#Like most of my stories house characters with mostly exotic names

[welcometomybraincomics]

I was talking to one of my friends about names and characters recently and it occurred to me that I have very few Average Person names

[thefirstknife]

The Thread Unfurls Against the Clocks: Saint-14 and how we saved him

Hello. It's time. I already did one summary of how we saved Saint, but I want to go even more in-depth because I later realised that so much of this is unavailable and also happened so long ago that most people don't even know where to look for it and what to look for. I also want to address all the adjacent lore like the stuff about the Sundial and also how it all relates to the current plot.

Finally, I want this to serve as an explanation that there's something very weird going on and that the Saint we have is the real Saint. I've seen people already super resigned after this week's story, simply accepting that there was a reveal that he is truly the "wrong" Saint. I want to analyse all we have on Saint in-depth and focus on how we saved him to show the level of detail involved because I think it's important to understand things in the episode.

Obviously, really compelling lore changes can happen and work out, but in this case I'm just not feeling it, for various reasons. We'll see, but I still think this is worth putting together and that we have plenty of indications that we saved him "correctly" so to speak.

Saint is a unanimously beloved character and one that is so closely linked to our player character as well. The setup for his return was established so long ago and was kept consistent the entire time. I feel like the stuff in Echoes is almost like a culmination of it all, as well as a reminder about what we've done. We'll suffer for a bit for sure but there is no doubt in my mind that Saint will come from this safe and healed. No matter what ends up being revealed, I believe he will be fine.

Contents! Long post under. Spoilers for Echoes Act 2, mostly just in the Echoes section.

Intro

Curse of Osiris quest

Season of Dawn

What's up with the Sundial?

Echoes

Intro

I'm not sure how familiar people are with the full scope of Saint-14, but he's been a character since the beginning. We didn't know much about him at all; the first mention was in vanilla D1 in this grimoire about the Darkness, listing what various characters think about it. Saint's thoughts:

Saint-14's Position argues that the Darkness was an invading armada, an alien force of incredible - but tangible - power. Some adherents believe that this armada sprang from species rejected or discarded by the Traveler for their sins.

All things considered, he wasn't that far off! Really cool detail, but this lore was referenced in TFS, in the lore book Chirality, and especially Saint's bit:

* Saint-14's Position is the most eminently practical of the bunch, no matter how the man himself protests that such an obvious facet of the truth doesn't require a formal philosophical stance to be named for him.

There's 10 years separating these lore pieces! But they're still being referenced because there are some incredible nerds writing this.

This doesn't tell us much about Saint, besides that he's thinking in very practical terms. He views the Darkness as something that can be fought back. Note that at the start we don't know anything else about him, not even if he's a Guardian. In House of Wolves, we get this lore where the author (the Speaker) is going off about Osiris. We get a little piece about Saint; Saint-14 suggested that Osiris should become Vanguard Commander and also vouched for Osiris. This was the first piece of info that these two are familiar with each other. How far we've come since!

After that, we get his helmet as an exotic in The Taken King (though it has no lore other than the flavour text) and a little bit of insight into him with the first proper lore tab that actually features him as a character. It shows his iconic headbutt and ends with him deciding to follow Osiris to Mercury. A few little details are mentioned in flavour text on the following items, mostly quotes about or from Saint: 1, 2, 3, 4. Number 3 is interesting:

"Stand with your back to the Wall, and not even the Darkness itself will move you." —Saint-14

Remember that!

There's a few more in Rise of Iron, again, just flavour text. He's really funny here, and being his usual heroic self here. That's it for his stuff in D1. Saint-14 was some sort of historic figure, he was a Titan, he fought in historic battles, he fought against the Eliksni and he had some sort of connection with the Speaker and Osiris. He was a practical man, a warrior and a protector.

He wasn't really a full character or anything and only had a few quotes and one lore tab where he actually does something. But the stage was set! He was clearly a character they wanted to explore and they did, in Curse of Osiris.

Curse of Osiris quest

Curse of Osiris returned his helmet as an exotic item and immediately gave us hints about the expansion of Saint-14's character and where they're leading him. The lore tab on the exotic is a conversation between Cayde-6 and Lord Shaxx where Cayde-6 insists that Saint is not dead, while Shaxx is just kind of resigned to it. Cayde also notes that Saint was a "weirdo:"

C6: No one ever put down a Kell faster than he could. But man, he was a real weirdo. SX: Eccentricity was his strength. C6: Talking about the Speaker like you're related to him is eccentric. Claiming he's seen the future, that he fought Six Fronts fueled on the idea that some Guardian savior is coming? That's insane.

Wait a minute. Saint-14 claimed he's seen the future and that he believed in "some Guardian savior"? What's that about? Wink wink. Nudge nudge. To make things even more obvious, the remaining conversation is... about the Young Wolf:

SX: Belief is a hell of a thing. C6: Sure, yeah. One Guardian's going to fix everything. Kick Crota off the Moon. Make it look like us Vanguard know our head from our hindquarters. Hey, where are you going? SX: One of the new recruits from Old Russia I've had my eye on—entering the Crucible for the first time. C6: Hey, maybe they're the one. We'll call 'em Crota's End.

Maybe Cayde should've started making prophecies too! But yeah. This was the first proper hint about what they cooked up for Saint's story. Saint has apparently seen the future and believed in a "Guardian savior" and he fought for the City fuelled by this belief. Very interesting! To make things weirder, there's Saint-14's Gray Pigeon which also features some strange lore at the end where Saint addresses an unknown person:

To my inspiration. Your final gift to me I now send back to you. It will be good to see you again.

This was wild to read at the time because it clearly references something that we don't know about, but that's incredibly important to Saint. The theory was that he might be talking to us, the Young Wolf, but how?

That's where the quest comes in. Curse famously didn't have a lot of content, but it did have the post-campaign quest with Lost Prophecies. They were a set of quests where we essentially had to collect items to transform "prophecy tablets" into weapons in the Infinite Forge which was a sort of interactable area in the Lighthouse on Mercury:

There were a total of 11 of these, with the final one being to acquire the Perfect Paradox. Each weapon came with a prophecy in the flavour text and a lore tab. The final one however, Perfect Paradox, triggered a whole separate quest in two parts. In part one, we discover an old Vanguard comm signal coming from the Forest which we follow and analyse to discover that the signal is from Saint-14.

Detecting traces of familiar Light up here. Wait… Saint-14? He's been missing for decades. Saint was one of the greatest Titans who ever lived. Hero of Six Fronts. All that power and he just… vanished. The City's still looking for him.

This quest also features this conversation from Osiris and Sagira:

Osiris: If Saint-14 is lost in the Infinite Forest, it's because he came here to find us. Sagira: You can't blame yourself for every missing Guardian, Osiris. Osiris: For him I can.

If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how many emotions this gives you), you can hear this line from Sagira in Presage. This is where it comes from!

The quest is kinda set up in a way to make you think we'll actually be saving Saint here. We finally found his comm signal and it's leading us into the Forest. He's clearly affected the Vex and the Forest with his Light and he's fighting back. Osiris gets involved and urges us to find him. The whole thing feels like we're doing what we usually do; find a problem and fix it.

Part two of the quest continues in a similar vein. The quest is called "Not even the Darkness," btw. Remember that quote from Saint from The Taken King? Yeah. Anyway, we go back to following the trace leading us to Saint, into the Infinite Forest, this time into a simulated future. There, the Vex get alerted and summon a big Minotaur; Hagios, Reverent Mind (whose name means "sacred" in Greek, so essentially... Saint). We kill the Minotaur and then the area behind it opens; it appears to have been guarding it.

When it opens, we're treated to a bittersweet sight:

The area is beautiful, but it's a tomb. Saint-14's body is laid out like this in a pillar of light, surrounded by piles and piles of dead Vex. The Vex fought him for an unknown amount of time and they ended up respecting him; enough to create a tomb and seal his body and set a whole Vex mind to guard it, and apparently, revere it. Despite how hopeful we've been about saving him, he is dead.

As we approach his body, we take the remains of his personal weapon. Back at the Lighthouse, we use these remains and the prophecy to craft the weapon as it was; Perfect Paradox shotgun. The prophecy attached to it:

A tale that's different from the rest: the thread unfurls against the clocks. The one the Speaker loved the best must have a perfect paradox.

The prophecy is from Osiris, of course, which means that at some point when he was making them, he already knew about the strange fate of Saint-14. Not that he is dead; Osiris hoped to find him in the Forest. But his prophecy talks about time travel and a paradox. In the lore tab itself, Saint attached a letter to the gun in which he once again addresses a mysterious person. This person is now definitively identified as us:

All I have left is this weapon. The Cryptarchs say you crafted it yourself, built it out of scraps and Light and sheer will, inside the Infinite Forge. I'll make sure it finds its way back to you.

Well that's correct. We crafted the weapon in the Infinite Forge. But we only did so after recovering its remains from Saint's body, so how could he have had the gun in the first place? Almost like... there's some sort of a time travel paradox involved. This was naturally bizarre at the time; we had nothing else on Saint or any of this during this quest, just these vague baffling hints that there's more to the story. Especially since it involves our character; Saint repeatedly talks as if he had already met us. He says so in the letter as well:

I mourn that I will never reach the heights you have. To me, you represent everything a Guardian can become. Yours is a thriving City. So different from mine. My whole fourteenth life I fought to make my City yours. I never finished.

He knows that our City is thriving and that we are "everything a Guardian can become." But we've never seen him before. This was really confusing and there was also not even a promise that it would be resolved. But it felt like something that they cared about deeply.

It would take 3 years until we got the resolution.

Season of Dawn

This is a big one in general because they really wanted to be as attentive to all details as possible. Even before the season started, they released several weblore pieces to remind us of Saint and bring up some important information.

The first one was The Accolade, about Saint's past and heroic deeds revolving around saving people. The weblore focuses on explaining what his "accolades" are; aka his purple ribbons on his armour and ship. They're gifts from people he saved; tokens of appreciation that turned into a type of a ritual with Saint. If you're saved by Saint, you have to give him something purple and he will wear it with him and remember your name. It ends with Osiris shortly after we found Saint's grave. Osiris went to see it for himself, to check, to make sure. He also laments that he never asked about the ribbons.

The next one is a glimpse into the past, a conversation between Osiris and Saint as Saint hands him the Vanguard Commander title. It's a good look into how that all happened, as well as the differences in approach and beliefs between Osiris and Saint.

And then they released The Sundial weblore (TW for suicide if you're reading the full weblore. One of his Echoes does not have a good time). Osiris is found on Mercury with a machine he built, putting finishing touches on it. It's called the Sundial. Osiris built it in response to Saint being dead, the implication very much being that he intends to use some form of time travel or some other time shenanigans to change the outcome and save him. Osiris never recovered from learning that he's dead and from seeing his dead body in the tomb. The design is Sagira's, and he's also helped by Drifter, who shows up to check the math. I'll go more into the Sundial later.

Osiris wraps up his work on it and turns it on. He splits into his Echoes and enters the machine to start searching through Saint's timeline on Mercury with the intent to find the right moment with the right Saint to save him; he is specifically looking for the moment when they drain his Light.

Osiris’s Echoes scour Saint-14’s timeline on Mercury. But the corridors of time refuse to give way to the moment they need: Saint and the Martyr Mind in the depths of the Infinite Forest. The Echoes work tirelessly for weeks, then months in the space between moments. In desperation, he splits the dozen copies into many thousands more as the work continues fruitlessly.

Osiris experiences what the kids these days call "epic fail."

None of the Echoes ever approaches a Saint. They never find the right one.

Despite all the work put into this machine and all of his knowledge and skill, Osiris doesn't manage to use the Sundial successfully. He never finds the right moment and he never saves him. It's worth noting that when Osiris used thousands of his Echoes, he experienced the time and life of every single one. But for Osiris outside the Sundial, it's only been a few moments. In those few moments, he essentially lived thousands of lifetimes. And died thousands of times. I need people to understand the amount of effort he put into this and what kind of an emotional toll it had.

Completely defeated, he gives up and hides the Sundial. He moves on with his life, doing what he always does, until stuff suddenly changes, which is explored in the next weblore: Actions of Mutual Friends. Us killing the Undying Mind in the season before Dawn changed everything, for the Vex and everyone else. We essentially created a point of divergence. The Vex suddenly had to change their projections of the future; Osiris noticed this and got very concerned.

While he wasn't looking, his Sundial was found, by Psion sisters. They figure out the potential of the Sundial and work to reactivate it, which they succeed in. The Red Legion descends on Mercury, looking to use the Sundial to essentially rewrite the course of the Red War and win.

Osiris finds out and goes to Ikora, to the City, to ask for help. This is the topic of the next weblore: Desperate Times. Osiris defends his choice to make the Sundial to save Saint, despite everybody else basically trying to explain to him that the universe might implode because of it.

This is a lot of setup, but it's necessary. It all leads into what happens in the season and what the season revolves around; saving Saint. It wasn't even a secret, as they very clearly showed it right away in the trailer (best trailer they've ever done). The seasonal gameplay revolved around us using the Sundial to defeat the Red Legion and stop them from trying to figure out how to essentially change the course of history. We had to fight three different Psion bosses, one of each of the sisters, until the end, when the three of them joined together into a single Psion entity for us to defeat.

As we were using the Sundial for this, Osiris also told us about what he made it for originally. He explains a little bit about it and about his failure to succeed, then warns us against using it for ourselves, but doesn't stop us.

I told you before - I tried to save Saint-14. I bent the rules of time using a prototype of the Sundial. It allowed me to walk the corridors of time here on Mercury. But I failed. I never found Saint's final moment against the Vex. I encountered younger versions from his first mission to Mercury, among others. But none were the right Saint. The prototype Sundial still exists, accessible off the main deck. And it can still travel through Saint's personal timeline on this planet. But venture there at your own peril. He cannot be saved. I have walked every permutation of those corridors with a hundred thousand of my Echoes and found nothing. Saint-14 is lost.

Despite this, we make the attempt and then the first part of the quest starts. When we use it, the Sundial reacts. It reacts specifically to the Perfect Paradox:

The Shotgun you crafted in the Infinite Forge is reacting to the Sundial! An onboard transponder is broadcasting coordinates: a path through the Sundial, crossing two time periods. The prophecy blueprint you used to create the Perfect Paradox must have included this broadcast. If you can open up the initial chamber, I can align us to the first time period the broadcast is referencing.

The two time periods are two points in time where it's relevant that we meed with Saint. The first one is in the Dark Age, when he came to Mercury with civilians in an attempt to reclaim the planet and help the struggling population of Earth with resources and possibly old Golden Age technologies. We connect to Saint via comms. He is devastated and demoralised. He failed to protect his people and he's also under siege by the Eliksni and is more or less resigned to dying. Lucky for him, we get there in time to help him out of this situation.

After the battle, we talk to him. Our Ghost hesitates a little but then decides to do it anyway; he shows Saint the projection of the Last City from the future, to prove to him that the everything will be fine if he continues to fight and stays hopeful. We also give him the Perfect Paradox, to help him fight. The loop is set! This gun was crafted in the future and was brought to the past. In time, Saint will die with it and we will pick up its remains from his body, allowing us to craft it in the first place.

Saint-14: What is this? Ghost: The Perfect Paradox. Built by my Guardian out of spare parts and Light and sheer will to aid you.

More importantly, this is the moment that Saint spoke of to other people that made him seem crazy. As we've seen in lore from years before, Saint kept saying that he saw a thriving City and that there's some sort of Guardian savior coming and that he's seen this future. He also wrote in that letter how we gave him the shotgun and how we saved him. This part of the quest is constructed around this lore. This moment is what Saint remembered and talked about. We saved him and invigorated his will to keep going. This is why he is the way he is.

We part ways and leave the Sundial. Ghost immediately goes to check if we messed anything up and to let us know that there's one more point in time to go to:

Okay, let's check the Tower databases to make sure we didn't just wreck the entire timeline. Queuing "Saint-14"… Records state he was a former Commander of the Tower. He vanished on a final mission to Mercury in search of the exiled Warlock Osiris. Well, those are the big beats. Timeline intact. Good job, Saint. But our trip's not over. That broadcast I picked off the Perfect Paradox marked one more set of coordinates within the Sundial.

The second part of the quest started a bit later, but it doesn't waste any time once it does. We're immediately linked up to the other point in time that Perfect Paradox reacted to and we're back in simulated future, in the same area where back in Curse we fought Hagios who guarded the entry to Saint's tomb. Except now, we find Saint who has just had his Light drained from him by another Vex mind; Agioktis, Martyr Mind (note that the name is more or less in the same vein as "hagios," aka "sacred," dedicated to Saint). This is the moment Osiris was looking for, but couldn't find it, because he didn't have the Perfect Paradox.

This is the Vex mind they built to destroy Saint and we find him as his Light has already been taken. But Saint is still eager to fight and greets us happily. Unfortunately Saint is then restrained, the Vex doing everything in their power to kill him. However, this time he's not alone. We're there and we fight in his stead. We manage to piss off the Martyr Mind enough for it to now move to restrain us, which frees Saint, returning his Light to him as well. Saint then delivers the final blow to the Martyr Mind which frees us!

Saint-14: It's been a long time, my friends. I've chased your memory for centuries. You should go now. Those who could kill me are dead. You've made sure of that. Ghost: And what if the Vex take your Light again? Saint-14: Impossible. It cost them everything to build the Martyr Mind. When you crushed it, they were doomed. Ghost: You want us to leave you? You'll be stuck here for years. Saint-14: You've both done plenty. Just open the Infinite Forest gate for me. I'll meet you the long way around, at the entrance. Saint-14: What's a few more years of fighting Vex?

Saint decides to stay in the Forest and wait until we open it from the outside for him, in the future. This is how he leaves in the right time, instead of too early for his timeline, so nothing else is really affected. He waits it out and then exits the Forest at the time of Season of Dawn. This gives us one of the shortest but also the best cutscenes ever. As a note, in the cutscene, when Saint leaves, the Forest gate looks new, like from Mercury's past. This is because of the Sundial's effects on the surface of Mercury at the time, splitting the surface through time, so the Forest gate looked like it's from the past, but it's not. It's present day Mercury.

When we report this to Osiris, to say that he's amazed would be an understatement. I often quoted this from him, especially when people were being weird about Osiris and claiming he doesn't like us or whatever:

In his youth, he talked often about the Guardian who inspired him. I should have guessed it would be you.

We've done the impossible. Literally. The quest is called "Impossible Task." Osiris did everything and he couldn't do it and he lost hope that it would be done. But we did it, because we created the time loop; a connection with Saint that allowed us to use the Sundial in a way Osiris could not.

Saint has been saved! After this, he settled in the Tower. He had a series of minor quests and errands, the best one being the quest for the Devil's Ruin exotic which featured a really long and funny conversation between Saint and Shaxx. Another one is obviously the Corridors of Time quest which is genuinely cannot be compared to anything else as it was a community puzzle of epic proportions. An article that showcases just a little bit of how bonkers it was.

The important part of it is that the culmination of the quest featured us finding our own grave and Saint narrating a eulogy for us. This is important to us now for two reasons: 1) on our grave was a sword, a sword we received as an actual item in TFS, directly from the Traveler to fight the Witness 2) it's possibly a different timeline. The second one is unclear because we simply can't know when we die, but the eulogy specifies that the sword was shattered in the final confrontation where we died. Our current sword is chipped, and it wasn't when we originally got it in the campaign. So either this is a different timeline where it didn't shatter or this isn't that confrontation when we die and it will shatter at some other point in the future.

In this post I also noted how the music that plays in our grave scene and the music that played in TFS when we get the sword is the same. A very clear and deliberate choice. This is a very cool link to Season of Dawn that they brought back over 4 years later.

With the Corridors of Time puzzle ending and the Corridors closing, that concluded the Saint stuff. He was finally saved and he could rest in the Tower! And we know everything that has happened since.

Okay. So...

What's up with the Sundial?

We don't know! But I want to get into it because it's one of those things that they made sure to hint about, without fully explaining it so obviously every weird nerd online (me) wants to figure it out.

Back in The Sundial weblore, there are some peculiar and never explained details about the Sundial that have been kinda concerning and just intriguing to think about. There are a few lines essentially saying that whatever is at its core, it's not good. First is Sagira's:

“That work was theoretical! If the Vanguard find out what you did to build it—“

What did he do to build it? No clue. The infamous core is described only as:

He turned to look at the fluctuating glow of the exposed chronometric core.

When the Drifter shows up, he immediately reacts to this, fairly negatively which makes things more ominous since Drifter tangles with a lot of weird and bad stuff himself. So if he's disturbed about this...:

Drifter walked to the central spire and put his ear up against it. “This core…” he said, leaning close. His eyes darted back to Osiris. “It’s whispering.” Osiris’s expression didn’t change; his arms didn’t uncross. “We’ll seal the core away. I understand the ramifications.” “Good luck keeping that contained. Not something I would bargain with, hotshot.”

The core "whispers." Osiris understands the ramifications. They're both so frustratingly vague so the only thing we're left with is this ominous vibe of something bad being at the center of the Sundial.

This whispering, alongside a few other concerning descriptions and implications of the Sundial is mentioned in yet another weblore that I only briefly mentioned earlier because it wasn't relevant to Saint stuff; Sisters. It's about the Psions finding the machine.

The Psions could somehow feel the Sundial. Or perhaps just the effects it had on time on Mercury, even while it was powered down and hidden.

“Small disturbances,” said oldest Ozletc, the wisest. “Little currents in this timeline. Can you see them, sister?” “I can taste them,” said second-born Tazaroc, the hungriest of her sisters. “I can feel the edges.” Third-born Niruul, the quietest among them, reached her hand out to test the air. “As can I,” said she. “And something else. The source is disguised. The technology is Human, but refined. Surprisingly so.”

They also note the whispering, as well as its potential:

A strange device shimmered into existence around them. They looked up the length of an enormous, golden spire. “It whispers,” said Tazaroc. “Then block your ears,” said Ozletc. “Do you see the potential in this?” “Chaos,” said Niruul. “No,” said Ozletc. “Opportunity. See how it tugs at the fabric of our time? Can you see the seams?”

They also make the strange comparison to the OXA:

“It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.” “Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc.

The Sundial offered something more and better than the OXA ever could, implying, perhaps, that these machines have something in common; possibly something beyond simply Vex technology. My insanity about this has been going on for a long time and also helped with the TFS CE lore. A bit of a tangent, but also possibly related, depending on what the core is.

Furthermore, Osiris refused to tell Saint about details of the Sundial, including remaining vague about its core in this weblore:

[u.2:13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core. [u.1:14] One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you and the Guardian did to bring me back. [u.2:14] We did what we had to. Trust me.

So what is it? Well, we know:

It whispers (very obvious and easily detected, both by Drifter and the Psions)

It's something bad (Drifter's reaction to it is uncharacteristic for a man who tangles with the Taken for a living and deals with strange dangerous artifacts all the time)

Osiris' Echoes are better suited for the Sundial because of its core, and Echoes are something "reserved for Taken Kings." Bizarre way of saying it to avoid explaining it

Similar to the OXA, and possibly any other time/prediction machines based on Vex tech (because the OXA itself is confirmed to be more or less the same as the FWC Device, for example)

To recharge it, we needed to feed it Light. This is particularly concerning with what Osiris says about it: "The Sundial is my greatest creation and my greatest regret. What I had to do to forge it I can never take back. As a result, it has components that consume Light. And if you're serious about operating it again, you'll need to feed it. Nothing is free. Ever."

What this points to, to me at least, is Darkness. The core is a Darkness artifact of some sort, merged with Vex tech. This only gained more proof to me with all the new lore about the Darkness and how it governs the mind and memory, especially when the Vex are involved. To the Vex, the future is memory. Merging Darkness artifacts with the Vex might be able to create dangerous time travel machines or machines that displace consciousness through time and timelines, like the OXA and the Device, allowing the user to "predict."

To make things even more convoluted (and me more insane), there's an almost perfect explanation for what this artifact might be. So perfect that I feel like it's too good to be true, tbh. It's a Nezarec relic. I will now list everything that connects this:

It would explain the Darkness artifact. Nezarec's relics were full of Darkness and were being used by utilising that Darkness

Drifter's involvement and experience with it. Hell, the Drifter may have even provided this relic to Osiris, since he had one and did not particularly enjoy having it, which was detailed in Lightfall when they showed us how he got it. Plunder was also rich on this, showing us that the Drifter immediately recognised the relics and understood what they were.

Whispering. Darkness in general has a whispering thing; the Veiled statues, the Witness, the old stories about Dredgen Yor, there's a lot of whispering going on here. But it's really super connected to Nezarec. His relics were whispering to us in the H.E.L.M.. The glaive? Nezarec's Whisper. Another disciple also called him a "whispering Nightmare." All of Root of Nightmares armour lore has it as well, with Nezarec tormenting his victims with whispers; for example here, and here, and maybe even here. I could go on. He's the whisper guy. Literally, Nimbus called him Mr. Whispers.

Psions. The Psion sisters found and reactivated the Sundial... Somehow. They especially were able to almost instinctively locate it despite Osiris hiding it well enough. The Psions also needed quite a lot of time to activate it again and admired the complexity of the encryption, despite it being human, so we can't really say that they found it easily because Osiris' did a poor job of hiding it. Were they drawn to it? Were they drawn to it because of its core? Psions are inherently linked to Nezarec. It's been confirmed back in Lightfall, but also curiously mentioned again in TFS with the Lost Ghosts quest (timestamped here). I'm definitely hoping for some Psion content in the future but this is fairly interesting in this context. Season of Dawn was really the only proper Psion-focused storyline.

Osiris' coma. His coma appears to have been somehow paracausal. At least strange! The scans were showing that he has "no residual activity" in his brain, despite us having lore from his POV showing us that he had a very vivid and visceral activity. He was able to feel some external stimuli, but was mostly drifting through strange visions, seemingly hopping between his... Reflections. Or possibly Echoes. His final thoughts here are also of the Sundial; as if his mind was somehow stuck in there, or lost, trying to find his way out of it. This could just be a consequence of his memories constructing something for him to experience so obviously it's just cycling through what he knows, but...

Waking Osiris up from his coma happens with the use of Nezarec's relics. An important point to note here is that this wasn't so much about it being Nezarec's relics; it had more to do with the inherent Darkness they consist of and Darkness can help the mind and consciousness move or awaken. However, given all of this and given his POV from the coma and the possibility that his mind might have been stuck somewhere with his Echoes in the Sundial, if the Sundial's core is a Nezarec relic, then a Nezarec relic had more chance to bring him back. It's such a perfect connection that I feel insane thinking about it and it feels like I'm constructing a fanfic, but also. I think it's worth considering. Cutscene of him waking up + article from Bungie that details on the whole idea of waking him up with Darkness and why that's important for understanding Darkness.

I have to mention the other theory, especially in comparison with all the above to try and illustrate why it never made sense to me and that is the popular theory that the core of the Sundial is an Ahamkara bone and that the Sundial worked on wish magic.

I'm not quite sure why this was even a theory to be honest. Even back in the day of Dawn, this never really resonated with me because it seems that the only reason this was a theory was Drifter saying "not something I would bargain with" and... Possibly whispers? Obviously a lot of things can whisper, and Ahamkara have been also mentioned doing so, but I don't find this significant to Ahamkara enough for identification just through that. I also don't think that one mention of the word "bargain" is enough either. Many have bargained with Darkness too. There's simply an overlap between Darkness and Ahamkara here, but there are also other pieces that are more closely linked to Darkness like eating Light. We could go even further, if we're considering Ahamkara; we could also consider Worm Gods, for example. The point is that several things can fit here, but I feel like there's overall more things pointing at Darkness.

What gets me the most is that they alluded to this in Season of the Wish, in what seems fairly obvious as disproving this theory to me. Riven and Osiris talk:

Riven: Isn’t it unfortunate your City hunted down all of my kind, Osiris? You might have wished for Saint-14’s return from the Forest. Osiris: And have him trade the Vex’s torment for yours? Riven: Perhaps you simply didn’t want him back badly enough to pay the price. Osiris: Save the bait for someone naïve enough to take it.

I talked about this earlier, but there's several layers of why the moment I heard this, it sounded like it's here to disprove Osiris using an Ahamkara. First, Ahamkara wish magic would be felt by Riven. If Osiris put an Ahamkara into the Sundial, then he did use wish magic and she would know about it. In that case she would not have said this; perhaps she would've teased him about using her powers to save Saint, but that would be a completely different sentence.

Second, Osiris is well aware and wary of wish magic. He knows that had he done so, he would've probably put some form of torment (wish magic backfire) on Saint. This, to me, indicates that not only did he not do this, he didn't even consider it as an option.

Third, if Osiris had an Ahamkara bone and was considering to use it, he could've just done so without building the Sundial. Why bother with the machine if you can just instantly make a wish and the wish doing exactly as you want? Obviously with a caveat, but still. It would've worked right away. Perhaps the Sundial was an attempt to contain the backfire, mixing wish magic with Vex tech to try and prevent the whole thing from going backwards, but even then; Osiris knew there are possible consquences.

And fourth, even if he did all that, it just didn't work, which would be quite uncharacteristic for wish magic. It's paracausal; it should override any Vex tech in the Sundial. If he made a wish, he should ask for a refund! The Sundial worked only because of the paracausal loop we created with the Perfect Paradox and it had nothing to do with anyone's wishes; definitely not ours.

One interesting thing for this theory is the way they said how similar wishing and simulations are. It happened in Wish and now again in Echoes. Here's a freebie for the Ahamkara theory enthusiasts.

Personally though, I simply feel like there's much more connecting and sensible explanation with it being a Darkness relic, rather than Ahamkara.

HOWEVER. The truth is that we simply don't know. I am personally more into it being Darkness (and Nezzy specifically), but I could be wrong and the Ahamkara theory could be proven correct somehow. Hell, it could be something completely different. It could also be nothing; as in, we will never know because they won't tell us because it doesn't matter.

And technically, it doesn't! Nothing really changes if this doesn't get answered. I want that to be clear. This isn't some sort of lore breaking detail. But you know. The nerds would love to know. I really wanted to get into this now that we've had a resurgence in interest about Saint and how we saved him.

Echoes

Okay, so why this monster of an essay? Well, because Echoes revolves around Saint and the Conductor trying to convince him that he's the wrong Saint. That Osiris acted out of grief and pulled a random Saint from the timelines, that he's simply satisfied with what he got because he couldn't get his original Saint because that Saint died.

Saint is convinced in this; that he's some sort of an aberration in the timeline, a simulation or a copy or just the wrong Saint from the wrong timeline. Even an error that must be corrected.

And I simply think that people are too quick to jump to the conclusion that this is the story being told, especially because of the radio message this week where we're shown that Saint and Osiris suddenly have different memories. But I feel like people have already forgotten the other radio message, from week 1. You know, the one where Saint and Osiris talk about their memories and the memories match perfectly:

Saint-14: Osiris. Do you remember when we knew? Osiris: Knew what? Saint-14: That we were meant to be together. There was one moment... though, it took us time to get to it. Oh, but our Hunter Vanguard, so smart, Tallulah... she knew before we did. All our little squabbles and bickering. She saw it first. Osiris: it, uh — ah, well, I was — obtuse. Stubborn. I couldn't recognize my own emotions. Then, Tallulah told me to.. "Be serious". Saint-14: Haha! I remember. So yes, she told me later. Was good laugh. Osiris: Well, I'm glad you found it so amusing. Saint-14: Who could not look back and smile? And I remember your smile, then. So knowing, and so full of our future together. Osiris: What brought these memories on? Saint-14: Hmm. I think about others who will have those same moments now that they know they will a future free from the Black Fleet. Now they have a chance to find love and be happy, like us. We can look behind, but also forward. We cannot see what is coming, but we know it is good. Osiris: You're certain? Saint-14: About us? Yes. Since the beginning. Now, and always.

We have this memory as a lore tab as well. I think this was given to us deliberately, to show us that Saint and Osiris have identical memories and that Saint's memories were never in question and that their history is perfectly aligned... Until he got yoked. Something changed when he got yoked, not when he was saved. This is a new development, which tells me that the Conductor did something to him, rather than Osiris saving the wrong Saint. Because until now, this was never a problem. Saint never had discrepancies in his memories before, with anyone he ever interacted with.

If we take a look at the whole story of how he was returned, it's beyond clear that Osiris was very fixated on saving his Saint, not a random one, and that we went to great lengths to do just that. We only ever interacted with one Saint, the same one, and we linked each other with the Perfect Paradox. It cannot be any other Saint, even with the existence of other timelines. This Saint and this Perfect Paradox are ours, from our timeline, the originals.

However, other timelines do exist. And some entities can access them. The Vex are obviously first on the list. Characters like Elsie and Osiris have also seen them. And clearly, the Conductor should be capable of this as well. It's beyond clear now that the Conductor is Maya Sundaresh. Maya, who was simulated 227 times by the Vex and had those 227 copies of her wandering the Vex network and different timelines.

If the Conductor knows where to look and how, she could see these timelines, including these other Saints, and she could've fed Saint false information while he was yoked. Implanting memories of other Saints perhaps, or something similar.

I know a lot of people weren't there for Dawn, let alone Curse. There's a lot of information about Saint here and a lot of really interesting clues from the past about what's happening now. It's also really interesting how many little details have been transferred through the story over time, showing that this is a plotline they care about very much and want to make sure doesn't get messed up.

There's probably a lot more stuff we could get into for speculation and explanations because there's still more stuff that plays a role in this. The Infinite Forest is a big one, and I suspect the Perfect Paradox is as well, as we're likely to get it next week or the week after as part of the story. Because it should be relevant to the story! It's an inherent part of Saint's story and why he's with us now in the first place.

So what's really going on? We're not entirely sure yet, but assuming that the Conductor is correct and that her messing with Saint is revealing something about Saint's legitimacy is I believe wrong. I think she's using him as an experiment and that she's messing with him, and by extension, with us as well. There's no way that we've had a "wrong" Saint this whole time and that nobody ever had any issues with him. That nobody had any discrepancies between memories with him. Not Osiris, not Ikora, not Shaxx, not Saladin, not Zavala or anyone else Saint interacted with since he's been back. As I mentioned, literally the first radio message shows us Saint and Osiris with matching memories.

It only started after he was yoked. Which means that the yoke and the Conductor did something to him, possibly shown him some other timelines or fed him false information.

Can't wait to see where this is going. I'm not sure how much this Act will cover and if we'll get a resolution to this right now or if it will stretch to Act 3, though if it doesn't get stretched, then I wonder what will the draw of Act 3 even be. Possibly just dealing with the Conductor? I'm very excited. This episode being so focused on Saint and Osiris and the whole throwbacks to Dawn and other past content has been really good. I'm enjoying it very much, this is my entire jam. I had high hopes for Echoes and so far it's been going great.

I'm super excited to see how they solve this and what comes of it and how much of this information will be relevant. And of course, if it will end up being correct! Because as much as I have my theories and as much as I'm convinced that there's something off here and that our Saint cannot be the wrong Saint, I could still be wrong. Looking forward to finding out!

[himbo-only-zone]

Can you do Rantaro fluff alphabet?

rantaro amami || fluff alphabet

Me? Getting a post out? Woah- /lh. Anyway, of course I can! Here ya go! Sorry if it's out of character, I've never written for him before! I'm glad I was able to, though!

- Mod Anna

a. attractive. what does he find attractive about you? he loves your hands, they fit perfectly in his. he'll kiss you knuckles happily before dragging you on, another adventure to pursue. he's excited to be anywhere with you, and knowing that you're holding his hand, by his side? that's amazing.

b. baby. would he like a family? he would! i can see him wanting to show a kid the world, point out cool things in pictures, telling wild stories about what happened while he was there. he wouldn't mind taking them on trips as well!

c. cuddle. how does he cuddle? he's usually the big spoon, and he loves you facing him. he's pretty protective, a hand usually pressed against your lower back and a soft kiss on your forehead. he's very gentle and loving with this sort of thing.

d. dates. what are dates with him like? usually you're doing something different that you haven't done before, dates are never the same. he likes to be spontaneous, but also have a little bit of an idea of what's going to happen. he likes to keep you completely in the dark, though, having you play guessing games, although he wouldn't tell you even if they're correct.

e. everything. what are you to him? (ex. you are my _____) you're his favorite adventure. out of everything he's done, everywhere he's been, the greatest adventure of all was finding out about you and learning every little thing that he's come to love.

f. feelings. when did he know he was in love? you two were on an adventure, and you were a bit scared of something, whether it be the bugs or the night. he held you close and said that you didn't have to do this for him, but you shook your head. you were dedicated, and wanted to be with him no matter what, even during a small adventure. that was enough.

g. gentle. is he gentle with you? he's pretty gentle, holding your hand with a tight enough grip not to hurt you, kisses just firm enough, and hugs just warm enough. he's very careful. he loves you more than anything, and he thinks about your well-being all the time.

h. hands. how does he like to hold hands? he likes your fingers interlocked. it doesn't have to be tight, it can even super loose. just as long as your hands are touching, he knows you're safe, and that's all he wants to know. he loves pressing kisses to your knuckles.

i. impression. what was his first impression of you? he saw that you had an interesting personality, that would match well with his own. he saw a possible future, and wanted to pursue it. he didn't waste too much time asking you out, but he did get to know you a little first.

j. jealousy. how often does he get jealous? he is a very chill person in general, so it's very unlikely that he'd get jealous. there is the occasional moment, but it's far from often. he refuses to show it, not wanting it to interrupt your relationships with other people. he wants you happy. you'll notice the little things soon, however.

k. kiss. how does he kiss? who initiated the first kiss? he's an amazing kisser. the kisses are firm, yet soft and sweet. they show his passion for you. it's always accompanied by a hand on your lower back, and the other gently cupping your cheek. to break it, he often smiles into it and stares into your eyes.

l. love. who says "i love you" first? he does. it's done when you two are on the way home from some date, his hand on your knee as he drives. at a stop light, he looks over at you and just smiles. “damn, i love you. a lot,” he says, taking your hand and kissing your knuckles.

m. memory. what's his favorite memory with you? every one. he takes pictures of every date, every little thing you two do together. he loves every moment he spends with you, and he cherishes it more than anything. all the memories with you fill him with more joy that you'd expect.

n. nickel. how much does he spend on you? well, you two share most of your money so it can go towards trips and stuff, but he makes sure to spend more than you do. you don't deserve to pay that much, he was the one who took you on all of this. he also buys you surprise souvenirs.

o. orange. what color reminds him of you? purple. it represents mystery in his eyes, and he likes to explore mystery with you. hand in hand, exploring the world together.

p. pet names. what pet names does he use? more often than not, he uses babe. it's classic, and it gets the point across. but he loves throwing in the occasional love, dear, or prince/princess. he loves seeing your reaction, it's his favorite.

q. quaint. what's a non-modern thing he does? he scrapbooks. y'know how all of his moments with you are special, and he takes pictures? all of those pictures are in a scrapbook. all of those little details are put in there, journal entries of the fun things, little pieces of leaves found where you were ... it's beautiful.

r. rainy days. what does he do with you on a rainy day? you two aren't able to get out, so the day is mostly spent laying on the couch and watching tv. you two need to rest sometimes, all of the adventuring gets tiring after a while. he has an arm tightly wrapped around you, pressing a kiss against your temple.

s. sad. how does he cheer you up? he insists on laying down with you and letting you vent about what's going on. he's stroke your cheek with one hand and hold your other one tight, listening to your every word. he wants to see you happy. you're amazing to him.

t. talking. what does he like to talk about? he likes learning about what makes you you. like your childhood, your parents, siblings if you have any. it makes him smile, knowing that you had an interesting past, no matter what it will be. and yes, he will be asking your parents for baby pictures.

u. unencumbered. what makes him relax? he likes taking soothing nature walks. he wants a house near the woods so that he can go out and relax if needed. he likes taking you with him, enjoying a comfortable silence together. it makes him feel a lot better.

v. vaunt. does he show you off? you two are a pretty loving couple in general, so yes? he doesn't really do it intentionally, but if he catches someone staring, he'll smirk happily and pull you a little closer. a quick kiss to the forehead, and he'll walk away with you in his arms. he's so happy with you.

w. wedding. when, how, and where does he propose? he would want something simple, but at a really nice place. on the top of a mountain, the view absolutely beautiful. he pulls out a ring with is extremely simple, maybe one small diamond, but it holds so much meaning. “s/o ... you know i love you. most of what i would say would be me repeating myself over and over again, but ... being your husband would be the best adventure of my life. will you marry me?”

x. xylophone. what song reminds him of you? what's your theme song? honeypie by jawny reminds him of you! your them song is desert island disk by radiohead!

y. yes. does he think about proposing to and marrying you? he would love that! going on adventures with his wife/husband/life partner? being able to call you that to people when asked? god, it'd make him feel like the best man in the world. he loves you more than anything.

z. zebra. if he could have a pet, what would he get? from such an adventurous man, you'd expect something exotic, right? hell no, he would be insistent on getting a big dog. he loves big dogs. and they're his best friend. no questions asked.

[themusicplayedherlife]

To Love is the Greatest Gift

1. The Return

pairing: obi wan kenobi x f!reader (past!din djarn x f!reader) characters: f!reader, anakin amidala-skywalker, padmé amidala-skywalker, mentiones of din djarin, obi wan kenobi, others word count: 2.6k+ warnings: angst, fluff, mentions of rent: the musical (death, second chances) uh... I think that’s it? summary: au!it’s never been the right timing for you and obi wan kenobi; maybe this time will be different. a/n: i started working on this story so long ago it’s ridiculous, but I suddenly had a surge of motivation to continue this story after some tragic family news. this was also very much inspired by @martlands and their amazing obi wan stories, made me want to write my own and here it is

all || next

“You broke up?”

One would think that the immediate reaction to someone asking if you broke up with your significant other would be to cry or begin to ask them what could have possibly gone wrong. But that’s not the reaction you give. 

The reaction you give is just a shrug and a strong pop, as you spoon more gelato onto the little spoon his twins love collecting. “Yep.”

“After only three weeks of dating?” Anakin doesn’t know why he’s surprised, but he is. This is probably the shortest living relationship you’ve ever had. “Why?”

“Why not?” you answer easily, nonchalantly and you know it frustrates him. “It wasn’t working out, so we decided to call it quits.”

Not even a month ago, you had been genuinely excited about finally getting out there and meeting someone new, and even more excited when you were telling him all about this person you met while out with some old friends. You had said, word for word, “he might be the perfect contender!”

Where did all that excitement go?

You sigh, finally looking up at him and away from your white chocolate gelato that's just to die for. “Ani, it’s fine. It just didn’t work out. It happens.”

He grimaces. “What happened between you and Din—“

You bristle at the mention of your ex, narrowing your eyes and his widen in defense. You know what Anakin and Padmé think of him and it’s not entirely pleasant (particularly from Anakin’s part). It’s completely unfair. Din is lovely, sure a little socially awkward, but lovely nonetheless. “Has nothing to do with why Gar and I ended things.”

“But—“

“Nothing,” you reiterate with a bit more force and he sighs, lifting his hands in defeat while holding his own cup of gelato.

“Okay. Okay, I’m sorry.” And then, like a light switching, he turns playful. “Was it his name that turned you off—Gar?”

You resist the urge to groan and roll your eyes. “Oh maker, you are annoying!”

You huff as you make the trek back to the trolley that’ll take you both up to the observatory. The rest of your conversation is forgotten as he navigates it towards continuing to tease you and the latest exhibit you had helped set up.

The Coruscant Observatory is one of the most popular attractions in the city aside from the Exotic Animal Sanctuary (where most zoologist work to help rehabilitate wild animals before reintroducing them back into the wild, only housing the ones that have been assessed to not be able to function in the wild on their own—which are unfortunately many).

Your place of work is known for its large, ground telescope; its monthly constellation exhibits; the multiple planetarium theater rooms that house lectures, activities, star projections, etc.; and its Astronomer Q&A program where visitors can ask astronomers questions and even get a tour of the space station.

However, most of your days are spent in your office, planning for the next exhibit or actually executing them with your team; meanwhile, Anakin spends them in tech, sometimes maintaining the telescope, other times helping with IT issues, but mostly making sure the theater rooms worked perfectly for their 4D immersion.

(You like to joke that out of the two of you, he has it easiest; sometimes he’ll run by your office to get to another part of the building while you’re doing something and you’ll yell out, “slacker” and he’ll respond with, “you just work too much”.)

“Are Padmé and the twins stopping by today?”

“Not today, maybe tomorrow,” he says as you both step out of the trolley along with a few tourists. “I think today they decided to stay for some school thing.”

“Shouldn’t you know what that school thing is?” you chide him out of jest.

He scowls, there’s hardly any heat in it and it makes you grin. “It’s a music performance that the CN Theater is putting on.”

“Ah, and we all know how much musicals bores you.”

“I just don’t understand them,” he murmurs defensively as you climb the few steps leading to the entrance. The two of you smiling and greeting Rex at his security post and bypassing the ticket gate with your IDs.

“You mean you don’t have any taste,” you tease.

“It’s weird! I mean, most of them are all about tragedies and betrayals. What happened to the good ol’ romance and happy endings?”

“Not all of them are tragedies, Casanova.”

The main rotunda lobby is full of people milling about, looking at maps or the foucault pendulum in the middle of the room. Low chatter fills the room, shoes clicking and clacking against the marble flooring.

“Name one.”

Spotting the trash can and recycle bin, Anakin holds his hand out for your disposable cup and spoon and throws them away in their proper bin.

“Rent.” There are probably better examples, but you had been listening to the original cast album the night before and have all the songs still stuck in your head.

“Don’t two characters die?”

“Angel and Mimi.” You nod. “But Mimi is brought back to life by Angel, and is given a second chance at life.”

“She may have been brought back to life, but that doesn’t take away from the fact she died.”

“I’m not arguing with you on that, I’m just saying the ending was hopeful—not necessarily a happy ending, but it left you thinking—maybe things can get better.”

“And that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for—“

“What you and Padmé have?” you ask him as you both reach the door of your office.

He pauses, mouth opening and closing before finally rubbing the back of his head sheepishly and saying, “Yeah.”

You smile, genuine and happy for your childhood friend. Who would’ve thought that years ago when you introduced them, they’d be here years later—married and with twins. You and Anakin sure as hell didn’t. For most of your childhood, you both believed you’d live out your life on Tatooine, hang with the same friends you’ve known since your pre-kinder days and eventually get married to each other—much to the dismay of your parents—because of benefits or whatever, until your parents decided they wanted to send you off to a private school in one of the major cities, derailing your and Anakin’s plan (for the better, if you’re being honest).

“You’re still coming over for dinner, right?”

“Yeah,” you answer, unlocking your office door with your key. “I have a meeting that might go over the expected time, but I should be able to make it on time.”

“Just let us know,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the door frame. “But you better be there! We have some planning to do!”

You roll your eyes and wave him away, promising he and his family will definitely see you at five. With a hearty chuckle he salutes you and leaves the door slightly ajar, just like you usually do. It’s your “you can come in to ask me questions, but knock first, please” visual telling.

With a soft exhale, you drop yourself into your creaking office chair, eyes landing on the first picture on your right—a younger you, only 18, fresh out of your uniform smiling wildly with a large bouquet of flowers that you can still distinctly remember the smell of.

“I am in love!” Padmé exclaimed, squealing in absolute delight at the flowers put in your hand.

Blue eyes crinkled with amusement, staring down at you. “Are you?” His voice was low, teasing and almost smug. He had obviously heard the gasp that escaped your lips when he presented you the colorful bouquet created with your favorite flowers that his father grew in their little garden.

“Irrevocably,” you answered, not able to hide your smile as you gently held it against your chest and smiled up at him. “They’re beautiful, Obi. Thank you.”

Obi Wan’s arm is wrapped around your shoulder, caught in the action of a booming laughter. He was always laughing in pictures. There isn’t a single picture you have of him that he isn't smiling.

Your finger gently trails over his smiling face. Maker, you miss him.

Is he still traveling? Or has he finally settled down again? Will he show up and spring some unexpected news on you again? Stars, you hope not. Shit didn’t go as planned last time and it probably wouldn’t again.

Your hand falls limply and you swivel in your seat, looking out the large glass window overlooking the majority of the city and sigh softly—an exhale of wary hope and sadness.

A bird soars by your window, it’s wings flapping effortlessly, diving before flying higher and away.

He’s not coming back. You know this. Coruscant just isn’t the same anymore. Not when he feels this city has taken everything from him.

One more year visiting Gui Gon without him.

The meeting runs longer than it usually would, just like you had expected. Checking the time, you let out a curse and quickly throw your belongings into your car.

Without wasting time, as soon as you switch on your engine, you place your phone on the dock and say, “Hey C-3PO, call Padmé.”

“Calling Padmé,” your phone’s AI answers through the speakers of your car.

“Are you outside?” Is how she greets you. There are loud noises in the background, children squabbling about something or another, and Anakin’s weary voice trying to rally them. 

You snort, pulling out of the undergroundparking lot. “Not yet, barely got out of my meeting and am on my way.”

“Please hurry, the twins really want to see you and are dying from hunger,” she says, amusement in her voice and not at all trying to hurry you. “They might start eating Anakin soon.”

“Hey, don’t bite that!” He yells from a distance.

“Hurry, please!” you hear over the phone—Luke. “I miss you,” he says, closer now. Which you immediately reply saying you miss him too, almost cutting off the next voice.

“And I’m hungry!” Leia’s voice follows his, practically yelling into the phone.

You laugh fondly, just imagining the childish glee on their faces at your scandalized gasps and your exaggerated “me too” answers.

“Leia, no yelling,” Padmé scolds her, gentle and kind. “Softer, please.”

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m hungry,” she repeats, softer, almost a whisper.

“Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be there,” you promise. “If not, you have my permission to start eating your dad.”

Leia and Luke break into a fit of laughter, yelling something away from the phone to Anakin, who once again lets out a loud, “Hey!”

Padmé chuckles, moving away from the voices of the children tackling their father and their play fighting. “Take your time, we’re not in any hurry to start eating. The kids had a hearty lunch and a snack after school.”

“What about you and Anakin?”

“We’re fine, don’t worry. Just get here safely and we’ll see you soon.”

You end the call with one last reassurance from her and let out a loud sigh when your car comes to a stop behind a long line of glaring red lights—traffic. You hate traffic.

You might be surrounded by blinding lights and different models of vehicles, but it leaves you alone with your thoughts, the low hum of your engine and music from your stereo drowned out by the chattering in your head. 

It’s never just one thing that you think about. It can go from one thing to another, to all of them trying to climb over eachother and be the most present: your friends; your family; the dog next door; Din and Baby; cinnamon apple cookies; the beach house in Naboo; sneaking out of the prep dormitories at 2am with Padmé keeping an eye out and Obi Wan holding his arms out for you; rose gardens and peach tea; freckles on blushing skin; drunken singing in a small living room; 21st birthdays crying in a bathroom stall; that stupid movie quote about choosing life; death; but sometimes (most occurring) it’s Obi Wan that weaves into every thought.

He’s a constant plague in your mind, has been since the first time he left Coruscant in search of himself. 

Sometimes they’re pleasant thoughts, memories kept in a nostalgic trunk that you occasionally like to sift through. Other times, they’re not so pleasant; those are the ones you constantly struggle with, try to push into the recesses of your mind and keep them under lock and key. But for some stupid, strange reason, your mind only ever remembers the bad, even when there are better things to dwell on.

“I just—I just don’t understand why you have to leave—Obi. Obi!” you practically yelled, watching him move around his room, grabbing and throwing things he pulled out into his duffel bag. “Listen to me!” 

He didn’t stop, not until you reached for his duffel bag and plucked it out from his hands. He stared at you, his duffel bag carelessly thrown to the floor with his clothes spilling out. 

Your breathing was labored, a sick feeling swimming in your stomach, words stuck in your throat now that he wasn’t hiding his beautiful blue eyes from you—his devastatingly heartbroken eyes. “I have to,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “I need to leave. This house—this city, it's suffocating me. I can’t—I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Obi… Obi, please.” You can’t leave me. You can’t! Please! Please, Obi.

“I need to do this for me, darling. I’m sorry.”

You should’ve fought harder that night, should’ve convinced him to stay, but instead you helped him pack again with tears obstructing your view and sobs escaping your lips. Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have lost him.

No, your breath stutters as you lean back into your car seat, there was nothing you could’ve done. Either times. He had made up his mind long before that night.

A car honks their horn to your left and you jump, eyes focusing once more on the red lights of the car in front of you. You wipe at your face harshly and straighten your spine. 

That was years ago, little one. Shake it off. 

Sighing softly, you look up at the street name and make a turn onto the Skywalker residence street, your shoulders relaxing when their two story home comes into view.  

Shake it off.

Parking isn't easy to find in their neighborhood, not when it’s so close to the observatory and some of the most visited parks in the area, but you manage to find one just two cars away from their house. 

Gathering your things, you lock the door behind you and quickly make your way down the sidewalk, phone in your hand and typing out a message that you’re here.

It’s while you’re hitting send that you don’t notice the body in front of you, staring up at the house with an almost wary expression on his face, or how his eyes widen when they see you. It’s not until you collide into his body, soft with a fleece cardigan, that you notice him. Embarrassment begins to boil in your blood as you quickly apologize to him, berating yourself for not being more aware of your surroundings.

“Kriff, I’m so sorry—“ you start, but the apology catches in your throat when you look up.

“Hello, there.” Blue eyes, so soft and kind, like the ones you once used to dream of stare back at you—so unlike the pair of eyes you saw years ago. “It’s been a long time, darling.”

You can’t shake him off.

next

[ariendiel]

ELLI I WILL NEVER GET OVER RH. However I'd love the opportunity to interrogate question your lovely characters. 💖

Ok first off: Headmaster Koh, if you're ever in need of a new.. em assistant, hmu. 👀😏

Also, Ada, Noah, will you either let me join your marriage or adopt me as your second child? K thanks, love you bye.

But now off to the serious questions:

Bobby, how did you respond Ada and Noah's marriage? And assuming they named their son after you, what was your reaction? Also, what are you up to nowadays?

Ada, what is your favourite part of your garden? Also, do you have any regrets about leaving RH now that you've settled into your new life?

Noah, as a modern man, how do you deal with the uptight royal society? You mentioned wanting to change things over there, how will you do that?

Headmaster Koh, what is your opinion about Ada marrying Noah?

Priya, how's the nomad life treating you? Any fun stories to share with us peasants?

Hannah, why are you such a bitch? what was the point in being such a snake? Did you gain anything from your actions?

Chelsea, are you and Henrik married yet? And how is Sweden?

Ibrahim, what's your friendship with Noah like? Are you still in contact after everything that happened? You're honestly amazing.

Jakub, did you ever get over losing that duel?

Ada, what's Noah's family like and how do they make you feel about your own family? Did your family every got in contact after you got married? And if so, how did they react?

I feel like I could ask 2391274017491 more but I'll leave it at this... for now...

SDJHSHDJSHD THANK YOU DEBBY! And your questions! So good! Thank you so much!

Turns out this got quite long, so answers are below the line... Hope you like it 🤍

🥞 Bobby, how did you respond Ada and Noah's marriage? And assuming they named their son after you, what was your reaction? Also, what are you up to nowadays?

If you must know, I may have written quite a lengthy and (yes, I will admit) emotional letter to my dear friend, Mrs. Buan-Alexander, to express my feelings on the matter. If I had not been in Scotland at the time I would have very much enjoyed to attent their wedding, but for some reason those two seemed rather in a rush... Little Robert Alexander is also such a delightful little boy, and I was honoured they named him for me. With those two as his parents he might even do me honour in growing up to become nearly as handsome as well! These days I am trying to avoid marriage as best as I can while my parents do their best to lure me into one – as per usual.

Bobby

🌿 Ada, what is your favourite part of your garden? Also, do you have any regrets about leaving RH now that you've settled into your new life?

Why, thank you for asking! I must say that while I do find it difficult to choose, I do favour my pavilion with its many climbing roses. It has the most marvelous views of our pond and the rest of our gardens, and after we got a duchesse brisée it has also been a favoured spot for my husband to read, sometimes out loud for me to enjoy as well. Now, regarding regrets. Yes, I have a few, mostly in leaving behind my opportunity to teach other young women and see them enjoy the taste of knowledge. Then again, perhaps I may start my own version of the Royal Society for women one day?

Adaline

🌑 Noah, as a modern man, how do you deal with the uptight royal society? You mentioned wanting to change things over there, how will you do that?

I would not describe myself as a modern man, but I thank you for such a gracious observation and dare I say compliment? The Royal Society is an old establishment, and thus suffer both it benefits and disadvantages I am afraid. I can only deal with them to the extent my noble rank and thus access to politics and parliament allows, but I am petitioning for change. I do fear it may be a while before they come to accept my views however, to the detriment of bright women such as my wife. Thank you so much for asking, Miss... May I call you Debby?

Noah

🍆 Headmaster Koh, what is your opinion about Ada marrying Noah?

After a few choice word with my fellow gentleman as to how to treate women and one's dear wife, I am quite sure we see eye to eye and my opinion of him is reflected thus. If anything, he proved to be more honourable than I expected, and have enjoyed to visit when time allows me to do so.

Yours,

Headmaster Lucas Koh

💋 Priya, how's the nomad life treating you? Any fun stories to share with us peasants?

Nomad? Oh what a fun way to describe it! I must adopt that, it sounds all too exotic not to. My nomad life is treating me splendidly I must say. Italian gentlemen are especially hospitable and making me ever grateful Ada taught me a thing or two about botanical remedies... I do fear most of my stories would be rather inappropriate, but I did have to be rescued by a gentleman from The Seine, which was quite exciting I must say.

Love,

Priya

🍂 Hannah, why are you such a bitch? what was the point in being such a snake? Did you gain anything from your actions?

A snake? Do your parents now you speak such? Not very ladylike I must say. I merely did what anyone should have done, and prevented scandalous indecensies in a place of learning for vulnerable young ladies. Some have dared to presume I might have had feelings for Mr. Alexander myself, but I would never, no matter how striking, dreamy, noble, and handsome he may be! I have gained the respect from my elders, or at least from Miss. Sarabi, and I know I did what God would have wanted. So there.

Miss. Perkins

🌸 Chelsea, are you and Henrik married yet? And how is Sweden?

We are! Is it not wonderful! He really is so charming and most attentive, every time we go for a promenade he always picks me flowers. He even knows to give Mopsey some now as well as we both prefer pink as it's most flattering, do you not agree? I am sure he would pick some for you too if you ever were to visit. Sweden is truly rather different, and the language is impossible! My dearest Henrik has thankfully agreed we will be spending the winters in England or further south to get some sun, I do really think it helps.

Chelsea

🌼 Ibrahim, what's your friendship with Noah like? Are you still in contact after everything that happened? You're honestly amazing.

Oh, thank you that is very kind, and unexpected! But any compliment is much appreciated. Noah and I are still close friends, and although we rarely see each other these days I am merely thrilled he has found his happiness. We are childhood friends and that is a bond that is not easily broken, after all he is like a brother to me, and the best one at that.

Mr. Ibrahim Chapman

⚔️ Jakub, did you ever get over losing that duel?

Duel? What duel? I do not remember ever losing a duel...

Mr. Zabinsky

🌿 Ada, what's Noah's family like and how do they make you feel about your own family? Did your family every got in contact after you got married? And if so, how did they react?

My husband's family is everything I thought a family should be like, I must admit. They are kind and loving, and most of all they genuinely care for one another - something my family seldom did. For a while after my wedding I dared hope my family would change, but their only reaction has been to ask for financial aid. After ignoring the last plea from my mother, I have not heard from them in a while, although it pained me to know my Robert will never know that side of his family.

Adaline

For my Rosehill House q&a, ask me and the characters anything!

[maxwell-grant]

Thoughts on the Shadow's Doppelganger, Lamont Cranston

The funny thing about Cranston in the original stories is that, yeah, one of the most famous scenes across all Shadow media is the “Lamont Cranston Talks to Himself” chapter in The Shadow Laughs, where we learn that The Shadow is not Lamont Cranston, but has usurped his identity, and now shows up at his bedside looking like him, talking like him, knowing more about his own life than he himself does, and ordering him to leave town, effectively blackmailing him into letting him use his face. It’s a very iconic scene that exemplifies a lot of what makes The Shadow unique as a character, and you can imagine why so many adaptations have gone with the idea of Cranston being either a hapless stooge bullied into submission, or an actual villain, because that whole scene is very much a horror movie scenario. 

Thing is, none of them seem to remember how Cranston and The Shadow’s relationship developed past this. I’ll post this excerpt from Atoms of Death:

"Good morning, Cranston," came a quiet tone from the foot of the bed.

"Good morning, yourself," returned Cranston, rubbing his eyes without noticing the visitor.

"You should say: Good morning, myself," chuckled The Shadow, dryly.

Cranston was pulling down the sleeves of his pajama jacket. He sat bolt upright, staring. Then a slow smile showed on his lips; one that was almost a replica of The Shadow's.

"So it's you," remarked Cranston, sleepily. "Well, I knew that last night. It was about time we crossed paths again. Well, old man, you landed me in for plenty this trip."

Cranston shoved bedclothes aside and perched on the edge of the bed. He found cigarettes on the telephone table; The Shadow supplied a flame from a lighter before Cranston could ignite a match. The millionaire noted that The Shadow's lighter bore the initials "L. C." 

"You handle every detail, don't you?" questioned Cranston in admiration. “Jove! I remember the first time I met you. In this very room. You dropped cloak and hat and left me looking at my own face as plainly as if I had seen it in a mirror. Just as it is today."

"And I advised you," recalled The Shadow, in Cranston's own tone, "to take a trip abroad, while I used your identity. You were a bit exasperated at first."

"I must admit that I was. I threatened to have you arrested, as an impostor, until you proved that you knew more about my affairs than I did. I really believe that if it had come to a showdown, I would have been proven the impostor and you the genuine Lamont Cranston. Jove!"

"Jove," repeated The Shadow, quietly, "You have acquired that expression recently, Cranston. I shall remember it for future reference. You have a penchant for acquiring anglicisms during your sojourns in British colonies. Jove!"

"Bounder and blighter," laughed Cranston. "Don't forget those. I still use them occasionally."

Or this excerpt from The Hydra, which is an incredible book where the chemistry between the two really shines:

Lamont Cranston woke up and wondered why his head still whirled. It took him about half a minute to learn that the motion came from the fact he was riding in his limousine. Someone must have put him back in the limousine and Stanley was driving him home. 

He didn't have to guess who had helped him on his way, for at that moment Cranston heard a low-toned laugh beside him. He turned to see the black-cloaked figure of The Shadow.

"What did you hit me with?" asked Cranston. "All four of your automatics?"

"I'm only carrying a pair tonight," replied The Shadow

Look at these two dorks, just palling around and getting into shenanigans and The Shadow outright joking around Cranston, like they are just two old chums having a laugh at the weirdness of their lives. The “real” Cranston didn’t show up very often in the original stories, especially in the last stories when Lamont Cranston essentially became the real identity of The Shadow, but when he did, part of what makes him stand out as his own character is that he’s funny. Gibson gets a lot of mileage out of Cranston as this guy who is completely nonchalant and chill about all the weird shit that happens to him, even in The Hydra after he kills a man with an elephant gun, he’s still more or less the same, he largely just walks out of it with a newfound realization. 

Relieving Cranston of the elephant gun, The Shadow steered his friend into the closet. Hauling the big weapon with him, The Shadow opened the door to meet and dismiss arriving servants who had dashed upstairs when they felt the house quake. 

"Whenever I see this gun," began Cranston, coming from the closet, "I'll remember what I did with it -" 

“Quite right," interposed The Shadow approvingly. "What you did to Mance will make amends for any elephants you may have killed. Too bad Mance didn't bring along a few more Hydra Heads.”

Slowly, understanding dawned on Cranston. He'd never compared his big-game hunts with The Shadow's quests for men of crime. He felt that The Shadow's cause was justified, but it had seemed outside the field of sport. It still was, but Cranston, now that he had dealt with a murderer who deserved to die, was realizing that his game hunts were more deserving of rebuke.

His encounters with The Shadow gradually changed Cranston from a useless millionaire wasting his resources and talents on idle pursuits, to...still largely a useless millionaire, except his resources and talents are no longer wasted and he’s gradually grown into a useful ally and friend to The Shadow. The Shadow tends to have that effect on people who work by his side and even Cranston, the guy whose main role in his organization is to just stay away and be useless somewhere else, can’t help but change a little into a better person when he appears. 

There’s an interesting article written by Bob Sampson called “The Third Shadow” which refers to the Bruce Elliot run of The Shadow Magazine, which is incredibly maligned by fans and not without reason, the stories all largely suck and the Shadow bears little resemblance to his former self, instead mostly feeling like a diet take on the radio show Lamont, more of an average detective. The theory Sampson puts out is that, during this period, it was actually Lamont Cranston who became active as The Shadow while Allard was busy overseas, and I definitely like this theory. It makes sense specially considering The Hydra sets up for Cranston to become more pro-active and serious:

While not the towering master-mind of Allard, he does become the next best thing: A post-war sleuth. He even indulges in wearing the cloak and slouch hat from time to time (to varying degrees of effectiveness), while trying to laugh like Allard (also to varying degrees of effectiveness) as if to fulfill that forbidden fantasy until he finally gets it out of his system. After all, The Shadow pretended to be him, why not the other way around?

As Bob Sampson put it: “It is always Cranston who explains all and takes the credit”. 

Probably very cathartic for Lamont, who for the last 18 years was relegated to being a distant supporting player in his own life. Cranston is still in contact with the agents however. He even receives "assignments" from Burbank. 

This entire arrangement could only be with The Shadow's tacit approval. Let us remember, Cranston was not merely some insipid fop. He certainly had done his own share of exploring and was indeed a hunter. He could handle a variety of firearms, was familiar with exotic peoples and their customs, knew how to stalk dangerous animals through the jungle and veldt, but he was not, nor ever claimed to be, a master secret-agent and soldier.

I think it is fitting that the writing is completely different for this period as well. Not the enigmatic journalistic style of Allards exploits, but the witty, modern champagne fizz of Cranston's odyssey in a Post-War world. He feels a full range of emotions. In the Gibson stories, The Shadow is at arms length. In the Elliott stories, Cranston is sitting right next to you on a train or an airplane or roadster. 

It’s also interesting to consider how Lamont Cranston has basically become the true name of The Shadow in pop culture. Often times it’s the name people use when they specifically want to reference The Shadow, the supposed “Ghost of Gay Street” hauntings in Gibson’s former apartment took the form of Lamont Cranston, and even in the stories, more and more people became aware of it as the years went by (which also helps reinforce the idea that the “real” Cranston eventually took to acting as a fill-in for The Shadow, to draw attention away from the real Shadow’s operations), and Gibson even mentioned a few times that Cranston was The Shadow’s “favorite” identity along with Arnaud. Which is kinda fascinating to think about and does hint at some weird underlying aspects of The Shadow’s psyche, that his favorite identity is one not his own.

And at last, there’s these passages from The Whispering Eyes, a book that does not mention Allard once, and the very last Shadow novel: 

From beneath the seat he was taking his black garb. Cloaked and hatted as he stepped from the cab, Cranston merged immediately with the darkness. He had become The Shadow. 

Cranston's switch to his other self could well be attributed to a hypnotic mood. The mental lapses produced through hypnosis were the sort that would often cause a subject to revert to habit. Now, as The Shadow, Cranston was still in what might be termed a haphazard mood. He was skirting through darkness, pausing, changing direction, behaving generally as though avoiding something that did not exist.

Lang had flung away his glasses; his eyes now showed the shining, hypnotic force that the lenses normally softened. He recognized the eyes that met his above a leveled gun muzzle.

The Shadow's eyes, yet strangely Cranston's, for this was one time The Shadow did not care to disguise them.

Which begs the question: Did Cranston succeed in fully becoming The Shadow? Or did The Shadow succeed in fully becoming Cranston?

[reversecreek]

hi it’s me... clicks across the linoleum of the dash wearing high heels w a spray tan like i’m a member of jersey shore suddenly..... best summary of willa is that she got moira rose as her #1 chara on a What Character Are You Most Like personality test out of thousands of options.... says so much. u can find her pinterest here n her playlist here 😋 like this or hmu fr plots!!

* ashley moore, cis female + she/her  | you know willa deneurve, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, most of her life, on and off? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to watch me by the pom poms like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole sticking gold stars over old polaroids until you can barely see faces, dressing as marie antoinette at your high school prom & delivering fake laughter to a bratz doll you’re pretending is a talkshow host thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is august 1st, so they’re a leo, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nai, 24, gmt, she/her )

HISTORY:

willa ws born to honestly like….. the perfect family not to honk my own tit bt……………. they were jst rly quite wholesome. her mum celeste was this larger than life person who could never b contained by the four walls of any room she was in. she hd the presence of a gold glitter chess piece on an otherwise mundane wooden board. her dad marlon used to always joke that he had absolutely NO idea how he landed her bc he was just this like. rly average guy by all accounts n purposes….. blended into the sea in high skl……. had a few close friends but was never rly Notable or made a proper impression anywhere…… he always retold it as him coasting thru life until he met her in college. kind of like he’d been half awake before. they just Clicked n no-one cld believe she’d chosen him bt she was jst. completely head over heels n didn’t care what anyone had to say bc that was That

willa always very much took after celeste…… there’s this one quote i remember reading that goes vaguely like “my mom and i would sit and listen to leonard cohen and joni mitchell lyrics together. from a young age i remember her being like "i’m playing this song and when it’s done i want u to tell me what’s happening in it” n she would give me a fake glass of wine when i was 8 and i would listen and b like. i think there was an affair.” which so much summarises their dynamic…… she ws just so like. dramatic n fun n always encouraged that in willa too. her mum was like. everything she aspired to be…… got scouted by a modelling agency in college n shot one campaign before blowing it off simply bc she was bored. starred lead in a play. spent a few weeks travelling asia selling handmade candles shaped like koi fish or curled up foxes or elegantly stretched hands. dated a parisian movie star during a break she and her father took n was featured in tabloids on his arm at the premiere. sm fun n exotic stories willa literally cldn’t get enough. whenever she’d tell them to willa as a kid her dad wld roll his eyes like ohhhhh here she goes again but it’d all b playful n he’d smile bc he honestly cldn’t get enough either. the stuff dreams are made of luv (lizzie mcguire stans rise)

(car accident & death tw) so u know when ur walking down a flight of stairs n then out of nowhere u miss a step n u get that lurch in ur stomach like ur in free fall? yeah. i won’t go into it too much but one night they were driving back from getting frozen yogurt and then suddenly they weren’t. she doesn’t rly remember much about it except for completely ignoring the doctors trying to give her the news and just saying “dad chose pecan. who chooses pecan?” n repeating that over n over n over until it didn’t rly register in her ears as english any more.

willa was uprooted from irving at 11 to go n live w her aunt in NY. this was like. a huge adjustment honestly….. her aunt blanche hd always been a little unconventional bt extremely glamorous. she lived in an old defunct theatre she’d bought out n came from a lot of money. willa’s mum’s side of the family hd always been well off bt celeste opted to live a little more Ordinarily shall we say after settling whereas blanche ws jst balls to the walls dripping w eccentric excess…. wld say she was never naked bc she ws always wearing black opium by yves saint laurent…… probably the living embodiment of la vie boheme….. she’d been admitted a yr early to a rly prestigious parisian design school n is an AMAZING seamstress. a corset she stitched a broadway star into got commissioned fr an actress’ red carpet walk at an indie film festival. rly just lived such a life rich w lots of stories n lots of talent too…… had that star quality essence tht her mum had n that was smthn willa found quite comforting everything considered.

(grief tw) u would think maybe a situation like this (one involving so much sudden change) wld cause a kid of tht age to withdraw into her shell bt willa only came out of her shell MORE. she coped w her situation by spinning it into a celebrity origin story inside her head. the tear jerker tale someone tells during their x factor audition to get the judges rooting for them. mentally streamlining things. repackaging all that hurt as a surefire ticket to success bc it had to be useful for something right? there had to b a point to it right? willa decided the point was she’s a star. KFHSGKFHGFKHGKJSFHG. get it girl….. she ws literally just like ok well clearly i’m destined to be famous n i’m the main character of this story. this story called earth. it’s all about me.

rly heavily immersed herself in her high skl theatre scene……. loved experimenting w fashion n literally wore the most outlandish things like. she treated the hallways like her milan f/w debut every new school yr…… a lot of the things she wore were actual like. costumes frm her aunt’s collection…… she has a multi-story closet u have to climb ladders to reach things in like a very rustic library…. it rly wasn’t uncommon for willa to turn up one day corsetted like a pirate with billowing sleeves or sporting the baby blue gingham of a swedish milk maid. it’s like she literally jst…… became a role. always. every day. the world ws her stage. the cameras were always rolling. her aunt only encouraged this tbh n honestly? icon. we love to see it. willa partied a bunch n rly lived a lax lifestyle where responsibility was concerned…. her aunt ws her best friend…… made rly gd friends with performers in the drag club scene n loved the glitz of that….. lots of wild nights turned grossly bright mornings

snagged an agent fresh into her first yr of college (she gt accepted to a pretty competitive theatre program at [redacted] in NY bc i haven’t looked into what that wld be yet <3 i’m merely a helpless british lass <3) n booked a few commercials n things….. when i say willa wld enter audition rooms like she owned the place i’m rly not exaggerating…. once she turned up to a casting call for MEN n just walked right to the front of the line scraping a random chair along the way n then took a seat w her legs crossed popping a bubble in her gum as they all glared at her like wtf is literally going on who are u. she received several complaints n she was just like “ur all acting so jealous of me….”

i feel like she got a pretty big role in a theatre production in her last yr at school. haven’t decided what yet. maybe smthn rocky horror or even mimi in rent. this was meant to b some like huge moment for willa like yes girl finally making it ur on ur way this is what u wanted n she WAS happy abt it but once it was wrapped she jst had this strange like Huh feeling in her chest……. n a la celeste w all her exciting stories was just like well i’ve done that so what’s next? i think she’d graduate n then jst suddenly decide to move to irving in a fit of impulse. to all her college friends she’d be like “ugh a beach retreat is so necessary honestly the city is sooooooooo toxic this place cld literally enlarge my pores if i wasn’t so rigorous with my skincare routine” bt like 🤔 what u seeking girl? results pending.

SO basically i feel like she finally moved back to irving little over a yr ago. she hd a brief stint starring on a reality tv show tht filmed in one of the larger beach houses where her dog gained a handful of fan accounts dedicated to him……. u maybe will see why in the first bullet point of her personality section………… FKGHKSHFGGKFSHKHG. honestly she ws received pretty well too (mostly bc she’s so fking dramatic n like a caricature of a person) bt it wasn’t anything to warrant actual Fame (despite what willa herself might think). she’s mostly jst like. chilling honestly. accepting scripts n flying out fr auditions still. she’ll nab the occasional part bt she’s looking for that One Thing that rly feels like her big moment….. otherwise i cn just imagine her treating irving like a little dollhouse compared to the roaring mansion of NYC n having fun playing around in it. strikes a pose w a hand on my hip…. and now to personality.

PERSONALITY:

got a very large n lithe greyhound n named him marlene dietrich bc she was a black n white hollywood starlet famously known for her affairs n “bedroom eyes”. willa was like ugh. icon status instantly. didn’t rly foresee the responsibilities tht came w owning a dog tht loves exercise n complains abt him being like “ugh he wants to run soooooooooo much 🙄 like where are u literally going”. having said tht loves him dearly n he can often be seen wearing little clothes. a baby’s bonnet. a quilted leather waistcoat. a custom dog boa. he’s very glamorous. willa calls him a gay icon despite no evidence to support this theory. she also says he can sniff out evil in ppl so she brings him sometimes when she’s first introduced to a friend’s new bf n if his nose quivers a certain way she’s like “marlene has spoken. it’s done”. her friends r like omg? what’s done? willa gets up n walks away without elaborating. marlene’s little paws clicking along the floor w attitude.

literally dressed as marie antoinette for her high skl prom even tho there was no theme pertaining to this. jst loves the spotlight. can fake cry and WILL to get out of a parking ticket or teach someone to watch their tone or even simply for the theatrics of it all. the Most dramatic………….. rly fits being an actress like when people find out what she does it’s very like oh that makes sense.

says she doesn’t get hangovers. she’s just like “i revoked that it doesn’t happen to me”. alludes tht this is bc she’s an all powerful deity that was Chosen to be Blessed bt really she’s jst great at bouncing back n acting fine even w a blistering headache. it’s about believing the performance so much that u even convince urself.

has an extremely elevated sense of self importance bc this is kind of the equivalent of several layers of bubble wrap to cushion her frm the world. strives to b extraordinary bc ordinary honestly feels like a death sentence n there’s nothing she’d want to b seen as less. despite this weight she puts on that she rly doesn’t tend to let ppl’s opinions affect fr the most part like she’s quite firmly set in this I’m Literally The Most Gorgeous And Beautiful Angel Star Creature To Walk This Narsty Little Earth view

probably an incredibly big fan of dramatic short lived love affairs. she wants the glamour of it all. the scandal. the randomly breaking up w someone in a public place n sliding on sunglasses after delivering the words over a freshly ordered coffee (tht she’ll leave without drinking bc that’s star power babey she waits fr no man or no hot beverage)…….. has no preference gets w any n all regardless of gender……… romanticises things so they hv a better spin or story in her head n doesn’t rly take things seriously like jst has fun in her fantasy world…. she’s like ugh chuck i know u wanted to marry me but i’m a beautiful bird in a cage n u literally need to undo the latch n set me free……. the guy’s like……. my name’s chase n we’ve only been on two dates….. willa’s like…… please don’t take this so hard i can tell ur besides urself but people r starting to stare……. gets up n leaves. no-one was staring. chase is confused n honestly probably semi concerned fr her welfare.

always has to b the hottest n most glamorous person in a grocery store…. probably goes to them when she doesn’t even need anything jst holding a basket nonchalantly over her forearm glancing over at a cashier in her wizard of oz corset seamed interpretation on a dorothy dress thinking he wants me soooo bad it’s not even funny….. seduces him over the check out counter jst for him to ask her to come back to his so she can lean back scandalised n cry “IS THAT THE KIND OF WOMAN U THINK I AM, PAUL?! YOU’RE A GHASTLY LITTLE MAN, YOU ARE….” with all the gusto of a telenovela. attracts the shocked glances of all surrounding elderly.

speaks fluent french. probably on her brief stint on tht reality show i mentioned earlier was like “ugh can you believe Deneurve of this guy?” n in her head was like this catchphrase is sensational it’ll catch on fast the twittersphere is abt to implode but it didn’t become a thing except for in a small isolated community. despite this she’s like “yeah it went viral….. go figure. just another day in the life.”

honestly like a lot of fun bt also a huge handful at the same time. keeps her real Serious emotions in a locked box bt is always overflowing w melodramatics n rly giving her all at the drop of a hat where Performing is concerned. probably Loves parties n sees them as another form of production in which she wants to b the lead. rly just. loves herself. except does she? 🤔 lifts my hand up like rihanna n winks. find out next time. lucky by britney plays as i slowly disintegrate in spiderman rp…..

WANTED CONNECTIONS

unrequited flame: willa burns thru people like matches. bright n fast. honestly i feel like she struggles to take romance seriously so it cld be fun to play around with someone who’s been singed by that in the past…. mayb they hd actual feelings whereas willa was just messing around n having fun…. living la vida loca so to speak…….. we can discuss a time frame or specifics to expand upon this but. sexy angst perhaps.

those she knew from childhood: willa moved to NY at 11 n i feel like it was very sudden n soon after the accident. maybe she didn’t even say goodbye. maybe they were rly close n all of a sudden she didn’t show up to school the next day n when they rode past her house on their bike the sign said sold and that was that. honestly very dramatic of her even at a young age. we love a disappearing act. houdini who?

acting rival: honestly jst feel like this cld be funny. willa’s so dramatic she’d be like i literally want them dead they’re a despicable little gremlin fr trying to steal my spotlight. cld be as simple as having auditioned a few times fr the same parts or something.

childhood sweetheart: i think it cld be rly cute n sad if there was someone that kind of echoed the dynamic her mum n dad had except she was the celeste n they were the marlon…. (open to any gender)…….. so like. willa was always very larger than life commanding attention in a room n they were more to the sidelines but they just kind of got each other n brought out the best in one another. added angst to the fact tht willa wld maybe want to avoid them as much as possible now bc it dredges up feelings she doesn’t want to confront where her parents r concerned n also in a way any possibility of them winding up together feels like sellotaping an expiration date to both of their foreheads in willa’s brain

someone who was either a fan of or also on the reality show willa was: i imagine it like a reinvention of the hills honestly except based in these irving beach houses…. probably didn’t run that long bt there was a bunch of drama on it mostly staged…… maybe they were willa’s love interest bt it was all fake fr the cameras…… it wasn’t like. a huge deal n didn’t rly catch flight so much where popularity’s concerned bt. cld be fun to play with <3

patti frands: jogs in high knees to translate that into party friends as i adjust my spectacles. willa’s very sociable bt she’s also like kind of full of herself n obnoxious so do with that what u will. KFHGKSHGKGHFSKG. she knows hw to have a gd time tho like growing up she was rly into the gay club scene n the drag scene in NY so like. let’s hear it fr the gays who know how to do it right <3

someone equally over the top: i luv the idea of willa having someone who just like runs with made up scenarios n roles she makes up on the spot n them hanging out is like a 24/7 improv session tht they reel random surrounding strangers just fr the fun thrill

the other woman: willa is quite detached n selfish so she wld easily be the other woman in a relationship n not care about it n this cld make for good spice <3

[mostly-megan]

I Read The Triple Frontier Early Draft Script

And I have several thoughts on it. @frannyzooey Told me to, so I’m going to go down the line of points I thought were interesting and notes on the characters. It’s all going to be below the cut so we don’t bother the people who don’t care.

It was clearly a very early draft, but I still think it’s interesting to see how the characters changed over time.

Important note: Everyone except for Benny and Tom is only referred to by their nicknames, no real names. So I keep that up to keep from getting confused. 

I do not link to the google doc with the script, but you can dm me if you want the link privately.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, suicide, and sex; mild gore; character death; racism

Story:

Pope during the drug raid learns from a teen in the gang where Lorea keeps his money

Redfly, Benny, and Cat are in North Carolina and keep turning down bs military mission

Pope shows up on Redfly’s stoop, stays with his family, and he tells him about the heist

Redfly seems to agree, but only because Pope is asking and not for the money

The “ You were shot 5 times for your country and can’t afford a new truck” scene is here bit for bit

They go meet Ironhead at one of his support group speeches to convince him to join. He begrudgingly agrees.

Cat and Redfly talk at the fight about the job and both reluctantly agree since the other will do it

Cut to South America running through surveillance, we learn that there are two gun towers, ground sensors, machine guns, and several guards

Pope’s informant is Lorea’s sugar baby(?), Yovanna, who gave him a pic of the money in the office a few weeks prior

The plan is to hide in one of the maid vans and make their way in and out with the money

Everyone is distrustful of his old intel, so they do their own surveillance 

Getting caught in rain on heist day, they wait in the jungle for the guard rotations to resume, almost catching hypothermia

The heist vibe is the same, but this time they find the money is not there instantly

Redfly and Cat try to call the mission, but Benny and Pope insist on getting the money

Benny gets shot(grazed?) in the face and wants to say fuck it, but Redfly reminds him it was his idea

Pope blackmails the guard in the video room and gets the tape before killing him

While Cat, Benny, and Redfly grab the money, Ironhead is shot badly and they have to tape his mouth to keep him quiet

This is when Redfly snaps and decides they go out blazing

Lorea’s guards are outside waiting for them, but the boys literally blow up the front of the house and make a run for the river behind the house with a raft waiting

Lorea’s personal guard shoots him

Kidnapping Yovanna from her apartment, they get her money, passport, and visa to her Redfly grills her and seriously debates killing her, but instructs her to get to Australia 

After essentially holding up the airstrip workers, they see the news of the break-in on TV and weigh 8 tons of money 

Cat argues it’s too much weight, but agrees it will probably be fine

During the flight, Ironhead dies from his wound

Helicopter crash is the same

Pope goes in solo to speak with the farmers and they actually almost kill him before Redfly shoots way too many of them

They get pack animals from the farmers, load up the money and Ironhead, and start climbing

At some point, Cat insists they bury Ironhead because taking a body with them is going to start causing way worse issues

They camp at the burial spot, Pope voices how he blames himself for the death

The trek up the mountain is the same, including dumping some of the money and memorizing the coordinates

Getting to a port town, Cat gets sick from exposure, so they rest a few days

The local gang leader figures out who they are and uses his gang of kids to confront them

They shoot their way out and grab with guns and the money backpack on the way to the car

Benny drives and they almost flip the truck

They literally ALL get shot, but still make it to the boat and get away

The boys all agree to donate all the money to charity, in honor of Ironhead, and almost literally head off to the sunset

Characters:

Redfly

All-American late 30′s white guy; genuiniely wants to be a good person, but seems too wrapped up in the Army life

He’s the main character and most of the story is his POV

He is still with Molly and the girls, and we actually get a nice scene with them in here

He legitimately snaps once Ironhead is shot and doesn’t come back until after they bury him

He seriously almost kills Yovanna and sounds like he regrets not doing so

Says the words to her “After you sucked him off? You were lying there, playing with him- And you asked ‘What’s your real name? Where are you from?’-What did he say?” and I disliked it

Yovanna tells him that Pope thought he was so honest and he hates knowing he is not that person anymore

Pope

Mid-30′s white guy; way more of an instigator and really manipulated his friends to join him 

They never give a reason why he wants to get rid of Lorea

His argument for committing a crime is that America was founded on crimes and it’s not different them the war crimes they committed under orders

Seems embarrassed about his relationship with Yovanna and it’s implied he actually told her his name, but he told her Redfly is the most honest guy he knows. 

Calls some indigenous South Americans “Indians” and says they “don’t even know what century it is”

When an informant runs late, he says it’s because they run on Latino Standard Time

He saved Ironhead’s life once in fire and that is how he convices him to come, so he blames himself solely for his death

He literally brought cigars with them for after the heist. They smoke them once they are in the boat

They made Pope the asshole we don’t like, which is understandable, but upsetting

Catfish

Laid-back mid-30′s white guy who now trains Benny and works as a Private Investigator

He still is the main joker and sarcasm, but they really make sure we remember how dark his past is

There is a scene played as a laugh where he gets annoyed waiting for a cheating couple to fuck, so he holds them at gunpoint, tells them to strip and kiss, take the picture, and then tells them he’s sorry, but they should just get a divorce. It comes off terrifying and gross.

He seems to really distrust Pope and is closest to Redfly

He barely speaks Spanish

The Special Forces Museum put up a statue of him, the only living operative to have one, and his wife tells him to retire then because there was no topping that

When they argue about the weight limit, Cat says “Oh, I’m sorry, I missed you going to flight school.” And I appreciate that line.

Benny

Early 30′s white fighter

He’s described as being all or nothing and prone to manic depressive behavior and “prone to pills”

Redfly thinks he’s too old to go pro in fighting and Benny is v offended

He’s the only one to cry over Ironhead’s death

He still uses his “fuck you” money for a fire

He seems to have the most med knowledge and is the one checking for hypothermia, gives the “reason” why Ironhead dies, helps nurse Cat when he’s sick

He’s mostly played for laughs and it’s sort of a waste

Ironhead

Grizzled, but generous 55 year old white vet

He is literally the father figure here and is called that often

He is not related to Benny, but he seems to have a very soft spot for him as the youngest

He somehow served under Redfly?

He gave up running and gunning to mediate and help newer retirees

In the support group, his speech details all of the horrible things that he’s seen and had happen to him, this is supposed to be the reason why the younger soldiers listen to him

One of the group admits to almost committing suicide the past night and Ironhead say he will not tell him not to do it, just that he will not do it tonight and they all recite not tonight, it’s actually touching to “see” them all taking heart in what he is saying

He only agrees to help Pope because Pope once saved his life in combat and he told him he owes him. This scene is described as a father sadden that he can’t get through to his son, but says yes to keep an eye on them

In the “what will you buy with your money” scene, he says he will donate it to charity. It’s quickly followed by Benny excitedly saying he wants a Ferrari and Ironhead affectionately looks at him and says, “That’s a nice car, Ben!” Which made my doubting heart melt...

He the entire time gives the boys reminders to preserve their humanity and is the one who tell Redfly it’s good he let Yovanna go

When he’s shot, they say that the wound was through, meaning that the bullet entered and exited. But, when he dies, Benny says the bullet must have shifted and nudged into his heart. And I’m really annoyed by that clear mistake....

I genuinely did like this version of the character, not more than OUR Will, but I liked him

Lorea

His intro to the movie is literally leading the police in a high-speed chase in his yellow Lambo

He brings a business partner to his mansion during the boys surveying his house and they see his personal guard shoot the partner and cut off his head so it fits in the trunk of the car

I had to learn that, so now so do you

He has a thing for exotic birds and has to bring in several shifts of maids to clean up after them

He comes off here as way more of a rich wimp

Yovanna

Lorea’s sugar baby/girlfriend who sleeps with Pope and gives him info

She used to be a beauty queen

The script says Redfly is her type and she says out-loud that she wants to watch Pope and Redfly fuck. 

She taught one of Lorea’s birds to say “Hello, Beautiful” and lets that bird get loose in the mansion so she can get the pic of the money for Pope

I genuinely liked her character, too

My Review

I prefer the actual plot and planning of the final movie. The plan and surveillance here slowly fell together smoothly, but ultimately made far less sense.

But, I think they felt like actual friends here. They interact with each other instead of around each other

But this version is racist and kind of gross, so I’d take kind of boring any day

4/10, please do not make me read again

Tagging because you guys seemed interested: @frannyzooey @mandoplease

@krissology @pedropasscals (thought you might like it)

[zoe-oneesama]

Serving up some LOOKS! I love Mylene's Ivan sweatshirt! Would you be willing to talk about what sort of style elements you use for each character? (If you already have and I haven't found it, please ignore the question, that's on me)

I mostly did this for Mendeleiev’s class back when Punch was starting Leave for Mendeleiev, and I did a small run down for how the Main 5 fashion will change in Scarlet Lady, but not Bustier’s class sooooo:

Marinette -[I’m copy/pasting from an earlier ask]- When she likes a color, she sticks with it. She has a versatile wardrobe, but pink must always be present. She has the hardest to nail style because she experiments all the time, but no matter what she doesn’t feel comfortable unless she has an outer layer. Summer, Winter, Shorts, Pants, she needs to the comfort of a jacket - for Tikki to hide in when her purse isn’t appropriate.

Adrien -[Also C/P]- Basic B*tch. He thinks he’s fancier than he is. Oh sure, his clothes are well tailored to him and fit well, but they’re basic as hell. Gabriel isn’t as “innovative” as he thinks he is. Most of his clothes have the Gabriel logo and he sticks to the brand…because Adrien has no fashion sense whatsoever. Oh, he knows in theory what works and can put an outfit together, but he doesn’t want to. If it were up to him, he’d wear tshirts with physics puns and cat themed jackets. But alas, when one is an icon…

Alya -[C/P]- Mom Vibes. Fashion is not her priority. She knows enough to do good for her figure, but otherwise can’t really be bothered. Flannels and jeans in varying heights and a snappy tshirt are all she needs. But she is drawn to things that remind her at least of superheroes or superpowers. Her ridiculous high tops with the spiky tongue? She thinks it makes her look fast. She’s also the one who’s going to embarrass Marinette by wearing trendy but “garbage” fashion: fanny packs, Jellies, ugs with sweatpants. Dammit Alya, you’re a beautiful human being, do you mind NOT dressing like a hobo on vacation?! (Secretly her favorite outfits are from Martinique, but she saves them for special occasions).

Nino -[C/P]- Precious trash goblin. Wash your shirts and the neckline won’t be so worn out! He likes graphic tees with his favorite bands and DJs logos on them (he’s partial to ones without the name of the band or DJ so he can find other fans) and prefers things to be loose. He’s also drawn to colors and he’s super chill when his “garbage” girlfriend rolls up to a date looking like she’s going to an amusement part with her four kids, because it means she can’t dump on him for not looking “put together” (she would never!). He’ll try to dress up every now and then for a fancier date or when Adrien manages to snag him a spot at an event with him, but it’s pretty clear he’s uncomfortable without his hat and headphones. He has a few Moroccan outfits that he brings out in the Summer.

Chloe - Expensive Fashion Forward Chic. She made a staple out of shaming anyone else who dared to wear her favorite color yellow over the years. She was extremely smug about being the first in her grade to experiment with makeup that she never bothered to get good at it. Her clothes are expensive with just a smidge of impractical - only someone with cash to burn would constantly wear white pants! She’s also the kind of person to put off dressing for the cold as long as she can- if she puts on all these jackets and layers, how will these peasants see my brand name clothes underneath?! A lot of her fashion decisions are based on long forgotten advice from her mother - gold over silver jewelry, always have something on your head, brand or nothing. She’ll only abandon a well worn trend if her mother directly contradicts it.

Sabrina - Nerdy, geeky, almost like she’s wearing a uniform. She’s preparing to be Chloe’s assistant best friend for life so she has to look the part. She’s long abandoned any hope of shining next to Chloe, so being flashy and showy is out of the question. Luckily, Chloe isn’t drawn to patterns, so that’s a field of fashion that Sabrina can claim for her own. Doesn’t matter where it is, something she’s wearing needs to have a pattern. Leggings are her favorite accessory and she’s taken to collecting Chat Noir merch (though it’s less out of admiration for the hero himself and more for her “role” with Chloe. It reminds her of the rare times when Chloe acts like they’re friends.)

Mylene - Bohemian, and a touch artsy. Peace is important to her and her vibe reflects that. She’s not super up for showing a lot of skin, but neither are a lot of girls in her class. She leans towards a muted color palette so that her hair doesn’t clash, though she usually tries to match one piece of clothing to some color in her hair. Her accessories are a bit childish and kitchy, like her monster head bead, and she has a huge collection of hair accessories, like bandannas and headbands. She has a lot of different passions with various levels of seriousness, so she’ll come to Marinette for advice on how to use her wardrobe to fit the level of professionalism she wants.

Alix - Sporty but on the lazier side. Fashion is such an anti priority. She’s the one Marinette will go to for her more out there ideas because she has no recoil to pants made of buckles or shapeless over shirts, but that’s as far as it goes. Her clothes are made to be weather resistant and easy to slip on (and so that her dad won’t be pissed if she wipes out and rips something). If it were up to her, she’d just shop out of thrift stores and pick out all the color blocked 80s windbreakers, but when your whole squad is held together by a fashion designer, you can only get away with so much. Her nicest clothes are made by Marinette for her professional races and competitions and her favorites have nods to Egypt mythology and history.

Ivan - Punk but like…beginners guide to punk. Let’s be honest, when you’re built like a brick house, shopping is hard - or at least not that much fun. Ditto when you’re a dude that just…doesn’t particularly care. Ivan has a bunch of cargo pants because they fit, they’re grungy, and they’re practical. SO MANY POCKETS!!! Beyond that, like Nino, he prefers to wear band shirts of his favorite groups. His hiking boots are the nicest things he owns and he has a few bracelets that he only brings out when he’s “dressing up”. The most colorful thing he owns is a hoodie/pants set from the Cartoon Monster Show that Mylene’s hair bead is modeled after.

Kim - Sporty and Serious. Sweatpants and running shoes. That’s the make of his wardrobe. After all, you need to be able to challenge anyone to a race at ANY TIME!! Dressing up for him means putting on a pair of jeans, and he’s pretty much always under dressed but also completely oblivious to the fact. Red is his favorite color and he’s partial to that one brand of sports wear that’s on his hoodie-shirt and sweatband. If something is waterproof (and therefore, sweatproof) he’ll give it a try AS LONG AS IT’S REEEEED!!!

Max - Geek Fashion. Max dresses like he’s already 65 years old, and with his best friend being Kim? He might be. He has invested in some good walking shoes because when your bestie is running off at any and every moment, you gotta do SOMETHING to keep up. His pants are higher up than most guys and his shirts are always tucked in. He prefers sweaters over sweatshirts and cardigans to jackets. We are comfortable in this house, not trendy!

Juleka - Electro Goth. Black is the main attraction, but she likes that punch of something neon - purple, green, even blue (Rose can tell she’s feeling romantic when she puts on some pink). She’s tall and likes clothes that accentuate that and she’s a fan of the details - shoulder cuts, lace inserts, epaulets. And despite covering half her face, she’s really into makeup (and she’s way better than Chloe). Does she have colored contacts? She’ll never tell.

Rose - Decora Kei is probably the best shortcut to describing her look, followed by Kawaii Fashion. Doesn’t matter if she burns to look at, she IS the embodiment of soft and cute! Obviously pink is her favorite color, bu she also likes pairing it with some other bright colors. Rainbows. Are. EVERYTHING. And she’s a sucker for bunnies and strawberries and angel wings ^^! How else is she supposed to have an amazing day if she’s not decked out in sunshine?!

Nathaniel - Basic but like Colorful Basic. He definitely hopped the skinny jeans phase and will continue to do so until he finally grows a bit. He holds onto clothes pretty long because there’s only so many times you can buy new shirts after getting paint and charcoal on them before you just stop caring. He aims for durability instead of fashionable, but also collects clothes with the logo from the show he likes. (And no one knows about his secret Ladybug merch collection that he only wears around his house).

Lila - Gyaru was the search term I used. She’s one of the few with a not super saturated color palette, sticking to dark neutrals. She’s drawn to patterns, like polka dots and zebra prints, and tries to balance it with neutral colors. Plus anything that makes her seem “exotic” and foreign and more interesting, she’ll wear (as long as it’s stylish enough for her.) She cleverly toes the line between fashionable and trashy, showing just enough skin or using a just flashy enough pattern. Every piece she wears she’s crafted a whole story around how she got it, like her bracelets being a gift from street kids in Belize or her earrings being a prize she won when impressing an East Asian Prince. 

[mst3kproject]

The River of the Giant Alligator

A bunch of Italians pretending they’re not Italian in a movie about a guy who chose the wrong place to build a hotel… it’s like Avalanche by way of Devil Fish, with an alligator.  And racism.  You can’t have a 70’s Italian jungle movie without the racism, and this one layers it on real thick.  I think The River of the Giant Alligator has its MST3K bases covered.

Rich Asshole Joshua has opened Paradise House, a resort in the middle of the ‘virgin jungle’.  He proudly tells visitors that not only has he left the surrounding ecosystem undamaged, but he’s helping the local people by giving them jobs and improving their standard of living.  Naturally it’s not as simple as that.  Trouble begins when Sheena, the model they brought for their advertising photographs (just for a dash of Killer Fish), vanishes overnight.  Photographer Daniel and hotel manager Ally go to the locals looking for her, and are told that the River God has awakened and intends to drive the white people away by assuming the form of a giant crocodile and eating them all.  Considering how mind-bogglingly stupid the tourists in this movie are, that should take all of twenty minutes.

The locals, who call themselves the Kuma, have a name for their River God but it’s pronounced five different ways and I won’t guess how to spell it.  Because of the deep breathing sounds that presage its first appearance, I shall call the creature Darth Gator.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first.  The whole movie is dubbed and the voice actors are bad. The Darth Gator prop is completely immobile but they mostly keep it in the dark or in really tight shots so we don’t notice… it’s only the occasional ill-advised wide shot where it’s obviously fake enough to be funny.  There’s a spiky fence that exists mostly so that people can get impaled on it and a cloying little kid for no reason whatsoever.  The ‘wildlife’ is a stock footage smorgasbord that includes orangutans and hippos on the same river.  The worst effect in the film is a terrible miniature shot of the hotel on fire, which would have looked just fine if the people involved hadn’t forgotten that flames don’t scale.

So all that sucks, but is fairly harmless.  Now let’s talk about the racism.

We’ll start with the movie’s treatment of its two ‘love stories’, and I use the floating commas because neither of them quite qualifies. Daniel and Ally are the main ‘couple’ of the movie.  The camera lingers on each of them to show that he thinks she’s beautiful and she thinks he’s rugged, and they spend the whole movie hanging out on balconies and boats together and discussing whether the resort is good or bad for the local people… but they never get so much as a kiss.  This is kind of nice, actually, because there’s very little time to stop and make out when you’re being chased by a large carnivorous reptile.  It does, however, make for a hell of a contrast between them and the other ‘couple’ we see.

This is the model, Sheena, and her Kuma boyfriend. I am unclear on where this movie is set (the closest we get to a clue is Ally referring to the area as ‘the Orient’, which could honestly mean anything) but it’s perfectly clear that the reason they hired a black woman for their publicity photos is to make the place look ‘exotic’.  There’s a weird moment when Joshua attempts to flirt with Sheena by telling her, “it occurs to me that Eve herself may have been black”, which… yes, that is how human evolution worked, what about it?  All that aside, at the end of the day, Sheena runs off for a romantic evening with one of the tribesmen.  We never see her talk to this guy or have any clue what made her pick him over any of the others.  They just go fuck on a beach and then get eaten by an alligator.

So… we have blonde, blue-eyed white people having a perfectly chaste, wait-for-marriage love affair in which they actually get to know each other… and black people who run off with a stranger and screw out in the open like animals.  Holy shit.  I want to say I hope this wasn’t something the film-makers actively thought about, but it might be worse if they didn’t.  Naturally, this is also a version of the ‘people who have premarital sex must die’ trope from slasher movies, and the movie makes doubly sure we know this is Bad Behaviour by having Ally remark that the Kuma are forbidden from visiting ‘the Island of Love’ on the full moon.

The deaths of Sheena and Nameless Kuma Guy also begin a pattern that lasts almost the entire movie.  Even though we’re told, repeatedly, that Darth Gator wants to drive the white people out of his jungle, for the vast majority of the running time it’s the brown people who are getting chomped.  We’re told that twelve white missionaries came here years ago and Darth Gator ate all but one of them, who then became a crazy jungle man (not gonna lie, Father Jonathan was my favourite character and I wish we’d seen more of him).  We see Sheena, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s brother get eaten alive.  Furthermore, most of the white deaths in the movie are at the hands of the Kuma, who run in and kill the tourists with spears and fire arrows in the belief that they’re doing their god’s bidding, and much of this happens offscreen. Those hit by the arrows quickly fall into the water and vanish from sight.  The only time the camera lingers on a white person dying is Joshua, who I guess they think deserved it.  The impression one gets is that white death is a horror better implied than shown, while brown death is a spectacle.  Again… holy shit.

The River of the Giant Alligator can’t seem to decide what we’re supposed to think about the Kuma people.  Early in the film they’re portrayed as victims.  These foreigners have invaded their land and built this giant hotel, and claimed to be helping them by giving them ‘work’. Ally notes that they’ll be able to live longer, healthier lives, but Daniel wonders if it’s worth it when they’ve basically become Joshua’s slaves.  The movie leaves this question hanging there without exploring it any further. When Daniel and Ally come looking for information about the alligator attacks, the Kuma direct them to Father Jonathan, knowing they’re more likely to believe a white man, even one who’s obviously not quite all there.  The movie really wants to be about the exploitation of indigenous peoples, treated as decorations and curiosities by white tourists.

The problem is, it wants to eat that cake, too.  By the end of the story, the Kuma have devolved into stock savages.  They attack the hotel and kill everybody, and kidnap Ally so they can tie her to a horizontal King Kong contraption as a sacrifice. The ending just makes it all the more confusing, as they turn up to discover that their god has been blown to bloody chunks after biting into a van full of explosives, and they cheer and they just leave.  Is it really that easy to kill a god?  Won’t a dead god demand vengeance anyway?  Does this mean they actually like the white people after all, and were only angry because Darth Gator was eating them?

The ending also muddles the movie’s other point, about the nature of eco-tourism.  One of the selling points of Paradise House is that it’s in the middle of virgin jungle.  Joshua brags about how he’s left the surrounding ecosystem untouched – but then we cut straight to trees being cleared using dynamite, and later we see live piglets being thrown into the river to keep the crocodiles hanging around so people can gawk at them.  You can’t build a hotel in the middle of a place and then call it ‘virgin jungle’.  You’re the one who violated it!

The script is a little unclear on whether Darth Gator is a natural or supernatural threat.  Ally and Daniel insist that it’s no mere alligator (I don’t think this movie knows the difference between crocodiles and alligators any better than I do) and Father Jonathan seems to believe it’s the Devil Himself, but it certainly dies like a flesh-and-blood creature.  Whatever its nature, it’s clear enough that Darth Gator represents the jungle striking back at these intruders to drive them out.  The Kuma literally say as much.  So what are we to take from the fact that it dies at the end?  Have we won the right to destroy the forest by killing its guardian?  I don’t believe the people who make these movies think this stuff through.

I can tell that we’re supposed to hate the tourists, and we do, although not always for the reasons the movie wants us to. Minnow, the red-haired little girl who ‘only likes to play with boys’, tries so hard to be Adorable that you want to punt her across the room.  Her mother leaves her to wander around the hotel alone, because Mummy’s got a smarmy mustached boyfriend to bang (even this relationship gets more attention than Sheena and Unnamed Kuma Guy, by the way… we are told that Mummy and Mustache have met before, and are here mostly to see each other rather than the jungle).  Other notable annoyances include a lady who seems perfectly sane until she starts talking about the aliens, and a guy who loves to complain about Youth These Days and will seize any opportunity to do so.

I kinda wanna gripe about these obnoxious characters, but I don’t feel like I can.  You may recall that I spent a month stuck on a cruise ship earlier this year.  I can tell you definitively that these people do exist, and I hate them even more in real life.

Man, this could have been a fun monster movie.  I’ve seen movies about man-eating crocodiles (or alligators… does it honestly matter that much?) that I really enjoyed.  Primeval wasn’t even that bad – it was about how humans are more monstrous than anything nature can produce.  Lake Placid had that immortal bit where Betty White says if I had a dick, this is where I’d tell you to suck it.  The River of the Great Alligator is just boring bullshit and things that seem kinda racist on the surface but then you think about them a little longer and realize they’re incredibly racist.  I went into this one hoping to like it, but it absolutely pissed on the last shreds of my optimism... like a lot of other things in 2020.

[popculturebuffet]

Amphiba Reviewcaps Catchup Special: Lost In Newtopia/Sprig Gets Schooled/Little Frogtown/Hopping Mall

In a 4 episode marathon to make up for lost time: Hop Pop handcuffs Sprig to him because that’s not troubling and Polly And Anne head off on their own mostly uninteresting adventure. Sprig gets into college and regrets it  much like most college students. Hop Pop goes on a noir adventure while Anne harasses children and it all ends with a wacky mall adventure that ends in an utter tearjerker. Pitter Patter, let’s get at er after the cut. 

Whelp i’m behind. Over the last two weeks i’ve been busy moving into a new room in the house, and moving my stuff into said room and making it feel like home, and when i’ve had time I either had new coverage to start, or a series passing to honor, or in the case of yesterday had to have my wisdom tooth removed because it got so bad I couldn’t think out of nowhere. SO yeah been a pretty exausting few weeks... but with only one episode left before Amphibia likely goes on hiatus for the rest of the year, Halloween special excepted, I don’t really have the time to dawdle on this. So not much of an introduction let’s hop to it. 

Lost in Newtopia

This will be a quick one, but this one was.. eh. Not BAD, as the first, last and middle scenes are all really good. it’s just between theere it’s not much intresting.  The opening on the bus was pure gold as Hop Pop as usual gets fired up about something boring, then casually handcuffs his grandson because that’s normal. Then again this is the same man who also thought brainwashing his grandchildren was a minor slight so this is a step up somehow. Also he does have some logic for it after Sprig blew up a robot factory and , unbenowst to him, stole a powerful credit card for funsies. But .. get a dog leash or something.  The scene was also great as we got to see Anne’s mom for the first time! And the scene with her wanting to get out and try exotic food her tummy’s not ready for was really adorable and relatable as having a young nice, I understand them asking for things they really shoudln’t have and then holding a grudge over it.  But then the episode just sorta.. sputters for most of it’s run time. The bit with the tail shop is rfairly enjoyable, but the mishap with the vendor and the parade just aren’t all that funny and the basic conciet of tryign to do it up like locals hasn’t been done AS often as I’d think but frankly How I Met Your MOther, Back before it didn’t so much shoot itself in the foot as shoot both it’s legs off, did this slightly better with first time in new york, where the inverse happened, i.e. the locals pretending to be tourists.  The ending scene was great, from Hop Pop going from terror at “street weridos” to casual happiness at seeing his grandaughter and adopted grandaughter (And my heart flew to hear him call anne that. I mean it was obvious but i’ts still nice to hear. Like when Scrooge told webby to Call him uncle scrooge but without the horribly scarring assholery the next episode he still hasn’t properly apologized for to her. ) and Polly and Anne’s terrible names for each other.> It was good stuff it’s just overal an okay episode. Good enough to entertain but just ntohing really out of the ordinary for this show, but with funny enough bits to keep invested. Next. 

Sprig Gets Schooled Ehhhhh... this one HAD potetial, an intresting setting, Sprig getting in on his talent, plenty of fun college tropes, Hop Pop struggling with his grandson leaving the nest.. there was good stuff here, but like too many episodes this season it wasn’t used as well as it couldv’e been. 

The episode has the family come upon Newtopia University, where Sprig’s talent with stopping mantises and with a fiddle gets him a scholarship, which is one of Hop Pop’s dreams, but both quickly regret it: Sprig dosen’t fit in while Hop Pop misses his baby boy. It comes to a head with Sprig tryign to sneak in and Anne and Polly trying to sneak in for hyjinks. 

But overall it’s just.. eh. it has a few good gags, but the anne and polly plot has been done so many times by now, and while that alone isn’t enough to make it not all that fun the fact it isn’t funny or unique is when The Simpsons, Undergrads, Futrama , Solar Opposites and Bobs Burgers just off the top of my head have done fratboy hyjinks episodes way better.

 But what dosen’t help is while Hop Pop’s emotional part of the episode, missing his boy and wanting him to come bome, works, Sprig just.. get sbored. There’s nothing about how hard school is or him missing the others it’s just.. he dosen’t like it so he tries to leave. Instead of having an emotinal episode about him possibly fitting in there, or struggling to fit in there or some third thing it’s just.. an average 10 year old not liking college becuase of course he dosen’t. He’s too young to keger or really ond with his clasemates. It’s just an eh watch. Not as unpleasant as quarallers pass but without that episodes good parts to really help it be entertaining. Ugh.  And you might say “well every episode dosen’t have to have an emotinal core jackass” which.. yeah your right. But it has to be funny. Or entertaining or have something and not just be .. eh. You CAN be just a funny episode if you do that right. And amphibia USUALLY does that and has an emotional hook to make it even better. And the proof is in the next two episodes. 

Little Frogtown Now this.. this is more like it. After two less than memorable episodes, we get two classics in a row. Granted since I grew up on calvin and hobbes and thus grew up with the two tracer bullet arcs...

Well three techncially with the haircut thing but yeah, given one of them was in my first comic strip collection ever, the indespensible calvin and hobbes if your curious, I’ve always had a soft spot for noir episodes and to animations credit there have been some classics; The recurirng Numbah 2 detective stories in Kids Next Door, Venture Bros classic “everybody comes to hanks” and of all things, Garfield Babes and Bullets. Yes that happened and yes it IS actually good. 

Oh and if your wondering if Garfield solved something family friendly like a Lasanga Robbery, or his teddy bear going missing or odie being kidnapped for a dog fight nope! He’s hired by a college professors wife to find out who killed her husband since it looked like a simple accident, but unsuprisingly it wasn’t. Oh and did I mention that not only is this based on a story from the book garfield’s 9 lives, which got it’s own special for the rest of the stories it chose to adapt and a few new ones to replace those it didn’t, but in that story it’s about a chuch deacon. That’s right Garfield tackled corruption in the church. Your welcome. But i’ve talked about Garfield Babes and Bullets enough.. I mean for today. I clearly need to cover this and 9 lives as a whole at some point. Let’s get back to this episode. Point is noir parodies are great and gafield has done some weird and wonderful shit.  But my like of it aside this is a genuinely clever episode that has it’s own neat takes on the genre. The basic setup is simple: Hop Pop takes the kids to Sal’s, a restraunt owned by an old friend of his who got so sucessful with his delcious sandwitches and secret sauce he moved up to Newtopia.. but when Hop Pop finds the place he finds it in shambles, with no one there and Sal entirely missing. So while the kids head off for the arcade next door, Hop Pop goes into full noir mode to find his missing friend.  It’s that core that works. Sure lots of shows use the “friend we only just heard of” plot device but here it works because it’s so simply used here: They were friends years and years ago, sal moved away probably decades ago, and he simply hasn’t kept in touch. Both are busy: Sal with his restraunt and what we find out here, and Hop Pop with his family and later having to swoop in when his daughter or son and their spouse died. It’s perfectly acceptable. To me while i’ve bitched plenty about cliches it’s mostly been about HOW you use them. About using them right instead of just coasting on an old plot to fill out your episodes for the season. If you don’t have an intresting story to tell, then use the 11 minutes for something ELSE. And here.. they do and have a fun spin on noir by having hop pop’s narration talk to him. While that’s happened before with narration gags I haven’t seen it in a noir parody before and it’s just pure comedy gold, and Bill Farmer’s acting makes you genuinely invested in finding out what happened to this character you never met. Bill really sells how worried hop pop is without over doing it and how important this guy and his sammiches are to him. 

The final twist while not entirely suprising is intresting: Turns out , after Hop Pop finds people seemingly having stolen the recipie, Sal’s restraunt.. simply went belly up. Which sadly, makes sense: he had good ingredients but he’s in the world’s capital, where ther’es probably tons of mom and pop restraunts and giants of cuisine. It’s hard to start a buisness anywhere let alone the biggest city int he world. So Sal simply pivoted, sold his recipie and became a billionare. It’s a good solution that teaches hop pop a lessson: Change happens, things you really love like comfort food restraunts won’t last forever. I myself miss when this area I live in had a tgi fridays and it’s probably never coming back> Things change.. what matters more is people and moving on. Though he does send hop pop on with a bottle of sauce. It’s a good lesson for kids and a fine ribbon tied on one of the season, and hte series, best.  And of course before we move on we have the b plot which is funny as it is relatable as some little shit steps in line in front of anne and being anne she overreacts.. and gets tazed and gets everyone banned. Not a huge subplot but it’s funny as it is relatable as someone whose both stood in massive lines and had people cut in and felt it was massively unfair. Never got into a fistfight over it but tha’t sbecasuse arcades are rare and cornona probably wiped out the rest. Ha ha.. I hate this year. One more!

Hopping Mall

Last one. Another simple plot: Hop Pop forces the kids to use 2 coppers a piece to buy souviners instead of letting them use the card because it means more.. which is bullcrap. While using your own money for a present DOES mean a lot, my mom gave me money plenty of times to buy gifts and covered me plenty. The real meaning behind a gift for someone is that you picked it out yourself, that whatver thing you picked made you think of them and that you meant it for them. Weather it be a mug, a billy bass, or the great mighty poo on a t shirt, what matters is it comes from the heart. Though Hop Pop also buys himself an easy chair and sends it home and admits h’es a hypocrite so maybe we’re not supposed to take him seriously.  While this is there to make drama mostly for Anne it’s a plot device I like as it’s both the kind of nonsense an adult would make and then not follow, and it leads to a really good plot as our kids find their things; Hop Pop introduces the kids to haggling, which Polly mistakes for using tried and true mafia approved methods of intpmidation, leg breaking, arson and threats of all of the above andc omes back with her own snail and tiny cart. Sprig being sprig finds a gift for Ivy in seconds that’s a nice stick.. that also shooots lasers because I dunno. Also nice of the show to actually MENTION his girlfriend.... several episodes in.. with again NO goodbye to her or anyone else. And yes that’s still a sticking point this far in it wouldn’t of killed them to include that in one of the premire episodes.  Anyways that leaves Anne who finds a nice teapot for her mom, but soon has to do what all people who can’t afford a tea pot too: enter a demolition derby against a mother daughter team using shopping carts. It’s a neat set piece, as is Anne apparently knowing carts because her and her friends hung around the mall a lot, which given we saw her and sasha out and out steal one for hyjinks, it’s a nice continuity nod. Anyways our heroes win the race, but Sprig looses his stick saving polly and their rival has to ravage her tail to save polly again. I also love the return of the “not the baby!” cry from “Marcy at the Gates” which I also swear has been used before on this show but can’t remember specifically where.  It’s revealed their rival, and her daughter both of which are entertaining especially the daughter, wants the pot because it was one of her mom’s designs and it means a lot and that touches a nerve with Anne, so she lets her have it, but does get a lovely butterfly clip from the daughter. After the hop pop gag we get the most infamous, and best scene of the episode that ties the above together.

 Sprig wakes up to find Anne ruminating on the balcony.. and for the first time since she got here really, she breaks down a bit about how much she misses her. And my honest interpretation is she’s been holding how bad she feels for her mom, who she admits to not having the best relationship with but both loving each other dearly: That she likely blames herself for the theft, for listenting to sasha, for getting them all stranded, for destroying her friendship with Sasha and possibly not being able to bring her home with her. But mostly for causing her parents undo pain, having no idea how hurt they are or what they’ll feeel when she comes back, no idea if she’ll even be able to make it home and see them again.. it’s a lot to hold in and with all she’s had to deal with I feel she’s been holding it inside just so she dosen’t snap. She already has enought o deal with especially after “reunited. Thinking for amoment about how her parents are likely in utter misery desperatley looking for her when she’s not even on earth... it’d break her.. and it does. She admits missing her, regretting they fought all the time and sobbing a bit... and the scene only gets sadder when Sprig interjects.  He asks a simple question; What was she like. While we STILL don’t know the specifics we finally find out that his mom died when he and polly were really little, polly was probably a newborn... he never really knew her and wonders.. can you miss someone you never really knew? It’s a sad, sobering moment. We assumed sprig was fine with his parents being gone because like Anne and her parents he just never brought it up. But sometimes a person just burys something or is sad or upset in private, speaking from personal experince here. Sometimes you don’t talk about something beacuse you don’t know HOW and Sprig likely just dosen’t want to make hop pop more upset at reminding him his daughter and or son and daughter in law and or son in law are dead, something he likely deals with every day. It’s a powerfully acted scene and ends as the two cry softly together while the credits play over the newtopia night sky. Just a beautiful powerful scene that ties a mostly comedy episode together into something fantastic and like it’s partner episode, one of the series best. 

And with that catchup is done. Join me saturday for more of this, more loud house, and moe moe moe, how do you like me how do you like me, moe moe moe, why do you like me nobody likes me... if you want more subsuricbe, check the backlogs ont hea ssioated pages, and shoot me an ask for a suggestion or a dm to comission a full review. While Amphibia weekly coverage is wrapping up for a while after saturday i’ll be back for the halloween special and then whenever the show returns in full, Ducktales coverage restarts monday and Loud House Coverage that began with Schooled continues sometime this weekend along with a possible foruth thing. Until then, stay safe and GO TEAM VENTURE! 

[fyrapartnersearch]

Howdy there! How are you?

Self

My name is James Home. I’m a 23 year old trans male from Olympia WA. In time zones that’s PST (Pacific standard time) am a visual artist, graphic designer, and storyteller. My Briggs acronym ENFJ. In saying so I’m a huge talker and communicator, physically and literally! Personal interests of mine include BOTW, FFXV, and Hanibal atm. I have a lovely and incredible wife named Isabella. We both additionally like DND (were even painting our minis), collecting Halloween decorations, and watching Avatar the last air bender with our roommate. Though I do have a history in plenty of other fandoms as well and always on the lookout for recommendations.

Preference

So for myself I love to take care of my Rp partners in all accommodations possible.

Meaning if your heart has been craving fluff, rough smut, or a plain ol hug. IM GAME! If none, no biggie let’s make a plot spot!

Roles I usually fall under are but not limited too….

-DOM , Vers, Power bottom

-caretaker, guardian, teacher

-father, handler, knight

-beefcakes, robots, selfless leaders

And so much more!

The roles I lean towards are

-caretaker, strong and silent-ish type, and flamboyant entertainers.

-male roles, trans male roles, open to trying a female role?, non binary, pangender role.

- I do enjoy topping, some aspects of BDSM, and some hard kinks.

-fallen leader, relearning about a loving world, hopeful in a dark world.

-not taking their role as important as they should have or are, “I’ve been doing this for years. But this is new”, and “I brought you your favorite drink wanna cuddle, I’ll provide the sugar?” Types

And so much more!

As far as story things themes are

-highly complex kingdoms

-High pace fantasy

-society by the ocean

-abandon green houses

-heavily dense forests

-fae and fiend worlds

-AUs of pre-existing universes from shows

-magic incorporated

-supernatural

Worlds we design collectively.

My HARD NOs are…

NO MINORS ROLEPLAYING WITH ME, 19 AND UNDER DO NOT APPLY

-abuse in active Rp (can be used from background and really has to depend on circumstance)

-harm of any children

-harm of expected mother

-any form of r*pe play

-blood play, degrading play, hard impact play

-crying kinks, humiliation kink, and electric play

-no smoking kinks either or character usage of substances.

Writing

I’m not too big on proper grammar or sentence structure as long as there was an idea getting across. I’m ok with role playing as many people as you’d like to actively work on, so doubles, and even triples are okay. Plus working two different stories is fun! I do prefer paragraphing and we all know the feeling of one word responses. This is a hobby and creative outlet from myself so that’s why I have no big stressors about punctuation or spelling.

Storytelling

Here are some story concepts I’ve come up with. Yet if you’d like to imply your own let’s talk about it!

Counterpart pathways

A magical filled fantasy realm where all is possible including the bad. One summer day a incubus/demon hybrid named Jona, father of three, learns someone has kidnapped all three of his boys! He's on the hunt for clues and finding them at all costs. Gathering the best crew possible of Moof the best wolf bounty hunter in all the realm, Bell the boys spider caretaker shapeshifter, and Glover the bull/bison hybrid the green alchemist, set off to find the children. Along the way by gathering clues they encounter obstacles and trials of skill and pursuit! Will they ever find the three octopus babies ? Will Jona have closure and put on a shirt? Will Bell ever stop stealing everything shiny? Will Moof grow more confident in his teammates? Will Glover not stop shaking and being such a wuss? Who will help this odd 4 on their epic abnormal quest?!

Puddles

A time traveler that gets stuck in between dimensions due to their powers temporarily weakened from the extensive work they've been doing end up meeting a stranger who takes them in. Not used to the timeline they shows up in, they have to knowledge of normal behavior. They must figure out a way to recharge their abilities but has not of the slightly clue as to what it causing them to have lost them in the first place. Is the person that's helping them good or evil? Who's side are they on? How will they figure them out? Why do they find the stranger oddly familiar?

When men become mortal

An alien/robot/human species that survives by using different masks/chips for various occasions. It's like buying different clothes but they adapt or transform the hoist for a month or less of another body/form/identity. The main character experiences a technical difficulty where their head socket cannot adapt to a new face for long and has to get it repaired. Though along the way he seems to find that not wearing a false identity they actually enjoy seeing the outside world with no expectation of appearance. The other is a identity artist, the one whom develops different faces and identity. He spends hours tweaking details of bodies and faces. He always has the nicest things because of his work and from important commissions and work for certain clients.They meet at a gallery that the artist is hoisting at a museum. The individuals there are decorated like some of the model pieces and others artist curators-part sellers. The faceless one decides to go to the museum to see what's or who's being showcased and since he has a little bit of extra money he saved up for the occasion. Everyone finds him interesting since he doesn't have an appearance, they think he's a model. Thus they send him to meet with the artist for the show. The artist doesn't know him at all. They find eachother very different but most parts similar. From their meeting the artist gets inspired by his original face. Coming to realize that even himself that he has given into the world he never wanted to.The two of them hit it off. Both dwelling into the matters of the "perfect" vessel. Asking the serious questions such as what makes a body, a face, a soul attractive? They go on for hours and it starts to inspire the artists work into his new resorted craftsmanship. The faceless impressed by the purposed questions and also work. The two of them grow closer resulted from talking so much about bodies and meaning. All the while testing out the new creations, body parts, and vessels capabilities. Not all though is good while the two develop this hoist. There's a villain at hand who one of the artist's main clients that goes unsuspected. They want to use the designs to create a vessel for the bad and wealth. Only to include to kill off all humans.The two of them hit it off. Both dwelling into the matters of the "perfect" vessel. Asking the serious questions such as what makes a body, a face, a soul attractive? They go on for hours and it starts to inspire the artists work into his new resorted craftsmanship. The faceless impressed by the purposed questions and also work. The two of them grow closer resulted from talking so much about bodies and meaning. All the while testing out the new creations, body parts, and vessels capabilities. Not all though is good while the two develop this hoist. There's a villain at hand who one of the artist's main clients that goes unsuspected. They want to use the designs to create a vessel for the bad and wealth. Only to include to kill off all humans. Thus forces the artist to reveal his true identity. A human being. Not a hologram. Plus he's not just an artist but a ex-con scientist from the labs that have bloomed into a internalized war. Faceless becomes confused and also hurt that the artist to mention this. Only for the two of them being followed. The artist informs the robot that the hybrids (the children of the robot-species, generations of offspring) are the real threat to society. The one who hoists and is in charge of the power sorce is human and machine. The first of its kind, and also the previous mentor of the artist/ex-scientist. Who will get to the power source first. Our main dynamic couple or the robotic uprising that believe all humans should cease to exist once and for all?

Gay Cryptids

Themes

Active night life

Next to the ocean, sea, body of water.

Beach city/lost boys/Mad max?/punk/ regal?/neon lights/old mascots/vapor wave af

Carnival / festivals

Dark market authenticity

Biker gang(s)

Aquatic features, art, incorporated in surroundings

Lifestyles like fish importing, dock workers, sushi shops, fancy diners

Common foods are all fish and sea foods

The city was a work in process for a resort city, and a major violent storm came too early taking out some of the fancier parts of the island. Most of the higher end houses and mansions were believed to be damaged in the outer edges of the island. There had been a castle built as a main part of the hotel/resort. Old costumes, sets, mascots were left to rot by the seas breeze. Barnacles, ivy, and vines with exotic flora and fauna growing wildly cover the buildings. Possibly even growing in the mansion and other houses. The main part of the biker gang is in a abandoned church next to the sea caves is where the biker gang mostly resides and work primarily as hit men and women. The island would be decided by the two head family of vampires one powerful family versus the other in over control if the current situation of resort in the actual tourist location.A rambunctious gang of young cryptics disguise themselves as human during the daytime but during the night it's quite the time to be alive and young. Various story arcs of love and lust between the group members figuring out their own sexualities and forming adulthood. Though most of it is all of them just fucking around.A rambunctious gang of young cryptics disguise themselves as human during the daytime but during the night it's quite the time to be alive and young. Various story arcs of love and lust between the group members figuring out their own sexualities and forming adulthood. Though most of it is all of them just fucking around.

Plausible locations

Old mill

Carnival / freakshow

Rides and amusement

Abandoned Church

Greenhouse

Garden

Boat house

Log cabins

CAMP grounds

Old schools

Warehouses

The Docks or Port

Boat houses

Boat docks

Abandoned Hotel

Studios

Bike store

Surf or like diving store

Knickknack shack

Ma and Pa restaurants

Antique stores

Downtown

Library

Hospital or infirmary excotic masion

I have story plots for days SONNNN so these are at skim level for plot.

If you’d like to contact me the best ways are

Discord at

Agodnamedhome#4202

Onlyagodnamedhome@gmail.com

I work from 11:30 to 4 Monday-Friday

But available before, and after for sure.

Thursday’s at 5 are my therapist appointments

Weekends are 100% free atm

Looking for a long term, short term, a friend!

[agodnamedhome]

Howdy there! How are you?

Self

My name is James Home. I’m a 23 year old trans male from Olympia WA. In time zones that’s PST (Pacific standard time) am a visual artist, graphic designer, and storyteller. My Briggs acronym ENFJ. In saying so I’m a huge talker and communicator, physically and literally! Personal interests of mine include BOTW, FFXV, and Hanibal atm. I have a lovely and incredible wife named Isabella. We both additionally like DND (were even painting our minis), collecting Halloween decorations, and watching Avatar the last air bender with our roommate. Though I do have a history in plenty of other fandoms as well and always on the lookout for recommendations.

Preference

So for myself I love to take care of my Rp partners in all accommodations possible.

Meaning if your heart has been craving fluff, rough smut, or a plain ol hug. IM GAME! If none, no biggie let’s make a plot spot!

Roles I usually fall under are but not limited too….

-DOM , Vers, Power bottom

-caretaker, guardian, teacher

-father, handler, knight

-beefcakes, robots, selfless leaders

And so much more!

The roles I lean towards are

-caretaker, strong and silent-ish type, and flamboyant entertainers.

-male roles, trans male roles, open to trying a female role?, non binary, pangender role.

- I do enjoy topping, some aspects of BDSM, and some hard kinks.

-fallen leader, relearning about a loving world, hopeful in a dark world.

-not taking their role as important as they should have or are, “I’ve been doing this for years. But this is new”, and “I brought you your favorite drink wanna cuddle, I’ll provide the sugar?” Types

And so much more!

As far as story things themes are

-highly complex kingdoms

-High pace fantasy

-society by the ocean

-abandon green houses

-heavily dense forests

-fae and fiend worlds

-AUs of pre-existing universes from shows

-magic incorporated

-supernatural

Worlds we design collectively.

My HARD NOs are…

NO MINORS ROLEPLAYING WITH ME, 19 AND UNDER DO NOT APPLY

-abuse in active Rp (can be used from background and really has to depend on circumstance)

-harm of any children

-harm of expected mother

-any form of r*pe play

-blood play, degrading play, hard impact play

-crying kinks, humiliation kink, and electric play

-no smoking kinks either or character usage of substances.

Writing

I’m not too big on proper grammar or sentence structure as long as there was an idea getting across. I’m ok with role playing as many people as you’d like to actively work on, so doubles, and even triples are okay. Plus working two different stories is fun! I do prefer paragraphing and we all know the feeling of one word responses. This is a hobby and creative outlet from myself so that’s why I have no big stressors about punctuation or spelling.

Storytelling

Here are some story concepts I’ve come up with. Yet if you’d like to imply your own let’s talk about it!

Counterpart pathways

A magical filled fantasy realm where all is possible including the bad. One summer day a incubus/demon hybrid named Jona, father of three, learns someone has kidnapped all three of his boys! He's on the hunt for clues and finding them at all costs. Gathering the best crew possible of Moof the best wolf bounty hunter in all the realm, Bell the boys spider caretaker shapeshifter, and Glover the bull/bison hybrid the green alchemist, set off to find the children. Along the way by gathering clues they encounter obstacles and trials of skill and pursuit! Will they ever find the three octopus babies ? Will Jona have closure and put on a shirt? Will Bell ever stop stealing everything shiny? Will Moof grow more confident in his teammates? Will Glover not stop shaking and being such a wuss? Who will help this odd 4 on their epic abnormal quest?!

Puddles

A time traveler that gets stuck in between dimensions due to their powers temporarily weakened from the extensive work they've been doing end up meeting a stranger who takes them in. Not used to the timeline they shows up in, they have to knowledge of normal behavior. They must figure out a way to recharge their abilities but has not of the slightly clue as to what it causing them to have lost them in the first place. Is the person that's helping them good or evil? Who's side are they on? How will they figure them out? Why do they find the stranger oddly familiar?

When men become mortal

An alien/robot/human species that survives by using different masks/chips for various occasions.

It's like buying different clothes but they adapt or transform the hoist for a month or less of another body/form/identity.

The main character experiences a technical difficulty where their head socket cannot adapt to a new face for long and has to get it repaired. Though along the way he seems to find that not wearing a false identity they actually enjoy seeing the outside world with no expectation of appearance.

The other is a identity artist, the one whom develops different faces and identity. He spends hours tweaking details of bodies and faces. He always has the nicest things because of his work and from important commissions and work for certain clients.

They meet at a gallery that the artist is hoisting at a museum. The individuals there are decorated like some of the model pieces and others artist curators-part sellers.

The faceless one decides to go to the museum to see what's or who's being showcased and since he has a little bit of extra money he saved up for the occasion. Everyone finds him interesting since he doesn't have an appearance, they think he's a model. Thus they send him to meet with the artist for the show.

The artist doesn't know him at all. They find eachother very different but most parts similar. From their meeting the artist gets inspired by his original face. Coming to realize that even himself that he has given into the world he never wanted to.

The two of them hit it off. Both dwelling into the matters of the "perfect" vessel. Asking the serious questions such as what makes a body, a face, a soul attractive? They go on for hours and it starts to inspire the artists work into his new resorted craftsmanship. The faceless impressed by the purposed questions and also work. The two of them grow closer resulted from talking so much about bodies and meaning. All the while testing out the new creations, body parts, and vessels capabilities.

Not all though is good while the two develop this hoist. There's a villain at hand who one of the artist's main clients that goes unsuspected. They want to use the designs to create a vessel for the bad and wealth. Only to include to kill off all humans.

The two of them hit it off. Both dwelling into the matters of the "perfect" vessel. Asking the serious questions such as what makes a body, a face, a soul attractive? They go on for hours and it starts to inspire the artists work into his new resorted craftsmanship. The faceless impressed by the purposed questions and also work. The two of them grow closer resulted from talking so much about bodies and meaning. All the while testing out the new creations, body parts, and vessels capabilities.

Not all though is good while the two develop this hoist. There's a villain at hand who one of the artist's main clients that goes unsuspected. They want to use the designs to create a vessel for the bad and wealth. Only to include to kill off all humans.

Thus forces the artist to reveal his true identity. A human being. Not a hologram. Plus he's not just an artist but a ex-con scientist from the labs that have bloomed into a internalized war. Faceless becomes confused and also hurt that the artist to mention this. Only for the two of them being followed.

The artist informs the robot that the hybrids (the children of the robot-species, generations of offspring) are the real threat to society. The one who hoists and is in charge of the power sorce is human and machine. The first of its kind, and also the previous mentor of the artist/ex-scientist.

Who will get to the power source first. Our main dynamic couple or the robotic uprising that believe all humans should cease to exist once and for all?

Gay Cryptids

Themes

Active night life

Next to the ocean, sea, body of water.

Beach city/lost boys/Mad max?/punk/ regal?/neon lights/old mascots/vapor wave af

Carnival / festivals

Dark market authenticity

Biker gang(s)

Aquatic features, art, incorporated in surroundings

Lifestyles like fish importing, dock workers, sushi shops, fancy diners

Common foods are all fish and sea foods

The city was a work in process for a resort city, and a major violent storm came too early taking out some of the fancier parts of the island. Most of the higher end houses and mansions were believed to be damaged in the outer edges of the island. There had been a castle built as a main part of the hotel/resort. Old costumes, sets, mascots were left to rot by the seas breeze. Barnacles, ivy, and vines with exotic flora and fauna growing wildly cover the buildings. Possibly even growing in the mansion and other houses. The main part of the biker gang is in a abandoned church next to the sea caves is where the biker gang mostly resides and work primarily as hit men and women. The island would be decided by the two head family of vampires one powerful family versus the other in over control if the current situation of resort in the actual tourist location.

A rambunctious gang of young cryptics disguise themselves as human during the daytime but during the night it's quite the time to be alive and young.

Various story arcs of love and lust between the group members figuring out their own sexualities and forming adulthood. Though most of it is all of them just fucking around.

A rambunctious gang of young cryptics disguise themselves as human during the daytime but during the night it's quite the time to be alive and young.

Various story arcs of love and lust between the group members figuring out their own sexualities and forming adulthood. Though most of it is all of them just fucking around.

Plausible locations

Old mill

Carnival / freakshow

Rides and amusement

Abandoned Church

Greenhouse

Garden

Boat house

Log cabins

CAMP grounds

Old schools

Warehouses

The Docks or Port

Boat houses

Boat docks

Abandoned Hotel

Studios

Bike store

Surf or like diving store

Knickknack shack

Ma and Pa restaurants

Antique stores

Downtown

Library

Hospital or infirmary excotic masion

I have story plots for days SONNNN so these are at skim level for plot.

If you’d like to contact me the best ways are

Discord at

Agodnamedhome#4202

Onlyagodnamedhome@gmail.com

I work from 11:30 to 4 Monday-Friday

But available before, and after for sure.

Thursday’s at 5 are my therapist appointments

Weekends are 100% free atm

Looking for a long term, short term, a friend!

[the-chanteloup]

InuYasha RP Bio

Omg. I’m alive! Things have been so hectic, I forgot I had a Tumblr! Silly me. Well, I’ve returned, and with that return, I give you my finalized InuYasha RP bio! 

So, I created this character about 18 years ago when InuYasha first aired on Adult Swim. I debuted her on Yahoo!Chat, and when that died, she sort of went into hibernation. With the series coming out, and this sudden surge of InuYasha, I really wanted to finalize her, and get her out into the world. :3  

Name (last, first): Setsuna ( Of the Karyukai, The Flower and Willow World )

Nickname(s): Hanyou, Runt, Pup, Geisha

Age: 55 (Youthful appearance, commonly mistaken for 20-25)

Species: Half-Dog Demon, Half-Human (Hanyou)

Gender: Female

Birthday: Around the Winter Solstice

Life Story:

Left on the doorstep of an orphanage in the village of Sawara, in a shabby reed basket during a harsh winter was not the ideal beginning, but, all great legends must start somewhere. Luckily, warm hearts were in good spirits this cold night, and the overseers of this particular orphanage just couldn’t leave a bright eyed, bundle of joy out in the elements. Brought in out of the cold, and raised alongside human children, the pup never really knew she was different, other than having two black fluffy ears atop her head. As she grew, she was given a general education along with the other children, nothing fancy since they were considered the lower class, but enough to get her by should she ever take to selling turnips.

Unfortunately, all fairy tales have to end, and when her 16th year rolled around, she was tossed out into the world to fend for herself.

Being a small Hanyou had its benefits job wise, roaming gangs of thieves were always willing to have her tag along for heists, at a quarter of the profit for most of the dangerous work. But fate is a fickle mistress, and while perusing through a shop during a heist one night, she was detained by an older man named Ino Tadataka, with nun chucks. How embarrassing. She didn’t need superb Demon hearing to know her comrades had bailed, leaving her the scapegoat. However, before she could decide which hand she was okay with having chopped off, the old man offered her a deal. She would assist him in mapping some of the harder to reach places in the area, and in return he would house her, feed her and teach her to read.

Since climbing trees for an old man was a much better option than losing a limb, she hastily agreed, and spent many years assisting “Old Man Ino”, as she called him, in completing his map of Japan.

In the Spring of her last month with Ino, he referred her to an old friend in a village called Kanazawa in the Western Lands for another job. With no other real work leads, other than going back to stealing, she took the lead. When she arrived at the mapped destination Ino had given her, it turned out to be an exotic tea house. She swore on all the Gods above and below that she would knock the taste out of that old pervert’s mouth for this. As she stood outside making her proclamation to bash an old man’s head in, she was interrupted by the tea house’s 'mother', Kikuya. Seeing a rare opportunity to be the only tea house in the district with a Hanyou entertaining, Kikuya took her in instantly.

Amazingly, after several rough years of learning, she was finally “promoted” to the highest rank, Geisha.

Fast forward a few short years, just a few months from fully paying off her debt, she is one of the more popular girls advertised at the tea house. Fully skilled in playing the kokyū, flirting with men in a proper way, starting and losing games of Janken or Daruma Otoshi gracefully, and pouring hot tea in hazardous ways, courtesy of her quick Hanyou reflexes, she has acquired several frequent guests.

A Samurai named Yorimoto quickly became her favorite “customer”, and though they saw each other as nothing more than siblings, she developed a connection to the Human. He was never short on adventurous stories about fighting, and war, which she soaked up like a sponge, enjoying the romantic way he told of their honor code. Being half-Demon, she was naturally drawn to weapons and all their convenient ways of killing things, and eventually convinced Yorimoto to teach her how to use the Naginata. Unfortunately, it was highly un-Geisha like to swing around a “blade on a stick”, as her mother called it, so, under the guise of certain services, they met and trained. Several months passed, and her Samurai was called away to battle, but before he left, Yorimoto gifted her a Naginata all her own, for emergencies, of course.

Even though she was content to stay at her tea house and practice her Naginata in peace until the day when she could afford to open her own business, she also wouldn’t mind a little bit of adventure sneaking in and stirring things up.  

Appearance:

Setsuna stands an intimidating five feet tall at her black ear tips, which has earned her the nickname “Runt”. Thanks to her Demon genetics, despite her small stature, she is sturdily built, muscular and has a curvy frame. She is a milky skinned Hanyou with loosely curled raven black hair that trails down to her rear, and cobalt blue, cat like eyes rimmed in coal eyeliner. Her ears are slightly fluffy, and sport two small silver hoops in each, a gift from her Geisha mother, Kikuya. Her claws are a soft pearl color; however, they are kept at a shorter length due to her kokyū playing and aesthetics for the tea house, but they still remain filed to a point and sharp.

Her only truly intimidating feature is a deep, guttural growl that could easily be mistaken for a much larger demon. Setsuna’s normal attire is that of a typical Geisha, minus the white makeup. Elaborate silk kimonos and obis, along with jeweled hair trinkets and pins. Her hair is never tied up, allowing her ears to remain out in the open. When she is training with the Naginata, she dons a black hakama, with a royal blue sash around her waist. Setsuna is almost always barefoot as she likes the feel of Earth on her skin.

Like all Hanyou, she reverts to a mortal Human form on the night of the new moon. She becomes weaker, as she loses all of her Demon abilities. Her hair fades to a dusty blonde color, and her eyes dull to a pale gray.  

Personality:

Setsuna is usually the center of the party. Having trained with her Geisha mother, she can strike up conversations easily with almost anyone. She has a laid-back demeanor, seeming to just roll with the punches. A smile of some sort is usually found on her face, giving her an easy to approach look. She has an old wisdom about her, and is always available to offer advice or find an answer to a question. She tends to have a soft spot for animals and children, but she prefers both go home with someone else. Her one true weakness is a field of wild flowers, or flowers of any kind. Though she hates to admit it, she’s a sucker for romance and intimate physical touches.

Unfortunately, with a decent amount of Demon blood in her veins, Setsuna is not the quiet, demure creature one would expect when they see her in full Geisha attire. Having been raised by thieves, her mouth is dirtier than a sewer grate, and her mind has been likened to that of a lecherous old man’s. Even with traditionally excitable genetics, she is calm, collected, and calculating, preferring her enemies to either make fools of themselves or to wander right into her trap. Though she has never been in a true battle, the canine in her usually wishes a mother fucker would so she could let her Naginata bathe in blood. Of course, that doesn’t mean she goes looking for a fight, but should one happen to peek around a corner….

Good Habit(s):

She is very understanding, and a good listener. No problem is too dramatic, or small for her ears. She offers honest advice (This could be good or bad) She is fiercely loyal to those who have earned it. Her colorful background and lifestyle have given her a wealth of wisdom and knowledge, both useful and not.  

Bad Habit(s):

Hot headed, she finds a boiling point rather quickly over certain things. Decently excitable, the World is a big adventure to a young Hanyou. Territorial, what’s hers is hers. Cursing bad enough to make perverts blush.

Like(s):

Walking in the forest, feeling the sun on her skin and the Earth on her bare feet. Having her hair done/played with. Food. Training with her Naginata. Playing the kokyū. Listening to stories, mostly battle and war stories. Thunderstorms at night. Wildflower fields.

Special Powers/Abilities:

Aside from the typical Hanyou speed, flexibility and agility, she has a natural ability to hide and camouflage herself due to her small stature. She’s also decently formidable in a fist fight. Intimidating low, guttural growl usually used for intimidation. Rapid healing.

Ambition/Life-long Dream:

Even though she longs for the thrill of battle, a more reasonable ambition would be to finally pay off her debts to Kikuya, and to open her own tea house that specializes in ‘unique’ Geishas like herself.

Love Interest:

Unknown.  

Occupation/Job:

Geisha, entertainer, Hanyou

Notes:

Now, I know y'all who follow the series are looking at me like, "Uh...THAT NAME IS FAMILIAR" And, yeah, I know, trust me. I had a moment when the official announcement was made, but when I created Setsuna, I actually used the name from the manga Angel Sanctuary ( showing my age here ), and this character was never meant to follow any sort of canon story line, ever, she was always strictly AU. With all that being said, please don't come for me. xD I am smol and anxiety ridden. I really just wanted to have her bio published, because I love this little shit of a Hanyou. She was one of my very first creations and holds a pretty special place in my cold black heart. A few more notes: I'm totally up for RP! Feel free to send me a note or whatever. I'm pretty laid-back, and open to most scenarios.

I usually ship Setsuna with Sesshomaru, because it's adorable, but, I’m open to any ship.  

She has no art. Like I said, this has been a long time coming, so I haven't had any art of her commissioned, but maybe in the near future I will. ( -eyeballs the extremely talented @destinyfall) But, I can give you details and photo references if you decide you would like to RP.

[berniesrevolution]

In Dilley, Texas, there is only one grocery store, and that grocery store is Lowes. (It is not a Lowes, like the home improvement center. It is a totally different and legally distinct store that also happens to be called Lowes.) Lowes is a place of many mysteries. I once went there to buy vegetable broth for a sick coworker, and combed the soup aisle for nearly 20 minutes before being forced to admit that no, Lowes does not carry vegetable broth. The closest thing they had was a can of something called “vegetable beef.” Lowes does, however, carry bacon-flavored pancake syrup, quite a lot of animal pheromones in spray cans (including such choice selections as “raccoon urine” and “sow in heat,” which I assume are for agricultural rather than cosmetic purposes), and a large selection of devotional candles in glass cylinders.

I had never paid much attention to the candles, but a friend of mine was in town, volunteering at the child internment camp where I work as an immigration lawyer, and he wanted to bring back a candle for some eclectic ofrenda-type situation he had set up in his D.C. apartment. He is a meticulous and thoughtful sort of person, and took a long time debating between various candidates. I had come to Lowes primarily to buy Cheez-Its, and was getting impatient. I picked up a candle at random. “How about this one?” I said.

The candle had a picture of a Little Lord Fauntleroy-type in a plumed hat and a white ruff, with a pink seashell pinned to his cloak. I glanced at the label on the back. Glorioso Santo Niño de Atocha, it said, patrón de las que están injustamente en prisión, protector de viajeros y que das la mano al que se encuentra en peligro…

I didn’t know anything about this saint at all, despite having grown up Catholic, so I looked him up on my phone. I soon discovered that he was not really a saint, per se, but a special Limited Edition version of baby Jesus. Wikpedia offered up the following backstory:

In the 13th century, Spain was under Muslim rule. The town of Atocha, now part of Madrid’s Arganzuela district, was lost to the Muslims, and many Christians there were taken prisoners as spoils of war. The Christian prisoners were not fed by the jailers, but by family members who brought them food. According to pious legend, the caliph ordered that only children under the age of 12 were permitted to bring food. Conditions became increasingly difficult for those men without small children. … Reports soon began among the people of Atocha that an unknown child under the age of twelve and dressed in pilgrim’s clothing, had begun to bring food to childless prisoners at night. The women of the town returned to Our Lady of Atocha to thank the Virgin for her intercession, and noticed that the shoes worn by the Infant Jesus were tattered and dusty. They replaced the shoes of the Infant Jesus, but these became worn again. The people of Atocha took this as a sign that it was the Infant Jesus who went out every night to help those in need.

This all got me rather excited, because I am very fond of medieval history, and regularly drive around rural Texas blasting 13th-century Spanish pilgrimage music. Who would’ve thought that a little vestige of the medieval world would turn up in my local grocery store? Secondly, what better patron for someone who works at a jail for child refugees than a child-saint who defends both travelers in peril and the unjustly imprisoned?

And that was how I first ended up buying a Holy Infant of Atocha candle for my kitchen table.

Later, when I researched the matter further, I found out that the Wikipedian history of the Holy Infant was—shockingly—likely incorrect. The medieval origin story was a post hoc invention, an attempt to give an older European pedigree to a wholly Mexican tradition. The Holy Infant’s mother, as it turns out, was an authentically medieval character: Holy Mary of Atocha appears in several of the 13th century Cantigas de Santa Maria (a.k.a. the sick beats currently blaring from my Kia Forte), mostly as a patroness of field workers. When her shrine at Atocha was selected for special favor by the Spanish monarchy in the 17th century, she was transformed from a saint of the people into an emblem of Spanish governance. It was in this capacity—as a defender of Spanish colonial might—that Mary of Atocha found her way to Mexico. Sanctuaries in her name were built in the state of Zacatecas, in Fresnillo and Plateros.

But through some obscure evolution of local devotion, it was the image of her child, the Holy Infant, that became the primary locus of worship. The Holy Infant of Atocha eventually came to be revered as a protector of ordinary people, especially of miners, travelers, and prisoners. An 1848 novena written by one Calixto Aguirre was instrumental in popularizing the cult of the Holy Infant, and the cover illustration of the printed pamphlet version was the first to show him as a pilgrim rather than a prince. Instead of a crown, a globe, and a scepter—the traditional iconography of power—he had a big hat, a food basket, and a traveler’s staff with a gourd hanging from it. The first episode of the novena tells of a legal miracle.  It begins with the tale of a poor woman by the name of Maximiana Esparza, who wanders to four different cities, seeking succor. In each city, she is imprisoned for her malas costumbres—some unspecified bad manners—and, having no family or other advocate to speak on her behalf, she languishes for years in prison in each place. At last, after being in prison a year in Durango, she prays to the Holy Infant of Atocha:

…who listened to her kindly and took her out of her captivity; for in all the time that she had lived there, there was nobody who would defend her, until the Holy Child of Atocha, dressed as a handsome youth, visited her in that prison and gave her some bread in the name of his mother, saying to her that same afternoon she would see the judge and he would take up her case, which caused no little amazement among the rector and the other inmates; and when the time arrived that the Child had named, she was set free.

Mary of Atocha, the former people’s saint, may regrettably have become more conservative in her waning years, but she nonetheless succeeded in giving the world an even more radical son. We should all be so lucky!

It’s actually pretty absurd that I knew nothing about the Holy Infant of Atocha until a few months ago. Once he was on my radar, I soon realized that he’s a pretty standard figure in Mexican and Chicanx Catholicism. But I stumbled into immigration advocacy three years ago knowing next to nothing about Latin American cultures, and even now there are huge gaps in my understanding. My Spanish, too, is still pretty atrocious. I have been working at it for three years, but it’s like speaking through a mouthful of broken glass. I muster my words with pain, and my meaning comes out all mangled. I now feel a strong affinity for all those immigrant grandparents who understand English perfectly and never learn to speak it; I am sure I would be just the same if I were ever to immigrate to a non-English-speaking country. I often feel that any bilingual person, with or without a law degree, could do most of my work a lot better than me. But I am here, so I do my best.

Sometimes I wake up in the mornings very anxious, usually when I have to draft a big court filing or an important request to the asylum office, to try and stop a detained family’s deportation. I come up with soothing little rituals to ease my transition from fretful sleep to focused work. I put on some music. I make a big pot of coffee. I light my Holy Infant of Atocha candle. It’s really because I like the way the candlelight makes me feel, not for superstitious reasons. I’m really not one for good luck charms, astrology, or premonitions. I remember that shortly after Trump first announced the family separation policy this summer—this was when I was still in Massachusetts, getting ready for my move to Texas—I was walking down a familiar street near my home, feeling very disturbed and heartsick. All of a sudden I saw a rabbit on the sidewalk a few feet ahead. It was standing quite still, and it let me walk up close. For a moment the encounter felt almost magical. Then the rabbit loped off, and where it had been, I saw two small baby bunnies lying dead on the pavement. When I bent to look, a little cloud of flies dispersed, then settled again. As omens go, that was some Roman-level bullshit. But I don’t think it was anything but coincidence.

The area of south Texas where I live now is teeming with strange sights, and sometimes everything I see feels pregnant with meaning. The drive from my apartment to the internment camp is only four minutes, but the road is always strewn with strange corpses. A dead dog or house cat is an everyday casualty; but I have also seen bodies of armadillos, bobcats, and javelinas, all mowed down by a speeding truck, or a passenger-bus of incoming detainees, or one of the heavy tankers that barrel continually to and from the nearby oilfields. No waste collection service ever disposes of the animals, so I watch their corpses bloat and distend and then disintegrate over a period of weeks. I have heard a rumor too that there are zebra on one of the ranches around here, flown in and kept in captivity so that deer-weary hunters can have something exotic to shoot. I’ve yet to see an escaped zebra lying dead by the side of the road, but give it time.

Also on the same road as the child internment camp, if you can believe it, there is a Texas state prison. It lies alongside a large ranch, and in front of the jail there’s a field of watermelons. Sometimes in the early morning, on my way into work, I see a group of prisoners in white jumpsuits and white caps, working the watermelon field. Ringed around them are three or four heavily-armed officers on horseback, in case anyone tries anything. The thing is so ludicrous it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. It’s as if this tiny town has been selected as a kind of roadside showcase of human cruelty.

(Continue Reading)

[citizenscreen]

It was 85 years ago this week, in October 1934, that Mark Sandrich’s The Gay Divorcee was released in theaters across the country. That occasion would normally have been just another movie release except it marks a significant moment in movie history. The Gay Divorcee, you see, was the first starring picture for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. While cinema has given us many memorable romantic movie couples, only one was so memorably romantic in dance.

The Gay Divorcee is my favorite of the Astaire Rogers pictures thanks in large part to its hilarious supporting cast including Alice Brady, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes, and Eric Blore who supply laughs galore in a story we’d see over and over again later in the 1930s as the Astaire and Rogers film canon picked up speed. Here we see Mimi Glossop (Rogers) trying to get a divorce from her estranged husband. Her Aunt Hortense (Brady) suggests she consult with attorney Egbert Fitzgerald (Horton) with whom Hortense has a romantic history. The fumbling lawyer suggests a great way for Mimi to get a quick divorce is for her to spend the night with a professional co-respondent and get caught being unfaithful by the private detectives hired for the task. Except, Egbert forgets to hire the detectives. As the co-respondent Egbert hires Rodolfo Tonetti (Rhodes) who is supposed to introduce himself to Mimi by saying “Chance is a fool’s name for fate,” but the Italian can’t keep the line straight, which never fails to make this fan roar with laughter.

“Fate is the foolish thing. Take a chance.”

In the meantime, staying in the same hotel is dancer Guy Holden (Astaire) who falls for Mimi the moment they had an uncomfortable meeting on the ship from England. Guy is determined to make Mimi his while she mistakes him for the co-respondent. It’s quite the confusing premise that serves the talent of the cast and Astaire-Rogers pairings on the dance floor, which made the trip to the movies the magical experience these movies surely were.

Fred Astaire reprised his role from the stage play The Gay Divorce for The Gay Divorcee. Censors insisted that The Gay Divorce be changed to The Gay Divorcee, because a gay divorce was no laughing matter. Erik Rhodes and Eric Blore, who played the waiter in typical snooty fashion, also reprised their roles from the stage version. Cole Porter wrote the music for the stage production, but only one of his songs, “Night and Day” was retained for the movie.

The Gay Divorcee won one Academy Award, the first ever Best Original Song for “The Continental” with music and lyrics by Con Conrad and Herb Magidson respectively. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Recording, and Best Music Score for Max Steiner, then head of the sound department at RKO. While award recognition is great, the place The Gay Divorcee holds in history is much more important. As mentioned, this was the first movie where Fred Astaire’s and Ginger Rogers’ names appear above the title. This film also sets the stage quite nicely for subsequent Astaire-Rogers movies, which often followed the same formula. First, Fred’s character usually falls for Ginger’s at first sight and he is often annoying to her. In The Gay Divorcee, for example, she has her dress caught in a trunk while he attempts to flirt. In Top Hat (1935) he wakes her up with his tap dancing in the room above hers. In Swing Time (1936) he asks her for change of a quarter only to ask for the quarter back a bit later.

Most Fred and Ginger movies also have mistaken identity central to the plot and some are set in lavish surroundings, extravagant art deco sets, “Big White Sets” as they are called, and include travel to exotic places. The world in these pictures is rich and cultured and never fail to offer an escape from reality.

More importantly, most of the Astaire-Rogers movies feature dances that further the characters’ story together, all are supremely executed, beautifully orchestrated, and emoted to a tee. Through dance Fred and Ginger express love, love lost, anger, giddiness, joy, despair, tragedy. The movies usually feature at least two main routines for the couple, one a fun, lighthearted affair and the other a serious, dramatic turn, depending on where in the story the dance takes place. These dance routines take precedence in the films above all other elements and are, ultimately, what create the Astaire-Rogers legend, each its own priceless gem. For this dance through history the focus is on the dance routines, which were born out of the RKO story.

RKO was born RKO Radio Pictures in October 1928 as the first motion picture studio created solely for the production of talking pictures by David Sarnoff and Joseph Kennedy as they met in a Manhattan oyster bar. Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) resulted from the merger of the Radio Corporation of America, the Film Booking Offices of America, and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit of vaudeville houses.

In its first year, RKO did well by producing about a dozen pictures, mostly film versions of stage plays. The studio doubled that number the following year and was established as a major studio with the Academy Award-winning Cimarron (1931) directed by Wesley Ruggles. Unfortunately, that film’s success did not result in money for the studio. That year RKO lost more than $5 million, which resulted in the hiring of David O. Selznick to head production. Selznick immediately looked to stars to bring audiences into theaters. The first place he looked was the New York stage where he found and contracted Katharine Hepburn whom he placed in the hands of George Cukor for Bill of Divorcement (1932) opposite John Barrymore. Hepburn became a star and the movie was a hit, but RKO’s fortunes did not improve making 1932 another difficult year. Enter Merian C. Cooper and a giant ape. David O. Selznick had made Cooper his assistant at RKO.

The idea of King Kong had lived in Cooper’s imagination since he was a child, but he never thought it could come to fruition until his time at RKO. It was there that Cooper met Willis O’Brien, a special effects wizard who was experimenting with stop motion animation.

King Kong premiered in March 1933 to enthusiastic audiences and reviews. RKO’s financial troubles were such, however, that even the eighth wonder of the world could not save it. David O. Selznick left RKO for MGM and Merian Cooper took over as head of production tasked with saving the studio. Cooper tried releasing a picture a week and employing directors like Mark Sandrich and George Stevens. Of the two Sandrich made an important splash early with So This Is Harris! (1933), a musical comedy short that won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject. This short paved the way for RKO’s memorable musicals of the decade, the first of which introduced future megastars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as a dancing duo.

“I’d like to try this thing just once” he says as he pulls her to the dance floor.

“We’ll show them a thing or three,” she responds.

And they did. For the movie studio permanently on the verge of bankruptcy Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers proved saving graces. Pandro S. Berman, who produced several of the Astaire-Rogers movies, said “we were very fortunate we came up with the Astaire-Rogers series when we did.”

Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz II on May 10, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska. Fred began performing at about the age of four with his older sister Adele. Their mother took them to New York in 1903 where they began performing in vaudeville as a specialty act. Of the two it was Adele, by all accounts a charmer on stage and off, who got the better reviews and was seen as the natural talent.

By the time Fred was ten years old, he and his sister were making about $50 a week on the famed Orpheum Circuit. As they traveled the country, their reputation grew and by 14 Fred had taken over the responsibility of creating steps and routines for their act. He also hunted for new songs as he was able, which led to a chance meeting in 1916 with then song plugger George Gershwin. Although the two did not work together then, they’d have profound effects on each other’s careers in the future, including the Astaires headlining George and Ira Gershwin’s first full-length New York musical, Lady, Be Good! in 1924.

Unlike her driven brother, Adele did not even like to rehearse. For Fred’s constant badgering to rehearse she ascribed him the nickname “Moaning Minnie.” Fred later admitted the nickname fit because he worried about everything. Between Fred’s attention to detail and Adele’s charm for an audience, the Astaire’s reviews usually read like this, “Nothing like them since the flood!”

Fred and Adele made it to Broadway in 1917 with Over the Top, a musical revue in two acts, and never looked back. Their other hits in New York and London included the Gershwin smash, Funny Face (1927), where Adele got to introduce “‘S Wonderful” and the Schwartz-Dietz production of The Band Wagon (1931), Adele’s final show before retiring to marry Lord Charles Cavendish in 1932. At the time she and her brother Fred were the toast of Broadway.

The Astaires, Adele and Fred

After his sister retired, Fred starred in Cole Porter’s A Gay Divorce, his last Broadway show before heading west to Hollywood where he was signed by David O. Selznick at RKO. Legend goes that of Fred Astaire someone in Hollywood said after watching his screen tests, “Can’t act; slightly bald; can dance a little.” If true, those are words by someone who had a terrible eye for talent, but I doubt they are true because at the time Fred Astaire was a huge international star. The likelihood that someone in Hollywood didn’t know that is slim. David O. Selznick had seen Fred Astaire on Broadway and described him as “next to Leslie Howard, the most charming man on the American stage.” What was true is that Fred Astaire did not look like the typical movie star. He was 34 years old at the time, an age considered old for movie stardom. In fact, Astaire’s mother insisted he should just retire since he’d been in the business from such a young age. We can only be thankful he ignored her request.

Not sure what to do with him, or perhaps to see what he could do, Selznick lent Astaire to MGM where he made his first picture dancing with Joan Crawford in Robert Z. Leonard’s Dancing Lady (1933). Flying Down to Rio experienced some delays, but it was ready to go after Dancing Lady so Fred returned to RKO to do “The Carioca” with a contract player named Ginger Rogers.

By the time Fred Astaire made his first picture, Ginger Rogers had made about 20. She was under contract with RKO and excelled at sassy, down-to-Earth types. In 1933 Ginger had gotten lots of attention singing “We’re in the money” in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and in 42nd Street. She did not have top billing in either of those, but the public noticed her.

Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911. Her first few years of life were confusing ones. Her parents were divorced and Ginger was kidnapped by her father until her mother, Lelee (or Lela), took him to court. In need of a job, Ginger’s mother left her with her grandparents while looking for a job as a scriptwriter.

Lelee met and married John Rogers in 1920 and, for all intents and purposes, he became Ginger’s father. The family moved to Dallas where, at the age of 14, Ginger won a Charleston contest, going on to become Charleston champion dancer of Texas. The prize was a 4-week contract on the Vaudeville Interstate circuit. Lela took management of her daughter and put together an act called “Ginger and Her Redheads.” Ginger continued to perform on her own after the Redheads were disbanded eventually going to New York where she was seen by the owner of the Mocambo night club who recommended her to friends for the Broadway show Top Speed. 

Ginger was making two-reelers in New York when she was offered a Paramount contract making her feature appearance in Monta Bell’s Young Man of Manhattan (1930) starring Claudette Colbert. At about that time, she was cast as the lead in the Gershwin musical Girl Crazy, which – by happenstance one afternoon – offered her the opportunity to dance with Fred Astaire for the first time ever. Astaire had been brought in to the Girl Crazy production to see if he could offer suggestions for the routines. Ginger was asked to show him one of the main numbers to which he said, “Here Ginger, try it with me.”

After that Ginger and Lela headed to Hollywood and the picture business in earnest. Ginger made a few forgettable pictures for Pathé before being cast as Anytime Annie in 42nd Street and singing that number about money in Golddiggers of 1933. Both of those gave Ginger Rogers ample opportunity to show off her comedic skills. These types of parts, funny flappers, were definitely in the cards for Ginger Rogers until fate intervened when Dorothy Jordan, who was scheduled to dance “The Carioca” with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio, married Merian C. Cooper instead. Ginger was by now under contract with RKO and was rushed onto the set of Flying Down to Rio three days after shooting had started.

“They get up and dance” in 1933

The stage direction in the original screenplay for Flying Down to Rio simply read, “they get up and dance.” Ginger Rogers was billed fourth and Fred Astaire fifth showing she was the bigger star at the time. In looking at Astaire and Rogers doing “The Carioca” in Flying Down to Rio one doesn’t get the impression that these are legends in the making. Ginger agreed as she wrote in her memoir that she never would have imagined what was to come from that dance. “The Carioca” is exuberant, youthful, and fun, but certainly lesser than most of the routines the couple would perform in subsequent films. I say that because we can now make a comparison. At the time audiences went crazy for “The Carioca” and the dancers who performed it, their only number together in the Flying Down to Rio and only role aside from the comic relief they provide. The picture was, after all, a Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond vehicle.

Doing the Carioca in Flying Down to Rio

Hermes Pan’s first assignment at RKO was to find Fred Astaire on stage 8 to see if he could offer assistance. Fred showed him a routine and explained he was stuck in a part for the tap solo in Flying Down to Rio. Hermes offered a suggestion and another legendary movie pairing was made. Pan worked on 17 Astaire musicals thus playing a key role is making Fred Astaire the most famous dancer in the world.

Pan explained that he went to early previews of Flying Down to Rio and was surprised to see the audience cheer and applaud after “The Carioca” number. The studio knew they had something big here and decided to capitalize on the Astaire-Rogers pairing.

When RKO approached Fred Astaire about making another picture paired with Ginger Rogers, Astaire refused. After years being part of a duo with Adele, the last thing he wanted was to be paired permanently with another dancer. If he was to do another picture he wanted an English dancer as his partner, they were more refined. Pandro Berman told him, “the audience likes Ginger” and that was that. Astaire was at some point given a percentage of the profits from these pictures and the worries about working with Ginger subsided. Ginger’s contribution to the pairing was not considered important enough to merit a percentage of the profits.

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

The Gay Divorcee offers ample opportunity to fall in love with the Astaire-Rogers mystique. The first is a beautiful number shot against a green screen backdrop, Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.” Fred as Guy professes his love for Mimi (Ginger), mesmerizing her with dance until she is completely taken by the end. He, so satisfied, offers her a cigarette.

Later in the film the two, now reconciled after a huge mix-up, dance “The Continental.” The song is introduced by Ginger who is swept off her feet to join the crowd in the elaborate production number. Needless to say Fred and Ginger clear the floor with outstanding choreography. “The Continental” sequence lasts over 17 minutes, the longest ever in a musical holding that record until Gene Kelly’s 18-minute ballet in An American in Paris in 1951. “The Continental” was clearly intended to capture the excitement of “The Carioca” and exceeds that by eons with enthusiasm and gorgeous execution by these two people whose chemistry is palpable. No one could have known if either Fred or Ginger could carry a movie, but The Gay Divorcee proved they were stars of unique magnitude. For 85 years dance on film has never been bettered and that’s why I celebrate this anniversary with all the enthusiasm I could muster as my contribution to The Anniversary Blogathon sponsored by the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA), which is celebrating its tenth year of classic love.

Doing The Continental in The Gay Divorcee

Fred always gets a solo number in these pictures, by the way and, as you’d expect, they’re wonderful. Many times these take place in hotel rooms all of which – luckily – have fantastic floors for tap dancing. In addition, The Gay Divorcee has the added attraction of a routine with Edward Everett Horton and Betty Grable, who has a small part in the picture.

Fred Astaire and Hermes Pan would begin work on the routines up to six weeks before the principal photography was scheduled to start on the pictures. Pan played Ginger’s part and would teach her the routines once she arrived to start rehearsals. Her part was long and arduous and Fred Astaire always said he admired her work ethic as she gave everything she had to make those routines memorable and match him move for move. Fred was also impressed by Ginger being the only one of his female partners who never cried. As they say, she did everything he did “backwards and in heels,” which by the way, is a phrase born in the following Frank and Ernest cartoon.

The unfailing result of their work together is absolute beauty in human form. Ginger Rogers completely gave herself to Fred Astaire, was entirely pliable to his every whim in dance. This is why they became legend. Fred may have partnered with better dancers and I certainly cannot say whether that’s true or not, but what he had with Ginger Rogers was special. The Gay Divorcee was only the beginning.

As for working with Fred again, Ginger had no worries. She enjoyed the partnership and the dancing and was fulfilled by doing various other parts at the same time. While Fred and Hermes worked on the routines she was able to make small pictures for different studios appearing in seven in 1934 alone.

Roberta (1935)

Fred and Ginger’s next movie together is William Seiter’s Roberta where they share billing with one of RKO’s biggest stars and greatest talents, Irene Dunne. Here, Fred and Ginger have the secondary love affair as old friends who fall in love in the end. As they do in most of their movies, Fred and Ginger also provide much of the laughs. The primary romantic pairing in Roberta is between Dunne and Randolph Scott.

The film’s title, Roberta is the name of a fashionable Paris dress shop owned by John Kent’s (Scott) aunt and where Stephanie (Dunne) works as the owner’s secretary, assistant, and head designer. The two instantly fall for each other.

Huck Haines (Astaire) is a musician and John’s friend who runs into the hateful Countess Scharwenka at the dress shop. Except Scharwenka is really Huck’s childhood friend and old love, Lizzie Gatz (Rogers). Fred and Ginger are wonderful in this movie, which strays from the formula of most of their other movies except for the plot between Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott, which is actually similar to that of other Astaire-Rogers movies. Again, aside from the dancing Fred and Ginger offer the movie’s comic relief and do so in memorable style with Ginger the standout in that regard.

There are quite a few enjoyable musical numbers in Roberta. Huck’s band performs a couple and Irene Dunne sings several songs including the gorgeous “When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and a beautiful sequence on stairs during a fashion show to “Lovely to Look At,” which received the film’s only Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Song. That number transitions into a Fred and Ginger duet and dance to “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” followed closely by an exuberant finale number.

Fred and Ginger in Roberta

Early in Roberta, at the Cafe Russe, Ginger is delightful singing “I’ll be Hard to Handle” with the band. She and Fred follow with a supremely enjoyable duet with their feet, a routine where each answers the other with taps. I believe there were requests for them to re-record the taps after the live taping as you can hear Ginger laughing during the routine, but Fred insisted to leave it as is. The result is a relaxed, wonderfully entertaining sequence I hadn’t seen in years. The pantsuit Ginger wears during this number is fabulous.

I’ll Be Hard to Handle routine in Roberta

Later, Ginger and Fred sing a duet to “I Won’t Dance” with Fred following with an extraordinary solo routine. This may be my favorite of his solo sequences, which includes an unbelievably fast ending.

Astaire in Roberta

Fred Astaire was perfection on the dance floor and, as many have said, seemed to dance on air. None of it came without excruciating hard work, however. Astaire was known for rehearsing and losing sleep until he felt every movement in every sequence was perfect. He stated he would lose up to 15 pounds during the rehearsals for these films. Clearly, nothing had changed since his days preparing for the stage with his sister.

Fred Astaire fretted over routines constantly. He could not even stand looking at the rushes himself so he would send Hermes Pan to look and report back. Astaire admitted that even looking at these routines decades later caused him angst. Of course, his absolute dedication to perfection, pre-planning even the smallest detail of every dance number, resulted in much of the legend of Fred and Ginger. Fred’s demands on set also made the pictures epic among musicals. Astaire insisted, for instance, to shoot every single sequence in one shot, with no edits. He also insisted that their entire bodies be filmed for every dance number and that taps be recorded live. He was known to say that either the camera moved or he moved. One of the cameramen at RKO who worked on the Astaire-Rogers pictures said that keeping Fred and Ginger’s feet in the frame was the biggest challenge. All of these Fred Astaire stipulations ensured that the performances are still moving many decades after they were filmed and all of them are as much a statement in endurance as they are in artistry.

Top Hat 

Directed by Mark Sandrich, Top Hat is the first film written expressly for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers by Deight Taylor and Alan Scott and feels bigger from its catchy opening sequence on forward than the other movies in the series to this point. This is perhaps the most well regarded of the Astaire-Rogers movie pairings and it’s no wonder because it’s delightful even though it shares several similarities with The Gay Divorcee. Joining Fred and Ginger once again are Edward Everett Horton in the second of three Fred and Ginger pictures he made, Eric Blore in the third of five, and Erik Rhodes in his second. To my delight Rhodes dons that wonderful, hilarious Italian accent, which by the way, got him barred by Mussolini. Joining the group in this picture is Helen Broderick as Madge Hardwick, Horton’s wife.

The story in Top Hat begins when Fred as Jerry Travers meets Ginger as Dale Tremont when he wakes her up by tap dancing in the hotel room above hers. She is naturally annoyed, but warms up to him fairly quickly the next day as he seeks her favor with Irving Berlin’s “Isn’t This a Lovely Day?” when the two are in a gazebo during a rainstorm. The song ends in a wonderful dance sequence that starts off as a challenge, but warms to affection. I should add we see here what we see in many Astaire-Rogers routines that is so darn exciting – when they don’t touch. The gazebo number is not as emotionally charged as others the couple executes because it is the lighthearted one in the picture, the one during which he woos her with dance. By the end of this number she is sold on him and what prospects may lay ahead.

It’s a lovely day to be caught in the rain from Top Hat

Unfortunately, after the gazebo number some confusion ensues as Dale believes Jerry is married to one of her friends. This is the requisite mistaken identity. It is Horace Hardwick (Horton) who’s married, not Jerry. Some innocent games and trickery take place before Dale is hurt and Jerry has to win her over once again. Then heaven appears.

“Heaven, I’m in heaven And the cares that hung around me through the week Seem to vanish like a gambler’s lucky streak When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek”

These songs are standards for a reason. It just does not get better than that.

To continue the story – at the insistence of Madge Hardwick, Dale and Jerry dance as he sings those lyrics to her. She is mesmerized, wanting to believe him wearing that famous feather dress. They move onto a terrace in each other’s arms as the music swells.

A gorgeous, sexy backbend during Cheek to Cheek in Top Hat

Once again, the song is over and her heart is stolen. She’s seduced. And so are we.

One of the few times Ginger seriously disagreed with Fred concerning a routine was her stance on the feather dress for the “Cheek to Cheek” sequence. Fred hated it. During the number feathers went everywhere, including in his face and on his tuxedo. Ginger designed the dress and insisted she wear it, despite the cost of $1,500 worth of ostrich feathers. She was right. While you can see feathers coming off the dress during the number, none are seen on Fred’s tuxedo, but it doesn’t matter because it moves beautifully and adds immeasurably to the routine.

The feather dress didn’t stay there. In fact, it stayed with Ginger for some time as thereafter, Astaire nicknamed her “Feathers.” After what Ginger described as a difficult few days following the feather dress uproar, she was in her dressing room when a plain white box was delivered. Inside was a note that read, “Dear Feathers. I love ya! Fred”

Fred Astaire has two solo routines in Top Hat, “No Strings” at the beginning of the movie, the tap dance that wakes Dale, and “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails,” a signature production number considered one of his best.

Following in the tradition of “The Carioca” and “The Continental,” Top Hat features “The Piccolino,” an extravagant production number with song introduced by Ginger who said that Fred was supposed to sing the tune and hated it so he told Sandrich to give it to Ginger. In any case, she and Fred join the festivities with only their feet visible heading toward the dance floor, reminiscent of the movie’s opening sequence. It’s quite the rush as you see their feet advancing toward the dance floor, I must say.

“The Piccolino” is lively and fun, a terrific routine with a fun ending as the two end the number by sitting back at their table with Ginger having to fix her dress, a beautiful dress that made it to the Smithsonian.

Fred and Ginger doing The Piccolino

Top Hat premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall to record crowds. Added security had to be sent to the venue to ensure order. The movie went on to gross $3 million on its initial release, and became RKO’s most profitable film of the 1930s. 

Follow the Fleet (1936)

Mark Sandrich was back to direct Follow the Fleet, which I have a huge affection for. The Irving Berlin score in this film is superb with songs that take me back to my childhood and the memory of watching them on Saturday nights on our local PBS station. Fred, Ginger, Sandrich and the crew of Follow the Fleet heard about the record numbers of moviegoers attending Top Hat as they gathered to begin shooting this movie. The excitement certainly inspired them to make Follow the Fleet the cheerful, energetic movie it is. Although, Ginger hoped that by this, their third movie together, Mark Sandrich would recognize her worth it was not to be. She discusses his dislike of her a lot in her book.

Like in Roberta, Fred and Ginger’s relationship in Follow the Fleet is that of the secondary romantic couple supplying the laughs in the film despite the fact that they get top billing. The primary romance here is the one between Harriet Hilliard (in her first feature film) and Randolph Scott. The story is simple, Bake Baker (Astaire) and Bilge (Scott) visit the Paradise Ballroom in San Francisco while on Navy leave. At the ballroom are Connie Martin (Hilliard), who is immediately taken with Bilge, and her sister Sherry (Rogers), the dance hostess at the ballroom who also happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Bake’s. Sherry and Bake reunite by joining a dance contest and winning (of course), but it costs Sherry her job.

In the meantime, Connie starts talking about marriage to Bilge who is instantly spooked sending him into the arms of a party girl. Bake tries to get Sherry a job in a show, which entails a mistaken identity amid more confusion until things clear up and the two are successful, heading toward the Broadway stage. The confusion here comes by way of some bicarbonate of soda, in case you’re wondering.

Follow the Fleet is a hoot with several aspects straying from the usual Fred-Ginger formula. To begin, Fred Astaire puts aside his debonair self and replaces him with a much more informal, smoking, gum-chewing average guy. It’s enjoyable seeing him try to be common. Fred opens the movie with Berlin’s wonderful “We Saw the Sea,” the words to which I remembered during the last viewing, quite the surprise since I had not seen Follow the Fleet in decades. Later in the movie he gets another solo tap routine on deck of his ship with fellow seamen as accompaniment. Both instances are supremely enjoyable as one would expect.

Fred during one of his solo routines in Follow the Fleet

Ginger does a great rendition of “Let Yourself Go” with Betty Grable as a back-up singer. A bit later there’s a reprise of the fabulous song during the contest, the dance reunion of Bake and Sherry. According to Ginger, a search through all of Hollywood took place in hopes of finding other couples who could compete with Fred and her. This may already be getting old, but here you have another energetic, enjoyable routine by these two masters. The whistles from the crowd at the Paradise Ballroom show the audience enjoy it as well.

The Let Yourself Go routine during the dance contest in Follow the Fleet

As part of an audition, Ginger gets to do a solo tap routine, a rarity in these movies and it’s particularly enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, Sherry doesn’t get the job as a result of the audition even though she’s the best the producer has seen. Thinking that he’s getting rid of her competition (mistaken identity), Bake prepares a bicarbonate of soda drink, which renders the singer incapable of singing. Sherry drinks it and burps her way through the audition.

Sherry during the rehearsal, a solo tap for Ginger in Follow the Fleet

Now rehearsing for a show, Bake and Sherry sing “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” followed by a wonderfully amusing routine where Ginger gets caught up in steps leaving Fred to constantly try to get her to move along. During the number the music also changes constantly and they have fun trying to stay in step be in a waltz or jazz or any number of music moods. This routine is a rare one for Fred and Ginger whose dance sequences are usually step perfect. It looks like they have a blast with this including a few falls and a fight instigated by Ginger.

“Eggs in One Basket” routine from Follow the Fleet

Fred and Ginger follow the comical exchange in “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket,” with one of their greatest sequences, another rarity in that this one happens out of character for both in the movie. The wonderful “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” and the routine to it make as iconic an Astaire-Rogers sequence as has ever put on film. The song and the performance tell a mini story outside of the confines of the plot. This is a grim tale executed with extraordinary beauty as we see two suicidal people happen upon each other and are saved from despair through dance. Again, kudos to Berlin’s genius because the lyrics of this song are sublime.

“There may be trouble ahead But while there’s moonlight and music And love and romance Let’s face the music and dance”

Ginger is a vision as Fred guides her across the dance floor. The dance starts off with a sway, they are not touching, he’s leading her, but she’s despondent at first, unable to react to his urging that there is something to live for. As that beautiful music advances she responds and in the process conquers demons. The routine ends as the music dictates in dramatic fashion with a lunge, they are both now victorious and strong. Magnificent. The movie concludes minutes later because…what more is there to say?

“Let’s Face the Music and Dance” Fred and Ginger

Ginger in beaded dress for “Let’s Face the Music and Dance”

Ginger is wearing another legendary dress in the “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” routine. Created by one of her favorite designers, Bernard Newman, the dress weighed somewhere between 25 and 35 pounds. The entire thing was beaded and moved beautifully along with Ginger. Fred Astaire told the story of how one of the heavy sleeves hit him in the face hard during the first spin in the dance. They did the routine about 12 times and Sandrich decided on the first. If you look closely you can see Fred flinch a bit as Ginger twirls with heavy sleeves near his face at the beginning of the dance, which is affecting, beautifully acted by both, but particularly Ginger in the arms of Fred Astaire.

Lucille Ball plays a small role in Follow the Fleet and can be seen throughout the film and a couple of times during the “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” sequence. Also, Betty Grable makes an appearance in a supporting role. Harriet Hilliard sings two songs in Follow the Fleet as well, but to little fanfare.

By Follow the Fleet Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were top box office draws as a team. America was in love with Fred and Ginger. And they still hadn’t reached the apex of dance.

Swing Time (1936)

Swing Time was directed by George Stevens, his first musical, made when he was the top director at RKO Pictures. As I watched these films in succession I noticed something I never had before, Fred and Ginger’s dancing in Swing Time is more mature than in previous films. The emotionally-charged “Never Gonna Dance” sequence has always been my favorite, but I had never considered that it is because Astaire and Rogers are at their peak. This, they’re fifth starring outing as a pair, is their best.

The plot of Swing Time is similar to that of Top Hat to include the ever-present mistaken identity theme, but this movie is wittier and more inventive and clever surrounding memorable songs by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern. The story here begins as dancer and gambler, Lucky Garnett (Astaire) arrives late for his own wedding to Margaret Watson (Betty Furness). Angry at the young man’s audacity, the father of the bride tells Lucky that the only way he can marry his daughter is to go to New York and become a success. Lucky heads East with his lucky quarter and constant companion Pop Cardetti (Victor Moore).

Once in New York the stage is set for a chance meeting between Lucky and Penny Carroll (Rogers). The encounter leads to the first routine in the movie to the glorious “Pick Yourself Up” at the dance academy where Penny works as an instructor. The exchange leading up to the dance sequence is quite enjoyable as Lucky makes believe he can’t dance as Penny tries in vain to teach him. His fumbling on his feet causes her to be fired by the furious head of the dance studio, Mr. Gordon (Eric Blore). To make it up to Penny, Lucky pulls her to the dance floor to show Gordon how much she has taught him and she delights in seeing his amazing dancing ability. The routine that ensues is energetic, fun, and the movie’s acquaintance dance after which Penny is completely taken with Lucky.

During the “Pick Yourself Up” routine in Swing Time

Watching Ginger transition from angry to incredulous to gloriously surprised to such confidence that the dance floor can’t even contain them is simply wonderful. As the dance progresses her joy grows naturally illustrated by such details as throwing her head back or giggling as Fred, who’s the wiser, wows her. And she, in turn, gives Gordon a few hard looks as he sits there making memorable Eric Blore faces. At the end of the dance their relationship is different and Gordon is so impressed he gets them an audition at the Silver Sandal Nightclub where they enchant the patrons and are hired. Incidentally, since Fred’s mood, shall we say, is what initiates and dictates these routines he has little emotional change through these mini stories. The journey is mostly all hers.

Before they do the nightclub act, Lucky sings “The Way You Look Tonight” to Penny while her hair is full of shampoo. The song won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song. Penny and Lucky are now in love. That night at the nightclub, Penny tells Lucky that bandleader Ricardo Romero (Georges Metaxa) has asked her to marry him many times so it’s no surprise when Romero squashes their chance to perform. That is until Lucky wins Romero’s contract gambling and sets the stage for the “Waltz in Swing Time”

“The Waltz in Swing Time” seems to me to be one of the most complex of the Astaire-Rogers dance sequences. Performed at the gorgeous art deco club, this routine is as airy as it is masterful. Fred and Ginger lovingly looking at each other throughout as twists and turns and light taps happen around them. Gosh, they are awe-inspiring.

The Waltz in Swing Time

The next day Lucky does all he can to avoid a love-making scene with Penny. He’s in love with her, but remembers he’s engaged to another woman and hasn’t told her. Meanwhile Pop spills the beans to Mabel (Helen Broderick, the fourth wheel in this ensemble.) A kissless Penny and a frustrated Lucky sing “A Fine Romance” out in the country and Ginger once again gives a lesson in acting. I’ve noted in other posts about how acting in song is never taken too seriously by people and this is another example. Ginger Roger’s reviews in these films were often mediocre with the praise usually going entirely Astaire’s way. Admittedly, Astaire-Rogers films are not dramatic landscapes that allow for much range, but the fact that Ginger manages believable turns in the routines and in all of the sung performances should be noted. She had an air of not taking the films and roles too seriously, but still managed a wide range of emotion, particularly when the time came to emote in dance. That only made her all the better and often the best thing in the movies aside from the dancing.

Fred Astaire has a wonderful production number, “The Bojangles of Harlem,” in Swing Time even though he performs in blackface. The number is intended to honor dancers like Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson who were influential to Fred Astaire. Aside from Fred’s indelible dancing in the sequence, the number is memorable for introducing special effects into Fred Astaire dance routines as he dances with huge shadows of himself. The effect was achieved by shooting the routine twice under different lighting. “Bojangles of Harlem” earned Hermes Pan an Academy Award nomination for Best Dance Direction.

As our story continues – Penny and Lucky are definitely into each other and Ricardo is still wooing Penny when Margaret shows up to spoil the festivities. Actually, she comes to tell Lucky she’s in love with someone else, but doesn’t have a chance to say it before Penny is heartbroken.

And so here we are…we see Penny and Ricardo talking. Given the situation with Lucky – his impending marriage and his losing their contract while gambling – she feels she has no choice but to marry Ricardo. Lucky walks in. Two heartbroken people stand at the foot of majestic stairs as he begins to tell her he’ll never dance again. Imagine that tragedy. The music shifts to “The Way You Look Tonight” and “The Waltz in Swing Time” throughout. Ginger, who had gone up the stairs, descends and the two walk dejectedly across the floor holding hands. The walks gathers a quiet rhythm until they are in each other’s arms dancing. Still, she resists, attempts to walk away, but he refuses to let her go until she succumbs, joining him in energetic rhythm, two people in perfect sync as the music shifts to past moments in their lives together – shifts between loud and quiet, fast and slow, together and apart – mimicking the turmoil of the characters in that time and place.

Ginger’s dress here is elegantly simple as if not to detract from the emotion of the piece, which is intense. Everything about this routine is absolutely gorgeous.

Fred and Ginger split toward the end of the number, each going up an opposite staircase on the elaborate set. They reach the top where the music reaches its crescendo. The two dance, a flurry of turbulent spins. Until she runs off leaving him shattered. And me.

To my knowledge, the “Never Gonna Dance” sequence in the only one where a cut had to happen during the dance in order to get the cameras to the top of the stairs. This is the famous routine that made Ginger’s feet bleed. One of the crew noticed her shoes were pink and it turned out to be that they were blood-soaked. Also notable is that the number was shot over 60 times according to Ginger and several other people there. At one point George Stevens told them all to go home for the night, but Fred and Ginger insisted on giving it one more try. That was the take that’s in the movie. Once done the crew responded enthusiastically.

In the end of Swing Time, as is supposed to happen, Lucky manages to interrupt Penny’s marriage to Ricardo and makes her all his own.

Ginger looks stunning in Swing Time. For details on her Bernard Newman designs in the film I suggest you visit the Glam Amor’s Style Essentials entry on this film.

Despite the many wonderful things about Swing Time, the movie marked the beginning of audience response to Fred and Ginger movies declining. The movie was still a hit, but receipts came in slower than expected. The Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers partnership never quite gained the same momentum as it did up to this point in their careers together. Although the pair was still an asset for RKO and they had many more memorable on-screen moments to share.

Shall We Dance (1937)

In 1937 Astaire and Rogers made Shall We Dance with Mark Sandrich at the helm once again. Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore are also on hand for the film that featured the first Hollywood film score by George and Ira Gershwin.

The plot of Shall We Dance is a bit convoluted, but still enjoyable. Fred plays Peter P. Peters a famous ballet dancer billed as “Petrov” who yearns to do modern dance. One day he sees a picture of famous tap dancer Linda Keene (Ginger) and sees a great opportunity to blend their styles. Similar to their other movies, Fred falls in love with Ginger at first sight. It takes her longer to recognize his graces, but eventually falls hard for him too. That is, after many shenanigans and much confusion when she gets angry and hurt and then he has to win her over again.

Fred has a terrific solo routine here with “Slap That Base,” which takes place in an engine room using the varied engine and steam sounds to tap to. Ginger later does an enjoyable rendition of the Gershwin classic, “They All Laughed (at Christopher Columbus),” which leads to a fun tap routine for the duo. For this Ginger is wearing that memorable flowered dress by Irene who dressed her for this movie. This “They All Laughed” sequence is where he woos her and where she cannot help falling for him.

Soon after “They All Laughed” Fred and Ginger call the whole thing off in the classic sequence that takes place in New York’s Central Park on roller skates. At this point in the story the tabloids have reported the two are married and, having fallen for each other, they don’t know what to do. “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” was written by the Gershwins in New York prior to the making of Swing Time. The brothers brought the song with them to Hollywood and it works perfectly in the comedic scene with both Astaire and Rogers taking turns with verses of the catchy tune before starting the roller skating tap routine.

Unable to stop the rumors that they are married, Pete and Linda decide to actually marry in order to later divorce. The problem is that they’re both crazy about each other, which he demonstrates with one of the most romantic songs ever written, “They Can’t Take that Away From Me.” This song was a personal favorite of both Fred and Ginger. So much so, in fact, that the song was used again in their final film together, their 1949 reunion movie, The Barkleys of Broadway. “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” remains the only occasion on film when Fred Astaire permitted the repeat of a song previously performed in another movie.

George Gershwin died two months after Shall We Dance was released in May 1937. He was posthumously nominated for an Academy Award, along with his brother Ira, for Best Original Song for “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.”

The finale of Shall We Dance is an odd production number. Fred dances in front of dozens of women donning Ginger Rogers masks. Pete Peters decided if he can’t dance with Linda Keene then he’ll dance with many of the next best thing. The real Linda joins him for the final act, touched by his attempt to clone her. The end.

Carefree (1938)

Carefree is probably the Astaire-Rogers movie I’ve seen least and it was refreshing to take a new and improved look at it for this tribute. Mark Sandrich directs Fred and Ginger for the last time in this romantic comedy, the shortest of their films, which attempts a new story flavor for our stars with Irving Berlin tunes.

Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy) asks his Psychiatrist friend Dr. Tony Flagg (Astaire) to meet with his fiancée  Amanda Cooper (Rogers). Immediately we know Arden’s in trouble because Ralph Bellamy never gets the girl, but anyway… Amanda is having trouble committing to marrying Stephen and agrees to see Tony who immediately decides she needs to dream in order for him to decipher her unconscious. After having all sorts of odd foods for dinner Amanda dreams, but of Dr. Tony Flagg, not Stephen. Embarrassed by her dream, Amanda makes up a weird tale, which leads Tony to think she has serious psychological issues that only hypnosis can fix. In slapstick style, Stephen comes by Tony’s office to pick up Amanda and without realizing she’s hypnotized lets her run free on the streets causing all sorts of havoc.

Fed Astaire does a terrific routine early in Carefree where he hits golf balls to music. I know nothing about golf, but recognize this is quite astounding. In a 1970s interview, Fred commented on the scene with some affection saying it was not easy and couldn’t believe he was asked to do another take when the balls were ending off camera.

Amanda’s dream allows for a beautiful, fantasy-like routine to Irving Berlin’s “I Used to Be Color Blind” made famous because Fred and Ginger share the longest kiss here than in any other one of their movies. It happens at the end of the sequence done in slow motion, which definitely causes swooning. About the kiss Fred Astaire said, “Yes, they kept complaining about me not kissing her. So we kissed to make up for all the kisses I had not given Ginger for all those years.” Fred was not a fan of mushy love scenes and preferred to let his kissing with Ginger in movies be alluded to or simple pecks, but he gave in partly to quell the rumors that circulated about he and Ginger not getting along. As Ginger told the story, Fred squirmed and hid as the two reviewed the dance and she delighted in his torture. She explained that neither of them expected the long kiss as it was actually a peck elongated by the slow motion. That day she stopped being the “kissless leading lady.”

The longest kiss Fred and Ginger ever shared on-screen from Carefree

By the way, Ginger is wonderful in the sequence when she’s hypnotized. She gets an opportunity to showcase her comedic skills in similar fashion than she does in Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business (1952) opposite Cary Grant.

At the club one evening Ginger kicks off “The Yam” festivities. According to Ginger this is another instance where Fred didn’t like the song so he pawned it off on her. Who could blame him? Silly at best, “The Yam” is a dance craze that never actually catches fire as it doesn’t have the panache of “The Continental.” These people give it all they have, however, and the evening looks like an enjoyable one. Or, at least I would have loved to be there. Of course Tony joins Amanda in doing “The Yam” before the crowd joins in. As an aside, Life Magazine thought Fred and Ginger doing “The Yam” was worthy of a cover on August 22, 1938.

After yamming it up, Amanda is determined to tell Stephen she’s in love with Tony, but he misunderstands and thinks she professes her love for him. Suddenly Stephen announces their engagement. It’s a total mess that Tony tries to fix through hypnosis, which backfires supremely. Thank goodness everything straightens itself out in the end.

Before getting to the final, exceptional routine in Carefree the supporting cast deserves a mention. Louella Gear joins the fun in Carefree as Aunt Cora, in the same vein as Alice Brady and Helen Broderick in Fred and Ginger movies before her. Hattie McDaniel makes a brief appearance albeit as a maid, but it’s better to see her than not and Jack Carson has a few enjoyable scenes as a brute who works at the psychiatrist’s office.

After Amanda tells Tony she’s in love with him, he hypnotizes her to hate him because he doesn’t want to betray Stephen. When Tony realizes he loves Amanda it’s too late, she’s left his office to be happy with Stephen, avoiding Tony at all costs. But at the club one evening, Tony manages to find a few moments alone with her outside and what results is a sexy number during which she’s completely under his spell. In fact, this may be Fred and Ginger’s sexiest routine. “Change Partners and Dance With Me,” which begins inside as she dances with Stephen, is another beautiful song from Irving Berlin, which received one of the three Academy Award nominations for Carefree for Best Music, Original Song. The other two Oscar nods were for Best Art Direction and Best Music, Scoring.

Howard Greer designed Ginger’s gowns for Carefree and the one she wears in the impassioned “Change Partners and Dance With Me” dance is absolutely stunning.

Ginger is under Fred’s Spell in Carefree

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle directed by H. C. Potter is the ninth of ten dancing partnership films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the last of their musicals in the 1930s and for RKO, and the only one of their films based on a true story and real people.

Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers who appeared on Broadway and in silent films in the early 20th century. Hugely popular, the Castles were credited with popularizing ballroom dance with a special brand of elegance and style. Their most popular dance was the Castle Walk, which Fred and Ginger do in the movie. In fact, they replicate most of the Castle’s dances as closely to the original as possible. As you’d expect from Fred Astaire.

Irene Castle served as a Technical Advisor on The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and the story goes that she eventually disowned the film because of the film’s lack of authenticity. In defense of some of the changes though, 1934 censorship restrictions were quite different than those in the 1910s. The differences affected costuming and casting at every level of the film. That said, Variety gave The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle a glowing review and the public received it warmly.

Ginger and Fred as Irene and Vernon Castle

It must be mentioned that The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle features two of the greatest character actors who ever lived. Edna May Oliver plays the Castle’s manager Maggie Sutton and Walter Brennan plays Walter, Irene’s majordomo, for lack of a better word, since she was a child. Both of these characters were changed dramatically for the film due to production code restrictions. The real Maggie Sutton (real name Elizabeth Marbury) was openly a lesbian and the real-life Walter was a black man. Neither of those suited the production code mind for broad appeal across the country.

Fred and Ginger do a fine job in this movie. The dances are pretty if not as elaborate as those Astaire and Rogers performed in their other movies. It is exciting to see them do a Tango, a dance I am particularly fond of. However, there is one other dance sequence in particular that moves me immensely, “The Missouri Waltz” at the Paris Cafe when Vernon returns from the war. The acting in the sequence is superb as you can feel the emotion jumping off of her as he picks her up in a gorgeous move during which she wraps herself around him. It’s stunning.

Ginger wrote in her book about the day they shot “The Missouri Waltz,” the last filmed in the movie and, to everyone’s mind, likely the last number she and Fred would ever do together. RKO was abuzz with rumors and people came from far and wide to watch them shoot it. They came from all around RKO, from Paramount and from Columbia to see this last dance. “This was a very dignified way to end our musical marriage at RKO.”

In 1939, after completing The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, Astaire and Rogers split as you know. Astaire’s salary demands proved too much for RKO pictures. Fred Astaire went on to make movie musical magic in all manner of ways, both alone and with other outstanding talents, leaving a rich legacy of treasures. Ginger Rogers went on to prove herself a true quadruple threat. We knew by 1939 that she could sing, dance and be funny but now, determined to go into straight drama she reaches the pinnacle with an Academy Award-winning performance in Sam Wood’s, Kitty Foyle in 1940. I recognize Ginger’s dramatic talent in the time I spent watching the many dance routines she did with Fred Astaire, but in a time when movies were seen just once it’s difficult to think of other actors who make the transition from film genre to film genre so seamlessly as she did. Hers was a rare talent.

Since I already dedicated an entire entry to Fred and Ginger as The Barkleys of Broadway, Josh and Dinah Barkley, I will forego a full summary here. For now let’s relive the reunion.

Ten years after she made her last appearance on-screen with Astaire, Ginger Rogers walked onto the set of The Barkleys of Broadway. The cast and crew had tears in their eyes. This was special. She said her “hellos”, kissed Fred Astaire and they got to work.  At first Ginger explained that Fred seemed disappointed. Judy Garland was scheduled to make the picture with him, but was replaced by Ginger. All of that doesn’t matter though because as a fan, I cannot fathom what it must have been like for audiences in 1949. If people are out of their minds excited about the release of a superhero film today, if audiences drool over a new and rehashed installment of Spiderman, imagine seeing legends together again after a ten-year sabbatical. I would have had to take a Valium. I get chills just thinking about it, and admit a bit of that happens when I watch The Barkleys of Broadway in my own living room. From the moment I see the opening credits, which are shown while the couple is dancing, quite happily – she in a gold gown and he in a tux, I mean, seriously, I’m verklempt right now. We are all happy to be together again.

Despite their great individual careers the magic of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers together cannot be replicated. And it wasn’t necessarily the dancing, or not the dancing alone, that made them a perfect pair. It was the glances, the touch, and the feel that made them magic. The spell of romance, real for the length of a composition, entranced. We all know Katharine Hepburn’s famous quote, “she gave him sex and he gave her class.” Well, Kate was not wrong. Fred Astaire was never as romantic as when he danced with Ginger. And Ginger, a down-to-Earth beauty, was never as sophisticated as when she danced with Fred.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers brought prestige to RKO when it was in desperate need of it and joy to a nation hungry for respite from tough times. In a six-year span they established themselves as the best known, best loved dancing partners in the history of movies and have remained there for 85 years. I’ll end with these words by Roger Ebert, “of all of the places the movies have created, one of the most magical and enduring is the universe of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”

Sources:

The RKO Story

Ginger: My Story by Ginger Rogers

The Astaires: Fred & Adele by Kathleen Riley

As many Fred Astaire interviews as I could find.

Be sure to visit the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA) and The Anniversary Blogathon. There are many fantastic film anniversaries honored for this prestigious event.

85 Years of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers It was 85 years ago this week, in October 1934, that Mark Sandrich’s The Gay Divorcee…