#panache star video | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-real-housewives-of-waterdeep · 5 months

Text

Prologue: Waterdeep, 1482 DA

Summary: As the heiress apparent to House Selemchant of Amn, Dulcinea is used to getting her way. At 28 years old, she has never had to lift a finger unless it was to cast an evocation spell. That is, until she woke up on an unknown beach with a tadpole in her brain.

Rating: MA

Category: F/M

Relationships: Tav/Gale

Chapter 1/?

Word Count: 4.8K

If there was one thing Dulcinea Selemchant loved, it was a good party. Not any informal salon, though — no, Dulcinea loved grand balls, opulent galas, and events of the season. Truthfully, she loved any event that gave her an excuse to dress up in her finest and preen in front of the mirror. At 18 years old, she was a recent debutante in Sword Coast’s upper echelon of wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks, a role she slid into with confidence and panache. She loved feeling like the star of the show when she walked into the ballroom, the whispers of awe, and the attention of male suitors.

That was the true purpose of her parents sending her all the way from Athkatla to Waterdeep — to marry her off to another powerful family of wizards. Between the legacy of House Selemchant’s propensity to produce gifted mages and the associated political clout within Amn, a Selemchant woman made an excellent marital choice for an upwardly mobile wizard.

Although Lorroakan’s personal goal was to schmooze with the most gifted wizards of the Sword Coast, his directive was to chaperone his younger sister. “Keep a close eye on her,” their father instructed. “Do not let her out of your sight, even for a moment.” Lorroakan resented this responsibility of babysitting his spoiled little sister, the crown jewel of the family and his father’s blatantly obvious favorite, but he was on thin enough ice as it was after several shameful mishaps related to his temper. He was in no position to refuse.

In her room at Tarth’s towers, Waterdeep’s most luxe inn, Dulcinea stood in front of a full-length mirror, turning her head from side to side as she fussed over the shape of her jaw, the contour of her cheeks, and the shape of her lips, which were pressed into a seductive pout. Her honey-colored skin was kissed with a blush made from beet juice and pomegranate.

Behind her, her halfling governess Clothilde stood on a small stool, lacing the back of Dulcinea’s elaborate dress. Clothilde pulled the silk ribbon lacing as tightly as she could, pulling Dulcinea’s waist into a tight hourglass. As the corseting tightened around her, Dulcinea gasped slightly.

“Hurts to be beautiful, eh?” Clothilde quipped. Clothilde had cared for Dulcinea since she was a baby. The two of them shared a close bond, one not dissimilar to that of a mother and daughter. In fact, it was Clothilde who prepared Dulcinea to be a debutante.

“Always worth it,” Dulcinea replied breathlessly. She straightened her back and squared her shoulders as she adjusted to the new constriction around her abdomen.

She admired her streamlined figure in the mirror, half-twirling from side to side. Her dress was robin’s egg blue and made of the finest mulberry silk which cascaded down to the floor, concealing her spotless, white calfskin boots. The tightness of the bodice pushed her breasts up slightly, giving the illusion of cleavage. Her dark, curly hair was pulled back into a high bun encircled by tight braids and held in place with a thin silver comb.

“One last thing,” Dulcinea said, reaching for her jewelry case that sat on the table next to the mirror. From the intricately engraved gold case, she produced a silver necklace that glittered with tiny sapphires — her most prized possession. Dulcinea smiled indulgently at her reflection. “There we are,” she breathed with satisfaction as she admired her décolletage.

“You look like a princess, little rabbit,” Clothilde smiled, using Dulcinea’s childhood nickname.

Then, there came a forceful knock on the door. Dulcinea jumped at the disruption.

“Are you quite done yet?” Loroakkan bellowed in annoyance from the other side of the door.

Dulcinea rolled her eyes. “Yes, brother, I’m done,” she called back. “Such an asshole,” she groaned to Clothilde.

“Don’t give your brother too hard of a time tonight, rabbit,” Clothilde chided. She knew that Dulcinea would likely try to slip out of Lorroakan’s line of sight and get into some sort of trouble. At the last two balls that the siblings attended, Dulcinea got a little too tipsy and had to be taken back to the inn early in the evening. After that, their father insisted that Lorroakan supervise her more closely lest she sully her reputation and that of their family.

“Fine,” Dulcinea agreed, albeit with a tone of dismissiveness. She leaned down to give her governess a hug. “I’ll behave — Paladin’s honor.”

“You’d better! Or else your father won’t let you leave the house until you’re an old maid,” Clothilde warned jokingly. She and Dulcinea knew quite well that their father would impose no such punishment upon his treasured daughter.

Dulcinea waved goodbye to her governess and opened the door to see her visibly irritated brother tapping his foot impatiently. He was a young, good-looking man with high cheekbones and red hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was dressed in a green velvet waistcoat with flashy golden embroidery along the cuffs of his sleeves and the collar. Beneath his waistcoat, he wore a color-coordinated vest and thigh-skimming trousers with their seams featuring the same golden embroidery pattern.

“We were supposed to arrive half an hour ago,” he hissed. “And you’re in there preening over yourself.”

Dulcinea rolled her eyes. “I’m ready to go now, aren’t I? You’re no fun, Lorroakan.”

“This night isn’t just for you, Dulcinea. It’s for me, too. I’m fact, it’s more for me than for you. Now let’s go.”

With a deft snap of his fingers, Lorroakan transported himself and his sister to Phaulkonmere, a villa owned by two noble families of Waterdeep — The Phaulkons and the Tarms. They often hosted large gatherings of Sword Coast’s high society, including the most elite and well-renowned mages of the realm. It was an old stone building with ivy creeping up its outer walls. From where the Selemchant siblings stood on the street, they could already hear music and laughter from inside. The party had started without them, much to Lorroakan’s irritation.

“We’re fashionably late,” Dulcinea insisted.

“Whatever. Please don’t make an ass of me tonight.”

“Don’t make an ass of yourself, either,” Dulcinea said snarkily. “Gods know you’re good at that.”

Lorroakan shook his head and walked quickly towards the doors. His black leather boots clicked across the stone steps leading into the house. Dulcinea trailed after him with an intentional languidity in an attempt to further annoy her brother. He may’ve been assigned to be her handler tonight, as it were, but that didn’t mean she would make his job easy.

The Selemchants stood in the grand foyer of the villa, looking into the main hall where everyone was gathered. A trio of instrumentalists — a viol, a drum, and a horn — played a rendition of “The Wizard and the Wren,” a fitting but painfully obvious choice of accompaniment. The scent of roasted meats filled the air. Mages mingled in small groups, drinking wine and laughing.

Lorroakan glared at his sister. “I can’t have you following me around all night, but if you dare leave my line of sight there will be consequences.” He walked halfway across the foyer before turning back to look at Dulcinea. “And no getting drunk like last time, either. Keep your shit together.” Lorroakan entered the main hall, met with cheers of recognition from friends and acquaintances. A half-orc thrust a goblet of wine into his hand, clapping him forcefully on the back. He grinned in recognition, making a joke that Dulcinea couldn’t hear, causing the people around him to double over in laughter.

He was playing the politician, which in addition to his magical acumen was one of his finer skills. Lorroakan had always been a persuasive and ambitious individual and after gaining a reputation as one of the stronger wizards in Baldur’s Gate, it was increasingly important for him to have friends in high places. Parties like this were a strategic choice for forming those alliances. He couldn’t have his bratty sister getting in his way tonight.

Dulcinea squared her shoulders and lifted her chin slightly, channeling her confidence. She daintily stepped over the threshold to the main hall. She felt heads turn and eyes widen, as they often did. Her attire was usually what caught people’s eye. Her family spent an inordinate amount of money on her formal wardrobe for these events. It was a strategic move on her father’s part, as the goal was for her to signal her availability to suitors.

Despite her frequent attendance at events of this nature, Dulcinea had yet to find a consistent suitor. Either she grew bored of them or they grew irritated with her entitled attitude. At times, it made her nervous that she had been so unsuccessful on this front. How long would her parents continue to foot the bill for this lifestyle when her efforts were so consistently fruitless?

It wasn’t worth thinking about. She was there to have a good time, act charming, and flirt with powerful men. Being nervous about becoming an old maid would only make her appear desperate.

“May I offer you some wine, Miss Selemchant?” a half-elf attendant asked. Dulcinea nodded, accepting a goblet of wine. She tilted bowl of the goblet towards her nose, taking in the aromas: chocolate, pomegranate, and black pepper. She took a sip, holding the wine in her mouth momentarily, engaging her senses fully. It was full-bodied, peppery, and rich. She wasn’t a sommelier by any stretch but she knew her way around wines, thanks to her upbringing. This one was, in her opinion, solidly mediocre. The wines in Amn are better, she thought to herself. But this will do in a pinch.

Across the room, the band stopped playing folk songs and began to tune in preparation for dancing. Dulcinea watched as couples began to pair off and walk towards the dance floor.

“May I have this dance?”

Dulcinea turned and found herself facing a tall half-elf with piercing green eyes and long red hair pulled back into a thick ponytail. Daintily, she offered him her hand.

“I suppose so,” she replied, smiling coyly.

“You’re Dulcinea Selemchant of Athkatla, yes?”

Dulcinea nodded. “The same, last I checked.”

The elf laughed a little too hard at her joke. “Ah, clever and beautiful! How lucky am I to have gotten the first dance of the night with you. I am Darius Tarm. It is my honor to make your acquaintance, Miss Selemchant.”

His overtures were painfully heavy-handed. Dulcinea questioned whether or not she should’ve waited for another suitor to ask for a dance instead, but it was too late to recant as they were already on the dance floor. What’s more, he was the host of the party. The least she could do was grant him a dance. In the worst case scenario, she would only have to entertain his presence for the night. In the best case scenario, this would turn into a fruitful courtship and she could marry into a wealthy Watderdhavian family where she could have the autonomy to pursue her studies while living a life of leisure.

The band started to play a lilting melody as couples took their place on the floor. Darius and Dulcinea stood across from each other. His bottle green dress robes swished around him as he bowed dramatically. She curtsied, leaning her forward slightly enough to allow a discrete tease of her cleavage.

The Volta was, at the time, a controversial dance with its origins in Candlekeep. It didn’t gain a semblance of social acceptability until it reached Waterdeep. Its scandalousness was what made it one of Dulcinea Selemchant’s favorite dances. For better or for worse, her beauty was something of a selling point and she displayed it best while dancing.

Darius’ eyes were trained on her as they half-skipped, half-sashayed in opposing semi-circular directions, inching closer to one another with each alternating rotation; clockwise then counterclockwise, then clockwise once more. Dulcinea could smell the overpowering musk of his cologne as they neared one another.

“So,” Darius began, raising his right arm up at a ninety degree angle with his palm facing towards Dulcinea, “I understand that you’re to study at the Blackstaff Academy in Waterdeep, yes?”

Dulcinea raised her right arm, delicately touching her palm to his. “That is correct, yes. I am due there in the spring.”

The two half-skipped in time to the music in a clockwise pattern, palms and forearms pressed together.

Darius smiled approvingly. “An excellent choice for someone of your skill.”

Dulcinea managed to suppress the urge to double over in a fit of laughter. Darius was flattering her with outright falsehoods. Dulcinea was nowhere near skillful enough to attend Blackstaff of her own merit. It was her father’s money that bought her attendance, once more in the interest of pairing her off with someone of status. Dulcinea understood her duty to offload herself from her family, however she hoped that she could build her skills as a witch to achieve even a modicum of renown beyond being a wealthy coquette.

Darius raised his left arm while dropping his right. Dulcinea pressed her palm and forearm once more as they resumed the same clockwise skip.

“I’m sure you’re aware that I have a faculty assignment there,” Darius said smugly, touting his own prowess. “You may be studying under me if you’re pursuing studies in transmutation. In fact, I may have a position open for a research assistant position if such a role may peak your interest.”

Dulcinea smiled with feigned interest. She knew precisely what “research assistant” meant — write my manuscript, get no credit for it, and suck my cock while you’re at it. It was an arrangement that would suit all of her needs in education, sexual appetites, and political standing, but with that came no guarantee of a marriage. In fact, it practically guaranteed the opposite.

“Oh my, what an opportunity,” Dulcinea replied, still feigning interest. “I’d love to hear more about your research later this evening.” Dulcinea, in fact, had no interest in Darius’ work and was quickly growing bored of him. Rather, by asking to hear about his research she was gently propositioning him for a clandestine session of intimacy.

The music began to swell, approaching a climax. Dulcinea lowered her left hand, placing it on Darius’ shoulder while Darius’ hand slid down to her waist, resting at the juncture of her corset and her hip. No matter whom she danced with, this was her favorite part of the dance. Dulcinea half-jumped while Darius simultaneously lifted her, spinning a quarter of a turn before gently lowering Dulcinea to the floor.

“I would be delighted to enlighten you, if you so desire,” Darius whispered as he lifted her again. With her feet back on the ground again, now facing Darius, she offered a coy smile. “Please, enlighten me.”

As the music slowed, couples returned to their starting positions, bowing and curtsying to one another. Darius offered his hand to Dulcinea, palm facing upward. “If I may, I believe we can find a more… suitable venue to discuss my research.”

Dulcinea placed her palm upon his, allowing Darius to lead her through the crowd towards the villa garden.

“Ah, Darius! The man of the house!” a voice called from across the room. Darius stopped weaving through the crowd and turned towards the voice. The voice belonged to Gale Dekarios, or Gale of Waterdeep as he preferred to be called. Dulcinea was familiar with him as he and the Selemchants floated in the same social circles. More importantly, her brother despised him. Any time Gale and Loroakkan were in the same room together, one could anticipate a condescending battle of wits that usually ended in petty insults and the occasional threat of a duel.

“Ah, Gale. How are you, my friend?” Darius replied, clapping Gale amicably on the back. Darius was visibly irritated that Gale was now standing in his way of a private encounter with Dulcinea.

“I am doing splendidly. As you’re probably aware, I have been appointed to a faculty position at Blackstaff Academy in the department of evocation. I shall begin lectures in the spring.”

Darius smiled thinly. “Congratulations, my friend. Truly an honor.”

Dulcinea felt a pleasant twist of her insides upon seeing Gale. Ever since she made her debut into the world of upper-echelon parties and galas last year, she’d harbored a secret, school girl’s crush on Gale of Waterdeep. She admired him as an exceptionally talented mage and his renowned command of the weave, but his rakish handsomeness never failed to put her heart aflutter. The candlelight that shone from the chandeliers above reflected off of his soulful brown eyes and the single earring that dangled from his left ear. He was in his late twenties but his face bore smile lines and wrinkles on his brow that conveyed how much time he spent deep in thought, studying dusty old tomes. Dulcinea swallowed hard, trying not to gawk at him in his dress robes which were a deep shade of eggplant purple.

Darius made a half-step towards the doors to the villa. “Miss Selemchant and I were just about to go for a walk in the garden.”

Gale nodded, half-bowing towards Dulcinea. “Yes, Miss Selemchant of Athkatla. It is a pleasure to see you once more. Did I overhear that you will be joining us at Blackstaff Academy in the spring? I offer my sincerest of congratulations for such an achievement.”

Dulcinea felt her cheeks redden as she curtsied clumsily. “Y-yes, I am quite looking forward to it,” she stammered, awkwardly trying to avert her gaze. “Um, Mister Tarm was just going to, ah, tell me a bit about his… research.” All of her years of etiquette training under Clothilde crumbled away in the face of Gale.

“Then I shall not interrupt,” Gale replied, recognizing his cue to take his leave. “But I do look forward to seeing how you flourish under the tutelage of the greatest wizards of our time this spring.”

Darius nodded curtly at Gale and quickly pulled Dulcinea into the garden. “Gods, read the room, Dekarios,” he spat under his breath. “Thank you for finessing our way out of that conversation.”

Dulcinea smiled sweetly. “Of course. I was quite looking forward to this. Hopefully there wont be further interruptions.”

Even amidst the crispness of autumn, the enchanted garden was in bloom. Carefully groomed topiaries lined the cobblestone path around the square-shaped garden, which hosted a small fountain at its center. Around the fountain, blankets of phlox and verbena sprouted from the ground in full bloom. The back walls of the garden boasted massive citrus trees whose perennially ripe fruit filled the air with the scent of lemon, grapefruit, and orange. On either side of the citrus trees stood tall square topiaries that spanned the rest of the garden walls.

Darius led Dulcinea behind the back garden topiaries. Quietly, he whispered an incantation for a cloak of invisibility which lessened the odds that they would be caught by other guests. He could have taken her up to his room for the night, but such a choice would be far too obvious and, besides, Darius loved the thrill of exhibitionism.

“Dulcinea, Dulcinea,” he growled seductively. “What sweetness you have in those hazel eyes and under this dress.”

“As much as I’m sure you desire to see it, I’m afraid I must decline. I am a lady after all,” Dulcinea said coyly, batting her eyelashes. “But there are… other activities that we may enjoy.”

“I will savor any sweetness of yours that I can get,” Darius hummed, pulling Dulcinea in close. She could smell the wine on his breath and the intoxicating musk of his cologne. He leaned into her neck to kiss her as she leaned her head to the side, offering her soft décolleté to his touch. He inhaled sharply, taking in Dulcinea’s scent, which was buttery and sweet.

Dulcinea moaned softly at the touch of his lips, which now moved upwards towards her jawline, her cheeks, and finally to her lips. His tongue flicked her bottom lip, begging for her to allow him entry. Dulcinea obliged, feeling his tongue slide into her mouth eagerly. She returned the favor, biting his bottom lip before advancing her tongue into his mouth. Darius’ hands slid from Dulcinea’s mid back to her ass, cupping it gently as he kissed her. Dulcinea pulled her lips away, drawing in a sharp breath as she studied Darius’ face. She was beginning to feel a touch light-headed from a combination of the alcohol, the tightness of her corset the weight of her dress, and the wet, primal arousal that lay beneath it all.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Darius breathed, leaning in to kiss her neck once more while Dulcinea caught her breath.

“Yes,” she sighed, pulling him in closer to her. He trailed his kisses down her neck, to her collarbone, finally coming to rest his lips on the curve of her soft breasts.

“May I offer you a kiss of a different sort?” Darius asked, making a painfully obvious innuendo in an attempt to get under Dulcinea’s dress.

“I can’t give away all of my secrets in one night, you know,” Dulcinea giggled. “After all, what else would we have left do once I get to Blackstaff?”

The tables had turned and now she was the one pursuing him, or so she wanted him to believe. She found Darius’ overtures boring, but a friend in a high place is a friend nonetheless and this friend could take her to even higher places yet. Her attendance at Blackstaff was a convenient excuse to lure him in while granting herself some distance. Truth be told, she wished it was Gale wanting to get under her skirt that night.

“Right you are, sweetness,” Darius replied, once more invoking the meaning of Dulcinea’s name. “There will be plenty of opportunities to discuss my work come spring.”

“I shall be sure to seek a meeting with you once I arrive,” Dulcinea purred. She nodded towards the villa. “Shall we? I could do with more wine.”

Darius smirked. “Certainly.” Like before, she lay her palm atop his as he escorted her back inside of the main hall.

As Dulcinea took a goblet of wine from an attendant, she could hear an argument starting across the room. “No, no, no! You could not possibly be more incorrect!” Lorroakan bellowed. He and Gale had picked up where they’d left off, arguing about some obscure topic of arcane knowledge. Loroakkan had already managed to lose his temper in the short time that Dulcinea had stepped out into the garden.

“Your disagreement does not surprise me, Lorroakan. In fact, you’re quite the predictable one. When you’re armed with a better defense of your treatise, you know where to find me,” Gale replied smugly. “Perhaps your temper will have abated as well.”

Dulcinea groaned in irritation. He always harangued her about her behavior at parties, but he was twice as bad as her at getting himself escorted from parties, taking her with him as collateral damage.

“Give me a moment, please,” she sighed, leaving Darius’ side. She drained her wine goblet and set it on a side table before walking quickly across the room to her brother.

“Lorroakan,” she said, her voice as stern as she could manage as she felt the alcohol seep into her system, causing her head to buzz as if it were full of bees. “You need to stop. Now”.

Lorroakan turned to face his sister, his eyes flaming with rage. He’d had too much to drink and he was slightly unsteady on his feet. “And you need to stop sneaking off into the garden to get your tits touched,” he roared. “Besides,” he said, shooting a look at Gale. “Mystra’s little chew toy was just about to leave, weren’t you Gale?”

Gale’s cheeks reddened as he struggled to maintain composure. “Mystra has merely requested my presence, nothing more. I mustn’t keep my goddess waiting.” He glanced at Dulcinea who was still standing a half-step behind her brother. “I look forward to seeing you in the spring, Miss Selemchant,” he said awkwardly as he turned to make a quick exit.

“Is everything alright over here?” Darius asked, appearing behind the Selemchant siblings. They had caused quite the stir that evening and people were starting to stare.

Dulcinea smiled politely. “Yes Mister Tarm. All is well. I’m afraid my brother and I must depart, however. I’m feeling a touch unwell.” She offered Darius an apologetic look. “Thank you for being such a gracious host. I look forward to seeing you in the spring.”

“Of course. I am sure I shall make some exciting discoveries through my research that I can share with you this spring,” he replied, kissing Dulcinea’s hand. “I wish you a pleasant evening, Miss Selemchant.”

Dulcinea gave a small curtsy before leading Lorroakan out of the villa.

“I was having a nice evening until you started acting like an ass,” she hissed at him.

“Oh, I’m sure you were. Having Darius Tarm up your skirt must have been the highlight of the evening aside from dancing the fucking Volta in polite company. Where the hell have your sensibilities gone?”

Lorroakan snapped his fingers, returning them to the inn. “I hope you had a lovely time being a whore in the garden, Dulcinea. I’m sure that will net you a husband.”

“If you hadn’t started arguing with Gale, we wouldn’t be having this discussion!” Dulcinea was beginning to raise her voice in frustration.

“Do you think I didn’t see you gawking at him, too?” Lorroakan snapped. “You sure have excellent taste, sister.”

“What in the hells is that supposed to mean?”

“Gale of Waterdeep, one of the most pompous wizards of the realm and Mystra’s latest fuck toy? In essence, someone astronomically out of your league and absolutely off limits?” Lorroakan spat.

Dulcinea gave him a confused look, the anger draining from her face. “Hold on - is Gale, a mortal man, the consort of Mystra?”

Loroakkan snorted. “Consort is a kind word for that. He’s her lapdog, her plaything, and an easy lay when she feels like it. He’s completely naive to the fact that she doesn’t give a flying fuck about him. It’s rather comical when you think about it: an archmage being duped by a goddess.”

Dulcinea recoiled slightly. She knew Gale was out of her league from the standpoint of arcane acumen, but she didn’t realize that he was very much so spoken for. “Oh,” she finally said after a moment of silence.

Lorroakan smirked. “But sounds like you’ll be busy enough with Darius Tarm. Seems like he’s cultivated an interest in you. Let’s hope it’s more than skin deep, hm?”

Dulcinea scowled contemptuously at her brother. “Get out of my room,” she snarled.

“With pleasure,” Lorroakan hissed, slamming the door behind him as he left.

Dulcinea sighed heavily as she turned towards Clothilde. “I’m terribly sorry about that.”

Clothilde shrugged passively. “Not like that’s anything new. Sounds like he was the trouble-maker tonight, eh?”

“I suppose.”

“Something happened tonight, didn’t it?” Clothilde had known Dulcinea her whole life. She could tell simply by Dulcinea’s tone and her posture that something was the matter.

“I ran into you-know-who and found out that he’s spoken for,” Dulcinea sighed, unlacing her boots.

“I’m sorry, rabbit,” Clothilde replied. “I know you’ve held a torch for him for a year now.” The halfling stepped onto the stool to unlace Dulcinea’s dress for her.

“I hurt my own feelings over him. I’m too young for him, too unwieldy with the weave, and he’s romantically involved with Mystra, apparently, so I’m too mortal as well.” Dulcinea felt a hard lump form in her throat. She swallowed hard, trying and failing to suppress the tears that formed in her eyes.

Clothilde gave Dulcinea a sympathetic pat on the back. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’re better off without him. Besides, sounds like something is brewing with Mister Tarm, eh? You’ll forget the wizard of Waterdeep in no time.”

“But I always get what I want. Why can’t I have him?” Dulcinea’s voice trembled as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m Dulcinea Selemchant, gods damnit! I always get what I want. And I want him, not Darius Tarm.” She stomped her foot, scowling in frustration, a childhood habit of hers when she didn’t get what she wanted. Ordinarily, her father would relent and give her whatever it was, but he couldn’t simply order another human to marry his daughter. Thayze was a powerful man and an even more powerful wizard, but some things were beyond the command of mortals.

“There’s no use crying over it, rabbit. Let’s get you into your nightgown and I’ll make you some licorice tea,” Clothilde said, giving Dulcinea’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “That always soothes the soul.”

Dulcinea smiled and nodded as she put her nightgown on. Clothilde always knew how best to comfort her. Clothilde knew best most of the time and Dulcinea hoped that she could continue her track record when it came to getting over Gale.

#bg3 #bg3 gale #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fic #baldur's gate #gale x tav #gale x oc

8 notes · View notes

alexilulu · 4 months

Text

GAMES I PLAYED OF THE YEAR 2023, #2

(Previously: #1)

Razzies Award Runner-Up For Most Baffling Game Of 2023: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (Respawn Entertainment)

(I know, I thought the colon was after Star Wars, too)

I didn’t know where Respawn would go after Fallen Order. I mean, obviously, they had to make more of it, they made a pretty damn competent video game. Fallen Order has a certain panache for combat, the feeling of being one dude against an army never being more clear than the fourth time I get domed by a Stormtrooper with a rocket launcher because I was too busy parrying the melee guy he’s gonna murder in the backblast to remember to force push it away in time. Playing on Jedi Master actually made me feel the same way that Dark Souls did, a feat so rare in the space now that we’ve expanded the universe of Soulslike beyond all comprehension that it was actually delightful to eat shit to some of those bosses.

Mostly.

But the ending of that game gave me so much joy that I couldn’t really fathom a second entry, at first. Sure, the expansion of the post-Order 66 era of Star Wars is continuing under the new leadership, but it’s a fairly small era (17 years, just about, thanks to the whole “Luke and Leia born after Order 66” thing). How much room do they have to play here, really? And what could really be told now, beyond the continued adventures of Cal Kestis and BD-1?

Well…

They came up with something. It was an idea they had, all right. But maybe it should have stayed on the drawing board.

Okay, if we’re gonna talk about this, I have to get this off my chest first. I’m a Star Wars dweeb.My favorite Star Wars movie is the Last Jedi, because of how it muddies the waters and says ‘hey, the Jedi were an anachronism in their own time, and the world has moved on’ and ‘the lines of war are not so clean in the modern era’ and ‘fuck, that shot of the hyperdrive crash was so sick’. My favorite Star Wars game is Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Obsidian Entertainment)! I’m not like other girls!

And I have strong opinions about the Post-Revenge timeline, or more specifically, how many Jedi survive Order 66. For me, this comes down to a thing I find really interesting in media, and how the world works: How people find direction when they aren’t given any way to go.

Post-Revenge, the Empire is ascendant, having just won the fake war and successfully crushed every element of dissent in the galaxy under a swift military expansion that has given the evil man in power, George Bush Jr With A Skin Condition, unlimited power to rule the galaxy with an iron fist. The world is different now than under the Republic, and everywhere you turn, the Empire looms. What do you do to meaningfully oppose something you disagree with that is omnipresent and powerful beyond reckoning, besides oppose it and die trying to do anything at all?

Ultimately,There’s a lot of hay to be made here, but we’ll keep it simple so this doesn’t go crazy. The Jedi who survive Order 66 issue is pretty cut and dry, if you’re a movie purist: Yoda says that Luke will become the last Jedi in the galaxy when he dies in RotJ. It’s pretty simple! No more Jedi! Last of his kind, etc etc etc. But it’s been 30 years since that movie aired, and we’re a few hundred pieces of Star Wars media away from where it started, Legends canon or no. Some of them are even primary canon now, like Ahsoka Tahno, the erstwhile apprentice of Anakin Skywalker.

But how many Jedi are alive just in Fallen Order? And how many more make it to Jedi Survivor?

We have Cal Kestis, our ginger protagonist, a padawan who survived Order 66 with his Master’s lightsaber and hid for a decade to grow up, get found out and run around the galaxy fucking up. There’s Cere, the new master he finds along the way. There’s Trilla, the fallen apprentice of Cere, now Second Sister. There’s Ninth Sister, the big hulking one who you fight all of twice and survives the game. There’s a one-note fallen Master on Dathomir, who turns up out of nowhere and gets chumped. And there’s Merrin, the Dathomiri Nightsister who practices Magick (the k is important) using the Force, so she counts. And Vader comes in for a splashy send-off to the game in a brutally scary no-win fight and escape sequence in which you are carefully reminded why that guy is the scariest motherfucker in the galaxy. That makes 7.

A bit more than the Last Jedi, eh?

Ultimately, this is a victim of the fact that they’re making a video game. You can fight stormtroopers with cortosis shock batons all day, but if you’re playing a Jedi game, you want to cross sabers with another Jedi/Sith. It’s just the order of the day. It makes sense! The Jedi fights in Fallen Order are good! I dismissed the one-note Master but he actually had a good fight in a Dathomiri temple that felt good to go back to every time i got fucking dumpstered.

It makes things more fun to have a Jedi thrown into this time of lawlessness and oppression, where the strong are taking the chance to crush the weak with the Empire’s tacit blessing; raiders on the Outer Rim are bleeding the territories dry, often at the Empire’s behest. Throwing the tattered Jedi remnants into that world makes sense instinctively with the world they’ve made, and with the influences Star Wars draws on.

The average person knows by now that Star Wars is drawing equally from Westerns that influenced George Lucas, but also the samurai movies coming out of Japan that influenced those Westerns. A world of fallen morals and people barely surviving gets so much more textured when the Last Good Samurai enters the equation. Putting someone with an unflinching moral code in a bad position and telling them not to blink is fun storytelling! Watching them contort themselves into knots to survive it is so fun! We love that shit! Hell, I love that shit, as much as I’m complaining about it!

So, in Jedi Survivor, we have Cal, Cere returns, Ninth Sister finally dies, Merrin returns with gusto (great expanded role for her here, though it baffles me that she’s straight), the High Republic fallen Jedi Dagan Gera (more on him later, but he dies), Eno Cordova (was dead in the last game, but turns out he wasn’t, but then he dies again, so okay), and Bode Akuna, the final deuteragonist-to-antagonist of the game. And Darth Vader again, in a what feels like obligatory role where he fights Cere to a draw. So…7, again. But…

The Hidden Path debuts here (OKAY, LOOK, the Hidden Path debuts in Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Disney+ show. But I fucking hope you didn’t watch that. I did. And I regret every minute of it I spent watching it), an underground railroad for Jedi. It’s basically not referred to beyond that Cere and Eno are running a cell of it and that there are other cells, but it DOES mean that there are enough other Jedi who survived that they are actively forming whisper networks to get Jedi out of bad places and into the dilapidated ruins they were meant to be living in (it’s their native environment).

So we have 7 + (1±X, where X is the number of other Jedi in the galaxy, minus already-named characters) Jedi in Jedi Survivor. So basically, Palpatine is a fucking rube who didn’t even get his perfect felling blow right, I guess? So…not great, but fine. It’s…acceptable. The number even goes down significantly more in this one, because 5 of those original 7 in Fallen survive, but only 4 survive in Jedi Survivor! It’s a miracle, we killed 1 net Jedi! Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Palpatine, they’re clearly a fucking pain to make die for real.

Anyway. This is all besides how I feel about the actual plot of Jedi Survivor.

Yeah.

The plot…is kind of stupid. Cal Kestis is working with Saw Gerrera, the Partisans (faction of the Resistance, not yet the Rebellion, natch) figure who went on to use a weird tentacle monster to brainfuck Riz Ahmed in Rogue One and then died when they fired the first Death Star test shot at him. He’s stealing info, and his op goes bad and all his boys get murdered besides newfound buddy Bode Akuna, a jetpacking charming rogue with two pistols and a lot of chest. Cal goes and gets into some hijinks with his old buddy who used to fly his ship until everyone parted under mysterious circumstances a few years ago (after the end of Fallen Order, when they swore to find as many potential Jedi as they could together).

This is where the High Republic intrudes. Ancient ruins on the planet they’re on point towards a long-forgotten Jedi presence on this planet, with hints leading to another planet hidden in a nearby nebula that is considered unnavigable and a death trap. They learn that that planet was an abandoned Jedi temple in the High Republic, where Dagan Gera fought for a Jedi temple on a fount of Force power to be built until it was mysteriously raided by an unknown force that somehow also got to the lost planet. Cal wakes up Dagan Gera, who literally turns evil in front of you and runs off to complete his centuries-old evil plot to…go back to that planet and just live there?

A lot of this story is about the toll being A Survivor takes on you. Cal watches a bunch of really good buddies he totally knows a lot about die in the tutorial level on Coruscant, and he’s still got all his old hangups about surviving his master, being a Jedi in a galaxy ruled by the Sith, yadda yadda. He’s lost his drive to fight the Empire, having summarily abandoned working for Saw Gerrera in the interest of just taking a break, and into his lap falls the ultimate leave forever button in the form of this lost planet. He sees it and he can’t help but think “hey, I did my part, I sacrificed a lot for the cause, and I’m done”.

Bode Akuna agrees on this! He’s a tough guy and he’s got a tough daughter and a dead wife and he just doesn’t want to deal with any of this anymore. He wants to bring his daughter home and create a life with her away from all this Empire shit. It gets where it wants to pretty quick here: This planet Cal found is the ultimate chance to just say No to everything and give it all up. Just live a clean, simple life away from it all, forever.

It’s an interesting thing, sort of. Fallen Order is a game so concerned with survival, that Jedi Survivor basically has to be about finding any meaning at all in a galaxy ruled by evil. It feels like it’s actually got something to say here…but it doesn’t, really.

The turning point of the game is roughly ¾ of the way through, when Dagan Gera is defeated and you claim the mcguffin that will help you fly to Treasure Planet. But before that happens, you meet Cere and Eno and learn about the Hidden Path, the selflessness of the non-Jedi who are fighting to help them survive. And Cal, he’s a Jedi through and through, for better or worse. So he says to Bode, hey, we’re going to turn this planet into a safe haven for the Hidden Path, and we’ll bring everyone we can here to create a stronghold against the Empire.

This is when Bode (every time I think about his name, i think about (INSERT PHOTO OF BODE.JPG HERE) reveals that he is a former deep cover infiltrator Jedi who was undercover when Order 66 started, who avoided every bit of the Empire that chased him with stealth and subterfuge, until an Imperial Security Bureau he worked with outed him and he became their pet Jedi to do evil missions with. So he’s compromised every moral he has to survive, and will do anything to take his daughter back from the ISB and flee this hellish galaxy with her, so that she can be raised safe.

He’s the Jedi Survivor, not you (I literally said out loud to myself OH, HE’S THE JEDI SURVIVOR as he had his big heel turn speech).

This is when Bode kills Eno Cordova, takes the mcguffin, and flies there with his daughter after you have a big temper tantrum about it and unlock the power of the dark side for yourself a little bit. So you go hunt him down after some double mcguffin reacharound bullshit to get there, and you tell his daughter some nice platitudes and Merrin takes her out of the room so you can put him down like a dog.

The end of the game is him burning on a pyre while you, Merrin and his daughter watch.

Ultimately, it was a game that at least had some kind of a semblance of a full story ready from beginning to end. It had plenty of things to do (the collectible quotient was WAY higher this time, to its detriment) and the newly added stances, a crossguard lightsaber that is straight up just Kylo Ren and a blaster-and-saber stance that i spent 100% of the game playing once acquired, were great fun to play around with.

I just don’t think it was very good, is all. I don’t know what in god’s name the third Star Wars will be, but I know it will be fought with lightsabers and blasters.

(sorry. Sorry. I’m trying to delete it)

#Alexis Plays Games 2023

7 notes · View notes

justforbooks · 1 year

Photo

The actor Lance Reddick, who has died suddenly aged 60, played figures of authority with such panache that no matter how many times he was handed such roles, he never seemed typecast. He is best known on film for his part as Charon, the all-seeing fixer in the John Wick movie franchise, but his image was forged playing two ambitious high-level cops on television, Cedric Daniels in The Wire (2002-08) and Irvin Irving in Bosch (2014-21).

In each case he was contrasted with a main character: his anguish at the plight of Baltimore as portrayed in The Wire was expressed with internal restraint, opposed to the knee-jerk reactions of Dominic West’s chronic screw-up, McNulty. In Bosch, he was the politician tormented by Titus Welliver’s relentlessly uncompromising Harry Bosch.

Bosch author Michael Connelly said Reddick “took a character who was paper-thin in the books and made Irvin Irving”. He used his tall, angular frame to express authority; moving his body precisely, deliberately stiff and controlled, his face echoing that pose, covering up the machinations inside his head. Audiences watched as he took in, contemplated, and finally reacted, in a voice pitched with the deep tone of authority. His work in Bosch’s second season, where the death of his undercover cop son opens huge cracks in his closely controlled persona and makes him the centre of the show, is a lesson in transcending ensemble play.

Reddick’s highlights in variations of authority-figure themes came in the TV series Fringe (2008-13), running a unit of Homeland Security; Corporate (2018-20), as a CEO; and Intelligence (2014), where he was head of the CIA. On film he was head of the secret service in Angel Has Fallen (2019), and he played Albert Wesker, boss of the Raccoon Police special tactics unit, in the Netflix TV adaptation of the zombie video game Resident Evil (2022).

He was so good that the star of Wick, Keanu Reeves, given a day off from shooting for his birthday, told his girlfriend he wanted to visit the set, just to watch Reddick in action. Reeves then handed him a note thanking him for “what he brought to the character of Charon”.

Bosch also afforded Reddick the chance to play the piano, thoughtfully improvising at home as if to sort out his thoughts; this might be seen to reflect his own hard path to acting success. Reddick was born in Baltimore to Solomon, a lawyer, and Dorothy (nee Gee), a teacher. His musical talent was apparent at Friends School of Baltimore, and he went on to study at the city’s Peabody Institute, a secondary school specialising in the performing arts. He took a degree in composition at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and moved to Boston, intending, in his words, to become a rock star.

But his style of music, influenced by Miles Davis and Sting, never fitted a rock star template, and having married his college sweetheart, Suzanne Louis, in 1986, and had two children, he found himself working odd jobs, including as a singing waiter on a riverboat. Crucially, on a night shift at a newspaper delivery depot, he injured his back shifting bundles of papers. Forced to lie in bed, he contemplated how he could support his family, and decided to turn to acting, where he noticed there were more auditions available.

He wound up gaining a master of fine arts degree at Yale Drama School in 1994, and two years later landed his first television role, on New York Undercover; he debuted on-screen in 1998’s ill-judged modern-set Great Expectations.

In 2000 he was cast in David Simon’s The Corner, which led to his part on The Wire, while he also attracted attention with a memorable role as an undercover police officer gone bad in the prison drama Oz (2000-01). Recurring parts in CSI:Miami (2005-06) and Lost (2008-09) followed, and he played James Baldwin in the 2004 movie Brother to Brother. He was the voice of the Falcon in the animated Avengers (2012), and of the villain Ras Al Ghul in Beware the Batman (2013), as well as voicing Commander Zavala in the Destiny video game series, and Sylens in Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) and Horizon Forbidden West (2022).

Along the way he finally got to be a rock star, playing a cop in the music video of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s ’03 Bonnie & Clyde. In 2007 he released an album of his own music, Contemplations and Remembrances.

John Wick 4 has just been released, and he also leaves behind a store of work that has yet to be seen. Reddick will appear in a remake of White Men Can’t Jump; as Charon in a Wick spin-off, Ballerina; in the Shirley Chisholm biopic, Shirley, and as Capt Blakely in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. He also voiced the ultimate authority figure, Zeus, in Percy Jackson and the Olympians for Disney+.

Reddick is survived by his second wife, Stephanie (nee Day), whom he married in 2011, and the two children, Yvonne and Christopher, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.

🔔 Lance Solomon Reddick, actor, born 7 June 1962; died 17 March 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Lance Solomon Reddick #in memoriam

28 notes · View notes

taminoarticles · 2 years

Text

— Tamino for British GQ Style, Issue 30 / Spring/Summer 2020 (x)

The Romanticist

Merging Arabic sounds with western sensibilities, and high-fashion kudos with thrift-store panache, Belgian singer Tamino is a pop star for our times

Photography Casper Kofi Styling Ben Schofield Text Owen Myers 12 July 2020

If there was a ranking of the pop and rock world’s most eccentric backstage rituals, Tamino’s live performance prep would be up there with the greats. Yup ranking alongside Keith Richards’ requisite pre- show shepherd’s pie, Leonard Cohen’s reverent Latin prayer and the tendency of Madonna, at the peak of her Ashtanga yoga years, to arch her back and let her yoni feel the breeze. Before he walks onstage, Tamino pays specific attention to one standout feature in a body full of them. Well, two, really – the big, bushy eyebrows which hover above his eyes like sentient exotic caterpillars. ‘I brush them!’ he says with a laugh. ‘Before a show I tend to do that, with a brush my friend bought for me.’ Like a toothbrush? ‘Yeah!’

On a grey December day, the artist born Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad is sitting in the corner of a central London hotel bar which doubles as architectural selfie-bait. A vaguely east Asian interior garden has been constructed, with latticed trellis on the walls, dangling dreamcatchers and glass boxes filled with tufts of moss which bulge like an aerial view of a cartoon forest. The synthetic environment feels an odd match for the deeply felt, hypnotic music that the Belgian-Egyptian Tamino makes, a merging of Arabic music traditions and western baroque pop and indie which his quavering falsetto can elevate into moments of transcendence. At its majestic peak, Tamino’s singing voice flits between semitones seemingly effortlessly, taking cues from the classic vocal ornamentalists of the Middle East. Yet it also can recall the raw emotive heights of Jeff Buckley.

In Antwerp, where Tamino lives with his girlfriend of three years, his music is a cornerstone of pop radio. He was nominated for five awards at the country’s MIA Awards (the Belgian Grammys) for his rhapsodic debut album, Amir, which was released in 2018 and featured contributions from the Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood. But whether he’s headlining a stadium in his home country or playing to a couple of hundred fans in Manchester, as he did earlier this week, Tamino’s fans are uniformly devoted. He’s got used to hearing their stories of loss, mourning and survival, a communion inspired by the imagistic poetry that his music creates out of life’s extreme joys and sorrows. ‘Maybe because I’m sharing a lot during the concert, they feel like they can share a lot when they speak to me,’ he says.

At a sold-out show at London’s Scala last night, one thoughtful fan presented Tamino with a play of the dialogues between Hades and Persephone, a reference to Tamino’s aching ballad Persephone. The song, an abstracted retelling of the Greek god of the underworld’s union with his abducted bride over a minimal guitar line and sumptuous strings, evokes the knotty intricacies of a modern destructive relationship. ‘You’ve come to love/What you always will fear,’ Tamino intones in moody low vocals, before flipping into falsetto runs that soar above textural vocal layers. A couple of weeks after releasing the song and video in August 2018, Tamino received a DM from another artist fluent in infusing her music with mythos: Lana Del Rey. ‘Your voice is beautiful,’ she wrote. ‘Also, my sister has a photo book called Persephone.’

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Tamino says flatly. ‘I had to double check ten times. Is this her?’ Del Rey invited Tamino to support her at a special show at Dublin’s beautiful Malahide Castle last June, where he performed at golden hour as the sun cast a glow over an audience of 20,000. ‘She’s very down to earth and grounded,’ Tamino says. ‘She was friendly and warm to everyone in the backstage area. She was too kind, really.’ Tamino was barely out of nappies when he first sung into a microphone. At age three, he travelled with his family to Cairo to visit his grandfather, the famous Egyptian singer and actor Muharram Fouad. ‘It was just for fun!’ Tamino says of his debut on the mic. ‘But it was at his studio, so it was really interesting.’ Fouad died when Tamino was just five years old, but as a young music fan with an omnivorous appetite for sounds, he got to know his late relative through his many cassette recordings, listening to Fouad’s music alongside Nirvana, Tom Waits and The Beatles.

Tamino is a student of Middle Eastern music, and enthusiastically launches into a potted history of the golden age of Arab song, which produced stars like the singer and multi- instrumentalist Abdel Halim Hafez, and Umm Kulthum, who was known as ‘The Voice of Egypt’. ‘Umm Kulthum’s songs would be, like, an hour,’ Tamino says. ‘She would sing two or three songs, and that would be a full concert. [My grandfather Fouad] has beautiful music, but he was making a more popularised version of that, with songs of six minutes.’ Fouad’svocal modulations snuck into his grandson’s own singing style in a kind of cross- generational musical osmosis – the Arabic quarter- notes which Tamino sings today add subtle complexity to his more pop-leaning songs, and foreground the Middle Eastern themes of a song like his devotional ballad Habibi. When recording his debut album, Amir, Tamino recreated the Firka – the Arabic orchestra from the golden age – with the Brussels-based instrumental ensemble Nagham Zikrayat, an orchestra made up of Arabic refugees. Like a traditional Firka, the ensemble follows the pattern of Tamino’s voice to intuit what they will play, rather than rigidly sticking to the printed score in front of them.

The richness of Middle Eastern and Sufi musical traditions has been key to the development of western music. Jeff Buckley once said the devotional Islamic music of Pakistani legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan saved his life, and the music of the Armenian- American heavy metal band System Of A Down features Middle Eastern vocal lines and ouds, the 11-stringed Arabic instruments (Armenia is not in the Middle East, but shares many musical traditions with the region). The Lebanese-American surf-rock pioneer Dick Dale’s use of Middle Eastern music scales went on to inspire The Beach Boys. Dale’s propulsive reinterpretation of the Arabic folk song Misirlou, played with an electric guitar instead of the oud, gave rise to one of western cinema’s most iconic coalitions of music and sound when Quentin Tarantino used it in the opening of Pulp Fiction. Other Western artists have been less scrupulous. In the late Nineties, the canonical hip-hop producer Timbaland often relied on uncredited samples of popular Middle Eastern sounds to create his genre-expanding, futurist hip-hop and R&B. The opening strings on Aaliyah’s mega- hit More Than A Woman sample Alouli Ansa , a classic by the Syrian diva Mayada El Hennawy, and Timbaland’s iconic beat for Jay-Z, Big Pimpin’, lifted a beautiful melody by Abdel Halim Hafez. As the writer Hassan Ghanny notes in a Medium article, ‘It was the Middle East which underpinned all of these songs, and the labour of Levantine and Arab musicians of years past which helped line Timbaland’s pockets.’

Given Tamino’s ownership of his musical lineage against a background of Western erasure – he also often plays his grandfather’s Resonator guitar onstage – the singer has become a symbol of proud Arabic identity. ‘It is a blessing, because it’s not what I set out to be,’ he says. ‘I love Arabic music and I’m proud of my roots, so naturally they found their way into my music.’ Last year he played concerts in Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey, and he’s aiming to play in Lebanon this year; he tells me that I ‘have to’ visit Beirut, one of his favourite cities.

Even so, the western media’s focus on his identity has given Tamino pause. ‘I wonder whether it’s a good or a bad thing,’ he says, suddenly pensive. ‘Maybe it’s not that good if it becomes the only focus. It can be used in a different way, which is kind of as the antidote to all the bad news we’re hearing of [Arab] regions. And then using that as, “Look, this is some good news!” I don’t want that to be the only reason why I’m invited on certain platforms. I don’t want people to go, “I don’t really like his music, but it’s important’” – he grimaces – “it’s important to show it.’” There’s something patronising about the idea that he would be used as to fulfil a diversity quota. ‘It’s true,’ he says emphatically. ‘Absolutely.’

As he sits in the bar, sipping bottled water as blissy house music plays, Tamino’s hair falls in perfectly unkempt Timothée Chalamet waves. He wears a plain black T-shirt with high-waisted dark grey Ann Demeulemeester trousers, which seem to be made from some kind of treated wool. I ask to touch the fabric, and they may be the softest trousers I have ever felt: the Platonic ideal of sunday-afternoon dressing. ‘It’s really good fabric,’ he says. ‘I love the flowyness.’

Tamino’s relationship with Ann Demeulemeester started back in 2017, when he was starting to get booked for European festivals on the back of his enchanting early singles Habibi and Cigar .Tamino’s thrift-store togs had worked fine for his early performances on BBC Radio 1 and for talent contests in Belgium (he won radio station Studio Brussel’s 2017 talent competition), but he decided that they wouldn’t cut it on bigger stages. ‘I didn’t want to have the stress of like, “Ahhh, I don’t have anything to wear for this important concert,’” he says. ‘That’s when we approached them.’

A six-foot 19-year old with a jawline that could slice butter? Demeulemeester promptly kitted Tamino out in their autumn/winter line. Helping grease the wheels was the fact that Tamino’smum is friends with a few of the female designers at the label – and they’ve known the singer since he was a child. ‘The head designer, Sébastien [Meunier] is really good,’ Tamino says. ‘I think what they’re doing is so cool. Ann has left the company but I think they’re continuing her legacy in such a beautiful way.’

What does he like about Demeulemeester’s clothes? He pauses for a moment, furrowing those hedge-like eyebrows. ‘I can only say that when I wear the clothes I feel fully like myself,’ he says. ‘I find it really important just to go about my day really feeling at ease, and definitely when I’m on stage. I’ve felt it before when I’ve gone on stage and I wasn’t really feeling what I was wearing. I didn’t like it.’

The wider fashion world has been quick to follow. Tamino starred in the Missoni menswear SS19 campaign (Gisele was his womenswear counterpart) and spent his 21st birthday shooting in New York with photographer Harley Weir. ‘I don’t have ambitions in [modelling],’ he says. ‘But the things that have happened naturally in the fashion world, I do appreciate them. I love to go to fashion shows. I go to Ann, and Yohji Yamamoto as well. That’s also one of my favourites. It’s crazy – you’re wearing art.’

Yet Tamino’s most memorable look came from wearing hardly anything at all. In the video for his 2018 single Tummy, he appears as a nearly nude pharaoh swarmed by followers, wearing a chest plate and liquid eye make-up styled like the Eye of Horus, the Ancient Egyptian symbol of royalty and protection. Oh, and he’s covered in gold body paint which took 90 minutes to apply to every crease and crevice of his skin. He looks like a cross between Rameses II, a living-statue busker, and a Quality Street wrapper. ‘I find it a very funny image,’ he says. ‘When you talk about Egypt, it’s logical that people [think of] ancient images – the Pyramids, the pharaohs. Of course, that’s not what Egypt is today.’ The aim of the video was, in part, to poke fun at lazy stereotypes of Egyptian culture.

Amidst Tummy’s figurative lyrics of bugs, angels and ‘flying in the sky like cupid’, the song is also unapologetically about sex, which is appropriate given that, in the video, his bare flesh is smothered by anonymous hands in a kind of orgiastic ecstasy. ‘It’s referring to the return to the animalistic when you’re involved in a sexual act,’ he says, with a shy smile creeping onto his face. Sounds fun! ‘Yeah, it is,’ he says, before laughing. ‘You lose all your pride, all your dignity in a way, because you’re not really controlling human consciousness.’

Yet beyond bodily pleasures, the song taps into feelings of inadequacy that might be relatable for any listener who’s felt undeserving of their partner or like an imposter at work. ‘It’s like you must [...]/ Have a lust/For making something of me,’ he sings as orchestration swells. ‘Sometimes you feel like you’re not worth certain gifts you’ve been given,’ he says. ‘And that could be anything, you know?’ It’s a startlingly humble pronouncement from a star on the rise, an admission of self-doubt that is bred out of most musicians in media training and cautioned against by coddling publicists. How often does that feeling rear its head? ‘It’s not ever gone and it’s not always present,’ he says.

Tamino’s struggles are expressed even more plainly in the ominous ballad Indigo Night , where rippling strings evoke the turmoil of a mind that won’t quieten. In a music video inspired by the mind-bending surrealism of Egypt’s 1940s Art et Liberté movement, he sings with desperation: ‘Why can’t I sing along with some feeling, or some meaning?/It feels like I’ve always been blind.’ He wrote the song in a period of personal upheaval, when he moved from the quiet city of Antwerp to the relative bustle of Amsterdam, at the age of 17, to study at Amsterdam Royal Conservatory, one of Europe’s most prestigious musical colleges.

‘For me it’s a song about awakening,’ he says. ‘I had moved, and for me it was a big, big step. I was not at ease and feeling a bit apathetic. A bit indifferent to everything that was happening.’ He’s since learned coping mechanisms for low points. Meditation is helping him feel more at ease in his skin; he starts each day by listening to Waking Up , the mindfulness app from the neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris. And he often returns to his favourite book, the Lebanese- American philosopher Kahlil Gibran’s collection of prose-poems, The Prophet. ‘There’s one [passage] that’s been really important to me,’ he says. ‘It’s like that you show your love of life through work: “work is visible love”. I think that’s really beautiful.’

Before setting off on a US tour this spring, Tamino has a couple of months of downtime in Antwerp. He recently bought a house in a multicultural area of the city, where he lives with his girlfriend, and he’s continuing to study Arabic, with the help of the Duolingo app. ‘Every time I do something that brings me closer to this culture, I feel good,’ he says. ‘It feels like a reconnection.’ He’s also working on new music as well as continuing to learn the oud, which he’s been studying with the help of a Syrian teacher in Antwerp. ‘It’s actually the ancestor of the guitar,’ he notes of the oud. ‘It’s beautiful.’ It can feel today like international relationships between cultures are especially fractious, when politicians across the world run on campaigns to strengthen borders and put up walls. The cross-cultural conversation embedded in Tamino’s music may not solve the problems of an increasingly divided world, but it might offer a roadmap of how music can inspire honest and respectful cultural exchange. But that’s for Tamino’s audience and critics to decide. His own goals are rather more humble. ‘Fame is not an ambition of mine,’ he says. ‘But just to be able to do this, and play in venues all over the world, and meet people...’ he trails off, smiling. ‘I think it won’t get better than that.’

#tamino #tamino amir #gq style #article #interview #english #2020 #with photoshoot #original text #you'll see everyone credit this photoshoot as 2019 though that's probably when it was actually posted #screenshots from vk #read via link

62 notes · View notes

vs120shound · 1 year

Text

TOP-25 ALL-TIME SMOKING FETISH MODELS LIST | HONORABLE MENTION

NOTE: Supposed to be 25 names. Off by 2, second added on January 3, 2023. "My bad!" Easily could have had another 100 more but what be the purpose of such a long list? Would diminish the value of earning a spot on a supposed selective list of high distinction. Would have to change it from "honorable mention" to ... "a nice list of many hot SF models and SF entrepreneurs." I vetoed that. Some girls on this list have accompanying photos; most do not. Can argue that the quality of this endeavor would have increased dramatically if each smoker had a photo. We can argue the merits of this, and I would not submit much pushback. It is what it is, of course. You appreciate this, as is, or you do not. Either is fine. It's for you. Cannot please everyone on the Internet (can you?). I know some of you will like, a few even will really like (dare I say re-blog!?!).

SECOND NOTE: The section for smoking entrepreneurs, could have been called "hot smokers on social media." Some of these selections have multiple handles. Tried to be as accurate and consistent as possible here.

I hope you enjoy and like many of these hot smoking young women.

The goal for the release of the List of the Top-25 is for later on January 1, 2023 but could hold for a day or be delayed further. If it is not available on January 2, 2023, will advise on this blog. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

--vs120shound producer

THE LIST:

SMOKING SWEETIES (SPAIN)

Mery

Annie

SPECIALIZED VIDEOS (MICHIGAN, U.S.A.)

Nichole

COLIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY (OKLAHOMA, U.S.A.)

Maddy

USA SMOKERS (ARIZONA, U.S.A.)

Kristi

Bree

TWINKLES LITTLE STARS (TLS)/LIGHT MY FIRE/SMOKING SWEETHEARTS (KENTUCKY, U.S.A.)

Lynn (Carrie)

Sassy (Shauna)

Tiffany

Sarah

Krystal

SMOKING-MODELS (U.K.)

Jenna J

Charley Lynn

Jenna Hoskins

Sasha Kane

Sasha Jo

Sian Hamshaw

Laura (wife of web-producer James)

SMOKING FETISH ENTREPRENEURS

Krystle_Puddinforlife

Aliahsmokesx

Madelyn Sultri (River Princess/Smoking Princess OF)

Ali (Smokingbabygirl)

Sweet Maria

Justnitnee2

AmberSmokes2

Josee (real_smokinggirl)

NICOTINE LADIES

Annabelle

NOTE: Annabelle in my Top-10 all-time if more were available. Through my exhaustive searches, I have found two videos and two photos. Simply not enough volume for her to be included, this my addition of her into my Honorable Mention list.

From Smoking Sweeties: Mery (above and to the right) and Annie (below)

Kristi, from USA Smokers

Charlee Lynn, from Smoking-Models

Josee (real_smokinggirl)

Justnitnee2, from the Dallas, TX area

NOTE: Some of these women have quit smoking. Some of the videos that will accompany The List of the Top-25 (when released soon) and some of the photos are from early this century. Smoking is injurious to a smoker's health. Fact. It is their choice, of their free will or through coercion from family or friends, to quit the habit. For those who have succeeded, the blog congratulates them. Point of this exercise, this list, the SF movement is to appreciate the beauty, sexiness and style of some of these women when they were habitual cigarette smokers. It's all good! Thank you for your support, patience and appreciation for my "eye" for smoking beauty, elegance and panache.

#SF #Hot women who love smoking cigarettes #Smoking #Top-25 all-time favorite SF models Honorable Mention

21 notes · View notes

dollarbin · 4 months

Text

Dollar Bin #29:

Stevie Nick's Bella Donna

Stevie Nicks got zero favors from the patriarchal press or culture in the late 80's and early 90's. Much like Yoko Ono, she was the butt of sexist jokes and unfair critique that their male peers were never subjected to.

Let's compare Nicks and Stephen Tyler: both came of age in the mid-seventies; both fronted huge rock bands and both almost always appeared on stage without an instrument (even though they were hugely successful songwriters); both had major drug problems and overcame them; both were good looking young people who, unlike me, aged (seriously, people speak of me, always in hushed tones: how does he stay so young, they ask. Who else carries their paunch and bald spot with such panache?). Both had a thing for waiving silks around on stage. We could go on all day...

But did they get equal treatment? Hell no. Tyler was a hero for surviving drugs; I grew up cackling about the legendary destruction of Nick's nose from coke. Tyler became even more of a sex symbol as he aged and he dominated MTV in the late 80s and early 90s; Nicks, like Linda Ronstadt, was judged by one and all the moment she no longer looked 22, and Nicks couldn't get on MTV after 86 until Beyonce borrowed her iconic riff from Edge of Seventeen and insisted she show up to take credit:

youtube

(That's Nicks with the guitar in the opening moments of this ridiculous and joyful video, showing us that, of course, she can play instruments: how else could she have written a few of the most popular songs of all time?)

But let's stop comparing Nicks and Tyler and never bring up Aerosmith in this blog again: after all, Nicks is a transcendent song writer and singer while Stephen Tyler occupies the rarrified air of pure suckiness inhabited by all famous rock stars named Stephen.

And that brings us to Nicks's debut solo album, Bella Donna. First off, good luck finding this record in a dollar bin: much like her friend Tom Petty, Nicks is rightfully revered by her fans, many of whom were not around to buy her first records when they came out. Plus, my almost famous niece tells me that some dude drank some juice while on a skateboard a few years back with Nicks's Dreams as the soundtrack and, in doing so, destroyed the internet. That previous sentence tells me the internet and people are dumb. Don't go and google the guy on the skateboard; rather check out my niece!

youtube

Sweet song huh? Why isn't it destroying the internet instead?

Anyway, apparently the guy on the skateboard, and junk like that, are why busted up copies of Rumors went from dollar bin cloggers to $25 a pop in the last few years. I hope Stevie enjoyed and benefited from the slight renaissance of interest in her work; and, if you don't already own a copy of Bella Donna, know that some teenager without a working record player probably beat you to it.

Which is all a bummer, because Bella Donna deserves your full respect and attention. It's a great, and I think still largely overlooked, testament to her singing, songwriting and entire vibe.

The record opens with the title track, a complex and extended slow piece of soulful searching which summons up the opening gesture pioneered by The Band a decade earlier with Tears of Rage. Nicks is famous for her pop singles, but that genre is really the business of her bandmate Christie McVie; Nicks is a composer of songs, not hits.

youtube

You can also hear right off the bat in Bella Donna that Nicks has assembled the right band. Imagine being in position to borrow Benmont Tench from the Heartbreakers, Roy Bittan from Bruuuuce and Waddy Watchel from Linda Ronstadt and Warren Zevon. Tench had no real business joining in - TP and the Heartbreakers were at the height of their fame and were touring nonstop - but he somehow found the time to step right in and lead the whole band. The other two dudes were conveniently available, at least for the moment. Bruuuuuuce was forever firing the E Street Band and was gearing up to make Nebraska on his own, and Linda was starting to move away from pop music for the first of many times; soon she'd be singing light opera with a young Kevin Kline.

Bella Donna is held together, however, not by the men but by the women. Nicks created the whole record through 2+ years of work with Sharon Celani and her soon-to-be sister-in-law Lori Perry. Every song features all three of them shimmering and gliding about one another and Nicks has been singing with the two women - and putting their photos alongside her on her records - ever since. Here's the way Nicks described their work and relationship to "The Last DJ" himself, Jim Ladd, a guy I listened to a lot as a kid:

Sharon [Celani] and Lori [Perry-Nicks] and I have a special thing that we have ~ that we have perfected ~- and we have perfected it by sitting around the piano... I'm not going to go sing on-stage alone. I don't want to. I want to be able to walk away and let them take it. Because I ~ there is nothing in the world that I would rather hear than beautiful singing. And so I have worked to get a sound that is not like anybody else. That is really beautiful, that is strong and that is like dedicated and devoted.

Jim Ladd just passed away; I hope he had Petty's mediocre album about him playing at full blast as he faded. As an LA kid I tuned into Ladd every night in late middle school and early high school, beginning to give up on him only when I decided that Roger Waters, Jim's favorite artist by far, was the problem with all things Pink Floyd from Animals onward. I had a few pretty sharp ideas as a kid!

I remember vividly the very last time I listened to Ladd: I was at the mall for some reason, in the parking lot, and Ladd had his hands on an advanced copy of U2's Zooropa. Ladd played us all Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car, a song which he'd chosen by himself at random - the album was so new he hadn't had time to listen to it yet. Ladd thought the dull and overblown track was a triumph; he'd lose his head on occasion. I disagreed. And so we parted ways. Rest in peace Jim. But I digress!

Every song on Bella Donna shows careful polish and intention. A few tracks, like the instantly hummable, McVie inspired Think About It and the Waylon Jennings inspired Leather and Lace, are tracks Nicks had held onto all through Fleetwood's golden era; this was a record she'd built up to over years.

Indeed, Nicks could have easily turned Bella Donna into a defiant double album, an All-Things-Must-Pass-level declaration that the Mac held her back. Bella Donna contains zero filler and several of the songs left off the record are a big deal. Just take a listen to Gold and Braid, an outtake that other artists would have released as the first single; there's a studio take but it's a bit rough. Listen instead to the pulsating, hip swinging live greatness from the brief tour that followed the record:

youtube

Jimmie Iovine, Nicks' producer and partner at the time, made a few key contributions to the record. And he seems to have gotten in the way a bit.

Yes, he connected Nicks to Tom Petty and hand delivered the album's substitute single in place of Gold and Braid, Petty's Stop Dragging My Heart Around. The song is great, sure, but it's the only song Nicks didn't write on the record and it stands apart sonically from everything else, all of which led to the troubling myth about Nicks from her Fleetwood work - that she was best as a karaoke/girl singer, good at showing up for nothing but the vocal polish long after the male musicians had done writing, playing and heavy lifting - following her into the birth of her solo career. The truth is far different: Nicks conceived all of Bella Donna on her own. Everything, that is, except the Petty track.

Iovine pushed Stop Dragging My Heart Around on Nicks specifically because he felt the album lacked a single. But take a fresh listen to the track alongside Gold and Braid, and consider my argument that the record would have been even bolder and better with Nick's track remaining in place instead of Petty's inclusion.

youtube

Don't get me wrong, Iovine was right to bring Nicks into Stop Dragging My Heart Around. Stevie sings with TP better than any other human on the planet could have. But Dragging belongs, alongside Petty and Nick's incomparable Insider, on Hard Promises.

The craziest thing of all is that Iovine thought Bella Donna lacked a single to begin with. After all, Edge of Seventeen is on this record. The song is pretty ubiquitous: I feel like I've heard its riff and chorus at every sporting event I've ever been to. Obviously, I haven't, but it's one of those songs that its hard to imagine the world without.

And let's close this out with her live performance of that song from her far too brief tour in 82. Find me a more powerful and soulful performance by any white person. All of Nick's male peers, from Lindsey Buckingham to Van Morrison to Neil Young to Petty himself - would have fallen flat on their face had they tried to do anything this complicated, athletic and surging on stage at that point (make that ever). Stephen Stills would have somehow managed to fall on his face and ass simultaneously.

youtube

OOO Baby. Oooo Baby. OOOOO.

And so, as this first partial year in the Dollar Bin rolls towards closure, may all praise raineth down upon Stevie.

My record melting/Neil Young questioning, big deal friend Greg points out that Nicks, Stephen Tyler and Stephen Stills have yet another thing in common: they all practically have the same first name!

And so let me amend my earlier, definitive statement regarding the suckiness of musicians with that moniker (and redeem the unintentionally slighted Stevie Wonder and Cat Stevens in the process) with a bumper sticker ready (so long as your car is WIDE LOAD width) pronouncement: The Dollar Bin hereby proclaims that all WHITE MALE musicians with FIRST names derived from Steve/Stephen, (except, most of the time time, Steve Earle..) suck.

Here's looking at you Steve Miller! My curses upon thee Steve Vai!

#Youtube #stevie nicks #tom petty #the heartbreakers #stephen stills still sucks #so does stephen tyler

4 notes · View notes