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scrivellc · 11 months ago

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Jason caught just a glimpse of that worried look on his mother's face, enough to make him curious but not enough for him to be convinced he wasn't just seeing things. He was so hungry for information that he'd look for it anywhere, including the smallest of expressions. But that was ridiculous! He was being ridiculous. Well, that's what he was going to tell himself for now anyway. After all, there was no way for him to know why his mother would react that way, why such a tender subject would make her seem to almost wince. This was just a sensitive subject in general, there was no reason to act like that was odd. Especially not when faced with a question like that.

Fortunately, Jason's curiosity was satisfied, for now, to just sit and listen, eagerly taking in every piece of information he was given. Particularly his father's name...Orin Scrivello. He tucked that particular detail away for later. He trusted the words his mom was telling him, but he knew he wanted to do some digging of his own. And with a name like that, Jason was sure he'd be able to dig up something, right? The way his mother spoke it was clear there was only so much she could tell him, but that didn't mean there was nothing out there to find. No person could go through this world without leaving some kind of mark.

"A dentist?" It wasn't so much a question as it was an expression of surprise. He'd certainly wondered what kind of profession his father would have had, but that one hadn't made the list. It was both entirely regular and intriguing. And of course, he could hardly picture it. He tried, but all he could think up was how his mom looked in her wedding pictures with dad, and standing next to her was...the family dentist? No, that couldn't be right. Dr. Monroe was too old anyway. Still, it was a start, but he'd need more, wanted more. "I guess that makes sense...that's not an easy job to get. I'd want people to know if I ever did anything that impressive. He must've been pretty smart. Well....I mean...I hope he would be."

With each new detail, the picture in Jason's mind shifted. The man in his mind's eye grew taller, white coat replaced with black leather, friendly smile replaced with something more mischievous. With the motorcycle came boots and a belt and a striking realization that this man was so starkly different than his dad...well, very different from Seymour. Jason tried to hide the confusion he could feel coming over him. When he thought of his mom and dad together, cute and sweet and so very very normal, it made perfect sense. But trying to picture his mother in her sweet, pastel, dresses and her fondness for all the trappings of a friendly, suburban home next to what Jason could best describe as James Dean with a drill...it was nearly impossible.

But that last bit, that pulled it all together in the worst way. The reason his dad was so different from his father was not by mistake but on purpose. His mother had wanted to be with someone not at all like that, someone who didn't scare her, didn't hurt her. "Oh..." Jason replied, his shoulders drooping and his voice low. He knew she'd told him not to feel guilty, that none of this was his fault, but the feeling had taken hold of him before he'd been able to stop himself. "So that's why you never talk about him..."

Audrey could feel Jason start to retreat and she gave his knee a reassuring squeeze. She knew it would take a little while for it all to sink in, and she didn’t want to pressure it into him. A part of her fretted that she should just keep it to herself, and not worry him with such a complicated mess, but she nurtured that side of her the same way she did Jason. This had to be done, and she knew in the long run it would be better for both of them to get this off her chest. She scooted her stool a little bit closer to him, her hand still resting on his knee.

“Of course you do, and you should wanna know! And like I said, I’ll tell you as much as I know,” She said kindly. She had almost relaxed, since his first questions were innocent enough, but his last question made her carefully crafted façade falter for a moment. She had often asked the same question herself: Had Orin ever loved her? There had been moments when she had looked into Orin’s eyes and thought maybe he did care about her, that maybe he didn’t really mean to hurt her the way he did. And then it would all come crashing down the next moment, leaving Audrey bruised, scared, and alone. But those fleeting moments were enough to make her wonder, and, alongside genuine fear, were enough to make her stay. “Well, let’s go one at a time…” She said, trying to keep her voice from wavering. “Your father was a man named Orin Scrivello…he was a doctor, a dentist specifically–he would have wanted you to know that,”

The absurdity of saying this all out loud again, and framing it in a light that Audrey had never imagined Orin would be in when they had first started dating, made her smile just a bit. “Despite that, he had quite the rock-a-billy persona…He loved Elvis, and treasured his motorcycle like it was worth more than gold,” It was odd saying this to someone who had never met Orin…it sounded so innocent and pure, as if Orin was just a ordinary guy who liked the ordinary things that a lot of guys in the 50s liked. “A-and he liked photography...and he had this leather jacket he wore all the time,” Her eyes flickered to the closet, where she had a box full of mostly photographs and where, at the bottom, a leather jacket was neatly folded up. She had told Seymour that it was a box of old knick knacks that she wasn’t entirely ready to let go of yet, which wasn’t a lie but wasn’t entirely true either. When the police finally gave up looking for him, they told her that she was the only connection he still had around, and told her that she was in charge of all of his stuff. Most of it she had ended up selling or giving away, but something made her keep some of his things. Mostly the things that reminded her of the light she caught behind his eyes...the things she found most human. She knew now that she had kept them for Jason, by some motherly instinct maybe, even though she had no idea she was pregnant when she was clearing out Orin's apartment. She took a deep breath before continuing, knowing she had to go on before she got to that. “But your father…he kept a lot locked away, and to protect it…well, he often turned to force and..and violence,”

#(For sure but man the way I have to tell my self every time 'don't write a novel about your feelings' is so much lol)#(There's just so much angst potential that it makes me insane XD)#just-me-and-the-toaster #(Just Like His Father) Jason

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minervacasterly · 3 years ago

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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest Queen of them all?

“Elizabeth was 25-years-old and in her youthful prime at the time of her accession. While never a beauty, she was attractive enough and the historian John Hayward (c.1564-1627) described her as being “of stature mean, slender, straight and amiably composed; of such state in her carriage, as every motion of her seemed to bear majesty” She had fair hair “inclined to pale yellow”, with “lively and sweet” eyes and a nose that rose slightly in the middle. Portraits suggest that Elizabeth resembled her mother facially, although she had her father’s colouring. During her brother’s reign, she had sought to present herself as a modest Protestant maiden, refusing to wear the rich clothes and jewels that had been left to her by her father. Throughout this time, she was held up as a model to other young women, making them “ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks” as John Aylmer (1521-1594), Bishop and tutor to Lade Jane Grey, put it. Even the sober Lady Jane Grey herself declared that, in matters of dress, she wished to follow “my Lady Elizabeth which followeth God’s word”. Elizabeth began to dress more flamboyantly during her sister’s reign and it is clear that somber black was not her real preference. As queen, Elizabeth loved fine clothes and was proud of her appearance, growing concerned as she began to notice herself ageing. From her 40s and 50s she wore wigs to cover her grey hair and thick layers of makeup to give the illusion of eternal youth. Her clothes also grew increasingly elaborate with large ruffs and huge padded sleeves; she owned around 3,000 costly gowns, many of which were strewn with jewels. She continued to attract suitors into her old age, with young men, such as Walter Raleigh (c.1552-1618) and the Earl of Essex, encouraging her in the belief that time had stood still for her. The personal possessions with which she decorated her palaces were equally splendid. She carried golden clocks around with her from residence to residence, as well as books covered in silver gilt and a bed pane embroidered with silver fabric. An inventory of her possessions with which she decorated her palaces were equally splendid. She carried golden clocks around with her from residence to residence, as well as books covered in silver gilt and a bed pane embroidered with silver fabric. An inventory of her possessions noted that she also owned more exotic items, including a “staff of unicorn’s horn with a cross garnished with silver gilt”. It was topped with a crystal ball.”

- TUDOR TREASURY by Elizabeth Norton.

So … if there was a match-up of which Disney villain best matched Good Queen Bess, it’s a no brainer that it’d be the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She’s way more brutal in the original fairy tale, though she’s still scary in Disney’s film. Just like Gloriana, no one is allowed to steal her glory. The older Elizabeth I got, she became more vain. With a brand to protect and the symbol she’d become to her people, absolutely nothing could stand in her way. This meant that no one in her court, much less the ladies that were part of her household, could outshine her. There was an incident where some did and Bess took it as a serious offence. On one of these occasions, she broke a woman’s finger. Additionally, of all the potential claimants to the throne, the ones she was most afraid were her female cousins. Pop history is focused on the conflict between Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth. However, from the moment she became England’s new Queen, Elizabeth I her eyes were locked on ALL of her female relatives. Everyone that she viewed as a threat, she used every excuse to disinherit them. With Catherine Grey, because the priest and witness had died at the time her union with Edward Seymour, Eartl of Hertford, her marriage was declared invalid which made her sons (both of which she had while she was imprisoned in the Tower) bastards. She died under house arrest shortly after. As for the youngest of the Grey sisters, Mary Grey, she was first ridiculed by the Spanish ambassador for her stature and apparent hunchback and then the Queen when she found out that she had married without royal permission. Elizabeth I ordered husband and wife be set apart so Mary Grey never enjoyed any marital bliss. Furthermore, Elizabeth I did not like that Mary Grey sided with the more Evangelical Protestants of her court.

In Elizabeth I’s England, there was only room for one woman and that was Elizabeth. During the last decades of her reign, when it became apparent that no manner of heckling and threats could change the course of nature, she became desperate to fool the viewer, including herself, by presenting an image of a nearly perfect, flawless monarch who was the closest thing to the living embodiment of a goddess as her people were ever going to get. It is also around this period that artists and playwrights aided in the promotion of the cult of the Virgin Queen which indirectly sought to replace that of the once popular Virgin Mary, Queen Mother of Heaven.

The best way to describe and (in the case of subjects) to deal with royalty was as one character tells his charge, Rodrigo “Ruy” Dias de Vivar in the Amazon Spanish series EL CID, is to remember that you may share in their joys and comfort them (when needed) but NEVER think that you can be their equal. The Tudors more than any other English dynasty preceding them, always made sure their subjects remembered that. They wove an alternative tale which became embedded in the popular image. Elizabeth I most of all, became a symbol for the masses to admire and fear, one that loved to remind her noble subjects that they could expect favors and good will if they ignored the passage of time and played the game of courtly love with the aging Queen.

#Queen Elizabeth I of England #history #dailytudors #comparison #disney villains #evil queen #snow white #renaissance #british monarchy

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janeyseymour · 3 years ago

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Dangerous Desires- a fanfic

After three years of being fostered by Jane Seymour, turning 18 is right around the corner for a young Katherine Howard. What that entails? Stick around and you'll suddenly see more (seymour).

hi! so, this idea popped into my head a few days ago and with some kind ideas from a dear friend @the-quiet-winds, this little fic was born. More to come! As always, have a lovely day!

Ch 1 - Be Still My Heart

Ever since Jane Seymour was a child, she knew she wanted children. What she didn’t know when she was a little girl was that she would never have a child of her own. She would come close, but it would never happen.

When Jane was 28, she would fall pregnant. She would give birth to a stillborn child before developing Sepsis. The woman would barely overcome it and remain in unstable conditions for quite some time before being able to say she was in the clear. The day she was deemed safe and cured was the day she would vow to herself she would never produce her own child ever again. Sure, the task of healing her body went through was rough, but nothing would ever be harder than seeing a child- her child- that would just become another lifeless body in the ground.

At 30, the blonde woman decided that she had enough moping, and if she couldn’t have a child of her own, there were so many children who needed a home. So, she began to foster. Within her first week of having her fostering license, one little girl was placed in her household. She would leave three weeks later to be reunited with her family. It was hard for the kind woman to let go of the little girl, but ultimately she knew the little girl would be okay.

Child after child, Jane Seymour continued on with fostering. Any child that she could help along the way knowing they were in a safe and loving house- even just overnight- she would do it a million times over.

And then Katherine Howard entered her life. Katherine Howard- the teenager, not a little girl- who came to her more terrified than any other child who had entered her home. Katherine Howard- the anxiety ridden child who didn’t know how to act like a child because she had to grow up far too soon. Katherine Howard- the girl who stole Jane Seymour’s heart.

3 years of being in Jane’s care had significantly benefited the once shy and meek teenager. She was nearing the end of her senior year, and turning eighteen was just around the corner for the young lass. No more was she the almost mute teen that walked in through the front door three years ago with nothing but the clothing on her back. No more was she the girl who bounced around from foster parent to foster parent and school to school. No more was she the lass who walked around in fear of being thrown out of the house over something as small as using the salt shaker at the dinner table. No. Now, she was the girl who happily opened the front door to Jane Seymour’s house and announce she was back home proudly. (She had been hesitant to call it home at first, but the blonde woman made it clear to her that even if she were to be taken out of her care, it would always be home- if Katherine so desired). Now, she was the girl who would greatly announce that she had been living with her foster mother and attending the same high school for three years. Now, she knew she could do almost anything, and even if it were wrong- well, her foster mother would continue to look at her like she deserved the sun, the stars, and the moon.

But there was one thing that hadn’t changed. Katherine Howard, the name she vehemently hated, was still motherless. Of course, she had Jane Seymour as her foster mother. But as she knew, once she was eighteen, the woman that had so kindly taken her in and shown her love and care for so long had the option of leaving her to her own devices. The teen wasn’t foolish. She had been told time and time again that a family wouldn’t get rid of her, only for them to lose patience with her indecisiveness and inability to make a decision. Or perhaps they would get angry that she wasn’t capable of being the child they so desperately wanted because, as stated before, Katherine Howard grew up much too quickly. Katherine Howard would never have a mother to call her own. She could pretend that Jane Seymour was her mother, but in the end there was no such luck.

Or so she thought. Unbeknownst to her, Jane Seymour was a sneaky, sneaky woman who was using her powers for good. There was no family that would fight for Katherine at this point- not years ago when the teen was a little girl placed in foster care, and certainly not three years after the girl had been placed in her care. And unbeknownst to Katherine Howard, Jane Seymour had full intention of adopting the sweet teen just a few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday.

The pair had just finished cleaning up dinner and were settling in for their nightly routine of watching a movie and Kat went to reach for the remote when a gentle hand was placed over hers. When the teen first moved in here she would have inevitably flinched away from the touch. Now however, she knew there was no malice behind the hand and playfully swatted it away.

“Come on Jane,” she laughed quietly. “What are we watching tonight anyway? I was thinking we could try this new show called-”

“Actually love,” Jane started gently. “I think there’s something we need to talk about.”

Those nine words were enough to make the younger girl’s heart stop. She took her hand

back and leaned away from the coffee table shaking slightly. She racked her brain for any wrongdoings that might have occurred that would cause this conversation to take place but could find none.

“Uh, yeah sure. What’s up?” She tried to keep the waiver out of her voice, but it was clear she had become a nervous wreck within the past few seconds.

The foster mum cleared her throat before speaking with some hesitation in her voice, “So... Kat, your eighteenth birthday is in a few weeks.” Ah, so it was that conversation. The one where Jane would tell the teen that once she turned eighteen she was to move out and never contact her again.

Katherine’s wall immediately went up and she stood up straight, any fear in her eyes gone and replaced with a look that was almost stony. “Yes.”

“And I was wondering,” the older woman drew out.

“I’ll make this easy for you,” the teen far too used to being thrown out of places, cut her off. “When do you want me out?”

The blonde’s mouth could not have dropped any quicker. She stood scooted closer on the couch to the girl who had stolen her heart as she searched for her words.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” was all that she could seem to say. “No, no, no. No. No.” She stated the last “no” with such might that she shocked herself.

“Well then what is it?” Katherine’s hopes had been raised, but the lack of care in her voice didn’t show that.

“Oh, god,” Jane stumbled over her words again. “This is not how I planned on this going,” she muttered to herself. “I- uh,” she cleared her throat again. “Your eighteenth birthday is in a few weeks, and I do have a gift for you if you’ll take it, but I wanted to run it by you in case you might not want it- which is completely understandable if you don’t want to accept my gift. I wouldn’t be hurt in the slightest, and I would understand.” A lie. It would cut through Jane’s heart of stone like nothing else.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Kat’s curiosity peaked. In the last three years that the girl had lived with Jane she had been showered with both big and little gifts that ranged from a new phone to a small cup that the older woman simply could not pass up on buying for the girl.

“Let me just go-” The foster mum stood abruptly from her spot. “-and get it.” She ran into her room with a bit more spring in her step than Katherine had ever seen before returning a few short seconds later with a manilla envelope. “Here.” She shoved the envelope into her foster daughter’s hands not so eloquently.

With a confused look on her face, Kat opened the envelope and pulled out many documents. She scanned her eyes over the first page when she saw it. Request for adoption of Katherine Howard.

#six the musical fanfiction #six musical fanfiction #six fanfic #fanfic #six the musical fanfic #jane seymour six #six jane seymour #six katherine howard #katherine howard six #kat howard

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margoslxix · 4 years ago

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Incoming mini-essay/rant on Little Shop of Horrors because I can't stop thinking about the movie and the musical and the different endings and all of that. I'm on mobile, or I'd put it under a cut.

Anyway, I keep thinking about how the ending of the musical was also originally the ending of the movie, and the fact that test audiences hated it, they were upset and felt cheated by it. And most people either basically chalk it up to "people who watch movies are too unsophisticated to appreciate unhappy endings" which... ugh, no; OR the more widely-accepted theory, "this isn't a play, so there's no curtain call, no assurance the actors are alright, they've simply been taken away and audiences feel that's unfair" which... what? Are we assuming that these people do not understand the concept of acting and can't handle character death?

No, I don't think that's the case at all.

For years, I struggled with the movie's ending. I thought it was silly, too predictable, a neat little Hollywood bow on a Faustian tale. But then, the last time I watched the movie, I completely changed my mind. I actually think I understand exactly what those test audiences saw that they didn't like.

Okay, bear with me.

I think that most of the test audience hadn't seen the musical. That's... probably obvious. What they had seen, though, was the whole beginning and middle of the movie which, being a movie, made some minor changes that changed everything.

Here's what I mean:

In the musical, Audrey II can barely move. The puppet is usually cool, but generally, you get full jaw motion and maybe a couple floppy tentacles. In the movie, however, they're this gorgeous Henson Workshop puppet, with an absolutely ridiculous amount of articulation that just wouldn't be feasible on stage. This leads to three huge changes:

1. There is no need for Seymour to trick Mushnik into climbing inside the plant. In the musical, we see Seymour calculate the most effective way to get rid of Mushnik, calmly telling him that the money is hidden deep inside the plant, easily cleaning up the loose end of Mushnik's suspicions. It's cold, it's premeditated, it's the first actual kill Seymour makes (we'll get to Orin later). In the movie, however, Rick Moranis is panicking as Mushnik accuses him, unable to get a word in edgewise as the accusations come between lines of the Suppertime song. They head up the stairs, and Audrey II easily snaps Mushnik up. Rick Moranis looks on, horrified, not necessarily consciously cornering him against the plant. It takes the agency, the premeditation, the decision to kill out of Seymour's hands.

2. In the musical, Audrey simply comes to the shop because she couldn't sleep. She senses that something's wrong with Seymour, that he's been acting erratically, and she comes to check on him. Audrey II takes advantage of this and tricks her into falling into their mouth, ultimately leading to her death. In the movie, however, this bit of contrivance isn't necessary, and we don't see this thought process for Audrey. Audrey II directly manipulates the situation, calling Audrey on the phone to goad her into coming to the shop where they can easily grab and eat her. If the ending had stayed the same, this would have ended much the same way as in the musical, but with more manipulation by Audrey II and less concern for Seymour on Audrey's part.

3. Even with the originally-filmed Bad End, "Mean Green Mother" was an entirely new song and sequence added to the movie. It's a great showcase for both the beautiful Audrey II puppet and the singing talents of the legendary Levi Stubbs, who honestly would have been wasted without a big solo number. This is a thrilling, fully-choreographed fight scene that wouldn't have worked at all on stage, but it pits Seymour against Audrey II, and we watch Seymour's sad, hopeless attempts to destroy the creature he's created. We see him struggle and fight, not quite at the bottom of a downward spiral, but finally reckoning with the creature who's been manipulating him all this time.

Even aside from Audrey II's increased physical power and aggression, there are changes to the story. Like most movie musicals, several songs have been truncated or cut completely for time, and some of these are absolutely crucial to Seymour's fall as a tragic hero

First, there's "Now (It's Just the Gas)." In the musical, this represents Seymour being unable to kill Orin, but realizing that he doesn't have to, as he is about to asphyxiate. The whole musical number features an increasingly desperate Orin begging for his life, and Seymour responding with a sort of patter song about moral dilemmas. Orin is unaware that Seymour is trying to kill him, and does not stop begging for help.

It's the first time we really get to see Seymour calculate, see his lack of empathy (not that Orin necessarily deserved it, but still). It's the beginning of the end.

In the movie, the song is replaced with a scene in which Seymour confronts Orin more directly. Rick Moranis is clearly terrified the entire time, hand and gun shaking. Orin gets the chance to ask why he's doing this, and Seymour gets the chance to tell Orin exactly what he's done wrong, reminding the audience as well that this man is a villain, and that his death is justice. He asphxiates quickly and quietly, and Seymour barely has any time to think or process what's happening.

The other most important changed song is "The Meek Shall Inherit." It's long in the musical, and Seymour gets a soliloquy about his situation. At first, he resolves to kill Audrey II, only to talk himself out of it. He clearly states that what he's doing is wrong, he knows it's wrong, but he sees himself as so worthless that Audrey will no longer love him if he destroys the one thing bringing him wealth and fame. He then immediately, very clearly, asks "where do I sign," metaphorically sealing his Faustian bargain.

Movie Seymour does no such thing. The song has been shortened to a single chorus, sung at a frenzied pace compared to the musical's version, set to a rapid montauge of a distressed, confused, lost-looking Rick Moranis being herded around to various events and crowded by reporters. He barely looks like he gets any say whatsoever in this, his fame is a tide that he's utterly swept up in.

All of these changes utterly change the themes of the story. Seymour is no longer a desperate man who makes a deal with a being that is wholly dependent on him, consciously and coldly killing to sustain it, in the hopes of winning the heart of the girl of his dreams with money and fame, as he is in the musical. Instead, he's a poor, anxious man, helplessly being passed from an abusive father figure to a manipulative, dangerous, powerful alien who causes mayhem and violence around him.

For this Seymour, a tragic end is a slap in the face. It's a betrayal of the audience, who have been rooting for this poor guy to free himself of these influences in his life from the beginning of the movie. It would have been an empty, soulless ending for the musical, of course, but that's because the entire musical has been establishing the classic downward spiral of a tragic hero, while the movie really wasn't.

The thing is, I don't think any of these individual changes are bad, per se. I think that each one was pretty sensible to manage the runtime and spectacle of a feature film, as well as utilizing the cast to their potential. It just so happens that they all come together to make something that is fundamentally, incompatibly different from the source material.

And that's okay!

#little shop of horrors #long post #musicals #i think the movie is good and the musical is good but its hard to compare them #theyre doing very different things

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alilyamongroses · 4 years ago

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Isn’t she just delightful?

Catherine of Aragon has one of the more fascinating media legacies of anyone in the Tudor period, not in terms of how her image has fluctuated over the years, but because of how notably it hasn’t. Other hardcore Catholics of the Henrician court are inevitably vilified in stories from Protestant perspectives - Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Jane Seymour and above all else Mary I, to name a few. “Protestant perspectives” doesn’t just refer to reformation texts, it includes books from the perspective of Protestant figures; usually Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth I, and more recently Thomas Cromwell with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall books. Despite her unwavering faith in both the Catholic Church and her own position, Catherine’s reputation has, up until the past twenty years or so, remained close to stellar; her marriage into the English monarchy at a young age did well to divorce her from her parent’s religious persecutions, and her death some fifteen years or so before her daughter took the throne kept her from being tarnished by association to Mary’s resurrection of medieval heresy laws.

As a Tudor queen, Catherine has largely gone down in history for her irreproachable conduct, even after that history began to tilt towards the side of a religion she opposed - she is known for her charity, her piety, and her belief in her husband’s good nature no matter how vile his behavior grew to be, even at the expense of her own self image. According to Chapuys (who in this case there is no reason to disbelieve) she went to her grave questioning wether Henry’s actions after their divorce was her fault, wondering wether, if she had given him what he wanted, he may not have felt the need to break from Rome, mistreat their daughter and execute two men - one a long term friend and one his own grandmother’s religious advisor. Catherine is a noble figure, she is a tragic figure, she is most of all a dignified figure, and in Tudor media she is always given at least a sympathetic nod if not a complex or three dimensional portrayal.

The key phrase there, though, is as a Tudor queen. Whatever else she was, Catherine was decidedly not a modern woman, just like all of her female peers living five hundred years ago were decidedly not modern women; her unflinching religious beliefs, her many attempts at producing a male heir and her devotion to her marriage are admirable traits of a female noble of the sixteenth century, less so of a twenty first century wife or businesswoman. She was a product of her time, and modernized or semi modernized Tudor media’s attempts to portray her - specifically the brand of modern Tudor media that sets out to depict Anne and Henry’s relationship as one of Sexy High Romance - always end up turning Catherine into a misogynistic caricature of herself, historical legacy be damned. The blog anneboleynnovels describes it best:

“Catherine’s greatest hurdle has been not Protestant novels, but modernized ones. These are the one subgenre in which her character at best is severely degraded and at worst is completely unrecognizable. It’s not surprising that it should be like this — finding modern corollaries to Anne and Henry, whether in an office, a Hollywood mansion, or a high school, is doable. As for most of the people who surrounded them, while some some people are harder to wrench into modern poses than others, it’s relatively easy to cut and alter those characters to make them work better in a modern setting. Catherine, however, is completely lost here. She needs to exist, or else the central conflict disappears — but she simply doesn’t have a real modern equivalent, at least not in the kinds of societies that modernizers write about; her determination that God had put her in her position and that she had to safeguard her daughter’s legitimacy, and thus her inheritance, is impossible to convey fully, especially since Henry’s historical behavior — taking a presumed inheritance from Mary, forcibly separating the two women, and confining them in residences of his choosing — can’t be precisely replicated in a modern novel without making him at best a creep and at worst a criminal. In neither case would that Henry be an appealing love object for a modern Anne, so his behavior is inevitably made more standard — he’s simply a wealthy man divorcing his wife of twenty years, and instead of taking her settlement and moving on, his wife just refuses to let go.”

As the post on Catherine’s fictionalized history points out, attempts to judge her through a modern lens, particularly in stories that center around that grand, not-at-all-murderous love affair of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn inevitably fail to produce a balanced assesment. Susan Bordo’s highly modernized study the Creation of Anne Boleyn treats her like a footnote at best and a self righteous fool at worst, while the Catherine of Suzannah Dunn’s The Queen of Subtleties is disgustingly nicknamed “Fat Cath” (stupid cow, how could she let herself go like that after six pregnancies?) and features its leading lady, another ahead-of-her-time portrayal of Anne Boleyn, going out of her way to condescendingly paint Catherine to the reader as vengeful and delusional. Anne of Hollywood and Anne and Henry present the worst portrayals, one a hideous, deliberately unsympathetic drug addict and the other a teenage psychotic forced on Henry by his father, leading her poor, brow beaten boyfriend by the hand.

That’s not to say it would be impossible to write a well rounded modern Catherine of Aragon, but most modernized Tudor novels simply don’t care to try and make her well rounded; she exists solely to be the convenient road block to Anne and a whitewashed Henry’s happiness, a flat example of the Hysterical Woman trope rather than a Queen, a mother, or a politician. It isn’t Anne Boleyn’s fault that this happens (she can’t exactly object) but this version of Catherine never fails to rear its ugly head in Tudor media that aims to portray Anne, literally or figuratively, as a “woman of the future.” Since that reading of Anne has gained momentum over the years, this Catherine inevitably does so too.

What makes the Spanish Princess so unbearable is how blatantly Emma Frost is trying, and egregiously failing, to flip the script on this. Whatever her personal dislike of Anne Boleyn, she is very obviously trying to take this fictitious version of Anne Boleyn that has sprung up over the past few decades - that of the rebellious, sexy, pseudo feminist Modern Woman™ - and apply it to Catherine of Aragon, who was neither rebellious, a feminist or, after six pregnancies, five infant deaths and a battle with heart cancer, all that sexy. The intimacy and very real affection she and Henry shared in the early years of their marriage is stilted and unemotional, replaced by an absurd number of sex scenes and a very out of place “warrior kween” nickname. It isn’t enough for Catherine to organize a massive military campaign and give a speech to an assembly of soldiers while heavily pregnant, real life accomplishments of hers which have gone largely unacknowledged - no, the Catherine of the Spanish Princess needs to literally fight in battle, pregnant belly armor and all, subtly implying that her many miscarriages were the result of her own behavior, never mind the fact that Henry’s later wives had miscarriages as well. The deeply devoted friends Catherine actually had, one of whom served her for decades and risked royal punishment to be with her on her deathbed, are either erased entirely or put into invented conflicts with her. Her relationship with the only one of her children that survived infancy is perverted into a cold, uncaring motherhood, marked by disappointment and a refusal to even hold her daughter, let alone personally teach her Latin, commission scholars to write books for her, and request those same scholars take charge of her education.

In place of all these details, the things that make the historically minded audience love Catherine in the first place, several sordid aspects of Anne Boleyn’s fictional representations are assigned to Frost’s Catherine of The Upside Down: the ~unnatural~ blowjobs and poorly designed French hoods, the general air of cattiness, the excessive nudity, the hatred of her daughter, the inability to sexually please her husband, and the weird sense of anger at all the women in her life all stand out as hallmarks of Anne Boleyn’s less flattering portrayals, but so too do the clear attempts to pander to a feminist audience and sell itself as new age and progressive.

The fouler examples of Catherine as a modern woman aren’t yet the prevalent perception of her; a gaggle of misguided twenty first century books isn’t enough to erase the near spotless reputation she’s maintained for half a millennium. But the Spanish Princess fails to depict a more positive modernization of Catherine because it’s lazy in the attempt - it sees the habit of trying to turn sixteenth century queens into anything but sixteenth century queens and tries to replicate it by taking a handful of theatrical trends and having their protagonist perform them. Those trends have been apart of Anne Boleyn’s portrayal in the media for so long it wouldn’t be that strange to see her acting that way on screen, no matter how historically inaccurate they may be, but to assign them to someone with such a vastly different public history as Catherine is just jarring. She wasn’t like that, nobody thinks she was like that, Tudor media has always known her as being not like that, and the result is something that’s confusing at best and outright offensive at worst. It’s not fun to watch, but it’s interesting to examine, broader context in mind.

(Also credit to @queenmarytudor for that image of Meg and Mary, and seriously, check out anneboleynnovels. They’re great.)

#the spanish princess #Catherine of Aragon #the Tudors #henry viii #also I should say that I am not in any way a historian and you should take what I say with a massive grain of salt #this is just what I think

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 4 years ago

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Where Have They Gone Now: Axl Rose

Born William Bailey originally in Lafayette, Indiana in 1962. His mother was still in high school when she had him, while his juvenile delinquent father was 20 years old. They would divorce when he was two years old, which led his father William Rose abducting him and reportedly molesting the young boy. His mother remarried to a man named Steven Bailey, who was not much better than his birth father. Axl and his siblings were beaten on a regular basis and once again reportedly molested as well. Led by his stepfather, the Rose household was very strict religiously growing up in the Pentecostal faith. He was required to attend church 7 to 8 times a week, and even taught Sunday school on occasion. This seems to be in stark contrast to the Axl Rose we will see later. Axl would comment on his upbringing. “We'd have televisions one week, then my stepdad would throw them out because they were Satanic. I wasn't allowed to listen to music. Women were evil. Everything was evil." Music became a source of solace from an early age as he began singing in the church choir at the age of five. Rose began as a natural baritone, but decided to change his pitch consistently during practice just to anger the teacher. The future Guns N’ Roses lead singer also began to study piano at Jefferson High School, as well as participating in high school musicals. At the age of 17, Axl was going through some insurance papers when he discovered the existence of his biological father. At that time, he unofficially adopted his real father‘s last name of Rose, but told everyone he would not share a first name with him only referring to himself as W. Rose. After this discovery, the young man began to completely act out leading to at least 20 misdemeanor arrests from public intoxication to assault. Lafayette police were trying to charge him as a habitual criminal when he moved to LA in 1982 at the age of 20.

Almost immediately upon arrival, Rose joined the band Rapidfire with guitarist Kevin Lawrence. He had met him just outside the Troubadour in West Hollywood. They recorded a five song demo, but due to legal actions was not released until 2014. The EP was entitled Ready To Rumble. His next band included childhood friend and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, which they named Hollywood Rose. They recorded a demo featuring songs like “Shadow of Your Love,” “Anything Goes,” and “Reckless Life.” These songs would appear on various releases throughout the years including 2004’s, The Roots of Guns N’ Roses. The band would break up just after the hiring of Slash and Steven Adler. The biggest reason for this was that Rose decided to join LA Guns led by guitarist Tracii Guns. As he struggled for musical success, the young Axl continued to work to make any sort of money including night manager of Tower Records and even smoking cigarettes for a scientific study at UCLA with Izzy Stradlin. By 1985, Rose had restarted Hollywood Rose, so this band and LA Guns could merge their members. Guns N’ Roses was finally born, but almost immediately Tracii Guns and two other members left the band. Essentially, Guns N’ Roses became an expanded version of Hollywood Rose rather than any connection to LA Guns. They simply liked the name, so they kept it. Yet, there is absolutely no Guns in the band.

One thing to understand about Rose and his prima donna behavior that eventually led to the disintegration of the band was that every band in Los Angeles wanted him to be their lead singer in the mid-1980s. Axl had a certain buzz about the energy and intensity he brought every night on stage that could not be replicated. He represented the shining star of the Sunset Strip at that time; he could pick any group that was not signed to a record contract. The band would sign with Geffen Records in 1986, but one thing to note was that right before he changed his name officially to W. Axl Rose. The name originated when he was playing in a band called the Axls, so one of his bandmates suggested that he change his name to Axl. Rose thought it was a cool idea and never changed it. As the band began their sudden rise to the top of the music world, people began to realize that Rose was much different than any other singer before him. He began to single people out in the crowd, who were causing problems after two people died at the Monsters of Rock Festival in 1988. Most times previously singers would tell roadies to take care of it without publicly calling out anyone in the crowd. If you listen to their live compilation album, there are a couple of tracks where you can hear him actually doing this. Axl would say this in a 1992 interview. “Most performers would go to a security person in their organization, and it would just be done very quietly. I'll confront the person, stop the song: 'Guess what: You wasted your money, you get to leave.'" Upon the release of their EP Lies, Rose ran into quite a bit of controversy for his use of racial and homophobic slurs in the song, “One in a Million.” His explanation and defense of the use of the terms at the time was he meant it to be a joke about people that are a pain in your ass in your life. If that had occurred in our present times, he would have been canceled immediately. In 1992, the singer tried to explain the use of the lyrics once again relating some personal experiences he had with blacks and gays that had formed this negative connotation in his mind. For all the controversy, the group was dropped from a 1992 AIDS benefit show. By 1989, most rock writers had begun to see him as one of the top frontmen in rock and roll at the time. Rolling Stone had such respect for him as a singer that they allowed him to use his personal photographer for their story on him, instead of someone on their staff. During the recording of Use Your Illusion, Rose began to impose his will upon the band in a variety of ways. He forced the band to accept his friend Dizzy Reed as a keyboardist. Axl then wanted to fire their longtime manager Alan Nevin, which the band had to go along with because the singer threatened to not perform on the album if he was allowed to stay.

The Use Your Illusion tour began in May 1991 highlighted by concerts that started hours late, rants of his on stage, and even a riot in St. Louis. He tried to jump into the crowd during that show to take away a fan’s video camera, so after he got back on stage Rose quit the concert. Upon seeing an empty stage, the 25,000 people there started a riot. The damage bill came out to be just around $200,000. The friendships between the band members and Rose were gradually imploding throughout the tour. At one point, Axl demanded and received legal ownership of the Guns N’ Roses brand name. He had supposedly issued an ultimatum either give me legal ownership or I will not perform. Axl would later deny these reports saying the contract would not have been legally binding if he had done such a thing. Who knows what the truth is when it comes to this band sometimes? The singer helped to start another riot in Montreal at a concert co-headlined by Metallica. The heavy metal band had their concert cut short because pyrotechnics severely burned lead singer James Hetfield. Once again, Rose was nowhere near the venue to go on early coming on stage very late. The group needed to do an extensive set to make up for the short one by Metallica, but Rose cut his set short claiming voice problems. Once again, the fans rioted leading to some extensive fines directed towards the singer by Canadian authorities.

In 1994, the band released the covers album The Spaghetti Incident, which included a hidden track originally written by Charles Manson. Axl had intended the song to be a message to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. The controversy that followed this song meant that the band needed to donate money for the son of one of the victims of those murders. In 1994, Rose also decided to terminate guitarist Gilby Clarke as a member of the band without consulting any of the other members. This decision was made so that Axl could bring in the controversial guitar replacement, Paul Tobias, which eventually led to Slash leaving the band. By 1997, the only original member of Guns N’ Roses was one Axl Rose. He had started to fade from any public view becoming essentially a rock and roll hermit. The media had dubbed him either Rock and Roll’s Greatest Recluse or the Howard Hughes of Rock and Roll. By the late 1990’s, rumors began to spread that Rose was forming a new lineup of Guns N’ Roses for an album entitled Chinese Democracy.

The absolute insanity that was Chinese Democracy took place from 2001 to 2011. The album would be officially released in 2008, but not after several starts and stops over and over again. A tour of the new album had been scheduled from 2001 to 2002, but almost all of the shows were either cut short or canceled because Rose was either a no-show or would quit very quickly. Finally, in 2006 and 2007, he actually toured as Guns N’ Roses promising new music. The concert offered very little in Chinese Democracy, but only concentrated on their hit songs. Around this time, he had changed his hair into cornrows, which got a laugh from music fans everywhere. One should note that Izzy Stradlin actually made a few guest appearances during that tour. Fans had hoped that a reunion collaboration might occur, but there was no such luck. Upon the release of Chinese Democracy, the singer did everything he could to sabotage any possible success the album might have overall. He refused to promote the album, would not return phone calls, or give interviews for three months after the release of the album. By the time he actually did say something about the album, the reclusive Rose complained that Interscope Records did not help them very much in promoting the album. In 2009, Axl and GNR went on a 2 1/2 year long tour, which included a headlining appearance at Rock in Rio 4. Around that time, he was sued by former band manager Irving Azhoff for $1.87 million. Of course, Axl countersued him claiming that he was forced to do a reunion tour because Azhoff had completely mismanaged the release, promotion, and tour of Chinese Democracy. In 2010, he sued Activision for their game Guitar Hero. Axl claimed that he had an oral agreement with the company that if “Welcome to the Jungle” was allowed on the game, then Slash nor any Velvet Revolver would not be included in any release of it. Not only was Slash’s music included in the game, but he ended up on the cover. A judge threw out the lawsuit in 2013 saying that Rose could not prove the oral agreement and the statute of limitations had run out anyway. In 2012, the Guns N’ Roses singer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but he declined to appear. In an open letter published on the Internet, Rose stated that due to the tensions between his former bandmates, he did not want to be where he was not wanted or respected. Yet, slowly but surely Guns N’ Roses began to tour with some of the original members culminating with the inclusion of Slash in 2016.

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago

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A Perfect Day for Bananafish

J. D. Salinger (1948)

THERE WERE ninety-seven New York advertising men in the hotel, and, the way they were monopolizing the long-distance lines, the girl in 507 had to wait from noon till almost two-thirty to get her call through. She used the time, though. She read an article in a women's pocket-size magazine, called "Sex Is Fun-or Hell." She washed her comb and brush. She took the spot out of the skirt of her beige suit. She moved the button on her Saks blouse. She tweezed out two freshly surfaced hairs in her mole. When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand.

She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty.

With her little lacquer brush, while the phone was ringing, she went over the nail of her little finger, accentuating the line of the moon. She then replaced the cap on the bottle of lacquer and, standing up, passed her left--the wet--hand back and forth through the air. With her dry hand, she picked up a congested ashtray from the window seat and carried it with her over to the night table, on which the phone stood. She sat down on one of the made-up twin beds and--it was the fifth or sixth ring--picked up the phone.

"Hello," she said, keeping the fingers of her left hand outstretched and away from her white silk dressing gown, which was all that she was wearing, except mules--her rings were in the bathroom.

"I have your call to New York now, Mrs. Glass," the operator said.

"Thank you," said the girl, and made room on the night table for the ashtray.

A woman's voice came through. "Muriel? Is that you?"

The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. "Yes, Mother. How are you?" she said.

"I've been worried to death about you. Why haven't you phoned? Are you all right?"

"I tried to get you last night and the night before. The phone here's been--"

"Are you all right, Muriel?"

The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear. "I'm fine. I'm hot. This is the hottest day they've had in Florida in--"

"Why haven't you called me? I've been worried to--"

"Mother, darling, don't yell at me. I can hear you beautifully," said the girl. "I called you twice last night. Once just after--"

"I told your father you'd probably call last night. But, no, he had to-Are you all right, Muriel? Tell me the truth."

"I'm fine. Stop asking me that, please." "When did you get there?"

"I don't know. Wednesday morning, early." "Who drove?"

"He did," said the girl. "And don't get excited. He drove very nicely. I was amazed."

"He drove? Muriel, you gave me your word of--"

"Mother," the girl interrupted, "I just told you. He drove very nicely. Under fifty the whole way, as a matter of fact."

"Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?"

"I said he drove very nicely, Mother. Now, please. I asked him to stay close to the white line, and all, and he knew what I meant, and he did. He was even trying not to look at the trees-you could tell. Did Daddy get the car fixed, incidentally?"

"Not yet. They want four hundred dollars, just to--"

"Mother, Seymour told Daddy that he'd pay for it. There's no reason for--"

"Well, we'll see. How did he behave--in the car and all?"

"All right," said the girl.

"Did he keep calling you that awful--" "No. He has something new now." "What?"

"Oh, what's the difference, Mother?" "Muriel, I want to know. Your father--"

"All right, all right. He calls me Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948," the girl said, and giggled.

"It isn't funny, Muriel. It isn't funny at all. It's horrible. It's sad, actually. When I think how--"

"Mother," the girl interrupted, "listen to me. You remember that book he sent me from Germany? You know--those German poems. What'd I do with it? I've been racking my--"

"You have it."

"Are you sure?" said the girl.

"Certainly. That is, I have it. It's in Freddy's room. You left it here and I didn't have room for it in the--Why? Does he want it?"

"No. Only, he asked me about it, when we were driving down. He wanted to know if I'd read it."

"It was in German!"

"Yes, dear. That doesn't make any difference," said the girl, crossing her legs. "He said that the poems happen to be written by the only great poet of the century. He said I should've bought a translation or something. Or learned the language, if you please."

"Awful. Awful. It's sad, actually, is what it is. Your father said last night--"

"Just a second, Mother," the girl said. She went over to the window seat for her cigarettes, lit one, and returned to her seat on the bed. "Mother?" she said, exhaling smoke.

"Muriel. Now, listen to me." "I'm listening."

"Your father talked to Dr. Sivetski."

"Oh?" said the girl.

"He told him everything. At least, he said he did--you know your father. The trees. That business with the window. Those horrible things he said to Granny about her plans for passing away. What he did with all those lovely pictures from Bermuda--everything."

"Well?" said the girl.

"Well. In the first place, he said it was a perfect crime the Army released him from the hospital--my word of honor. He very definitely told your father there's a chance--a very great chance, he said--that Seymour may completely lose control of himself. My word of honor."

"There's a psychiatrist here at the hotel," said the girl.

"Who? What's his name?"

"I don't know. Rieser or something. He's supposed to be very good."

"Never heard of him."

"Well, he's supposed to be very good, anyway."

"Muriel, don't be fresh, please. We're very worried about you. Your father wanted to wire you last night to come home, as a matter of f--"

"I'm not coming home right now, Mother. So relax."

"Muriel. My word of honor. Dr. Sivetski said Seymour may completely lose contr--"

"I just got here, Mother. This is the first vacation I've had in years, and I'm not going to just pack everything and come home," said the girl. "I couldn't travel now anyway. I'm so sunburned I can hardly move."

"You're badly sunburned? Didn't you use that jar of Bronze I put in your bag? I put it right--"

"I used it. I'm burned anyway."

"That's terrible. Where are you burned?" "All over, dear, all over."

"That's terrible." "I'll live."

"Tell me, did you talk to this psychiatrist?" "Well, sort of," said the girl.

"What'd he say? Where was Seymour when you talked to him?"

"In the Ocean Room, playing the piano. He's played the piano both nights we've been here."

"Well, what'd he say?"

"Oh, nothing much. He spoke to me first. I was sitting next to him at Bingo last night, and he asked me if that wasn't my husband playing the piano in the other room. I said yes, it was, and he asked me if Seymour's been sick or something. So I said--"

"Why'd he ask that?"

"I don't know, Mother. I guess because he's so pale and all," said the girl. "Anyway, after Bingo he and his wife asked me if I wouldn't like to join them for a drink. So I did. His wife was horrible. You remember that awful dinner dress we saw in Bonwit's window? The one you said you'd have to have a tiny, tiny--"

"The green?"

"She had it on. And all hips. She kept asking me if Seymour's related to that Suzanne Glass that has that place on Madison Avenue--the millinery."

"What'd he say, though? The doctor."

"Oh. Well, nothing much, really. I mean we were in the bar and all. It was terribly noisy."

"Yes, but did--did you tell him what he tried to do with Granny's chair?"

"No, Mother. I didn't go into details very much," said the girl. "I'll probably get a chance to talk to him again. He's in the bar all day long."

"Did he say he thought there was a chance he might get--you know--funny or anything? Do something to you!"

"Not exactly," said the girl. "He had to have more facts, Mother. They have to know about your childhood--all that stuff. I told you, we could hardly talk, it was so noisy in there."

"Well. How's your blue coat?"

"All right. I had some of the padding taken out."

"How are the clothes this year?"

"Terrible. But out of this world. You see sequins-- everything," said the girl.

"How's your room?"

"All right. Just all right, though. We couldn't get the room we had before the war," said the girl. "The people are awful this year. You should see what sits next to us in the dining room. At the next table. They look as if they drove down in a truck."

"Well, it's that way all over. How's your ballerina?"

"It's too long. I told you it was too long."

"Muriel, I'm only going to ask you once more-- are you really all right?"

"Yes, Mother," said the girl. "For the ninetieth time."

"And you don't want to come home?" "No, Mother."

"Your father said last night that he'd be more than willing to pay for it if you'd go away someplace by yourself and think things over. You could take a lovely cruise. We both thought--"

"No, thanks," said the girl, and uncrossed her legs. "Mother, this call is costing a for--"

"When I think of how you waited for that boy all through the war-I mean when you think of all those crazy little wives who--"

"Mother," said the girl, "we'd better hang up. Seymour may come in any minute."

"Where is he?"

"On the beach."

"On the beach? By himself? Does he behave himself on the beach?"

"Mother," said the girl, "you talk about him as though he were a raving maniac--"

"I said nothing of the kind, Muriel."

"Well, you sound that way. I mean all he does is lie there. He won't take his bathrobe off."

"He won't take his bathrobe off? Why not?" "I don't know. I guess because he's so pale."

"My goodness, he needs the sun. Can't you make him?

"You know Seymour," said the girl, and crossed her legs again. "He says he doesn't want a lot of fools looking at his tattoo."

"He doesn't have any tattoo! Did he get one in the Army?"

"No, Mother. No, dear," said the girl, and stood up. "Listen, I'll call you tomorrow, maybe."

"Muriel. Now, listen to me."

"Yes, Mother," said the girl, putting her weight on her right leg.

"Call me the instant he does, or says, anything at all funny--you know what I mean. Do you hear me?"

"Mother, I'm not afraid of Seymour." "Muriel, I want you to promise me."

"All right, I promise. Goodbye, Mother," said the girl. "My love to Daddy." She hung up.

"See more glass," said Sybil Carpenter, who was staying at the hotel with her mother. "Did you see more glass?"

"Pussycat, stop saying that. It's driving Mommy absolutely crazy. Hold still, please."

Mrs. Carpenter was putting sun-tan oil on Sybil's shoulders, spreading it down over the delicate, winglike blades of her back. Sybil was sitting insecurely on a huge, inflated beach ball, facing the ocean. She was wearing a canary- yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years.

"It was really just an ordinary silk handkerchief-- you could see when you got up close," said the woman in the beach chair beside Mrs. Carpenter's. "I wish I knew how she tied it. It was really darling."

"It sounds darling," Mrs. Carpenter agreed. "Sybil, hold still, pussy."

"Did you see more glass?" said Sybil.

Mrs. Carpenter sighed. "All right," she said. She replaced the cap on the sun-tan oil bottle. "Now run and play, pussy. Mommy's going up to the hotel and have a Martini with Mrs. Hubbel. I'll bring you the olive."

Set loose, Sybil immediately ran down to the flat part of the beach and began to walk in the direction of Fisherman's Pavilion. Stopping only to sink a foot in a soggy, collapsed castle, she was soon out of the area reserved for guests of the hotel.

She walked for about a quarter of a mile and then suddenly broke into an oblique run up the soft part of the beach. She stopped short when she reached the place where a young man was lying on his back.

"Are you going in the water, see more glass?" she said.

The young man started, his right hand going to the lapels of his terry-cloth robe. He turned over on his stomach, letting a sausaged towel fall away from his eyes, and squinted up at Sybil.

"Hey. Hello, Sybil."

"Are you going in the water?"

"I was waiting for you," said the young man. "What's new?"

"What?" said Sybil.

"What's new? What's on the program?"

"My daddy's coming tomorr ow on a nairiplane," Sybil said, kicking sand.

"Not in my face, baby," the young man said, putting his hand on Sybil's ankle. "Well, it's about time he got here, your daddy. I've been expecting him hourly. Hourly."

"Where's the lady?" Sybil said.

"The lady?" the young man brushed some sand out of his thin hair. "That's hard to say, Sybil. She may be in any one of a thousand places. At the hairdresser's. Having her hair dyed mink. Or making dolls for poor children, in her room." Lying prone now, he made two fists, set one on top of the other, and rested his chin on the top one. "Ask me something else, Sybil," he said. "That's a fine bathing suit you have on. If there's one thing I like, it's a blue bathing suit."

Sybil stared at him, then looked down at her protruding stomach. "This is a yellow," she said. "This is a yellow."

"It is? Come a little closer." Sybil took a step forward. "You're absolutely right. What a fool I am."

"Are you going in the water?" Sybil said.

"I'm seriously considering it. I'm giving it plenty of thought, Sybil, you'll be glad to know."

Sybil prodded the rubber float that the young man sometimes used as a head-rest. "It needs air," she said.

"You're right. It needs more air than I'm willing to admit." He took away his fists and let his chin rest on the sand. "Sybil," he said, "you're looking fine. It's good to see you. Tell me about yourself." He reached in front of him and took both of Sybil's ankles in his hands. "I'm Capricorn," he said. "What are you?"

"Sharon Lipschutz said you let her sit on the piano seat with you," Sybil said.

"Sharon Lipschutz said that?" Sybil nodded vigorously.

He let go of her ankles, drew in his hands, and laid the side of his face on his right forearm. "Well," he said, "you know how those things happen, Sybil. I was sitting there, playing. And you were nowhere in sight. And Sharon Lipschutz came over and sat down next to me. I couldn't push her off, could I?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no. No. I couldn't do that," said the young man. "I'll tell you what I did do, though."

"What?"

"I pretended she was you."

Sybil immediately stooped and began to dig in the sand. "Let's go in the water," she said.

"All right," said the young man. "I think I can work it in."

"Next time, push her off," Sybil said. "Push who off?"

"Sharon Lipschutz."

"Ah, Sharon Lipschutz," said the young man. "How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire." He suddenly got to his feet. He looked at the ocean. "Sybil," he said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll see if we can catch a bananafish."

"A what?"

"A bananafish," he said, and undid the belt of his robe. He took off the robe. His shoulders were white and narrow, and his trunks were royal blue. He folded the robe, first lengthwise, then in thirds. He unrolled the towel he had used over his eyes, spread it out on the sand, and then laid the folded robe on top of it. He bent over, picked up the float, and secured it under his right arm. Then, with his left hand, he took Sybil's hand.

The two started to walk down to the ocean.

"I imagine you've seen quite a few bananafish in your day," the young man said.

Sybil shook her head.

"You haven't? Where do you live, anyway?" "I don't know," said Sybil.

"Sure you know. You must know. Sharon Lipschutz knows where she lives and she's only three and a half."

Sybil stopped walking and yanked her hand away from him. She picked up an ordinary beach shell and looked at it with elaborate interest. She threw it down. "Whirly Wood, Connecticut," she said, and resumed walking, stomach foremost.

"Whirly Wood, Connecticut," said the young man. "Is that anywhere near Whirly Wood, Connecticut, by any chance?"

Sybil looked at him. "That's where I live," she said impatiently. "I live in Whirly Wood, Connecticut." She ran a few steps ahead of him, caught up her left foot in her left hand, and hopped two or three times.

"You have no idea how clear that makes everything," the young man said.

Sybil released her foot. "Did you read `Little Black Sambo'?" she said.

"It's very funny you ask me that," he said. "It so happens I just finished reading it last night." He reached down and took back Sybil's hand. "What did you think of it?" he asked her.

"Did the tigers run all around that tree?"

"I thought they'd never stop. I never saw so many tigers."

"There were only six," Sybil said.

"Only six!" said the young man. "Do you call that only?"

"Do you like wax?" Sybil asked.

"Do I like what?" asked the young man. "Wax." "Very much. Don't you?"

Sybil nodded. "Do you like olives?" she asked.

"Olives--yes. Olives and wax. I never go anyplace without 'em."

"Do you like Sharon Lipschutz?" Sybil asked.

"Yes. Yes, I do," said the young man. "What I like particularly about her is that she never does anything mean to little dogs in the lobby of the hotel. That little toy bull that belongs to that lady from Canada, for instance. You probably won't believe this, but some little girls like to poke that little dog with balloon sticks. Sharon doesn't. She's never mean or unkind. That's why I like her so much."

Sybil was silent.

"I like to chew candles," she said finally.

"Who doesn't?" said the young man, getting his feet wet. "Wow! It's cold." He dropped the rubber float on its back. "No, wait just a second, Sybil. Wait'll we get out a little bit."

They waded out till the water was up to Sybil's waist. Then the young man picked her up and laid her down on her stomach on the float.

"Don't you ever wear a bathing cap or anything?" he asked.

"Don't let go," Sybil ordered. "You hold me, now."

"Miss Carpenter. Please. I know my business," the young man said. "You just keep your eyes open for any bananafish. This is a perfect day for bananafish."

"I don't see any," Sybil said.

"That's understandable. Their habits are very peculiar." He kept pushing the float. The water was not quite up to his chest. "They lead a very tragic life," he said. "You know what they do, Sybil?"

She shook her head.

"Well, they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas. They're very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I've known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas." He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. "Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again. Can't fit through the door."

"Not too far out," Sybil said. "What happens to them?"

"What happens to who?" "The bananafish."

"Oh, you mean after they eat so many bananas they can't get out of the banana hole?"

"Yes," said Sybil.

"Well, I hate to tell you, Sybil. They die." "Why?" asked Sybil.

"Well, they get banana fever. It's a terrible disease."

"Here comes a wave," Sybil said nervously.

"We'll ignore it. We'll snub it," said the young man. "Two snobs." He took Sybil's ankles in his hands and pressed down and forward. The float nosed over the top of the wave. The water soaked Sybil's blond hair, but her scream was full of pleasure.

With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported, "I just saw one."

"Saw what, my love?" "A bananafish."

"My God, no!" said the young man. "Did he have any bananas in his mouth?"

"Yes," said Sybil. "Six."

The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil's wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch.

"Hey!" said the owner of the foot, turning around.

"Hey, yourself We're going in now. You had enough?"

"No!"

"Sorry," he said, and pushed the float toward shore until Sybil got off it. He carried it the rest of the way.

"Goodbye," said Sybil, and ran without regret in the direction of the hotel.

The young man put on his robe, closed the lapels tight, and jammed his towel into his pocket. He picked up the slimy wet, cumbersome float and put it under his arm. He plodded alone through the soft, hot sand toward the hotel.

On the sub-main floor of the hotel, which the management directed bathers to use, a woman with zinc salve on her nose got into the elevator with the young man.

"I see you're looking at my feet," he said to her when the car was in motion.

"I beg your pardon?" said the woman. "I said I see you're looking at my feet."

"I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.

"If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it."

"Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.

The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.

"I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man. "Five, please." He took his room key out of his robe pocket.

He got off at the fifth floor, walked down the hall, and let himself into 507. The room smelled of new calfskin luggage and nail-lacquer remover.

He glanced at the girl lying asleep on one of the twin beds. Then he went over to one of the pieces of luggage, opened it, and from under a pile of shorts and undershirts he took out an Ortgies calibre 7.65 automatic. He released the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.

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yourdeepestfathoms · 5 years ago

Text

hate me, hate me, still tryna replace me

I’ve gotten several asks to go back to writing Jane and Kitty mother-daughter content so I’m finally obliging! Hope you guys enjoy :)

———————

“No, I’m sure Seymour’s just glad she found a fucking replacement for her son. I mean for what other reason would she show so much affection to her a servant?”

“She’s a servant. Probably to make her do her work. I would do that I mean, Joanne -or whatever her fucking name is- is always licking all over Seymour’s boots. She’s sure as hell replacing her son.”

“Yeah, what I said.”

Joan swallowed and turned on her heels, heading back to her dressing room. She had wanted to go to the break room to get some coffee for her and Jane, but when she had heard the the two tech workers talking, she stopped. Once she had heard them talking about her she had listened in. Now all she could hear was the laughter and faint chatter of the man and the woman in the break room.

Was she really a replacement for Edward? Surely, Jane would never even think of trying to replace her son. But what if she was? After all, queens are kinda unpredictable.

If Joan was truly just a replacement that must have meant that Jane had never actually loved her for who she was. That meant that Jane didn’t love Joan, she just loved the idea of having a child again. Tears gathered in the music director’s eyes as she sat back down at her desk. She began scribbling on her current paperwork when Jane walked in.

“Where’s the coffee? Did you forget? Where are your thoughts today, love?” She joked and then stopped when he saw Joan’s expression. “Sweetie?” Her tone softens, “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. The coffee machine was being used and I decided to come back later so I could spend more time finishing work. Then I might be able to leave on time today.”

Lying was always a thing that came easy to her. Unfortunately, it was hard to lie to herself, because, deep down, she knew. She couldn’t shield her mind from the truth.

She wished was a machine, incapable of feeling the heartbreak she was feeling at the prospect of her mother figure never actually loving her.

“Are you sure? You look pretty upset. Did someone say something?” Jane inquired, and knelt down next to the desk. “You know that Bessie and I told you to come to one of us if anyone gives you a hard time. If someone was rude to you, tell me and I’ll have a word with them.”

“No, Jane. I’m fine. Please don’t worry about me so much.”

“...Alright.”

Joan knew that Jane didn’t fully believe her, but that didn’t matter.

Joan went back to work, yet her mind kept racing around the conversation she had overheard. If she wasn’t Jane’s daughter, Katherine surely wasn’t either. Or maybe Katherine was Jane’s daughter. Maybe Katherine didn’t remind Jane of Edward as much as Joan did (even though she and Edward were two different genders). Maybe seeing Joan brought back memories of Jane’s past life, while Katherine didn’t, since they hadn’t know each other.

And if Jane didn’t love Joan for who she was and only loved the idea of having a kid again, then maybe she loved Katherine for who she was because she didn’t remind her of Edward that much.

Joan knew that she should have been happy that the young queen was loved and had a mother, but she couldn’t. It just wasn’t fair- Katherine didn’t even know Jane in her past life! Jane should love Joan more, not Katherine! Plus, Katherine was kinda annoying at times...

A terrible, gnawing jealously settled deep within Joan’s chest and she felt ashamed.

---

That night after a quiet walk home (she didn’t get to leave when everyone else did, but she only had to stay at the theater for an hour) and a dinner filled with concerned glances from the other ladies in waiting, Joan was settling into bed when Maria stepped in.

“Joey, are you sure you’re alright?” Joan’s dull mood hadn’t gone unnoticed by her roommates. “If you don’t want to talk to Bessie about it, I’m here. Maggie’s here.”

Joan just shook her head mutely, her eyes fixed on the floor. Maria moves from the doorway to sit beside her on the bed.

“Joan, you’re my little sister. I worry about you.” Maria said. “Will you please, please tell me what’s wrong? I even called off date night with Catalina because I’m worried sick.”

Joan hunched her shoulders in, guilt racing through her.

“Why don’t you go to Aragon then?” Joan said, and anger created by the anguish bubbles up. “I don’t need your help!”

Maria inches away from Joan on instinct.

“That’s not what I meant. I was just trying to-”

“To help.” Joan finished with a grumble. “Why? Because you’re just so nice? Because you think you’re better than me?”

“Joan, don’t be ridiculous.” Maria said, shocked and worried.

“Just leave me alone. I want to be alone.” Joan mumbled.

Maria is quiet for a moment then sighs. Joan hears it as a noise of annoyance.

“Alright.”

With that, she got up and started to head for the door.

“Good night, Joey. I love you.”

Joan doesn’t say it back.

Once Maria was gone, Joan buried her face into the pillow and started to cry. Not only did Jane not love her, but she was also sure that Maria would hate her, too, if she kept this up. Bessie and Maggie would probably follow along.

Truly, no one loved her.

---

When the next morning rolled around, Joan was not at work already for once, rather in the kitchen, preparing breakfast (as in “breakfast” she meant her medicine and cup of coffee). She didn’t even notice that Maria had come in until the drummer hugged her tightly from behind, trapping her in a strong embrace. She can’t help but lean into her warmth.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone yesterday.” Maria whispered. “You told me to leave but I should have stayed.”

Joan sighed miserably. “No, no I was in the wrong. You tried to be nice and be there for me and I was an asshole. I’m sorry, really. You did nothing wrong in leaving me.”

“I still feel bad.” Maria said and let go of Joan, taking a step back so that the younger girl could turn. When she did, she brushes some strands of hair out of the music director’s pale face. “What’s wrong?”

Joan looked up at Maria, her big lamb eyes glistening slightly. Maria looked so terribly worried that Joan felt horrible about not being honest with her. But she couldn’t really tell Maria what was bothering her so she had to come up with an excuse for her behavior.

“I had a fight with another person on tech and I was still shaken up by it.” Joan explained. It was a bad lie, despite her skill, and Maria seemed suspicious, but luckily she said nothing.

Joan’s relief over that fact was short lived when the ladies in waiting arrived at the theater for work. Jane immediately picked up on the way Joan avoided her, which was very strange because usually the girl is trying to get to her before Kitty can. Her motherly side flaring, she makes her way over to Joan’s office-like room and basically traps her inside by standing in the doorway, forcing her to have to talk with her.

“Joan, will you tell me what’s wrong?” Jane said, trying to mask the worry and irritation in her voice with gentleness. “I want to help you but for that to work you gotta communicate with me here.”

“I’m fine, Jane.” Joan whispered, ducking her head low, “I swear that I’m fine.”

“Joan, stop lying to me. Please tell me what’s bothering you. I want to help, sweetheart.”

“I’m not a replacement for your son!”

Jane stepped back, wincing. Her eyes widen when she full processes Joan’s words.

“D-don’t think I don’t know. You don’t love me, you just love the idea of having a child again.”

Jane didn’t react how Joan had expected her to react. She didn’t react with worry but with anger.

“You think I’m replacing Edward?” She seethed, “Fuck, are you- I mean how could you think I’m replacing my little boy? What kind of heartless fucking monster do you have to be to say something like that? I could never replace Edward! All I wanted to do was be a mother to you and Kitty and you say things like that to me?!”

“J-Jane, I-”

“I don’t want to fucking hear another word from you!” Jane roared, silencing Joan with her outburst and pure rage. “You can’t say things like that and then tell me you didn’t mean them or something!”

“I’m sorry.” Joan whispered. “I’m just-”

“Don’t talk to me.” Jane hissed, turning. “Just don’t fucking talk to me. Get ready for work.”

—————

When Kitty saw Jane pass with tears streaming down her face she was immediately worried.

She jumped up from her chair, where she had been mindlessly scrolling through her phone to pass the time before the show, and ran after Jane. She followed the woman into the bathroom and watched as she began splashing her reddened face with cold water. When Kitty called her name, she whirled around like a furious grey thundering and showed her teeth, seething in her spot.

“What?” She snarled.

Kitty flinched backwards at her tone. She never thought she would be on the receiving end of Jane’s fury- what had she done to make the woman so mad? She wracked her brain, but couldn’t think of anything. What did she do?!

“I-I-” Kitty stammered, frightened.

“Here to say I’m replacing you with Edward, too?” Jane growled, stalking towards Kitty as though she were going to hit her.

Kitty’s eyes widen at the statement and quickly began shaking her head.

“No!” She said, “I would never! That’s so horrible! Who would do such a thing?”

That seems to calm Jane slightly- as in she no longer is advancing on Kitty. She breathed out a shaky breath and spat, “Joan.”

Why wasn’t Kitty surprised? Joan has been jealous and agitated by her and Jane’s relationship ever since day one. Kitty wanted to laugh at the odds if it weren’t such an inappropriate thing to do at that current moment.

“Oh,” She whispered, sadness leaking into her voice. It must have been horrible- getting your child compared to someone you just see as a daughter figure. No wonder why Jane was so angry. “I’m so sorry, Jane... That’s so terrible... You don’t deserve that.”

Jane just sighed and brought a hand up to one of her eyes. Kitty saw a fresh tear roll down her cheek and her heart clenches for her mother. She takes a step towards her.

“Can I hug you or should I just go?”

“No-” Jane said breathily, her voice catching in her throat, “Come here, my love. Please.”

Kitty immediately obliged and soon she’s wrapped up in Jane’s warm arms. She hugs the silver queen tightly, as if she were trying to squeeze all the anguish and pain out of her.

“I’m so sorry, Jane,” Kitty mumbled against her chest. “You don’t deserve that... Just know that I would never do such a thing.”

“I know,” Jane sniffled, “I know, sweetheart. I know you wouldn’t. You aren’t like that.”

Kitty nodded and nuzzles closer to her mother, hoping it would bring her some comfort. It seems to work and she smiled slightly.

“I knew I’ve always been your favorite.” She giggled, trying to lighten the mood.

Jane hums and chuckled, but Kitty still takes it as agreement.

“My perfect girl,” Jane murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Kitty’s head. “My wonderful, perfect girl...”

———

Neither of them notice the figure standing in the doorway, peeking in through the half-open door. They watch with teary eyes before turning and running away.

What has she done?

#six the musical #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfiction #six ff #six fic #jane seymour #katherine howard #joan on the keys #maria on the drums

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panspy · 5 years ago

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Case #0181501

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Eide Burrows, regarding a man who may not have been her neighbor, and her hometown of Millport, Scotland. Original statement delivered through some folded sheets of notebook paper shoved under the office door while I was on a lunch break. Statement recorded January 15, 2018, audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

In the end, we’re all just shapes. Figures, either soft, angled, flat, or dimensional, all floating through space with only the hint of a purpose. I’ve always thought this made us pitiable. Shapes don’t have a purpose, their only use is to simply be. What is the meaning of a triangle? Any color, it doesn’t matter. How about a square? A dodecahedron? Exactly. It has no right to have that many sides all to itself, but it exists simply because we willed it into being. Shapes thinking of shapes.

Lines connect shapes and connect people. We have no reason to be, other than to just… exist. We think of shapes. Who thought of us? God, you could argue and many do. Argue about God, argue with God, argue in defense of God, argue against God. Argue, argue, argue. Just shapes arguing with shapes.

For the longest time, as far as I was concerned, Millport was nothing but shapes. Old buildings with new paint, old billboards with flashy new signs, old families run by new blood. Old ways and new people. They tried to cover up the old, and bury it like bones in a landfill. Cover it up along with the potholes with new asphalt and cement. Make it shiny and new. They still crack, anyway.

Hundreds of years, that town stood sturdy on soft ground. Founded by confident men with high hopes, big dreams, bigger egos, and empty pockets. Dreams make you blind, but people like to invest in them. Dreams give shapes a purpose, don’t they? Confidence fools others, and eventually fools yourself. Have you ever gone unnoticed in a place you’re not meant to be? If you walk with your head held high and false arrogance, people will believe you belong with them. For either to believe this façade makes them a fool. Not that anyone really belongs anywhere, and we’re all just foolish enough to believe it. Foolish shapes believing other foolish shapes.

I’ve always reckoned that it’s easier to be confident on uncertain legs than to fear falling on steady ground. Watching a frightened child stepping along a wide, even plank at the park is more likely to fall than a tightrope walker on a flimsy wire. Tightrope walkers are triangles, balanced and perfect. Children are parallelograms. Misshapen. Lopsided.

All the children in Millport are parallelograms. Some are flat and one dimensional, others forever rotating on an axis to show off their sides. Never the same for more than a day- I kept track. The adults were a variety of evolved and ever-changing polygons. But for some reason when I was little, looking at all these shapes going about their pretend lives, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t a polygon when the world seemed to be filled with them. When I looked at my skin, it was soft and squished under touch. My hair was coarse, dull, and brown, unlike my mothers which was static with energy and never quite the same after you blinked. My face was asymmetrical too, as many shapes are. Eyes that seemed to be too big, ears that poke out a bit too much, bags that never went away… well, I don’t think they did anyways. You have to understand, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. After a childhood of feeling as though the world hadn’t been fair enough to make me a nice red square, I just accepted it. I learned not to mind my lack of shape, and felt content to be liminal.

The first time I decided to look further into what made the town fit together into the odd puzzle it was, was the Masonic Lodge on the empty lot of Seymour and Drummond. It was always changing, not that it mattered enough to give it a second thought. In the morning, it could be a red trapezoid but by noon it would shift into a cracked yellow octagon. Personally I always preferred the trapezoid. The men who entered in the evening but never seemed to exit in the morning were also known to change. Whether by name, appearance, age, or multitude… who went in did not dictate who went home. Not that anyone cared about that, either.

When I was feeling especially curious, I would watch them enter from the dim car park away from a flickering old street lamp. As nights went by and I felt brave enough to stand directly under it, I found it made no difference as they never even looked at my direction. By the morning, the cars would be gone and the men allegedly returned home to their spouses and families. And I would leave, deciding to return again at the next meeting whenever I felt the disturbing pull in my stomach beckoning me to witness it. The scheduled days varied, but was always twice a week starting at 8:12 pm and ending when the street light flickered, shrouding the building and parked vehicles in darkness, then flickering on again to show an empty lot. They never met on Tuesdays.

My mother worked down the street at the Birdie’s Bed & Breakfast to help Bertha Goodwin when the old woman needed assistance navigating the cottage she’d rented her whole life, it seemed like. Bertha, though we always called her Birdie, was in her late seventies when I was born, and she was in her late seventies when I left for college. She was still in her late seventies when I returned home the next fall with nothing to show for it and a mother who didn’t even acknowledge I had gone in the first place. Not that they even noticed when I was living with them as a child either. When they deemed me old enough to care for myself, Mum would leave in the mornings with a freshly ironed apron, cleaning supplies I never saw opened, and my Dad would leave to work on blueprints of buildings I never saw built. After staring at my ceiling for hours, distracting myself with faded stars stuck up with putty and cracks in the walls, I would leave my blue square of a house and wander the streets looking for a clue to a mystery I wasn’t quite sure existed.

I tried to be academic, I really did. I wanted to leave that old town and its jagged shapes and build something for myself, but the longer I spent away the pit in my stomach grew more and even looking in the mirror hurt my eyes. I couldn’t feel the softness of my skin anymore. It felt like plastic. The faces of my classmates were static and boring-- none of them pulsed with the same energy as the people back home and all sounded the same. After barely a year I couldn’t take it and moved back home. The school didn’t even call to finalize my resignation.

As a child who grew up with strange disappearances monthly (Birdie said Misses Morgan moved to the States, but her car still collected leaves in the drive), stores popping up that never seemed to stay, and the absence of new neighbors, nothing was too out of the ordinary for us. But I’ve read some of the other statements, Jon, and it seems nothing was quite ordinary at all. Construction workers would vanish and it would rarely make the papers. The opening of a new chip shop was a blessing, but no one would ever be able to go more than twice before it was on its way out of town and replaced with some new fad.

Until the year the cemetery flooded and the school gymnasium roof caved in, about 2006 (it’s hard to beep track of the years), I didn’t think extraordinary could exist. Or at least not in any way that mattered. That was the year the Abbott’s moved in to the house on Cowley Lane, a house I had only ever seen out of the corner of my eye. On a street filled with shapes, this was a straight line.

They arrived as most families do, escaping an unpleasant moment in time by “starting fresh” and “turning over a new leaf”. I never quite understood that expression, as turning over a new leaf does not negate the old one. By turning over a leaf with a sullied edge to admire the green underside, it still remains the same leaf. Turning over a new leaf simply means the old one is left to decompose while you find a crisp, untarnished leaf, while the other still has a perfectly acceptable side to be admired. And, as most families do, they leave the unsightly leaf to be buried with the hundreds of others they’ve “turned over” and promise to change. The promises stay, but are never quite redeemed. Sorry, I got carried away… it's hard to find things to be passionate about these days. I'll continue.

The Abbotts integrated as well as they could, two children ready to attend school no matter the construction work in the gym or the fact it was well into November, and a third to stay at home as infants are wont to do. They threw a barbecue to get to know the neighbors, and the whole village attended bringing their own family recipes and baked desserts. I stayed home.

The Abbott's father, Mark, gained a quick job as an iron-worker while his wife (I never knew her name) stayed indoors looking after the baby. I’d see him in the mine, hacking away at rusty cars and rail too old to use and loading the scraps to be taken away. Hours, I’d watch, as he compressed the piles and laid the new framework to keep unwanted visitors from being crushed to death by eroding stone walls. The day he was called to help install the new wrought iron fence where the cemetery flooded and washed away, I followed him there too. Wherever he went, the shapes that once filled the town lost their vibrancy. Instead of fluctuating between tetrahedrons and prisms, they became either stagnant or frantic. Everything at once, or nothing at all.

I watched him dig in the downtrodden soil, unearthing rectangular caskets and hexagonal coffins. The rain that year had brought landslides and sinkholes, most destructive in the cemetery just outside town and disturbing the dead where they slept. Headstones, monuments, and mementos washed away and sank into the soft dirt, the running fence encircling the land broken up and dragged along with it. Once an infinite circle that cut the burial grounds off from the rest of the puzzle, the shape was now distorted and wrong. Without gate to close and make it whole again, I felt the muted shape of the cemetery slip away and become a tangled mess of string.

He dug for hours until the orange circle of a sun lowered itself behind the branches of the forest and their quickly disappearing leaves. Moving from one plot to the other, from the pristine headstones of recent years down to the protruding stones with names barely legible beneath the moss and decades of wear. Digging, digging, digging, all the while the formless fence to-be remained untouched. When the sky turned dark and snow clouds threatened to shed their weight, I finally turned my back on Mark and left him alone with the dead for the first time all evening, the man seeming blissfully unaware he hadn’t been alone in the first place at all.

The next morning when I went to check on his new project, the buildings along the way had lost their shape. No longer were streets lined with sturdy trapezoids, rectangles, and prisms. The colors were off, like a child with a crayon who had not yet learned the concept of limitation. They bled into each other and polluted the air, cracked frames unable to hold them back. The air tasted like static and I couldn't feel the ground beneath my boots.

By the time I got to the clearing, the holes had been filled and the new fence had taken shape in towering columns that crawled and stretched like spider webs across the dying grass. It was the same dirt, the same stone, trees, and air, but it did not feel like the cemetery I had watched be torn away the night before. I felt a chill settle in my bones and leave as quickly as it came like waiting for pain after burning your finger on a hot mug. From all my observing of the town, never once has a feeling ever driven me to run far away until what I was seeing before me was but an afterthought.

I passed by the Abbotts house, static growing stronger until I could barely hear the crunch of leaves or gravel beneath my feet. Only the wife's car was in the drive and a fresh coat of snow indicated there had only been the one all night, and the black pick-up Mark drove was nowhere to be seen. The sign on their door was new, barely two months old, but as I looked at it, truly looked at it, did it appear to have aged to rot. Abbott’s House it said in curvy lettering (with all the determination of a line pretending to be something it’s not) with five handprints beneath for each family member. Five. Mother, three kids, and… now four. The longer I thought about it, the longer I stared, trying to blink away the dots that kept getting in the way of my vision, the more my eyes convinced me there had always been four. Never two cars, never five hands. Through my haze, I barely felt my feet take me home. Even when I layed down to rest in a foreign looking room, I decided that my childhood mystery, a fantasy I had grown to accept, had found another clue and a little bit more of the town chipped away. Mark didn’t show up for work anymore.

Little things were changing, it just took a trained eye to notice. You don’t have to be a detective to see the details, sometimes you just have to be very, very afraid. The sign for Birdies Bed & Breakfast was now spelled with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’, and the apron my mother wore was now a faded lilac instead of a robin’s egg blue. The oak tree that stood tall in our backyard, old as the town itself with a slow swinging hammock tied to the branches, was now a young birch. I likened it to two puzzles cut from the same machine. Different pictures with pieces that fit together only in the most literal sense. The longer I noticed, the more I wondered which puzzle was truly mine, and which one was slowly being replaced.

Each morning the static filled my nose, irritated my eyes, and clouded my ears with a soft dizzying hum that slowly drowned out my senses. The shapes that made up my entire world were broken, dull, and chipping away until everything I knew was muddled and loud.

It was only when I woke up in an empty room, no posters, cardboard boxes, or dirty clothes, I found my feet barely touched the floor. I felt weightless as I wandered down to the kitchen where Mum usually got ready, feeling as though the back of my eyes were filled with cotton. There were only two seats sat at the dining table, and when I tried to open my mouth to speak my tongue tasted like ash.

Before I could blink or even cry, suddenly I was in the street. Red shapes filled my periphery and everything between, and the town was gone. A red sky bled into the houses, cars, and potholes cremating them like the dead. I felt myself falling away from my body and I finally saw my shape. It was a shifting mass of angles and colors and somehow I just knew it was me. When I finally did cry, smaller shapes fell from her eyes copying the drops that fell from mine. Was it out of malice? Pity? Understanding? Was she crying because she shared my pain or was she just a cheap reflection of who I thought I was or simply longed to be?

It’s been a while since I’ve been here, in this black and red. She still mocks me. Radiant and pulsing with color while I exist with imitation soft skin and coarse hair. They’re the only things I can be sure of, as I haven’t seen my face in a long time. Only hers. Now I’m not sure who she is, but she’s the only company in this void. Until I saw your shape, Jon. Blue and black polygons blinking between colors with the beat of a foreign heart. You lead me here to a library of pain that reflected my own, a reprieve from the emptiness I’ve been floating in. Maybe if I tell you my story you can bring me back to the shape of your world? I suppose only time will tell, and I have an eternity to wait.

Waiting for someone to save the outline of a person who isn’t sure they ever existed at all.

#tma #the magnus archives oc #the magnus archives #tma oc #case fic #case file #statement #fan statement #tma fanfic #my writing #the spiral #podcast #eide burrows #fan case #jon sims #jonathan sims

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sporadicarbitergardener · 1 year ago

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October 3, 2023

Even as a woman who knows how to rap and sing holding your head up means each day trying something new. Learning natural remedies to get by and survive.

Letting go of the past helps to rebuild a future. Love will never have a title, or even a label on it. Love covers multitude of sins because well love is a big thing and everyone wants soemthing from you.

Your own family will even take from you for their own blessings. Nots a child's father though because well not even for a new woman. My life will Never go into another womans pockets to benefit her. Thats what you call a string theroy. Another female will do anything she can to build a case on a man or even manipulate about a mans past as well. Its crazy. Females lie and do as they are coached by even their own mommas because of groups, packs etc. I raised alot of wolves, thats the oath as a God mother. No matter what anyone says to me . I know my life and I view things . Sometimes we all do a job without getting paid because well even working 2 jobs with a child on my hip was easy for me. Truth women are suppose to stay home. RIght now its the year for women to reflect and fall back and chill out because alot of women like to be messy and evil. To get back at ex boyfriends or even the baby mommas of a cukoo babys father. Lawyers are drawing up and even sueing and talking shit because money became the rue of all evil. Sometimes you have to even watch your exboyfriends back . Love is there with loyalty. Loyalty is huge. Bigger than what any check can buy. My father always carried a wait on his shoulder and well im carrying it as well.

Love is confusing but reflecting on my dads past back with Mrs. Karen Smith my old counselor Mrs. Katherine Blankenship "found". Who always kept notes of my life she translated my way of expressing how I seen ghost to my father.

Momma Kat even looked at him worried as well. He looked at me and said "Her momma played with playing cards."

Glenn Ray Seymour never raped me or used me he actually always gave me money behind momma cats back because she kept his ass straight and always in check. She always felt that I hated her when I didn't maturing and getting older before he got arrested July 22, 2009 I remember seeing her lock herself in the room because my dad was having addiction issues. He broke her heart, and trust. When they investigated his case she asked me if I wanted to stay in her custody because she did love me. Now that I am off the meth and being very honest not caring anymore because at the end of the day truth is needed. Love is seen differently now and getting older. Looking into how I see things differently getting older it brings pain I never realized because sometimes its amazing that my dad had her as a wife as well she was trying her best to keep him away from things that felt toxic best of her knowledge. I was a asshole back in 2017 when my grandmother " Jackie Lachney died and I blew up on this women as well. Her wisdom she taught me really has hit me again. I was always wise with my father's money because I even thought about my two other baby brothers future.

Thats love from a far. Money can't replace a father.

Or even a mother. Really realizing blood will never matter when I reflect. If my daddy wasn't silly and trying to be something different he would have never got in trouble. Before the age of 12 children can see ghosts. Yeah, when a women says she can feel spirits or see ghosts makes the eye of even men look at women crazy because of spirituality reasoning.

No matter what we do even as a baby momma , your suppose to watch from a distance over family because knowing alot of people can be scary . Now when its blood. Noone has the right to say fuck because family is family and man or woman either need to learn to adapt to the family or get the hell because as life goes on love will never be forgotten. I was always taught keep your head up. Pain hurts and emotions over turmoil alot but that is why there is techniques that you pick up on life to let that pain out because no matter what anyone says. Family means no matter what . Vengeance is evil. Thats why as life goes on . You learn to let things go because you never really know who really has your back behind a screen.

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a-little-slice-of-fandom · 5 years ago

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I'm not sure if I'm supposed to ask or submit this, but if you haven't done Jane yet I'd like one (analysis). I always thought Heart of Stone was much more than just about Jane greiving not being with her son, but maybe also like commentary on how wives (especially in the Tudor era) are meant to bite their tongues and keep everything under control no matter their actual feelings

Hi love!!!

So Seymour is incredibly interesting to me as a character for so many reasons, and is a shinning example to me of why Six is such a fantastic show for female characters and female representation.

For Heart of Stone itself, I think it’s sort of like Don’t Lose Ur Head in where there’s loads of subtle messages and character development throughout but you maybe have to listen to the song a few times to fully get the messages, unlike say All You Wanna Do or even Get Down which are much more open about what they’re trying to say. Seymour goes through this character development (much in the same way Howard does), of realising that even though she loves Henry, he doesn’t love her in the same way and that she is utterly replaceable to him.

And while there’s definitely some commentary in there about how women were treated in the Tudor era, with Seymour acknowledging her worth is directly tied to her son, and while I would argue that that theme is discussed more in relation to Aragon rather than Seymour, it goes to explain a lot of their actions throughout the show. Both these characters are portrayed as incredibly argumentative throughout Six, which makes sense when you think that this might be the first time that they’re allowed to be argumentative and stand their ground and fight back against the horrible things that people are saying about them. Seymour (and Aragon) are no longer tied to Tudor ideals. They have a voice now and they going to use it. And while this character trait is generally played for laughs in the show, it actually becomes quite sad if you think about it too long and too hard.

My only issues with HoS is that some of the original lyrics from the student run actually worked better in my opinion, but that’s a whole other thing that I don’t have time to get into right now. AND I’m actually not a massive Adele fan/ a fan or slower songs in general so I’m usually more interested in the second half of the song than the first half. I would have LOVED a HoS that was closer to a Sia song like Chandelier or Titanium you know?)

One thing I’d also like to quickly draw everyone’s attention to is Seymour’s outfit. A main cast Seymour is the only queen (main cast or alternate) to wear a dress, while also having long hair that’s worn mostly down. While clothes and hair obviously have no gender and anyone can wear anything, Seymour’s costume is probably the most typically feminine out of all the queens and directly contrasts the more masculine coded costumes that Cleves and Parr wear. This links into Seymour representing the more traditional side of feminity, being linked most obviously motherhood but also the role of a wife or “homemaker”. Her love is unconditional...and that’s not something she needs to be ashamed about. Love is a strength, not a weakness, and it’s celebrated as such.

Speaking of which Six doesn’t ever tear down traditional ideals of feminity to bring up newer ideals or preconceptions. For example, Seymour’s more demure attitude is never frowned upon by the others in order to praise Cleves more confident and bold personality. Yes, the queens themselves argue amongst one another and bicker about who had it hardest, but the show itself (and Toby/Lucy) doesn’t seem to favour one or the other or believe women should strive to be one or the other. The show essentially boils down to telling the audience that ALL women should be respected and represented, including those who simply might prefer more traditional gender roles like Seymour. There’s nothing wrong with adhering to them or rejecting them, it’s forcing them on someone that Six frowns upon.

It’s just,,,refreshing to have a character who is celebrated for their feminity and for their pride in being a mother, rather than torn down or frowned upon in favour of other female characters who conform to more stereotypical versions of female empowerment, like the brooding/stoic woman who feels nothing (which six has none of!!! Thank god!!!)

But Seymour isn’t this goody-two-shoes queen or the Mary-sue character of the show either! She’s an incredibly flawed individual, just like the other five queens, with her main strength of her love for her son leading her to be incredibly defensive over her situation. And again, I do think this makes sense? Firstly, Seymour is written off in the show in the same way she’s generally written off in history, so her wanting to stand her ground and defend herself/her situation(which definitely could not have been easy for her. Remember Henry warned her about Boleyn’s fate after Seymour tried to challenge him...) makes perfect sense! And secondly, I genuinely think Seymour has some form of attachment issue to Edward. The way seymour acts in the show honestly reminds me of someone who has lost their baby for whatever reason and simply can’t cope with that loss. She’s practically obsessed with this concept of motherhood and of her son. Yes, that’s what she’s usually tied to throughout history but for some reason Seymour makes me think of a guilty parent who blames themself for something that was completely out of their control. I don’t think this takes away from the theme motherhood being a strength that Seymour also is a fantastic champion of, but I do think it’s a really interesting layer to her character. Maybe I’m grasping at straws with this, but I do just see Seymour as someone with an intense amount of grief that she’s unable to address in a healthy way.

So that’s my general opinions on Seymour as a character! While HoS isn’t necessarily my favourite song of the show, I do actually really enjoy Seymour as a character (as she has some of my favourite lines in the show) and what Toby and Lucy managed to accomplish with her as a character.

Hope this explains my feelings well love ❤️❤️❤️ I’ve got a few people asking me to discuss Cleves so that will be my next post!

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