” Y/N asked, voicing the worry she had been carrying for Nell’s twin.

Shirley paused. “He wasn’t in rehab when they found him.” She said simply, her eyes darting between her sister’s to gauge her reaction.

Y/N’s mouth formed an ‘o’, silently realizing what that meant. Nell had fucking died, and Luke had been off shooting himself up. She couldn’t help but feel bad for her brother, though. Nell and Luke always had their special connection; their ‘twin thing’.

From out of the corner of her eye, Y/N saw Theo step closer. Y/N moved to her next, Theo forced to balance her almost empty drink as she was met with a hug from Y/N. It wasn’t nearly as warm or as long as the one she had shared with Shirley, but that was what she had expected from Theo. “Hey, kid,” Her voice was warm as she stepped back, crossing her arms enough to balance her drink. “How was your flight?” “Fine,” Y/N said, looking around at her surroundings. It was dimly lit, the blue walls making the room feel big enough that she almost didn’t see the front of the room, the shiny casket balanced near the wall.

Shirley had followed Y/N’s gaze, and said softly, “You should go see her.”

“Who?” Y/N said dumbly, before muttering that she was sorry. Who else would she be talking about, who else could she be talking about? These were the female Crains now, Y/N realized. Shirl, Theo, and her. No Mom, no Nell. Slowly, her body turned the direction of her dead sister, seeing the top of her face peeking out from above the edge. “Oh, God. Fuck.”

She wished that either of her sisters would say something, keep her away from the casket. If she saw it, especially if she saw it as she had in her dream, that would make it true. More than anything, Y/N was praying that it was anything but. There hadn’t been much to say, however, and they all knew it was time for Y/N to do as they had done. “She looks really nice,” Shirley tried to ease her forwards, using the voice that she would bring forward when the small children were scared of the funerals. “You’ll feel better when you do.”

“I know,” Y/N brushed her sister off, taking her first step forward. “I have to see Nell,” The five words were uttered unconsciously, and only to herself. Her walk was slow and deliberate as if she could see it happening in some cheesy movie. Nell came more into the view as Y/N walked, scared to see what she knew was in there. Nell was in there, she saw when she reached the edge. Oh God, that was her Nellie. The same one who would give her two dozen hugs every time they saw each other, the same one that Y/N thought of every time she saw a button. “Shirley, I-” Y/N began, but her voice faltered. Her vision clouded, and she turned around blindly. “Shirley, I wanna go. I don’t wanna see her,” Y/N’s fragile voice echoed in her sister’s ears. Y/N walked clunkily away from her dead sister and towards the two remaining sisters, clutching her own torso as she cried. Shirley met her halfway, catching Y/N in a hug. The younger began to cry harder, Nell echoing in her mind. There was no reason to look at her any longer than she had; Y/N not only knew her sister’s face but she knew the situation.

Shirley held her sister for what felt like five minutes. She had looked to Theo three times, but the first two the middle sister had been too engulfed with the bottom of her drink, and the third time Shirley Crain had realized there was nothing she could say or do to make it better. It was one of the hardest things as an older sister, having to assess the situation and leave it as it was. She held her sister because that was all she could do.

By the time Steve and Luke entered, the three had sat down. Y/N had calmed down, her eyes still red and puffy but her voice steady. Shirley stayed next to her, letting Kevin fuss over the minor details of Nell’s appearance. They were discussing their father softly, the three sisters realizing that he had never been to the funeral home before. The doorbell broke the bubble the three had created, although Kevin jumped to get it. He was taking the reins, Y/N noticed. That was good. Shirley needed that break.

None of them stood up. No one was eager to anything, which she had understood. “It’s funny, Nellie was always trying to get us together in one place,” Shirley spoke in her still voice, clearly uncaring at the familial appearance. “Even Dad tried for years,” Steve said something from the doorway, and the sisters stood up. They would face this burden together, they had agreed silently.

Theo, who was the last to rise, said something from behind Y/N that she could hardly hear. Her eyes were focused on Luke and Steve, their coats wet from the rain. Shirley made small talk, and Y/N could tell it was more forced than any conversation the two of them had shared that day. She was still mad at Steve for the book, Y/N reasoned. The younger patiently waited for a little behind her sister as Steve gave her a hug, fiddling with the sleeve of her jacket. She was nervous and hardly understood why.

“Hey,” Steve moved to her next. “You okay?” It was clear that he had noticed her tear-stained eyes, although she couldn’t blame him.

Hugging her oldest brother, she answered honestly, “No.”

Steve softly chuckled. “Fair enough.” He moved towards Theo, who walked past him.

Luke was next. He didn’t look high, you had noticed cautiously. In fact, he looked only as bad as the rest of the siblings, which was alright by Luke Crain standards. “Lukey,” Y/N extended your arms out and embraced him. He was cold under her grasp, and she wished that she could make him warm at that moment. Words left her brain, unsure of what to say as they hugged. They released, and Y/N could already tell his eyes were on Nell. She could watch him but refused to follow his gaze any further than when the chairs began.

There was nothing that dictated who should go first between twins. For the rest of life, it’s supposed to be the oldest. Steve used to always joke about the five younger Crains planning his funeral, and it’s a worldwide regret when a child dies before the parent. Steve especially could see this in Hugh’s eyes, no matter how much he tried to brush it off or hide it. But Luke and Nell were twins. How were they supposed to know who ended in the coffin first?

Certainly not like this, Luke realized as he stared at his sister. Nell looked so serene, not like she was sleeping necessarily, but as if she was at peace. The harder he looked, the less she looked like Nell, however. Maybe the Nell lying there looked like the hundreds of pictures they had of her, but that wasn’t Nell. She was never some picture, and she wasn’t supposed to be some memory. She was Nell, and this was not Nell. Maybe it was better that way, for her to look like a memory of Nell and not his dead twin sister.

From somewhere far behind him, lost in the emotions of it all, Shirley cleared her throat. “Dad’s not with you?”

Steve nodded. “Uh, he’s still at the hotel. He told us to go ahead. He, uh, kept changing his clothes.”

Y/N joined her siblings. “He’s nervous.”

“Yeah.” Steve looked at his sister. She looked more tired than he had ever remembered her seeming, her hair still damp from coming inside. His author’s mind formulated the words to match these pictures, the adjectives coming out sad and forlorn. Watching his siblings hurt like this was painful to Steve. He could hardly bring himself to look over at Luke, he wanted to tell Y/N to go take a needed nap, to tell Theo to try some water instead of the drink she was pouring herself. Steve even wanted to hug Shirley, who he hadn’t been on the best of terms with, and tell her it was going to be okay.

Y/N spun out of his view as Luke rushed by, unable to even look at his twin sister in this state. No one moved to help him, because no one knew how. Luke needed to be on his own, and that was okay. Shirley brought the attention away from the awkward moment. “He seems a lot better than I expected.”

“Yeah,” Y/N agreed. “I don’t know what I expected, but I guess... higher?”

“I know,” Steve said, nodding. “I think he’s actually clean a little while now.”

“So what was with the jailbreak?” Shirley asked.

Steve shook his head. “Long story.” Not sure he wanted to tell it, he moved away to follow his brother. Y/N moved almost in sync with him, as if his movement had triggered her feet instantly.

She let Steve do the talking. Everyone seemed to form in a circle around the two as they talked for a little, finishing with a hug. He knew how to do it, and all of the other Crain siblings recognized that.

• • •

Hugh Crain arrived a little later, and things didn’t go as smoothly as Y/N or any of the others had hoped. Steve and Hugh were fighting it out, Shirley had just found at that Kevin had accepted the book money, and Theo seemed to be along for the ride. Someone had put buttons over Nell’s eyes, Steve had blamed Hugh, and the power chose the perfect time to go out.

Things had only gotten worse from these, with Steve telling his father that the wrong parent had died, and Nell’s coffin came tumbling down. It took a moment like this, one so powerful and heartbreaking, to stop their fighting. Nell never liked it when they fought.

Y/N had taken the silence to speak. “ I need to tell you something,” Y/N spoke quietly, but loud enough for her family to hear.

“Y/N-” Shirley began, her voice cracking.

“I see things,” Y/N blurted out, and all five Crains looked towards the younger woman. “Future things.” She glanced from face to face, examining their reactions. Shirl’s eyes widened and her gaze seemed to focus like a camera at her sister as if she could see into her mind if she tried hard enough. Luke seemed to sit up a little straighter, his shoulders tensed and his head pushing forward. Steven looked as Y/N had expected him too — eyebrows raised, his position shifting to balance on both of his feet. If the circumstances had been altered, she almost would have giggled as his hands moved into big-brother-lecture-position on his hips. Theo just stared at her, face unmoving as she took a swig of her liquor. It was brought down with careful precision, her body swaying a little with the movement as she looked at Y/N, almost as Shirley had done. Theo’s gaze was more assertive, more final. Where Shirley wanted to see what was inside Y/N’s head, Theo was reading it. Hugh’s face remained focused and kind, nodding slowly. It was nice to look at him, unusually calming.

“Future things,” Shirley repeated slowly. It took a momentary pause for Y/N to realize that this had been a question, and she nodded. “What kind of future things?”

The h/c woman was stunned for a moment. For some stupid reason, she hadn’t expected they would ask what you saw. “Lots of things. Um, somethings are pointless. Like I saw Theo falling asleep during an AP exam a while back, or us picking out bridesmaids dresses with Nell.” She swallowed. “But then there’s... bigger things.”

“What do you mean? What is this supposed to mean?” Steve scoffed, his voice confused and brotherly.

“What kind of things, Y/N?” Luke asked softly. For a moment, Y/N looked to him without being as sure as she had been before. Unsure if she wanted to tell them, unsure if she wanted to reveal thirty-two years of safekeeping to anyone, even her siblings.

Oh well.

“I saw Steve’s book.” She gestured in his direction. “I saw Shirley get married. I saw Nell,” Y/N froze, suddenly too scared to say what she had really seen. In their eyes she could see that they all knew, however, but she looked down and croaked out, “I've seen Nell’s funeral.”

What Y/N Crain had neglected to mention that when she walked into Hill House for the first time, she had said “Again?” firmly and distinctively. Olivia had smiled, although you didn’t see it, as if she knew something secret. She did, of course, but this was something Y/N would never find out from her, never find out at all for a long time. ‘It was as if she had been there before,’ Olivia had explained to Theo later on. ‘As if she knew the house from somewhere else.’

The siblings looked stunned. Theo was the only sibling to regain her cool composure, but even her face focused more on Y/N as she breathed heavily for a moment.

“You what?” Luke’s voice was cracked, and Y/N almost heard the echo of the boy he had been.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Y/N continued. “It was different, but we were all there. Mom was there.” She opened her eyes, glancing from person to person. “Nellie was lying down, and no one was sad. But it was a funeral. It had to have been.”

Silence fell for a moment. They were all processing, thinking of the implications brought with the news. “When?” Theo spoke finally.

“What?”

“When did you see it?” Her voice was soft, the cold softness that only Theo could produce.

“Um, a few months ago?” You guessed, struggling to remember. “Half a year, maybe. At most.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shirley’s voice, which had been harsh and bitter minutes earlier was now kind again. She had sat up a little straighter, her shoulders pushed back and her face a little paler than it had been before. Y/N never thought it would be this easy, never in the millions of minutes she had thought about telling them. Maybe they all knew, deep down, just as Y/N suspected they all knew about Theo.

“I was scared,” Y/N admitted. “I had hoped it wasn’t true. But they always are.”

“Always?” Luke repeated.

Y/N nodded. “I’ve had these ever since Hill House. I don’t know, I hoped that maybe this time I-I was wrong.”

“I think that’s one hell of a coincidence,” Steve said.

“It’s not a coincidence,” Hugh spoke up, and Steve rolled his eyes as he looked towards his father. “Your mother didn’t think it ever was, at least. She was hardly ever wrong.”

Y/N jumped back in to prevent another father-son argument. “I know it’s hard to believe. I’m sorry. I just needed to tell you guys. I thought you should know.”

Theo nodded. “We knew.” No one argued or said anything.

• • •

It was of the most stressful nights of both Y/N and Theo’s lives. The two had gone over to Theo’s place, bringing a few bottles of alcohol with them. Y/N Crain didn’t drink often, but when she did it was hard liquor. She supposed it was because when she needed it, she often really needed it. And with her mind flashing back to the fall of Nell’s coffin, the same moment she had felt her own chest fall.

“I feel like I shouldn’t have said that, not then.” Y/N admitted to her sister. The two were sat in chairs, practically side by side as they held clear cups in their hands. “It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Theo said. “What’s stupid is that you felt an obligation to tell them at all.”

Y/N chuckled. “Easy for you to say. You’ve already sworn off telling anyone.”

“No, I haven’t sworn off telling anyone. I’m just not ready.”

“When will you be ready?” Y/N asked, looking towards her sister.

Theo paused. “I don’t know. I’ll know when I need to.” She met her sister’s gaze before adding, “You did.”

Y/N chuckled slightly. There was a comfortable lull in the conversation, the air filled with silence and the soft scent of booze. “I feel like I’m drowning,” Y/N admitted out of the silence. “In all of it, all of this shit.”

“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.”

“No, no, I know that. It’s just-” The words froze on her tongue and she sighed. “I miss Mom.” The admittance was soft. “Maybe she was an asshole and maybe she wasn’t, but I love her and I miss her.”

Theo nodded. “None of that was her fault.”

“It wasn’t.” Y/N said confidently. “I mean, we don’t even know what shit went down in there. We may never know, Theo. And you know, I think I’m okay with that.”

“Ignorance is bliss.” Theo nodded, her silky glove rubbing circles on the glass. “Fucking bliss.”

“Fucking bliss,” Y/N repeated, mocking the action like a small child. “Not always, though. I’m glad I’m not ignorant about Mom. I’m glad I remember her, at least a little.” Y/N coughed after downing her drink.

“It’s good to remember,” Theo said, the way Y/N used to say ‘member’ lingering in her mind.

“Yeah,” Y/N chuckled, looking down at her legs as she crossed them. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Theo nodded as if expecting more. “Got anything?”

“I remember this one time when we were all going somewhere, on a trip or something,” Y/N began, twirling the bourbon in your glass to watch it swirl. “Mom was sick and we were all so confused. Why can’t Mom come? Why does she have to stay at home? We were so angry and so confused and Dad -- poor Dad! -- he had to explain that we would be fine without her, that it was time for us to go and that she was sick. God, I can only hope we calmed down.”

Theo Crain froze but said nothing. Her youngest sister, Theo realized, had misremembered the most disturbing night of their lives, and perhaps she was better for it. Maybe it was better as a trip that they all took, hidden in a place where Mom’s problems were the flu or a cold, and Hill House was only a house.

Only a house. she had told herself for years that it was only a house, just wood and concrete, and glass. The wallpaper was just a fresh covering, the paint a disguise. That there was nothing in those bedrooms, nothing in the cellar, nothing in the dark that could hurt her. And if it could, she had her family there. Her brothers would calm her down and her sisters would surely be able to take on whatever was intending her harm. In her parents’ eyes, she saw that they would never let it come to that, not willingly. And it never was willingly, not with their mother and certainly not with Nell.

There was some hidden comfort in that thought, Y/N supposed before smiling softly to herself. They had gone away, yes. Even though it had been at their own hands, she knew that it was never their intention to hurt everyone like this. She hoped it wasn’t their intention -- especially Nell’s -- to bring them all together in some twisted way. She would never admit it, but she was going to hug her siblings a little tighter and a little longer when they said goodbye again.

They were Crains, and Crains were as strong as hell. That didn’t take much thinking. You could look to any one of your siblings and see time after time when they had overcome, both individually and as a family. When it felt like it was going to be too much, because it would certainly come to that, Y/N made sure she would be there a little sooner and a little longer.

Looking up at Theo, Y/N smiled. “What?” The older woman said, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Y/N remarked softly, her eyes turning to the table. She looked back up, adding, “I love you.”

Theo gave her a curious smile. “I love you, too.”

Y/N knew that when her sister spoke, it was final and for all of them. They all loved her, she knew that. It was nice to hear it, to know for sure that she was loved by these people she gave her heart and soul to every day of her life. They loved her, and at that moment, that was all she needed.

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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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Globe, November 9

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Prince Andrew fails lie detector -- new crisis rocks the palace

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Bruno Toniolo shirtless, Heidi Pratt at a pumpkin patch in L.A., Jacqueline Bisset catches some rays in L.A.

Page 3: Larry David leaves an L.A. office, Ellen Pompeo, Pete Wentz

Page 4: Kathie Lee Gifford is talking to NBC bigwigs about coming back to Today and they’re hot over the idea but Hoda Kotb is not pleased and Jenna Bush Hager is feeling threatened because Jenna never really grabbed the audience like Kathie Lee did, Martha Stewart and Gwyneth Paltrow are heading into the holidays trash-talking each other even more than usual and their pals have nowhere to hide -- they’re snippier than ever and can’t get through the week without saying something crass but the trouble is they have the same friends and they use some of the same chefs and caterers and crew -- all their friends in the Hamptons including the Seinfelds and Beyonce and Jay-Z and Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley and Rachael Ray are trying to keep out of it but it’s impossible because Martha and Gwyneth are both screaming for loyalty

Page 5: Legal hotshot and writer Jeffrey Toobin has been shelved by the New Yorker magazine for showing off his willie to co-workers during a Zoom conference call -- witnesses say Toobin was masturbating but he insists it was a blooper

Page 6: Dolly Parton was so lovestruck when she met Elvis Presley that she nearly chucked her marriage and career to shack up with Elvis -- Dolly is ready to tell all about Elvis after decades of protecting her husband Carl Dean and Elvis’ only child Lisa Marie Presley -- Dolly was in her late 20s and Elvis was in his late 30s when they had their sizzling encounter where she got dolled up to meet Elvis in a Nashville office and discuss working together and he wanted to do a duet but she didn’t trust herself to work with him and she didn’t even let Elvis do a cover of her song I Will Always Love You -- even though Dolly didn’t actually cheat on Carl she sure was tempted and she’s felt guilty about it ever since

Page 8: Just two weeks after splitting with his wife of 14 years former Home Improvement kid Zachery Ty Bryan was arrested and jailed on charges of trying to strangle a terrified galpal -- after a night of partying where he was photographed surrounded by four gals with an iced bottle of vodka at the table Zachery reportedly got into a heated clash with his galpal and she claims Zachery grabbed her by the throat and squeezed then tried to snatch her phone when she attempted to call 911 so she ran to a neighbor’s home where she hid while cops were called

Page 9: Distressed Kelly Clarkson and her two toddlers are in therapy to help cope with the anguish brought on by her divorce from Brandon Blackstock -- the talk show host is especially struggling because the split is playing out so publicly and the kids are seeing things about their mom on TV and she feels immense guilt about the divorce but knows it was the best decision because she wasn’t happy married to Brandon though she did try but staying in a marriage just for the kids wasn’t an option for her -- Kelly was deeply wounded when her father-in-law Narvel Blackstock’s management company recently sued her for $1.4 million in alleged unpaid commissions but she’s speaking with her ex privately in an effort to resolve the issue out of court but Kelly suspects he’s using it as a bargaining chip for a bigger settlement and also feels he’s using the kids against her as a weapon

Page 10: Showbiz legend Michelle Phillips has become a shut-in who sits home alone tippling wine while watching movies on TV and listening to her hits from The Mamas & the Papas where she is the last surviving member of the band -- she’s sad the rest are all gone and she’ll put on a record and sit in the dark; she misses them and so many other people -- she’s become a shut-in due to the pandemic and can’t bear for people to see her so old and haggard and overweight and all those years of partying have done their damage to her once-beautiful face -- she also hasn’t been able to see her young grandson and she’s grieving the loss of her longtime lover who died in 2017

Page 11: Baywatch hunk Jeremy Jackson’s cover girl ex-wife has been found homeless wandering California’s mean streets in worn and shabby clothes -- lost for two years Loni Willison is now virtually unrecognizable with missing teeth and her long blond tresses cropped short -- she was found pushing a grocery cart filled with her battered possessions in Venice -- despite her tragic situation she insists she’d doing fine and doesn’t want help despite reportedly having drug and mental health issues

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Rita Ora in a see-through frock (picture), Lily James got caught brazenly canoodling with the very much married Dominic West who plays her father in the BBC miniseries The Pursuit of Love, just weeks after Cardi B filed to dissolve her marriage to Offset she’s put the split on hold and all it took was Offset to spend bucks on a heart-tugging Sunset Strip billboard and a Rolls-Royce and a Hermes Birkin bag, Kate Hudson’s getting loose-lipped about gross snotty smooches with her leading man Matthew McConaughey

Page 13: Vinny Guadagnino eating in Beverly Hills (picture), Kaitlyn Bristowe has a puffy trout pout (picture), Shia LaBeouf doesn’t let an apparent injury keep him from getting out and about in Pasadena (picture), Alanis Morissette says the fame that came with her 1995 revenge song You Oughta Know wasn’t so sweet but instead was an isolating experience

Page 14: Nicole Kidman is starring opposite Hugh Grant in the thriller series The Undoing but she really wanted to plays Hugh’s love interest in Notting Hill except she wasn’t well-known enough, Reba McEntire has landed herself a brand new TV show which is a modernized Fried Green Tomatoes drama series in which she’ll play the present-day Idgie Threadgoode, Fashion Verdict -- Regina King 8/10, Isabelle Huppert 2/10, Queen Maxima 5/10, Tracee Ellis Ross 9/10, Cher 4/10

Page 16: How John F. Kennedy stole the White House from Richard Nixon -- Chicago mob rigged the 1960 vote and cheated Nixon out of the presidency

Page 19: True Crime

Page 21: Parkinson’s patient Alan Alda is refusing to slow down at age 84 and friends fear the fragile M*A*S*H legend is headed for a devastating health crisis and he’s busier now than he ever was even during his sitcom days and he bravely says he lives with it by staying active but medication can only do so much and his friends and family including wife Arlene are worried he’s pushing himself too hard, teary-eyed Ringo Starr confesses his last conversation with dying Beatles bandmate George Harrison was heartbreaking and unforgettable -- Ringo wanted to stay with George until the end but his daughter Lee had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and Ringo had to rush to Boston to see her and when Ringo told George he had to go to Boston George said D’ya want me to come wit’ ya? so even on his death bed George made his best buddy smile while both faced unspeakable grief

Page 22: 10 Things You Don’t Know About S. Epatha Merkerson, Today show host Hoda Kotb reveals Frank Sinatra Jr. was the show’s worst guest because he clammed up instead of touting a book about his famous dad in 2015, Khloe Kardashian confesses she once worked as Nicole Richie’s personal assistant because she just needed a job and they went to school together -- Nicole’s reality career crashed in 2007 which was the same year Khloe’s series started

Page 24: Cover Story -- Disgraced Prince Andrew has flunked a lie detector test on his close relationship with murdered American pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and now the rogue royal insists he’ll never cooperate with the FBI for fear his testimony will land him behind bars but Queen Elizabeth’s favorite son has his back against the wall as new evidence surfaces on both sides of the Atlantic -- Andrew is terrified newly released secret testimony from Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell is just the tip of the iceberg of what she’s prepared to reveal and Maxwell’s revelations detailing her twisted sex life come on the heels of an explosive new British book accusing Andrew of attending debauched events with Epstein where teenage girls were parading around topless -- even though friends close to Andrew say he did nothing wrong and has no reason to fear the prince may not have a choice about spilling his guts because the fed-up royal family is threatening to cut off the cash-strapped rogue unless he plays ball

Page 25: Prince Andrew has been banished from the gift shop at his mother’s Balmoral Castle -- tourists can still purchase postcards her Her Majesty’s kids Prince Charles and Princess Anne and Prince Edward but Prince Andrew has disappeared which is a sure sign that Andrew is in the doghouse since items featuring Elizabeth’s beloved corgis are still up for sale

Page 26: Health Report

Page 27: Dirtiest places on planes exposed

Page 30: Serial sleaze Matt Lauer’s ready to pop the question to girlfriend Shamin Abas over the holidays and he hopes for a brighter future with her a year after his 20-year marriage to Annette Roque ended in divorce -- Matt showers Shamin her with gifts and wants to buy a house on the East Coast where they can make new memories and Matt’s hinted he’s already bought the ring and plans to propose by New Year’s and he hopes to have a celeb-studded wedding at their new home, Kathleen Turner will be back at Michael Douglas’ throat as his acid ex in The Kominsky Method to fill the hole left by Alan Arkin who abruptly pulled out of the third and final season of the show

Page 35: Matthew McConaughey’s father predicted he’d die while making love to his wife and he did, desperate to turn back time Marie Osmond is going whole hog on a head-to-toe makeover -- Marie is no stranger to cosmetic fixes and she is considering a slew of procedures to get a new look that’ll knock ‘em out including everything from Botox and fillers to face-lift to boob job and lipo-sculpting to enhance her waistline -- the makeover is motivated by revenge because she’s bitter over recently being pushed off her co-host gig on The Talk and now she’s counting on a younger look to land her a plum new TV gig

Page 38: Real Life Monsters

Page 39: Kris Jenner blames social media for ending the 14-year run of Keeping Up with the Kardashians because when the show started there was no Instagram or Snapchat or other social media platforms but now she gripes that now there are so many the viewer doesn’t have to wait three or four months to see an episode but instead information spreads online in real time, Phil Collins’ ex-wife has traded him in for a 31-year-old guitarist who never managed to make much noise in the music industry -- Phil was furious when he heard Orianne Cevey married Tom Bates in Las Vegas, Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman died without a will according to his widow -- Taylor Simone Ledward filed a probate case in L.A. asking a judge to name her administrator of Boseman’s estimated $938,500 estate with limited authority

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter Rumer Willis claims posing for raunchy bondage shots proves she’s a liberated woman free from sexual stereotypes but it’s not that simple

Page 45: Jeff Bridges is battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma which is a rampaging cancer that often spreads through the body to the liver and bone marrow and lungs -- while the cancer can be deadly experts say the five-year survival rate is 73 percent

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toongrrl-blog · 4 years

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Perpetua: A Potential Heroine for our times.

Hi everyone we are going to rant about the Bridget Jones series once again and talk about a character, who I feel came too early before our current zeitgeist of bad bitch feminism and the #GirlBoss: Perpetua.

Perpetua is not intended to be likable. She is very posh, snooty, a bit arrogant, and demanding of Bridget and people she works with, greeting Bridget with a slight sneer as she comes into work and Bridget’s inner monologue voices a desire to staple stuff to her head for having gained a bit of power over Bridget in the publishing company Pemberley Press. Gee, let’s see what we have: entitled, snooty, fancy, having the attitude they are above it all, who has those traits? I’ll wait *sipping tea*

But we notice something about Perpetua; after Bridget’s relationship with Daniel implodes because he was using her as his side piece and decides to find a better job elsewhere, Bridget goes to Daniel to tell him she is quitting. Perpetua overhears and picks up on what has been going on (she is appalled at what she is hearing) and as soon as Daniel tries to beg Bridget to stay, Perpetua gets up to defend Bridget: “I want to hear this, because if she gives one inch, I’m going to fire her bony arse for being totally spineless!” To her smiling pride, she sees Bridget tell Daniel off and leave the publishing company...and that’s the last we see of Perpetua. Even after that (awesome) scene, my teenage self got the message that it’s better to be a Bridget over a Perpetua, a bubbly but insecure girl who tries to conform to the male gaze over a stoic and IDGAF woman who does what she wants. I also heard messages from people, like my parents, telling me how important it was to act and look a certain way to be “likable”; it was better to be insecure and conventionally feminine rather than to be confident not very popular but self-assured. Also Bridget was the rom-com heroine who had people fall in love with her, Perpetua was seen as stuck-up and she was thrown to the wayside. Who stood to reap the benefits of our society?

Looking back, I found out that after almost 20 years of trying to be a Bridget: the “relatable” insecure girl next door type who is vulnerable and needs the validation of those to find her desirable and “worth it” that I’m wasn’t the likable, conventionally pretty and feminine Bridget...I was Perpetua: not always likable, assertive, willing to put her neck out there, not always sociable, but assured of her intelligence and her ability to turn heads. Plus we have our signature style and know how to work accessories. While Bridget dresses basic and in miniskirts (she wants to blend in but also attract men), Perpetua stands out in her headbands, pearls, cardigans, and pie-crust collars combining the elements that I loved in a younger Hillary Rodham Clinton, Peggy Olson, Nancy Wheeler, and Raquel Rodriguez Orozco from Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish. Just a Power Preppie who figured out how to stick out and take her place in a male-dominated workplace, with no apologies.

After watching Tee Noir’s video on women who were declared to be problematic but upon second viewing and reading were raising valid points about their situation or the situations they observed but lacked the likability or popularity to be taken seriously, I was inspired to finally write this post. As Perpetua was a woman who showcased what it was like to live life on your terms and not ask for the permission of anyone to validate you. A woman who may have envied Bridget’s “bony arse” but didn’t let her size or peoples’ perceptions of her appearance get in the way of getting what she wanted from others.

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Here are some tropes and issues I will be referring to in this order, as they relate to Perpetua’s role in the films and books and how they regard her.

Fatphobia: Being Targeted by Internalized Hatred

“Ah. Introduce people with thoughtful details. Perpetua, this is Mark Darcy. Mark is a prematurely middle-aged prick with a cruel raced ex-wife. Perpetua is a fat-ass old bag who spends her time bossing me around.” Bridget Jones’s inner monologue, Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

We all know that Bridget Jones is notoriously famous for obsessing over her weight (134 lbs. at 5′4″, which is pretty fine) and that there have been reviews of the books and the movies condemning her or passive-aggressively noting that she isn’t Hollywood Thin and how it was remarkable for she (with hourglass curves, wears a small to medium size, blonde and blue eyed, average pretty at her worst) to get Colin Firth and Hugh Grant (in their prime) to fight over her. Whether we go by the timeline of the books (her birth year being 1962, Marilyn Monroe’s death) or the movies (her birth year being 1969 in the first film, post Jayne Mansfield), we see that Bridget grew up in and became an adult in an age where the female standard of beauty had gotten thinner and thinner, with even models having their pores air-brushed away from their faces. To paraphrase a Mad Men fan when she was talking about the culture of the mid-1960s, when she was a kid and women wanted to look curvaceous as Marilyn and Elizabeth Taylor, she looked like Twiggy; when she developed the voluptuous curves, everyone wanted to look like Twiggy. The 1970s and 1980s was an age of self-improvement as female empowerment (feminism co-opted by capitalism) where dieting and getting thinner was seen as “bettering” oneself. Suddenly it wasn’t cool for Bridget to strut her stuff in a pencil skirt a la Joan Holloway, it wasn’t enough to be a junior partner or to create your own safety net, even the irresistible Veronica Lodge worried about her weight.

*WARNING: Most of my sources refer to Fat Black Women but I feel like the arguments hold up here*

Then we go to Bridget and Perpetua, aside from their personality clash, Bridget is secretly envious and outwardly disgusted by how Perpetua can be much heavier than Bridget, yet wear curve-hugging clothes and go shopping and not give a shit about how her body looked. Perpetua knows that her boyfriend appreciates her good pussy under her gut! Bridget comforts herself by telling herself that happiness comes from reaching attainable goals....like changing one’s body rather than making money or procuring items....sigh Capitalism is a son of a gun. Clearly Bridget has animosity towards Perpetua for being plump and not feeling like she needs to hide for not looking like a supermodel. But why?

Fatphobia is one way of expressing internalized hatred against one’s body and their own self. In fact, Perpetua committed the sin of loving herself (or being neutral to oneself) as she is, and stands out from the rest of the cast who are obsessed with living up to certain standards to putting forward a certain image to the world that everything is fine. In a fatphobic capitalist patriarchy, it’s quite maddening that she would develop the arrogance and entitlement that she puts on display, especially because she is a...woman! Katie Wee, in her essay for Huffington Post, talked about how it was hard for her to play a fat-shaming exercise instructor in an episode of Shrill because she wouldn’t fat shame another person, but she had practice internalizing that cruelty. Wee talks about her history of eating disorders and over-exercising, all in a bid to become a ballerina, well into her twenties. Currently she works at a body-inclusive fitness studio and that Lindy West and Aidy Bryant were very encouraging in her performance. She also said:

When Annie writes her off, I made the decision that for Tanya this hits something much deeper. It’s as if Annie is saying Tanya’s life’s work is for nothing, or her religion is bullshit. Annie is feeling content in the body she is in, and for Tanya this feels like a personal attack. The subtext to what Tanya is saying is, “If I don’t get to be happy in my body, neither do you! Especially not you.”

This was also explored in the Room 104 episode “The Hikers” where college graduates and childhood best friends go on a hiking trip before they start working or looking for work. Megan (the fabulous Shannon Purser) is plump, freckled, down to earth and happy to have gotten a job offer right after she accepted her degree while her friend Casey (Kendra Carelli) is thin, has excelled on Instagram artifice, and hasn’t procured her own job yet but is triumphant over her past popularity. Yet a placed pebble in Megan’s boot reveals that Casey has been feeling disgust over how her fat friend would thrive in a larger body and not cover up and how she was burdened with making sure she was included in social gatherings growing up, soon Casey’s angry rant after Megan voiced her disgust over Casey’s sense of superiority over her reveals that Casey is angry that being conventionally beautiful and popular hasn’t made her any happier with herself or her own life, while Megan has excelled in their young adulthood in spite of her appearance and lack of popularity. Bridget is angry that Perpetua is thriving and content with her own life despite not looking a certain way while Bridget has been trying to get down to 110 lbs since she was a teenager and has been backing out of rooms after getting laid so the menfolk wouldn’t notice her behind isn’t scrawny (what would she think of Kim Kardashian’s or Nicki Minaj’s behinds?). Bridget, who poured energy into fitting an ideal of an adult woman, is miserable while Perpetua, who isn’t the “ideal woman”, is successful.

There is also some egocentrism on Bridget’s part: she is a heroine of a rom com so the story centers on her, with her friends being mere satellites. There has been a tradition of the fat best friend who exists to support the leading lady or gent who will fall in love while the fat person gets to sass and serve as cheerleader, with no insight on their inner life. Especially if they are Black. Tee Noir noted that most of the funny fat friends tend to be more engaging and likable or just plain compelling than the conventionally attractive main character, but their characterization is often neglected, to the point of sometimes even lacking a last name. In fact society, and even fat people, are internalized towards thinking that if you don’t fit the standard of desirability (thin, white, young-ish, cis, wealthy), you have to settle for less in your relationships and in entitlements, like how Annie in Shrill goes out with a boy who is too mediocre for her, all because she got the message that a fat girl like her shouldn’t expect a hunk or even a guy who is going to treat her decently and see her as a goddess. The show centered on Annie bringing out her inner fat bitch. Bridget hears constantly from her smug married male pals that women of a certain age shouldn’t be too picky because they aren’t as attractive and fertile as younger women (ring, ring, I am calling Tarana Burke on their asses, can I be the hype man?) and that triggers her insecurities about being single and 130 something pounds. Perpetua, who is a bit older than Bridget, medically overweight, single (but with a boyfriend) and less conventionally attractive than her...and is thriving in her life with no rush to the altar and she is free to voice demands in her relationship. I guess Bridget isn’t as nice as we were supposed to think she is, no shade, but be upfront about it Bridget (or writers).

But I can go easy on our hapless blonde, because Bridget (and probably Perpetua) internalized the notion that fat is disgusting and that women who aren’t thin enough have to shrink themselves and blend in, not causing waves. Perpetua lets us in on some hints that perhaps she is jealous of Bridget’s looks and figure, referring to her as having a “bony arse” for one, but it’s not a driving trait of her character. In her seminal book on female Baby Boom pop culture history, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, she noted that from a young age women were encouraged to see other women as competition, and if one woman is victorious in one area, we are defeated “And we had grown up with a notion of a female hierarchy in which some women---the Waspy, wealthy, young, and beautiful---were at the top of the pyramid and other women---the poor, the dark-skinned, the ugly, the old, the fat---were at the bottom and this is something that advertising (a source that sells Perpetua her image of wealth and sells Bridget’s insecurities) capitalizes on. Media in the 1970s have even applied the same dichotomy to some feminists where Germaine Greer (before she was all TERFy) and Gloria Steinem were held up as exceptions to the stereotype of ugly, nagging, and/or mannish feminists (something that Betty Freidan, Kate Millet, and the OG Bella Abzug got slapped with). It’s the ugly side affect of individualism.

One can hope that Bridget got the shameless and joyful spirit of that little girl who ran around the paddling pool in her underwear back.

Who’s Afraid of “Fat ass old bags”?: Backlash against non-insecure women

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you'll be criticized anyway.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Let’s be clear: arrogance isn’t confidence. I use the term “non-insecure” as an umbrella term for Perpetua and for confident women who have faced backlash for their lack of willingness to act like they are less than to appease the patriarchy. But...men get to be arrogant and admired for their drive and accomplishments, hell they don’t even have to accomplish much unless you count bankruptcies (look at who is President of the United States at the time of this writing). So why do women who act arrogantly, aggressively, cut throat, authoritative, or just plain assert their needs and personal boundaries are so vilified? So I will try to look for how we could all learn to be confident as Perpetua.

Ever since Peggy Olson was promoted to Junior Copywriter, and even before, women in the workplace have been scrutinized from the secretarial pool to even top positions as CEO or junior partner. Like McCann-Erickson in the final season of Mad Men, Pemberley Press is something of a toxic workplace where underlings fight to get noticed for their achievements in dull lighting, men like Daniel Cleaver and Mr. Fitzherbert (more like Tits Pervert, right Bridget?) feel free to sexually harass women who haven’t developed the skills to defend themselves and demand respect, and where the characters we are closest to, don’t really like her. Women in power tend to confuse a white cis male hierarchy with a pecking order where the men try to undermine her authority either because they find her too attractive or make her feel unattractive, sometimes other women would undermine women because their success threatens their own self-image as women. A toxic workplace can also be why Bridget cannot excel at the work she does (she jumps from one toxic workplace to another in the movie); this can also be why Perpetua comes off as a hardass, she has to put up a shield to protect herself and the years working at Pemberley Press have hardened her to the point where Bridget couldn’t relate to her.

Bridget, according to Daniel Cleaver and the viewers of the films, is likable while Perpetua is not. Bridget is very feminine, sexy, witty, self-deprecating, supportive, warm, and non-intimidating while Perpetua may be feminine (look at them pearls and long hair), she isn’t conventionally attractive as Bridget and her size and age have kept her out of the “sexy box” and while Perpetua is clever, the woman doesn’t ease her way into conversations at parties like Bridget pretty much demanding to be introduced and included in them and she walks with the ease and assumption that she belongs everywhere she goes. Perpetua just also isn’t cuddly, but men get to be aloof like Mark to the point of being insulting or irreverent like Daniel to the point of toxicity, why is Perpetua being judged so harshly for traits that we see in these two high-status men? Forbes magazine once quoted that women are affected by two types of bias at work: prescriptive and descriptive bias.

Descriptive bias is the labels we attach and associate with certain social groups and communities, and prescriptive bias is how they are expected to behave. And, when someone does not conform to these prescribed roles and behaviors they can be penalized or punished. Women, for instance, are traditionally expected to be caring, warm, deferential, emotional, sensitive, and so on, and men are expected to be assertive, rational, competent and objective. So, when it comes to promotion, these traits are sometimes automatically prescribed to people as per their gender without detailed information about their personalities, thereby a man, in general, is assumed to be a better fit as a leader.

The other side of this is prescriptive bias is when a woman does not fit the role that is traditionally assigned to her and attempts to claim a traditionally male position is seen as breaking the norm. So, when a woman is decisive, she might be perceived as "brusque" and "abrupt". Therefore, for the same kind of leadership behavior, women might be penalized while a man is commended.

Women who are traditionally feminine (passive, self-effacing, caring), are considered “likable” but not leadership material while women who display traditionally masculine traits (assertiveness, self-preservation, ambition) are considered ball-busters. Both women are less likely to get promoted because of both bias, while what’s “bossy” or, sometimes, “hysterical” for women, get’s men promoted (*cough* Brett Kavanaugh crying that he likes beer *cough*). Women who help out at work aren’t seen for what those caring and proactive qualities can benefit the workplace, it’s expected that a woman would be so domestic. Even female candidates for Head of State are subjected to the tyranny of likability....for a position where the focus has to be on achieving safety and stability for a nation, even if no one likes them, a position that will be decisive no matter what they do. The work can be done by women supporting one another and both genders checking their biases at the door. Men can call out another man for describing their appropriately authoritative female boss as a “bitch” and women can examine why other women demanding more in their relationships or being promiscuous is so threatening to them. Women can even decide who takes turns at office domestic tasks like making coffee and getting birthday cards signed, making it a universal effort by the work site and network with each other as they celebrate each other’s triumphs and different traits.

Bridget’s passivity doesn’t help her in being taken seriously at work by her male peers either. Whereas Perpetua is disparaged for being older, heavier, and less conventionally attractive as she is criticized for being authoritative, Bridget is reduced to her sex appeal by Daniel to her face and even described as “fannying about with the press releases” (hearing about this treatment incenses Perpetua to Bridget’s side), thereby reducing Bridget’s femininity into something frivolous and not a endearing trait that helps her navigate the world. Bridget has proved in a deleted scene that she can give a brilliant advertising pitch for a horror novel, sadly the assignment was for a children’s book but it was maddening that the men wouldn’t give Bridget that credit (watch it, I can see Peggy Olson smiling somewhere). Bridget is also hampered by what is called “Imposter Syndrome”: according to Wikipedia, it “is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a 'fraud'” despite have external skills and a number of accomplishments. Aside from her own appearance, Bridget puts her own abilities and intellect down, and it’s no surprise as how her society puts an emphasis on the physical appearance of women: “If you've grown up with messages that you're only valued for your looks and your body, not your skills or intelligence, you may end up getting a certain job or position and wondering whether you truly deserve it or if the hiring manager just thought you were a pretty face”, said clinical psychologist Emily Hu for the BBC (not to mention it’s much harder for women of color who deal with their cultural expectations and prejudice from a white supremacist patriarchy). Bridget’s own outrageous mother hasn’t passed down her bolder traits to her daughter and often makes Bridget feel small as she berates her for “not getting your colours done” or being unmarried.

In a world where tomboys and girly girls are pitted against each other, what would have happened if Perpetua and Bridget have let go of their preconceived notions of one another? Perpetua does seem to see Bridget as more than “blonde hair and big boobs”. It’s worth seeing that when the Bustle wrote about how to combat workplace misogyny, that they emphasized how important it was to support other women in the workplace as Perpetua did for Bridget at the last minute, alongside feeling free to disagree with men and demand a raise. Once again I want to note, Bridget and Perpetua are both white cis able-bodied women from upper-middle class backgrounds, so if their professional journey is fraught just imagine what it’s like for women of color.

Tough Women

“You can stand me up at the gates of hell. But I won't back down.” I Won’t Back Down, Tom Petty

Bridget learns, as we all do, and like Perpetua might have done that if she wanted to overcome her issues, she really has to confront her own discomfort and take risks as she demands more from life. Perpetua is a tough woman: she doesn’t appear to soften, even when she is greeting Bridget or Mark Darcy, who she is impressed by and she seems to encourage Natasha’s efforts to snatch him up. Granted a woman like Perpetua probably learned she had to tough, if she wanted to make it in a male-dominated workspace, I would not be surprised if she had parents who instilled a sense of ambition and toughness in her from a young age, or like Megan from Bridesmaids, she had to deal with a childhood of bullying and took that pain to transform herself into a formidable character.

We also see from her confrontation with Daniel, she isn’t afraid to get harsh with a powerful man especially after she finds out that he has been using a female employee sexually and been denigrating her worth at the office.

We don’t know Perpetua’s physical prowess and she clearly prefers pearls to combat boots, but she does possess traits that are associated with men: logical mind, firm, self-reliant, witty, sharp-minded, a professional in a cutthroat environment, and is flawed while being formidable. Perpetua is strong, a Shonda Rhimes character that Rhimes herself hasn’t created. Sadly like most Tough Girls, she isn’t her own protagonist and is there as an accessory to the main character, the Trinity to The Matrix’s Neo and she is often the lone woman that Bridget interacts with at work. Tough Girls are counterparts to more “typical” women: traditionally feminine women who are softer and more emotional...Bridgets. One thing I want to note is that Bridget is the protagonist instead of a love interest but yet she stands alone as her friendships are not that positive and her relationship with her mother is strained. Like Ripley of the Alien series, Perpetua is the lone smart and strong woman who has to deal with a environment where no one else wants to listen to her and everyone is ruled by their emotions (or their libido). She is Joan Holloway, who weathers the misogynistic waters with her razor-sharp observations and commentary regarding the absurdities of the people who are around her, while not being afraid to command attention and others, even at the risk at not being truly liked but “admired”. Not a phony. Perpetua is a privileged woman but like I stated before, she dealt with a combination of body-shaming and misogyny that toughened her...but why should a woman be tough and hurt? We could have had a scene where Bridget encourages Perpetua to reveal her vulnerabilities and open up along with Perpetua pushing her to be more resilient over a spa day with face masks, pedicures, beer, Milk Trays, pizza, Terminator movies, and hair makeovers while discussing how to hide Uncle Geoffrey’s body.

Strong Independent Women

“The watch I'm wearin', I've bought it. The house I live in, I've bought it. The car. I'm driving, I've bought it. I depend on me, I depend on me.” Independent Women, Destiny’s Child

Imagine trying to reconcile feminist principles of not depending on male partners and rugged individualism that insists the opposite of what John Donne’s quote about how one person is a party of a larger community. You have the Strong Independent Woman, who is used by capitalism to sell feminism and face cream/Spanx/sanitary napkins/Wonderbras/lipstick, who needs no man (or interdependence) to thrive in a still misogynistic world. This misogynistic world also abhors the independence, self-assurance, self-reliance, and self-love of women who choose to follow their path. Meanwhile the non-mainstream feminist and environmental movement have pushed for a culture of interdependence and for a culture that doesn’t base one’s value on how much money or genius or beauty (or what have you) an individual possesses; Bella Abzug noted that “Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel”.

But the image of the female individualist for one strong reason: women are still expected to perform the bulk of emotional and domestic labor while being paid less than their male peers for the same job, also because of ingrained sexism and perpetuated self-doubt, many women are still dependent on their spouses, parents, bosses, the opinions of others. It’s nice to see images of powerful, strong, often gorgeous women of wealth not have to depend on men for their worth or their livelihood. But we are flesh-and-blood human beings, not super beings or robots; even Perpetua shows some vulnerability when she refers to Bridget being a lot thinner than she and she is clearly looks crestfallen when she hears that Bridget has been belittled and used for her body by Daniel, we don’t hear much about her circle of friends in the movie aside from Natasha (in the book, she is friends with some same-minded women). Everyone needs an interdependent society of people supporting one another and helping each other grow.

Perpetua both upholds and subverts the tenets of the Independent Woman: she isn’t the supermodel-esque independent woman but Perpetua makes her own money and at lot of it, she dresses very well to project her authority in the workplace, she is bold, rejects the validation of male authority, and she isn’t afraid to be unlikable. She lives in a big city (because independent and single people don’t live in small towns or the suburbs *sarcasm*), presumably in her own spacious apartment or even a townhouse, she has found herself at some point before the story and has a strong sense of self, she works hard and has a strong sense of purpose because of her work ethic, and heaven help the dumbass that underestimates her or any other woman. She is a non-superpowered Carol Danvers: rather than waiting for someone to rescue her, she is quick to rescue herself from self-doubt or even rescue someone from injustice. She is noted to have a love interest, but she doesn’t revolve her world around him and is suggested to make demands for her needs in the relationship, showing she isn’t prone to fuckwittage as Bridget is (perhaps Perpetua learned to put a stop to that bullshit?). Of course because this is Bridget’s story, a woman who yearns for that fairytale ending of marriage, and this is a regressive, “post-feminist” (what sense does that make?) story, Perpetua isn’t a role model and is seen as a polar opposite to Bridget’s softness, ditziness, girliness, romanticism, and self-effacing persona.

I want to stop and say that I am so happy to be writing this essay in 2020, a year in which a large number of women (especially of color) have been elected to political office in record numbers with the Indian and Jamaican American Kamala Harris being elected as Vice President of the United States (and the first woman to do so). She is also independent enough to make her own money and develop her sense of self, along with a strong sense of agency and inter-dependent enough to credit the support and love she has from her blended family including her late mother. In fact the independent women of Broad City, Sex and the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moana, Mulan, and GLOW (crossing self) all have inter-dependent systems of support and are one another’s family (hell even Bridget’s so-called friends are her “Urban Family”). I also want to say, it’s highly likely that Kamala was more a Perpetua and not a Bridget (or else she wouldn’t have been able to succeed like she has done in her career), thus her win as Vice President vindicates Perpetuas who have worked and lived before her.

Working Women Do’s and Don’ts

“You're just a step on the boss man's ladder. But you got dreams he'll never take away.” 9 to 5, Dolly Parton

As established, Perpetua is happily single (but also partnered), she fulfilled in material comforts, she is unafraid to confront men about their bullshit (she has a hard time trying to get Fitzherbert away, I bet), and she has high standards. To paraphrase Charlotte Pickles, to thrive where she works she has to “eat, breathe, and sweat self-esteem” and she does. This is something that Bridget lacks and something I feel Perpetua can help her with. Sadly we never got that chance: the gentle and feminine Bridget and the stern and neutral Perpetua bonding in a mutually beneficial kinship. I’m sure that Perpetua wishes she could talk back to men like Julia Sugarbaker of Designing Women and that her role models came after some viewings of Working Girl, Baby Boom, and Murphy Brown and perhaps by the privileged and successful men (and a few women) in her family. It must be said that despite being referred to and clearly existing, we never see Perpetua’s boyfriend and that’s because pop culture has long depicted women in managerial and supervisory positions as lonely, ice-cold, unfeminine, and hard. Meanwhile more feminine women like Bridget don’t get the respect that Perpetua has and demands, and Perpetua lacks Bridget’s likability (Bridget of the many men and one woman who fall in love with her). While I wouldn’t consider Perpetua to be politically progressive (she is a woman of privilege and Sloan Rangers are considered Tories) but she isn’t a woman who is willing to exploit others for her own bottom line (or the corner office). We do see that she is quick to defend Bridget from slut-shaming or having her worth denigrated by Daniel, which leads to a rare scene of comcaderie between her and Bridget. I get the sense that Perpetua isn’t merely interested in ruling the workplace, but she wants to change the workplace enough to be less toxic (getting rid of Daniel and Fitzherbert).

I can find some similarities to Perpetua in three fictional characters known for their drive in the workplace: Dr. Christina Yang (Grey’s Anatomy), Peggy Olson (Mad Men), and Princess Carolyn (Bojack Horseman). Christina Yang, like her creator Shonda Rhimes (if you are reading this Ms. Rhimes or someone writing or interning for her, please feel free to take ideas for a film or show about Perpetua, I need cheddar), is proudly childfree, dominant, blunt, up for a good time, and voraciously sexual and ambitious. Like Perpetua, she doesn’t aim to please others and very performative in her actions and words along with being caring and brusque (and snarky, especially about the terrifying Mr. Blobby). Also like Perpetua, Yang finds comcaderie with a bubbly young blonde who is sometimes reduced to her beauty (Izzy as played by Katherine Heigel) and tries to lift her girl friends up. While Perpetua has been working in a post Cold War publishing company, Peggy Olson is a young woman from Brooklyn working at a advertising agency in the 1960s, with different struggles from her more “sexier” counterpart (Joan is a more confident Bridget after all, and Peggy has some BJ traits). Peggy is also a trailblazer for assertive working women of today and paved the way for Perpetua across the pond, setting an example from the ground up (partly observing the men above her) when she wasn’t able to find much female role models that didn’t rely on their sexuality or follow a traditional path. Women during that time didn’t have reproductive freedom, equal pay (still, sigh), and working women were shamed for wanting to follow a different path. Peggy also deals with fatphobia in Season One (she was actually pregnant) and divorced herself from her sexuality temporarily (but she experiments with sex and drugs throughout the series). Like Peggy, Perpetua isn’t crippled by Don Draper’s self-loathing (Bridget) or lack of discipline (Daniel) and Perpetua had to learn to believe in herself rather than merely rely on the validation of others. Princess Carolyn is a pink, perky, girly girl cat but like Perpetua she has a relentless drive, is intelligent, hard-working, can sell something (a celebrity image or books), and knows how to positively influence certain people around her. All these women have lived by their own self-definitions and owned the struggles they endured to get ahead.

Can’t Be Tamed

Walter Stratford: Hello, Katarina. Make anyone cry today?

Katarina Stratford: Sadly, no. But it's only 4:30. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Rom Coms (such as Bridget Jones’s Diary) have a nasty habit of wanting to tame, soften, tone down, settle down an independent woman with her strong mind, sharp tongue, active sex life, and own money to matrimony. Then we have heroines who are allowed to fly their freak flag and find their own tribe (or leading man). That is Kat Stratford, the teenage feminist protagonist of 10 Things I Hate About You, a girl that Perpetua would have been at that age if she were American with blonde, pretty privilege. After all Perpetua has been perceived by Bridget (a Bianca without wit or spine) as a “heinous bitch” as delivered by the fabulous Allison Janney; they are perceived as difficult women who rain down their parades with their truth and don’t suffer the foolishness of arrogant men. Such women are supposed to be tamed, which has several meanings. The negative being to “tone down” or “dominate”; an alternate definition has been offered by The Little Prince’s fox “to earn one’s trust”.

We don’t know if Perpetua has anyone, romantic or platonic, to complement her personality and balance her out as Natasha seems to have Perpetua’s negative traits. This is where she and Bridget could have developed a friendship, combining vulnerability and a disdain for the fickle opinions of others and keep from having to choose between love and career, between relationships and financial independence. We could have seen a closer relationship blossom over the story just as Bianca and Kat grow closer to one another in the film. Maybe Bridget demanding more from Mark at the end, telling him that just because he bought her a new diary it doesn’t mean that he can get away with walking away from her and that it makes up for how tight-assed he can be with Perpetua cheering her on and another scene where Bridget smiles and let’s Perpetua squees over something in excitement.

Like Kat, the Perpetuas can find their own tribes or mates.

Women of Privilege in Media

Rich bitches, girl bosses, sassy queens, matriarchs, as Christopher Rosa noted about these women (which includes Perpetua): "They're rude, they're loaded, and we love them for it.” In a world that hates empowered women, as bell hooks bluntly noted, these Regina Georges, Cheryl Blossoms, Alexis Carringtons, and Perpetuas take back that slur and wrap it up in designer couture and fabulous accessories with nary a hair out of place. They own the negative stereotypes and manicure it into an image of fearlessness. They reject the social pressures placed on women to be nice no matter what, likable, fade into the background, and talk themselves down. Rich bitches indulge themselves with no apology and wear their strengths as boldly as their statement jewelry. But what if you don’t want to be bitchy all the time, what if you want to channel that fierceness into something constructive?

#Girlboss is an atom and a half: traditionalists argue that she isn’t a proper “feminine” woman who loses out on heterosexual love and children (”true womanhood”) while many feminists argue that she simply advanced to a seat in the patriarchy and doesn’t give a damn about the little people below her enough to truly make positive changes. Pop Culture has four flavors of the this character, as noted by The Take: the Bitch Boss, the Pre Code Boss who acts the way we think women started acting like after 1968, the Feminine Boss, and the social media savvy Girlboss who starts companies with cutesy names like WAHAM or WEEMAN or GOOP and they are often white and conventionally attractive. The last flavor exploits feminist phrases while selling out to capitalism and patriarchy for women to buy more shit and willing to step on people’s heads while building her empire. Sometimes she’s Charlotte Pickles, a somewhat ruthless but loving mother and CEO who loves angora sweaters, is glued to her phone, and can effectively hit the roof of a overturned boat with her high heel. Perpetua may seem standoffish to care only about her bottom line or take on traditionally masculine traits like Ruth Chatterton in Female or Diane Keaton in Baby Boom, but she proves to be a Leslie Knope when she stands up for Bridget in a heated moment. Perpetua has no necessity for large pink letters or catchphrases to prove she is a powerful (and empowered) woman, she simply is. One can see Perpetua taking over Pemberley Press, first Daniel’s job and then ousting Fitzherbert and taking his position, thus ousting misogyny from that workplace and using her power to uplift more voices in writing.

Bridget and Perpetua, meet, Betty and Veronica (respectively). While the Bridget the Nice Girl avoids her issues (and Betty can be in danger of being subsumed by them), Veronica and Perpetua make their rules and are willing to break them. Like Perpetua, the teenage Veronica wears her posh prep clothes proudly with a string of pearls and headbands holding her shiny hair. Veronica is also confronting a system (and family legacy) that taints America and makes living so impossible for people who have no boots to pull the straps from and handicaps her to a pedestal. Perpetua seems to want her friend Natasha to snap up Mark Darcy (remember she knows nothing of Mark and Bridget) like Veronica in the CW reboot wanted Betty to do with Archie. Both want to work hard and be recognized for their merit, not wanting to depend solely on Daddy’s money, bucking long-standing patriarchal expectations of upper-class young women who were expected to marry a man from a similar class and have children to inherit the money. Perpetua and Veronica show a willingness to get down and dirty while being allies to their less privileged and/or more passive female comrades. They also wield their power to take down over-puffed authority figures who abuse their privilege and have attitude when a woman gets slut-shamed or otherwise mistreated. Remember Daniel and Mr. Titspervert, Perpetua’s specialty is ice.

Legally Blonde and Bridesmaids, etc.

Vivian Kensington. Elle Woods. Professor Stromwell. These women showcase an alternative where cold but supportive women befriend our plucky blonde protagonist in a Playboy bunny suit and a douchebag ex-boyfriend (before ending up with a lawyer who comes off as uptight). Legally Blonde gifted Elle camaraderie with these women while Perpetua was left at the wayside and Elle was given a circle of supportive friends while Bridget had friends who negged her and were a poor influence on her confidence. Where Delta Nu gave Elle their time to help her practice for the LSATS, Bridget’s friends openly wonder out loud that Mark Darcy said he likes Bridget as she is, ditziness and unfashionable (of the time) curves and non-airbrushed looks (really?). We also see Elle add more people to her friend circle, like the working-class Paulette who proves to be mutually supportive of Elle and has been empowered by her to stand up to her ex and then we focus on two women who stand in for Perpetua: the steely Professor Stromwell ( the Mrs. Sarah Paulson, Holland Taylor) and the preppy Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair, la diva). Vivian and Elle start out as rivals for the handsome but douchey Warner Huntington III, who categorizes these women as the wife material Jackie and the fun and hot-tubbing Marilyn, but slowly upon finding out that their professor is a sexist who demands his young interns get him coffee and that Warner lacks Elle’s integrity find some common ground. Vivian is horrified and takes back her previous behavior upon hearing that their professor has sexually harassed Elle, reducing this intelligent and savvy young woman to her sex appeal. Also Professor Stromwell puts Elle on the spot on her first day of classes at and has a reputation for making her students sob, but it’s implied that Stromwell sees a bit of herself in Elle and wants this young woman to succeed and that means challenging her to do the hard work in Harvard. In the climax of the film, when Elle discusses quitting Harvard because of people undervaluing her intellect and being sexually harassed as a final straw, Stromwell turns around in her salon chair and tells Elle: “If you let one male prick ruin your life, you’re not the girl I thought you were.” Stromwell gets credit in Elle’s valedictorian speech at the end of the film. We see here that while Elle upholds girliness and finds new love in a established lawyer, unlike Bridget she has a support system of women (and a few men) who encourage her to kick ass and challenge the perceptions of others and celebrate her triumph in defending someone from a life-altering sentence.

I feel that in 2001, either Annie Mumulo or Kristen Wiig watched BJD and found the relationship between Bridget and Megan wanting as well as I did, this likely spurred them into writing Bridesmaids, a film that centered on women fighting over a best friend rather than a man, where the male love interest listened to the protagonist vent about her friend issues, and where an overweight and unconventional female secondary character pushes our insecure everywoman protagonist to start fighting for her goals and her sense of self, or rather her “shitty life”. Annie (Kirsten Wiig) is a former owner of a bakery that fell victim to the 2008 recession who is hitting rock bottom as her childhood best friend gets engaged and starts befriending her fiancee’s boss’s preened to perfection wife Helen (Rose Byrne) and then finds comfort and motivation in the form of the fiancee’s wacky sister Megan (Melissa McCarthy). Annie gets loonier as the movie goes on (ahem) until Megan persuades her to channel that spirit more constructively; Megan is proud of her hard-earned achievements and is confident but also kind enough to adopt several puppies and see Annie at her lowest. Megan earns her own money and demands more from her relationships than the other women in the movie (unhappy marriages, lack of communication, lack of trust) and emboldens Annie to grab life by the horns, thus starting a new friendship. It’s notable that this film is about post-college aged adults and the role of friendships in their lives.

Perpetua’s Potential

The 2010s have shown more narratives that focused on women’s relationships with one another and have even re-defined what “happily ever after” looks like and as a result of the #MeToo and #TimesUp Movements, women have examined how toxic their culture is to women and finding that the harassment and assault of women to be terrifyingly normalized and it has been for a long time. Millennial and Gen Z women have even questioned the issue of pitting women against each other, one of which is the “not like other girls” attitude that pits the cool babe or the weird girl against the high-maintenance girly girls that easily conform to society (even rewriting these types as friends or lovers to one another).

So what does that mean for Bridget Jones’s Diary? Well we could see a B Plot on Mark Darcy and his divorce from his Japanese ex-wife and she’d be given her own inner life and complexities, Perpetua might have to reconcile her relationship with Bridget and Natasha (the latter who is hostile to the former), we could see Perpetua strike up a friendship with her polar opposite Bridget and the narrative could focus on Bridget helping Perpetua open up her softer side while Perpetua gives Bridget the encouragement to stand up to her (admittedly) trashy family and friends and demand more from her relationship with Mark (or even dump him). We can even see them include Rebecca Gillies, the beautiful trust fund baby that works for Mark and finds Bridget to be desirable as she is (without being backhanded about it Mark!). We can see Bridget become stronger as she has one friend who challenges her to be better and another friend who finds her supremely wonderful and gets her to see it.

Maybe we can see Uncle G die, a girl can dream.

The Rise of the Perpetuas or what happened after Bridget drank some of Perpetua’s Juice

#MeToo, #TimesUp, #BossBitch, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Beyonce, Hillary Clinton, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, the Notorious (and late) Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jacinda Ardern, Michelle Obama, Jameela Jamil, Mindy Kaling, Tiffany Ferg, Kimberly Nicole Foster, Dahvi Waller, Gretchen Whitmer, #BlackGirlsAreMagic, Mothers of the Movement, CaShawn Thompson, Intersectional Feminism, Black Feminism, Mad Men, Mrs. America, Insecure, The Baby Sitters Club, Amy Schumer, GLOW, Emma Gonzalez, Candice Carty Williams, Malala Yousafzai, Kamala Harris, Meghan Markle...all of them have grappled with issues like Bridget and Perpetua and have even expanded the conversation about women’s day to day lives and the small (and large) ways society is misogynistic and have gone further to question why it’s so commonplace. We even see a talk about body neutrality (as opposed to the sanitized body positivity), which one can easily see Perpetua practicing. We also see women being held up in social media as being “stanned” for being difficult, wonderful, achievement oriented, sassy, fierce, outspoken, demanding, and fashionable...all things that Perpetua was put down for.

“I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm 100% that bitch

Even when I'm crying crazy

Yeah, I got boy problems, that's the human in me

Bling bling, then I solve 'em, that's the goddess in me” Truth Hurts, Lizzo

To paraphrase Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?: All this time, they could have been friends.

The year 2020 has been a dismal year for women’s careers as women are swamped with the demands of domestic life and bosses have shown that they won’t cut their employees slack for having kids in the background. People even explored how the pandemic has revealed cracks in society from economic disparity, how women are ultimately shouldered with the burdens of home that men aren’t expected to, how vulnerable marginalized communities are in systems with poor health care and systemic bigotry, and the lack of a social safety net. These are challenges I see Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z women pushing back against (I will show up, pussy hat and mask on my person). One can even see Bridget, the ex Mrs. Darcy, Perpetua, and Rebecca marching in their Women’s March or even the global Black Lives Matter marches as they cheer on (or help) “tipped” over statues of colonizers and slave traders. We’d even see them attend virtual seminars on how to be better allies to BIPOC and listen as ex Mrs. Darcy talked about her difficulties as a East Asian woman in a predominantly white society and Bridget promising to call out her mother for her racist comments. There’d be no good woman/bad-woman dichotomy being perpetuated as they embrace each other’s differences.

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mistikfir · 5 years

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Hugh Dancy: Not just another heart-throb Hugh

Hollywood, watch out. There's a new charming, floppy-haired British actor in town. But Hugh Dancy is much more than a conventional rom-com hero. Gaynor Flynn meets him 07/08/2009

British actor Hugh Dancy is staring out the window at a small lake of screaming fans. If they weren't yelling out things like "I love you, Hugh" and "you're a hottie, Hugh" he wouldn't believe they were here for him. He looks around nevertheless. Nope. No sign of Jackman, Grant or Laurie – so he must be the Hugh they want. The 34-year-old had "noticed" things had been a bit different of late. Since Confessions of a Shopaholic to be exact, which was released earlier this year. The fact that he was cast in the shiny romcom was proof that after playing the love interest in dramas like Daniel Deronda, King Arthur and The Jane Austen Book Club, ensembles that were then about bigger names than him, Hollywood decided he was ready to carry a film. In other words, they thought his heart-throb oomph would equal box office dollars. It did – over $45m of them. Dancy probably hoped his latest film, Adam, might extinguish the heart-throb thing a bit. Unlikely, because even though he's neither dashing nor debonair in this story (Adam has Asperger's syndrome) he is adorable. Best not mention that now though. The man has enough on his plate. Directed by Max Mayer (Better Living), Adam is a story about a young man who is highly intelligent but emotionally inept because of his condition. When the bubbly Beth (Australian actress Rose Byrne), moves into the apartment above, he begins to build the personal relationship he desperately desires. The only problem is, he has absolutely no idea how to go about it. It's a lovely little film about the difficulties of making a real connection with another human being. The film won the Alfred P Sloan award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. "I didn't think 'lovely little film'," laughs Dancy when asked what piqued his interest about the role. "I thought 'that is bloody huge'. But my first reaction was to realise how little I knew and how much I would have to learn." He dutifully read "everything", hung out with people with "Aspys", and "observed, observed, observed". Still, it must have been a daunting task? "You always worry about whether you can pull something off," he says. "It's part of the process. Unquestioning confidence in yourself is not an advantage in this game, particularly. So I'm fairly self-critical. Having said that, we're not making a documentary, we're telling a love story." Fans of Extras will no doubt remember Kate Winslet's skit about how "playing a mental" is a ploy for an Oscar. Dancy laughs. He insists it wasn't about showing off his Rain Man skills. "I didn't expect anyone to go see this film," he says. "I did it because it's a way to subvert certain expectations people might have about me. I mean, I'm not running from success but I wasn't thinking 'Oscar'." It was a smart move because people are beginning to associate Dancy with the romance genre and, while Adam is technically a romantic comedy, it's an unconventional one to say the least. "I don't sit there and think 'well I did Confessions of a Shopaholic and now I've got to go out and do Chekhov'," he says. "If the next one that comes along happens to be another romantic comedy and I find something in it that appeals to me then great. I operate on almost no system at all." What appealed here was how we all have a bit of Adam in us. "Adam can see the love, the contact other people have but he doesn't know how to achieve it or express it," says Dancy. "We've all felt those frustrations and those desires to reach across and realise someone fully and most of the time we can't." Dancy is notoriously guarded about his private life, but a comment like that begs the question, so when was the last time he felt that desire and for whom? His vivid blue eyes flash. "I haven't had that particular experience in a while," he says coolly. Dancy is engaged to American actress Claire Danes. The pair met in 2007 on the set of Evening, an intense, but rather forgettable drama. Not long after that he ended a 10-year relationship with British artist Annie Morris. Rumour has it that the pair will wed in France this September. Dancy won't confirm or deny those reports. "Can we change the subject?" he asks. You wonder how he will cope with the scrutiny in the long term. Being one-half of a Hollywood couple doesn't equal anonymity. They're already papped relentlessly and the interest will only increase with his profile. "You can choose how much to let that into your life," he says. "And I find that it's peripheral and I don't even like talking about it, because I find it to be a distraction. And it's something that doesn't usually come up in my life until I do these interviews. I mean, I understand the interest. I'm not saying 'holier than thou', but it's not an issue in my life." Dancy is brilliant in Adam, so it's rather surprising to learn that he wasn't even on Mayer's original wish list. "I didn't think he had the necessary insecurities," says Mayer. You wonder what Dancy makes of that. "Being rejected is always hard to take," he laughs. "Sometimes it's based on criteria that feels a little shallow, but you have to accept they know best or you'd go crazy. So, generally, I'm more conscious of how lucky I've been rather than the opportunities I haven't had." Despite the Zen-like spiel, he went after Adam with a "vengeance" and after a two-hour meeting the director decided Dancy did possess the "prerequisite insecurities". Like what? "I'll let Hugh answer that," laughs Mayer.

Dancy smiles wryly. "I don't think I'm any more insecure than the next person. I try not to let myself become too neurotic. To some extent paranoia in this industry is just a realistic outlook, it comes with the territory, but I try not to drive myself totally insane." Dancy was 17 when he realised he'd already made the decision to become an actor. "Subconsciously that idea was there," he says. "But I didn't immediately want to become a professional actor. I wanted to go to university. So I studied literature at Oxford [he's sort of like the male version of Natalie Portman], but I also knew down the line that's what I'd try and do for a living. I'd been acting at school in a pretty serious way since I was about 13." Dancy is the son of the British philosopher Jonathan Dancy. His mother, Sarah, is a freelance editor for Oxford University Press. His brother, Jack, owns a travel company in Paris. His sister, Kate, works for Save the Children. Dancy was 10 when he was sent to board at the Dragon School in Oxford. Once puberty hit he became a "bit of a tearaway". Girls, booze and cigarettes all landed him in trouble. One day he was sent to the drama department as penance. He never left. He waited tables for a time after Oxford and "contemplated" the fact that he might not make it. "I think anyone with half an ounce of intelligence has to allow for that possibility," he says. "Because the odds are stacked against you. But I got very lucky very quickly, so my commitment was never really tested in that way. "But at the same time I was very clear about why I wanted to do it." Which is? "I love it and it gives me immense satisfaction. My only goal now is to continue doing it.”

#hugh dancy #interview hugh dancy #photo hugh dancy #mine #mine edit photo #Adam #2009

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wheremytwinwatches · 4 years

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[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 30

Last time: May Chang ducked just in time, Doc lost patience with his patients, and Ed decided to go for a double-major. Onwards!

Roy? Faded-out colors? Wait, are we getting a flashback episode? Come on, we just started progressing the plot again, especially after Beard’s episode-long mental debate. Ok, fine. Some old guy in a sickbed is refusing to teach Roy “Flame Alchemy” (aka the one thing he’s known for so I can tell how this is going to go) because he’s joining the Military. Obviously Roy’s teacher, given the different hair color I’m guessing not related. Student!Roy keeps talking about how Amestris is under threat from all sides, that the military needs Alchemists to protect their homes, but Master refuses to hear it. Even an appeal to Military funds to deal with the rundown house doesn’t work, since Master doesn’t need a grant for “something I’ve already completed.” What was Master researching? Master muses about he’s created “the most powerful alchemy”, and he’s grown complacent since completing it. The guy is definitely a Ravenclaw, saying that Alchemists have to hunt for knowledge all their lives, that he’s “been dead for a long time.” Oooh, and now Master’s coughs are a bit more wet sounding, we know that Roy figures out Flame Alchemy later but it’s not going to be from this- [Student!Roy]: “Are you all right?! Master Hawkeye!” [Master Hawkeye]: “Look after… my daughter. She’s in possession of… my research…look after...” Whoa, Master is Riza’s father? Was Riza’s father? Ok scratch my earlier complaining, I am totally down for an episode on how Roy and Riza met! Episode 30 - “The Ishvalan War of Extermination “ ...of course. I get all excited about seeing how my #2 ship first met, and of course it takes place during a friggin genocide. Thank Leto, their first meeting wasn’t in the middle of the ‘Civil War’. I guess they met up when Roy studied under Master Hawkeye, they seem familiar enough as they stand in the graveyard at her father’s headstone. Uh, Roy? I may not have much experience flirting or dating, but I’m pretty sure giving a girl your number literally over her father’s dead body is a slight faux pas. Beyond that, we get Roy giving his idealistic “I wanna make a difference in this country” speech, Riza saying she thinks it’s good to care. And with that, she trusts him with her father’s research. Back to modern day it seems! Gratuitous shot of Riza in the shower good LETO what is that on your back? Ok hold up, Riza’s always been one of the few in their merry band who doesn’t use Alchemy, faces down foes who can generate and manipulate matter with only her pistols or maybe a rifle. But that giant tattoo on her back (scars aside) just screams Alchemy, with something like that I’d expect her to be throwing lightning around with the best of them. What’s the story here? Barking dog? Oh yeah, Riza was walking a dog back when Barry made the poor decision to attack her. And Ed continues his streak of losing horribly to canines, he’s stopped by to catch up with Riza after everything’s that happened. Oh, and to return the gun! Riza’s cleaning it as Ed says he never had to use it. Or rather, he could never use it. Face to faces with Envy, he- Never mind, he’s talking about the time he dropped the gun facing Scar, and then stopped Winry from shooting him. Yikes, keep talking down about Riza’s method of combat as “something evil”, I’m sure she’ll take that well. (And hoo boy, this is gonna be an interesting episode if we go into the ethics of firearms, isn’t it?) Riza says he’s just dwelling because he made it back alive, he just needs to focus on living, to help Winry. [Riza]: “How else can you protect her? I mean after all, you love her, don’t you?” [Ed]: *spit take on the dog, frantic denials* Ha! But back to serious business, Riza’s saying that she’s killed too many to feel sorry for herself, that she chose this path. Yikes. Need to remember that although I don’t think we’ve seen Riza kill anyone on screen so far, she was involved in Ishval like all the other State Alchemists. Just like in another reality, Hawkeye can be a good friend, but they’re still a trained killer. Speaking of Ishval, Scar’s questioning Doctor Marcoh about his involvement in the genocide! Then we’re back to Riza, talking about the Ishvalan homeland and people. A place of sand and rocks, with a resolute people. A faction protested their annexation by Amestris (so was there a war of conquest before this, or did Amestris just roll in one day and say “You lot pay us taxes now”?), a random soldier/Envy shot a kid, the torches and pitchforks were taken out, and civil war raged for seven years. Huh, that long? With how calm and peaceful the Ishvalans seemed in past flashbacks and the sudden shock of cannons firing on Scar’s town, I thought this was a much quicker affair. Then, the Fuhrer signed a little piece of paper called “Executive Order 3066”.

Obligatory comparison is obligatory. So the Ishvalan War of Extermination began, and we get the now-familiar clips of cannons firing and blue-eyed soldiers marching in, with flashes of State Alchemists doing their thing. And- oh, Leto. By this point Riza had joined the military. As a sniper. That’s… that scene of seeing the Ishvalan through the scope… her eyes... [Riza]: “Most combat is blind. A normal soldier might fire erratically without a clear target in mind. But it’s different for snipers. Someone is sure to die when we pull the trigger. Where other soldiers don’t always have a direct line of sight on the effects of their actions… snipers do.” And then we’re back to the State Alchemists, who share a sniper’s viewpoint. Some pompous guy who I dimly remember getting HoD’d by Scar. Roy snapping his fingers. A familiar metal glove slamming down and Earthbending up a wall to block fleeing Ishvalans. And young Armstrong kneeling behind that wall, trembling as he listens to the Ishvalans being gunned down on the other side. ...why did I agree to see this show? We’re in the Amestris camp now, a guy who I’m pretty sure is Mr. Monopoly is ranting about “the savages” taking his leg, when Hughes (guuuuuuuuuh) spots Roy walking through the white cloaks. He turns around to show the same eyes as Riza. And as Hughes chats with Roy cleaning up, the Flame Alchemist points out those same eyes behind those shiny glasses. A letter? Aw, Hughes got a letter from Gracia, after the initial glee attack he starts worrying that being all alone in Central some creep’s going to hit on her. Awwwww. Wait, no. No! [Roy]: “Hey, Hughes? I got a little advice for you. It happens in movies in novels all of the time; the soldiers who never shut up about their girls back home? *finger gun* They don’t make it.” HOW DARE As heartbreaking as future events will be, it is good to see Hughes happy, having something to look forward to tomorrow. And then the mood goes RIGHT BACK DOWN as Riza shuffles up and greets Major Mustang, asking if he remembers her. Leto, this is the first time they’ve met since her father’s grave?! “Damn this war” indeed! Two mid-ep pictures of gratuitous-Riza with her tattoo? Although in the first one there’s no scarring… The three are sitting in camp now, wondering why they’re being ordered to kill citizens rather than protect them. [?]: “Because that’s the job we State Alchemists have been given to do!” Wait. Wait wait wait. I don’t have subtitles anymore, but that face… Mister Smiley? Oh wow. Mister Smiley is an ass. Guy’s happily saying that their job seems to be causing tragedy, and then slams Riza by asking if she feels satisfaction and pride when she shoots an enemy. Yeah, Asshole. Get this guy in the show proper so I can see his ass getting kicked, writers. Roy confronts Kimblee, who insults him for putting on a uniform and then being “surprised’ when he has to kill and arguing that the only thing worse than killing is turning your eyes away blah blah blah just SHUT UP you ass. This whole situation is messed up beyond anything our characters know at this point, but by no means can you sit there and say that it’s right. But it’s time to get back to “work”. Kimblee saunters off with a smile, and Hughes has to go as well. While explaining to Roy that his reason to fight is simple; he doesn’t want to die. Back to Marcoh, overseeing some Ishvalans getting ritually sacrificed to make a Stone. And to be completely honest… I’m a bit underwhelmed at the size of the sacrifice. Maybe it’s just how Leto-damn dark this show is, but with all the talk about the Ishvalan War being a cover to make Philosopher’s Stones I was expecting to see a heck of a lot more people dying to make the MacGuffin of the series. Or maybe…? This Stone was given to Mister Smiley, who Scar recognizes as the one who killed his family. We see the Crimson Alchemist laughing madly as he turns the battle around with that single stone, ranting about the “beautiful sound” of destruction. Again, get this ass into the show proper so he can suffer. Teatime with Riza again, now talking about how the Ishvalan High Priest surrendered personally to the Fuhrer- who mocks him for his ‘arrogance’ at offering his life as an equal exchange for every other Ishvalan’s, and when the guy’s flunkies declare God will punish him Bradley taunts them about how God hasn’t struck him down yet, how if they want to see him struck down for all his atrocities (his word, not mine, the guy literally calls his own actions ‘atrocities’) that they should use their own hands. Easy for you to say, buddy. You’re not the one with their hands tied behind their back. So the war ends, Roy gives his “I’ll protect my loved ones so they can protect their loved ones” speech now set to much more menacing music than last time, and after he has a staredown with the Fuhrer he’s sitting in his office when Riza walks in. Wait, “decided to take this path after all”? I would have thought that her serving as a sniper meant she was already in the military, how does that work? Or maybe it’s that she’s still continuing in the military even after what she’s seen in Ishval. [Riza]: “If the world truly operates based on the principles of Equivalent Exchange-” EEC: 11 “-then we soldiers have plenty to give back.” And with that, Roy assigns Riza to be his assistant, to watch his back. Aww, the couple’s finally- [Roy]: “Although, I expect you understand what this means. You’ll be able to shoot me in the back as well. If I ever deviate from this path, then I want you to shoot me. And I’m trusting you to do so. Do you accept my offer?” [Riza]: “Of course I do, sir. I’ll follow you into hell if you ask me to.” ...well ok then. I guess that’s one way to ask someone on a date. Back to tea time, Ed’s asking how things can be fixed even if Roy becomes the Fuhrer. That’s right, he’s grown up in Bradley’s military state, hasn’t he? Riza talks about restoring democratic principles, bringing back Parliament, charging the ‘heroes’ of the Ishvalan War as war criminals- wait, what?! Wow. Ok then. So even if our good guys beat the Goths, uncover the corruption of the Military and restore power to the people, they set themselves up to take the fall. That’s… wow. Ed protests that it wasn’t their fault, that the Goths were pulling the strings, but Riza just says that regardless of who started it they still carried out the orders. No hiding behind the chain of command, here. Ouch, Riza. You’ve carried around Mister Smiley’s words all this time, about never forgetting those you kill? I mean it’s great that you turned around that monster’s meaning, but still. What a way to live. Al’s saying bye to the Doc when May stops him, to thank him for saving her and her panda. She’s surprised to learn he’s an Elric, gripes that he probably looks like his mean older brother- Al, no. Al, NO! YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED! Well ok then. That was a Leto-depressing episode for the most part, we got introduced to a character that I can’t wait to meet a painful demise, there’s an intriguing mystery of Riza’s tattoos and scars, and then we ended on Al making the second-biggest mistake of his life. Can’t wait to see how that turns out. After credits scene: Envy’s knocking on a door, asks if the Doc’s decent. Notes that it’s dark and quiet when he brings in food- and yup, Scar got his Vengeance on the one who empowered his family’s murderer. One down...

#wmtw #where my twin watches #full metal alchemist #full metal alchemist brotherhood #fmab #fmab 30

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