#CHARLOTTE MY DIVA OF LIFE

[piastri-fvx]

Walking in the wind. Arthur Leclerc.

Pairing: Arthur Leclerc x girlfriend!reader

Genre: angst

Type: smau, irl

Summary: When Arthur's girlfriend follows her dream and goes to college in New York, making Arthur and her have to deal with the distance.

Word Count: 1.285+

Face claim: Sabrina Carpenter & girls from pinterest, as usual, lmao :)

Disclaimer/s: not really any, just angst and i guess seperation anxiety/the fear of growing apart (?) also wanted to mention that my french is not perfect, so please don't come at me if i make any mistakes <333

A/N: wooooo, kinda trying something new with this, hope u enjoy!! <333

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@arthur_leclerc

liked by alexandrasaintmleux, charles_leclerc, yourusername, charlotte2304, lorenzotl and 481.847 others

arthur_leclerc pour toujours ma fille ❤️

[translation: forever my girl]

tagged: @yourusername

| view all comments...

yourusername je t'aime!! ❤️ liked by creator [translation: i love you]

-> arthur_leclerc je t'aime, y/n/n ❤️

-> user1 yall, this kinda looks like a breakup...

-> user2 yeahhh, like... WHAT IS HAPPENING??

-> user3 y/n's going to New York for college 😭

-> user4 oh noooo, it's a goodbye post 😣

user5 face card is eating 😍

landonorris who's this DIVA? 🤭 liked by creator

-> user6 FRRRR, she is literally stunning

-> user7 i hope arthur can fight 😣

charles_leclerc ❤️ liked by creator

-> user8 the whole leclerc family is here 😭

alexandrasaintmleux we'll all miss you so so much, y/n!! i love you 💕 liked by creator

-> yourusername i love you, love of my life

-> arthur_leclerc i thought I was the love of your life??

-> user9 period.

-> yourusername @arthur_leclerc you're a solid second place 🥰

-> arthur_leclerc why, ouch. i thought we had something special

-> yourusername jk jk, you'll always be my number one ❤️🙄 liked by creator

-> user10 as she should, lmao

user11 i love how y/n's basically a part of the leclerc family 😭🙏

-> user12 arthur and her are basically married atp 🤭

-> user13 real

-> user14 the cutest family

charlotte2304 wishing you all the best, y/n 💕 liked by creator

-> user15 OMG HI CHARLOTTE

-> user16 frrrr

user17 i'll misss the y/n & arthur content so much

user18 you're the loss of my life 😣💔

-> user19 😭😭😭

<>

Arthur and you stand in the airport opposite of each other, tears glistening in both of your, but also his eyes. You both know.

You didn't want to believe it, but you knew that due to his busy schedule and you being in New York, you wouldn't be seeing each ither for a long time.

"So..." he finally speaks up, his voice gentle and unsteady. He doesn't meet your eyes, instead directing his gaze to the airport floor. "I guess this is goodbye?" He then questions, his voice barely over a whisper, afraid of the answer.

You almost immediately shake your head, protesting, "Don't say that. It's not goodbye. It's just a... see you later."

He opens his mouth to speak but you gently shush him, instead adding, "It's just for two years. After that, I'll be back here in Monaco with you. In our apartment, as if i was never away," a tear rolls down your cheek but you smile, knowing that you have to be strong now.

He slowly nods, his eyes flickering to the terminal that shows the flight times and then to your luggage that is standing next to you.

He tries to smile at your words, knowing that you'll wait for each other, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes, seeming rather sad. His voice is barely over a whisper when he speaks up again. "You'll miss your flight.."

Your try to hum, your heart breaking into a million pieces at the sight of Arthur, the person you love the most, in tears, his eyes sad and his whole deameanor seemingly down.

Despite the amount of noise at the rather busy airport, the world around the two of you seems to fade, leaving only him and you, both with heavy hearts.

He knew you had to leave, you both did.

He takes a deep breath, taking a step forward and tightly wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into a tight, kind of desperate embrace.

You simply stayed like that for a moment, his face staying buried in the crook of your neck as he gently rubs your back, trying to comfort you.

He pulls back just enough to cradle your face in his hands, his palms warm against your skin.

"Don't forget me, yeah?" He speaks up, a small smile tugging at his lips, an attempt to cheer you up. "And you better come back to me as soon as you're done with your studies."

"I will," you speak up, a small, soft giggle leaving your lips ad you finally meet his eyes. "I wouldn't dare of forgetting you. I'll text you every day. And we'll call each other."

"Promise?" He asks, a soft smile appearing on his lips as he gently held your chin in his hand, his thumb gently stroking your skin.

"Pinky promise." You grin, holding up your pink finger as he mirrors your action, locking his pinky with yours.

A sense of relief washed over him at your promise, his shoulders visibly less tense now, the firm yet soft expression on his face softening even more. "Bien.."

[translation: good]

He slowly leans down, his lips meeting yours in a soft, tender kiss.

The kiss was so bittersweet; the feeling of his soft lips on yours so familiar, despite this being the last time you two would have a moment like this for a while.

Arthur was kissing you like he was afraid that the moment his lips left yours, you would dissapear. He was holding you tight against his chest, as if afraid that he would never touch you again.

The kiss wasn't hurried at all. It was slow, chaste, tender and gentle. It was a goodbye kiss, a "i'll miss you" kiss, a "please don't forget about me" kiss.

The moment your lips eventually parted, Arthur rested his forehead against yours, his eyes remaining closed, as if he wasn't quite ready to look at you yet.

You just wanted to stay in this moment as long as possible.

He let out a sigh, reluctantly opening his eyes to meet, taking a step back, his hands now holding yours.

"I really gotta go now," you quietly spoke, knowing there was no way around this.

He nods, finally letting go of your hands and looking at you one more time. "Be safe. I'll wait for you." He said, his voice soft, yet sure.

With that, you smile, turning around and finally dissapearing into the criwd to go board your flight.

Arthur stays where he is, waiting until he can't see you anymore.

<>

@yourusername

liked by arthur_leclerc, charles_leclerc, alexandrasaintmleux, charlotte2304, lorenzotl, landonorris and 1.947.027 others

yourusername happy anniversary to the love of my life ❤️

tagged: @arthur_leclerc

| view all comments...

arthur_leclerc happy anniversary, l'amour de ma vie ❤️ liked by creator

[translation: the love of my life]

-> user1 they're so 😍😍😍

landonorris wowwwww, keep it PG13, please liked by creator

-> yourusername shush, you're single 🥰

-> user2 i love how lando and y/n act like siblings when they're together

-> user3 she ate him up 💀

-> user4 @yourusername preach, girly

user5 y/n in her aesthetic era 😍

user6 favorite wag 💕

-> yourusername my favorite wag is ollie 😝

-> olliebearman no.

-> yourusername YES.

-> olliebearman i am NOT a wag.

-> yourusername yes you are. you have kimi 😌

-> olliebearman he has a girlfriend???

-> yourusername i know, she's stunning 😍

-> babickovaeli tyyyy!! you're literally drop dead gorgeous 🫶🫶🫶 liked by creator

-> yourusername AHHHHH OMG HIIII

-> babickovaeli heyyyy!!!! liked by creator

-> user7 damn 💀

user8 ollie and y/n bickering like children is so funny to me 😭

alexandrasaintmleux so happy for you both 💕 liked by creator

-> yourusername how's my baby???

-> arthur_leclerc me?

-> yourusername no, silly 😌🙄 i'm talking about Leo.

-> charles_leclerc leo's good!! he misses his aunt though liked by creator

-> user9 poor arthur 😭

-> user10 i don't even blame her, leo's adorable

user11 "thank you for the couple content, y/n" we all chant in unison

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A/N: actually had no motivation for a moment because i had already written half of this and tumblr deleted it, but yeahhh... 🥰 hope u enjoyed!! reblogs, likes and follows are greatly appreciated <333

[marygih]

favorite to least favorite of miss p’s kids?

My favorite characters are Miss P and Miss C. But I do have an order of children that I like the most.

Emma: She's a Diva, I miss Emma who threatened to water the grass with Jacob's blood.

Bronwyn: She is brave and loyal, she would give her life to protect her friends.

Millard: Along with Enoch he is one of the characters that makes me laugh the most.

Enoch: I have a love-hate relationship with him, but he always makes me laugh, and he cares a lot about Miss P and her friends.

Fiona: My poor powerful, traumatized girl, Fiona is a symbol of strength and resilience

Hugh: A passionate warrior who never gave up on his love (Abe and Jacob have a lot to learn from him) He suffered so much and deserved his happy ending.

Olive: I love this little girl, she is so brave and fearless

Claire: She is innocent and cute, and is very attached to her mother figure. Many people don't like Claire, but she is the best representation of a child in the story. She is very young and is afraid of losing the only person she has as a mother.

Horace: Another love-hate relationship, I like him, but not that much. He's a little arrogant, but nothing changes the fact that he was a great hero! Horace proved to the world that knitting saves lives.

Noor: She suffered a lot, but I never created an attachment to her. Judge me but I thought she would die very quickly, Ransom has the bad habit of introducing us to cool characters and then killing them off. When Noor appeared I convinced myself not to get attached to her since Ransom would probably kill her in a horrible way. I was wrong, but it was too late, I have no attachment to the character.

Jacob: Jacob is only not in last place because I cheated and put someone worse than him. Our boy had a personality regress and became such a hateful guy that he deserved to be lower on this list, but saving the peculiar world gave him some credibility points. Since AMOD I have lost all respect and affection for this character.

Abe: I hate him ✨✨✨✨He was a bad father, a bad husband, a bad friend, a bad son (Miss Peregrine basically begged for a response in the letters she sent him, what an example of a son, right?) , I can also consider him a bad grandfather, since he let his grandson be in danger his entire life and basically waited until the last second of his life to warn him that he was in danger. If Jacob had been normal like his father, Abe would not have been a present grandfather. And Jacob was never really protected by Abe, after all Golan frequented Jacob's house and drove Jacob's school bus WHEN ABE WAS ALIVE. Golan didn't kill Jacob BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT TO, ABE'S PROTECTION WAS OF NO USE WHATSOEVER.

Honorable mentions

Victor- I believe he was as kind as Wyn, and he wanted to go to war to fight for his people. He died with honor.

Charlotte- From what we understand, she must have been a similar age to Olive, she didn't know what she was doing... She's not dead, but she can no longer be with her first family, that's tragic.

Marcie- Poor little dead girl, she just wanted to have a normal life... She was so little and had such a tragic end

Twins- They're cool, and Abe probably liked them a lot, but we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about their history.

[broadwaydivastournament]

A Birthday Tribute to Stephen Sondheim

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Diva posts and polls with a 24-hour Stephen Sondheim lockdown to recognize an honorary Broadway Diva and certified musical theatre god.

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (1930) was a legendary composer and lyricist who essentially reinvented the American musical with his soaring scores and fiendishly clever lyrics. With Oscar Hammerstein as his mentor, he began his Broadway career writing lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). Throughout his life, he won eight Tony Awards, including a Special Tony, more than any other composer. His dedicating to writing fascinating, flawed, fantastic roles for women (particularly women of a certain age) means his work is some of the most sought-after of our Divas.

Sondheim Theatre and Concert Credits:

I have done the research and pulled together a list of every single role our Divas have played, and every Sondheim concert they have participated in. Here are just a few takeaways.

All together, 64 Divas have had a whopping 245 roles/concerts and counting.

Eleven Divas have never (to my knowledge) performed in a Sondheim or at a Sondheim-specific concert. Seven of those are non-singing actresses, leaving just four musically-inclined Divas bereft. (Brenda Braxton, Lillias White, Linda Eder, Ute Lemper). However, all four Divas have performed Sondheim's songs in their personal concert repertoires

Eighteen Divas have done just one Sondheim, some in particularly obscure contexts.

The most common roles are The Witch (Into the Woods - 9), Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd - 8), Mama Rose (Gypsy - 8), Desiree Armfeldt (A Little Night Music - 8), Phyllis Rogers Stone (Follies - 6). More on that later.

Most Frequent Sondheim Performers:

Bernadette Peters: 21 Highlights include: Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Follies, Gypsy.

Patti LuPone: 20 Highlights include: Company, Sweeney Todd, Gypsy, Anyone Can Whistle.

Marin Mazzie: 13 Highlights include: Passion, Merrily We Roll Along, Into the Woods, Anyone Can Whistle.

Audra McDonald: 11 Highlights include: Sweeney Todd, Passion, Six by Sondheim, A Little Night Music.

Donna Murphy: 11 Highlights include: Passion, Into the Woods, Anyone Can Whistle, Follies.

Christine Baranski: 11 Highlights include: Company, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, Follies.

Tony Awards and Nominations:

Leading Actress in a Musical: 14 Nominations (exc. wins) | 5 Divas 9 Wins | 4 Divas

Mama Rose in Gypsy is the most-decorated role in musical theatre canon, and arguably the best role for women period. In five productions, every actress has either been nominated (Ethel Merman, Bernadette Peters), or won (Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Patti LuPone).

Both Desiree Armfeldt actresses have won their respective years (Glynis Johns, Catherine Zeta-Jones). Additional winning roles have been Phyllis Rogers Stone (Alexis Smith), Mrs. Lovett (Angela Lansbury), The Baker's Wife (Joanna Gleason), and Fosca (Donna Murphy).

Featured Actress in a Musical: 17 Nominations (exc. wins) | 4 Divas 4 Wins | 1 Diva

Some of the most common roles to be nominated for in a Sondheim show are Amy and Joanne from Company (in the original production, Elaine Stritch competed in Leading Actress), and Louise in Gypsy. No featured role has netted more than one award.

Winners: Patricia Elliott (Charlotte, ALNM), Laura Benanti (Louise, Gypsy), Karen Olivo (Anita, West Side Story), and Patti LuPone (Joanne, Company).

[1lovesickfangirl1]

I just finished playing Glass Heart: Retold and OMG IT IS SO GOOD. Was super interested in how a bunch of the love interests had connections. The music is beautiful. I looove the sprites. The game is fully voice acted and the love interests voice actors did an incredible job. Some parts are a bit cheesy but it's fun :) It's absolutely CRIMINAL that I haven't been able to find a fandom for this game. I've only found 8 fics on AO3 and ONE OF THEM IS IN FRENCH.

In Glass Heart you play as Meira, a 21 year old woman with a rare heart condition that has kept her in the hospital for most of her life. She got a heart donor right as her heart started failing. Her transplant surgery is a month away with a 20% chance of success. Meira wants to experience life outside the hospital before her high-stakes surgery, and each of the 6 love interests will help her do that.

Glass Heart: Retold is a remake. I haven't played the original, the main difference I know of are the 2 short stories after each route in the original. I was looking at the game files and found the CGs and sprites for those stories!! also saw a file with diary entries about each guy at different affection levels. maybe they'll be added in the future?

Under the cut I'll include content warnings for the game and my thoughts on each route in the order I played them. Spoilers ahead!!

Content Warning: Certain routes include gang violence, sexual assault, drugged MC, attempted suicide, and prostitution.

Tamaki

my assassin husband <3

somehow got the darkest route on the first playthrough

thought i was going to date sweet florist man who grew fond of Meira

ends up being in charge of an assassination guild

finds out a gang called the Zhulong Syndicate is after Meira's new heart, does his best to stop them

Charlotte is so pretty, wish she was a love interest

Lily is such a cute nickname

literally went feral when Tamaki called her a good girl

looove a man in a suit

unfortunately this is the route where Meira gets sexually assaulted

PAPI CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF

the way Tamaki reacted when Meira told him about the assault was 10/10 chef's kiss, the good stuff

he's such a sweet sweet man

the good ending is peak bc yes i would love to run a small flower shop with my lover!!

a very good starting point, one of my favorite routes!!

Will

needed something more lighthearted after Tamaki so I chose Will

going to college w/ childhood bff and his besties, very chill

friendzoning a girl you like and continuing to give her mixed signals after, not so chill

Nerd Squad is so goofy, I love them

Brayson was so flirty and silly like bro i can't get distracted ill do your route later

Krystol (her roommate) was a tad cringe but she's sweet

omg Tiffanie get out of here Will doesn't want you back

aaaand the Zhulong Syndicate is still after Meira's new heart GIVE MY GIRL A BREAK

at least we get to see Tamaki again WELCOME BACK HUSBAND

Meira got drugged at a party, TOLD HER FRIENDS NOT TO BRING HER TO THE HOSPITAL AND THEY LISTENED TO HER

YES IM STILL PISSED ABOUT THAT

HER HEART IS SUPER WEAK AND WE DON'T KNOW HOW THAT DRUG WILL INTERACT WITH HER OTHER MEDICATION

BAD FRIENDS

in the bad ending Will puts himself in front of Meira as a gang member tries to stab her in the hospital and he dies

kinda ironic since his older brother died doing the same thing for Will when he was a kid

and that unlocks Bray's route

Will's route is pretty short but it's a much needed route

Meira needed that slice of life moment and this route delivered!

Brayson

my hacker boyfriend <3

WHY DOES WILL HAVE TO DIE FOR BRAY'S ROUTE

okay diva diving into the dark web to find out more about who killed Will without any way to protect your data

THEY BOTH MISS WILL SO MUCH THEY'RE THE ONLY ONES WHO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHERS PAIN

Bray i love you but chibi is probably the worst nickname you could've given her

good on you Bray for trying to not get Meira involved

in order to infiltrate the gang and get more info Meira needs to pretend to be a prostitute 💀

oh yeah that plan definitely goes well and the bad guys never see it coming (sarcasm)

Bray looked pretty cute in his suit

these guys move quiiick in the good ending, right after graduation they're engaged, bought a house, AND Meira is pregnant

the bad end takes place 10 YEARS LATER

MEIRA HAS BEEN IN A COMA FOR 10 YEARS AND BRAY VISITS HER EVERYDAY

Nathan

NO GANG STUFF THIS TIME

heck yeah queen get on that adult Make A Wish program and go to Hawaii with a rich man

love using a rich man’s money

this route has a pretty basic dating rich man plot line

Nathan falls in love w Meira as the trip goes, breaks off his arranged engagement, pursues photography instead on inheriting his father’s business, and lives his life with Meira

Also Meira’s doctor travels with them to look after her heart

And he loves her and is pretty jealous of Nathan

Philip is a character that exists

Nathan's friend, super flamboyant cosmetologist, usually comes around when Meira needs to dress up and love advice

when I first saw Nathan’s fiancée I convinced myself it his sister for a second?

They just look very similar

the bad ending was Meira's funeral

TAMAKI BROUGHT HER A BOUQUET OF LILIES

Eli

fun fact: we have the same birthday! (November 2)

we love a tsundere whose idol persona is a detective and recently got diagnosed with cancer

also hell yeah dude call out Will's mixed signals

THE SINGING WAS SO GOOD

Meira was giving MAIN CHARACTER ENERGY in this route

helps idol she doesn't know write a new love song with her dad's melody

idol falls in love w her

idol begs her to be part of the song

invites her to the studio

only Eli's manager knows he has cancer so his other colleagues are expecting him to work at full capacity while he has stage 3 stomach cancer💀

producer receives the demo and is like WE NEED HER TO PERFORM YOUR NEW SONG ON TOUR

Meira can't be on stage, too much stress on her body

but Eli is like hey lets make her into a hologram so all she needs to do is sing during concerts

SO THEY PLAN TO MAKE HER LIKE MIKU IN A VOCALOID CONCERT

they sing the final recording and a music video for the song

SHE GOES INTO A COMA AND WAKES UP A DAY BEFORE THE CONCERT

after performance she goes right into heart surgery and goes into another coma

(can't believe all of this happened in a month, she really is the main character)

In good ending she lives and they become idols together <3

In bad ending Meira dies before the concert and Eli dies after the concert

Jay

it's the doctor/patient dynamic

tbh was a tiny bit concerned when Jay said his little sister died from a heart condition and Meira would've been the same age as her if she was still alive

i was like does he see Meira as a sister 'cause that kinda weiiiird

he doesn't see her as a sister and the age gap isn't awful (21 and 27)

but still why would you date someone with that many similarities w your sister??

im gonna let myself live in peace and not think about it

we spend most of his route in his house and we don't see him in comfy clothes??

absolute criminal behavior devs i'll see you in court

The Zhulong clan is back to steal Meira's heart!

we get to more of Moran (another doctor) and i love that for us

AND MORE YOLO LOVE HER

ALSO THIS ROUTE FINALLY BRINGS UP SOMETHING IVE THOUGHT ABOUT THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE GAME

Jay probably shouldn't be the one doing Meira’s surgery since he's so attached to her

He's the most skilled surgeon in the hospital, but he might not be able to keep his composure if something goes wrong in surgery

Meira i know you're trying to spare your potential partner by guarding your heart BUT GET UP GIRL! THAT MAN IS CLEARLY IN LOVE WITH YOU!!

THE GOOD ENDING IS SO SWEET

I WAS SO SCARED TO SEE THE BAD ENDING

and i was right to be scared BECAUSE JAY'S VA PERFORMED LIKE THE RENT WAS DUE YESTERDAY

HE WENT SO HARD AND IT HURT MY HEART SO BAAAAD

[architect-2015]

WWE 24 Specials - Returning Home.

After many years on the sideline from a severe neck injury, this WWE 24 specials shows Kailani ‘Anoa’i’ Silva’s return the the squares circle.

Raw 2017

“You know, sometimes no matter how much you love something and how much you dedicate your life, your body and your soul to it, things don’t always turn out the way you want. Wrestling is my lifeline, your support and energy is what keeps my blood pumping, your love and dedication runs through my veins. You guys are the reason i’m here.”

Kailani’s voice cracks, a silence washes over the once overjoyed crowd.

“Truth be told i haven’t had the easiest life before reaching the WWE and i’m gonna be 100% honest, my real name is Kailani Anoa’i: i’m a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter and a WWE Superstar. You guys have seen a lot of my life, a lot of my early life from when i was part of something called Total Divas, that was one hell of a ride, but there was always one part of my life i kept away from the screen and that was my medical background.

I’ve tried so hard to preform my best for you but to also be able to do simple things, play with my children, go sightseeing with my friends, cook a dinner for my husband but i can’t do that anymore. I’ve recently had an MRI for a problem in my neck and i’ve been told that if i carry on the way i am now, i won’t be able to do anything at all. My love for this company, this job, this industry is infinite and i cannot thank you enough for all the support you have shown me and if you would ask me if i would do this all again, i would say in a heartbeat.

so thank you for everything, and god bless you all.”

The clip changes over to a heartwarming scene of Lani and her family: Herself, Joe, Alina and Malo. The children sit on top of a storage crate whilst the couple stand in each others embrace.

“Baby girl, we’re gonna get through this. You’ll have your surgery and i’ll be there for you in every form i can be at any time you need. You’ll be okay.” Joseph comforts his wife who is stood before him in hysterics, she had just come off the biggest title defence of her career against Charlotte Flair at Wrestlemania 33.

The next shot shown is a backstage interaction between Paul Heyman and Kailani. A hug is shared between the adults as a whispered conversation i’d taking place.

“You’re not alone.”

A sob racks through Lani’s body, seeing this Paul only pulls the 30 year old closer.

“i’m gonna check in on you everyday, you don’t even have to respond.”

“You will never be alone Kailani”

Interviews

“So tell me about Kailani”

Triple H: “Kailani Silva is one of the most dedicated, safest and most passionate women I’ve had the honour to mentor. She’s incredible and her career will definitely be one that will continue to be spoken about”

Charlotte Flair: “Lani will always be my favourite person to work with, we have made history in that ring and i owe a lot of my career to her.”

Jey Uso: “That’s my little sister man, i mean she’s my family. I ain’t never seen anyone else do it like she does it”

Paul Heyman: “I’ve been with the Anoa’i family for 40+ years and since Kailani joined, she just… she the kind of person that you gravitate towards. She has done so much for the women of this company because that’s the kind of person she is. She’s a giver, and she gave it all for the WWE. I will forever be proud of her.”

Roman Reigns: “There’s no amount of words i could string together to describe Kailani, she is the most selfless woman i know, she the best mother and wife i could have ever wished for and she of one of the best if not THE best woman to ever preform in that ring. I know she’ll get through this.”

“Kailani, how are you feeling?”

Kailani Silva: “I’m good you know, you’re all acting like you’ll never see me again. I promise i’m feeling good, i know it’s what’s best for me and my future but just know that i’m not disappearing.”

For the next five years Kailani spent every waking moment doing whatever she could to be the best version of herself possible. Rehab after surgery, physio therapy, training her own body and new up and coming talent at the PC.

SMACKDOWN BEFORE WRESTLMANIA 38 (segment)

Kayla Braxton walks up to a door, one simple sign is placed up front and centre

‘Roman Reigns’

a delicate knock sounds around the locker room, Paul Heyman immediately throws open said door and scurries out, closing it behind him.

“Yes Kayla?”

“Paul, you and the Head of the table Roman Reigns have both stated recently for Brock Lesnar to watch his back, is this a hint towards outside help from the Usos during the unification match?”

“Kayla, when a man like Roman Reigns is your Head Of The Table, The Tribal Chief, you need to understand that a man of that power stands on his own too feet, he needs no help from The Usos to beat a beast incarnate. That being said anyone who has a problem with Brock has an opportunity to take a hit, and one person jumps to mind. Roman Reigns will leave as the WWE Undisputed Universal Champion. That’s a spoiler, not a promise.”

DAY OF WRESLTEMANIA 38

A black, tinted windowed van pulls up into the parking lot of the AT&T Stadium, a black bloodline shirt clad figure walks up to the door, opens it and is immediately met by a short, brown haired women. Lifting them into a hug, two children follow the lady’s steps, also met by a warm embrace from the man.

The couple, trailed by their children walk further into the bus, closing the door.

MAIN EVENT

ROMAN REIGNS VS BROCK LESNAR

Brock currently has Roman in a kirmura lock when a theme song, that hasn’t been played in five years, engulfs the arena sound system.

The pop from the crowd is deafening, this shock give Roman the time to grab the rope, break away from the submission move and create some distance.

“COLE, ITS KAILANI, ITS KAILNAI SILVA ROMAN REIGNS’ WIFE SHES BACK IN THE WWE!”

“Kailani Silva hasn’t been seen inside of a WWE ring since she retired due to a neck injury in 2017!”

“Lani is back after five years! She’s back and is running down the ramp to her her husband!”

Roman distracts the ref, pointing towards his shoulder whilst his wife slides into the ring, steal chair in hand and begins a beat down on Brock. Once the beat down had concluded, Lesnar stands up only to be met by a spear from Reigns.

1

2

3

“Reigns has done it! A returning Kailani Silva helps her husband cement his WWE Legacy!”

The wresltemania show closes out with the couple sharing a kiss, and Roman Reigns standing victorious, two WWE title belts in his grasp.

The shots change to a back stage view, Kailani and Joe walking back through the curtain greeted by a round of applause.

“That’s what i’m talking about Uce!” Jonathan Fatu’s voice projects over the sound of claps.

The Bloodline, now stood in one circle, all share a group hug. Words of affirmation shared between all members.

“Welcome back lil’ sister, what a way to make a come back!”

“Aye you put that beast in the ground!”

“I’m so proud of you”

“We did it y’all, The Bloodline is on top”

“Wait the Bloodline ain’t on top yet, Miss Flair better watch her back cuz i want that title”

FINAL INTERVIEW

“So you want the Smackdown women’s championship?”

“What kind of question is that Corey, of course I do i mean my family is on top, Trinity is one half of the women’s tag team champs, Jon and Josh are smackdown tag team champions, Joe is the new WWE Undisputed Universal Champion and i’ve worked by ass off for the last five years, defied all odds to get back here so hell yeah i wanna have gold around my waist. Im gonna continue to work my ass off until i get it and anyone who gets in my way is gonna get put down and pinned.”

“The Anoa’i family has dominated this company for decades and we will continue to do so for many years to come.”

“Well on behalf of all of the WWE Universe, welcome home.”

“Thank you Corey, it’s good to be back.”

[opera-ghosts]

Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Waltraute; Bayreuth, 1899

Madame Shumann-Heink, the diva of Grossmont

Last of the Titans

Author: Richard W. Amero

Publish Date: Nov. 7, 1991

Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink's life had the before-and-after quality of a fairy tale. She was born in poverty and achieved riches. She was plain in appearance yet had a regal and impressive bearing on the concert stage. She began her opera career modestly in Austria at age 15, but by the time she moved her family to San Diego, at 48, she was one of the most famous and revered women of her time, revered women of her time.

She was called "Tini" by her parents, "Topsy" by friends in Germany, "the Heink" by composer Gustav Mahler, "Heinke" by impresario Maurice Grau, and "Nona" by her children. Those who did not know her personally called her "Mother" or “Madame," reflecting the gratitude, tenderness, admiration, and respect she inspired.

She was born Ernestine Röessler at Lieben, near Prague (then part of Austria), June 15, 1861. Her mother was Italian-born Charlotte (Goldman) Röessler and her father Hans Röessler, a cavalry lieutenant in the Austrian army. She would later say she inherited her willfulness and "fighting qualities" from her father, whom she once referred to as “a real old roughneck," but it was her mother who inspired her to sing. Schumann-Heink would recall for a biographer, "When I was three years old, I already sang. I sang what my mother sang.... I’d put my mother’s apron around me and start to act and sing — singing all the different arias and dancing — always dancing."

The Röesslers confronted a life of continual want. An army salary could barely support a family of six. But the resourceful young Ernestine used her talents to supplement the family’s table. The diva told stories of charming a dour grocer into giving her some Swiss cheese and an apple in exchange for performing a traditional folk dance. If Ernestine had no music for a performance, she would whistle the tune herself.

When her father was posted at Krakow, Ernestine’s mother sent her off to convent school each day “with a big bottle of black coffee and a piece of dry black bread —butter was unheard of. That was all she could give me." But one day at lunchtime, Ernestine left the school grounds to explore the town’s marketplace. "I was only 11 years old then and delighted to run the streets — I did not fear anything — and perhaps it was all well and good, because it was the beginning of my independence."

At the market, Ernestine discovered an Italian circus:

They were just having the mid-day meal when I came along. Oh, how it smelled, so good! And I was so hungry — I was always hungry, you know. “Ach, what must I do to get some of that good food?” So I asked them, please, please could they give me something to eat — and I would work for it. They were astonished and roared at me with laughter and said, "Si, si! If you want to work, little one, clean the monkey cages first, then you can eat!” I suppose they didn’t think I’d really do it — they were just joking — but I did it. And what a meal they gave me! I was stuffed like a Strassbourg goose! And they began right away to like me.

Ernestine spent her afternoons working with the circus until her father was reassigned to Prague later that year.

Still only 11, Ernestine was sent to the Ursuline convent near Prague, where, though she could not read music, she sang the tenor parts in the Mass, which she had memorized by ear. Her impressive performance attracted notice, and she began taking formal music lessons. When she was 13, the family moved to Graz, where again Ernestine’s deep contralto voice impressed a retired diva, who gave her lessons at no charge.

At 15 Ernestine sang the contralto part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in her first public performance. On the strength of that performance, the chorus’s soprano soloist suggested that Ernestine apply for a position with the Vienna Imperial Opera. But her hopes were dashed when the opera director, after her audition, sneered, "Why with such a face — no personality at all — how can you expect to succeed? My dear girl, you better give up the idea of singing and let the people who brought you buy you a sewing machine and set you to work. You will never be a singer."

Not long after the rebuff in Vienna, Ernestine was invited to try out for the Dresden Opera. After hearing her sing the demanding ‘‘O mon fils" from Myerbeer’s Le Prophète and "Brindisi" from Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, the director engaged her at 3600 marks (about $900) a year.

In 1878 the 17-year-old contralto made her debut as Azucena in II Trovatore. Imbued with the high spirits and irreverence of youth, Ernestine said she had difficulty maintaining a straight face as she sang of throwing her child into the flames. It was at the Dresden Cathedral, where she sang to enhance her meager income, that Ernestine finally learned to read music.

In 1882 at 21, Fraulein Röessler married Ernst Heink, secretary of the Dresden Opera, though they did not first obtain the consent of management. As a consequence, she and her husband were dismissed.

In the fall of 1883, at the urging of a Dresden critic, the director of the Hamburg Opera awarded Frau Heink a contract to sing utility roles with the company for a few hundred marks a season. In the first four years at Hamburg, she sang only bit parts. During that time, she gave birth to August, Charlotte, and Henry. The expected arrival of a fourth child (Hans) proved too much for Herr Heink, who left mother and children to fend for themselves.

Frau Heink’s situation was desperate. When the sheriff took her furniture to satisfy her husband’s debts, she felt she had reached the end of her resistance. She resolved to throw herself and her children in front of a locomotive. She later said it was the voice of her little girl Charlotte saying, "Mamma! Mamma! I love you! Take me home!" that brought her to her senses.

Throughout this time, Ernestine continued to study and observe the work of the lead singers. At home, while nursing her babies, she diligently studied the major operatic roles.

A fellow performer soon asked her to sing at a benefit in Berlin. Still pregnant with Hans but desperate for money, she left her three children in a neighbor’s care and traveled all night by train. Arriving in Berlin early in the morning and unable to afford a hotel, she sat in a park until rehearsals began. Her performance as Azucena that evening made her a sensation.

Back in Hamburg, Ernestine’s director realized (if he had not known before) that he had a superstar in his opera company. When his leading contralto refused to perform one evening, he asked Ernestine to sing the role of Carmen. Though she had not studied the role, Frau Heink triumphed. It was true, as conductor Gustav Mahler pointed out, that she had memorized the faults as well as the singing of the many Carmens who had preceded her at Hamburg. Successes as Fidès in Le Propheète and Ortrud in Lohengrin followed. Before the season was over, 22-year-old Ernestine Heink was Hamburg’s leading contralto.

The singer later admitted that her relationship with Gustav Mahler was not cordial. Because Mahler did not pay attention to her as a woman, she spread the rumor that he was homosexual. In these salad years, Frau Heink’s impish impulses and headstrong temperament kept her from taking art or herself too seriously.

From 1887 to 1898, the ambitious Ernestine sang in festivals and concerts in Berlin, London, Sweden, Norway, and, beginning in 1896, at the famous Bayreuth Festival, training that broadened her vocal style. The singer’s increasing successes, her three-octave vocal range from low D to high B, and her self-assurance on the stage brought her dozens of feature roles in quick succession, including Amneris in Aida, Brängane in Tristan und Isolde, Katisha in The Mikado, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger, and Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia.

In 1892, at the age of 31, Ernestine divorced Herr Heink and married Paul Schumann, an actor and director of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Schumann taught his wife to interpret songs by speaking the words before she sang them. Her lifelong reputation for deft phrasing, pure diction, and thoughtful understanding of the content of lyrics owed much to her husband’s guidance.

Bruno Walter, assistant conductor to Gustav Mahler at the Hamburg opera during this era, recalled Schumann-Heink as a singer who combined remarkable talent with willful disposition. In spite of a tendency to resist, “She could be depended upon to use her gifts in a thoroughly artistic manner.” Critic George Bernard Shaw was captivated by her fine contralto voice and the power and passion of her delivery at the Bayreuth Festival in 1896 but was less taken by the summer gown and fashionable sleeves she wore under her blue-black Valkyrie armor as she sang Waltraute in Die Götterdaämmerung.

Schumann-Heink’s American debut took place in Chicago in November of 1898 in the role of Ortrud in Lohengrin. She was at the time a member of the Maurice Grau Opera Company, predecessor of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company, and was on leave of absence from the Royal Opera House Company in Berlin. Four weeks after the première, she gave birth to a boy in the Belvedere Hotel in New York City. At the suggestion of the doctor who assisted in the birth, she named her newest son George Washington Schumann. Her children eventually would number eight, including four by Heink (August, Charlotte, Hans, and Henry); George, Ferdinand, and Marie, her children by Schumann; and Walter, Schumann’s son from a former marriage.

Her Metropolitan Opera debut as Ortrud took place just one month later, in January of 1899. The critic for the New York Tribune said that though her high register was not as beautiful as her low, she won admiration for her thrilling use of tonal color and her ability to depict a character who was “half woman, half witch and all wickedness personified.”

In London that summer, she appeared before Queen Victoria in a condensed version of Lohengrin at Windsor Castle. Afterward, the Queen told her in German how much she liked her voice. In a bluffer manner, Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) asked her how she could have so many children and still find time to sing. Schumann-Heink was piqued but made no reply.

In 1904, Schumann-Heink left the Metropolitan and the world of opera to tour in a musical comedy, Love's Lottery. Her new manager promised her an income at the improbable figure of $240,000 for 40 weeks��� work plus a share of the gross receipts. Because her English was stilted and her accent heavy, her role as a German washerwoman in love with an English sergeant elicited much amusement from audiences.

Most critics were restrained in their comments, but Leslie's Weekly scored the singer’s presentation. “Madame Schumann-Heink is not an unalloyed joy. Her comedy is pathetically heavy and her one idea of humor (?) is to mock her own broken English by saying repeatedly, ‘Ist mein English goot?’ ”

In answer to those critics who deplored her desertion of grand opera, Schumann-Heink said she did it to get enough money to bring her ailing husband and her children to the United States. But Paul Schumann died in Germany in November of 1904.

The following February, Schumann-Heink took out United States naturalization papers in Cincinnati, and in May, at 43, she married William Rapp, Jr., a Chicago lawyer. He was her business manager and 13 years younger than she.

An attack of tonsillitis forced the diva to close her season with Love’s Lottery in November of 1905. Physicians had told her that she would lose her voice permanently if she continued to sing in that role.

Early in 1906, the diva returned to Germany, where she succeeded in getting six of her eight children out of the country. According to German law, Schumann-Heink, by marrying a foreigner, had forfeited her property in Germany. Also, her boys were required to serve in the army before they could leave the country. The German courts finally decided the boys could accompany her to America and that she could retain one-third of the money in Germany since she, not her deceased husband, had earned it. Her home in Germany was confiscated, and she had to buy it back. Her two oldest children, Charlotte and August, remained in Germany. For the next five years, Ernestine, her husband, and six children lived in northern New Jersey.

After getting her children settled, Schumann-Heink left for Bayreuth in July 1906. Concerts followed in Munich and Paris. Returning to the United States in October, she began a concert tour that ended on March of 1907 with appearances in Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. A review in the New York Sun implied that nothing had changed:

She has all her old merits, all her old faults. She still indulges occasionally in bad attack, in spasmodic and ejaculatory phrasing in cantabile passages, and in failures to take certain intervals faultlessly. But, on the other hand, she has still the splendor of tone, the magnificent sweep of utterance and the stimulating appearance of reserve power which made her singing a constant joy in days now well remembered.

Schumann-Heink was then enticed by Oscar Hammerstein I to join his Manhattan Opera Company for its second season. Eventually, the mercurial Oscar decided that the three prima donnas he had engaged, including Ernestine, were costing him too much money, and he maneuvered to get rid of them. Schumann-Heink sang only one performance, that of Azucena in Il Trovatore in January of 1908. She was idle for the rest of the season and appears to have made up her losses by an extended European tour.

In a 1909 performance as Klytemnestra at the Dresden première of Richard Strauss’s Elektra, Schumann-Heink complained that the vocal parts were “a thunderous medley of groans, moans, and sighs” and feared she had harmed her voice. Strauss, on his side, was disappointed with her wooden acting and Wagnerian style of declamation. A short while later, she sang a much less demanding program of songs in a performance before Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Schumann-Heink was now a wealthy woman. Money coming in from recitals, opera appearances, and recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company went out in investments in stocks, bonds, and real estate.

In January 1910, while on a tour of the Pacific coast, the diva decided to live part-time in Grossmont, then an undeveloped tract of land north of Mt. Helix in eastern La Mesa. Local businessman Ed Fletcher and William B. Gross, a former actor and producer, owned this land, but Fletcher managed its development. He sold Schumann-Heink 500 acres of choice land for $20,000. Besides a lot near the top of Grossmont, the purchase included a 14-acre orange and lemon grove and several acres in El Cajon on which a stand of eucalyptus trees was to be planted.

This 1910 visit was a turning point in the diva’s life. With the land purchase, she could now provide homes for herself and her adult children, and, though she did not state this publicly, she could control their destinies.

William Rapp, the singer’s husband, opposed her plan to perpetuate her children’s dependency, but Schumann-Heink put the matter bluntly. “I do not see why my children should work hard when I have plenty to provide for all of them. I do not want them scattered. I want all of them near me all the time.” In December 1911, Rapp left the New Jersey home, and the next month his wife announced her intention to sue for divorce. Before their divorce became final, there was a bitter trial at which each accused the other of adultery.

“Casa Ernestina,” the Grossmont home, was designed by architect Dell W. Harris of San Diego. It cost about $7000 to build and was ready for occupancy in 1913. It consisted of a basement foundation of granite rubble, a plaster-walled main floor, and a roof of red cement tile. On the north side of the living room, French doors opened onto a terrace commanding a view of El Cajon Valley and the mountains.

Son Hans Schumann-Heink moved onto a 15-acre ranch on the slopes of Grossmont where he planted orange, lemon, and olive trees. He eventually took over a 40-acre ranch near Lakeside, used to raise hogs and grow fruits and vegetables. Ferdinand assumed the management of a cattle ranch in Imperial Valley and a butchering business in El Cajon. Daughter Marie, who had accompanied her mother on visits to Grossmont, married Hubert Guy of San Diego in 1915.

With the coming of Schumann-Heink to Grossmont, local reporters played up her image as a devoted mother. This tribute is one of many paid to the diva:

Madame Schuman-Heink is above all things else the mother, the great-hearted woman, who has risen above the petty struggles, above the heart-aches and reverses and at the prime of her life is surrounded by loving children, eight in all, whose adoration for the "little mother” is the strongest thing of their lives.

Along with her image as loving mother, the singer fostered an image as patriotic American by flying a large American flag over her various homes and by proclaiming her love for America at every opportunity: “I love America and I love Americans. I cannot tell you how much I love them, the great-hearted people, and they love me. I want my children to be Americans, to marry Americans and to live in America.”

The Schumann-Heink without whom the others would not exist was Schumann-Heink the artist. She knew her talent required care and exercise. By the time she came to Grossmont, she had developed her repertoire and style and did not change them thereafter except to include patriotic and sentimental songs in English that appealed to ordinary people. She wanted to sing before large audiences and insisted the price of admission to her recitals be as low as possible.

She did not employ a press agent because she was a master of the art of public relations. Upon her well-publicized arrival in any new town, she would wait for a large body of citizens to gather round. Then, spreading her arms wide, she would proclaim: “Dis is my town. Here I am at home!”

During a Midwestern tour on the Chautauqua circuit, a manager wanted to cancel one of the diva’s performances because a rainstorm had kept crowds at the tent shows very small. His gate receipts would not cover his costs. Schumann-Heink declared she would make up the loss out of her own pocket. Her reason was very practical. ‘‘If you stay in this business, is one thing to learn. Never let them lose money on you. If Schumann-Heink go out now and sing like the angel and that man, he lose money, then Schumann-Heink, she no good! Her voice, it is kaput. But If Schumann-Heink go out and sing off key and the management make money, then he tell everybody, Schumann-Heink, she sing like the angel.”

As soon as she was settled in Grossmont, civic leaders asked her for endorsements. Did she favor bonds for the upcoming Panama-California Exposition? Her first answer was wary. “Is it a check you want?” Then she gave the hoped-for response. “If the exposition will bring people to San Diego and the bonds are necessary to the exposition, I am for the bonds.”

Following a bout of pneumonia in late 1914, the singer resolved to spend 1915 in San Diego resting. But such interludes were rare. While she was relaxing, the Panama-California Exposition declared March 22, 1915, “Madame Schumann-Heink Day.” Some 6000 schoolchildren sang “America” before the diva at the organ pavilion in Balboa Park, and Mayor Charles O’Neall presented her with an honorary citizenship. In return, she promised to give a free concert at the exposition in June. For the nearly 27,000 people who gathered at the pavilion on June 27, it was the event of the year. As the San Diego Sun remarked, “The greatest organ, the greatest voice, the greatest chorus, the greatest outdoors on earth ... she’s golrious [sic].”

San Diego’s honorary citizen gave a concert as good as any she might present in New York. She sang 11 songs — German lieder, art songs, and popular tunes — and ended the concert with the audience joining her in “The Star Spangled Banner.” Since Schumann-Heink didn’t know the words to this song at the time, she sang the notes of the scale instead, mystifying listeners, who wondered what language she was singing.

In October, son Henry, who was a city recorder at Paterson, New Jersey, was charged with embezzling funds. His mother made good the missing money, and the matter was dropped. The following year, stepson Walter Schumann would be arrested in New York City on a charge of burglary. The New York Times would not mention Schumann-Heink in connection with the case or report subsequently how it was resolved.

In December of 1915, Madame Schumann-Heink learned that her son Hans was ill with lobar pneumonia. She rushed from San Diego to Chicago to be with him. When it seemed he might recover, she returned to sing at the reopening ceremonies for the second year of the Panama-California International Exposition on the afternoon of January 1, 1916. The respite ended on January 5, when Hans died. His ashes were placed in a columbarium in Greenwood Cemetery in San Diego.

At midnight, January 1, 1917, the diva sang “A Perfect Day” by Carrie Jacobs Bond and “Auld Lang Syne” at the closing of San Diego’s exposition. She was presented with a jewel made of stones found in San Diego County, which had been engraved, “To our beloved Schumann-Heink from the San Diego Exposition, 1915-1916.”

Later in January, the singer announced a plan to make the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park the setting for a summer festival rivaling Bayreuth’s. To get things moving, she donated $10,000. The San Diego Union went into ecstasies:

The establishment of this ‘American Bayreuth’ will bring in its train a host of the collateral arts, all drawn after their sister muse to a city preeminently fitted by climate, scenery and the temperament of its inhabitants to stand as a monument to the things that make life worthwhile.

It is doubtful the diva’s plan could have been realized because of the inadequacy of the pavilion for the purpose intended and because of the remoteness of San Diego from the population centers of the United States. In any case, the United States’ declaration of war against Germany in April of 1917 brought plans for cultural improvement to a halt.

As an American of Austrian origin with a brother in command of an Austrian warship, a son in the German Navy, and two sisters living in Germany, Schumann-Heink found her love for her new country to be at variance with her love for her old. Anti-Germans spread the calumny that the singer had concealed gold on the grounds of her New Jersey estate to pay for espionage. Others claimed her gardener, William Besthorn, a former reserve officer in the German Navy and a naturalized CJ.S. citizen, was operating an outlaw radio station at Grossmont. This led the CJ.S. Department of Justice to post a guard outside her Grossmont home. The infuriated singer responded by posting a guard inside the grounds to watch the one outside. Eventually, both guards were called off.

Henry Schumann-Heink and George Washington Schumann joined the U..S. Navy. Ferdinand Schumann was a member of the U.S. Army 242nd Artillery at Camp Funston, Arizona; and Walter Schumann, Schumann-Heink’s stepson, was a cook in the New Jersey State Militia. Ferdinand was discharged from the Army after his lungs had been weakened by pneumonia. The transport George was on was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of France, but he survived. August, on submarine duty in the German Navy, was lost in 1918 when an American destroyer rammed his vessel in the English Channel.

In spite of her divided sympathies, Schumann-Heink became a champion of American defense, though she did not condone anti-German jingoism and continued to sing German songs during her recitals. When asked about her attitude toward the war, she responded, “Hatred is a horrible thing. I have read about all those awful things Billy Sunday has been saying. But he will not make American boys hate. They just don’t know how. It isn’t in them.” She counseled mothers, “Don’t write the boys anything but cheerful letters. They are going to face something worse than anything that is happening to them at home. Forget those little troubles and tell them you are proud of them and that you are happy because they are your boys.”

For the duration of American involvement, Schumann-Heink gave herself wholeheartedly to fundraising for Liberty Bonds, the Red Cross, the Knights of Columbus, the Young Men’s Christian Association, and Jewish War Relief and to entertaining soldiers and sailors.

Her visits to San Diego were no longer rest stops. She spent her time singing, reviewing troops, and dining with servicemen in Balboa Park, Camp Kearny, and North Island. She sang frequently at military events; 10,000 people attended her charity concert in Balboa Park; 15,000 heard her sing at a Red Cross fundraiser. And each Christmas, she sang in the program at San Diego’s municipal Christmas tree in Horton Plaza, followed by midnight Mass at Camp Kearny. She even said she intended to go to France to sing in the trenches and to work in canteens. Though some people still assert she made such trip, the U.S. Department of State would not let her go because she had sons in the service.

Madame Schumann-Heink was decorated with regimental colors and named an honorary colonel of the 21st Infantry Regiment. She responded, “These boys of the 21st are now my boys. I love them all and will be a mother to them.” Unscrupulous servicemen wrote letters to their self-proclaimed “mother,” asking her for money to tide them over imaginary emergencies.

San Diego was only one of many cities that benefited from the singer’s largesse. Her home in Chicago was converted into a canteen for servicemen. On one day in October of 1918, she sold $200,000 in Victory Bonds at five rallies in New York City.

When the war was finally over, her son George became a bookkeeper in San Diego, and Henry sold stocks and bonds. Ferdinand left ranching to seek work in the packing business or in newspapers (the indecisiveness was characteristic). Walter stayed in the East. An accommodating Schumann-Heink purchased the former home of William B. Gross at Grossmont for Henry and homes for George and Kaethe, widow of August, in San Diego.

During the first of 1919, the singer spearheaded a campaign for a memorial to be built by popular subscription for San Diego servicemen. This plan would involve lining Pershing Drive in Balboa Park with shade trees and monuments containing the names of those who died during the European war. There was much talk but little action. After a recital at the organ pavilion for the memorial fund, the exasperated promoter lectured her audience, “If you in San Diego who have conceived this great memorial would stop your scrapping among yourselves and advance in one body for the good of your beautiful city, what could you do! You have been first to recognize the honor due to our sainted dead. Let us continue in this spirit.”

In 1921, Schumann-Heink performed in the Far East — Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Batavia, Manila, and Honolulu. One outdoor concert was noteworthy because of thousands of bats flying about, some close to the singer’s head, all busily eating mosquitoes. “It’s fine,” the bemused singer remarked, “as long as they don’t mistake me for a mosquito.” Wherever she went, she was applauded wildly, dined, feted, and showered with gifts.

Wishing to live closer to San Diego, the diva, in 1922, purchased a three-story gray stucco mansion in Coronado from John D. Spreckels. During a visit to San Diego the same year, she began giving concerts to benefit the Rest Haven Home for children. The following year, 30,000 San Diegans heard her sing in the city’s memorial concert on the death of President Harding.

During 1926, Schumann-Heink, then 65, began a series of national radio broadcasts and, remarkably, returned to the Metropolitan Opera in New York after a nine-year absence. She sang Erda in Das Rheingold, and, according to a critic writing in The Nation, “Her voice, though impaired in the heights, still rolled out, rich and controlled. And her art worked its old magic.”

In an interview for the San Diego Union in August of 1926, the aging singer announced she would retire from the opera and concert stages in 1928 and start teaching so she could pass on her art to others. She began her retirement tour that December in New York with her “Golden Jubilee” celebration, the 50th anniversary of her first appearance on the concert stage. She sang Erda’s warning from Das Rheingold and Waltraute’s narrative from Götterdämmerung with the New York Symphony under the baton of Walter Damrosch.

Good Housekeeping magazine, in January 1927, ran a series on the singer’s life, as told to Mary Lawton, which in the following year was published by the Macmillan Company as Schumann-Heink: The Last of the Titans. The remainder of 1927 and the greater part of 1928 were taken up with nationwide farewell concerts. In honor of what she said would be her final appearance at San Diego, a pilot from Rockwell Field flew over her Coronado home and dropped flowers.

No sooner were her farewell concerts over than Schumann-Heink reappeared on the stage. In June of 1928, the diva sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Republican National Convention, which led Will Rogers to remark he wished she could have sung Senator Fess’s keynote speech. (Schumann-Heink, incidentally, was a Democrat who campaigned actively for the election of Alfred Smith as President.) That same month, she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles; in August she sang in two appearances in San Diego.

Also in 1928, the singer deeded her estate at Grossmont to Mayor George E. Leach of Minneapolis, to be administered as a haven for disabled veterans of the world war. The gift was a way of saying thank you to the veterans who had drunk a toast to August, her “son who went down in the U-boat,” during a Schumann-Heink appearance in Minneapolis in 1923. The veterans never occupied the site, and in 1932 Schumann-Heink’s daughter Marie acquired the estate by paying back taxes and accrued expenses.

In the fall of 1928, a San Diego jury convicted Henry of using $3000 in securities deposited with his stock and bond firm as security for a personal loan. Henry’s theft of corporation funds led to the collapse of the firm and losses to customers of approximately $21,000. He was placed on probation on condition that he repay the stockholders the full amount of their losses. As she had done before, Schumann-Heink made good her children’s mistakes by paying Henry’s debt.

Letters from Schumann-Heink to Alfred Wuest, her realtor and friend, indicate that the diva was under no illusions about her son’s character. (About his womanizing, she once wrote, “What he is I know.... God will punish him and this rotten woman in time.... Elsie shall divorce him — not lament — he laughs at her, lowers her in the eyes of the world. All laughs.”) She rescued him from his financial predicament primarily to spare his wife and two children.

In January of 1929, at age 67, Schumann-Heink again appeared with the Metropolitan Opera as Erda in Das Rheingold. The New York Times wrote that by recognizing the limitations of her voice and by emphasizing tonality, sonority, and inflection, she was able to deliver the warning to Wotan in a masterly fashion.

To dispel any doubts, the contralto announced in February that 1929 would definitely be her last concert year. For the rest of the year, she performed, conducted master classes, appeared in radio broadcasts, and acted as opera counsel for the National Broadcasting Company. She also spent considerable time advising women, in magazine articles and speeches, to forgo politics, bobbed hair, smoking, unchaperoned dancing, lipstick, jazz, and bridge and to devote themselves to bringing up children.

The stock market crash of October 1929 wiped out the singer’s investments. To support her sons and daughters and their progeny and her several retainers, Schumann-Heink put aside whatever wishes she had to lead a relaxed life. At age 69, she joined a touring vaudeville company, Roxy and His Gang. In attempting to describe the attraction of a woman of 69 singing in vaudeville, a writer for the Boston Transcript asked ambiguously, “Is it not the chief glory of her final years that she can persuade us to take the full singing will for the diminished vocal deed?”

Her son Ferdinand had become addicted to morphine, presumably while being treated for pneumonia in the U..S. Army. Like Henry, he was inept at handling his finances and subject to temperamental outbursts. Ferdinand sent whining letters to Schumann-Heink, begging her to send him more money. (“We miss you we love you we adore you Mammy mine, and how we miss you, you can’t conceive it possible,” he once wrote to her.) To keep an eye on him, she began spending much of her free time in Hollywood, where Ferdinand worked as a writer and actor for the motion pictures.

In February 1931, Good Housekeeping magazine listed the singer as second in its list of outstanding contemporary American women (Jane Adams was the first). One reason for this selection was demonstrated shortly afterward, when Schumann-Heink publicly rebuked members of her audience for protesting the appearance of Chinese and Negro children in the dedication ceremonies of the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento. Turning her back on the audience, she sang a lullaby for the children. Then she told the audience, “It is up to the war mothers to teach their children the love of law and not make a difference between black or yellow or brown or white skins. You make war among yourselves through your children.”

For the next two years, Schumann-Heink continued to sing in concerts and on the vaudeville circuit. A writer for the Long Beach Morning Star wrote of one performance, “It isn’t singing as much as talking to the people across the footlights in the most beautiful of tones. And between songs she stops to hold a conversation. And the crowd catches on and talks back.” Schumann-Heink told a reporter for the San Diego Union that she was making between $4000 and $6000 a month through appearances, instruction, and radio broadcasts. She gave this money, she said, to her children and grandchildren. She kept a chauffeur but had given up her secretary, maid, and house servants.

In 1935, at age 74, Schumann-Heink embarked on a new career as a motion picture actress, appearing as a music teacher in Here’s to Romance, produced by Fox Studios, in which she sang Brahms’s “Wiegenlied.” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presented her with a three-year contract, and when the two studios filed suits against one another, the delighted actress exclaimed, “It’s very comic, this quarreling among the motion picture men who call me terrific, colossal, and gigantic — I think I don’t like that gigantic very much, hah?”

In a joking mood, Hollywood’s newest and oldest discovery confessed to a San Diego Union reporter that actor Wallace Beery was the love of her life, and although she did not wear makeup, for Wallace Beery she would put on lipstick.

Schumann-Heink eventually sold her home in Coronado and moved to Hollywood. She said she was not giving up San Diego and that she intended to buy a cottage near the Grossmont home of her daughter Marie Fox.

A Reader’s Digest article in April of 1936 described Schumann-Heink as eagerly anticipating her role as a poor grandmother in a film being made of Kathleen Norris’s story Gram. The grandmother in the story finds out after a fling at luxury that “money isn’t everything.” The article added that the former opera star had stopped giving away her earnings and that her youngest son George was managing her affairs.

But Schumann-Heink’s expectations never came to fruition. She was suffering from leukemia, and on November 17, 1936, at the age of 75 Madame Schumann-Heink died in her Hollywood home.

The passing of Schumann-Heink was mourned in newspapers in almost every nation in the world except Germany. Schumann-Heink had been outspoken against the Nazis and had credited her own success to her heritage from “her little Jewish grandmother.”

On November 20, Los Angeles paid its respects to Schumann-Heink with a funeral held in the clubhouse of Hollywood Post No. 23 of the American Legion. The American Legion and Disabled American Veterans stood watch over the body. In his brief remarks, the rabbi who assisted with the service said, “She was a grand old darling. That’s the word, Darling. There’s no use being highfalutin’ in this moment of our grief.” He went on, “She loved them all, white and black, American and European, Jew and Gentile. In this she showed herself a master in the greatest of all arts — the art of living.” At the conclusion of the services, her body was taken to Union Station and placed on an observation car. As the train rolled down to Santa Ana and San Clemente, American Legion honor guards stood silent and solemn facing the train.

At San Diego, a police motorcycle escort, a Marine band, and members of the American Legion and Disabled War Veterans escorted the casket from the Santa Fe Station to the funeral chapel. Seats in front of the casket were occupied by Gold Star Mothers, World War Mothers, and members of the auxiliaries of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Disabled War Veterans. National Guardsmen from San Diego’s 251st Coast Artillery Company stood watch while a harpist and pianist played Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” Brahms’s “Wiegenlied,” and Bohm’s “Silent as Night.”

On November 21, the San Diego chapter of the Disabled American Veterans conducted a brief service then placed the casket in a hearse, and members of the family and representatives of the service groups followed it to Greenwood Cemetery. Here a military squad fired a volley and a bugler sounded taps as the body was taken to the crematory. The ashes were later placed in a niche, though not in the same columbarium with those of her son Hans.

In her will, Madame Schumann-Heink left her $34,000 estate to four of her six surviving children. Henry Schumann-Heink and Walter Schumann, having cost her emotional stress and exorbitant sums during her life, were left nothing.

On Memorial Day, 1938, Barbara Heink, granddaughter of the diva, unveiled a bronze, five-foot-square tablet honoring Madame Schumann-Heink at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. The tablet had been purchased through popular subscription. Superimposed upon the tablet is a huge star upon which is a lyre and an open book with the inscription “In loving memory of Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink. A Gold Star Mother. A Star of the World.”

Critics regarded Schumann-Heink as one of a cluster of extraordinary singers, among whom are Jean and Edouard de Reszke, Pol Plangon, Enrico Caruso, Luisa Tetrazzini, Lilli Lehmann, Lillian Nordica, and Nellie Melba. These singers had long and hard apprenticeships. They welcomed opportunities to do bit roles. They nurtured their voices carefully and took pains never to force their voices beyond their limits. They learned their techniques from one another and deepened their understanding of their parts through their association with the great composers of their time. They were not one-day wonders.

As a woman, Schumann-Heink was a contradiction. She represented an independent, self-made person eager to be known and to lead, yet she advised other women to stay at home and look after their husbands and children. She did not think women should vote or take part in politics, but, when the time came, she did both. As an artist she claimed to be indifferent to politics, yet as her years in the United States lengthened she became a proponent of national recovery and national defense and an opponent of prohibition. She admired Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the antithesis of homebody.

As a writer for Commonweal put it, “The American people liked her because she was natural.” It did not matter to those who heard Schumann-Heink’s made-up stories, vernacular jokes, and sentimental songs if she was sincere or truthful because her joy and vitality were contagious. A reporter in the San Diego Union in 1933 was overcome by Schumann-Heink’s charisma. “An hour with Madame Schumann-Heink is like bathing in the stream of life. One comes out refreshed, one’s mental cobwebs blown away with her rich humor; one’s faith in God and the essential fitness and worthwhileness of life renewed; one’s courage shamed into new being.”

[trahoalai]

zodiac war lgbt hcs and ship opinions but only for the characters I like

the twins:

I don't give a fawkkkkk about these two their back to back episodes were so hard to get through 🧎🧎🧎 I don't ship them I don't ship anyone with them

rip though they would have loved bullying little kids on roblox

the rat:

he's like fifteen, hates the warriors for being evil and his classmates for being happy. orientation aside he's too cynical to wanna date ppl. he'd have a burner account to stalk couples on social media and pray on their downfall. but no group chat to talk shit with 💔💔💔

the tiger:

tbh her and ox feel kinda forced.....I like it when it's one-sided lol

she's the type to like. casually toss out the phrase "my girlfriend/girlfriends" and ur like ?????? pls be gay pls be gay 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

once I saw ship art of her and boar like omg :0 thats so real I just feel like they would be so fun together. it's easier to get under boar's skin. like bother ox all u want he's not gonna respond to it

the sheep:

he's got a wife and kids and grandkids idfk man leave him alone

the monkey:

luv her :D I wish she werent depicted as motherly all the time just bc she's nice and cares for the rat and can bake. like her line of work is sm more important to her than a domestic life with her white bread boyfriend!!!!!!!

she's bi, I think I've read like one fanfic of her and rabbit that was pretty endearing. other than that I have been a boar and monkey truther literally since I was eleven reading the first chapter of the manga btw plssss don't let ur eleven year old kid read/watch this

the dog:

I hate this motherfucker Im sorrryyyyy I'll get to the characters I like in a second. I was pretty shocked to find out I'm like his only hater though, then again the fanbase consists of like four ppl lmao

he's like the embodiment of those wolf drawings where they're riding motorbikes and tearing off shirts. "side effects may include death, death, and horrifically violent death 😈" ← grown ass man

the chicken:

her and dog are a stretch for me 😬 their "pact" was so tense like they were both just playing nice while waiting for an opportunity to exploit and betray each other. they're more like.........annoying siblings that are always at each other's throats 👍 and I feel like she uses she/they

she reminds me of charlotte and lime from witch's heart. n those two are so gay. I thought chicken's death and devotion to monkey who she had just met was pretty sad. n gay

this diva:

everytime I see like a maneater, boycrazy type girl character I assume it's bc she's in denial about her attraction to women. ik she would be pissedddd if she caught feelings for monkey or tiger

there was this one fic with her and horse too which I thought made a lot of sense like it's more obvious with him but they both kinda have low self esteem and push their feelings aside to achieve what they want. boar doesn't have much of an identity outside of seeking validation from her parents and romantic partners. and I have many thoughts about why horse is Like That ☝️🤓 they see each other 🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂

the ox:

ppl that ship boar and ox, tbh I see the vision. they would make a good power couple

I don't like the ox that much -_- I see his appeal but it's not for me. too mysterious. even after reading the light novel I feel like I can't follow his line of thinking, he feels so removed from the rest of the characters. they hype him up soooo much and he's just like 🗡️🧍‍♂️

he's like everybody's wife I've seen him shipped with so many ppl

m y man my man my mannnnnnnn 💖💞🥰💗💕💓💓:

srry had a little moment of weakness there ✌️ anyways. what if this horse was transgender :0 the alienation (never stated but we can all see how awkward he is around ppl right) the shitty teenage years and how he doesn't "ever want to feel that way again" and then in the novel his body after all his procedures and bs training is seen as a point of pride. I could have sworn there was something about how he was like. almost religiously devoted??

tumblr keeps not saving the rest they don't want me to speak my truth </3 see his whole thing was about how he lost one fight and that can never happen again.....why. boar and chicken have some pretty rigid expectations for themselves bc of their upbringings. but the horse is willingly putting himself through this and for what lmao

doesn't make him a better fighter 😃 he acknowledges that ox is the best but never tries to emulate him. maybe bc ox is seen as a natural 🤨 and yeah I do think he has a lil crush. unreciprocated bc it's ox

he doesn't care about what others think so where did his desire to be like this come from. I feel like he's building himself with rlly skewed ideas of how to be a man. "men are not weak" "men do not lose" "men don't show feelings or vulnerability" does any of this make sense

lucky it doesn't work :> or unlucky ig rip king we (I) miss u everyday 🕊️

ox and horse is an okay ship it makes a lot of sense. personally I'm rooting for horse to overcome his fears and successfully beat ox up

the rabbit:

I like him and boar :> the first battle was pretty good I feel like its overlooked bc ppl forget. idk the way she was humoring him and sized him up, they play off each other pretty well. some of the ship content feels ooc though </3 these are two incredibly violent characters

even without the outfit, rabbit is so gnc idk I thought I would have more to say about that but he just is

[avkizi]

h2o just add water dr intro!!!!

"all you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right / well, only a woman knows how to treat a woman right"

BASICS 𓆉⋆｡˚⋆❀------------------------------------------------------------

🦭 name: avilah utsumi

🦭 nicknames: avi, vi, via

🦭 age: 15+ (same age as rikki, emma, cleo, bella, etc.)

🦭 birthday: 06/04

🦭 home: gold coast, australia

APPEARENCE + MOODBOARD 𓆉⋆｡˚⋆❀--------------------------------

⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡───────────────────────────────⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡

🦭 faceclaim: @/d3kchung

🦭 voiceclaim: hanni (newjeans)

🦭 languages: english

🦭 ethnicity/nationality: 1/2 japanese, 1/2 australian

🦭 height: 5’3 (160 cm)

🦭 features: my eyes are dark purple on the outside/top, fades into blue and more cyan towards the center and bottom, dark wavy hair, double lobe piercing, dimples, and a star birthmark on my shoulder

🦭 clothes aesthetic:

⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡───────────────────────────────⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡

MERMAID STUFF 𓆉⋆｡˚⋆❀---------------------------------------------

🦭 changes i made:

- bella is there/with us from the beginning and emma never leaves - we all get stranded on mako/turn into mermaids together and we all have the lockets (my locket gem is pink/purple and bella's locket gem is gold/yellow) - speaking of the lockets and powers in general i also added a little tiny animal charm to each of our lockets that symbolizes the type of animals we can communicate with (more on that later) - also i scripted out the tails + bra tops from the show and scripted in different tails and bra tops for everyone (except charlotte bc i'm petty i HATE HER SHE BOILED A DOLPHIN) - our hair gains these lil colored highlights as well (same colors as our lockets/tail/theme colors kinda) - i might make another post of everyones tails + bra tops and powers etc so watch out for that

⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡───────────────────────────────⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡

🦭 powers/my tail etc:

- my power is mist manipulation + creation - basically i can increase or decrease the amount of water in the air and control it, like mist and clouds - also i can communicate with seals and other pinnipeds (sea lions, walruses, etc.) - my tail and the extra scales on me are this iridescent pink/purple pearly color and they're so so pretty omg - my magic hair highlight things are like light pink and purple too

🦭 visuals!!:

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MISC/TRIVIA𓆉⋆｡˚⋆❀-----------------------------------------------------

🦭 me and bella are dating <3

🦭 i work part-time as a marine life ambassador lmao seaworld HATES to see me n cleo clocking into a shift tg (divas i fear)

🦭 i find abt about being a mermaid because i was refilling my cat's water bowl and it spilled on me 💀💀

🦭 i literally scripted my parents are away on a trip for a few years. nobody questions this, and i have infinite money so i’m basically living alone w my pets 😭

🦭 some of my hobbies are drawing & painting, gymnastics, and singing/songwriting <33

⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡───────────────────────────────⋆｡˚ 𓆝𓇼⋆｡

[yume-chiyo]

hey diva just wanted to drop by and say you’re a BADDIE oh my word. I have a friend that also likes hello charlotte idk if she’s already following u or not ^_^

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED I GOT CALLED A BADDIE!!!

omg if it's the person I'm thinking abt then I think she follows me already!!! I'm so glad more ppl know hello Charlotte

[obsessedwithlarkin]

WELL-KNOWN DANCERS COMPETING AT RADIX GLENDALE:

ARTISTIC MOTION DANCE:

• Giselle Pilorin - First Love

CANDANCE STUDIOS:

• Mila Hiatt- Midas

• Violet Rush- Bosorkanya

CLUB:

• Lucia Piedrahita- I Wish To Tell You

• Presley Ortiz- Glamourous

• Kennedy Chzarchowski- Broadway Baby

• Kennedy Elliott - A Thousand Years

• Daisy Nielsen- Showoff

• Zadie Troung - Schoolin' Life

• Lily Knopps- Rose's Turn

• Navy Forrest- Discarded Man

• Addison Pichette- Copacabana

• Kinley Harper- He's A Dream

• Aspen Brandt- Black Velvet

• Eastyn Vose - Eternity

• Finley Nielsen- Remember Me

• Haven Berwick- Floating

• Hazel Silverman- Mambo Italiano

• Emerson Van Houten- Little Bird

• Preslie Ball- Showoff

• Goldie Nielsen- Twist And Shout

• Zoe Laird- Yea

• Claire Pistor- Bad Dreams

• Sophia Schiano - Dynamite

DC2:

• Ramsey Landry - Inhale Exhale

• Penelope Akey - Not Gone

• Emery Duffin - The Layers That Shed

• Alivia Hughes - C'est Si Bon

• Charlotte Ratjen - Come Thou Front

• Scarlett Brenly- Roxie

• Savanah Brenly - Tough Love

• Lennon Bailey - Must Be Love

• Taylor Morrison - Feeling Good

• GROUPS: Lost Souls, Total Eclipse, Mirrors, Big Time, Got Me Dancing, Dance yrself Clean, Lady In Red, Walk For Me, Destiny Fufilled, Alrighty, Follow The Leader, River, Pretty Woman, Dancin', Brighter Days, Big Blonde & Beautiful, Pink Cadillac, Don Juan, Rise Up, Disco Inferno, Lunchtime, Gimmick, The Freak Show, The Funktion, Going The Distance, Mancha, Winner, Down To Georgia, H20

DANCE DELUXE:

• Emily Collins- Sorry It Had To Be You

• Eva Gonzalez - Under My Skin

• Brielle Bailey- Miss Indipendent

• Remi Skidmore- The Raid

• Brighton Taylor- Buisness Of Love

• Breckyn Kawa- Fallen Angel

• Haven Bryan- Say Something

• Adaline Louderback- Baby I'm A Star

• Emily Kinion- Super

• Bradley Kawa - The Jester

• Vanessa Soto- Cloaked By Raven's Wings

• Colleen Heinze - Patènipat

•DUO/TRIOS: End Of The Line, Rain, Color Song, Slack Jaw

•GROUPS: Alchemy, Precious Things, How To Save A Life, Trapped, Sugar Baby Bounce, House In Nebraska, Movies, Emotions, My House, Sing Sing Sing, Sweet Dreams

DANCE STUDIO C:

• Gwyneth Woods- After The Applause

• Hinkley Lucas- Blackbird

• Delta Tomasik- The Sacred Heart

• DUO/TRIOS: One Fell Swoop, Come Thou Font

• GROUP: Mambo N°5

ELITE DANCE PRO:

• Jeida Morin- The Leaving Song

• Kennedy Cicerelli- Under Ice

• Jordan Lavigne- Uneven Ground

• DUO/TRIOS: Protector, Goodbye

EVOKE:

• Victoria Martinez - Silent All These Years

GATEWAY:

• Giuliana Mier - Flatline

• Kaydence Lawton- Forbidden

• Charlotte Cook- Verses

• Kinsley Cook - Iris

• Collette Sutzman - Ring Them Bells

• Oakley Hill - New York, New York

• GROUPS: Snap That, Telephone, Candle Flame, Undone, Sweet Child O'Mine, And So It Is, Good Morning, Gula, A Bushel And A Peck, Diva, Wings, Clouds, Rich Girl, Fix You, Stand By Me, Hey Hi Hello, It's Raining Men, The Beat

PAVE:

• Tayah Klimuck- TBA

• GROUPS: Joint Is Jumpin', Islands, Men In Snow, More, Funkytown, Veins, Rockstar

STARS:

• Madisyn Amos- TBD

SUMMER'S DANCE WORKS:

• Jewel Moody - My Anxiety

• Camryn Conrad- A Voice In Darkness

• Olive Hampton- C'est Magnifique

• Collette Conrad - You're So Vain

• DUO/TRIOS: Hey Daddy, Connect To The Spirit

THE ACADEMY:

• Patience Hughes - Lady Power

THE COLLECTIVE PHX:

• Tenley Anthony- Flickers

• Aly Bea - Strawberry Moon

• Kenny Opaska - Underthou

YYC:

• Kinsley Stella - Never Dreamed You'd Leave Me In Summer

[droughtofapathy]

The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas: Miss Armstrong (Debra Monk)

Sometimes, a work family is a German mother and her Irish daughter, an English father and his clockmaking son, and a mean old spinster aunt who's only invited to the family holiday parties because she'd bitch for weeks if she wasn't. Miss Armstrong is Agnes's nasty lady's maid who has said exactly one (1) nice thing all season. And I love her.

At seventy-four, Debra Monk is the oldest woman on The Gilded Age, and the only one with the appropriate hair color to show it. As cantankerous as her mistress with none of the charm, Armstrong is nothing like her fantastic actress. Debra Monk is one of theatre's comedy greats. Much like Katie Finneran, Debra is playing against type. Us theatre buffs know her from Pump Boys and Dinettes (co-author, director, and actress), Company (Joanne), and the ill-fated Nick & Nora alongside Christine Baranski.

An absolute delight of a human being, Deb Monk is a wise-cracking mile-a-minute, raunchy, jokester and deserves praise and recognition for her work.

#1: "Everybody's Girl," (Steel Pier) - My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies (1998)

Almost every stalwart theatre Diva has her signature song. "Everybody's Girl" is Debra Monk's pride and joy, and she sings it to this day. At her raunchiest yet, she serenades a gleeful audience with her sexual exploits whilst dressed in a black dress and corset that Armstrong would have a coronary over.

The clever lyrics are perfectly paired with her comedic chops. The whole performance is just a delight from start to finish. That exit has me screaming every time. Her performance in the stage show the song originated from netted her a third Tony nomination.

If we do not get a clip of Debra Monk in full Armstrong drag singing this song, what is the point anymore?

#2: "The Ladies Who Lunch," Company (1995)

Before there was Patti LuPone, but after the great Elaine Stritch, there was Debra Monk as Joanne in the 1995 first Broadway revival of Company. Yes, another Stephen Sondheim. Often forgotten in the Company conversation, this production had a tough act to follow. Nominated for just two Tonys (Best Revival and Best Featured Actress--Veanne Cox, hello, I love you), there's not much that can be said about the 1995 production. It lasted two months, and no one can point me in the direction of any footage with Debra, so here we are.

#3: Debra Monk's Birthday Bash: Totally Hot and a Little Dirty (2014)

For her 65th birthday, Debra performed in a raucous and raunchy concert to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. The concert raised an impressive $140,355 for the charity, and featured a eclectic mix of rock 'n' roll, church music, and debauchery. Well, what else would you expect from Debra Monk?

As comfortable flirting with younger men as she is grinding up against scantily clad fellow comedienne Andrea Martin and Company co-star Charlotte d'Amboise, Debra is a riot from start to finish.

The entire show is available on DVD from BC/EFA, and I need it.

#4: "Ohio Afternoon," Oil City Symphony (1987)

Performed as part of the "If It Only Runs a Minute" series that highlights really obscure shows that barely had a life, Debra reprised her drum-playing role in 2012. As if she didn't have enough talents. Only she could take drums and make it peak comedy.

#5: Game Night at Seth Rudetsky's Place

No explanation needed. Hello, Andrea Martin. Love you.

LINK TO MASTERPOST

[oplishin]

hey, I’m really enjoying your charlotte flair/becky lynch fics! I don’t know a lot about them though and I haven’t seen any primers or descriptions of their whole deal or things like that that I’ve seen for other feuds/pairings. I’m not asking you to make one, that would be a huge amount of work, but I’m curious about your favorite charlynch moments!

hi anon! :D lucky for you i love rambling.

charlynch guide

kind of a timeline w/ a lot of rambling discussion of moments i like. i'm sure i left out a bunch of things because this is a NINE YEAR long feud + some more nxt stuff on top of that. if anyone has corrections/ further input please say so.

NXT (2013-2015)

this era is COMPLICATED: the 4HW's alliances changed constantly, and i don't have a great handle on it. there a couple of moments i think are relevant for both of them, though.

charlotte debuted as a perky pink volleyball player, which is farrr from what The Queen gimmick is today. (fun fact, she debuted in a match against Bayley!) there are 2 bits that i feel like crystallized her character. 1) being the first person to turn on bayley 2) beating natalya in a harts v flairs match to crown the first NXT women's champion. that's about when she started using a remix of thus spake zarathustra, ric flair's theme. these moments are important to Me because they show that charlotte's a cutthroat nepo baby, but she's also a very emotional/sensitive person. she cries and thanks nattie after the match, and it's very sweet.

her most important feud from NXT is against Sasha. it continued onto the main roster. these two specifically were presented as the very top of the division, only matched by each other. charlotte's nepo baby status is very relevant to all of this.

becky debuted w/ the irish jig gimmick, which SHE does not want to remember, so we'll move past it! she kind of floundered until she stumbled into a steampunk rocker gimmick. an important match is one she had against sasha even though she panicked about screwing something up, the audience got majorly behind her. she's just always had this natural connection to the audience that's hard to define and analyze. babyface magic idk

Main Roster Call Up (2015)

Sasha, Becky, and Charlotte got called up in mid 2015 (bayley got left behind in NXT because otherwise, the women's division there would just not exist). Becky and Charlotte aligned with Paige to form the creatively named team PCB. I honestly don't find most PCB stuff very interesting. The moment where they debut is great. Paige gets really, uncomfortably mean before she eventually turns on charlotte and becky. it's a moment i think probably shouldn't have happened but i'm happy to include in my charlynch canon lol. i've fudged the timeline on this a bit, don't mind me

actually, there are a million cute charlynch backstage promos from 2015 (this is a bad example). becky is bright-eyed and punny, and charlotte begrudgingly loves it. the fact that they were real life best friends seeps through all of it. their best friendship is also so, so real. they rode together everywhere, shared hotel rooms, took a million cute selfies that are all over the internet. there's a very cute wwe ride with me episode with them.

Post Paige (2015)

charlotte gets the diva's championship and soundly defeats paige in their feud. as always happens in wrestling, her ego starts getting the best of her. the charlynch backstage promos get uncomfortable. ric flair starts showing up everywhere, and he drives a wedge between the two of them. like he would in real life a few years later! i hate ric flair. eventually, becky wins a match against charlotte, and instead of supporting her friend, she turns on becky. theyyyy. honestly did not have much a feud after this. they had a smackdown match + a royal rumble one and That's It

becky and sasha had a number one contenders match, which charlotte interrupted so she could have a facedown with Just Sasha. there are photos of becky crying next to the ring because honestly, such a dick move from the writers.

she eventually got written into the WM 32 match, and it became a triple threat.

for some reason, charlotte won that triple threat! and that's when the charlotte-hatred from the fandom really starts. the perception from the audience is that she gets stuff just because she's ric flair's daughter. i... agree, like she's a 14 time women's world champion and no one's even CLOSE to that record for a reason. however, i will go to the grave saying that charlotte is a very good wrestler.

in becky's book, she describes a moment where she and charlotte promised to never let the business get in the way of their real friendship which 🥹 i'm going to fumking cry. they did NOT succeed lmfao

Post WM 32 (2016-2018)

they both go off to do their own thing, mainly. charlotte feuds with sasha, becky becomes the inaugural smackdown champion and gets given a garbage reign. becky is consistently shunted off to the side by the writers, and the audience picks up on it. she becomes a fan favorite underdog, while the criticism against charlotte grows. especially when she's the person who ends asuka's undefeated streak at wm 34

Their proper feud!!!!! (2018)

at some point, they become friends again. i don't think it's. really explained lmao. becky has a match at summerslam against carmella for the world title. to becky's chagrin, charlotte enters that match, and she wins it. after the match, becky turns heel on her, only, she doesn't really because the POP she gets???? insane. generational moment from a generational babyface.

the writers cannot get the audience to boo her despite their best efforts, so they're forced to write them both as tweeners. they build off of the real life frustration with charlotte's neverending push. Becky tells Charlotte she's gotten everything handed to her, etc etc. they have some really good matches together, my favorite of which is the last woman standing match at Evolution 2018. their promos in this time period are all FIRE, and you should check them out. becky is an incredible mic worker.

The Man

in the build to survivor series, nia jax famously shoot-punches becky in the face and breaks her nose. Becky gets covered in her own blood and just fuckin grins into the audience, and that's a crystallizing moment for her. the audience loves her, and she's an awesome fuckin badass. the man is a much more serious character than her previous character, and i will always mourn her puns. The Man forever changed Becky's career and made her the most successful/famous female wrestler Ever.

A big part of the Man's character was being deeply snarky on twitter. this unfortunately included a lot of body-shaming Charlotte in now-deleted tweets. both of these women have very fraught relationships with their bodies. of course, wrestling's primarily male audience ate that shit up, as they always do. their friendship fell apart in real life, and becky cites that as one of Many reasons. real life rebecca quinn is a complicated person, and she's very candid about that in her memoir.

Oh god, the build to Wrestlemania 35

the writers originally wanted to build to charlotte v ronda at wrestlemania, but becky's momentum was sooo undeniable at this point. a lot of convoluted bullshit happened. it started as becky v ronda, then she started feuding with the authority, then she randomly became friends with charlotte again (a story decision neither of them liked), then she got kayfabe injured, then charlotte replaced her in the match, then she ??? idk fanagled her way back into the match. it's a triple threat now. no one is happy that charlotte is here. if i've fudged the timeline here it doesn't matter because honestly the WRITERS did too

for some reason wm 35 is 7 hours long, but at the end becky wins in the motherfucking main event of wrestlemania. fuck yeah. ronda did botch the ending, but what can you do.

2019-2021

they feud a little bit because becky pinned ronda to get charlotte's title, then they move on from that. Becky's run continues until she gets pregnant in june 2020 and vacates the raw title. charlotte does a lot of very cool NXT matches. Becky returns and takes the title of Bianca in about 7 seconds flat, which no one (including becky) is happy about lol!! she comes back as a heel, now with the gimmick "big time becks." big time becks is my absolute favorite character from her. it's during this time that you can really tell she and seth have the same stylist. at some point, ric flair tries to sue becky. it's complicated and stupid.

there's a deeply bad and uncomfortable storyline from 2021, where ric starts flirting with lacey evans. charlotte has an uncomfortably real argument with him backstage, and it's honestly. God, even though the storyline is Conceptually Rotten and they should not have done it, it's an interesting kayfabe way for charlotte to reckon with Ric flair's real life crimes. Charlotte's acting in that segment is Way Too Good. i have a lot of feelings about her relationship with ric, but. whatever!!!

oh, there's also this cute moment from 2020. they're cute.

we're back (oh god, we are NOT back)

in november 2021, both of them hold a world title, but for the opposite brand. therefore, WWE has them do a dumb, convoluted title switch. during this, charlotte drops her title on the ground in an unscripted moment. it's deeply awkward, and both becky and sonya (the gm organizing this moment) become visibly frustrated with her. like, the implication is that she wanted becky to get on the ground and pick it up in a humiliating moment. they had a backstage altercation, and now they real life hate each other. charlynch is fucking DEAD

wwe did a very good video package about this. it includes my favorite ever becky promo, where she tells charlotte she's going to beat the living piss out of her. i can't find the actual promo because youtube search is useless, but! yeah.

but at least this results in my favorite match they've ever had!!! survivor series 2021 is a deeply emotional match. after winning, becky gives this really sad backstage interview, where she cries and talks about their friendship falling apart. it's a promo that makes ME cry tbh.

2021-2023

nothing charlynch related really happens lmfao. they do not fuck with each other anymore. at least, nothing happens in kayfabe. becky turns face again, returning to The Man character. (her feud with bianca is so fucking good!!!!) Charlotte also ends up as a face by the end of 2023, which is where things happen again.

Survivor Series 2023

charlotte asks becky to join her team for survivor series. they do the can I trust you rigamarole, and i'm so invested in it. they have a moment where they pinky promise, like they did way back in those old PCB 2015 promos. charlotte's bright-eyed delight at being forgiven vs becky's sober mistrust. god.

and they win at survivor series, and they hug, and it's sooo fucking awesome seeing this 9 Real year old friendship rekindle through forgiveness and communication. i'm emotional about it.

at the post SS media scrum, they talk about their relationship, and describe it as "we're dating again" because they hate me specifically. they're so fucking cute i cannot handle them

wow, what happens next???

charlotte explodes her knee and gets put on the shelf for 9 months, and she's still out now. :( she actually has the exact injury seth got in 2015 lol. also, becky is currently out on hiatus, so who knows when they'll interact next. at least we ended on a good note

[coochiequeens]

Good news for Women’s History Month

By April White

THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, WE HERE at Atlas Obscurahighlight women who have shaped our past, but this Women’s History Month we also want to shout out the scientists, activists, chefs, historians, artists, and adventurers who are making history right now. From the scrubland of Argentina and the kitchens of Japan all the way to the South Pole, these women are writing the next chapter of history.

This Is What a Polar Explorer Looks Like

by Amy Crawford

Last year, 33-year-old Harpreet Chandi became the first woman of color to make the difficult solo trek to the South Pole. The harrowing 40-day, 700-mile journey—which Chandi described as “like traveling inside a marshmallow”—was “about so much more than me.” She hopes to “inspire people to push their boundaries, no matter their background, gender, or color of their skin.”

How the Enchanting, Elusive Pink Fairy Armadillo Became One Scientist’s Obsession

by James Hall

Conservation biologist Mariella Superina began studying armadillos in western Argentina 25 years ago. Today, she leads an international team that monitors global populations of anteaters, sloths, and armadillos. But, thanks to her obsession with the pink fairy armadillo, she has also become the leading expert on these diminutive, enigmatic animals. She even hosted a live pink fairy armadillo—which turned out to be a real diva—in her living room in the name of science.

In India, These Trailblazing Female Stunt Bikers Rule the Road

by Shubha Menon

For decades, Indian women have fought—and won—the right to stunt. And as stunt biking has gained popularity in the country, the riders are pushing back against traditional gender roles and inspiring one another through education and community-building.

Ngonnso Will Finally Come Home to Cameroon

by Ye Charlotte Ming

For years, Sylvie Njobati would walk by a life-size statue of a woman in Kumbo, in the northwest region of Cameroon. Meticulously outlined with hundreds of seashells, the statue depicts Ngonnso, the queen mother of Nso people, a cultural group in the region whose origin can be traced to the 14th century. But the statue is only a replica. The real one was 3,000 miles away, in a glass box at Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, a museum mired in controversy for its connection to Germany’s colonial past. Now, thanks to work by activists such as Njobati, Ngonnso is coming home to Cameroon.

One Woman’s Quest to Create Truly Japanese Cheese

by Joan Bailey

“One of my goals is to introduce Japan through cheese,”says cheesemaker Chiyo Shibata of Fromage Sen cheesery in Chiba Prefecture. Cheese is not a historical part of the Japanese diet, but Shibata believes it could be part of its future—especially as the country faces the impact of climate change. She uses local Japanese microbes and flavors such as Sakura blossoms and sake to create a uniquely Japanese product.

She Was There

This ongoing Q&A series features female scholars who are writing long-forgotten women back into history. Among them are historian Rebecca Hall, who is telling the untold stories of the women who led slave revolts; scholar Pamula S. Murray, who has rediscovered the female revolutionaries behind Latin American independence; documentary filmmaker Immy Humes, who has focused her lens on lone women as they made their way into a man’s world; and many more.

[broadwaydivastournament]

Broadway Divas Tournament: Round 2B

The thrilling conclusion to Round 2 will start tonight, Wednesday, April 10nd, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. EST. Once again, look forward to all new propaganda propagated by yours truly. Send me more to add to the garden.

Polls will also feature all-new bios taken from the modest collection of vintage playbills, and extensive collection of personal playbills I've amassed over my short life. It's going to be a fun mix of early-career bios, shows from the last few years, and anything in between.

Round 2B: ALL POLLS HERE Bebe Neuwirth vs. Charlotte d'Amboise Betty Buckley vs. Joanna Gleason Anika Noni Rose vs. Tyne Daly Linda Emond vs. LaChanze Bernadette Peters vs. Victoria Clark Lillias White vs. Andrea Martin Annette Bening vs. Kelli O'Hara Lea Salonga vs. NaTasha Yvette Williams

Rules and Guidelines

Round 2A Winners |

Round 1D Winners | Round 1C Winners | Round 1B Winners | Round 1A Winners

[covenvampyr]

Q&A

Saya: “Alright it’s about that time. Let’s see what’s my question for the week.”

Says: *draws random note from fish bowl*

Fan: “Dear Saya, much love from New York. I’ve always been curious what other name or mames would you have named Diva when you first met?”

Saya: “Shout out to New York. Let’s see… it’s been so long. I chose her name because I loved her voice and I didn’t think of anything that suited her besides ‘Diva’. I never coined anything else. I didn’t see her face until obviously years and years later; if I could rename her, I guess I would have went with Victoria.”

Diva: *waltz right in*

Diva: “You almost named me Victoria? You’re joking right? Do I look like a Victoria to you?”

Saya: “To be fair you’d have been named after the late Queen Victoria.”

Diva: “I thought the British didn’t like the French. I wouldn’t have liked it anyway.”

Saya: “Well if time allowed with some events I’d have named you after mom. When her real name was revealed.”

Diva: “Oh boy…”

Saya: “Elizabeth or Elisabeth. Maybe even Charlotte. Margot, Sophia, Annie, Katharine.”

Diva: “So mom’s name’s is Elizabeth?”

Saya: “Yes. You do know she used aliases throughout her life.”

Diva: “Not Juliet?”

Saya: “Fake name. But if we’re being honest you’d have been an Elizabeth Charlotte.”

Diva: “Stop. No more. I don’t want to entertain that.”

[architect-2015]

WWE 24 Specials - Returning home.

TEASER

After many years on the sideline from a severe neck injury, this WWE 24 specials shows Kailani ‘Anoa’i’ Silva’s return the the squares circle.

RAW 2017

“You know, sometimes no matter how much you love something and how much you dedicate your life, your body and your soul to it, things don’t always turn out the way you want. Wrestling is my lifeline, your support and energy is what keeps my blood pumping, your love and dedication runs through my veins. You guys are the reason i’m here.”

Kailani’s voice cracks, a silence washes over the once overjoyed crowd.

“Truth be told i haven’t had the easiest life before reaching the WWE and i’m gonna be 100% honest, my real name is Kailani Anoa’i: i’m a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter and a WWE Superstar. You guys have seen a lot of my life, a lot of my early life from when i was part of something called Total Divas, that was one hell of a ride, but there was always one part of my life i kept away from the screen and that was my medical background.

I’ve tried so hard to preform my best for you but to also be able to do simple things, play with my children, go sightseeing with my friends, cook a dinner for my husband but i can’t do that anymore. I’ve recently had an MRI for a problem in my neck and i’ve been told that if i carry on the way i am now, i won’t be able to do anything at all. My love for this company, this job, this industry is infinite and i cannot thank you enough for all the support you have shown me and if you would ask me if i would do this all again, i would say in a heartbeat.

So thank you for everything, and god bless you all.”

The clip changes over to a heartwarming scene of Lani and her family: Herself, Joe, Alina and Malo. The children sit on top of a storage crate whilst the couple stand in each others embrace.

“Baby girl, we’re gonna get through this. You’ll have your surgery and i’ll be there for you in every form i can be at any time you need. You’ll be okay.” Joseph comforts his wife who is stood before him in hysterics, she had just come off the biggest title defence of her career against Charlotte Flair at Wrestlemania 33.

The next shot shown is a backstage interaction between Paul Heyman and Kailani. A hug is shared between the adults as a whispered conversation i’d taking place.

“You’re not alone.”

A sob racks through Lani’s body, seeing this Paul only pulls the 30 year old closer.

“i’m gonna check in on you everyday, you don’t even have to respond.”

“You will never be alone Kailani”

To Be Continued