#((she may be a vampire; but she's not a monster the way constance is; and she is deserving of love))

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"It is," he smiled: Honestly, it still was funny to think that, in the grand scheme of things, he hadn't known Emily all that long. They'd only just recently met, had only gone on a few dates, and yet, it just didn't feel like it. It felt as if he'd known her for much longer, somehow, something he was unafraid to voice in that moment:

"Y'know, it...it's funny. I don't know why, I...I really couldn't tell you, but in a lot of ways...it feels like we've known each other a lot longer than we really have. Like...we've known each forever, somehow.

....that doesn't sound crazy, does it?"

Even if he didn't say so, Randall still couldn't shake the feeling that they had met before, that he had seen her face, had known her in some capacity before the night she walked into the shop. A great part of him wanted to ask about it, honestly: Had they gone to school together when they were very young? Had he seen her on the small screen or a magazine cover somewhere? Had they passed one another on the street before, sharing meaningful glances, maybe a brief conversation, but never really talked seriously until now? He wanted to know, and yet, something always seemed to hold him back from asking.

Hence this gamble: Maybe she did feel the same way. Maybe she had this unshakable feeling of deja vu, this feeling that she knew him too.

At any rate, he hoped he just didn't sound completely nuts putting this question to her...

[ayellowbirds]

Today being my birthday, i had the time and energy to finally do some drawing after ages of neither time nor drive. So, i spent that on sketching out some headshots of the recurring characters of 33 Usher Street, my 1920s (and beyond?) vampire hunters story. Meet the employees, management, friends, and nuisances of the Usher Street House of Antiquities and Curios, an estate management company specializing in settling the affairs of the unusually deceased. This is both a source of income and a cover for their real calling: the elimination of dangerous vampires and other hostile undead. 

Solomon “Sol” Szombathy (gay intersex man), a Jewish dhampir of Romanian-American extraction (late of Pittsburgh, Vandalia) has arrived at the USHAC with his guardian in tow, after both of them got involved in a vampire attack. Sol’s ability to see the invisible and the surges of supernatural strength he gets when battling the undead are especially useful, as is the hawthorn-wood cane he uses to deal with the chronic pain he feels the rest of the time. 

James “Jim” Cullock III (asexual cisgender man) is a Scottish immigrant who helped co-found the USHAC as the assistant of a longtime vampire hunter; his love of gardening has given him many potent botanical weapons against vampires, including especially hardy and richly-scented roses that repel most bloodsuckers. He’s taken to maintaining a backstage role for the most part, as his lifelong issues with visual hallucinations have gotten worse with age.

The Reverend Doctor Matteus J. Hammer (transgender man of no particular sexuality) is an aging monster hunter of no small repute, his experience having brought him briefly as a boarder to the Szombathy house. His recommendation brought Sol to Usher Street, but can the perspective of this eccentric wandering hero be relied upon?

Randolph Carter (in-denial bisexual cis man) was once an author of minor repute with a fondness for the strange and occult, but encounters with the genuinely supernatural have mellowed his previously bigoted worldview. While he still struggles to be a halfway decent person in a reality that is at odds with his beliefs, his expertise with languages, obscure subject matters, and research makes him at least a useful jackass when it comes to spending time among his books.

Pluton is a very good judge of character, for a one-eyed cat. And oddly skilled at making his way out of dangerous situations, to the point that one might almost think he has more than the usual nine lives. It’s no wonder that the USHAC often bring the cat along.

Constance “Connie” Wright (pansexual cis woman) is a former orphan with the miraculous talent to ‘chew’ raw materials into new shapes, a skill she most often uses to create nails for sealing up coffins and the like. Naturally, the rail-thin Connie’s favorite weapon is a heavily weighted steel sledgehammer, when she can’t just do some slugging with a sturdy baseball bat.

Dorotheea “Dotty” Szombathy (transgender lesbian) is a golem that once served as Sol’s guardian, and is now happily living as his adopted sister. Her ability to reshape her naturally earthen clay body pairs well with her immunity to most forms of vampiric attack, as an artificial being. Prone to switching between having difficulty speaking at all and being effusively loquacious, she finds it easiest to focus when she has something to occupy her hands and mind.

Marie Bosley (bisexual cis woman) was and is the greatest vampire hunter in the United States, even if these days she prefers to stay at home and listen to music. Her unmatched knowledge of apotropaic magic allows her to create boundaries and barriers that no vampiric influence can pass, and lets her open the way for her proteges.

Esther "Essie” Levi (asexual cis woman) is the self-proclaimed ‘fastest knot-tier east of the Rockies’, and an unmatched expert in knotting string, yarn, thread, and cord to achieve magical effects. Paired with a gift for strategic thinking and an eye for symptoms of vampirism, she can easily weave a web that no bloodsucker is going to get through.

Aleister “Al” Jones (gay cis man) is a multilingual expert in stealth, infiltration, and charm whose gentlemanly demeanor is in no way at odds with his fondness for boxing. Unfortunately for opponents that would see him as unarmed except for a disarming smile, he’s also the bearer of a pair of gloves lined with the relics of a Catholic saint invoked against vampires.

Wilhemina “Will” Fawkes (lesbian cis woman) is the USHAC’s resident machinery buff, with cutting-edge expertise in automobiles, radios, firearms, and more. Her fondness for artifice means that the only thing that can distract her from something shiny and new is an animated short at the nearest theater, and her love of testing the limits of machinery means that her allies often find she’s made unexpected ‘upgrades’ to important equipment.

Adriaen ten Boom (bisexual cis man) is the most senior of the employees of the USHAC, a skilled actor whose pyrokinetic gift makes his good looks more than just smoldering. In spite of these charms, he’s actually fairly naïve when it comes to romance, and is prone to charming his way into entanglements he didn’t mean to get into.

Smith the Mechanical Heel (just a real dick) is a World’s Fair experiment gone wrong, and now runs the criminal underworld in Jackson, Massachusetts—which puts him at odds with the USHAC, since that’s where their home base is. He sees most of the employees as potentially useful additions to his crew, but he’s especially interested in learning more about Dotty’s magically-constructed nature, in the hopes of making himself more lifelike. He’s not above getting involved in things that involve the undead....

The Ghosts of Madeline and Roderick Usher (cis lesbian and cis gay man) are the former owners of the land on which the USHAC was built, and haven’t moved on since the new tenants turned up. Freed of mortal concerns, they’re fond of teasing the living staff members, and serve as a second line of defense after Marie’s wards and magical traps. Roderick is absolutely certain that he’s going to get his ectoplasm all up on Randolph one of these days, and nobody feels up to questioning his taste in men; Madeline is the company gossip fiend and the best source of information on comings and goings at 33 Usher Street.

Dr. Joaquín de la Garza (closeted nonbinary queer) is a local physician who has a close working relationship with the USHAC, and is very fond of the mysteries and excitement they bring to his life. Exactly what brought a medical expert of Zapotec and Spanish heritage all the way up east is uncertain, but the good doctor seems to know a lot more about the supernatural than one might expect from just his familiarity with the secrets of the Usher Street staff.

Phoebe Khrysos (???) is a remarkably pristine ancient automaton, whose actual provenance is uncertain. Resembling a child made of silver, glass, and gold, she has a mischievous mystery about her that makes her more like a mechanical fairy than a precious relic. What motivates her and how she sees the living and the undead remain to be seen....

Zuleika Dobson (pansexual cis woman) is a a con artist, thief, and scammer who has broken many hearts and far more bank accounts; her lack of concern about what she leaves in her wake may have finally caught up with her when she targets some valuable goods in a city with a vampire problem. Can someone so untrustworthy be relied upon when there’s undeath to deal with, or will her self interest put her in the way of both bloodsuckers and the USHAC alike?

33 Usher Street leans heavily on the public domain, and will do so much more than just in the few characters here that originated elsewhere. Some of these designs are likely to change as the story develops, but i’m just so happy to finally get them on paper!

[buzzdixonwriter]

Hoo U?

A spirited discussion is raging on Facebook now, the good kind of spirited discussion, an enthusiastic exchange of ideas and ideals, not a snark fest.

The top is a deceptively simple one:  Who are the characters various actors played?

Let me clarify:   It began as a trivia challenge to name actors who have won Oscars for playing the same character.

And there in lays the debate.

How exactly are we defining a character.

This all sounds trivial, and to be frank this part of the discussion is, but it’s gonna get deep by the end.  

Trust me.

So here’s the kickoff:

Marlon Brando won a Best Male Performance Oscar for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather; Robert DeNiro won a Best Male Supporting Performance Oscar for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather II

Heath Ledger won a Best Male Supporting Performance Oscar for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight; Joaquin Phoenix won a Best Male Performance Oscar for playing the Joker in Joker.

(Trivia bonus: Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart received Oscar nominations for playing the same character at different stages of her life in Titanic, and Winslet and Judi Dench were both nominated for playing the same character at different stages in Iris as well; plus Peter O’Toole was nominated twice for playing Henry II in Beckett and The Lion In Winter which technically counts as a sequel…)

The Facebook debate is over whether Ledger and Phoenix were actually playing the same character.

Now in the case of the former, The Godfather II is a continuation of the same story in The Godfather by the same creative team with much of the original cast reprising their roles, the Oscars going to two actors who played the same character at different stages of their life (BTW, where's the love for Oreste Baldini, who played Vito as a young boy?).

The two films were re-edited and combined with The Godfather III to make a nine-hour and 43-minute miniseries The Godfather Trilogy.

It is clear the creators’ intent from the beginning was for audiences to accept Baldini / DeNiro / Brando as the same person at various stages of his life.

The Ledger Joker and the Phoenix Joker cannot possibly be the same character for a wide variety of internal continuity issues separating the two films.  The creators of Joker went out of their way to state their version of the character was not The Dark Knight version.

Unlike The Godfather movies, you can’t link up the various live action Batman / Suicide Squad / Joker stories into a single coherent narrative (especially since you have to drag in the live action Supeman and Wonder Woman movies and TV shows as well).

. . .

Can different actors play their version of the same character in otherwise unlinked productions?

Of course they can.

Stage plays do it all the time.

If you start with the same exact text, then clearly any number of actors can play Hamlet or MacBeth or Willy Loman.

The problems arise when one goes afield of the text.

. . . 

In 1932 Constance Bennett made a movie called What Price Hollywood? that did okay but really didn’t set the world on fire.

In 1937 Janet Gaynor remade that film as A Star Is Born, the story changed to give it a tragic yet uplifting conclusion; her version was a big hit and Gaynor received an Oscar nomination.

In 1954 Judy Garland remade A Star is Born as a musical and that proved a big hit, and Garland received an Oscar nomination.

In 1976 Barbara Streisand took a swing at the material with a country-western version of A Star Is Born and while she got an Oscar nomination, audiences were unreceptive.

In 2018 Lady Gaga remade A Star Is Born and received both an Oscar nomination for her role and an Oscar win for her song.

Question: Are they all playing the same character?  Each played a character that started their film with a different name than the other versions, but the Gaynor / Garland / Streisand / Gaga versions all end with the central character proudly proclaiming they are “Mrs. Norman Maine.”

Same character?

. . .

There’s no argument that William Gillette, Basil Rathbone, and Benedict Cumberbatch all played Sherlock Holmes, even when their productions took certain liberties with the stories.

But Sherlock Holmes is not an idiot, and Michael Caine played Holmes as an idiot in Without A Clue.

Was he playing the same character as Gillette / Rathbone / Cumberbatch?

(Ironically Peter Cook played a very recognizable and wholly credible Holmes in his farcical send up of The Hound Of The Baskervilles with Dudley Moore.)

Did George C. Scott play Holmes in They Might Be Giants?  Almost everybody else in the story thinks he’s a New York banker who’s suffered a nervous breakdown and only thinks he’s Holmes, but Scott believes he is Holmes 100% and throughout the film other people he encounters accept him as Holmes at face values.

He functions as Holmes throughout.

And in the end, the audience is left in a weird place, not really knowing what his fate may be, not absolutely sure if he is a bonkers banker but maybe…somehow…he is Sherlock Holmes…

. . . 

Did John Cassavettes in Tempest and Walter Pidgeon in Forbidden Planet play the same character?  Were either of those roles Shakespeare’s Prospero?

Did Christopher Lee play the same character in Horror Of Dracula and its sequels, in Count Dracula, and in In Search Of Dracula?   (The producers of Count Dracula sure went to great pains to explain their version was a different and more accurate version than the Hammer version of the character, and In Search Of Dracula cast Lee as Vlad Tepes who was the real life historical figure Bram Stoker based his novel on.)

For that matter, is Count Orlok in Nosferatu:  A Symphony Of Terror actually Dracula?  A European court awarding lawsuit damages to Bram Stoker's widow sure thought so.

Along similar lines, was Bela Lugosi playing Dracula in Columbia's Return Of The Vampire? Universal's lawyers sure thought so.

Did Jim Caviezel in Passion Of The Christ, Max von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, and Michael Rennie in The Day The Earth Stood Still all play the same character?

Did Toshiro Mifune, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Willis all play the Continental Op?

Did Clint Eastwood play the same character in all three Dollar films?

Did Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, and Will Smith all play the same character?

Did Leonardo DiCaprio play the same character Steve McQueen played in The Great Escape (even if just for one brief scene) or did he play a character who played a character Steve McQueen played in The Great Escape?

Ooh, here's a good one!

Lon Chaney Jr starts Ghost Of Frankenstein playing the same monster Boris Karloff played in the original Frankenstein / Bride Of Frankenstein / Son Of Frankenstein trilogy, but by the end gets Ygor's brain (Bela Lugosi) transplanted into his body and speaks / thinks / acts briefly as Ygor in Frankie’s body.

However, Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman while maintaining continuity with all four previous films cast Lugosi as the monster (because Chaney had to play the Wolfman, duh) without dialog.  Glenn Strange then assumed the role again in continuity with all previous films for House Of Frankenstein, House Of Dracula, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, occasionally speaking briefly in the role.

Who was Strange playing in his films?  The original Karloff monster or Ygor in Frankie's bod?  Are those two distinct characters?

. . .

All the above is fun trivia to debate, but it links to a much more serious question:  Who are you?

That’s not a trivial matter.  What constitutes out identity?  What makes us who we are?

I lost my father years ago to Alzheimer’s.  As my brother Robert observed, the only member of a family not affected by an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is the person suffering from it themselves.

I would talk to my father on the phone, and he was always pleasant and cheery, but about three years before he died I realized he had no idea who I was, I was just some voice on the other end of the line that mom wanted him to talk to.

My father was by nature and easy going kinda guy, and that certainly made his last few years easier for my mother and brother Rikk to cope with, but one night when I was visiting, trying to get their affairs straightened out so he could enter a nursing home, he got irritated with my mother as she was trying to help him and raised his hand as if to slap hers away.

My father never raised his hand against my mother.  

Ever.

He taught me and my brothers that was something no real man ever did.

He might sound gruff on occasion but he never raised a finger, much less truck our mother.

The fact he did so in the throes of Alzheimer’s indicated that whoever he once was, he wasn’t that person anymore.

We got him into a nursing home and he lasted a little less than a year there, his mind and his memory and his personality deteriorating rapidly.

Who was he at the end?

I didn’t go to his funeral.

What was the point?

The father I knew and loved had departed long before they buried his shell.

My grandmother, on the other hand, remained her cranky, irascible self until a week and a half before she died, finding the wit to crack one last memorable joke before her body began shutting down.

. . .

The question of identity is related to consciousness, and these are referred to as “the hard question” by physicians and physicists and philosophers alike.

What makes us “us”?

How do we know who we are?

What constitutes identity?

There are no easy, pat answers.

We have textbook definitions that dance around the issue of identity and consciousness, providing enough of a foundation for us to recognize what it is we’re discussing, but no one has yet come up with a clear, concise explanation of what either phenomenon is.

It’s like saying “apples are a red fruit.”

Okay, we know what you’re talking about, but we also know that description falls far, far short of what an apple actually is.

That’s why trivial discussion like whether or not Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix are playing the same character is a lot more important than it seems.

(BTW, they aren’t. Phoenix won his Oscar for his version of the Rupert Pupkin character in a violent remake of The King Of Comedy.)

    © Buzz Dixon 

[crashdevlin]

To Hell and Back 2- Assignment

To Hell and Back Masterlist

Author’s Note: Originally posted to ao3 (This is an edited and improved version). This is an AU of my story ‘Marion’ and is just as epic as that series. 

Summary: Marion goes on a mission for her boss.

Pairing(s): Crowley x Marion-ish

Word Count: 3148

Chapter Warnings: smoking, Dean’s isn’t the best brother, angst, mentions of child abuse, demon deals

Marion put the key in the door and shuffled into the motel room, dropping the bag at the end of the bed and heading for the bathroom as she always did when she first entered a motel room. She'd insisted on being given her own room when she was 17. It was partly for safety, since the monsters always seemed to find John and the boys' room, and partly for feminine privacy, and partly for him.

"What do you want, Crowley?" She asked, walking out of the bathroom and dropping to the bed.

"Whatever happened to your manners? I know I taught you better than that." A deep, gravelly accent came from the chair next to the television.

"Yeah, but then my daddy came in and fucked it all up." She pulled the knot out of her bootlaces and toed her boots off. "The question hasn't changed, Crowley."

"You know, it's days like this I regret pulling you outta the way of that Chevy." He said, standing and adjusting his suit jacket.

"Yeah." Marion threw her boots at the corner of the room and turned her eyes on the demon. "But then you remember that you came here for a reason and you give me my damn assignment."

Crowley handed her a small piece of paper. "Name's Devon McIntyre. He sold it fer money, so you can do this one without the guilt."

"Fine." She snatched the paper and pocketed it. "You can go, now."

"You know, there was a time when you enjoyed my company. What happened?"

She looked away from him. "I figured out who you really are and what you do to the people I mark."

"They do it to themselves. They know what they're signing up for." He tried to catch her eyes, but she just let her dyed brunette hair hang in a protective curtain in front of her face, so he just rolled his eyes. "I have never lied to anyone about what Hell has in store for them. And I told you what I was back when you were too young and dumb to hate me for it."

She tucked her hair behind her ear and glared at him. "I'm a hunter, you ass! A demon killed my mother!"

"And a demon saved you!" Crowley shouted. "So many times that I would be bisected if the boys downstairs knew about it." He stepped forward. "I pulled you out of the path of that truck when you were four. I ripped the head off that vampire when you were twelve. I'm the one who risked my entire reputation to claim a damn hunter's daughter so that no other demons would lay a bloody pinkie on you, and I tried to convince you to back off when you insisted on helping me when you were sixteen."

He gave a huffing breath. "You wanna back out now? Sorry, it doesn't work that way, Lilith has you on contract sealed with a sodding kiss and as long as she's around, you work for us! Not my fault, you moody little-" Crowley took a deep breath and sighed, letting his anger go. "Just go mark the wealthy little arsehole so my dogs can find him."

Marion nodded, looking away again. "We're on a hunt. It may be a few days." She pulled the paper out of her pocket and set it on the side table.

If she'd been looking at him she would've seen him open his mouth like he'd wanted to say something else, but he just nodded and disappeared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marion was halfway through her fourth cigarette in a chain when her phone went off. She grabbed it off the side table and flipped it open. "It's a ghost." Dean gave no greeting. "A woman named Constance Welch threw herself off the bridge where we stopped earlier. We're gonna head down there, later, see if we can draw her out."

"Okay. Lemme know how it goes. How you lookin' for salt rounds?"

"We're good." There was a moment of silence. "You want in on this?" His tone told her he wanted her to say 'no'.

"No. You get to gank ghosts with me all the time. Spend some time with Sammy. Who knows when you'll have an opportunity for Sam bonding again?"

"Yeah. Sounds good. We'll call."

"Right." Marion said, disbelieving as she flipped her phone closed. She ran her hand down her face and sighed, pulling her bag off the ground and dropping it to the bed. She pulled out her slinky red dress and her strappy black heels from the very bottom of her duffel and slipped them onto her body. After pulling her hair into a messy up-do and pasting her face with bright red lipstick and brown eye shadow, she walked out of her motel room and headed to a luxury car with a demon in the driver's seat. The door opened without being touched and she slipped into the back next to Crowley, whose eyes slid down her profile without hesitation. "If you mention how well I fill out this dress, I will stab you in the eye with my branding iron." She didn't look his way as she spoke, but noticed his acceptance of her terms.

He nodded and signaled for the driver to head toward their destination. The Lincoln was silent through the entire ride, Marion biting the inside of her lip and thinking back to simpler times as they drove. When they pulled up in front of the mansion, she easily slipped out and up to the door and rang the bell. She smiled for the camera near the buzzer. "Who are you?" A voice came through the speaker.

"I'm a gift... from Mr. Crowley." She responded, sweetly, but inside she was grimacing at the sentence.

The door opened, just slightly, to reveal an attractive, well-dressed brunette man, eyeing her warily. "Crowley?"

"Mr. Crowley would like me to remind you that he kept his end of the deal. He made you wealthy and thus appealing to women. May I?" She pushed past him into the mansion, across the lines of the Devil's Trap painted on the floor by the door. "Mr. Crowley would also like me to tell you that he's aware that you are planning to run from him, that you think you can use the resources he awarded you to hide from him. He wants me to tell you that he didn't get to be King of the Crossroads by letting greedy little pissants squirm out of their contracts, and you won't be the first, or last, to try." She said, before grabbing his shirt and jabbing her branding iron into his left bicep. She let him go and stepped back to allow him to examine the burn mark.

"What the fuck was that?!"

“A homing beacon for Crowley’s hounds. No matter where you run, they’ll find you. Thanks for playing.” She said, starting to go. Devon grabbed her hand and tried to pull her back. She twisted, ax-kicked him in the head and grabbed his throat. “You have a week, you miserable prick. You have a week to do something worthwhile. Do not make me cut out all that potential by killing you early.” She threatened, tossing him to the ground and walking out of the Devil’s Trap on the way out.

“You aren’t a demon?”

“No. But I’m sure he’ll turn me into one, eventually.” She said, before shutting the door on him.

“You know that’s not going to happen.” Crowley said, opening the car door for her.

“What?”

“That’s not your deal. You didn’t sign away your soul, you signed away your work. Just like a real job, it only seems like it’s crushing your soul.” Crowley said, as the car pulled away from the mansion.

“I’m helping demons, Crowley. Helping you damn souls to unbelievable torment. That doesn’t sound like something that’s gonna get me into Heaven.”

“Well, there’s always the Void.”

“Yeah. Being a ghost. That sounds peachy.” She said, sarcastically.

“Look, you knew. You asked for this. I begged you not to kiss me, but you thought you knew what you were doing.”

“I was sixteen!” She exclaimed. “I just wanted my father to stop hitting me.”

“And it worked, right? He hasn’t hit you in a decade.” Crowley reasoned, trying to block out the thought that he’d have already taken her to Hell, if she’d signed a normal contract.

“It doesn’t change it, Crowley. It doesn’t change the fact that I traded my well-being for… this. I thought I knew what I was doing and I thought I was grown enough to make that decision, but I wasn’t.”

There was silence in the car for half an hour as she looked out the window. “Well, if you do end up in Hell, Marion, I’ll make sure they go easy on you. That’s the best I got. See you next time.” Crowley said as they pulled into the motel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crowley stared out the window of his mansion, lost in thought. He knew what was being planned for the Winchesters, what Lilith and Azazel were going to do to bring Lucifer home. He felt almost bad for Marion. He'd known her since she was a wee thing and if there were a Winchester who deserved to be kept out of all the bullshit Hell had planned, it was Marion.

Sometimes he really did think he should have let her die when she was four. That way she never would have had to deal with Mary Winchester's death or the way John dealt with the pain of her demise. She never would have had to deal with demons and monsters, she never would have had to deal with Crowley, himself. Life would've been much sweeter for his Marion if she'd just died at four years old.

Crowley grimaced at the term. His Marion. It seemed like it might be an endearment, but it was the truth. She signed herself over to him, kissed her life away. He could keep her like a slave, but he chose not to. Ungrateful cunt.

He turned to demon lounging on his couch, wearing a short, well-dressed blonde lawyer as a vessel. "You. Go change your meat suit. I've got some tensions I need to relieve."

"Anything in particular, sir?"

Crowley sighed. "Tall, tan, bottle brunette, green eyes, and leather. Go more Roadhouse and less Mistress with it."

She smiled. "Yes sir." It took her half an hour to reappear, in a vessel that almost matched his request. "I could only find a blue-eyed one."

"It'll have to do." Crowley growled, twisting a hand into her hair and crashing his mouth into hers.

Two hours later, he looked down at the surrogate he'd taken his frustrations out on. Covered in bruises, bleeding cuts and cum, he could almost imagine this biker chick in her forties was Marion. The illusion was broken as soon as he thought about it, though, so he rolled away from her and snapped to replace his clothing. "Get your old meat suit back. She's good fer business. But... keep track of this one."

"Yes, sir."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marion was pulling her boots on the next morning when a knock came to her motel room door. She opened it and smiled tightly at Dean. "Dad had a room here, too. Figured out we're dealing with a Woman in White. He hasn't been here in a few days. You hungry?"

"Yeah, actually." She grabbed her black fleece jacket and walking out the door with him. She noticed the police presence right before Dean did. He looked over, saw the police car parked by the clerk's office who was talking to the deputies. When the clerk pointed at Dean and Marion, Dean pulled out his cell, calling Sam as the deputies started to approach them.

"Dude, five-oh. Take off." There was a second of silence. "Uh, they kinda spotted us. Go find Dad." Dean flipped the phone closed and turned to the deputies with a grin. "Problem, officers?"

"Did we do something?" Marion asked, innocently.

"Where's your partner?" The deputy asked, ignoring Marion.

"Partner? What, what partner?” Dean asked. Marion put on her best clueless face.

Deputy Jaffe, according to his name tag, glanced over his shoulder and jerked his thumb towards the motel room. Deputy Hein headed over there. Dean fidgeted. “So, fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that’s real?” Jaffe asked.

“My boobs.” Dean replied, with a smirk.

Marion rolled her eyes and put her hands behind her head as the cop slammed Dean into the hood. “The best thing you can do, stud, is keep your mouth closed. You obviously need a refresher on your ‘right to remain silent’.”

“Like I’m gonna take legal advice from a prostitute.” Dean snapped, thankfully catching on to her train of thought.

The cop turned her around and examined her. He seemed a bit skeptical about her status as a working girl. The jeans, boots and fleece jacket weren’t exactly street-walker clothes. “You don’t know each other?”

“Look, ask the clerk. Paid in cash. I was just looking for a place to bed down. I work from home… even when I don’t have a home, if you get my drift. I’m not saying I’m a sex worker, but… I’ve never met this guy before this morning. He was gonna buy me breakfast and we were gonna head back to my room.”

The deputy looked between the two of them, then pulled her handcuffs off. “It’s your lucky day. This guy is a much bigger fish than you. But if I find you soliciting in my town again, I’ll personally escort you downtown.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She said. She leaned over next to Dean, who was bent over the back of the cop car. “Better luck next time, handsome.” She whispered before walking off toward her room. Sam was sitting on her bed.

“How’d you manage?” He asked.

“I convinced them I was a whore. They let me go because they didn’t have any proof that I know Dean. This is one time I’m glad I stayed in the car.” She said, grabbing her bag off the floor and rifling through it. “So, where to?”

“Uh, Joseph Welch. He’s the husband of the woman in white. That’s where Dad would’ve gone.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for in here.” She threw her hands up and headed toward the window. She watched as the police car pulled away with Dean in the back. She pulled Dean’s keys out of her jacket pocket and nodded toward Sam.

“When did he hand over his keys?” Sam asked.

“I picked them off him when I said goodbye.” She said, heading out the door and into the parking lot.

Marion tossed the keys at Sam. “If I move the seat forward, Dean will kill me.” She said, getting in on the passenger side.

“You… you got really good at this stuff.” Sam said, sliding in behind the steering wheel.

“I was never bad at it, Sammy. I just didn’t have a lot of opportunity to show my skill, when you were around.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam pulled into the driveway of a house with an overgrown yard. Marion got out and walked up to the door in front of Sam. She knocked with a closed fist. An older man opened and looked out at them. “Hi. Are you Joseph Welch?” Sam spoke up.

“Yeah.” Joseph responded, walking out of his doorway and shutting the door behind him.

“Hi. We just need to ask you a few questions.” Marion said, with a smile.

“Have you seen this man?” Sam asked, handing Joseph a picture of John and the 2 boys. Marion, of course, was not in the picture.

“Yeah. He was a little older, but that’s him.” Joseph said, handing the photo back to Sam. “He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter.”

“That’s right. We’re all working on a story together.” Sam replied, as they walked into the junk that was Joseph Welch’s front yard.

“Well, I don’t know what the hell kinda story you’re working on. The questions he asked me?”

“About your wife Constance?” Marion asked.

“He asked me where she was buried.”

"And where is that again?" Sam leaned over the shorter man as he spoke.

“What, I gotta go through this twice?”

“It’s fact-checking. If you don’t mind.” Marion said.

“In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge.” Joseph answered.

“And, why did you move?” Sam asked.

“I’m not gonna live in the house where my children died.” Joseph responded.

Sam and Marion stopped walking. Joseph followed suit. “Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?” Sam asked.

“No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known.”

“So, you had a happy marriage?”

Joseph hesitated before responding. Bingo. “Definitely.”

“Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time.” Sam said with a smile. Marion stood her ground while Joseph and Sam started walking in their separate directions. Sam waited a moment, then look back at Joseph. “Mr. Welch, did you ever hear of a woman in white?”

Joseph turned back around. “A what?”

“A woman in white. Or sometimes ’Weeping Woman’?” Marion said. The man just stared.

“It’s a ghost story. Well, it’s more of a phenomenon, really.” Sam started to walk back to the man. “Um, they’re spirits. They’ve been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places. In Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women.” Sam stopped in front of Joseph Welch. “You understand. But all share the same story.”

“I don’t care much for nonsense.” Joseph said, starting to head toward his house again.

“See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them. And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children.” Sam seemed to hit the right button because Joseph turned around. “Then, once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So, now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again.”

“You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!”

“You tell us.”

“I mean, maybe... maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!” Joseph’s face shook in anger and grief, then he turned away. Marion and Sam walked back to the Impala.

“Guess you got pretty good at this stuff, too.” Marion said.

“Thanks. Now, let’s spring the idiot and we can burn Constance’s bones and get back to Paolo Alto.” Sam said, pulling out his cell phone.

Supernatural Tag- @letsby

[longforgottenunofficial]

Here Comes the Bride, Part Two: “Beating Heart”

That was her name, or title, I suppose you'd say.  "Beating Heart."  It's on all the blueprints and on the schematics for the figure herself, but somehow it never made its way into public usage.  Oh well. This and the next post have been extensively rewritten several times over the years as new evidence has continued to come to light. With this topic in particular, sometimes we feel like we're barely treading water around  here. The blog format proves extremely useful sometimes. In our last exciting episode, we traced BH's roots from the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall to the red-hearted candle bearer in the attic.  The project had proceeded to scale model phase, and still the attic ghostette wasn't clearly recognizable as a bride.  This final touch to the character was probably added in 1968.  The script for the "Story and Song" album refers to her as a bride, and this script in turn closely follows a '68 show script by X. Atencio.  Whose idea was it to turn this ghost into a bride, anyway? Ken Anderson makes a modest contribution, early in the process.  He wrote four show scripts in 1957-58 (essentially four; some of them have alternate ideas already included in them).  The first script in particular (Feb '57) is often cited as the beginning of our attic bride.  In it, Beauregard the butler directs our attention to a painting and tells the sad story of Captain Bartholomew Gore (aka Gideon Gorelieu) and his young bride Priscilla.

When Priscilla discovers the horrible truth that her husband is, in fact, a bloodthirsty pirate, he kills her.  Her ghost comes back for vengeance and eventually drives Capt. Gore to suicide.  Now the place is haunted.  Bingo, haunted house. Okay, that seems clear.  A tragic bride haunting the house, looking for revenge.  Case closed.  They just borrowed an old Ken Anderson idea.  Well, not so fast.  First of all, there's nothing associating Priscilla with the attic, and more importantly, she's a "bride" by definition b, not definition a.  A bride is a woman soon to be wed or recently wed.  The former wears a bridal gown; the latter wears a purple dress (or jeans, or whatevv), like our poor Priscilla.  Aside from the bare fact that she exists not too far distant in time from her wedding day, Pris really has nothing in common with the familiar attic bride of the finished ride.

Which one is naughty and which one is nice?  I'm not telling.

Anderson's other three scripts don't get us any closer to the attic bride.  Two of them do organize the present day's ghostly activities around a wedding feast.  In one, "Monsieur Bogeyman" is planning to marry "Mlle. Vampire," and all kinds of famous spooks and monsters are showing up (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.).  She jilts him at the altar, and things get ugly.  (Truth be told, I'm very thankful that one ended up on the cutting room floor.)  In another, the narrator guides you through the house toward a wedding reception.  It seems the ghosts of the luckless Blood family have been trying to complete the tragically-interrupted marriage plans of one of their daughters, and sure enough, you do eventually see a ghostly wedding banquet of sorts taking place. Anderson can be credited with the notion that a wedding gone awry would make a good basis for a haunted house, and notice that in that last scenario, an actual ghost bride would have been represented. This might be a good place to ask the question: "Do we ever encounter a ghost bride in popular (or unpopular) culture before now?" Somehow she feels familiar, or at least not odd, but examples of ghost brides are hard to find. Hard, but not impossible:

From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1876. Hat tip Craig Conley

Dude, we've even got cobwebs. Okay, so when do we get to see a ghost bride in Haunted Mansion artwork? Well, inMay of 2014 a never-before-seen Marc Davis sketch was published showing a ghost bride on a stairway landing.

D23/Disney Unfortunately, we have no date for this sketch. It does look like it may have been inspired by the old Ken Anderson sketch based in turn on the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall photo.

If it's one of Marc's earlier sketches, it may represent a sort of turning point,as Anderson's creepy ghost is transformed by Davis specifically into a bride. Whenever it was done, it isn't Marc's only ghost bride artwork. One of his many, many unused ideas for a changing portrait involved a forlorn-looking bride corpsifying before your eyes.

(Artwork ©Disney.  Animated gif by Captain Halfbeard)

This gets us even closer to where we will eventually end up. Obviously, Davis liked the ghost bride idea, and we may speculate that one day the light bulb clicked on, and he realized that his rather fierce-looking attic ghostette would actually be a perfect vehicle for the corpse bride concept.

And so it was.  At last our elusive ghost has donned a wedding gown.

They put Beating Heart in exactly the spot occupied by the maquette figure in the scale model; that is, on the left side, and a little ways to the left of the spot where today there is a ghostly piano (I'm talking DL, of course).  For you young'uns with short memories, her heart glowed red and visibly pumped back and forth, while the sound filled the attic:  Lub dub.  Lub dub.

That's where BH was on opening day, and that's where I remember seeing her on August 14th.  New info: A large plastic sheet (called "nylon 6") was in front of her, stretched from post to post and floor to ceiling, probably with the intent of making her appearance fuzzier.  That too jibes with my memory.  I remember her slowly rocking back and forth in an area that reminded me of a door frame, and she was definitely murky. She was only there a few weeks tops.  When the (infamous) Hatbox Ghost, which was located near the exit on the right, failed to perform as hoped and was removed, BH was transplanted to his old spot.  There she remained from Aug-Sept 1969 until May 2006, when she jumped the track to the other side and became Constance, that zany hubby-whackin' axe murderer. What did that original "Beating Heart" bride look like?  She bore a strong resemblance to the corpse phase of the Marc Davis changing portrait above, and so that version of the bride has picked up the name "Corpse Bride." For the Disneyland original, we have a number of good photos of the figure, from pre-opening photos of the figure before installation, down to 1975. Here's a montage of those:

We also catch a fleeting glimpse of her in the background of a scene from the March 1970 Disneyland Showtime episode, which featured the Osmond brothers and showcased the new Haunted Mansion.  The program was filmed in January or February of that year, so we're mere months past opening day.  If we shrink the 1975 CB photo down (center in the montage), blur it, and fade it, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Osmonds bride.  That's 1970 on the left, 1975 on the right.

However, even that is not the oldest photography of the original bride standing in place in the attic. One day in June of 2011, Disney fan and historian Todd J. Pierce was going through a box of old home movies and photos he had acquired, and there he found a small reel dated August 1969.  To his astonishment, this one-minute film featured a rare glimpse of the Hat Box Ghost, as well as about three seconds of murky footage of the bride, the only known photography of the original bride in her original position.  An edited version of the film was posted at the Disney History Institute on July 9th.  Not much of the bride is visible, but you can see the red heart, beating back and forth, the tip of her glowing candle, and a number of large white smears and smudges.  Occasional details like her hair are visible only in a frame or two here and there.  Here's a GIF with a picture of the Corpse Bride superimposed on a combined still from the film.  The candle tips don't line up, because she's holding it at different points in the arc of movement up and down.  With some other bride photos the alignment is exact, so between that and the heart it's possible to place her pretty accurately in the frame.

The eyes of the Corpse Bride were never very bright, so they don't show up except very dimly in one frame:

Exactly when the Corpse Bride was replaced is not known, neither for DL, nor for her twin at WDW.  Based on what evidence I have, the latest possible date would be the late 80's. There is some evidence suggesting that the Corpse Bride was still in use at WDW in the late 70's, so "sometime in the 80's" cannot be far off. Speaking of WDW, unlike the situation with regard to Anaheim, photos of the original WDW bride are extremely rare. One surfaced in February of 2013 and showed up at the irreplaceable Daveland site. It's the Corpse Bride, all right, but her face in Orlando was never painted with the same amount of detail as the DL version, especially in the lower part of the face.

Remarkably, there exists also a film clip of the original WDW bride from 1976:

[Visit original post to view video clip.]

"Long-Forgotten" threadster Michigan Guy has put together an artist's conception of what the Disneyland original looked like, and based on available evidence I'd say it's pretty accurate.  Kids, hide your eyes!

Starting with that, here's my conception of what she looked like.  I mean it, kids: don't look!

Okay, fine.  Not my fault if you have nightmares.  Where are your parents? ☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆ Before we bring this episode to a close, I suppose that something needs to be said about the photo below. It's sorta well-known, and it's often presented as the original 1969 bride.

There are enough idiosyncrasies about it that at least one intelligent observer has argued that it is a pre-opening prototype and not a production figure.  The most glaring problem is the slit-like eyes.  No other bride photo shows anything like that.  Highly suspect. In fairness, those eyes might be a conservative hold-over from the design you see in the maquette figure, which also has slittish eyes:

Not only that, but as it happens the mechanical design of the lighted eyes would allow for any amount of manipulation of their shape.  You just mask the WALL -E eye box in her head (well, that's what it reminds me of) in any way you think appropriate and get any shape eye you want.

So yeah, I suppose it's theoretically possible that the slit-eyed bride was there as a short-lived experiment, but it's extremely unlikely that she was the original.  Like the round-eyed, dark-faced version that eventually replaced the Corpse Bride (seen above on the left), the slit-eye version has very bright eyes. They would certainly have been visible in the August '69 film footage if she were standing there, but the eyes are only visible in one frame, and even then just barely. I'm pretty sure the mystery photo is either a picture of the second version of Beating Heart (with the eyes narrowed), or it's a prototype.

Next up:  Ol' Round Eyes and the "middle" brides.

Originally Posted: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 Original Link: [x]

[comixconnection]

Don’t have a copy of the latest PREVIEWS CATALOG that shows all the goods and goodies slated for shipment soon? Miss looking through our book of highlights here at the store during this period of social distancing and curbside pick-up? Fret no further, friendly shoppers! The Comix Connection Counter Monkeys are here to help!

Below, you will find a selection of KID-FRIENDLY COMICS that our staff have assembled to pique your interest! And if you’re a subscriber, you might have a special note in your latest batch of comics alerting you to specific titles that may be up your alley…so take a look!

–Want to see all recommended titles? START HERE!

LITTLE WITCHES: MAGIC IN CONCORD : Rediscover Louisa May Alcott’s classic story...but this time, with magic! Jo, Beth, Amy, and Meg live in Concord with their parents during the Civil War, where the Marches have to keep their craft quiet because there are many who view magic as a bad thing..especially after an elderly witchfinder and his grandson move in next door! ($12.99 SC)

DISNEY’S HAUNTED MANSION : This retirement home for ghost’s newest resident, Sidney, has to learn how to scare visiting mortals...but can she do it despite resident mean ghost Constance’s interference? ($9.99 SC)

GERT AND THE SACRED STONES : Young orphan Gert wants to make sure that no one else has to suffer what she has in this war between humanity and nature, but that means doing something forbidden for a young woman: become a warrior! Along the way, this unlikely hero will have to find a way to reconcile her drive for vengeance with the chance to change the world for the better...and fight some ferocious, fantastical monsters too of course! ($14.99 SC)

THE WEIRN BOOKS vol 1 : In the Night Realm -- the setting of this a brand new series by Svetlana Chmakova, creator of the beloved middle grade Berrybrook Books -- the streets are prowled by vampires, shifters, weirns, and all sort of things that go bump in the night...but school is still in session, and you can’t skimp on your homework just because life is spooky!  ($13.00 SC)

DISNEY VILLAINS: URSULA AND THE SEVEN SEAS : A three-issue miniseries that unveils the sordid history of everyone’s favorite sea witch! Once upon a time, Ursula was one of a group of witches ruling the Seven Seas...so who is the one merperson who would dare defy their reign? ($3.99 single issues)

JONNA AND THE UNPOSSIBLE MONSTERS : From Eisner-winner Chris Samnee comes a brand new adventure packed-full of monsters! Rainbow has been searching for her sister, Jonna, for a year -- ever since the monsters started showing up! These big, ugly, dangerous creatures have driven humanity to the brink of extinction, but Rainbow knows her sister is still out there somewhere...and she’ll do anything to find her! ($3.99 single issues)

ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA & CAKE : This collection of Fionna and Cake’s greatest adventures takes them all across the land of Ooo! ($9.99 SC)

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