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laundrybiscuits · 9 months

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Note: this is not a Stancy story.

“Say it,” he bites out. He’s pushing too hard, being too mean, and he doesn’t fucking care. “Say you love me.”

Nancy’s eyes slide off to the side and she—she laughs, like he’s making a joke, but he can see in the way she’s got her arms wrapped around herself that they both know it’s not a joke.

“Steve, come on,” she says.

There’s a hot, buzzing feeling in him like a hurricane.

The words peel out of him: “But…we’re soulmates.”

He’s gripping his forearm, holding it out in front of him even though he’s wearing long sleeves. It doesn’t matter. They both know whose name is written there in careful, neat cursive, like a puzzle piece slotting next to the blockier name scrawled on Nancy’s wrist.

Nancy reaches out to push his arm down and out of the way, out of her eyeline, but she laces her fingers with his like she’s trying to calm him down. Like an apology.

“Steve,” she says. “Let’s just—can we focus on the important stuff, here?”

This is important, why don’t you think that nothing could be more important than this. Steve doesn’t say it because he’s trying to be better. He can be better for her, for Nancy, his soulmate. So he swallows it down and nods, gripping her slender fingers tight in his.

———

It takes him a while, but he figures it out. It’s fate. It’s gotta be. It’s all a big part of their story, the one they’re gonna tell at their wedding, about the time they broke up and made bad decisions and were really unhappy. When you find your soulmate early, sometimes you have some growing up to do, he’ll say. Or maybe Robin will say it. He can’t imagine a wedding where Robin’s not his best man. Best lady?

It’s so stupid, but there was a moment, back in ‘85, when he thought maybe Robin could be his true soulmate. Like maybe there was some giant cosmic error, and the smart, funny, beautiful girl he’d been overlooking all summer was really the one he was meant to end up with after all.

When she tells him about Tammy Thompson, it’s almost a relief. The universe isn’t wrong after all. He actually feels really sorry for Robin, because without a name on her arm, how’s she supposed to know who to pick? And with the gay thing—it’s gotta be tough even just knowing who’s an option. He doesn’t think he could handle that kind of uncertainty.

It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to. All he’s got to do is hang on until his story and Nancy’s story bend together again, and become their story. He thinks it’s kind of romantic, even: like he’s been given this time to learn to be a better boyfriend.

So he’s in good spirits, especially when Eddie Munson gives him a heavy look that shoots through his veins like lightning and says as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen. If even Eddie can see it after spending about five minutes around them, probably not even knowing about the soulmate thing, it must be true.

———

Afterwards, he finds himself unexpectedly alone with Nancy in the hospital, waiting their turn to see Max and Eddie. It’s not exactly the stuff of fairytales; even though they’ve had a chance to go home and shower and get some sleep, they both have Upside Down gunk caked into their fingernails and purpling shadows under their eyes. The fluorescent lights overhead are way too bright. The flimsy plastic chairs are digging uncomfortably into his thighs.

But he’s not gonna get a better opening than this quiet moment, with Nancy slumped against his arm, tired and lovely.

“Hey, are you—” He clears his throat and tries again. “Hey, Nancy. Did you…think about, uh, what I said? About…you know. The future?”

She goes tense.

“Yes, Steve. I did.”

Maybe something in her tone should be warning him off, but he’s on this road now, careening down the fast lane with no exits in sight.

“And? What did you think?”

Nancy takes a deep breath, then lets it out after a second in a heavy sigh. “Steve, I…I’m with Jonathan now. You know that.”

“Yeah, but that’s—I mean, you know it’s not the same.”

“No.” She slips a thumb under the cuff of her sweatshirt and rubs it over her wrist. It looks like something she doesn’t even know she’s doing. “It’s not the same, no. It’s…Steve, it’s better. This way is better.”

He ducks down, tries to meet her eye. “Nance, I know I was kind of a shitty boyfriend, but—things are different now, right?”

Finally, she turns to him. Her back straightens, shoulders square, like she’s bracing herself.

“Yes, things are different,” she says slowly. She reaches out to take his hand in both of hers, soothing. “This hasn’t changed for me, though. It’s not about—I just can’t be with you, Steve. Not like that. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t say but we’re soulmates again like a child, but it lives in his throat, in the thump of his heart. Maybe she just needs more time.

Maybe not, though.

(ETA: continuation here!)

#I wrote the first chunk of this a while ago and abandoned it in my scratchpad; had a chat about soulmates today and decided to write more #ofc this whole thing is also a metaphor for heteronormativity (WHEN IS IT NOT) so I may write the steddie follow-up at some point #I’ve never been the biggest fan of soulmate narratives but I find them fascinating from a meta perspective #I want to be clear that I don't think soulmate AUs are ~problematique; they obviously serve a function #the romance genre (and a lot of fic) hinges on the concept of endgame ships #there's a particular kind of comfort in that and I can see how it translates to in-universe predestination #I am personally just more interested in stories about choosing to love without guarantees #and I actually quite like the complexity of Steve and Nancy learning to navigate being friends as well as exes #not!soulmates AU

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whaliiwatching · 9 months

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Caught up to the fic!! Absolutely fascinated by all the queer/punk/poc history here, since I don't know much myself. Very sweet chapter as well.

Unrelated question - mostly - but why is it common fanon to depict Noir as the more scarred up of various spiderpeople? Naturally everyone has their fair share of fights, though the only we see sustaining any marks is Peter B and his misaligned nose. Personally, I've taken it as Noir Peter not healing as cleanly due to it being Spider God stuff over Weird Radioactive Healing Factor stuff. Thoughts?

thank you so much!! i’m glad you liked it, & hope the ending was satisfying for ya <3

short answer: hot

long answer, plus a map of my idea of noir’s scars: under readmore :)

i’m not a devout spidey comic/movie fan or a doctor. this is based on conjecture and minimal research!

when i came up with my unmasked noir ideas, i wasn’t influenced by fanon—i hadn’t seen any other fan art, not even when itsv came out. but i can think of a good few reasons that scarred noir is a popular headcanon: evidence of what he’s been through makes him feel more tangible/relatable, the visual difference enhances his thematic individuality as distinct from other spider-people (especially other Peter Parkers), self-consciousness can explain why he doesn’t take off his mask in itsv even around other spiders.

all perfectly valid and interesting reasons! but the first two reasons are doylist and the last one is missing a crucial question: why does he have scars? unless a wound is severe, gets infected, or gets lucky, it won’t usually scar. facial injuries especially need to be really bad to leave a mark. and of course most if not all other spider-people have the healing factor. so what gives??

i like the spider god’s curse influences healing factor idea; it opens up some nice angsty possibilities regarding an inability to Be “Fixed;” no matter how much he tries, he can’t erase/forget what’s happened to him. but i also enjoy the bandaging someone up after a fight genre of fic, and am annoyingly pedantic, so my personal working theory is that the healing factor is not a doctor with ten plus years of experience and an accurate understanding of human anatomy. when a bone really badly breaks, it has to be reset or it’ll heal wrong. to me, the healing factor doesn’t know what ‘right’ is, only ‘fast’ and ‘effective.’ it’s an accelerant, not a substitute for medicine.

so let’s establish the baseline. modern spideys either receive modern medical attention or the injury is superficial enough that they don’t require it. even poverty-stricken peter parkers get rushed to the hospital, because fictional doctors Don’t Care About The Money and/or peter is dolled up in spider gear and who’s going to ignore a visibly beat-up celebrity hero?? plus i honestly believed peter b’s nose was just genetics or smthn. my nose is misaligned and it’s never been broken to my knowledge

to compare, noir lives in 1933 and, far as i can tell, doesn’t rlly garner the same fame and respect from the public as modern spideys do. in the 30s, medicine was meh (they had x-rays but didn’t rlly consider radiation much of a threat, penicillin was still in its infancy, polio was a huge threat, etc) but was also, more importantly, far too expensive for most people suffering during the Great Depression. whatever treatment noir receives after a fight, if any, would look way different from ours. that means his healing factor, which can’t differentiate scars from normal skin or a misaligned bone from a whole one, would be inefficiently assisted or left alone. it would leave its history behind.

on the infectious disease side of things, it’s probably much easier for even noir to recover from less physical ailments like the flu and pneumonia—spider healing factor likely remembers and codes for immunity better than regular immune systems—but without modern drug therapies he’d still be worse for wear, ie internal scarring. mans would have a shorter-than-average parker lifespan if not for the pseudo-immortality of the Spider God

anyway. all this to say, here’s my personal map of parker’s scars. crop tank and daisy dukes to keep tumblr off my ass <3

(tbh this is more for my reference than anyone else’s, i’m sick of looking through my art of Just His Forearms to keep my details consistent, but maybe someone will find it interesting lol)

#spider man: into the spiderverse #spider noir #peter parker #fan theory #also only kind of #general medical history for the 30s is weirdly hard to pin down #half the sources were locked under subscription and the other half were frustratingly vague #but i did my best 👍👍👍#it’s a lot more like deadpool’s healing than traditional spidey healing #he can’t regrow a limb tho lol #the 70s were much better for medical breakthroughs like the mri #and hobie has a community that loves and supports him so he probably doesn’t scar often #but noir is mostly alone. aside from aunt may and a couple of Not Doctor friends..#well. y’know #anyway thanks for the interest!!! i love it when peopel give me the opportunity to be overly scrupulous about things that dont matter

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rowlfthedog · 8 months

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I LOVE END OF THE YEAR HOLIDAYS (Muppets Haunted Mansion & Christmas Carol season)!!!!!!!!!

#barks #the muppet hyperfixation has faltered recently but its still a big special interest #and also the hyperfixation faltering may be due in part to me starting college and just having a lot on my mind #for sure expect some cozy art to appear in the winter on this blog #no promises for halloween because every october i run this daily art prompt thing on my cec/rock afire blog #i believe this is the third or fourth year running #so if i decide to make fan art this halloween season it will probably be of dook larue and company #i think gonzo and rizzo have a monopoly on the christmas season by now though

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abirdie · 3 months

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Gael García Bernal in El Ardor (2014, dir. Pablo Fendrik)

(these gifs also feature Alice Braga)

#gael garcía bernal #el ardor #gael garcia bernal #ggb filmography gifs #this film is trying to do something interesting #and i don't think it really works #but that's better than not trying in the first place #it's a modern western but set in latin america #and brings in elements of environmentalism and some mystical stuff #but where it aims for ambiguity it tends to land on inconsistency instead #e.g. is gael's character a force of nature or Just Some Guy?#also there's a jaguar that may or may not be magical in some way #gael's character is not a fan of shirts in this film #seriously he borrows two separate shirts from alice braga's family #and throws them both away #there's a weird sex scene #(to clarify: the scene is weird not the sex)#which sort of feels like the film was contractually obliged to have one but no one's heart was really in it #the burning

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mars-ipan · 2 months

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danganronpa is so fucking crazy bc it’s like “hi. this is a game series with a fucking amazing premise. unfortunately the writing sucks and is bad and you will spend half the time going ‘eugh why did they write that’ but you will play the whole thing anyways and get attached to your favorite characters and cry when they inevitably die. also it is filled with romance subplots that will stay in your brain forever” HUH??????

#marzi speaks #like. dr sucks but i like it.#but it sucks #but then like. there’s just??? so much in-depth romance and it makes me want to cry???#like. like. thh. asahina + sakura (so sorry lesbians i do not know their ship name). they are so cute and then they are so tragic #and ishimondo. GODDDDD ishimondo. you get to go ‘oh HELL yeah’ for a chapter and then they make you HURT #even like. makoto w/sayaka. start of the betrayal girlfriend trend. love it #and even toko and togami are interesting!!! like they will not date and should not date but they are fascinating #and then sdr2. do not get me STARTED on komahina what sort of psychosexual freudian bullshit are they on i will never know #but there’s also like. hinanami who r SO good. and mahiru and hiyoko who. tbh i wish they were handled better but still #fuyupeko. they make me crazy. and their parallels to akane and nekomaru. aaaa #SONDAM oh my goddd. they’re so #i may not be a v3 fan but they DID give us a lesbian love triangle and i do have to thank them for that #also the best polycule in the world in the form of the workout trio #kokichi i don’t like. but i DO like his little crush on shuichi even if i think it’s one-sided #kiibouruma will forever be real to me tho. world’s worst polycule. for balance #anyways why does dr have so many good romance plots. they’re so. why are those so good #AND WHY ARE LIKE HALF OF THEM QUEER. WHY DOES THE HOMOPHOBIA GAME HAVE SO MUCH QUEER CODING #idk i’m insane. <3 i’m a little crazy. komahina what the hell even are you….

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obsidiannebula · 4 months

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Husband apparently found some posts of people complaining about trying to play Divinity: Original Sin 2 after enjoying BG3. And to that I say, just be glad you weren't playing with my husband, whose favorite battle strategies were "Laser Ray everything and I mean EVERYTHING in his path" and "use Internal Combustion on allies to turn them into walking time bombs if that maximizes the number of enemies hit, and also out of combat just for fun"

#dos2 #no but im not surprised some people who loved bg3 are bouncing off of it cause thats just how it goes #when a franchise or developer gets mainstream acclaim after already making a lot of games #a lot of people wont even bother to look at previous games #some will #and some will come to love them just as much as old fans #and others will bounce off it because its less polished or just plays a little different #to me bg3 felt a TON like dos2 except with d&d rules with which i was already quite familiar #to people going backward to dos2 it may not feel as similar #dos2 is also much more linear #also playing a custom character is even less interesting than making a tav is #in both games the origin characters are just FAR more interesting ways to experience the plot than customs #but idk it is actually kinda fun to make a custom tav. in dos2 i do not recommend doing anything but an origin run #ugh i cant stop rambling dos2 is so good you should really try it #if nothing else you need to discover the far cooler version of elves #uh. cw for cannibalism with them though

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aflawedfashion · 7 months

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I don't think some wot book fans understand that I just wouldn't be interested in the show if it did a lot of the things they want. No value judgement (everyone likes different things), but some book fans want to change how show fans perceive the show. They want us to perceive it exactly as they do, and that's just not how it would work for me. I either just wouldn't be watching the show or I'd be wishing it explored the aes sedai and their warders more because that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. You can't make everyone think the same way you do.

#I have no interest in teenage chosen ones #I'm a millennial who couldn't even make it through Harry Potter #it's just not something I'm interested in #and I just feel like some book readers don't understand that you can't make people interested in exactly what you are interested in #I've read books and thought the side characters were more interesting plenty of times #I've watched ya shows where I would have loved them much more if they were about the adults #you can change the show but it's not going to magically make everyone agree with you #it may change the fanbase to have more people who think like you #but that's not the same thing #there are some very judge mental posts out there about show only fans #and as one I feel that these posts have no idea what I actually think #they also kind of think we're all idiots #they put me off from wanting to read the books #(not all book readers obviously)#(some of you are great)

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laniemae · 28 days

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Felt like making a tier list so bam here it is.

I know that this is probably gonna be controversial but to me I love every character but in the end I guess this is mainly how much I think about them or just like them.

#milgram #Amane is objectively the best character btw #Also idk why but I feel as I’ve been reduced to just some low person for making this from seeing the tier list fights in other fandoms #Idk how to word it #But it’s funny how with milgram unlike other fandoms I can so easily think about every character #Usually in other fandoms I may have one or maybe two characters I just obsessively hyperfixiate on and forget about everyone else #But it’s so nice with milgram I can love everyone #And even having four comfort characters is something that’s only happened here #Kinda excluding mikoto from the comfort character list as he’s only in s because being a John fan I have to think about him a lot lmao #I find it funny how on first glance Haruka would probably be one of those characters I hyperfixiate over #But I can’t just think about him enough compared to other characters idk why #Even though amane is my favorite character picking between her and John feels like picking a favorite child #I’m sorry John but Amane is just soooooo interesting in literally every aspect #And characters like her are really rare to see in media especially portrayed in such a good way

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uniquecellest · 2 months

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Sera said that she wanted to save Em the anguish it takes to do what is required. It's so speculated that when Sera called her name during "if Hell is forever then Heaven must be a lie" in case Emily would fall.

What if Sera was just as old as Em give or take a few years when Lucifer and their was another seraphim - with the "ph" in their name - angel that is much older and was Sera's guide.

There's a fanart (at least I hope it's fanart/fanedit) of Lilith and Lucifer in the same positions as Charlie and Emily waaay back when Lucifer was still an angel. The older seraphim made Sera sit in on the trial. Maybe Sera asked for some time to decide because her choice was the deciding factor and the angel - unbeknownst to everyone else - forced Sera to choose in that moment and in that moment Sera made a decision she regretted which was sending Lucifer (and equally Lilith) down to Hell damned for all eternity.

#hazbin hotel #lilith hazbin hotel #lucifer hazbin hotel #hazbin emily #em hazbin hotel #sera hazbin hotel #thoughts #theories #fan theories #sera and lucifer have to know each other #i need their lore and them to interact #bc good or bad it will be interesting seeing them interact again #also i cannot help but notice that maybe even sera at end of trial looks like she may or may not know how one gets into heaven #what if she doesn't and she starts her own questioning but like in private

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box-dwelling · 8 months

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Sometimes a joke is for you and you alone

Id under the cut

A sprite trace of ace attorney characters dressed in outfits of characters from the 23rd season of classic Doctor who. On a background of the 6th doctors tardis interior

From left to right is

Maya Fey as Peri brown

Phoenix Wright as the 6th doctor

Athena Cykes as Mel Bush

Miles Edgeworth as the valeyard

Kristoph Gavin as the Master

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #athena cykes #Kristoph gavin #maya fey #what matters is that i think im funny #things to note. er trying to get outfit refs from grainy still images of low buget 80 television shows in very difficult #especially when they're in all black.#i think the valeyard actually wears panta but its unclear and that seems stupid so he has proper robes here #i got half the masters outfit ref from a fucking action figure because the in show images were rough #kristoph gets to be the master over miles because the valeyard needs to be a procecutor and master x doctor is way more toxic than nmts #and i am saying that about like my two otps #krisnix has like a more similar mortal enemies but gay about it dynamic but i think theyre way more toxic #which is funny because Kristoph has done comparatively way less murder #mel was going to be ema or trucy but thinking about it athena fits her way to well. red headed fitness buff that the fans hate #also tracing Phoenix outfit to make it the 6's easy as hell. loved that. putting the pattening on? actual hell #it may be messy at points but im not cleaning it up for something with a venn diagram of interest with only me in the centre #i always get scared to tag stuff as classic who because like theres so much history and i feel like a fake fan.#posting cringe in the AA tags is so unscary to me now. its just my little encosure #6th doctor #classic who #fan art #colin baker #oh in case the joke goes over anyones heads the outfits are from the dw season thats a courtroom drama. its not well liked #also lets not think about the metaphysical consequences of miles being the valeyard. hes just the main prosecutor #and also i wanted to dress my blorbo in the stupidest outfit #this was fun thoigh. maybe ill do this for other dw characters and aa ones just without any pretense or context #just for fun

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floating--goblin · 10 months

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i think the main issue with postal 3 (apart from the jank and uninteresting gameplay and plot) is just... they made dude too cool. they made him a duke nukem-esque cheesy action hero, instead of a pathetic little trailer creature whose life is so mind-numbingly ordinary that even the violence of the game feels like nothing. like, he's not a hero in any capacity, not even an anti-hero. he's just some fuckin guy messing around

#it also tried to do self awareness but failed miserably #it's not funny it's just cringy as fuck #but yeah i look at the series as some guy's imagination cause there's no way he's actually killing all those people #and getting into all those situations #nah that's like. hyperbole. he's imagining his life as more interesting than it is #because it's pretty damn miserable and boring otherwise #postal #also obviously no shade to people who like it this is just why i think it failed as a postal game #it didn't understand that dude isn't cool. well we the fans may find him cool but he's not a Cool Guy #he's a rat bro!!! he's not out here doing any great deeds #he's literally just living life he's just a little freak bitch!!

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carolinanadeau · 27 days

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In Praise of Sally Ann Howes

As I've made it one of the purposes of my blog to share photos and songs and general positivity about the wonderful English actress Sally Ann Howes, I thought I'd make a post to talk in much more detail about all the great things about her and why I adore her so much!

This classy English beauty possessed a highly expressive face and eyes, an astonishingly powerful soprano, a great sense of humor, and the world's most charming laugh. One thing I cannot stop saying about Sally Ann is that she did not and does not get nearly enough credit and recognition for her immense talent and prolific career, and it's precisely for that reason that I'm here to do my part in giving it to her!

This overlong rambling post is a combination of biographical information and my personal fawning over her performances... whatever I felt I most wanted to put out there in the world and what I'd like people less familiar with her to know.

Click on Keep Reading and I'll take you on a journey!

As she preferred to work on the stage and didn't really pursue a film career, the catalog of Sally Ann's work that can still be viewed today is unfortunately small - though you can find almost all of her early films on the internet if you look hard! In her early film days, mostly made before she was able to pursue her true passion of musical theatre, her extraordinary singing talents weren't utilized by the producers at all.

However, we were fortunately blessed with exactly one musical film role from her, and it's an iconic one: the aptly-named role of Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), the golden-haired, golden-hearted candy heiress who falls in love with and eventually marries Dick van Dyke's character Caractacus Potts after joining him and his children on a madcap adventure. She's a sweet, intelligent ingenue with hidden depths and one of my favorite sorts of character arcs - the uptight, lonely woman who becomes more and more warm and open as she discovers newfound freedom and joy in life and falls in love.

There is something about Sally Ann that just glows in every scene of Chitty, and it's not only that bright blonde hair! The way she widens her eyes sometimes, the way she raises her eyebrows, her gentle and soft presence in the happiest scenes, and the particular airy lilt she has to her speaking voice are all so distinctive and appealing, and I can't take my eyes off her. And her smile! When I say she glows it's barely even a metaphor, the woman just emits light.

(Funnily enough, I started to realize that many of the laudatory quotes I've found about her also refer to her in this way, like this quote from a 1965 TV Guide article, from playwright Sidney Kingsley: "She's luminous as an actress. I mean that literally. In Brigadoon she really lit up the stage.")

For me, I'm weak for any actress who can do the defrosted-ice-queen trope so incredibly well. Truly starts out as closed-off and prim, and nearly reverts to that state when she and Caractacus have a Big Misunderstanding near the end, but in the scenes where she's happy and carefree, the warmth just radiates off of her.

She also has the most adorable chemistry with Dick van Dyke in an annoyances-to-friends-to-lovers relationship that absolutely shaped my young brain. Whenever Sally Ann and Dick glance at each other, whether with irritation and frustration early in the film or with warmth and affection later on, their chemistry is obvious and natural, and there's so much expressed in each one of those glances. One has no difficulty believing that these characters are going to be very happily married.

(Here's a cute on-set interview where she talks about, among other things, how easily she and van Dyke clicked.)

While I acknowledge that the character of Caractacus Potts was absolutely originally planned to be an actual Englishman, Dick van Dyke played him with an American accent, and to me they will always be an adorable English-American couple. It's a whole part of the charm of this pairing to me!

Sally Ann also had a great relationship with child actors Adrian Hall and Heather Ripley who played Jeremy and Jemima Potts, and did her best to help make them more comfortable and happy during the many very long days on set. Having been a child film star herself, she knew a great deal about how difficult and alienating it could be. The genuine affection the three of them shared is obvious in their scenes together, especially in the extremely adorable "Truly Scrumptious" number, and it really makes the developing mother-child relationship between the characters so believable.

The beach scene, where so much of the relationship between Truly and Caractacus and the Potts children is developed, is incredibly cute and heartwarming, and a lot of that rides on Sally Ann's performance and how her previously prim-and-proper character shows herself to be warm and loving, once she (literally) lets her hair down. We've already seen how happy the Potts family is together; now we see how Truly fits in perfectly and makes them all even happier.

Look at her! Literally glowing!

(One thing I should mention: I think both the plot and the love story of CCBB are greatly improved if one just treats the "dream sequence" as real events, which was possibly the original intention anyway, so just note that is always the perspective I'm coming from here. It's the only way to make some things make sense and for the characters and their relationships to fully develop.)

"Lovely, Lonely Man" is Truly's big solo moment, and was probably the least comprehensible part of the movie to me as a kid (lol), but is now indisputably one of the very best parts to me as an adult. It's an exquisitely beautiful love song, especially the bridge, and I somehow love it more and more every time I rewatch it. Sally Ann's dreamy, graceful movements and the way the whole scene is shot make her look like a princess, and the slow build of the song is masterfully done. She has this distinctive crisp way of articulating her words while singing, especially the closing consonants like N and M, that I just love to listen to. The string section and the building countermelodies are so beautiful it makes me want to weep. Everyone involved in creating this scene and song deserved an award, I'm being so serious. While it's not the highest of soprano songs and doesn't fully show off Sally Ann's astonishing range, she shows an incredible amount of vocal control here through the many diminuendos and crescendos, and she's mesmerizing to watch and listen to. One of her "glowiest" scenes, for sure!

While I've seen people call this song irrelevant to the plot, I strongly disagree - the romance is part of the plot, of course, and while I didn't fully understand the meaning as a kid, this song establishes how much Truly's outlook on life and hopes for the future have already changed since meeting Caractacus, and how much happier she is with the poor Potts family than she's ever been in her life of luxury. Plus, now we know for certain that she's head over heels for Caractacus, but he doesn't know... increasing the dramatic irony of the pining and yearning to follow!

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In the reprise of "Hushabye Mountain", which was sung in a much earlier scene by Dick van Dyke alone, Caractacus loses the will to continue the song because he's overwhelmed with emotion thinking of his children being held captive. Truly comes in to aid him with the final verse - another pivotal moment in the developing romance - and Sally Ann's singing here is nothing short of breathtaking.

And of course, I can't neglect to mention the "Doll on a Music Box" number, where Sally Ann, who was not a trained dancer and in fact considered herself to be "appalling" at it, performs an incredibly precise, incredibly impressive clockwork song-and-dance number while on a spinning turntable! She practiced it so well that she managed to successfully complete the shot in a single take, prompting the stage full of extras to burst into applause.

This is another important character moment for Truly, though it's disguised in a diegetic performance: though it's another thing that went over my head as a child who only got to see the movie once, the lyrics about being trapped up on a music box and longing to be freed by love pretty clearly symbolize how trapped the real Truly's high-society life makes her feel, and how she yearns to break free from class restrictions and live happily-ever-after with Caractacus, as it's only with him and his family that she really feels free.

Then there's that incredibly warm romantic look that Truly and Caractacus share at the end of the song when she silently acknowledges the love confession he's just made while singing in counterpoint with her, though they're still in a dangerous situation and can't give themselves away by appearing too human and breaking their disguises... sadly this vital moment is cut off on all the Youtube videos of the scene I can find, because none of the people who clipped it understand that that's the whole point of it all, apparently. But here's a gif!

The character of Truly doesn't exist at all in the original (quite different) book by James Bond author Ian Fleming - surprising, I know, given her name! - and, honestly, the fact that Truly and the romantic subplot of this movie exist are why it had such a strong impact on me as a child, and very much why I fell in love with it again as an adult. Even though the score is wonderful anyway and the story is charming and magical, I can confidently say that I would not have become as completely enchanted or had such a strong desire to revisit it again and again if there'd been no Truly and no love story. The fact that Sally Ann's performance makes Truly so loveable is, obviously, a pretty crucial factor there.

Sally Ann's delivery of "Well, Mr. Potts... now you'll have to marry me!" after Caractacus kisses Truly... that slide from prim mock-outrage to the playful, warm, you-can-hear-the-smile-in her-voice conclusion is flawless. Not even exaggerating when I say that this was the moment that made me into a hopeless romantic as a 9-year-old child. Sure, this wasn't the first movie I'd seen where two people fall in love and live happily ever after, but I distinctly remember that this was the first romance story that had me in a giggling, kicking-my-feet, "I ship it so hard" state of mind. And after revisiting it as an adult for the first time last year, I have confirmed that yes, child me already had great taste in fictional romances!

Oh, I could say so much about the difference in her body language between the two scenes where Caractacus carries Truly out of her car that's become stuck in a pond. The first time, Truly is affronted and extremely embarrassed by the situation, holding herself so stiffly and awkwardly to avoid an accidental embrace that she causes him to nearly lose his balance and drop her. The second time, when they're in love and they know it, she snuggles right up into his arms without hesitation and it's the cutest thing ever. Sally Ann was 5'6" but looks so tiny in that scene!

(And that kiss! Maybe I'm getting off-topic here in terms of strictly focusing on Sally Ann's contributions, because Dick van Dyke deserves tons of credit for making this kiss so good... but wow, the kiss. Several times I have called it "the Most Kiss they could have gotten away with in a children's movie." Again, giggling, kicking my feet etc.)

While Truly's costumes and hairstyling are rarely historically accurate (the film is set around 1910), the stylized nature of her fashion is iconic and memorable in itself. Sally Ann also completely pulls off playing a fresh-faced ingenue who is 12+ years younger than her actual age - and I do wonder if the aging-down of Sally Ann is at least part of the reason why Truly wears her hair loose throughout most of the movie! Either way, it works perfectly and I was shocked when I first learned how much older she was than her character. (If you watch her in The Admirable Crichton, where she is also in Edwardian costume and was closer to Truly's actual age, she really doesn't look all that much different. If anything, I think she looks even more glowingly beautiful in Chitty!)

Also, as for Truly wearing her hair down... it may just have been an intentionally anachronistic stylistic choice, but in-story, I think it actually contributes to her character by showing a willingness to flout convention and pursue whatever will make her happy instead of what's expected of her, which happens to be a key theme of her character arc.

Another thing that led me to adore Sally Ann as a person as I learned more about her over the last year: in the 1960s, she appeared as a panelist in quite a few episodes of the game show To Tell the Truth (as well as a few episodes of Password), and these can be found on Youtube. I really adore how her personality shines through - she's unfailingly bubbly, witty, self-deprecating, and a bit quirky. Just listening to her speak is a delight and she has one of the best laughs I've ever heard. Here is one of my favorite little moments that I clipped.

By all accounts, she was a delightful person to know and work with, witty and clever, very professional, and very serious about her craft. She also always maintained a great affection for and pride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and her role as Truly, which is always a wonderful thing to know about an actor in a beloved role.

Another bonus: here is a super charming interview with her after a backstage disaster at What Makes Sammy Run? on Broadway.

She was also, along with Twiggy and Diahann Carroll (as Julia Baker), one of the first three celebrities to have her likeness made into a Barbie doll.

Two of her earlier films I recommend are the comedies Fools Rush In (1949) and The Admirable Crichton (1957), if you can find them (hint-hint, you can.) You may also be able to find the 1966 TV movie of her reprising her Tony-nominated role of Fiona in Brigadoon with Robert Goulet, and although I feel like the oddly close-up way the film was shot kinda does a disservice to the actors at times, it's still amazing to be able to see and hear her in a role she performed on Broadway.

Richard Rodgers once called Sally Ann "the greatest singer who ever sang on the American musical stage." Now, I don't quote this to claim this superlative as some kind of objective fact. If you know anything about me, I am very, very strongly opposed to pitting women against each other and all the Golden Age sopranos are absolute queens who deserve crowns, no matter how much mainstream success or present-day name-recognition they have/had. I just think it's phenomenal that she received such high praise from a man who worked with many of the best musical theatre singers who ever lived... and to think, many people today have never even heard her voice. Without her performance as Truly Scrumptious, it's possible almost nobody would in the future! I am so glad that Sally Ann's lasting legacy was ensured by such a beloved film role.

Sadly for us, many of the theatrical roles which she originated (and thus, for which cast albums featuring her exist) were in shows that either flopped quickly or at least did not enter the theatrical canon, so she never achieved the level of mainstream recognition she clearly deserves. But Sally Ann also played such legendary and challenging roles as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Fiona MacLaren in Brigadoon (for which she received a Tony nomination), Maria Rainer von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Anna Leonowens in The King and I, and, much later, Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. She received great acclaim for all of these performances and, judging by what we know of her process on My Fair Lady, was excellent at making roles distinctly her own and never merely imitating another performer.

Even in her iconic original role of Truly Scrumptious, you don't get to hear the true full power of Sally Ann's extraordinary soprano. For that, I highly recommend listening to "Another Time, Another Place" from Kwamina (1961), and "Something to Live For" from What Makes Sammy Run? (1964). I'm always sad that we don't have any recordings of her in her "fiery" star turn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, but you can at least hear her do a Cockney accent, be silly, and sing "With a Little Bit of Luck" with Bing Crosby here!

If it weren't for the enduring success of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, few people might have even heard of Sally Ann Howes today, and that would be a terrible loss. I cannot overstate that I am so grateful that we all know who she is because she played this role and we get to see her give this radiant performance of a character that's all her own. Maybe this sounds strange, but I think the fact that this was Sally Ann's only musical film role (and the ONLY role most people will ever see her in) makes it even more precious, and makes everything she brings to the character that much more distinctive and unique and special.

Both for all of the talent and charm she brings to the role itself, and everything else that I and many other fans have been able to learn of so much of her otherwise-obscure work because of it, the world is incredibly lucky to have the lovely Sally Ann Howes immortalized as our Truly Scrumptious, and I wouldn't have it any other way 💖

#*mic drop*#sally ann howes #chitty chitty bang bang #and that's why you should vote for... wait there's no poll involved? I may have gotten carried away ;)#ok so I doubt anyone will even pay attention to this post but if you are going to tag or comment on this BE KIND AND POSITIVE ABOUT HER #like this is obviously a labor of love on my part here... don't be weird or backhanded. I don't need to hear how you disagree or whatever #and no pitting women against each other on my posts I am so serious #this is a fan post! this is a stan post! this is a celebration! do not derail!#I feel like I need to sprinkle holy water on this post before I release it out into the world #oh Sally Ann we're really in it now #also parts of this are poorly written I know. it's literally just an infodump about my Special Interest English Lady what do you expect lol #the switches between formal tone and informal fangirling are intentional btw #this is what I'm using my degree for apparently #I know I mixed in a lot of character/story analysis here and maybe that's slightly off-topic from lauding her performance but hey #it's not like I'm getting graded on this. and I mean you can see these things in her character BECAUSE of her performance #take my hand. love her with me. life could be a dream #you know the lyric in Hamilton - 'I wrote my way out'? that's what this was for me. I wrote my way out of a mental health crisis with this #when I came up with this idea I was going to save it for her birthday but that is sooo far away. so I'll post now and reblog it then!#I'm shocked tumblr can even handle whatever I'm trying to do here #I wouldn't have put SO many photos except that I needed to use multiples so I could make them smaller!!#my original post #long post

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aro-sora · 7 months

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Heartless

This month's Carnival of Aros theme is "Humanity and the Non-Human" and these prompts were particularly resonant with me:

It’s been a fairly well-documented phenomenon that many aromantics tend to feel some sort of connection to some sort of fictional non-human species, whether as specific examples, or as a whole. If you relate, what are your thoughts on these characters and concepts as an aro(-spec)? Do you have any experiences in any subcultures related to non-humanity, such as Voidpunk?

So I thought I'd write something about my personal experiences.

It will come as no surprise to people who follow this blog that I am a heartless aromantic and I'm also a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. (To anyone who isn't familiar with KH, in the games there are beings of darkness called Heartless. There's a lot of designs and some are cooler than others so here are a few of my favorites:)

[ID: Various Heartless from Kingdom Heartles, in order, a Shadow, a Neoshadow, a Soldier, and a Darkling. End ID]

These beings are both literally and very much not literally (it's complicated) heartless. They are manifestations of the darkness in people's hearts and seek to steal more hearts to transform into Heartless.

(something something beings that are recognizably human but also . . . not and yet still have the instinctual desire to reclaim what was taken)

A common stereotype about aromantic people is that we are heartless and unfeeling because we don't experience romantic love. Aromanticism may influence a person's emotions and definitely impacts views on romance, but to say that all aros are cold and emotionless is hurtful and arophobic. But I also genuinely identify with the term "heartless." Not feeling romantic attractions makes me feel alienated from amatonormative society, and "heartless aro" is the best way for me to describe that feeling.

My love of Kingdom Hearts is also a huge influence on that. When I say KH rewired my brain, it's only a half joke. I was 5-6 years old when I first discovered these games and this bizarre Disney/Final Fantasy crossover was a very formative experience. "Heartless" is not just a way to describe my aromanticism, its a defining aspect.

What is it, to be Heartless? To be human, once, but now something . . . other: a being born of darkness. Darkness is a force that is often used for evil, but still KH makes a point of not making it inherently evil. Darkness exists in every heart. It can overwhelm, but it can also be accepted and mastered, like in Riku's case. To choose to become Heartless, in Sora's case, is a defining moment of humanity.

My blog url might be aro-sora (because let's be honest, he's super arospec) but the title, "My Heart Belongs to Me," is quote from Roxas, one of the best examples in KH of someone being denied humanity for supposedly not having a heart, yet being one of the most caring and emotional characters in the series. He's not an actual capital-H Heartless (that's Sora, briefly) but his story and his struggles just . . . resonate with me. "I am me! Nobody else!" I want for people to stop thinking of me as something I am not, as desiring relationships I don't want, or even being a gender I am not.

I don't have much experience with voidpunk culture (but now I want to look into it), but recently I discovered the term otherhearted: "Identifying strongly with something nonhuman and/or fictional, without literally identifying as that thing." (I'm a bit on the fence between being otherhearted and otherkin, but otherheart literally has the word "heart" in it and the KH influence is strong.) It's a very queer experience to want to change your identity and be something other than what people see you as. Sometimes I imagine that for myself—claws of darkness, eyes of burning gold. Darkness cannot exist without light, but neither can light exist without darkness. Nothing can destroy me, because I am the shadow at the very heart of the world.

I guess that would make me Heartless-hearted. An ironic term, I know, but similarly to my personal heartless aro identity I find it absolutely hilarious. So many parts of my identity are "contradictions": being bigender, being human and heartless. It fits with the lore of the Heartless themselves: some technically do possess hearts and some don't. (it's complicated)

I call myself heartless the same way I call myself queer. Bigots will use them as insults and an attempt to make me lesser and other and nonhuman, but to me these are my words. They are mine and I give them power, no one else. Someone thinks I'm "heartless" for not experiencing a certain feeling? Fuck them, I AM heartless. And I am still human because I choose to be, not because humanity is something to be given or taken away. I don't have to prove anything about myself to anyone. I define my own heart, NO ONE ELSE.

And if they still think that being heartless—being aromantic—is something "wrong" or "unnatural" or not human? I only have a warning for them:

Beware the darkness in your heart. The Heartless prey upon it.

#kh #carnival of aros #a carnival of aros #aromantic #aro #heartless #heartless aro #otherhearted #my ideal gender presentation is either a mix of masculine and feminine or literally just a neoshadow. or a darkling #semi-related note: the terms “Heartless” and “Nobody” make sense for their respective beings and I will fight anyone who says otherwise #i was very tempted to include images of the wackier heartless designs but it would have taken away from the point #non kh fans reading this i highly recommend browsing the kh wiki and seeing all the designs. some are . . . interesting #like scar. yes. scar the lion from the lion king #you may have heard of him #i also use loveless and lovequeer but mostly heartless because. as i said. the kh influence is very strong #it's about beings that USED TO BE human but AREN'T ANYMORE yet still have that instinctive desire to restore their missing heart #*gestures wildly to the air* DO YOU SEE MY POINT #ITS ABOUT A SCARED CONFUSED BOY HAVING EVERYTHING TAKEN AWAY AND HUMANITY DENIED FROM HIM YET STILL SO PAINFULLY HUMAN #i'm going to go cry about roxas now #happy spooky month everybody!

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