#I hate Kerry's new hair it's getting chopped

[sydneighsays]

More out of context from my personal self-indulgent post phantom liberty fic

Nothing like a little eyeliner during a mental breakdown 💅🏼

Rando side character.

[trashcatsnark]

I'm glad you liked my AU, I was kinda nervous that I'm bothering you ':D 1. V is of course allowed to stay with the Aldecaldos with no problems, since they're already a part of the family, but Johnny is only allowed to stay if he 1. will work on jobs with them to earn his keep 2. will do different chores around the camp 3. will behave; he starts a fight or something like that and he's out. Johnny is determined to be on his best behavior so that he's allowed to stay and look after V. After what they've been through together, he couldn't bear to be split from them again, especially not over something so stupid like starting a brawl. 2. He doesn't really socialise much, he's too focused on V. Aldecaldos tolerate him, but he can feel that they are a bit uneasy around him, and he can't really blame them, he's a man who died 50 years ago and was brought back to life, not exactly something you see every day (though I'd imagine they'd warm up to eachother after a post-gig bonfire, with Johnny showing off his guitar chops). 3. Johnny and V live in the same van, of course. Graciously donated by the Aldecaldos, it's their new home and mode of transport when the caravan moves. It's a bit small, but it's managable and slowly starts to fill out with different trinkets, items, postcards and photos from their travels. They usually sit on the steps in the mornings and sometimes look at the starry sky on the roof in the evenings. 4. If V feels good enough to leave the van, Johnny is always near, like a shadow. Just a local oddity, a merc who died and came back to life twice and a world-famous terrorist rockerboy that now watches over them in pretty much complete silence and a permanent scowl on his face, nbd. 5. Johnny usually keeps his hair tied, partially because it's more practical and he hates having a swety neck, and partially because it fucks with his facial features and he's harder to recognise by bystanders like cashiers. 6. V is in no condition to drive, so Johnn usually does it when the caravan has to move. V either chats with him to keep him company, reads him books or screamsheets out loud or does crossword puzzles with him. 7. Johnny sometimes missess the fact that he can no longer feel what V is feeling, mostly because it would make the whole "caretaking" thing much easier for him, just letting him know what V needs without words. Now he actually has to guess or ask, and he doesn't know which is harder. He looks at V and feels like he should be able to do more for them, but he has no idea what that more would actually be.

Firstly, never worry about bothering, I absolutely adore how many asks and messages I’ve been getting lately! I may be slow to reply sometimes but I’m honestly just am really happy to see people wanting to read my dumbass replies, if anything I worry about giving bad replies since I am the “queen of fuckups” as Johnny has so elegantly dubbed me and my V before. 

Ahhhh, I love it so much, firstly I love bitchface Johnny always lurking over V because he’s a protective heathen. V just has to be like, yeah, no he’s really a sweetie though...well, okay no he’s kinda an asshole, but like he’s my asshole so it’s fine.  And the rule of Johnny, please behave, and he’d try so hard but you know there’s a part of him that’s always like that son of a bitch looked at V the wrong way and i want to punch him but god damn it, i cannot and will sit here consumed with internal rage for the rest of the night 

Also ponytail Johnny owns my whole soul. my V wakes up to him in sweatpants and hair in a ponytail once and is like shit I died and gone to heaven. I like to imagine if anyone still is ever like wait... “are you Johnny Silverhand?” he just gives a completely vague non-committal response of like “who knows.” (I also love ideas of him being like Tony Hawk in that he’s never fully recognized or people assuming he’s some fanatic who just runs around dressed like Johnny Silverhand like Elvis Imposters or him more often being confused for Keanu Reeves since he exists in universe) 

Johnny pulling a here’s Wonderwall at the campfire just for the joke of it, sometimes when he’s in a really good mood he’ll take requests (tho mostly just V’s, if anyone really for sure wants to hear him play something specific they know to ask V to ask for it) 

Living in a van, I imagine it majorllllly reminds Johnny of band days, touring, he’ll tell V all his stories of living in a van with Kerry, Henry, Denny, and Nancy for months at time. Having to listen to Henry and Denny fight the entire damn time, nearly puking when they’d had to listen to the two make up. Nancy losing her mind trying to reign in her feral children of bandmates, at times just choosing to drive instead of stay in the bus because you can handle so much. Kerry constantly stealing Johnny’s pants. Johnny bringing people back to the bus and later getting yelled at because he inevitably left...evidence of it on something that didn’t belong to him. (sometimes accidentally and other times, well, Kerry deserved it) Having to share a bathroom with them all and threatening to piss on Kerry’s bed if he didn’t hurry it the fuck up.  He has a billion stories, that he knows V already knows, but they still wanna hear em, so why not. 

I also fucking live for Johnny and V just hating the fact they aren’t linked the way they were before. They actually have to talk, god the horror. I definitely imagine  my Johnny and V following the separation occasionally find themselves having to tell the other person “we have to use our big girl/boy/person words, now” They’ll catch the other staring off into the distance and be like “you just were trying to talk to me through your mind rn werent you?” or V will be thinking things to Johnny and be like “why are you ignoring me???? wAIT I HAVE TO TALK” They feel this distance that they never knew existed before. 

I know in your AU V probably wouldn’t be up for it, but when they would be or any V and Johnny with nomads verse;  part of me feels like Johnny would be torn on wanting to pilot the Basilisk with V. Because half of him is worried about the claustrophobia of it, he hates cramped dark, closed in places. But fuck fuck fuck, he wants that neurological link with V. He wants it. And if they do it, he’ll feel so at peace that he finally has his person back in the deepest sense of it, that he forgets all about being stuck in that coffin.  

I also majorly think, while not as severe as the one between the twins in the beat on the brat fights; they don’t wanna be the same person. But they do want some form of neural synchronization implants. I imagine they might have something where they can read each others minds, it do be the future, just something that lets them always feel connected. Vik looks at them like they’re stupid, you fought to be separated and now you just wanna climb back into each other’s head. 

[fyeahjeaninnocent]

So it occurred to me that some people in the Rebecca Front fandot might be hesistant about reblogging yesterday’s really great interview with her, since it was posted on The D@ily M@il. So, I’ve taken the liberty of  copying the transcript here (below the cut) so that people can still read it without that controversial site in their browser history.

'Sex symbol? I’ve still got it!': Actress Rebecca Front on body confidence and what she's got in common with Theresa May

By KERRY POTTER FOR YOU MAGAZINE

From The Thick of It to War & Peace, REBECCA FRONT’s talent for portraying powerful women has won her legions of male fans. She tells Kerry Potter about body confidence, her (teenage) fashion mentor and what she’s got in common with Theresa May.

Rebecca Front is fixing me with The Look. Even the most cursory of TV viewers will be familiar with it: stern and authoritative, as seen on Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent in ITV crime drama Inspector Lewis (three years on from Rebecca’s departure, her co-star Laurence Fox still calls her ‘ma’am’).

She also deployed it in her role as cabinet minister Nicola Murray in the BBC political satire The Thick of It, as well as in her matriarch roles in period dramas War & Peace and Doctor Thorne. And now The Look is back for Rebecca’s turn in Kay Mellor’s new register-office-set BBC One drama Love, Lies and Records. She plays Judy, an awkward, jobsworth registrar who is furious when she gets overlooked for promotion in favour of her nemesis: gregarious, chaotic working mother Kate, played by Ashley Jensen.

Right now, I am nervously witnessing an impromptu demonstration of The Look up close. We won’t call it ‘resting b**ch face’ because Rebecca doesn’t like the word b**ch: ‘We wouldn’t call a man that.’ We settle for ‘resting angry face’.

‘It’s useful to be able to look quite scary,’ she says. ‘I’m really bad at complaining about things in shops or restaurants because I don’t like confrontation, but sometimes I don’t need to complain because you can just see it in my face.’ And with that, The Look is gone as she breaks into a grin. ‘I am quite a smiley person; I’m actually not stern enough. I’m quite soft and woolly by nature.’

She’s also a million times sexier than many of her characters. ‘I’ve got much more body confident as I’ve got older. I’m fitter and more muscly. I go to the gym three times a week. My teenage daughter [Tilly, 16] has given me more self-assurance. We shop together a lot and I pick up clothes and say, “I don’t think I can get away with that.” And she says, “What does that mean? You’re setting yourself a rule and that’s ridiculous. You tell me not to do that, so why should you?” So I’ve upped my game: I dress more confidently, I carry myself more confidently. You only live once.’

She’s about to get her ears pierced for the second time in recent years, egged on by Tilly, having previously been too scared. That’s the only needle she’ll tolerate though – cosmetic surgery is a big no. ‘Women are under so much pressure: the thought that you have to change your body to be accommodated in society seems wrong to me. I’m hesitant to say I hate it because I don’t want to judge people for doing it – I understand the impulse – but it worries me.’

At 53, Rebecca is happy to look her age. ‘It bothers me that people aren’t allowed to grow old naturally because there’s a beauty in that. I know it’s a cliché but confidence is the sexiest thing and if more women felt confident about the way they looked, they wouldn’t need to have those procedures. It takes guts to say, “I’ve got wrinkles and crow’s feet and I’m not bothered about it. I quite like them, actually.”’

Her tendency to play powerful, brusque characters has won her a legion of male fans. ‘Some men are really drawn to authoritative women, aren’t they? I occasionally get messages from men asking for photos of my shoes because they probably imagine I’m wearing really scary stilettos. I mean, I am today, but usually I think, “Erm, do you want a picture of my trainers?”’

Her turn as Chief Superintendent Innocent especially caught people’s imagination, reportedly inspiring erotic fanfiction about the relationship between Innocent and Laurence Fox’s character DS James Hathaway. ‘I try not to engage with that stuff,’ Rebecca hoots.

Kay Mellor, creator of big-hearted, women-centric dramas such as Band of Gold and Fat Fighters, had the idea for Loves, Lies and Records when she attended a register office to record the death of her mother, noting how the location was a microcosm for life’s highs and lows. Accordingly, the first episode is a rollercoaster of emotion, as sad as it is funny, taking in births, deaths and marriages.

Despite appearances, Rebecca says she’s not made of stern enough stuff to work in that environment. ‘I wear my heart on my sleeve too much for a job like that. With all the deaths and babies, I wouldn’t last more than five minutes. I cry very easily since having my children.’ (As well as Tilly, Rebecca and her TV producer/writer husband Phil Clymer have 18-year-old Oliver.) Being a cry baby does have benefits though: ‘I’ve become a much better actor since I had children. It’s made me less self-conscious and opened up a fast-track to accessing my emotions.’

Creating Judy was a welcome challenge: ‘I thought, how on earth am I going to play this woman as I have nothing in common with her? She has no sense of humour, she’s antisocial, she’s judgmental. We would not get on at all. But I didn’t want to play her like a cartoon villain. She’s just complicated. She’s a human being and it’s my job to understand why she does what she does and find a way into her head.’

The careers of Rebecca and her co-star Ashley Jensen have bloomed in a similar way, with both making the successful transition from comedy to drama. On graduating from Oxford, Rebecca began her career in radio comedy in the early 1990s, working with Armando Iannucci (who went on to create The Thick of It) and Steve Coogan.

Moving into TV, Rebecca starred in the Alan Partridge canon, with shows such as The Day Today, and later in Nighty Night, Queers and The Catherine Tate Show. Ashley, meanwhile, made her name in Extras and Ugly Betty as well as, more recently, in Catastrophe.

‘I’m in awe of Ashley – those shifts she makes between comedy moments and moving moments are effortless,’ says Rebecca. The two bonded so well off-camera that at one point they had a giggling fit so epic, crew members filmed it on their phones.

The current state of politics, however, is less of a laughing matter for Rebecca. Does she wish they were still making The Thick of It? ‘Things have gone so mad it would be hard to find fictional ideas that were crazier than what we’re going through,’ she says. ‘Even Armando couldn’t top this.’

Having played Nicola Murray, she says she has more sympathy for politicians, especially female ones. Indeed, she’s more charitable about Theresa May than you might expect a left-leaning actor to be: ‘We judge women in public life in a different way. She gets criticised for her hair, for what she wears, for being unemotional – I don’t think that would get levelled at a man. I suspect she’s probably a very nice woman. I don’t know her but I don’t look at her and think, “She’s evil.” It’s not a job I’d want in a million years in this toxic political environment. She’s doing an incredibly difficult job.’

And the two women share one characteristic: being a bit square. When asked to share a secret, Rebecca pauses: ‘I’m hesitant about saying anything that will sound like May admitting that running through a wheat field was the naughtiest thing she’d ever done. After she said that, my children said, “Mum that’s you! That’s the answer you would have given!” I’m such a square. I was head girl at school and I’m so law-abiding. If I saw a wheat field I would only enter it if there was a sign saying, “Please run here.”’

Having suffered from anxiety since she was a child, growing up in Northeast London, Rebecca now campaigns on mental health issues as an ambassador for the charity Anxiety UK. Her claustrophobia was written into her role in The Thick of It in a scene where Nicola refuses to get into a lift and is memorably blasted by her spin-doctor colleague, the legendarily vitriolic Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), as an ‘omnishambles’ (a word, she notes with glee, that’s now in the Oxford English Dictionary).

How did Rebecca feel about her private, real-life issues becoming the butt of a joke? ‘I’ve found humour is the best tool to deal with anxiety. You can’t afford to take it too seriously because it just gets worse,’ she smiles. She still struggles a little with lifts and can’t see herself ever travelling by tube. ‘These days I check in every so often with CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy], maybe once or twice a year if I feel I need a reboot.’

With the tube off limits, she often travels to and from her North London family home by bus. ‘I find them very relaxing and you get great material on buses: people do and say funny things. Nobody expects to see actors on the bus so fans often tweet me to say, “I saw your lookalike on the bus today.” No, it was me!’

She is heartened by Princes William and Harry speaking out about mental health issues. ‘I thought it was great, bless them for doing that. I don’t think the stigma has entirely gone, but it’s really improved.’

But back to business. When it comes to work, Rebecca has never been busier. She’s just finished Down a Dark Hall, a supernatural movie starring Uma Thurman; she’s filming a TV comedy pilot next week, and she recently delivered the draft of her second book of personal essays, following 2014’s Curious. What’s left? ‘Oh, I’m still hugely ambitious,’ she says. ‘There’s loads of stuff I want to do: some Shakespeare, a lot more theatre and drama that will really stretch me as it’s only been in the past few years that I’ve really started to use my drama chops.’

What about playing a femme fatale? ‘I’d love to do that,’ she sighs. ‘But I don’t know if that’s going to come up because there’s still this ageist culture. People don’t think of you like that when you’re over 40. We had a lunch party at our house the other day and I was the youngest woman there. I looked around the table and thought, “Just look at all these fabulous, well-dressed, attractive, funny women in their 50s and 60s.” Why don’t we see that on TV very often?’ I can imagine she’d only have to give a room of casting directors The Look and that would change.

And regardless, she’s blazing a trail as the thinking-man’s sex symbol. ‘I’d be flattered to think that. I’ve still got it going on!’ she grins, slinking out of the door to her waiting car. The Prime of Ms Rebecca Front? You had better believe it.

Rebecca rates

Fashion picks-- I’m too cheap to spend thousands on a frock. When I won a Bafta [for playing Nicola Murray in The Thick of It], I wore a £100 dress from Coast. I like AllSaints, Zara and Asos, and I live in jeans and shirts.

Reading-- The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer. It’s told from the perspective of a young man trying to make sense of a life-changing event.

Best beauty product --My daughter introduced me to Mac’s Prep + Prime Fix + finishing spray. It sets your make-up and gives you a bit of a glow.

Listening to Political podcasts – Pod Save America and West Wing Weekly are my favourites. My son, who is travelling, listens too, and we message each other about them.

Breakfast --Avocado and poached eggs on toast – and it’s got to have chilli flakes, otherwise forget it.

Watching --The Shop Around the Corner, a little-known screwball comedy with James Stewart. It’s my favourite go-to feel-good film.

Guilty pleasure-- Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry. I don’t believe it for a minute but I don’t care, it’s so much fun. I snuggle up with my daughter and watch it.

Most treasured possession-- A book in which I wrote down sweet things my kids used to say at bed time and bath time when they were little.

Tipple of choice-- A dry martini with an olive.

Describe yourself in three words-- Thoughtful, kind and funny – at least, I aspire to be.

Dream dinner-party guests-- We have quite a lot of them over already. Frances Barber is great company and a friend of mine. Ditto Barry Cryer – he’s hilarious. And Jane Austen would have been a hoot, I reckon.

How would you like to be remembered?-- As someone who brightened people’s day.

[ilovesurveys]

65 Questions You've Probably Never Been Asked...you know the rules, tag people in this note (including the person who tagged you!) to learn more about people. Also, try to tag people who you've tagged in other notes, sometimes you learn things in new notes that you didn't know before about them...

1. First thing you wash in the shower? hair

2. What color is your favorite hoodie? gray

4. Do you plan outfits? yes

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now? happy

6. Whatís the closest thing to you that's red? my hair

7. Tell me about the last dream you remember having? bg dumped me for no reason and i had to go back to ed but i didnt want to

8. Did you meet anybody new today? no

9. What are you craving right now? bg

10. Do you pray? yes

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage? st pattys day

12. Are you emotional? i can be

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000? no

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it? i eat it with a spoon

15. Do you like your hair? yes

16. Do you like yourself? yes

17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush? sure

18. What are you listening to right now? i saw three ships come sailing in

19. Are your parents strict? not at all

20. Would you go sky diving? no

21. Do you like cottage cheese? yeah

22. Have you ever met a celebrity? no

23. Do you rent movies often? no

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you're in? dont think so

25. How many countries have you visited? 6 i think

26. Have you made a prank phone call? yeah

27. Ever been on a train? yep

28. Brown or white eggs? white

29. Do you have a cell phone? yes

30. Do you use chap stick? yep

31. Do you own a gun? nopee

32. Can you use chop sticks? no

33. Who are you going to be with tonight? my family

34. Are you too forgiving? no

36. What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow. christmas activities i presume

37. Ever have cream puffs? no

38. Last time you cried? dont remember

39. What was the last question you asked? "did you really have to take that picture”

40. Favorite time of the year? christmas <3

41. Do you have any tattoos? no

42. Are you sarcastic? yeah

43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect? no

44. Ever walked into a wall? yes

45. Favorite color? blue

46. Have you ever slapped someone? no

47. Is your hair curly? wavy

48. What was the last CD you bought? reputation

49. do looks matta? a little

51. Is your phone bill sky high? no

52. Do you like your life right now? yes

53. Do you sleep with the TV on? no

54. Can you handle the truth? yeah

55. Do you have good vision? not really anymore since im debating getting up to put on my glasses

56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people? yeah

57. How often do you talk on the phone? like never

59. What are you wearing? yoga pants and a t-shirt

60.What is your favorite animal? dogs

61. Where was your default picture taken at? tumblr pic - kerry’s dorm

62. Can you hula hoop? yes

63. Do you have a job? no

64. What was the most recent thing you bought? face wash

65. Have you ever crawled through a window? no