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notasapleasure · 2 years

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Okokok finally watched all of the latest SW series (no money to mouse house. I am not proud I watched it but my Rogue One and SW Legends feels won out, plus it's 'good SW' that all my RL friends watched and expect me to have an opinion on).

I'm not after drama, I've got mutuals who love this show and those who won't watch it, and those who tried it and didn't like it. But it was good enough to have been simmering in my brain, and bad enough to have been simmering for other reasons, so my thoughts are below the cut.

The bad first

Ep 01 going hard on the 'Cassian is a womaniser' lines but also being all tell and no show. Weird. Unpleasant. Unnecessary. Do they think they need to do this to get the dudebros interested?? Oh haha he tells all the ladies he's a poor orphan from Kenari so much for the cover story about Fest...

Ep 08 and Cassian just...pissing off to do drugs and laze about on some resort planet?? As a guy called...Keef?? Is this a joke?

Connected to prev: Diego is amazing. He's a fantastic actor and I'm so glad he was involved in producing. But Cassian is meant to be late teens/early twenties here right? Maybe the Keef stuff works better for a younger guy, but that's the plot point that for me just broke down my suspension of disbelief of Diego playing someone half his age. Especially coming off his leaving conversation with Maarva - it felt like a younger man's argument.

I think this comes from me not feeling they set him up properly in eps 01 and 02. He and Maarva already *seem* so connected with rebelliousness/fighting the Empire. Clem was killed by them, Cassian steals stuff from them (that it's really hard to steal) and the poisoning of Kenari is caused by them. But it feels like the show writers have to kind of....row back his obvious alignment with the rebellion a couple of episodes in? And I don't think they ever sell Cassian's apathy well enough. It's like the womanising: there's a lot of telling us stuff that seems at odds with what we're actually shown and it feels clumsy.

Connected to prev: Bix. I'm so sorry. I never warmed to you even a bit. You weren't given much personality beyond 'Cassian's ex'. Yet there is zero chemistry between Bix and Cass. There is more between Cassian and Brasso than Cassian and Bix (not just My Fannish Opinion™️, husband agrees). Bix didn't have to have romantic history with Cassian in order for any of this to work. Timm might have shopped him for any reason, why was jealousy the only thing the writers could come up with? Again, especially so early in the series when it felt like the characters' dynamics hadn't really been established. Were we meant to think there was still a spark between Cassian and Bix? I never once saw it. And if not, there was a kind of resentful exasperation between them that was never explained. But then, the decision to show Bix going to Timm's and being so upset by his death leans more in the direction of her really caring for Timm. It just all felt a bit muddled and I'm not saying it *couldn't* make sense, just that the emotional investment was hard to find in the first couple of episodes. And if Bix had just been another friend/contact of Cassian's (like Brasso and Nurch and Pegla (have I got their names right?)) what would have been the problem?

I'm not sure how I feel about the Kenari stuff. I'm not sure what it adds to Cassian's story - beyond a kind of...'indigenous savage' flavour and a missing sister - that he couldn't have had from being an orphan picked up from Fest or any other planet. At least in regards to how the show used it. The idea of Imperial genocide was better encapsulated by the aliens whose screams Bix was tortured with, and the environmental damage of Imperial expansion came up in the prison escape too. Maybe season 2 will get into it more, but I also have lingering questions about Cassian's relationship with Maarva and Clem - they saved him, yes, and loved him, but the show did flirt with the parallel of 'abduction' by Luthen and the lack of autonomy and choice for Cassian under both sets of circumstances. Also his name - did he choose to become Cassian, son of Clem Andor? Or was it a name he was called before they understood each other, when Kassa was misheard?

Some of the usual dissonance of minorities playing Imperial officers/suspicions raised by SW and Disney doing scattergun diverse casting - a lot of black characters getting killed where white characters live, and MAJOR side-eye for the son of the guy called Salman being the bomb-maker (at least thank fuck they didn't make it a suicide attack). Probably made me cringe extra bc I'm still reeling from Wednesday having a woman say to a black man 'men like you have no idea what it feels like to not be believed'...

The good

AH, MY EXPANDED UNIVERSE <333

The cultures and aliens (could have done with a few more of those tbh though) and costumes and the lived in feeling of the universe was so good. What happens to old droids? Who's reusing obsolete tech? What do the natural wonders of such a vast galaxy mean to the people who witness them?

So many characters I LOVED. Maarva, Mon, Vel, even Luthen, Nemik, Gorn, Kino, Brasso, and honestly Dedra is a fantastic villain too, lots of fun to watch.

Showing the diversity of the kind of people who rebel and the diversity of reasons why people get involved in the fight, and leaning into the struggle to actually bring them together into a coherent kind of rebellion. Saw was a frustrating delight - and all Luthen's scheming and cynicism and repeated reminders to various parties that it's too late to back out, his ruthlessness and his self-awareness were excellent and Stellan Skarsgaard did a fantastic job.

The running theme taking Leia's line in ANH: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." The idea that it is Luthen's doing, to push the Empire into revealing itself as a fascist state by giving it the barest excuse to crack down hard on people.

Generally the depiction of the Empire and the kind of people it attracts, and the obvious ways in which it fosters an environment that is at odds with the order it claims to uphold - Soviet and bureaucratic and reliant on suspicion, mistrust, backstabbing and ambition. Even if Dedra's one of the smart ones, she's not immune to the style of play.

For the first time since Rogue One I had a sharp feeling of 'give me the EU books about this' when it turned out Mon and Vel are cousins. I want to know about their youth on Chandrila and how they came to the Rebellion.

Space lesbians! Connected to prev, what was it like for Vel growing up with Chandrilan customs as a wlw? (Incidentally, Cinta seems very badass but I hope S2 fleshes her out a bit - as she is, I realised her personality is actually more what I expected for Cassian...)

The sub plots worked really well - the raid on Aldhani and the prison break. Really effective case studies of how accurate Cassian's thesis is (that they don't care enough about the people they're oppressing to notice rebellion fomenting and think that fear is all it will take to crush it).

Speaking of, the finale on Ferrix was great. Ferrix as a whole was a brilliant setting - the culture surrounding forging and making, the funerary customs and the sense of community (and unionism, workers supporting one another) really sets it against the Empire and the forced labour we see, and the repeated, disdainful ways imperials talk about local cultures and customs. The finale was about Ferrix and Maarva - everyone was so focussed on Cassian that they forgot about the bigger picture and about everyone else on Ferrix, who might well have been annoyed at what Cassian brought down on them, but who, when it comes to it, were more angry at the Empire than him.

Cassian is an actual lunatic. Total madman. Quietly INSANE. I do love him sm, despite the jarring details mentioned above. The way he's still trying to get hold of the computer as the forge is literally falling down round his and Luthen's ears, the way he and Melshi end up surviving because they're both hot-headed, impulsive idiots. The relentlessness that we saw in Rogue One.

Ah, so many Jyn parallels! Maarva's holo image speaking about rebellion/Galen's holo telling Jyn he always loved her as he lays out the flaw in the Death Star. The haunted, broken look of a person who still can't stop themselves from getting involved in resistance once they see the opportunity for it and, once they do, revealing their talent for leadership and bringing out the best in others.

(smh still can't believe Cassian gets this gorgeous, complex TV series and Jyn got the world's worst YA novel)

tl;dr

Overall GOOD, not mind-blowingly amazing like some people have said. People who don't trust Disney to tell this kind of story are, I think, right to be distrustful - there's a lot of good in this but the blind spots are where you'd expect them and there are lazy shorthands at work.

Nevertheless, as Star Wars, it's a welcome journey into the wider universe and fleshes out the context for rebellion really well.

Cassian's character suffers a bit for the sake of the narrative they wanted to drive, but for the most part that's ok because the narrative and the themes are coherent and well done. Where it doesn't work so well I'll just ignore it :) and I'm sure fandom has ways of fixing the things I had reservations on (though finding the right corner of the SW fandom is the challenge. Where my Cassian/Brasso shippers at, eh?)

Maybe most importantly of all, it made me want to watch Rogue One and the OT again.

#and/or #and0r #are both tags i'm gonna use though i'll also have to go #andor for ts #basically i'm trying to not land this in the show tags because i don't want discourse #but it's inevitable it will show up in searches #hence reblogs off #polite comments welcome - especially from cassian/brasso shippers. you must exist people please?#delusions of grandeur #star wars for ts

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pynkhues · 3 years

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Hi! It may be an odd question, but have you always been someone whose productive? I mean we see that you have a job, u're writing, for both fics and books! and you interact a lot on tumblr(that must take time too, that i personally wouldn't associate with relaxing haha). I'm always amazed with people who juggle a lot of things and manage to get things done, so i'm always curious if that's smth's that comes naturally or if it's smth else. Again, sorry if this was odd haha, have a nice day(night?)

Hi! Thank you for your kind words, anon, and given it took me about a million years to answer this, I'm not sure I can entirely own being all that productive these days, haha. 🙈 But still, I'll answer this as best I can.

Some important context first though – my day job is only part time, which definitely gives me more hours in the week to do other things. I work three days a week – two days as an operational writer writing policies, procedures and editing highlevel strategic documents, and one day doing data reporting and administration. I used to do a lot of freelance copywriting and operational writing work on top of that, but the bottom fell out of the industry at the start of the lockdowns and pretty much all my freelance writing work dried up.

I've been lucky though in the sense that my book came out which helped to supplement my income a bit, and then I won an award for it which came with a cash prize, which has also been very important for me as it's taken some of the financial strain off me over the last year, which has meant I haven't had to get a second day job again like I probably would have otherwise.

So yeah, I want to be transparent about that, because as someone who's been on the other side many times before, I think it's really important to acknowledge that financial stability allows you to be more productive.

But yes! Advice! Okay!

Work out when you're at your most productive and your least

This I think is the most important thing. Pay attention to your habits – even keep a log for a week or so – and work out when you feel at your most productive and ready to get things done.

For me, I know that I'm most productive in the mornings, usually between 6.30 and 11am. I usually hit a wall then where I start thinking about lunch or feel a little burnt out, and it generally takes me a while to get back into the swing of things.

I frequently have another burst of productivity between 3 and 6pm, and sometimes 8 til late, depending on what's happened during the day.

It means 11 til 2's usually a bit of a slog for me, so I tend to try and pepper in different things in this time period that still make me feel like I'm doing stuff, but not necessarily things that are taxxing – I'll cook (something I personally find relaxing), do some exercise, either a pilates or yoga class, walk or swim, do laundry, call a friend or a sibling, I'll watch a movie or an ep or two of a show, read a book, answer emails and scroll through tumblr for a bit and usually answer some asks. If I'm in the office, this is usually when we have a lot of meetings, so that feels like time taken up that way too.

Then at around 2.30/3 I'll usually start writing / working again, and see what I can get through.

This can change – sometimes I might be slow to start in the mornings and find that middle of the day when I really get into things, but generally speaking, I know that the early mornings is when I'm best, so I try to plan my time accordingly.

Allocate your time

Once you know when you're going to be at your best, it really does become a lot easier to plan your days. Or weeks! I tend to work in blocks of two weeks. So twice a month I make a list of everything I want to do in that next fortnight, and it'll range not just from work, but to personal stuff too. Catch up with a particular friend, get a haircut (well, pre-lockdown, haha), read a particular book. I'll have that list in a notebook on my desk for the two weeks, and then each evening when I down tools I work out a loose plan of which of those things I want to do the next day.

Like for this morning for instance, I had:

work on lucky short story 7-9am

agent emails + review contract 9-10am

breakfast + walk + break 10-11am

Etc.

I'm not super stringent about the time frames really, either the daily or fortnightly ones, but they just give me a loose structure to the day / weeks so that I can know where I'm at and what it is I wanted to achieve.

What keeps me more honest and more on track though is treats, haha.

Work out what motivates you

As much as all this planning helps guide me, I also know that I'm extremely rewards oriented. If I didn't treat myself, I don't know if I'd ever get anything done, haha.

When I finish off my list, or finish a particularly meaty of frustrating task like a draft of a new story or finally handling something I'd been putting off, I give myself a treat. Sometimes it's only something little – I'll let myself take an earlier break, or make my favourite meal, or have a drink, other times it'll be something bigger – give myself the weekend off or buy a bunch of books or a concert ticket with friends.

I find knowing that I get something after getting through my list really motivating, and it's a great carrot for me to get stuff done.

Rewards might not be what motivates you though! I have a friend who basically gamifies his work by giving himself points on a whiteboard above his desk when he gets tasks done and other friends who find fear motivates them so have those apps that delete words if you stop writing (horrifying to me personally, haha), so it really can be anything!

Have a think though about what makes you feel great for getting things done, and use that as a driver for your own productivity.

Swallow the toad

This was advice an old colleague gave me years ago, and I'm still not the best at it, but it really is great advice and changed the way I work.

If you have a task you really need to do, but really don't want to do, it'll sit like a toad you have to eat on your desk. Every time you sit there to work, it'll be looking back at you, distracting you, and stopping you from moving forwards.

You know you have to eat it. That's why it's there, and the longer you put it off, the more warts it gets, and the more dread you'll have, so just do it.

Eat the toad. Eat it, swallow it, as soon as you see it, and then it's done. It'll taste awful, but the sooner you've swallowed it, the sooner you can eat the delicious things on your desk, and the sooner you can joke with friends about how gross that toad was to eat.

#i hope this is a help anon!#sorry it took me so long to get to #writing advice #kind of #welcome to my ama

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queerfables · 4 years

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Destiel and Metanarratives: A Romance for the Ages

There are a lot of reasons the Destiel controversy got as big as it is. Obviously Supernatural is a huge fandom, and Destiel is the biggest ship in it, so to some degree it was inevitable. But this goes way beyond that.

Silencing of queer stories is an old, festering wound and it affects the entire LGBTQ+ community. If the relationship between Dean and Castiel had been handled better, on a show as big as Supernatural, it could have been profoundly revolutionary. Instead it just highlighted all the ways that even though representation has come a long way, what we have is so inadequate, and still we have to fight tooth and nail for it.

And then compounding the unfulfilled potential of what this story could have been is the impossible fact that Supernatural ended, but Dean and Cas's story is still not over. We're all left holding our breath waiting to see how it turns out.

It's relevant that towards the end, Supernatural got REALLY meta. Like, seriously, God is a writer trying to control the heroes' lives through storytelling? The characters are literally trying to escape a narrative that's pushing them to act in ways they don't want? And instead of wrapping the final season up in a way that gives fans of a show that's been on air for 15 damn years closure and satisfaction, they drop plot threads all over the place and tell us about happy endings that we never see, show us happy endings that feel hollow. Throw in one of the biggest and most iconic queer ships of all time just barely breaking through into canon, in a way that asks more questions than it answers, and you’ve basically engineered the perfect storm of fandom backlash.

The nature of Supernatural's metanarrative meant the unsatisfactory ending alone would have been enough to make waves in fandom. The characters' last battle was against an ending they didn't want, and we're told they won but it feels like they lost. If "someone else is writing this story" has become a core part of the show's canon, it's inevitable fans will look more closely at what feels authentic and reject the parts of the story that don't ring true. All along characters have been asking questions like "Is this really me or am I just being written that way?" and "How much agency do I really have in this story?" The writers have been telling us to think about the distinction between the choices a real person makes, which arise out of that person’s own interests, and the choices a fictional character makes, which are dictated by the people who control the story, people whose interests might not actually align with the characters'. It’s against that backdrop that Dean and Cas’s story plays out, and boy, is that some foreshadowing.

Because first, you’ve got Despair. Despair, which was supposed to be The Truth. You’ve got Cas dropping a revelation about his motivations that changes the meaning of the entire show (or if you’ve been paying attention, maybe just confirms it). You’ve got a romantic, heroic, earth-shattering sacrifice, where Cas tells Dean, "I know I can't have you, but I love you anyway, and I'm giving up everything to save you." You've got Dean receiving this declaration under the worst possible circumstances and having no time at all to respond. And after it's over and the dust settles, Dean still doesn't tell us how he feels. There’s a question that any audience with an ounce of investment in the characters is going to be asking, and that question is, does he love Castiel back? And he doesn’t tell us. The show ends, and he doesn’t tell us. We're left to make our own assumptions, and though everything in the story signals there are gaps in the narrative that we're missing, beyond the story we’re told over and over that we're reading into it. The question hangs, but we know we’re supposed to see Castiel's love as unrequited.

And then. AND THEN. Out of nowhere comes a new version of the episode. It's supposed to be identical to the first version, but it's not, and it proves there’s a reason we felt like something was missing, and it’s because something WAS. Despair turns back into The Truth. Dean loves Castiel back. Dean loves him, and he wanted to say it, and he was silenced.

Listen. This is heartbreaking. But it's also breathtakingly, devastatingly romantic. Dean loves Castiel so much that even though their story was supposed to end with his feelings unspoken, he found a way to say it anyway! He said it even though he was never meant to. He said it even though they cut his words out and tried to pretend he never felt them. Against all the odds, he made himself heard. This story about agency and truth and the very nature of narratives is coming to life before our eyes and LITERALLY NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT.

That, I think, is why so many people are riveted. It's not "just about a ship", you can't reduce and dismiss it like that, but it sure is about a queer romance so powerful that trying to cut it out made the whole story fall apart, and even then it still couldn't be silenced. It's about a lot of other things too, but let's take a moment to bask in the sheer triumph of that.

It's not over yet, either. The story isn't just coming to life, it's drawing all of us into it. Will Dean find more ways to make himself heard, as the story is told and retold in other languages around the world? Will we be able to prove that this was always what he wanted to say? And can we make sure the network hears our outrage and suffers actual consequences for trying to silence Dean? For trying to silence us?

I'm talking about Dean like he's a real person because, especially in the context of Supernatural's metanarrative, that is how this feels. But what's more amazing is that there must have been a whole team of people working behind the scenes to get this to the point that they did. In one version of the story or another, Dean and Castiel both spoke their truths, and that's not because of a single "rogue translator" (although, yeah, we owe the Latin American dub team who did their jobs and translated the scene faithfully instead of toning down the queer romance - which happens all too often - and got this piece of the story told). It’s not because of any single person. It's because of the writers and directors pushing the queer subtext for years, until without any other explicitly romantic scenes, this confession made total sense. It's because of Misha and Jensen, putting their heart and soul into these characters and then in their final scene together bringing the romance out of the realm of subtext and into the text. It's because of the editors who cut together the original version of the episode, the one that the Latin American dub was translated from. It's because of every damn person who ever fought for this ship to be a little more present in the show, and it’s because of the fans who fell in love with Dean and Castiel’s relationship and saw that it was a love story worth telling and refused to let the creators forget about it.

Fandom, at its heart, is a community of people who are obsessed with stories. We tell stories about other worlds because they fascinate us. We tell stories about the connections between characters because they make us feel things we can’t let go. We tell stories about ourselves - our identities, our loves, our lives - because sometimes no one else will. We tell stories about stories because stories matter. And when Dean and Castiel loved each other so fiercely that even the story itself couldn’t keep them apart, they became part of something bigger. They became a symbol of the creativity and defiance and freedom that defines fandom. We’re a community obsessed with stories, and beyond the realm of fiction, escaping into the real world that lives outside the television screen, Dean and Castiel’s love story is a great one.

#supernatural #destiel #somethingtosay #theysilencedyou #fable speaks #otp: la verdad

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let-it-raines · 4 years

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Walking the Baseline (1/1)

He’s at the top of his game. She’s in the midst of a comeback. The Olympics are just around the corner, and there’s more than gold medals on the line. There’s secrets and personal lives and a lot more at risk than simply losing, but as most know, Killian Jones and Emma Swan hate to lose.

rating: mature (just to err on the safe side)

a/n: Hello, hello, my darlings! I was informed of the @captainswanolympics as I’ve missed so much in my time of only checking messages and posting YWUSS, and I just had to write a tennis AU. If you know me, you know I played tennis back in the day, worked behind the scenes for a professional tennis tournament, and am an avid fan, so the fact that I haven’t written more CS tennis is surprising. lol.

This one is short and sweet, and it’s the first CS I’ve written in months. So I genuinely hope you enjoy it. And no, you don’t have to know tennis to understand 🎾

ao3: | here |

tag list: @qualitycoffeethings @mrtinski @klynn-stormz @scarletslippers @jonirobinson64 @snowbellewells @therealstartraveller776 @thejollyroger-writer @sherifemma @galaxyzxstark @galadriel26 @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @teamhook @spartanguard @searchingwardrobes @jamif @shireness-says @ultimiflos @nikkiemms @onepunintendid @bluewildcatfanatic @superchocovian @killianswannn @carpedzem @captainkillianswanjones @mayquita @mariakov81 @jennjenn615 @onceuponaprincessworld @a-faekindagirl @scientificapricot @xellewoods @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @singersdd @tornadoamy @cluttermind @lfh1226-linda @andiirivera @itsfabianadocarmo

-/-

“My legs feel like jelly,” Emma sighs as she sinks into an ice bath. It’s never pleasant, and it may not even help, but it makes her feel better every time. “Like, I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk when I get out of here. I don’t think I can even stand now.”

“You say that after every long match,” David tells her, clicking away at his iPad. There’s no doubt he’s studying her stats and about to pick her apart in a friendly yet incredibly harsh way that is a David trademark. “Is your shoulder okay? Your first serve percentage was up, but your speed was down.”

Yep. He’s so predictable. She knew that was coming the moment she decided to change the speed on her serves.

“I’m fine. I’m tired. I mean, shit, David. It’s like the tour is trying to ruin our bodies. My last two-week break was when? March? It’s almost August, and it’s not going to stop there.”

“You’ve made it before. You can do it again.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me that I don’t have to do this.”

David looks up from his iPad, brow raised, and she knows she’s not going to get the answer she wants. He doesn’t tell her she can quit unless they’re in a heated argument after disagreeing on her service motion or her footwork, which will always be her downfall when she’s exhausted, or any other aspect of her game. That’s what happens when your coach is not only your couch but also your older brother.

“I’m not going to say that. You’re in the quarterfinals. You play against Svitolina, who you have an excellent record against, and then in the semis, it could go either way with French or Stephens. That’s who we’re worried about. We’re not thinking about the finals until we’re in the finals.”

“I’m not thinking about just the finals. I’m thinking about the fact that I played Madrid, Rome, Roland Garros, Eastbourne, Wimbledon, Washington, here. And now I’m supposed to fly to Rio for the Olympics, then fly to Cincinnati, and then New York. And after New York, we almost immediately fly to Beijing, and it doesn’t stop. I get, what? A month and a half off, but it’s not really off time because we spend that time fixing everything for next season. The only way I get a break is if I lose or I get injured, and I don’t want either of those things.”

Emma’s chest heaves as she finishes speaking, the words flying out faster than her mind can come up with them as she runs through her tournament schedule, and David doesn’t blink. He stares at her like he always does, and sometimes she swears it’s like staring at a male version of herself. And she knows what’s coming. She always does. David never got to play past college, the professional circuit too much for his body, and he always pulls the card of how much he would give to be playing right now, to be in her position. She gets it. If she was in his position, she would do the same thing, but right now, all she really wants is to cry.

“You have worked too hard to quit, Emma,” David sighs, giving her a patented big-brother condescending stare. “You are not going to quit. I know this part of the season is rough, but you push through it every year. And imagine how good it’s going to feel when you have a gold medal around your neck or when you have that US Open trophy in your hands. You don’t get to play forever, and you’re the one who said that you weren’t quitting when everyone would have easily expected it. Do you want to prove them right?”

Emma moves in the bath, sinking a little lower, and damn, her sports bra is going to be impossible to get off. Her gaze shifts from David to the TV where ESPN commentators are sitting at a desk, her Nike-approved picture on the screen beside them. They run through the stats of her match and then her overall career stats. She’s twenty-eight, which is apparently at the end of her career according to them, world number seven, which is also abysmal to them somehow, and she is not living up to her potential when she is a former world number one, six-time grand slam champion, and a gold medalist from four years ago in London.

She groans and tries not to think about how much she hates all the people who work for ESPN. They have their favorites and the ones they hate, and since she is not a mediocre American male or one of the all-time greats, she’s somewhere in between. Usually, she doesn’t listen to the comments, to the pundits, to the assholes. She tries to stay away from that because it will drive her into a deep state of negativity, but lately, it’s like she can’t get enough of listening to what people say about her as if it is going to give her some kind of insight to her game.

She doesn’t crave their validation, but maybe, in a twisted way, she does.

“She gave birth sixteen months ago,” Mary Jo sighs. “She came back a year after giving birth. She is not going to be who she was before she had a child. The fact that she’s won enough this year to be in the top ten is amazing when she started with no ranking since there are no tour protections for maternity leave. She’s a champion, and sometimes champions struggle as they get their form back.”

“Sixteen months is a long damn time,” Patrick says, and Emma’s vagina would beg to differ. “She should be back to how she was or she shouldn’t be playing.”

“Have you given birth, Patrick? Because unless you have, I don’t think you get a say.”

“It’s my job to say what I think.”

“Still, I think – ”

The television clicks off, and Emma’s gaze finds its way back to David. “We’re not listening to them. It’ll piss you off. Mary Jo is right. You’re doing amazing, and I don’t want you to forget that.”

Emma doesn’t know if she’s doing amazing, doesn’t feel that way a lot of the time. This job is hard enough, to kill your body while also having the eyes of the world on you, but adding in a baby? It’s nearly impossible. A few other women have done it before her, not all with spectacular returns or returns at all, and she wants to keep getting better and play for long enough that Olivia will be able to see her mom play and remember it.

She’s not just doing it for herself. She’s doing it for her daughter, whose entrance into the world was unplanned, terrifying, and the best damn thing to ever happen to Emma even if she doubts herself in motherhood every day.

“I miss her,” Emma whispers to David, reaching up to play with her necklace, Olivia’s initials engraved in the gold circle. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it two more weeks without seeing her.”

“Do you want me to get Mary Margaret to FaceTime you with her? They’ve been watching your match at home.”

“No, no.” She shakes her head and releases the pendant, her resolve back as she inhales and focuses on her job. “Let’s do the rest of my recovery and talk about the match. I’ll call them when we get back to the hotel. I don’t want to get my mind too much out of the game.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

-/-

She wins her next match. And the next.

She loses in the final.

It stings more than her losses usually do, and there have been a hell of a lot of them, but she wanted to win another premiere event. She’s only been winning small events so far this year and making it to the later stages of the bigger events, but she keeps falling short when it’s time for her to push herself over the limit. Emma knows that her time will come, but she’s exhausted.

-/-

She flies to Rio with the rest of the American team who were playing in Montreal and Toronto, and she sleeps the entire ride down.

It’s the most sleep she’s gotten since she gave birth.

-/-

The 2012 Olympics felt familiar for Emma. The matches happened at Wimbledon, a place she’s known since she was sixteen years old and has watched on TV since she was even younger than that. Tennis players were isolated from the rest of the sports and events, and they all stayed in their usual rented houses and apartments instead of the Village or other hotels. Rio is different and completely unfamiliar. She’s staying in the Village, and while the amenities aren’t the best, the spirit of the Games are everywhere. She’s seeing athletes she’s only ever seen on TV before, meeting dozens of people whose names quickly slip out of her mind no matter how hard she tries to keep them there, and it’s impossible not to get excited to see all of these great athletes gathered together.

When she was a kid sitting in a foster home with David, the two of them wondering if they’d ever have a forever home, they would watch reruns of the Olympics on the TV, just waiting for the live ones to come around. It was an escape to get to watch people only a few years older than them doing these great things, and even after Ruth adopted them and paid for them to play sports, they never could have imagined being here.

Emma, sitting on a park bench outside with prestigious gymnasts walking in front of her, still can’t imagine it, and she’s literally here.

“Am I allowed to sit here or is that considered fraternizing with the enemy?”

Emma glances up and sees Killian Jones already sliding onto the bench in front of her. He’s darker than the last time she saw him in person, his hair longer, teeth possibly whiter, and he definitely hasn’t shaved in a few too many days. But the cocky, almost a little too arrogant, smile is the same, and even if she said no, he would still sit across from her. She knows him well enough to know that now.

“As far as I’m aware, you’re not playing mixed doubles, so I don’t think you count as an enemy.”

“Ah, but, love, Americans and Brits have been enemies since the beginning. That doesn’t change here.”

“Everyone else gets along. You’re just a competitive ass.”

“Indeed I am.” He wiggles his brows and leans forward, smirk stretched across his lips. “So, I was handed a bag full of Olympic-themed condoms when I checked in. Would you like to go try them out?”

“Shut up,” Emma laughs, kicking his leg. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Too many things to count.” He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest, muscles ever-so-slightly bulging underneath his Team Great Britain t-shirt. She’s wearing a similar one with USA emblazoned in the biggest font she’s ever seen. Not a lot of subtly going on at the moment. “Where’s Ruby? David? Any of the other Americans? Shouldn’t you all be eating or practicing or doing something besides sitting on a bench by the water?”

“Shouldn’t you?”

“Touché, Swan. Touché. Will and I were on the way to eat, but I saw you and got distracted. I don’t have practice until later. Rob is forcing me to give myself a break so I don’t exhaust myself after Toronto.”

“Well, you do have old bones.”

“Oi, I am thirty-two and at the top of my game. How many people can say that?”

“Anyone who is not an athlete.”

Killian shrugs and tilts his head to the side, rolling his shoulders. He’s right, though. Killian is playing better than he ever has. He’s always been good ever since he was touted to be Great Britain’s next big thing. She watched for years as the British media slagged him off for not having won Wimbledon despite having won the other majors two times around, but six years ago, he won after a five-hour, grueling match and fell onto the ground. The image was everywhere, and now, every time she’s in London or Wimbledon, that image lines the walls. It’s how she felt when she won the US Open. All of the major are special, but winning your home one, if you’re lucky enough to have one, is something else. And now Killian is world number one once more, has won two majors in a row with several premiere events in between, and with his form, she can’t imagine him losing.

But that’s why you lace up the sneakers. You never know what’s going to happen.

She’s been around the game long enough to know that.

Killian too.

Their paths have crossed for years, mostly because they have the same sponsors and do a lot of promotional events together, but the more they both started winning, the more they’d see each other at tournaments and dinners and everything in between. It’s a busy life, and while there’s time to make friends outside of tennis, sometimes it’s easier to find people in the industry.

She’s not entirely sure she would call Killian Jones a friend.

“Have you eaten, love?” he asks.

“Not yet.” On cue, her stomach growls, and he smirks, not that he really stopped.

“Why don’t you come with me? You can sit with us before we take the bus to the courts for training.”

“What happened to fraternizing with the enemy?”

He leans forward and winks. “For you, I’ll make an exception.”

Emma laughs but nods and stands with Killian as they walk to the main dining hall. It’s packed, the room echoing with conversation and laughter, and Emma and Killian are stopped several times to take pictures and sign autographs, something she will never get used to, before they sit down with Will, Rob, and several other plays from all around the world. For a minute, it’s like they’re in their usual bubble that they live in for the rest of the year with only tennis players around, but then Emma sees Usain Bolt walk by and she knows they’re not.

This is weird.

This is wonderful.

This is almost everything.

-/-

The Opening Ceremonies are long and sometimes boring, and she hates the outfit she has to wear, but she doesn’t know if she’ll get to do this again in four years so she savors it.

She savors it all, walking side by side with Ruby, Ashley, and Anna, and she takes all of it in before her mind switches to work-mode as she runs through her opponent for her first match. The nerves have been pushed down in favor of the experience, but they’re back and in full-force.

She cannot lose in the first round.

-/-

She doesn’t. -/-

She doesn’t lose her next few matches either.

-/-

Emma’s made it to the quarterfinals in both singles and doubles with Ruby after several days of long matches and struggling to see the ball – whoever thought making a fully green court with green side walls for tennis has obviously never played tennis, and she never wants to play on center court again – and she knows she’s one win away from guaranteeing that she plays in a medal-winning match.

It’s a relief and pressure all at once, something she’ll never grow used to, and as the sun sets and the village begins to get loud, Emma sits on her balcony watching the fountains in the lake light up. Ruby is off with Mulan somewhere Emma would rather not know about and will probably not be back to their room until at least tomorrow morning if the look on Ruby’s face was any indication, so Emma thinks she might get a little time to sit down and breathe for a moment, watching different events on TV. She could go watch them, but she doesn’t think her legs will carry her there.

Until her phone buzzes with a text that she quickly answers, and not three minutes later, there’s a knock at her door.

Emma quickly opens it, pulling him inside, and Killian kicks the door closed behind him as he cups her cheeks and kisses her, long and slow but with enough heat simmering below the surface that Emma knows there could be a promise of more later.

She’s seen him nearly every day for the past week, but she’s missed him.

She’s missed this.

His mouth moves expertly over hers in a rhythm that’s been practiced to perfection, and she feels dizzy with his kiss and holds onto his hair to keep her standing up. The Brazilian summer air wafts through the room, coating it in a thick heat, but Emma doesn’t pay any attention to that as heat curls between her thighs, warming her more than the air ever could. Her legs ache from the match, her arms feel heavy, but Killian makes her forget those things as he lays her down on the bed and kisses every inch of her body, spending time with his dark head of hair buried beneath her thighs until she can no longer speak.

Until she can scarcely breathe as well.

She manages to laugh, though, when he pulls out one of the condoms that has the Olympics logo on it, and she and Killian makes jokes about it as he slides into her, a thick sheath of heat that she never gets used to. It’s slow at first, a gentle rocking that keeps her teetering on the edge, but their bodies are tired and worn, and soon, it’s a race to the finish line.

Emma comes in first, not that it matters.

(But it does feel good to beat him.)

(They’re both competitive asses.)

(Even when they shouldn’t be.)

After, they’re both slick with sweat that doesn’t go away as their bodies press together on the small twin bed. Emma almost wishes she had rented a house outside the village like David and some of the other coaches did, but she doesn’t want to give up the experience. And it’s fine, especially as Killian shifts behind her and lets her settle into him, her hips pressing back into his as his arm wraps around to rest on her stomach, fingers occasionally searching out for her breast.

Emma is exhausted, but this is the best she’s felt in weeks.

(She definitely couldn’t walk to any of the events now, and she did want to see Phelps swim.)

“You played bloody fantastic in your doubles match today.”

“Not my singles?”

“I played at the same time as you. I didn’t get a chance to watch.”

Emma hums and leans further back into him. She’s glad Killian did most of the work because just thinking about how much she’s got to move again tomorrow is making her sore. “I played well there too. Straight sets.”

“Atta girl.” His lips press into her neck, stubble scratching across the skin. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Oh, that’s always dangerous.”

Killian laughs but nudges his knee into her, which really only settles his cock between her ass, but she’s too tired to think of doing anything else. “I’ve been thinking,” he continues, “that I’m going to withdraw from Cincinnati and fly home instead.”

“To London?”

“To Palm Beach. I think it might be nice to have a calm week between tournaments to spend time with my girlfriend.”

“Oh really? You’ll have to tell her your plan. I’m sure she’d like that.”

Killian tickles her stomach, making her squirm, before he lightly pinches her side. “Mhm. I thought we might also like to spend time with our daughter since FaceTime isn’t cutting it for me anymore. I swear she’s grown three feet since I last saw her.”

“Four, I think. She’s basically a full-grown adult now with all that walking and talking she’s doing.”

“Has she said any new words I’m not aware of?”

“Nope. She still can only say the three.”

“Good. I’m glad I didn’t miss anything else.” Killian kisses the side of Emma’s neck again, and she twists around, wrapping her arms around him and pressing their noses together as she stares into blue, blue eyes that aren’t diminished by the darkened room. “I think we should bring her to New York with us. Hopefully at least one of us will be there for three weeks, and that’s just too long to go without her.”

“We’re staying in a hotel in New York. In two separate suites, I might add.”

“But we don’t have to.”

“Killian…”

His hand brushes down her side, warmth permeating from the rough fingertips, before it rests on her hip, thumb moving in soothing circles. “I’ve already called and seen if they could give me the Penthouse. It’s an entire floor with private entrances and a private elevator. Our teams can stay with us or they can stay in the original suites we were designated. I know you bring her with you when you can and that I sneak in visits, but I want to be able to stay with my daughter.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, and if she doesn’t say yes to it, it won’t be the last.

Things between she and Killian are complicated. They’re relationship isn’t, not anymore. At first, she couldn’t stand him, thought he was genuinely this cocky asshole from the way he talked in matches and in off-court interviews, like he was God’s gift to the sport or something. Then they ended up both winning in Australia four years ago, and while doing press together, she saw a different, kinder side to him that she hadn’t previously seen when they worked together in Nike promotions.

Fast forward through a lot of early morning calls, late night rendezvous in their hotel rooms, and a heck of a lot of texts and FaceTime sessions, and somewhere along the way, the impenetrable Emma Swan fell in love with the impossible Killian Jones.

They kept it secret, the both of them knowing how vicious the media is to athletes that date each other, especially since Killian was going through a wrist injury that was somehow his fault according to the pundits and that he was getting hounded pretty hard at the time. They didn’t know if it was going to work, neither of them having stellar relationship records, but they figured eventually they would be okay with the world knowing.

Then came the positive pregnancy test, and Emma’s entire world shifted.

She was at the top of her game, at the top of her world, and as hard as it is for her to admit now, she didn’t want Olivia. She wanted to keep living her life the way it was. That was a possibility but not one she was willing to take, so she stopped playing but kept training as she and Killian figured out how they were going to do this.

They’re never home, rarely together, and they were both way out of their leagues. It would have been easier to tell the world they were together, that Killian was the father, but Olivia’s protection is worth more than their ease.

Now, though, looking at the crease between Killian’s brow and the sadness pooled in his eyes, she wonders if they’re doing the right thing.

“I know. I’m sorry. I – ” Emma’s lips quiver, and she nearly cries. She’s exhausted beyond belief and doesn’t know what to do, so she buries her face in Killian’s neck and wraps her arms around him. “Can we talk about this on the plane ride home?”

Emma says home as if they’re going to the same place after this. They’re not. But maybe she should listen to Killian and take the break she’s been craving.

“Aye, love, if that’s what you want.”

She nods and feels his lips ghost over the crown of her hair. “I want to lay here with you and not think about tennis or make hard decisions.”

“You want to talk about how bloody uncomfortable this bed is?”

Emma laughs. “It really makes you miss those awful ones in Paris.”

“You had to ask for a new one.”

“It was so worth it.”

-/-

They FaceTime Olivia in the morning. Mary Margaret has her in a matching outfit to Emma’s uniform, and Killian scoffs that she’s representing America instead of Great Britain.

Emma thinks it’s the best thing in the world, and it reminds her who she’s playing for.

It’s not for her country, not for herself. It’s for her daughter.

Their daughter.

-/-

The next two days drag by and yet she has a difficult time keeping up with them. Her practices are long, recovery longer as her shoulders are massaged and legs are iced, and Ruby has to drag her out onto the court for doubles when all she wants to do is sleep. She’s not used to playing this many matches in such a short period of time, and while having Ruby on court with her helps lessen how much she runs, her legs are still aching.

She’s almost to the finish line. She can make it.

“Those legs are too pretty for you to be dragging them like that,” Ruby jokes as they sit down during a changeover in the third set of their quarterfinal match. Emma reaches for her energy drink and takes a sip before biting into a banana while Ruby shakes her legs.

“I can’t make them move.”

“Yes, you can,” Ruby insists. “You already won your singles today, and we’re four games away from winning this match. I will kick your ass if we don’t win this.”

“Can you kick my ass if it’s already kicked?”

“I can indeed.” Ruby pats Emma’s knees and smiles. “Come on, hot mama. We’ve got this.”

And it’s tough, but they do.

Emma and Ruby go through recovery, and when Emma checks her watch, she sees that Killian’s match is just about to start.

“Do you want to get a bus across the grounds and go watch swimming?” Ruby asks her as David massages her calf. It’s not his job, so he obviously can’t stop complaining about doing it.

“I think I want to watch Killian’s match. Can we get seats in the stadium? Is his box empty?”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” David asks her as her muscle spasms.

“If we all go, it won’t be suspicious. He’s playing Sam, so they might think we’re supporting the Americans.”

“Aren’t we?”

Her eyes roll. “Not in this situation. Come on. Text Rob and see if we can get into Killian’s box.”

David levels her with a stare, and she knows he’s going to say no, that it’s a bad idea. But then he releases her leg and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

They end up going still dressed in their match clothes, and Emma puts on a sweatshirt, a cap, and sunglasses to hide herself as much as possible. She knows it won’t work considering she’s literally wearing the outfit she has worn all week, but she can at least try. It’s been years since she’s gotten to watch one of Killian’s matches from somewhere other than the locker room or her hotel room, and she’s missed the magic of watching him play. He’s fluid with his motions, even if they are slower than they used to be, and his groundstrokes are powerful from the baseline. She knows from the moment that she sits down that he’s winning this match. She can tell by the way he’s carrying himself and the determination in his eyes. She grabs her phone and snaps a picture just as he looks her way, brow raised in question but a smile on his lips.

-/-

Killian wins his match, and she finds him in the tunnel afterward, his team creating a wall around them, and wraps her arms around him, not caring that they are both disgustingly sweaty or around other people.

“I love you,” she whispers.

“And I you.” The corner of his lips brush against her temple. “You’re amazing, Emma. Bloody amazing.”

“You too, my love.”

-/-

Emma wins the semifinals of both of her matches.

Killian wins his.

They’re both playing in gold medal matches – Emma definitely brags about how she’s playing two while Killian is only playing one – and she wants to vomit.

Holy shit.

-/-

“Say hi to your mommy,” Mary Margaret tells Olivia as Olivia keeps smacking her hand on the screen. “Your mom and dad are there trying to talk to you, Livvie.”

Emma leans her head onto Killian’s shoulder as they both stare into the screen waiting for Olivia to move her hand. She does with some help from Mary Margaret, and then bright green eyes show up. She has Emma’s eyes and dirty blonde hair that’s thick and wavy, but everything else about her screams Killian, especially her smile. Emma has missed that smile.

“Hello, little love.” Killian waves and tries to get her attention, but she couldn’t care less. “Don’t you want to talk to us?”

She makes a noise that isn’t a word, and Mary Margaret sighs. “I’m sorry. She’s been asking about you two, but now that you’re there, she doesn’t care. I tried to tell her what a big deal the two of you were, but she doesn’t care.”

“I’ll have to tell her how incredible her mother is later. She’s going to be the first women to win two singles golds in a row as well as the first mum to do it. And she’s going to have two more medals than me. Showing me up in every category.”

“That’s assuming you win, Jones. I could have three more gold medals than you.”

“I do love a challenge.”

Olivia starts giggling, Emma’s favorite noise on the planet, and she tries to memorize it to keep with her always. She knows Killian does too.

-/-

Emma’s gold medal matches are the day before Killian’s, and she’s jealous he gets a day off to rest. He tells her he’s going to spend the entire time training, sneaking in and out of other events, and watching her matches. She rolls her eyes at his texts because she’s sure he won’t have time to do all of that.

And yet he does.

She sees him in the stands during her doubles match. Ruby points him out when they’re in the middle of discussing serving spots, and Emma laughs at her calling him “lover boy” in a horrible British accent. She always calls him a ridiculous name, and of the few people who know of Emma’s private life, she’s glad Ruby is one of them.

Even if she’s still laughing and double faults on an important point.

It doesn’t matter, though, because within an hour and fifteen minutes, their shortest match of the tournament, she’s on the court’s floor with Ruby sobbing because they won a fucking gold medal.

She gets so little time to savor it, however, because the medal ceremony happens so quickly that she can barely take It all in. She also has press to do, and David has to practically force her into the media room where she and Ruby are hounded with more questions than congratulation as they clutch onto their medals. Ruby handles it like the pro she is while Emma’s nerves start to get the best of her as more people start talking about what she has on the line.

To be the first man or woman to win two gold singles medals in consecutive Olympics.

To win another gold medal for her country.

To be the first mother since Clijsters to win a major tournament.

To win her first big tournament since her comeback.

To have the possibility to win another gold medal in Tokyo in four years if she’s still playing.

It’s a lot, and she knows it. She’s been thinking about all of it every day this week, and her track record of choking in finals lately is pushing at the forefront of her mind.

She doesn’t know if she can do it.

And yet she does.

She laces up her sneakers, pulls her hair back, and takes a deep breath as she blocks everything out of her mind except for her game plan. She knows how the game is played. She’s been playing since she was twelve years old, and even though that’s a late start compared to most people, it’s gotten her here.

Emma walks out of the tunnel as her name is announced over the speakers, and even though all she can hear is the cheer of the crowd, she lets her mind go back to Olivia’s laugh, Killian’s smile, David’s pep talk, Ruby’s ridiculous texts. She thinks of all the things that push her when she wants to stop, and she reminds herself that no matter what happens, she’s done her best.

She could have given up the moment the stick said “pregnant.” She could have packed it all in, but she didn’t. She’s here, and she’s better than any excuse she could come up with not to be.

People have tried to tell her who she is her entire life, but she’s pushed back and said, “no, this is who I am.” Emma still has to do that now, no matter how many times she has proven herself.

The ice bath in Montreal where she wanted to quit seems years away when it was only eight days.

-/-

Emma looks to Ruby then David then Killian as she takes a deep breath on match point. Killian smiles and gives her a subtle nod, and then she raises the ball in the air, ready to toss it.

-/-

Game. Set. Gold freaking medal.

-/-

Afterward, she falls to the ground, her knees aching as they hit the asphalt, and her body can’t stop shaking with her sobs. She doesn’t know what she feels or how she feels or even where she is, and she only gets up from the ground when she hears her family calling for her. She slowly rises from the ground, runs across the court to congratulate her opponent on playing a good match, and then she’s running to the stands and climbing up with David’s help. She embraces him first. She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. he’s been her rock for her entire life, and he keeps her steady. Then it’s her physio and her agent and Ruby. Then, over to the side, is Killian, and their conversation from a few nights ago comes back to her.

She loves him. She’s proud to be with him. They shouldn’t have to hide their family anymore.

They haven’t exactly been doing a good job of it this week anyway.

So Emma very literally pounces on him, her legs wrapping around his waist, before she remembers that he has a match tomorrow. She can’t miss his back up. He’d never let it go if she did. Her feet fall to the ground, but her arms stay wrapped around Killian’s neck as he whispers words of encouragement and congratulations that she’s always going to keep close to her heart, right next to the necklace with the initials O-S-J on them.

Two people thousands of miles apart were brought together by chances, a whole myriad of them. If Ruth hadn’t adopted Emma and David, they never would have picked up a racket. If Emma had never picked up a racket, she wouldn’t have found her purpose in this world. She wouldn’t have a job or a daughter or a man who loves her in spite of how hard she is to love. There was so much that could have derailed her, both good and bad, and while she could say none of it matters, in some way, it all does.

Because it led her here.

And she doesn’t want to be anywhere else even if she would give anything to be able to hug Olivia right now.

“You did so good, Swan,” Killian whispers, his voice the only one she hears.

“I know.”

He pulls back, and there are tears in his eyes that mirror her own. “So, I guess I have to win tomorrow so your bragging rights don’t get too big.”

“Oh, Jones, you are never catching up with me now,” she teases, all of the exhaustion melting away. “I’m miles ahead of you, but you better win. Olivia doesn’t need to be embarrassed by her dad.”

“Pretty sure that’s my job.”

“Right now, your only job is to help me back down onto the court and then go win yourself a gold medal.”

“Don’t tell the presses you’re rooting for a Brit.”

Emma shrugs as Killian thumbs away tears underneath her eyes. “I don’t care anymore, and I’m definitely going to be sitting in your box tomorrow, cheering louder than anyone else.”

-/-

When Killian wins the next night after a torturous four hours, his fall is almost identical to Emma’s. Though, when he climbs into the stands to get to the box, he immediately goes for Emma, cupping her cheeks and kissing her for the entire world to see.

“I guess I’ll have to figure out a way to embarrass our daughter in another way.”

“I think her parents making out on international TV might do just that.”

-/-

Two days after they get home – they spent the entire first day sleeping and holding Olivia – Emma puts on her three gold medals, Killian puts on his one, and they hold Olivia in between them, her toothy smile brighter than the gold as the photo is taken.

Olivia Swan-Jones has a pretty cool mom and a dad who has some catching up to do in the gold medal department.

It’s Emma’s most liked picture on Instagram, not that she cares about any of those things, and it’s the biggest news story for three days straight despite the literal Olympics still happening.

All Emma cares about, though, is that she has a week off – she opted out of Cincinnati after all, despite David’s protests – she can spend with her family before she and Killian are off to New York where the pressure will be the highest it’s ever been and the media will most likely be losing their shit over Emma and Killian’s announcements.

Olivia will be with her, Killian too, and in the end, that’s all that matters.

Oh, that, and the fact that Emma Swan is officially back, and it feels damn good.

-/-

Thanks for reading, my friends! Can’t wait for those 2021 Olympics 🤞and learning about sports I’ve still somehow never heard of. And if you want to talk to me about tennis, I’m fully here to talk about Rafael Nadal’s biceps and how his game is underrated despite being one of the most dominant athletes of all time 💚😂

#walking the baseline #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs olympics #captain swan fanfic #captain swan ff #captain swan fic #captain swan #csow

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introvertguide · 4 years

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The Apartment (1960); AFI #80

The next film on the list that we reviewed was the one of the last black and white films to win best picture, The Apartment (1960). The film actually held the title of last B&W Best Picture winner for 50 years until The Artist came along in in 2011. Along with Best Picture, the film was nominated for 10 Oscars and won Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Editing. The film also won Best Picture from the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, the Director’s Guild Awards, and the Critic’s Circle Awards. Truly a great synthesis of acting, directing, cinematography, music, and story, this movie is one of the lesser known greatest films of all time. I have more to say about this film, but I want to go over the story in all of its excellence. But first...

SPOILER ALERT!!! THIS COMEDY HAS LEGITIMATE SURPRISES AND SUBJECT MATTER THAT WOULDN’T FLY TODAY!!! TRULY A GREAT FILM THAT NEEDS TO BE SEEN!!! I STRONGLY SUGGEST WATCHING IT INSTEAD OF JUST READING THE STORY LINE!!!

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An opening run of establishing shots with a voice over by the main character lets the audience know that he is a drone accountant at a giant firm with little chance to move up in the world. C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lonely office drudge at a national insurance corporation in New York City. He has lucked out and found a way to leverage his home in order to climb the corporate ladder. Baxter allows four company managers to take turns borrowing his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital liaisons, which he manages with a detailed schedule. Baxter has not seen any movement, but he is constantly offered the promise of a promotion since he is a “team player.”

One of the serious down sides of this ploy is that his apartment is in constant use and the bosses are making a mess and drinking all his liquor. C.C. has no place to go some nights so he stays and works late. Because C.C. is constantly going in and out and people can hear women in his apartment, he is starting to develop a different kind of reputation with the other tenants. While unable to enter his own apartment when it is in use, his neighbors assume that their neighbor is a playboy bringing home a different woman every night.

C.C. is able to get glowing performance reports from his four managers and he is able to submit them to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), in hope of a promotion. Sheldrake promises to promote him, but demands that he also receive use of the apartment for his own affairs, beginning that night. As compensation for such short notice, he gives Baxter two theater tickets to The Music Man. After work, C.C. asks Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator in the office building, to go to the musical with him. She agrees but goes first to meet with a "former fling," who turns out to be Sheldrake, and let him know there will be no more meetings. When Sheldrake dissuades her from breaking up with him and promising to divorce his wife for her, they go to the apartment as poor Baxter waits forlornly outside the theater.

Later, at the company's raucous Christmas party (there is dancing on the tables and the lamest strip tease of all time), Fran is told by Miss Olsen (Edie Adams), Sheldrake's secretary, that Sheldrake has also had affairs with her and other women employees. Later at Baxter’s apartment, Fran confronts Sheldrake with his lies. Sheldrake maintains that he genuinely loves her, but that he has no intention of splitting up with his wife. He then leaves to return to his suburban family as usual and Fran is so depressed that she finds sleeping pills in the apartment bathroom and attempts suicide.

Baxter learns through finding a dropped hand mirror that Fran is the woman Sheldrake has been taking to his apartment, so he goes to a bar and lets himself be picked up by a married woman. When they arrive at his apartment, he is shocked to find Fran in his bed, seemingly dead. He sends his pick-up away and enlists the help of his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Krushen), to revive Fran without notifying the authorities. I should not laugh, but it is pretty funny that the doctor goes straight to slapping Fran in the face to wake her up. The actors did not hold back; he is slapping her in the face really hard, so much so that you can tell her cheeks are reddening even in black and white. Baxter makes Dreyfuss believe that he was the cause of the incident and, scolding his neighbor for his apparent philandering, Dreyfuss advises him to "be a mensch, a human being."

As Fran spends two days recuperating in the apartment, C.C. takes care of her, and a bond develops between them, especially after he confesses to having attempted suicide himself over unrequited feelings for a woman who now sends him a fruitcake every Christmas. While they play a game of gin rummy, Fran reveals that she has always suffered bad luck in her love life. As Baxter prepares a romantic dinner, one of the managers arrives with a woman. Although Baxter persuades them to leave, the manager recognizes Fran and informs his colleagues. Later confronted by Fran's brother-in-law, Karl Matuschka, who is looking for her, the managers direct Karl to the apartment out of jealousy. At the apartment, Karl's anger at Fran for her behavior is deflected by Baxter, who again takes responsibility. Karl punches C.C. (and interviews with Lemmon revealed that the punch did land), but when Fran kisses him for protecting her, he just smiles and says it "didn't hurt a bit."

Sheldrake learns that Miss Olsen told Fran about his affairs, so he makes the poor choice of firing the woman who knows of all his dealings, and she retaliates by meeting with Sheldrake's wife, who promptly throws her husband out. Sheldrake believes that this situation just makes it easier to pursue his affair with Fran. Having promoted C.C. to an even higher position, which also gives him a key to the executive washroom, Sheldrake expects Baxter to loan out his apartment yet again. Baxter gives him back the washroom key instead, proclaiming that he has decided to become a mensch, and quits the firm.

That night at a New Year's Eve party, Sheldrake indignantly tells Fran what happened. Realizing she is in love with Baxter, Fran abandons Sheldrake and runs to the apartment. At the door, she hears what sounds like a gunshot. Fearing that Baxter has attempted suicide again, she frantically pounds on the door. Baxter answers, holding a bottle of champagne whose cork he had just popped in celebration of his plan to start anew. As the two settle down to resume their gin rummy game, Fran tells C.C. that she is now free too. When he asks about Sheldrake, she replies, "We'll send him a fruitcake every Christmas." He declares his love for her, and she replies, "Shut up and deal."

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This film is one of the most praised movies of all time, but it is not one of the most generally well known. This is probably due to the subject matter, although It’s A Wonderful Life also deals with suicide and is one of the America’s most popular family films. The problem is most likely that extra marital affairs by big company management as a normal thing was highly frowned upon. With the whole #MeToo movement, it seems that this kind of philandering culture might very well have been a known problem for decades. A movie based around the premise that office managers need a nice place to have sex with secretaries and elevator girls would not have been acceptable under the Hays Code. This is also the second film on the AFI list where Fred MacMurray plays a bad guy before being the understanding patriarch on My Three Sons and the first person honored as a Disney Legend in 1987. Fun fact, MacMurray was an uncredited extra in a film called Girls Gone Wild in 1929.

Billy Wilder knew that this was going to be a divisive film due to content, but he also had the confidence that everything would work out following the massive success of his previous film, Some Like It Hot. Wilder had considered a film based on adultery back in the 1940s but was unable to get funding at the time due to the Hays Code. The film was also based on a real life Hollywood drama in which an agent was shot by a producer over an affair (in which a low level employee apartment was used) as well as a friend of a co-writer who returned home to a dead ex-girlfriend following a break-up.

It is amazing to think that this film is described as a comedy. There are office politics in which mid-level managers use local celeb status to take advantage of their subordinates. There are half a dozen cheating husbands that string along their affairs. There are characters so hurt that they would rather die than deal with what is done with them. There are raging parties at work where everyone gets massively drunk and dance on the desks. Women are treated like objects that either need to be protected with violence or thrown away. And yet the film is legitimately fun with characters that are worth rooting for.

Some of the success rides on the fabulous acting of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and the witty dialogue written by I.A.L. Diamond. In fact, the dialogue and limited characters feels a lot like a stage play, which come to fruition in the form of Promises, Promises on Broadway by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Simon. Dealing with real sets and locations, however, resulted in some colds and sickness since the actors were really out in the New York snow. Some other realism in the film came from both lead actors taking blows for the film: Shirley MacLaine got proper slapped by the doctor and Jack Lemmon was really punched by the brother-in-law.

A stand out aspect for me in this film which I talk up quite a bit is the cinematography. I have used many screen grabs from the film and used them as my avatar. I identify with the feeling of being used for something which made a mid manager look good while allowing them to do bad things. In fact, I am sure that everyone has felt like a Baxter at some point, and it is great to see him stand up for himself. Here are a couple of screen grabs (besides the top photo above) that I have used:

That lonely man in the middle of countless empty desks, that look of frustration when others are using your things to live a better life than you, and that time that love makes utility become fun and gadgets seem pretentious. It is very easy for me to get lost in how much I love this film. It has been far and away my favorite find from the AFI Top 100 between when I first saw the film in 2014 and now.

So, should the film be on the top 100 list? It has the awards and the history along with being a fantastic film. Of course it belongs on the list. Would I recommend it? Yes. This film is the type that makes people like me want to go through lists like this. I had never heard of the film in 2014 and it floored me how good it was. Each time I watch I appreciate it more, and the whole film project becomes well worth my time and effort. This film is so good, it affirms my life choices. I invite and implore you to check it out for yourself.

#the apartment #jack lemmon #shirley maclaine #best picture #black and white #classic hollywood #cinematography #introvert #introverts #award winner #classic film #60s #comedy #billy wilder #perfect movies

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oh-boleyn · 5 years

Text

time stands still

words: 4052, one shot, language: english. f/f (parrlyn)

tw: blood, gore, death

Some people would say they are cursed, and Cathy would usually agree.

Other times, she would think it was a blessing.

This life, she doesn’t know.

“Are you sure you don’t remember?” Anne asks one night.

They are in bed, peacefully resting bathed in moonlight. The pair sleep in the attic of the old house in the outskirts of London. The bed is adjusted to the only window in the room, being that the only source of light they allow so late at night.

“About what?” Catherine looks at Anne, confused but not worried.

“Our past lives.”

“I remember about it, we do the show every night.” She laughs, as if it was obvious.

“But do you only remember about it? Nothing else?”

“What else should I remember?”

“Other lives.” Boleyn is just whispering now.

“We had other lives?” Parr frowns, she takes the other girl hands on her own.

“We had a hundred of them.”

“Tell me about it.”

There is a sparkle in her eyes, craving curiosity, the insatiable hungry of knowledge every Catherine Parr shared.

“Are you sure? None of them end well.”

Cathy considers it for a moment and then nods.

(…)

I remember one from not that long ago. We were living in Poland. It was after the great war. You moved across the street when you were twelve, I was eleven. The first moment I saw you, something made me get closer to you. An impulse you may call it.

We went to different schools, but would talk and play all day in your backyard. Your mom made the best cookies, even when she couldn’t buy something since you were lacking ingredients and money. She just had a way to do them.

I remember the day my dad bought me my first bike, we ride it all day, from your house to mine and back to your house. George was still little and Mary was just a little older than me. We were Jewish and he owned a shop.

When we were fifteen you once snuck into my house, and we have a sleepover.

(“Have you, Anne Boleyn, ever kissed someone?”

“I haven’t. What about you, Catherine Parr?”

“I haven’t. Would you do it? Kiss someone?”

Anne bitted her lip, looking at Catherine’s. It was a sudden desire. She knows that it would be bad if they got caught, but still couldn’t resist. With a sudden move their lips are touching, united in a soft kiss. It was brief but it felt like hours.

Anne knew she was in love.

“Have I ever told you about our past lives?” Catherine asks.

“We have past lives?”)

It was lovely, honestly. You looked so cute that night in the moonlight.

(…)

“That’s not a bad story.” Catherine says, playing with Anne’s fingers.

“You are forgetting the time and place, baby.”

(…)

After that, they passed a law. Things were complicated in Germany. Poland didn’t want more Jews. If you haven’t been living there for at least five years you weren’t consider a citizen, and you were there for almost four.

The last time I saw you was when you were boarding a ship to America.

I died not long after in a concentration camp.

(…)

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

(…)

There was another time, I think it could be another universe.

(…)

“Another universe? Do you mean it’s not only a time thing?”

“We have lived in other universes, other planets. This reality is just one of them.”

“Continue, please.”

(…)

As I was saying, I think it was another universe. I was a princess. I can’t remember the name of the land but you should have seen it, it was glorious. I lived in a magnificent old stone castle. It is true that winters were way too cold, but the views were amazing.

I think it was another universe because I had a dragon, she was my best friend. I found her when she was little, dragons were something so weird to find or have that I couldn’t believe she liked me. Her scales refracted the light of the sky, and the touch was like metal mixed with silk.

When I turned sixteen, my father organized a duel. All the knights were there, even George participated. Mary and I were rooting for a Sir whose name I also can’t remember.

And there was this no one. No one knew their name, or were they came from. But they started winning all the duels. They even won against the Sir.

When they won the last duel, my father asked for that person to come with us.

You took your helmet off and that was it. I fell in love immediately.

My father made you my knight. And if I wasn’t sure we were meant to be before, I was when my dragon offered you a ride.

(“Are you sure, my lady, I should do this?”

“Yes, if you are afraid, I can come with you.”

Anne got her dragon, Antlia, to remain still. Catherine went first, and then Anne. Antlia started flying slowly, passing woods and mountains, getting higher each time. Then she stopped in a mountain, letting them in a cave.

Boleyn almost falls in the slippery ice, but Parr holds her.

“My hero” Anne whispers.

Catherine had her arm around her waist, holding her close.

Anne closed the distance between them with a kiss.

Catherine stops her after a while.

“Have I ever told you this is not our first kiss?”)

Not long after I discovered I was not my mother’s kid, but I was product of an affair of my dad with a witch. After that, my brother went crazy, calling me a danger, worried I might take his place as a king. Afraid of my power.

We fought against him for years.

You killed him when he was distracted after slicing my head.

(…)

“You named a dragon Antlia?”

“Is that what you take from that life?” She suspired. “Anyway, I did. And she was gorgeous.”

“Is that your favorite life?”

“No.”

“Have we ever lived in a modern time?”

(…)

I worked in a newspaper, I wanted so bad to be a writer but, in the meanwhile, I was an assistant. Everyday I would go out and try to find the thing that would be my first article. I knew I had the potential, all I needed was a story to cover.

One day I went to this factory, the owner said it was ecologic and that sustainability was a reality to them. I found a lot of papers that went against it. I might have trespassed to found it, but nevertheless I had my story right there. He was not okay with that.

While I was trying to take more photos of what I discovered, he fired a gun. A gunshot that was supposed to go straight into my head. And suddenly a blur appeared, and the bullet was gone in a minute.

Next thing I knew, strong arms were letting me outside in a park.

You were a superhero, with superpowers and all of that. You were so fast, and so strong.

I wrote about it, you started giving me more and more interviews. I was the only one who had direct access to you. I soon became famous, gaining a lot of popularity. You did too, but still nobody knew your identity.

(“You can trust me.” Anne said.

“You are press. How can I know that you are not going to go around, telling everyone who I am? It would be the report of the century.”

“Am I reporter? Just that?” Boleyn gets closer, breath heavy and anxious. “I thought we were friends.”

She gives another step. They practically have no space between them, and Anne does what she felt the need to do for months.

She kisses the superhero.

“I know you” Catherine says. “And I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“What do you mean you know me?”

Parr takes her mask off.

“It’s a long story.”)

That was a nice life. We made so many good to a lot of people.

That means we also gained a lot of enemies. A lot of people wanted revenge, and you were an almost indestructible superhero. But I was not.

They killed me while we were trying to save people from a collapsing building.

(…)

Anne stays quiet for a while, just remembering how it felt, how it was. Just taking a moment to think about that life she already lost.

“Can you tell me more stories tomorrow?”

“Yes, of course I can.”

They fall asleep tangled in the bed, just like they did in another hundred lives before.

(…)

Catherine wakes up first, which is weird, and goes downstairs to prepare breakfast.

After her morning coffee she sank in the chair thinking about what Anne told her last night. In other moment she probably wouldn’t believe it, but she was back from the dead. That was enough evidence it might not be the first time.

She thought about all the other options in their lives, and started writing down questions for her girlfriend.

(…)

“C’mon Annie, come to bed, please” Catherine says, making space.

“Wait, I have to take off the glitter. And my boots. Why are you so anxious?”

The fairy lights were still on, giving to room a plus of dim light. The moon was nowhere to be seen; with the clouds it was impossible to see at least a bit of it. Catherine thought it was going to rain. Not that she minded, she loved the sound of it, and how the raindrops would hit the roof.

“I want more stories.”

“Oh, that’s it.”

Anne giggled, taking the last of her make up off. Catherine couldn’t believe how ethereal she looked. Pale, white skin shinning in the obscure room. Boleyn said Antlia’s skin refracted the light from the sky, Parr was sure that in this life it was her, her Annie, the one who could do that.

The girl gets into the bed, and under the sheets. She puts her leg between Cathy’s and takes a deep breath. Resting her head in her girlfriend’s chest, she starts her story.

(…)

There was one I don’t remember a lot about.

It was in the eighties I think, maybe even later.

We met in kindergarten; it was in the United States. We were really young, but still became friends after just one look. I was always attracted to you, like a magnetism I couldn’t scape away from it.

It didn’t take long before we became best friends.

I remember one day we went to a fair and I got lost. You found me; we loved the starts. I tried every night to count them. And you tried to help me. That day my dad was worried sick, my mum was in bed since George was about to be born. I showed up at my house almost in the morning, when the starts started to disappear.

We went through school together, and then we went to the dance. It was so boring, even if the music was good it was not our thing back then. We went up to the roof to watch the start.

(“Remember when you got lost? When we were kids?” Catherine asked.

“Of course! My dad hated me that day.” Anne laughs, carefree.

She didn’t have the burn of a hundred lives lost.

“You know, every time I think I lost you, I always look at the sky.”

“You will always find me in the moon.”

They stare at each other, as if they were both holding the starts, the moon and the universe in their hands. Anne can’t help herself, and kisses Cathy. Hungry, desperate for touching the sun. Because Cathy was the sun and Anne was the moon, they always knew that.

Minutes go away before Cathy talks.

“Do you know this is not the only moon I know?”)

We lived a great life that time, or so I think.

I got diagnosed with early dementia. I started to forget things, names, faces. I forgot you.

The only thing I can remember about those past few years was that you became an astronaut. You went to the moon. I always thought it was to find me. But I was already dead.

(…)

Catherine took a deep breath, eyes full of tears.

“That was not the best life,” Anne says “but still, it was a good one.”

“You died.”

“I know. But it was still good.”

They fall into a comfortable silence for a while.

“Have we ever been in the ancient Rome?”

(…)

We did. Still that history is not as interesting as when we were in Greece. I also think this one might have been in another universe, with other rules.

I grew up near the sea, in a small house with my mother. I always felt attracted to water, I loved taking baths and going to swim. I later discovered I had a reason.

Remember how in one life I wasn’t my mother’s daughter? In this time, I wasn’t my father’s kid. Instead I was the daughter of Poseidon, the Olympian, ruler of the sea, god of the water related things or something like that.

When my mother told me, I ran away. I needed to find my truth, my father.

I got to an ancient kind of school, full of gorgeous woman who knew a lot. They knew how to write, to read, to fight, I was nothing. Knew nothing. They didn’t want to accept me. But you were there and you took me in as your pupil.

You taught me about the symbols. About the culture. Music. Arts. Writing. You have always been a writer, in any world or universe. You showed me your poems, it was beautiful. I was good fighting, or in politics.

(“I have been keeping a secret from you.” Anne says one day after a couple of months.

Her head, adorned with some olive branches was down, she was staring at the fountain. Both of them were dressed in long white robes, incredibly soft for their time.

“So have I.” Parr confess.

“I mean it. It’s a terrible secret.” She takes a deep breath and puts her hand near the water. She started moving the water, making cubes out of it. Even a dolphin. “I am Poseidon daughter.”

Catherine was quiet, admiring Anne’s draws.

“Are you not afraid?”

“Not in a million years.”

Boleyn couldn’t contain herself anymore, and kissed Cathy. The water showering them nicely.

“What was your secret?”

“Would you believe me if I say this is not our only life?”)

We lived peacefully for a while. We lived together and learned a lot. We moved to an isle of only women. We decided to have a baby and I got pregnant.

We had a daughter; you should have seen her. Her eyes were olive green, and she had freckles.

I died the night she was born, and it rained for a week.

(…)

“You are saying Liz and Mae weren’t our only daughters?”

“They weren’t.”

“And you also died in childbirth?”

“I did.”

Anne is almost asleep when Cathy says “Please tell me one more.”

And Boleyn gives in.

(…)

There is that one, in the Victorian era.

It also didn’t go with this world’s rules, but it was in a darker way. Until I was sixteen my life was as normal as it could be. My dad had money, Mary was older, way older. She had married some random Lord or something like that. My family was hopping I would do so too.

I went with my mother to the theater one night, and as we were going back to the house, a man appeared out of nowhere. He told me I was gorgeous; I was almost perfect. Almost. He wanted to make me perfect. He offered and I said no, but he did it anyway.

First, he started with my mother, letting her paler than I ever saw her. I came next, I felt his lips on my neck, and suddenly something sharper. And it hurt. A fever feeling that was produced nausea. And then I was thirsty, more than I have ever felt. He gave me his wrist and I started drinking, and drinking, before I could notice it was blood.

I don’t remember how, but I ended in a house. Your house.

You told me you were the queen in London and I laughed. And you showed me your fangs.

I shut up.

You told me it was wrong. Vampires are not supposed to do that. To just turn a random person. That they needed consent. You found the one who turned me and punished him.

Years went by, my family noticed something was wrong with me and I started living in the shadows.

I found you again decades later.

(“Catherine! Be aware!”

A vampire slayer was behind the smaller girl. Anne jumped in front of her. It all happened quick and slow at the same time. Parr killing him, and Boleyn falling with a stake in her body.

“Anne!” The woman cried.

She went to hold the girl in her arms. Anne smiled slightly, and with the little strength she still had made a move. Lips and fangs on lips and fangs. They shared a moment, but then Anne felt salty tears in her lips.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because this is not the first nor the last time, I have to see you die.)

We throwed years away in that life because you thought you could save me.

(…)

Anne finishes and quietly snorts, her head still in Catherine’s chest.

Catherine quietly cries, trying not to wake up Anne.

How could it be possible, to lose her in every world, every time. Why did it happen to them? Destiny couldn’t just be that cruel, so horrible and devastating. It hurt, and she didn’t even remember any of those lives.

She stays up until really late, stroking and brushing Anne’s hair, trying to make mental notes about any characteristic feature. Taking it all, studying how her chest moved when she breathed. Feeling warm skin against hers.

When the sleep caught her, it was all nightmares. Anne forgetting, Anne with blood in her eyes, in her neck, on her lips, on her stomach. Anne dead a million times.

Anne, Anne, and just Anne.

(…)

Parr looks like she was hit by a car. Or a bus. Or a truck. Or the three of them. Zombies looked cuter. The queens ask her a million times if she feels okay and she says she does, but deep down it’s a lie only Anne knows.

She doesn’t go to the show, letting Courtney take her place. Anne wants to stay but she knows she has a duty with her fellow queens. Still she tries to make everything quick and go home as soon as she can.

(…)

When she gets there, Parr is just staring at the celling. Eyes lost.

“We missed you today. I missed you today.”

Catherine looks at her.

“You don’t want to talk? That’s okay.” Anne says. She sits on the bed, and Cathy quickly wraps herself and melts into a hug. “I will tell you a story.”

(…)

There was a time, really long time ago. We were in Egypt.

The world was similar to this one, but I swear the sun was brighter. And it was always hot. I was a strange person there, way too white. Way too weird. But you were as always just gorgeous.

You wouldn’t believe how much culture there was, a lot was lost from those times. Not even I can remember all of it right now. Everything was so different, the gods, the language, how they wrote. They made this incredibly good built things and without a lot of resources.

We met one day while in the market, you were selling fruits.

Since that day we met every day, at the same hour. Then we started meeting when the sun went down.

(They were in the light of the moon. Anne entered the river to calm herself from the heat and Parr followed.

Maybe it was being naked, or all the times Boleyn wanted to do it, but she kissed Cathy. It was sloppy, a total mess, and Anne laughed.

“Why do you always follow my lead?”

“Because I did it in every life, and it was always worth it.”)

We just continued to be friends.

I died not long after because an infection.

(…)

“Stop!” Parr screamed. She started crying.

“What’s going on?”

“You die. You always die. If you want to prepare me for it, just stop. I can’t deal with it anymore. Please stop, I can’t lose you.”

Anne takes a deep breath.

“Did you hear all the stories? I never remember, and we never come back twice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember our lives? With Henry?”

(…)

I was eleven years old when I heard you were born. I never give too much thoughts to it.

After years I went to live in the court, with Henry. Mary was his mistress and my father wanted the same for me. But I didn’t. Years went by, and all happened with Aragon. He created a new church so we could get married, and it was totally out of magnitude.

But we did get married, and it never felt right. There was something missing, something I felt like I needed but it was not there.

An ancient kind of love.

(Elizabeth was born. Henry wanted so bad a boy but was still content with a girl. They had time.

Anne saw her daughter, and kissed her head.

Maybe that was the love for her in that life.

She didn’t realize something was still missing, because Lizzie became her whole world.)

And then it all went downhill.

And no one in all bloody England could save me.

He cut my head with a sword and I died, but in that moment, dying I realized it was not the first time. It all came to me and I wanted to scream.

(…)

“I remembered you, I tried to call for you but there was so much blood, and it hurts so much and I can’t breathe.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“I know.” Anne brushed Catherine’s hair. “And we came back.”

(…)

I came back and I remembered. And I saw you. You told me your life and I was waiting for you to say something else, but you never did.

We came to live together, with the queens, and even when we didn’t meet each other in our past life there was something. We felt a connection. You were attracted to me, even if you didn’t know me.

You helped me through my panic attacks. You stayed by my side, after nightmares, when things got tough. You stayed. And I knew I love you.

(“Anne, I have to say something to you.”

Boleyn thought she was going to confess about her past lives, but before she could talk warm lips where on hers.

“I think I’m in love with you.”)

And I kept my secret.

(…)

“I don’t get it.” Parr states.

“In this world we broke it. You are the one with the blessing of remembering but the curse of watching me go, and I am the one with the blessing of falling in love time and time again, but never knowing why you are so important to me. But this time you don’t remember.”

“Doesn’t that mean you will have to see me go?”

“I already did. I died, and left you alone. Remembering and being five hundred years waiting for a second chance was my curse.” She kissed Catherine’s forehead. “This time we are free to live, my love I promise.”

Cathy sits in the bed, one in front of the others.

“I have loved you in every world, in every time, without knowing you. I loved you endless, without a reason. I loved you for you, in every form. I loved you as a queen, as a monster, as an angel. I loved you knowing I could die. And I will love you time and time again. Because if dying is the price I have to pay to fall in love again with you, Catherine Parr, I will do it.”

#catherine parr #anne boleyn #parrlyn #six the musical fanfiction #six the musical

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mossyrossaliceinterviews · 4 years

Text

Thao Nguyen Doesn’t Stay Down

Oct 8, 2020

By Mossy Ross

Photo Credit: Shane McCauley

When I first listened to the title track off Thao & the Get Down Stay Down’s fifth album, Temple, I immediately hit repeat. After I finished listening to it the second time, I hit repeat again. And then again. And then again. I had a teenage urge to learn all the lyrics, so I could sing along at the top of my voice while cruising down the road. The song describes the pain of losing a home to war, an experience many of us haven’t lived through in America, and yet I still felt a deep personal connection with the song’s powerful message. Perhaps because this country is currently facing such extreme civil unrest, so the thought of experiencing war firsthand is increasingly becoming more real. But the song also touches on the turmoil we can sometimes feel in our own family lives as well. Thao Nguyen seems to be a master at crafting albums that exquisitely make complicated and painful matters a bit easier to bear.

Thao recently won a Sunny Award by CBS Sunday Morning (my most favorite of all morning shows) for the music video to her song “Phenom.” Not only is the video wildly creative and entertaining, it conveys an intergenerational rage that’s finally being collectively realized. It’s the rage of someone who has discovered it’s okay to feel sick of constantly being at the bottom of the ladder, and the message should strike fear in the hearts of corrupt politicians everywhere.

As if a timeless and timely new album and an award winning music video weren’t enough, I was triply astounded after watching the documentary Nobody Dies (available to stream Sat., Oct. 10), which follows Thao on a journey with her mom to Vietnam. The trip was Thao’s first visit to Vietnam, and her mom’s first time back since fleeing the country in 1973. It was a chance for Thao to see her mother in an environment where she wasn’t defined by being a refugee, as she often is in America. In both the documentary and the album, Thao paints a picture we don’t often see in American popular culture: the perspective of a child whose parents have lived through and escaped war.

Mossy: I watched your documentary, and it was such a beautiful tribute to your mom. Is there anything about your mother’s life and experiences that really stand out for you, that you think Americans could learn from?

TN: When I wrote Temple, it was because I wanted to offer a different narrative and rendering of someone who experienced war, and the idea of what a refugee is. And obviously in recent years, maybe throughout American history, how refugees have been reduced and the narrative that has been relayed. I think it’s really important to remember that there’s a distinction between an immigrant and a refugee. And also that someone is not just defined by this war that happened to them and their country. I think that’s why Temple was so important for me. I really wanted to capture my mom’s life before, after, and during; and just help enrich that community. I was raised in Virginia, and growing up, it was so stark the way people treated (refugees). I think that parents that are refugees or immigrants witness a lot of incredibly unfortunate encounters, where their dignity is dismissed. You watch your parents be dehumanized in either casual ways, or really serious ways. So this was one of my efforts to address and make peace with that.

Mossy: When I was watching your documentary I found myself smiling. And then I got to the story about your dad and I just started bawling. What parallels do you see between your father and the patriarchy at large?

TN: That’s an interesting question. My record before this one was about my dad. It’s called A Man Alive, and it’s just about our nonexistent relationship and all the bullshit. But what I started to understand when I was making that record, was just a facet of what it is to be emasculated in American society. And what that means for the families of the men who are emasculated. And I think that you see that a lot, especially in immigrant and refugee homes. And others, I mean, I’m only speaking from my experience. But what does a man do to assert power when he feels as though he’s denied power in society? I think it becomes a really personal and intimate, familial problem. And you know, it helps me understand his experience and what unresolved trauma that basically debilitates him, and renders him an irresponsible, reckless person. Patriarchy in general…I do think so much of it is people not knowing how to grapple with the expectations of masculinity. I could go on. (Laughs) I’ll just say it’s so detrimental in every direction, because if you’re not masculine enough, you will pay and then someone else will pay. And if you feel as though you’re not respected enough, then the ways that men feel pressured to illicit that respect in our society is so deadly.

Mossy: You said in the documentary that when you went back to Vietnam, it helped you understand your dad’s temperament. That you understood it…but you didn’t. It’s like saying, “I do understand where you’re coming from and I empathize, but I don’t accept how you’re treating me because of it.” Which I feel is kind of where true healing from trauma can begin. How else do you deal with trauma?

TN: Well there have been different waves of awareness and lack of awareness of what I needed to be doing. I mean, I’ve done the typical things like drinking. (Laughs) I think touring helped. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life on tour, and it’s a refuge. But it also allows you to not deal with anything for a really long time. You could go your whole life without dealing with things. Of course, songwriting and making music. And really wanting to go there lyrically by being more specific with lyrics. Okay, and then therapy. But as far as music is concerned, I think it’s been really helpful to have these songs and talk about them, even under the auspice of promotion. But it’s also just connecting with people and talking about the songs. These levels of vulnerability make for a lot more humane experience. When we play live shows , if people get a chance, they’ll come up and tell me what a song has meant. And it really is so heartening and gratifying, and part of the healing.

Mossy: So you’re saying drinking didn’t work?!

TN: (Laughs) I still do it, so I’m not saying it doesn’t. Just don’t go crazy!

Photo Credit: Shane McCauley

Mossy: You have such a wonderful vocabulary, so I’m guessing you like to read. Who are you favorite authors?

TN: Thanks for saying that. Writing and reading favorite authors are how I prepare the albums and the songs. And when I’m writing songs, I never listen to music, and I only read. But I love, oh man, I grew up reading Toni Morrison and her way with language and the vivid pictures she paints and the way she renders people. Grace Paley is another writer who’s style I love. Marilynne Robinson. George Saunders. I typically am drawn to contemporary literature. And now there’s a lot of reading to be done to learn about how America has become what it is. And to that end, Octavia Butler and James Baldwin really influenced the writing of this record.

Mossy: So you’re like Kurt Cobain over here, writing songs inspired by literature.

TN: (Laughs) I wish I had a cool sweater.

Mossy: Ah, he had the best sweaters.

TN: He had the best sweaters.

Mossy: I saw on your Instagram that you support women prisoners and Critical Resistance. Why are you specifically interested in these causes?

TN: With the California Coalition of Women Prisoners, I’ve been involved with them since 2013. Originally it was because a housemate of mine was an amazing organizer, and has been with them for years. And I was home from tour for awhile and he asked me to join this advocacy group, where we went in to prisons and visited, and we were part of a legal advocacy team. So the album, We the Common is entirely about and in tribute to these people who live inside, and this organization.

Mossy: Do you need to have a law degree to do that? I wanna do that!

TN: (Laughs) You totally can! No you don’t have to have a law degree. So the people like my friend…they don’t officially have a law degree. They just know so much about the system, because they’re constantly trying to help people figure out their parole, and how to get their face back in front of a judge. So we went in conjunction with a lawyer. We were just a team that was basically working with a pro-bono lawyer.

Mossy: You mentioned connection and live performance in your documentary. How do you think the musical performance landscape is going to change since the pandemic?

TN: I don’t know what’s going to happen to the venues as they exist now. I don’t know what kind of modifications or concessions they’ll have to make. So I do think that there will be more unconventional and nontraditional venues that come up by the time we’re ready for crowds to gather. And I think there will be more multi-use spaces and art institutions and contemporary art museums. More of those kind of hybrid events. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the rock clubs. It’s so sad. But I do think that we were barreling towards a reckoning. And I liken the music industry to the restaurant industry in a lot of ways…how thin the margin is for survival. And I think people will play smaller shows, because they can happen more quickly. And I think there’s going to be a lot more direct to fan engagement. And those who have a preexisting fan base will lean more into those fans, and be less concerned with expanding.

Mossy: It’s almost like what’s happening in the music industry is symbolic of what needs to happen everywhere. More localizing and community building.

TN: Totally. And I think Bandcamp is going to take an even stronger role as leaders of a more ethical model. I think what’s happening right now with streaming services is, ah, (laughs) unbearable.

Keep up with Thao’s music and the organizations she supports on Instagram at @thaogetstaydown Stream the documentary Nobody Dies this Saturday at https://www.youtube.com/user/thaomusic

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sadwetmoomin · 5 years

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ok so im tired

The problem isn’t ‘not enough people of color or women are making enough good films and TV shows.’ The problem is whenever someone ACTUALLY gets recognized, white, cis men think that their own identity and the ‘integrity’ of award shows are being compromised to appeal to diversity. I remember watching Ramy Youssef accepting his Golden Globe for his performance in his own show, Ramy. Now, the show itself is incredible; as someone who’s trying to maintain faith and culture (though not Muslim), I found a lot of the things in Ramy’s reality really interesting and relatable. I felt like this was a story that many people have experienced, and making it a comedy makes our own lives more enjoyable. Furthermore, it addresses real issues in a way that exposes how ingrained they are in our everyday lives, and how (as a latina and child of immigrants) I had to grow up with all these preconceptions about myself and the people around me. However, when he was making his acceptance speech, a person walked up to the screen and talked over him, saying, “He only won because he’s Muslim. The academy loves to pick people because they’re diverse, and it’s unfair how political they are.” Yet, how can this statement be true when most of the nominated people were white? If the Academy truly rigged elections to pick people based on diversity alone, the whole audience would be different shades of brown, correct?

And why does the meaning of the award change depending on whose hand holds it? Without seeing the show itself, how can a person decide the merit a person deserves? Not only does it discredit the hard work a person did to fulfill an artistic vision, but it implies that the main difference between a white man’s work and anyone else’s is that a white man always deserves to be nominated. According to this ideology, a white man will always produce quality work that deserves every award it is teased with; everyone else is only there to piss off Republicans.

Listen, a lot of movies were good this year; i recognize that. But what I don’t understand is that in an industry where creativity is encouraged, a formula has developed that systematically puts some movies at a higher value than others. In a sense, there’s an elitism that only recognizes movies that appeal to a certain demographic and doesn’t venture too far from the center and actually pushes boundaries. Some actors aren’t getting nominated based on their actual performance; they’re getting nominated because, well...they’re That Actor. They are always supposed to get nominated because that’s What this Actor does.

And this reality sucks! How the hell am I supposed to say “women and people of color aren’t recognized enough” when the first argument I receive is, “what? men can’t make good movies?!” What, in fact, can I say that won’t make me feel trapped or won’t let people ignore me like they’ve been encouraged to do? And how can I say “The awards that aren’t segregated by gender but are still given to us are so few that we can’t even change the pattern?” Without someone saying “Well, you won that year!”? How can I communicate my point for people to actually understand that one award in more than 75 years isn’t nearly enough to solve a deep-rooted issue like this one? And how the hell am I supposed to actually create knowing in the back of my mind that if I don’t get recognized, people will automatically shrug it off with, “Well I guess women/POC didn’t make any good movies this year!”

In this reality, a Gerwig film will never come CLOSE to a Scorsese film. Or a Tarantino film. And, mind you, I’m not saying that these two men don’t deserve their nominations; OUATIH was a good movie, and I’m sure the Irishman was good (listen, I’ll be honest - i’m not sitting through a 4hr movie about Old People who Used to be Interesting). What I am saying is, Greta Gerwig had a truly interesting take on an old classic and made something important of it. And while she did all that, she made a stunningly beautiful film with a star-studded cast that truly made Little Women something incredible. Every single March sister had an assigned “fate” for women at the time, and throughout the film, Gerwig’s writing demonstrated that we’re still in this reality today! And film analysis aside, her creativity shone, and Little Women was intelligent, well-spoken, INTERESTING...I finally felt like there was a movie that had packed all my frustration growing up in a patriarchal world, even exploring a male character trying to live outside that world that didn’t suit him, and made that frustration art. Not seeing Gerwig receiving proper credit for directing this movie into perfection was disheartening, to say the least.

Furthermore (and this point will be shorter), there’s also a prejudice around actors usually known for comedies. In short, the elitism goes even deeper to exclusively prefer drama actors over comedic ones. Ironically, however, the dramatic performances by these comedians tend to shine, exposing these people as truly talented actors with a versatile and noteworthy range. Of course, this brings me to mention Uncut Gems, which deserved a seat at the table, and it makes me mention Adam Sandler, who truly SHONE. Furthermore, Awkwafina (and The Farewell in general) was incredible, and the story she told was powerful and amazing. Though Hustlers was not my favorite movie, Jennifer Lopez was AMAZING...yet these aren’t ‘serious’ actors, right? They haven’t done whatever the fuck these other people have done!!!

We have to start recognizing newer directors, newer writers, newer actors, newer stories that haven’t been explored before or invent a new category on Netflix or whatever. Not to be Virginia Woolf on main, but there is a certain beauty of ordinary life, of ordinary women, of ordinary people of color, of ordinary people from the LGBT+ community, that doesn’t have to be fetishized or insulted in order to be of worth to male audiences. Women don’t have to beat up, people of color don’t have to be criminals, men don’t have to be war heroes or powerful bosses or manly at all! What are we supposed to learn from art and culture if we are only exposed to the same points of view over and over again? What makes a tired world war story (albeit a different world war this time) - in which the SAME people are considered infallible heroes (even though in WWI no one truly was the good guy but that’s another point) - something new and truly nuanced about our society or the way the writers think or tell stories? I can’t critique any of these old, white, male directors or writers or actors because not wanting to watch their films or whatever makes ME the idiot for “not knowing what culture is”! If their names are the only things giving them merit, then they can do no wrong, and I am in the wrong for preferring someone else’s movie.

tl;dr Movies are a form of art, and everyone is encouraged to indulge in said art and make something wonderful. Yet, if we are going to applaud certain pieces of art over others, then we have to break down these nonexistent barriers that define what “valuable art” consists of. We can’t change the definition of good art based on whoever holds the award, and we can’t hold good art to the same standard of people who no longer know what the world of art looks like. Give people a chance to actually CREATE; and see how beautiful films can actually be.

#i know im just some meme account but hey u signed up for this #raw unfiltered AAAAAAAA babey #and yeah im just a nerd on the internet but im mad and someone might care #im just tired of never being listened to and actually having thoughts ya know #anyway heres wonderwall #oscars #films #movies

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positivelypetty · 6 years

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A REALLY long rant on the Joint Training Arc.

Okay, so since the Joint Training Arc is basically done, I thought I would share my various opinions and adress certain issues that A LOT of people had with this arc.

But, before we get into the actual rant, I think I should distinguish the difference between an opinion, criticism and just plain antagonism.

Here is an example of just misinformed toxicity:

This is just being TOXIC!!! You can’t shelter these horrible comments by saying “it’s just an opinion.” Please don’t act like after 4 years of really enthralling writing, he’s now the worst writer ever. Instead, explain why you don’t think this was the best story choice, instead of being clearly misinformed. It’s nothing absolutely terrible, but just a simple example on how people can be so demanding and completely inconsiderate to the creator.

“Forbidding” Horikoshi from writing is actually ridiculous. He WROTE AND CREATED your “precious sons” that you love so much. So, if you claim that the manga is now utter trash because it doesn’t personally cater to you, please abandon or take a long break from the manga/anime to maybe clear your head. Thank you.

We don’t need any more toxicity in this fandom than we already do.

Now with that said, let’s talk about the arc! (Also keep in mind that these ideas spurred from Reddit so, I decided to expand on it)

1-B vs 1-A situation:

I've been reading a ton of comments too, the good, and the bad and it's fine, everyone has their opinions and that's cool, but for me, it didn't seem it was about who won or lost, it was more about how each class was taught. And this boils down to both Vlad and Aizawa.

Vlad has obviously been pushing his students and their quirks to the max in regards to working in teams. This shines through in all of the fights they all work together very well and know the strengths and weaknesses of each other as well as their enemies. They go into a battle with a plan and are ready to execute the plan flawlessly.

Whereas Aizawa I believe has pushed for more individualist thinking style, and I think this comes from his basis of fighting villains. No one will come to save you, you have to be able to handle yourself whether escaping or defeating. He doesn't coddle his students, and he does push them to the brink as well. What's interesting is Class A has had more hands-on experience. With Aizawa’s teaching style I think they sometimes have a harder time working with one another and they can fall apart with their teamwork. HOWEVER their real-life experience has taught them that the best-laid out plans can not go as plan, and they are able to utilize their 'individual' thinking to fight regardless of a plan falling through.

I found it really interesting and I think there's value in both ways of thinking for Vlad and Aizawa. For Class B, they will have to learn how to abandon a plan that's not working and strategize on the fly, and Class A will have to hone their teamwork for long-running battles.

And let's be honest, these are just kids, pushing their bodies and minds to the limit, I don't find Class B to be 'trash' just because they lost, they still fought hard and worked better together in the long run then Class A. Class B didn't have any dead weight with their battles, everyone was utilized and contributed to all their fights. People are so set on who “won” or who “lost” the battle, that people overlook everyone’s overall individual quirks and techniques. I personally believe that many of the 1-B students were amazing and are forces to be reckoned with. It’s just that 1-A knows how to handle themselves when things don’t to go to plan rather than 1-B (as mentioned before) which gave 1-A the upper-hand in most of the battles, but I can definitely name a few fights where Class A's members were carried by their team.

Now to address the Shinsou thing:

To everyone who was PRESSED that Shinsou didn’t win....

What do you expect from Shinsou? I feel like people were overestimating him. Even with those cloth bindings and his quirk. All you need to do is shut your mouth, grab his cloth bindings (at best he has a few months training) keep focusing on him,restrain him, and boom you're done.(I obviously know it’s not that simple, but basically) I love Shinsou, I really do, but he’s basically Aizawa (I love Aizawa too don’t get me wrong). Aizawa mentioned that it took FIVE YEARS for him to truly master his quirk, and even though since this is the younger generation, so he’ll probably get the hang of it sooner, how long as he really been “training” his quirk under Aizawa? Definitely not long enough for him to go 1v1 with someone who is a close combat fighter. (It really isn’t that shocking that Deku won, he could probably win without Black Whip). Don't get me wrong Shinsou has improved MONUMENTALLY but not to the extent of 1-A who has direct experience in fighting villains. I just think people are mainly mad that 1-B lost is as because they think Shinsou won’t get into the Hero Course. Like chill. One of the main reasons 1-A won in the first match was because of Shinsou, so I think that proves that he is MORE than capable to get in to the Hero Course.

The whole OP Deku thing:

First off, I honestly don't expect him to ever match All Might at his prime in terms of consistent pure raw strength. Deku isn't a giant man of pure muscle, so I don't think he'd be able to go 100 and maintain it like All Might could. Deku is more of a person of different techniques and strategy, rather than brute force. Like, I don't know if Deku is going to be throwing punches that can blow away a city block.

That being said, each generation is getting stronger. Like, Endeavor will be surpassed by Todoroki by the time he graduates (if it even takes that long). Iida is already faster than Gran Torino. In the very beginning of the manga, they mentioned Deku will be the strongest holder of OFA, since it gets stronger each generation. Deku will have formidable rivals if the other strong students also reach their full potential. Hell, those rowdy kids we saw at the makeup exam already had really strong quirks at their young age. Generational power creep means that everybody around Deku will get way stronger than the current pros.

I understand the sentiment that Deku doesn't need more quirks, but Deku's quirk development was already approaching a plateau in terms of being able to fully control what power he could handle. He'd just work on his technique and slowly get stronger and stronger. Sure, he's gonna eventually be able to punch/kick hard enough to shoot himself around in the air, but we've already seen that stuff (plus Bakugo does that too). I know Horikoshi is creative and will develop some cool moves for Deku, but Deku's struggle to control OfA was mostly over. All he had to do wast master OFA steadily and he’ll be good. More quirks means that he may unlock more quirks when he's able to use more %. So instead of reaching 30% and just being X amount stronger physically, he may unlock a new tool to try and master/incorporate into his combat toolkit.

If this is a negative turn for the story, we won't even be able to tell until many, many more chapters are released. We may look back and decide that this was a bad move, but we shouldn't assume that's the case when it was literally introduced TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS AGO. (even though I don’t think it was a bad move AT ALL)

What I hope to see in future Arcs:

I think what fans would really enjoy and we could all use some real Deku character development. Deku’s my favorite character, but I feel like people can’t connect to him as much as someone like Todoroki, because his lack of emotional development. He’s indeed way more confident then he was in the beginning, I still feel like he has low self esteem. Someone needs to tell him that he’s worthy of this mega powerful quirk. ( he needs it 😭)We know so much about him, but rarely see him living his day to day life outside of training, costume updates and the occasional villain attack. Last time we got anything close to development in was only told through Aoyama's development.

These next few chapters will definitely give us something, but only as it relates to One for All. I'd honestly like to know Deku's thoughts about his situation, he seems determined that's for sure. Does he feel stressed, uninformed, unprepared, scared...resentful? We can infer a bunch, I'd just like to see him talk to All Might, Bakugo or his mom about it.

In Conclusion:

Honestly, to me,It never seemed to matter who won or lost any of these matches people were gonna complain regardless. When Class A wins they call it predictable and when class B won they say call it BS or plot amor. Even when it’s a draw people got upset saying Todoroki was disappointing. Some people wanted the matches to be fleshed out over a couple of chapters rather than rushed, then a few weeks later complained that it was taking to long. Bakugo wins his match quickly and those same people lose their minds about how they wanted the match to be longer. People complained about Horikoshi not letting the girls shine in battle after the second match, but conveniently forgets Tsuyu was the MVP of the first match and Kendo and Mushroom girl made 1-B win the second match. (AND WE’RE NOT GONNA FORGET HOW URARAKA AND MINA DOMINATED THE MATCH)Then you have the people who say all of 1-B is worthless and then Juzo and Tetsutetsu prove otherwise. Now we have people think Deku is OP but in this new chapter it seems that he much has a limit to using these other abilities but I’m sure that won’t stop the myriad of complaints. Every week the same people come to see the spoilers and complain based off of a fragmented non-contextualized summary of the chapter and wonder why they enjoy the chapter itself less. Maybe going into a chapter with a negative outlook will do that. The part that irks me is that virtually everyone whose binge-read this arc seems to enjoy it only seems to be us week to week readers with a issue. Either way I hope the discussion going into the next arc are far more level-headed constructive than they have been.

I think this will be one of the arcs that played out better once it was animated. Individual panels maybe favored over the anime, but overall pacing will surely favor the anime. Waiting week in and week out, over analyzing every short chapter has really done no favors for fans and Horikoshi.

#mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku #midoriya izuku #bnha #mha 213 #mha 214 #mha 215 #mha 200-215 #mha 216 #thanks for coming to my ted talk #yall are so annoying #i stg #rant #anime #manga #manga spoliers #bnha spoilers

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wannabealexjenningscoffee · 5 years

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Notes on a fair lady

As an icon of screen and stage makes her Australian directing debut, her "gorgeous" aura has made a lasting impression on her cast, writes LISSA CHRISTOPHER.

'It was a complete no brainer," says Alex Jennings of his decision to take up the role of Henry Higgins for a third time. In this instance, it came with the opportunity to be directed by the legendary Dame Julie Andrews, to visit Australia for the first time and to relish what the 59-year-old feels is probably his "last chance" to play the eccentric professor of phonetics in a credible way. Rex Harrison - My Fair Lady's first Henry Higgins - was still reprising the role well into his 70s. "But I do not want to be doing that," says Jennings. "You'd have to find an actress in her 90s to play your mother, Mrs Higgins, for a start, and then there's the whole relationship with Eliza. Is it a romance? I know older men do marry much younger women, but I think it's slightly queasy-making if the gap gets too big."

Jennings is one of those high-calibre, never-seen-in-Who-magazine British actors whose faces are probably more recognisable than their names, particularly for Australian audiences. His career has been focused primarily on the stage - he's a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre - but he has had some significant film roles. He played opposite Maggie Smith, as the writer Alan Bennett, in The Lady in the Van, for example, and Prince Charles in The Queen. He has appeared in a number of well-known British TV series, from Whitechapel to New Tricks to Foyle's War and later this year, viewers will see him as the Duke of Windsor in the Netflix series The Crown. Every story about Jennings, including this one, points out that he is the only person in history to have won uber-prestigious Laurence Olivier theatre awards for performances in the comedy, drama and musical categories, the last for his first rendition of Henry Higgins, in 2003. Jennings has such a deep, clear and resonant speaking voice that the timber and steel table between us, in a small rehearsal room at Opera Australia's Surry Hills headquarters, seems to vibrate slightly under its influence. It's a beautiful voice and narrating audiobooks is also a big part of Jennings' professional repertoire. His register is particularly low today, he says, because the cast did a full run-through of the show the day before. My Fair Lady is a taxing show, particularly for him and his co-star, Anna O'Byrne as Eliza Doolittle. To sustain your voice over the season, he says, "you have to warm up, warm down, keep hydrated, steam". Then, adopting a plummy tone, "You have to tend your instrument." The upcoming Australian production of My Fair Lady celebrates the musical's 60th anniversary and is a homage to the original, successful Broadway production, starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Jennings says he was nervous about meeting Andrews for the first time - "I mean, she is an icon really, isn't she?" - but he soon relaxed in the 80-year-old's "gorgeous" company. Somewhat heavy-handed attempts on the part of your correspondent to wring a morsel of gossip or criticism from Jennings about Andrews end in failure. "No! She doesn't have any strange habits!" he says. "She is fan-tastic. Honestly. Just fantastic. Working with her is like a masterclass. It's amazing. And very sort of touching to see her revisiting something she did 60 years ago. Her staging instinct is immaculate. Her notes are incredibly detailed. She is so fantastic and generous with the ensemble, and gorgeous to be around. She is amazing. Amazing. Amazing." The 2003 production of My Fair Lady was the first musical of Jennings' career. "It was sort of the obvious one for me to do because ... you don't need to be a beautiful singer," he says. He went on to do Candide and a long West End run as Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His singing, he says, has come along in leaps and bounds, with help from the renowned voice coach Mary King. "I always feel slightly nervous about saying I can sing, probably because someone will say 'well, go on then', but I can sing." He says he has spent time working with the voice coach on really singing - rather than talk-singing - Higgins' lyrics. "I wanted to see how far I could go with that, but Julie is pushing me in the opposite direction - to sing less. It makes sense. His songs are patter songs and you can do more with the lyrics if you speak them than if you adhere to the notes." O'Byrne, who as Eliza spends much of her time on stage with Jennings, says he brings a sense of playfulness to the production. "He's a joyful person, a lot of fun to be around on a personal level, and professionally, his skill level is so high. His attention to detail and his willingness to play around with new things on stage is wonderful to watch." The role of Eliza is a huge one. O'Byrne has played Christine in The Phantom of the Opera and its sequel, Love Never Dies, but never a role with as much stage time as this. "It's one of the dream roles in music theatre," she says. "Eliza has so much strength and bravery. She is the most human character I've done on stage. But on a practical level, the trickiest thing is keeping the storytelling strong all the way through." Andrews, who created the stage role of Eliza when she was 21 years old, encouraged O'Byrne to make the role her own. "She didn't want a carbon copy and I don't think that would be right in our version of the show, so I've felt great freedom in that respect," she says.

After decades of highly respectable success as a theatre actor, including his dream job playing Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Jennings says he wouldn't mind a bit more Hollywood-style celebrity in his life. "When I was doing publicity for The Lady in the Van, being flown first class to LA and being picked up in nice cars and things like that, that hadn't been my career, really, but I thought oh, hello, this is quite nice."

He even harbours what appears to be a near-genuine ambition to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, the popular British version of Dancing with the Stars. "I don't actually think I could do it. It's such hard work, but they seem to have such a good time ... My agent doesn't want me to do it though and I haven't been asked, you know. I don't have that kind of profile."

In the meantime, Jennings and his wife, Lesley Moors, a landscape gardener, make do as enthusiastic amateur hoofers. It transpires that Fred Astaire rather than, say, Laurence Olivier, was Jennings' childhood idol. "I've always been quite a nifty disco boy ... We are party dancers and Prince is very big in our lives. We mourn him." My Fair Lady opens opened at the Sydney Opera House on September 6.

Lissa Christopher Sydney Morning Herald 3 September, 2016

#alex jennings #my fair lady #uk actors #alex jennings interviews #sydney opera house #henry higgins #dame julie andrews #julie andrews #musical theatre #opera australia

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janiedean · 5 years

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I still think call me by your name's age thing opens a lot of doors to malipuation, but please explain since I'd like to see this from a native Italian's point of view

… anon I have an entire tag for that which is under /tagged/cmbyn-discourse, but very quickly because honestly this discourse should have burned even before existing:

one: any relationship can be manipulative. even in between people the same age. in itself it means nothing;

two: in italy the age of consent is fourteen except specific cases that imply people having sex with someone in a position of power directly over them. but as the coming-of age is eighteen, seventeen year-olds are more or less considered mentally closer to eighteen than fourteen, because sure af someone who is almost about to get to the age where you can drive/vote/drink without hiding your ID sure as hell would feel closer in attitude, interests etc. to an eighteen year-old than a fourteen year-old. seventeen yo people are almost adults, not children. which means that unless it’s an exceedingly problematic situation (ie 17yo person with their 40yo teacher or something of the kind) no one goes to assume that the 17yo can’t know what the fuck they’re doing, especially because a good amount of people have lost their v-card before they can vote;

three: twenty-four is nowhere near as bad as people on here assume and like sorry but if you take any random 17yo person ever and ask them ‘would you rather have casual sex with someone younger than you or with a hot university student in their mid-twenties’ 99,9% of them will tell you they’ll take the hot uni student and not the fifteen year-old in hormonal crisis, so here no one would think that the age gap is inherently problematic in lack of other issues first of all the seventeen year-old;

four: given that in the US people at seventeen can drive and enlist in the army (here they can’t do either, at most they smoke/drink under the radar and in theory it’s forbidden) I don’t see what the fuck is so terrible about a 17yo person banging a 24yo person vs a 17yo enlisting in the damned army or having a driving license like sex isn’t a bad thing and it doesn’t have to be *manipulation* and seven years of age gap is really not that much esp. when we’re discussing young adults;

five: listen guys I don’t wanna be that person esp. because I’m not lgbt and so on but like….. let’s be fucking real here:a) the author of the book has literally damn said: “I haven’t come across many bisexual characters,” says Aciman. “A lot of people believe they’re totally heterosexual or gay. I’ve never been one or the other. I couldn’t imagine writing about people whose sexuality is anything other than fluid.”, from which I would suppose he’s not straight;b) luca guadagnino, director of the damned movie, is gay, is out (which in italy is not a given) and last I know was dating a man;c) james ivory, writer of the damned movie who has also won the oscar for that one script, has been openly gay and out since the freaking seventies, his partner (ismail merchant) produced his movies, was behind maurice and a helluva lot of lgbt-themed movies and adaptations of e. m. forster’s work (forster ie another gay man who wrote books).now, I’m not bringing the actors into it because I don’t like to speculate about people’s sexualities, but most people behind that movie and who had most decisional say in it ie author of the original novel, director and script-writer, are, guess what, either gay men or fall under the mlm definition. now: can people just please let gay men/mlm make the fucking movies they want? like. I’m pretty damn sure that they would know best if their movie might be a bad influence or something.

also, guys not to be that person but as far as lgbt movies about gay men made by gay men or mlm go, cmbyn from what I gathered/I’ve been told (bc I still haven’t seen it yet I KNOW I DIDN’T HAVE TIME AT SOME POINT I WILL) is pretty much tame as hell. if anyone on here had watched any single movie of fassbinder’s or derek jarman or any single lgbt director from the 70s-90s they’d find way more problematic things than a seven-year age gap in between two people who have a damned summer fling and then go on their separate ways, and fyi at least one of the gay guys I know that I’ve heard discussing the movie irl said it was absolutely amazing except for the ending AAAH THE ENDING SUCKED and he obviously wanted them to end up together and not the way it ended. like. can we all… just….. chill on this especially when it’s a movie made by gay men about gay men and I’d assume they’d know the issue better than people who aren’t? thanks.

also: it’s been a year and a half. like. let this die. this discourse didn’t have the rights to even be alive for this long.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #cmbyn discourse #i mean guys seriously??#slkgjklsdkljgkdl #Anonymous #ask post

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chloehl10 · 6 years

Text

I was tagged by the lovely @pocketsunshineharry, thank you so much, love!

All answers should be about works published in 2018. (Skip any questions you don’t want to answer, but please leave them on the list so that others can answer them if they want.)

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: 29. Oops. Lol

2. Word count posted for the year:

1,725,628. That’s 1.7 million words. I have no excuse.

3. List of works published this year (in order of posting):

A Lot Of Fight Left In Me You Bring Me Home Wonder How I Ever Made It Through Don’t You Remember? I Got Me An Appetite Tell Me That You Want Me Tonight Piece by Piece Hallelujah You’re Home Lucky Ones To Carry Love (I Can Show You How To) Slow Dance I Will Answer All Your Wishes You’ve Got This Spell On Me Look How Far We’ve Come My Baby Baby, Honey It’s Coming Home You’re My Only Hope Right Here Waiting Remedy I Knew You Were Waiting For Me With The Strength To Carry On Baby We Could Be Enough Lost Without You We’ve Already Won Feels Like Christmas Let Me Be Your Star Made From Love Fairytale of New York You Were Made To Be Mine (wip)

4. Fandoms I wrote for:

One Direction 5. Pairings:

Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson 6. Story with the most

Kudos: You Were Made To Be Mine (wip) - 2,125 / Let Me Be Your Star (complete) - 1,177 Bookmarks: You Were Made To Be Mine (wip) - 532 / Lucky Ones (complete) - 403 Comments: You Were Made To Be Mine (wip) - 3,111 / Let Me Be Your Star (complete) - 1,212

9. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

There’s two. You Were Made To Be Mine because I love it, and I think I’ve really created a world for these two characters, and Jacob is just one of my favourite characters I’ve ever written. Also Let Me Be Your Star. This was written on a whim after something on Twitter, and it’s just been so well received. I was proud of how accurately I wrote Louis, even before we saw on him on X Factor, and I’m just really proud of how it all went.

Oh and I have to mention my first long fic A Lot of Fight Left In Me. My heart and soul went into that story, and I love it so much. And Piece by Piece, this fic will always be so special to me.

10. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

I don’t want to say. I do have one, and in a way, I am tempted to orphan it. But hey.

11. A favourite excerpt of your writing:

This was hard. I’m going for this from YWMTBM chapter 56. “Lou….” Harry shuffled their bodies until his own legs were out in front of him, Louis’ body against his, silence broken by only Louis’ sobs, and Harry’s breaths. “Louis… you know it’s okay to not be okay, right? It’s not a weakness, sweetheart… you’re just, you’re just human.. Don’t ever be ashamed of hurting because I want to be the one you turn to… not the one you run away from, yeah? I want to share your burdens, wipe away your tears… hold you when you cry. Because I love you, Louis… so much, you have no idea how much.”

“Harry, I-”

“No, it’s my turn. Listen to me, please?” Louis nodded, more tears falling as Harry started to speak. He didn’t know if there was anything Harry could say to change his mind about this. No pretty words to fix it.

“You need to trust that I’m not going to run away when things get a little bit tough. Because I’m not, not now, not ever. You’ve been pushing me away, Louis, so fucking hard, and it hurt so bad because you wouldn’t let me in when all I wanted to do was help. I just want to be there for you-”

“But you nearly weren’t-” Louis whispered, the words falling from his lips. “You nearly left me, Harry… I… you nearly died, and you nearly left me. I had to listen to a doctor tell me that they didn't know if you were ever gonna wake up. I was nearly alone again, like before. I’ve never been so scared, Harry. I can’t bear the thought of you being taken away from me. I don’t want you to leave. It’s been easier to push you away, knowing that you would leave by your own free will, than losing you any other way.”

“I didn't want to leave… you have to know I never would have wanted that, Lou...” Harry was crying again now, reliving those awful memories, things he’d pushed deep down long ago, realising with horror that Louis had never moved on, had never really talked about how he felt when Harry had had his accident… how he’d nearly lost his husband. “But I’m here now, yeah? I don’t want to leave you, Louis. I want to grow old with you, and hold your hand every single day. I want to wake up to your beautiful blue eyes, and I want to share your pain, and your hurt. I want you to trust me, to let me do that for you.”

“You were there for me when I had my accident. You were my rock. You kept me going when I wanted to give up. When the physio was too much, I just wanted to give in, but you made me strong, Louis. You encouraged me… you believed in me. But now it’s my turn. It’s my turn to support you, to believe in you, like I promised when I married you. Please let me be there for you-” Harry’s voice cracked on the last word, meeting Louis’ eyes.

All Louis could see was honesty and love. There was a sincerity in Harry’s words that he just believed, and finally, he reached down, watching as his smaller hand sat on Harry’s, their fingers mingling gently, cautiously, as if they were afraid to touch. Louis bent his fingers, letting Harry clasp his hand in return. What seemed like such a small step seemed enormous to Louis, but he knew Harry was the only person he would ever want to be vulnerable with.

Despite everything… despite how hard Louis had tried to push him away, Harry wasn’t going anywhere. Harry loved him, and he loved Harry, more than he could ever say. He looked back into the eyes of his husband, the one who loved him in spite of his faults, who loved him because of them. Harry didn't see a broken man who he needed to fix. He just saw his Louis. Louis’ bottom lip wobbled as he stared deep into Harry’s eyes, as if he were looking into his soul, seeing the other half of himself.

12. Share or describe a favourite review you received:

Some of the comments I get make me want to cry, honestly. I’m not sure people know how much leaving a comment on AO3 means to authors. I’d be hard pressed to find just one, but anything where people can relate to my writing in their real life is always very touching. Here’s one that moved me deeply recently from my christmas fic Feels Like Christmas:

“Im not gonna lie, I had to take breaks reading this because it was SO SAD in parts, in between being so beautiful.Harry was just like an angel of Christmas in this and your Louis seemed, to me, to be VERY realistic. I can't imagine how losing Jay has affected him in general but especially on his birthday and at Christmas. She was such a beautiful mum and it still breaks my heart to read of her. The cemetery scene was perfection but heart-breakingly sad.I loved Harry delivering treats to the "neighbour" who turned out to be Louis. I wish I had a Harry :)Your writing was so sensory - which is something considering I'm Australian and rarely seen snow lol But the smells, sights etc of Christmas were just amazing.Terrific job, loved it :)“

13. A time when writing was really, really hard:

I went through a period of getting negative comments on YWMTBM and that was very hard to push through and tell the story I wanted to tell. But I did, and I am proud I did, because I write for me and that’s the most important thing. I have a story to finish, and I’m determined to. I also found the scenes in the middle of YWMTBM very hard and emotional, and I got caught up in Louis’ mindset for a while, which was very tough.

14. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: I wrote a section of YWMTBM where Louis was struggling a lot with his mental health, and I surprised myself by delving into a subject like that. It was quite different for me, but I hope I did it justice, and that people could understand Louis’ actions. Also I wrote an mpreg birth scene which I never expected to do lol.

15. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I feel my writing as a whole got better, I got more confident, and I was more able to craft stories.

16. How do you hope to grow next year:

To not take on so much lol, although I love writing so much.

17. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

I’ve worked so much with @thecompasspointstohome, one of my closest friends and she’s so much of an inspiration to me, no matter how much she ignores that I tell her that. She’s amazing, and my work would be a mess without her. I am forever grateful to have her.

18. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Yes, a bit of a sad one. A child in my class in battling leukaemia at the moment, and he was the inspiration behind Mia and her story in A Lot Of Fight Left In Me. He still has his down days, but he’s an amazingly strong child and I hope he has the ending that Mia, Olly, Louis and Harry have in that story.

19. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Write for you. That’s the most important thing I’ve found.

20. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

My BDSM fic, and my Harry Potter exchange fic. I also have my fic for the Fanworks for Charity to write, as well as updating YWMTBM. I also have a few other stories in the works so wait and see :) Oh, and my tearjerker fic which I’ve been teasing forever on Twitter, oops...

21. Tag three writers whose answers you’d like to read.

Anyone who wants to do it, please do so!

#my fic in 2018 #my 2018 on ao3 #larry fic #lovelarry10

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judithbutlersdealer · 6 years

Text

favorite books of 2018

yes I know we’re halfway through January but time isn’t real

goals: read 30 books

don’t read white men/read everyone but white men

at this point I naturally gravitate towards books that aren’t about or by white men so this wasn’t a big issue for me, plus I didn’t have any strict restrictions about Not Allowing Myself to read white men at all or anything, because if a book is good then it’s good and if an author is good then they’re good! I don’t want to willfully rob myself of a good experience, my main objective was just to broaden my horizons and focus overwhelmingly on people who aren’t white men so GOAL ACCOMPLISHED

data ripped from my Goodreads page because I think it’s fun:

69 books

20,879 pages

shortest book: letters to a young poet (52 pages)

longest books: the unabridged journals of sylvia plath (732 pages)

top 10

I Can’t Believe You Just Said That by Danny Wallace

this book was great. Danny Wallace basically meets a Rude Man and it upsets him so much he just starts investigating the history of rudeness. so fun and smart and tender and amazing. I read this book while continuously failing my driving test because the guy who was doing the test was a notorious sadist and I was really just Going Thru It on all fronts and this book was actually such a breath of fresh air right in that period of my life. like yes some people are very terrible and there’s nothing for you to do about that and some people are very good, and you will probably meet an equal mix of both in your life and that’s pretty fascinating, all things considered. great stuff written by a great man.

white man?: yes but Danny Wallace is one of my all-time favorite writers and also human beings so!!! I can’t believe I have less than a year until I go to the same school he went to and move to the city where he lives!!!! what the fuck (please Danny Wallace if you’re reading this don’t get a restraining order I’m actually a quite normal and stable person I swear)

How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell

are you an opium memoir, alcohol memoir, or amphetamine memoir type of person? personally I love them all but I used to be an amphetamine person and now I can’t be an amphetamine person so I’m an amphetamine memoir person. I wish people would take this book (and all books like this) more seriously. I took it seriously and it was painful. very fast read, very fun, very sad. can’t ever watch Catfish ever again.

white man?: no

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

WOWWWWWWW this book. this book right here! this fucking book. it ripped out my heart and then fed it to me again. what is it about seeing your own home described so carefully & tenderly & lovingly & with such surgical precision by someone who’s an outsider there? idk but it makes life worth living for me. I’m still 100% convinced that Elif Batuman wrote this book for me, specifically. you guys get to read it and that’s cool because it’s a great book but it was written for me. thank you Elif!!! so generous.

this book punched me in the mouth then kissed me on the forehead then baked me a cake then got me drunk.

white man?: no

Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman

I still haven’t seen the movie, and that should tell you how much this book hurt my heart. it didn’t even hurt it as much as it moved inside it & lived there & probably will for the rest of my life. I read it while trekking through the Alps and also so deeply in love I felt like it would never go away (and it didn’t) and this book just Got It. it didn’t get me as much as it got the concept of love & desire & knowing yourself vs knowing someone else vs knowing the two of you together. the whole book is one long, breathless sentence. there’s a quote I sometimes use on my blog to tag stuff and it’s “desire is always leaving the door open” and that’s what this book is about.

white man?: yes

Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith

this is the book I’ll always read when I want to remind myself how much smarter I can be.

white man?: no

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

perfect book to read on a rocky beach on the Côte d'Azur in late August. equal parts glossy fun & thought-provoking. all in all I’m really thankful that Carrie Fisher found the strength to write as much as she did throughout her life, and I’m thankful that I found her books this year

white man?: no

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

perfect Christmas break-read. this book is so different from what I usually read (I pretty much never read historical fiction & whenever I try I just can’t get into it) but something just drew me to it & I needed something to read while sprawled out on the couch post-Christmas dinner, so I bought it on a whim and I’m so glad I did! the prose was great, the characterization fantastic, and the whole premise of the book was just cool as fuck tbh. unnerving & sad & tender & so so so lovely. the ending was strange and perfect just like the whole book. makes you Think and Feel.

white man?: no

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

perfect plane-read. perfect read for the end of a week when you’ve visited your extended family back home & you've interacted with so many people & they’re all so complicated in their own way & it’s all been a lot and you just want someone to look inside your head and go, look, I understand, here, have some spiked lemonade. this book did exactly that! everything in it is relatable. it’s like you do all these small things throughout the day, and then it turns out that someone has noticed them all and they have been writing notes on them and one day they finally show you, but in a non-creepy way. very smart book, very entertaining, makes you ponder stuff that you maybe used to think was insignificant.

white man?: no

Reborn by Susan Sontag

reading this while feeling manic and hopped up on like five cups of green tea and black coffee was an Experience. smart. sad. hopeful. intimidating. mostly, what this book did was make me feel a lot less alone. like there was a woman out there whose brain was also going 200 mp/h all the time and she was also constantly in search of intellectual simulation and nothing was enough and she knew she had things to say but she had no one to say it to, and she was afraid of the future just as much as she fetishized it, and she didn’t always feel the right things in the right situations but she somehow managed. and in the end she found ways to fulfill herself and she found ways in which she could excel and she found work that was satisfying (and I say this with zero intent of romanticizing anything about Sontag’s life). so maybe there’s hope for all of us who are constantly bouncing off the walls and always feel like we’re living behind a glass wall.

white man?: no

Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

definitely the hardest book to read of 2018. it’s so scary to imagine not just how much work Svetlana Alexavitch put into this book, but also how much it must have hurt her, emotionally, and how many times she must have wanted to abandon it all and lie down and just take a really long nap, because it was all so painful (or maybe she’s a much better and more productive person than I am and she never had those thoughts) anyways this was 100% a book where I was like, I hate all of this but I need to know these things so I’ll push through. everything my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles have ever told me was in this book, except it was all jammed up on steroids. but I know I need to learn about and understand their history better, even if it’s super painful, especially because it’s super painful! and especially because it’s not my history. I’m so glad this book won the Nobel Prize & I’ll never listen to anyone who thinks otherwise.

white man?: no

comments:

I’m satisfied with myself, I read more than twice the amount I originally set out to read, I read a wide variety of genres and subjects, I read a lot of books I liked, I read a lot of books that have been sitting on my TBR for a very long time, I didn’t read too many white men!!! I originally made it my goal to read 30 books because I was balls deep in a horrible depressive episode in late 2017/early 2018 and I just fully couldn’t even read a chapter of anything without getting a panic attack, so 30 books was an ambitious but still achievable goal. it’s nothing compared to how much I read when I’m doing better, but I was really struggling back then and frankly I wasn’t even sure I’d accomplish this much, so I’m very happy with my progress. I also pushed myself to read books that were difficult to read for different reasons and powered through many of them, which I’m also proud of. the second half of 2019 is going to be insane, but I still want to set myself the goal of reading 40 books, which I think I can realistically accomplish in the first half of the year, if things really do get so crazy hectic that I won’t have the time to read AT ALL later in the year, which it hopefully won’t. but I think 40 is a nice and realistic goal. we’ll see!!!

ultimately, this was the year I explicitly decided that I wanted to be a well-read person, that reading a lot was an important priority in my life, and it’s important to me that I push myself to continue to read a lot, because 1) it makes me a better person and 2) it makes me happy. so deciding to challenge myself to read as much as possible and actually set myself reading goals and challenges and then invest time and energy in accomplishing them has been an important consequence of this year’s reading challenge and it’s definitely something that’s going to affect how I read in the future. OKAY NERD EPISODE OVER BYE

(big thanks to Muffy @whitegirlblog for the inspiration 🤓)

#nerd alert nerd alert nerd alert nerd alert #BETTER LATE THAN PREGNANT AM I RIGHT LADIES

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tolkien-fandom-history · 6 years

Text

Interview with Jenny Dolfen

Much thanks to acclaimed artist Jenny Dolfen for doing this Tolkien-fandom-history interview!

Jenny is a German artist and illustrator. Her art is well known and much admired in the Tolkien fandom. She won the inaugural Tolkien Society award in the category "best artwork" in 2014, for her watercolour “Eärendil the Mariner" and is nominated for that award again this year for her artwork "The Hunt."

Jenny also published a book of her art in 2016. “Songs of Sorrow and Hope” contains sketches and full color artwork dating from 2003-2013. The book includes many of her Tolkien inspired works as well as works inspired by fantasy, mythology and Jenny’s own work “The Rhyddion Chronicles.” It is available in her Etsy store.

Jenny's art can be found on her web page https://goldseven.wordpress.com/galleries/tolkien/ as well as her Etsy page https://www.etsy.com/shop/JennyDolfen and her Patreon site https://www.patreon.com/jennydolfen

She does YouTube tutorials as well--it's fascinating to watch her creations come to life in the videos. https://m.youtube.com/user/GoldSeven/videos

Jenny can also be found here on tumblr @goldseven

(Interview by @maedhrosrussandol)

TFH: When did you originally become involved in Tolkien fandom?

Jenny: I’ve been a Tolkien fan for most of my life (my mother introduced me to the Hobbit when I was six), but I didn’t know there were any other Tolkien fans until I discovered the Internet in the early 2000s.

TFH: What was your initial experience with the online fandom? Did the advent of the LOTR movies have an effect on you?

Jenny: I have treated and still treat the books and the movies as two very different things. The movies interest me as much as any movie I enjoy; the books are a major part of my life. I encountered the Silmarillion fandom around 2003, and above all, was amazed by the fact that there were people who had read it (I had only met one in my life).

TFH: How do you feel the Tolkien fandom has changed since you initially became involved in it?

Jenny: I don’t feel it has changed much. If I had known it before the films, it might be different, but I still see the major groups there that existed in the early 2000s – film fans, book fans (which minor crossovers), fanfic writers, and scholars.

TFH: In the mid-2000s, it often seemed that there were two groups of people creating fan art. There were the artists sanctioned by the Tolkien Estate--Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith--who were mostly men, and then there were the so-called "fan artists," who were mostly women. The latter group were also often professional artists and were much more widely embraced by the fanfic community (for example, you and Kasiopea seemed much more instrumental in determining how Silmfic writers saw the characters than Nasmith, and your name is probably more readily recognized by Silm fans today than Nasmith's). Did you perceive this as well? If so, do you have any thoughts on why the Estate and fanworks creators might have had so little overlap in their visions of Middle-earth and its characters?

Jenny: I have actually talked to Ted Nasmith (whom I met at Return of the Ring 2012, a perfectly wonderful bloke!) about this very thing. Ted told me about his illustrated Silmarillion, in which the Estate had been very clear on a policy that follows what we know from the “Big Three” (John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith): a lot of location, a bit of characters, and absolutely no monsters!

In a panel at Return of the Ring, which I attended together with Ted, Anke Eissmann, and Ruth Lacon, the same question was asked, and it does seem to fall along gender lines. Typically, characters are more often and more prominently portrayed by women, and many viewing habits seem to follow a similar gender divide on the audience’s side. It makes sense, then, that the Tolkien Estate, under the firm influence of Christopher Tolkien, would favour the a more setting-oriented approach that depicted the scope and poetry of his father’s work, while other artists explored the characters in a more intimate and obscure way.

TFH: I'm interested in your experience with both the artistic and writing sides of the Tolkien fandom. Were there differences in the respective fandoms when you first became involved and in the response to your works in the two mediums?

Jenny: I have always kept a slight distance to much of the fanfic side. There are several fanfics I have enjoyed, but even in some of the ones I did, slash was never far away, and it just makes me uncomfortable. (The fact that it’s mostly gay sex is secondary, incidentally. I simply feel that sex in the exploration of those characters is as irrelevant as exploring their, say, bathroom habits. I may be pretty alone in this as a female recipient of Tolkien’s work, but his characters strike me as rather asexual on the whole.)

On the art side, I find that the response from and interaction with the fandom has been overwhelmingly positive from all sides. I have formed long-lasting friendships with other artists and fans.

TFH: There has been tremendous expansion of artistic interpretations of Tolkien’s work in recent years--through Tumblr, DeviantArt, weibo--how do you continue to reach your audience and interact with those who have an interest in your art?

Jenny: I consider myself very lucky, in that I have stayed in contact with a large and wonderful group of people over all these years. I had the good fortune of being recognized quite early on, and while there has been some fluctuation, an amazingly strong core of my audience has stayed with me.

TFH: In what other Tolkien-related events, gatherings or challenges do you participate? How is it interacting with fans at such events?

Jenny: I try to make it to the major local events – Tolkien Tag, organized by the Dutch and German Tolkien Societies – and I’ll be at the (British) Tolkien Society’s Tolkien 2019 event in Birmingham next year. Apart from that, my job as a teacher and my two young children mean I can’t travel much.

I hugely enjoy those events – to interact with other fans usually feels like a breakaway together with people I rarely meet in the “real world”.

TFH: What drew you to Professor Tolkien's work originally?

Jenny: I have loved mythology from a very young age, devouring classical, Germanic and medieval folk tales since primary school, so Tolkien fell squarely into those preferences, and continued to do so when I got older and became a student of literature rather than just a consumer of Fantasy books.

TFH: Which of his characters are your favorites? Why?

Jenny: It will come as absolutely no surprise that it’s Maedhros son of Feanor. He stuck in my head even when I first read the Silmarillion, standing out against that huge cast of often-confusing people. He’s like a Greek tragic hero, trying to do the right thing and striving to justify his means, and dragging everyone else into ruin with him. His fate is heartbreaking, and I love heartbreaking tales.

TFH: Why do you love Tolkien's universe? What inspires you?

Jenny: It’s always been mostly about the characters, but I find that, as I get older, other aspects of the legendarium speak to me more strongly than before. When I was a child, I used to skip the descriptions of landscape; today, I both read them closely, and find that I appreciate beauty in nature far more than I used to, which I then translate into my art (my older work, up until I was about twenty, usually featured characters standing around in a perfect white void).

TFH: To what extent do you think it is important for a fanfiction writer or fan artist to follow and respect the original author's work and concepts?

Jenny: First off, I think for a fan creator, there are, by definition, no such constraints. Preference is another matter entirely. Personally, I enjoy writings and works of art that, in my subjective view, feel close to what Tolkien might have meant, and thus strike a chord with me.

When we extend that question to any matter that is supposed to be a more general representation of the original work, I feel it’s essential to be faithful to a common theme and feel. If we take Peter Jackson’s movies, I do think that he managed it in many places in the Lord of the Rings; his Hobbit, from what I have seen of it (I haven’t watched the second and third films), felt weirdly like the output of an Instagram creator whose fanbase latches on to a very small part of his original body of work, and who then suddenly starts churning out more of the same, comical, self-referred spoofs which feel like a continuation to him and to his base but really leave most of the essence behind for everyone else.

TFH: Which was the most unexpected occasion, the most unusual platform where you have ever encountered one of your artworks?

Jenny: Thaaaaaaat would have been a Russian porn site. I get around, you know.

TFH: Which one of your drawings is most special to you and why?

There are a lot of drawings I’m very attached to. “In pain and regret” is probably far up the list, as are the more recent “The Hunt” and “And the Orcs fled before his face”. The one I’ll mention here has to be one where I, probably accidentally, nailed Maedhros’ face for the first time. I drew it in 1995, when I was twenty, and I remember that this was a piece that told me that I was still improving. As a young artist, you often think that one day, you’ll be a grown-up, and that’s that. At twenty, I had just moved away from home, and had subconsciously felt that I was now finished, feeling some regret at the belief that my art would no longer improve – and suddenly I realized how wrong I’d been. It was an eye-opener for me, artistically.

The artworks and book referenced in this interview are as follows

Jenny Dolfen's book "Songs of Sorrow and Hope" featuring the cover art of Maglor "The harp no longer sings":

"Earendil the Mariner":

The 1995 artwork referenced:

"And the orcs fled before his face":

"The Hunt":

"In pain and regret":

#tolkien fan art #tolkien fandom history #brilliant artwork #artist interview #lord of the rings #the silmarillion #tolkien

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