#Nickie is his metaphoric “Mother”

[deep-spacediver577]

Casual supervised visitation between Elmer and Nickie

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

i love rio's look from the 18th century, it's so much gentler, and i like the contrast between that green and the black she has now bc i expect as death she just reflects how people view her, right? and agatha's view on death is fucking furious, she hates death, so death hates her. she pursues agatha bc agatha runs. agatha does this to herself

[here-for-fanart]

I just realized something about Agatha All Along. Everyone who walked the Witches' Road got exactly what they wanted.

Jen went on the road to find her powers (both inner and outer), and that's exactly what she got. [She was really the only one who went specifically for power.]

Alice went on the road, not really for answers about her mother, but to end her curse. Her curse ended.

Sharon (Mrs. Hart) went on the road 'cause she wanted to go to a party. They went to a nice house, hung out, and drank wine.

Lilia went on the road, not to get her powers back, but so she could remember herself and realize her full potential as a witch (not relating to magical power, but to the power of identity).

Billy went on the road to find his brother. He found him and made it possible for his brother to come to the physical world.

Rio--yes, she technically walked the road--wanted Agatha's forgiveness. I believe that kiss was Agatha's way of saying she forgave her, even if she still couldn't face her (and Nicky) in death and became a ghost. Some might say she had to kiss her to syphon her power, but I think she could have done it another way. She chose the "kiss of Death" as her way to go. And there is the beautiful metaphor of Agatha "accepting" Death. She accepts that this is who Rio is and forgives her for having to hurt Agatha by doing her job.

Agatha, again while saying she wanted her powers back, actually wanted closure. Death would not stop pursuing her. Their history, and Billy's presence, meant that she was continually reminded of her grief over her son. In order to protect herself, emotionally, Agatha had put up walls and hid herself behind a thirst for power. It's why she says in the beginning, she's vulnerable "only physically". On the Road, Agatha became emotionally vulnerable to Billy, Rio, and even the others. And while the last trial was meant to be for the Green Witch, Agatha did it herself. Alone. She was forced to feel that sense of powerlessness once again. The Road taught her that her feelings of vulnerability, of powerlessness, what probably felt like the death of herself, would lead to new growth in the form of a connection with Billy, an understanding and forgiveness of Rio, a true connection to a coven (it was Agatha's encouragement that led most of them to discovering their own truths), and a true surrender to the powerlessness of an actual physical death. So, I guess you could say, she did gain power (the power of vulnerability). It just wasn't the kind she was expecting. But I choose to call it closure, because she "settled" a lot of what was causing her to seek magical power in the first place.

Everyone got what they wanted but maybe not in the way they were expecting.

[cissa-calls]

Considering how the original Ballad of the Witches Road was a silly ditty of imagination and love made up between Agatha and Nicky, it was a song attesting to a mother’s connection. Lorna Wu’s cover of it was a continuation of that legacy, she sang it for Alice, out of love and protection for her daughter. Perhaps that why it was such a strong ward against the familial curse, because it was a song that only reinforced its original intentions: proof and strength to the interconnection of a mother and child.

Considering all of this, the choice of Agatha to be the one who lead the band and sang the Ballad in the protection trial makes much more sense, and is that much more important. Originally, I wondered, why Agatha? This was Alice’s trial, her mother the original singer. But Agatha was held the deepest intimacy and connection to the song, the one who not only understood its power, but Lorna’s intentions.

Agatha and Lorna are echos of one another, same as Nicky and Alice. The former were both powerful witches who wove magic with storytelling and song. Both mothers who turned it into a living archive that testified their love for their children, to protect, to remember, to hold them close metaphorically, if physically was not possibly.

Every time a witch sang the ballad, the short life of Nicky was being celebrated and remembered, just as every reprise prolonged Alice’s life under the curse. In that way, they were both able to live. When Alice crossed to the other side, I wonder if he comforted her by saying that.

How could Nicky ever truly be gone if his words are sung aloud every day, even centuries later? He is not a physical ghost nor memory, but he a wish, an ember sparked again and again when his words are sung. Would the sparks finally catch and grow into a living flame?

In that way, how could Agatha be blamed for hoping Nicky survived and possibly be incarnated in Billy when the words of thousands of witches did really hold such power? When she witnessed the proof of how it feigned off Death from Alice? When he himself was borne of scratch, a miracle already.

[ellestra]

Even the Evil Witch loved her son

The moment I realised the song was just something Nicky made with the help of his mum (Agathe truly is the source of all Witch lore, isn't she?) it all started falling into place. I knew what was going to happen to that first witch who asked her about The Road because this is exactly what she was trying to do at the beginning. Just provoke the witches to blast her with their power so she could steal it.

The montage still helped to understand what Agatha knew and when she knew it. And since she knew The Witches Road was never real she also knew there was some very powerful magic involved when it actually appeared. Reality altering one. So of course she figured out who Billy was. It only took a while because when she last met him he wasn't real. But maybe that made him the realest to Agatha because he made himself real.

And of course that what makes Rio so aggravated. She is cycle of life and he is not part of it. Made of magic and never really born and can't truly die. And then he take William Kaplan's death away from her too. And one more kid too. Boys die sometimes and Death doesn't like when they also continue to live. But for Agatha this is exactly the kind of "fuck you" she wanted to give to Rio.

I love that the show didn't try to make Agatha a good person. This wasn't a redemption story. She hasn't changed. She doesn't care about other people. She kills other witches and doesn't even bother to remember normal people (neither Sharon Davis nor Tommy's names stick to her mind). She just has this one weak spot because she loved unconditionally and selflessly once. And Billy kind of fits into that hole. Even if she hates showing him that.

She resents him because he survived when Nicholas couldn't. Because he is just as his mother who defeated and bound her and actually has power to hurt her. And because her son was exact opposite - she didn't use any magic to make him and that's all that Billy was.

But she cares because Billy is everything Agatha wanted her son to be when he grew up. And because she sees herself in him. Someone who was cursed with power so great it ends up hurting those around him even when he doesn't mean it. Someone who was failed by his own mother because she didn't understand what she created. And just like her he doesn't give up. He fights to live when all the odds are stocked against him. Even if that means death.

I still am not sure what planting that dandelion seed was supposed to accomplish. Except for being a metaphor on Nicky's ephemeral life gone too soon. But I loved Rio telling her the truth Lillia understood - you can't escape death. It will always come, it's only a question of time. No matter if it's just a few short years or centuries. In the end Agatha understood it too and went to the other side. Where she no longer has to worry about Death following her. She has her rebirth as something new.

Agatha once offered Wanda to be her teacher but there was too many possible double crosses in that offer. And Wanda couldn't admit to herself she was a bad guy too. I loved that the season kept reminding us how horrific what she did to people of Westview was. Good intention is what read to hell is paved with.

That this level of power is not something that can be wielded safely. Believing you have full control over it is the fastest way to lose it. And it so easy to justify to yourself that you only did what was necessary. That you didn't mean it. And it's OK. And then it's so hard to stop. Wanda almost didn't.

Billy already knows what it means to kill his own coven for a made up story. Just because he wanted it to be real so much. And maybe it is better to learn on other people's mistakes. Even if your teacher is the Evil Witch.

[csolarstorm]

Thoughts on Agatha All Along - Finale!

Well, I've managed to piece together a post from the notes I took after that awesome two part finale. I enjoyed it a lot, so this is gonna be a long one! So follow me, my friend, as I give my thoughts on Episode 8 and 9 of Agatha All Along.

Now this is one of the most interesting character redemptions I've seen in young adult/family media, because it isn't really a redemption! 

Agatha's redemption goes just as far as her motherly bond with Billy, but other than that, the show is less about redemption and more about retribution.  We thought when Episode 5 said "Punish Agatha", that would be an outlier, a temporary obstacle to the coven coming together.  Nope.  There's too much red - I mean, purple - in Agatha's ledger.  Agatha is who she is, and the show never rewards her for her treachery.  In fact, her cynical, callous worldview costs her everything…even her death.  Agatha is literally reduced to a ghost because she rejects the literal embodiment of the life cycle.  (And she can't face Nicky.)

She's literally "mommy Voldemort"!  That is one of the weirdest things I've ever written!

The only thing Agatha doesn't lose at the end of the series is her bond with Billy - and that's even a close one.  He almost banishes her! That's a fun inversion of the beginning where he deliberately seeks her out. But in mentoring Billy, Agatha has a sort of second chance at parenthood after losing her son. So she is given that grace.

Okay, technically the show does kind of give Agatha the anti-hero treatment, or else she wouldn't end up Billy's mentor.  Clearly Agatha has something to teach Tommy about the nature of power and ruthlessness of the world.  Billy's chaos magic is unfathomably powerful - like his mom, he was bound to accidentally hurt people at some point.  And Agatha was absolutely right about this: "get used to this feeling if you're going to be a witch".  That's unfortunately what being powerful is like.  Think of all the collateral damage the Avengers have caused.  Heck, Wanda at Lagos.  Billy really does take after his mother.

It's the same way in the real world. Any decision a politician makes, money a billionaire invests, has ripple effects the victimize somebody, a shadowy cost to match the reward.

It's one thing to trample others on accident when you swing around your power, but hurting others on purpose actually does actually hurt you, and I think this show expertly portrays that.  It doesn't fall into this trap of making Agatha some amoral badass that people idolize for giving them permission to be assholes.  The power of virtue is not a metaphor, not just a moral gimmick meant to promote societal adhesion.  The callousness of treachery actually affects your ability to form meaningful relationships, which is part of living a satisfying life. Under that facade of bravado and villainy, Agatha is suffering deep inside.  Of course, your mileage may vary, only the good die young, yadda yadda.  There's plenty of happy monsters and sociopaths in the world.

This show has some really interesting parallels with Loki.  You can even argue that Agatha ended up with a parallel but also opposite fate to Loki: a ghost to the world, cut off from life and death.  Only unlike Loki, she can still interact with others.

Agatha All Along DEFINITELY follows Wandavision's footsteps when it comes to flipping audience expectations.  Only this time it's not as simple as Ralph Bohner or those "devils in the details".  Agatha All Along is deliciously character driven, so all the devils in these details are character-related.

The Coven and Sisterhood

Let's start with the biggest "twist": around the middle of the show, the story was about sisterhood: four wayward witches and one familiar setting aside their differences and learning to work together as coven. 

That all goes to hell with Agatha kills Alice and Billy yeets everyone into the mud.  (In retrospect, that's definitely part of why I was disappointed with Episode 5. I could feel the change in direction in the awkward writing.) Sure, Lillia embraces the coven before her death, but Jen definitely does not find kinship with Agatha in the end.  In fact, Agatha screwed her over a hundred years before the show began, and Jen's final challenge is getting away from Agatha's toxic influence. 

And then the whole coven plot definitely goes to hell when it turns out that not only was the road not even real, but the legend of the road itself was just Agatha's lie to lure witches into her coven to murder them over and over again!  Granted we knew that Agatha wanted to kill the coven from the beginning, but this is a whole other layer of deception.

I know this pisses some people off, because obviously it feels like Alice and Lillia died for nothing now - or at least died for a cause they never signed up for.  This was all about resurrecting Tommy, not working together for sisterhood!

Even though the coven didn't last, I think it still matters that it was part of the show, and it was explored. The theme of sisterhood is there. And like Vision said, something is not beautiful because it lasts. 

But I know a lot of people wanted to see this conventional story where everyone survives, and Sharon learns analog witchcraft and her skills come in handy in the last trial when she saves everyone from a sticky situation, and the newfound coven of sisterhood teams up to defy Death and save Agatha and Billy.

That's why we have fanfiction.  *sigh*

Defied Expectations

Speaking of fan disappointment, there's no moment where all is revealed about Agatha's relationship with Rio, at least not all that the fans wanted to see.  Instead, we get an admittedly cute and emotionally compelling flashback to Agatha raising Nicky that shows us exactly how she started the legend of the Witch's Road, and how the ballad started as their song as mother and son.  I'm not disappointed that they went this route instead of a more Rio-centered flashback - I think it brings the story full circle.   

I could tell people were going to be disappointed when Agatha didn't end up in a fulfilling relationship with Rio/Death.  Their relationship had such rich chemistry and it was so intriguing - but to me, the writing was on the wall that it would not be a particularly positive relationship.  I don't imagine Marvel would show a relationship between a serial killer and the embodiment of death and make that a happy, healthy relationship.  My condolences to shippers who wanted this to be a positive representation of lesbian relationships.

And on that note: I'm not sure why Agatha tells Rio that the truth about Nicky's death is too terrible.  Was she absorbing life to keep Nicky alive, and once he refused he finally died? Is that why she says to baby Nicky "You like that? I think we're going to work together just fine."  If this is what they were going for, then yeah that truth is terrible enough for me. Obviously Agatha isn't going to tell the coven she needed to kill other witches to keep Nicky alive.  There's no use trying to rationalize serial murder, even if it's to support your son.

I like how Agatha's name for Nicky follows the "Namor" rule. Since they changed Namor's origin, instead of his name being "Roman" backwards, they made him "N'Amor - the one without love!" So sure, sure, Nicholas Scratch isn't named after Nick Scratch, an old name for the devil, perish the thought! Agatha names him Nicholas Scratch because she made him from scratch. Aww, that honestly was adorable, name retcons aside.

We don't flash back to Agatha's first coven.  The Salem Seven and Evanora originally seem like they're going to be a bigger part in the story, but they're a footnote by the finale.  And although I'm glad they chose the story of Nicky and the origin of the Witch's Road, it would have been nice to commit to actually explaining some of Agatha's actual origin. 

Did Jen's trauma bind her magic?  Nope, Agatha did it.  I mean it doesn't exactly rob us of Jen's trauma narrative - it was still there, implicitly, it's just funny that everything in the series really is Agatha All Along, except for that one big time it was Billy All Along.

Oh, and I guess that one time it was Lillia All Along.  But that's different, that's Patti LuPone.  You have to get Patti Lupone in on the fun.

There are always some editing mistakes in TV shows, but it seems like Marvel needed to go back and tweak some (alleged) discrepancies in the story that don't match the final version of the series, or at stop and clarify things more often.  (For instance, how was Rio "torturing Agatha" throughout the years?  Was she responsible for all the disasters around Agatha, hoping to break her into finally accepting her death?) 

This lack of clarity is a problem with the series overall, to the point that Jac Schaeffer had to keep explaining things that the narrative didn't make clear.  But I have to say, the fact that we were so on the edge of our seats wanting to know means that the story was doing its job.

All Roads Lead To...

So in the end, I think that just like Wandavision, the show went in a direction that a lot of fans weren't expecting - but unlike Wandavision, in some ways I think that's to its benefit.  The coven may not have lasted, but damn that is a richly emotional character study of Agatha Harkness, and I am excited to see "The Ghost and Billy Kaplan" return in Vision Quest, or maybe Young Avengers. 

There were some (alleged) plot holes from Marvel's trademark editing process, and they should have been clearer about some things - but holy triple goddess was this an amazing series nonetheless.  Pound for pound, I think it's the best series Marvel has to offer right now.

Follow me my friend, to glory at the end.

[murfpersonalblog]

Hello! I have been engaging in your analysis recently and I am satisfied by how thorough and sourced they are. I have been thinking about the possible parallel between Gabrielle and Louis of late and I was wondering if you think anything about it being possibly explored in the show. Gabrielle is masc presenting so I wonder if Louis' feminity will also be explored. There's so much I'm wondering!

Omg thanks so much for asking, and thanks for liking my stuff @timotheeronan! Tuck yourself in for a long AF post, cuz I've been wanting to get things off my chest about Gabrielle for a while (X X).

I FULLY expect S3 to make parallels between Gabrielle & Louis, yes. Their complex power dynamics with Lestat as Mother/Son, Fledgling/Maker are interwoven with their roles as spouses: Gabrielle as the Marquis' literal unhappy housewife AND Les' temporary Blood Spouse; and Louis as Lestat's metaphorical "unhappy housewife" and endgame Blood Spouse; and the ways they BOTH broke away from this to forge their own identities separate/free from him; "I'm companion enough for myself now."

On top of this, there's the CRUCIAL exploration of gender expression Gabrielle goes through. Gabrielle is so iconic, as someone I've seen over the decades labelled as everything from a feminist icon to masc presenting to GNC to nonbinary to trans to etc etc. It HAS to happen, I'd be shocked & appalled if it doesn't. Esp. considering how Les reacts (both positively AND negatively), wrt those aforementioned socio-gendered power dynamics & roles.

Cuz like I've BEEN stressing wrt Les' Matador pjs & Mardi Gras dress (X X); and Louis' power suits & cardigans: clothes are just ONE aspect of a larger societal framework these characters are operating under (x x x x). There's a "visual hierarchy of power" Carol Cutshall describes, where clothes reflect MORE than just gender expression, but also reflect power: agency/autonomy/freedom, or the lack thereof. Gab's masculine presentation goes farther than just her outward appearance on the surface. Deeper, there's what it says about how she felt about her her immediate relationship with Lestat, and her broader treatment & place in her family, and the world at large. Clothes can be a form of resistance; a power move.

So if S3's take on TVL goes the direction I hope/think it will, Lestat's Redemption Tour will be part defensive/reflective, as he deals with his repressed traumas and the many wrongs done to him; but also the many wrongs he's done to others: Louis & Gabrielle (and ofc Claudia & Nicki).

Cuz contrary to what braindead fans/stans lead people to believe, AMC's adaptation is 100% about the cycles of abuse & trauma; and how power imbalances between vampires are merely a reflection of IRL social inequality due to things like class, race, and gender; which vampires just DELUDE themselves into thinking they're above; but meanwhile can't help but perpetuate--cuz they ARE still human.

Whatever this "documentary/tour" manifests as, Les is gonna have to be confronted with the ways that his actions in the past impacted his actions in the present; so that Les realizes he needs to course-correct in the future, to become a better person/monster/vampire "WORTHY of Louis' love" and forgiveness.

But he also has to reconcile with his mother; when Gabrielle finally reappears after ~200 years of deliberate radio silence (x x). She follows him on his tour when he pisses off the vampires of the world & they try to kill him (& Lou) for blabbing about their secrets.

In QotD, Les, Lou & Gabe share close quarters with one another for Les' tour. When he's is kidnapped by Akasha, Lou & Gab team up together as they grieve his absence & wait/hope for Les' return, forming their own bond.

So I'd bet Monopoly dollars that AMC's take on TVL & QotD will be an effing circus full of funhouse mirrors being held up to their faces, as they all see aspects of themselves (reflections of the past repeating itself) in each other. It's gonna bring up uncomfortable truths; but help them all better understand/realize WHY Les is drawn to Gab & Lou and loves them so much, but also where he went wrong with both of them; and where they went wrong with him, too.

And it all boils down to Family vs Freedom.

Les' oppressive nature come from his overwhelming outpouring of love. Lovebombing is his love language; overcompensating for how he felt insecure & inadequate & ashamed. He wants what's best for his loves, but he also thinks he KNOWS what's best for them, too. He hated being poor country-nobility, broke as a joke in that crumbling chateau. He was ashamed. When faced with the horrific reality of his mother dying, his grief's wrapped up in wondering about the things she'd wanted, & fantasizing about the all things he'd wanted for her.

Cuz their relationship, as strained as it was, was marked with "grand and loving gestures" of GIFT-giving.

Les saved both Gab & Lou's life when he Turned them. Lou was suicidal (& no doubt careening towards alcohol poisoning); while Gab was dying of consumption. The Dark Gift is his ultimate show of love for those Les turns, his way of saying: I love you, I want you to live forever, and I wanna live WITH you forever, "be my companion;" we can keep each other company forever. But because vampirism is damned/cursed, the gift comes at the price of him potentially losing them anyway--cuz vampirism gives them power, and ultimately: freedom. (Hence: Les' abandonment issues.)

For Gabrielle, an 18th-century woman trapped in that awful chateau with that awful abusive husband raising awful abusive sons, books were her escape from reality; and her library was her nest/shelter.

We don't get much of Gab's POV/thoughts, but Anne Rice talked at length about how books & stories & writing were her outlet/escape; her Dreamworld when she was lonely/depressed/grieving/etc.

"Sometime in that year when seven-year-old Alice was gone for hours every day, my personal dreamworld was born, the detailed and complex paracosm in which I started to live the major portion of every day with my own secretly imagined characters. I know for certain that the dreamworld was in full swing by the time I was eight, and had been with me “forever.” And several of the characters who peopled that dreamworld then in 1949 are still with me today in a vivid cast of thousands.".... "Now and then I abandon the ancient dreamworld. But I have never since 2005 abandoned the primal dreamworld, the most important one, the one born to me when I was a little girl, the one that existed from the 1940s up through the early 1990s without interruption, and that is with me now every day. I myself am not in this dreamworld. There is no place in it for someone like me. I’ve had fantasies of actually discovering it, or being somehow transported to it, but I play no role in it whatsoever. I watch and listen and inhabit its various characters individually, just as I do characters in my books.... "Before I draw the obvious comparison between this dreamworld and the world of the Vampire Chronicles, I want to make several specific points about the dreamworld...." -- Anne Rice: Alphabettery

Gabrielle H A T E D being jailed/cooped up that chateau as much as Les did--heck, she likely hated it even MORE; cuz unlike her son (a MAN free to go out and hunt & act & preach--if his father let him, ofc), a WOMAN/"tradwife" was to be seen not heard.

Some of the only times she really makes herself heard--exerting her limited agency/autonomy/freedom--is when she's FIGHTING Les' FATHER the Marquis, to DEFEND HER CHILD's agency/autonomy/freedom (the Mama Bear to Lou's Papa Bear with Claudia (x x)).

Cuz ironically, SHE was the breadwinner in the family--it was HER dowry money that financed everything, when the shiftless de Lioncourts went broke generations ago. (And we see the same family dynamic with Louis' family, where Papa DPDL ran the estate into bankruptcy, and Levi Freniere mooched off of Grace--how "tradwives" had to become independent & self-sustaining & break social norms & become the surrogate head of the household when the patriarch let them down; and how that affected Lou's struggle for self-worth when it was left to him to become the (reluctant) man of the family--it's a VERY familiar scene fort Les, and another reason why he felt akin to Louis. But (as usual) Lou FAILS where Gabrielle succeeds--he loses the Azalea, and becomes a cripple after getting dropped 2km from the sky; so Claudia becomes HIS mother, defending him from THEIR p.o.s. patriarch, Lestat; exerting her own limited agency--but pressuring Lou to do the same (the Murder Plot).)

She squirrels her jewels under her pillows, withholding her money so the Marquis & her sons don't BLOW it all; withholds her knowledge/literacy cuz they don't value/respect it; withholds her affections cuz they HAVE blown it. Gab's outnumbered in that medieval castle stuffed to the gills with toxic masculinity; she hates her husband; pumps out sons he raised to disrespect & ignore her; is isolated in the middle-of-nowhere Auvergne; & depressed AF. She resented her life; and comforted herself with books. She loved Les the most, but she kept him at arms length too. Les loved his mother the most, but he resented her, too.

I see so many posts about how "selfish" Gab is, and I'm like this is the same exact nasty AF attitude people have against AMC!Lou. They're DEPRESSED, ffs! The same women online who go on & on about feminism & misogyny & female autonomy/agency & how men don't understand/respect postpartum depression and battered-wife syndrome; and then look at Gabrielle AND Louis like they've got two heads just cuz they don't kiss blorbo Lestat's arse 24/7, like wtF????

YES, depression can express itself as petty spite & meanness/coldness & resentful hostility. Gab never taught Les how to read, cuz the books were her comfort/escape FROM motherhood/reality; just like Lou's books were his comfort/escape FROM vampirism/reality (read: violence/homosexuality/marriage/Lestat). It's an ANNE RICE self-insert about her lifelong "Dreamworld"--ALL of her characters represent parts of herself at different times in her life.

They're UNHAPPY, and only find pleasure in the fantasy of stories--ofc Gab wouldn't want Les intruding on her Me Time by teaching him how to read--esp. when Les could be sent to the church to learn instead--which he was. (Unfortunately, his father only wanted him there long enough to learn the basics, not to commit himself to the church as a priest.)

Art imitates life--fantasy tv shows about vampires included. Les' behavior is PATENTLY familiar, and I fully expect S3 will mirror plenty of celebrity scandals involving IPV--Chris Brown's Apology Tour to the press immediately comes to mind, after he beat the breaks off of Rihanna. There are countless IRL cases where battered/abused/depressed women are negligent to their kids; and those kids grow up to be abusive to their own partners & families:

"Rocky was...high-strung, jittery. Energetic. (His family describes him slightly differently, as quiet and sometimes devious, also on the shy side.) Before he shot himself [and his wife Michelle Monson Mosure, and their 3 kids in 2001]...he’d written a message on his arms. No one was meant to see it, and no one can exactly remember what it said. Something like 'I deserve to go to hell.'" "Rocky was quiet...troubled, rebellious, but he loved the outdoors. Fishing, camping...the outdoor stuff, the quiet, even his real name, Gordon, he shared with his father. The nickname had come from his dad when Rocky was a baby, a tribute to the boxer Rocky Marciano. Gordon and his first wife, Linda, had three kids, of whom Rocky was the eldest.... When they divorced, Linda gave him full custody of all three kids.... [Gordon] had met someone at work pretty quickly after he and Linda separated: Sarah.... Although the kids had always had some trouble with school, after the move Gordon and Sarah discovered the kids were further behind than they’d realized, and though they hired tutors, the kids remained behind. None of them wound up graduating. Gordon claims that Linda planted the kids in front of the television or dragged them around with her wherever she went during the day, shopping or whatever. “Instead of teaching them ABCs and all this, they hadn’t gotten any of that,” Gordon says. When I spoke with Linda she remembered things differently, of course.... Rocky was in trouble after the move almost immediately.... By seventh grade, Sarah and Gordon knew Rocky needed help. They sent him to Pine Hills, the home for troubled boys.... In a family counseling session once, the therapist asked Rocky if he was sad his mother had left, and he said...'Yeah, it was better after she was gone because then we got to hang out with [Dad] more, but not have the big fighting between them.'" -- No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder

-- Letellier & Island: Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence

Lestans keep acting like he's called an abuser out of thin frikkin air; that there are no parallels b/t Loustat's dynamic and IRL cases; and that Les's above censure just cuz he's nicer in the later books. Yeah he gets better--cuz he got REJECTED by Gabrielle/Nicki/Louis, BESTED by Claudia, HUMBLED by Akasha, DUPED by Raglan, TORTURED by Memnoch, and CHALLENGED by Rhoshamandes! Les LITERALLY went to Hell, for crissakes!

(x x)

Les pulled ish on Lou that he would NEVER pull on Gab, specifically BECAUSE she's his MOTHER. Les had a HARD time divorcing that image from his mind, even when he reveled in the power vampirism gave them to be free, and live the lives they'd always dreamed of back at the chateau.

Even when he knew she was The Vampire Gabrielle, and he was her Maker/companion/paramour, he held onto that image of her as his mother--"my mother's boy, my mother's man" (a la the pilot script).

The Vampire Gabrielle fully embraced her new identity; being an apex predator (better than even Les did; she's a BAMF), shedding all human attachments & trivialities (the social constructs of long hair & dresses; morals & mores alike). But that came at the cost of her shedding her her motherly role too. She was finally TRIUMPHANT: POWERFUL & FREE, and she dressed accordingly: as a man, with all of the societal affordances, liberties & freedoms that entailed.

(Gabrielle & Nicki & Louis are even tied together through Paris' Ile Saint Louis, where Nickistat lived & loved; and where Les turned Gabrielle.)

Patriarchal male privilege and vampiric gendered liberation for Gab works similarly but differently/separate but equal than it does for AMC!Louis, not just cuz of his sexuality, but esp. cuz of his race. As usual, Gab triumphs where Lou fails. Although he IS a man, he's a gay BLACK man, which put him even lower on the racist/sexist social hierarchical pyramid than a white woman (Gab included). From slavery times (Gab) to Jim Crow (Lou) down to the Civil Rights Movement, the youngest white girl (called "Miss") had more rights than the oldest Black man (called "boy"). For all Les' promises that he & his fledglings would be "equals in the quiet dark," white male Les was the ONLY one with rights over BOTH of them--as such, they're both on similar levels in Coven Master Lestat's household; even when they tried to exert their own autonomy. (The same holds true for Lou & Claudia, ALSO put on the same level.)

Les was just as conflicted with book!Gab's newfound freedom & choice of victims as he was with AMC!Lou's, for opposite but similar reasons, all boiling down to how HE thought his fledglings should act. On one hand he encouraged embracing vampiric nature, while on the other hand wanting to curb their killing to fit human laws he swore didn't matter anymore, like wtf--am I a lion(court) or a housecat? He was a pisspoor teacher to Gab AND Lou (and yet people wanna point the finger at Gab & Lou for leaving him, or blame megaladon!Armand for taking advantage of Lou' & Claudia's ignorance, like HUH?!?)

[EDITED TO ADD:] Lou & Gab are both oppressed by societal/gendered expectations. For Gabrielle, tradwife domesticity/femininity was her performance, her CAGE/JAIL. The masculine ideal for her was being someone like Wolfkiller Lestat: a macho hunter, slaying dangerous animals in the wilderness, dressed in men's clothes with her hair cropped short; not being called "Mother" anymore or having to raise kids & deal with her psycho husband.

[EDITED TO ADD:] But that macho-masculinity was performance for Lou ("Did I WANT to pull a knife on my brother? NO."). He was a "rougher thing, then," passing as straight, and it made him miserable. He wanted a completely opposite life (the domesticity of being boo'd up at home with his man, always dressed in cardigans, "smothering" his daughter Claudia, and just being a homemaker)--but what is the opposite of masculinity but femininity? What's the opposite of a businessman but a tradwife (the feminine ideal pre-feminism)? How can his pride/life as a Black man tryna be respected in a white world survive without nosey white women like Antoinette & homophobic white cops always asking about his 1 bed upstairs? For Lou, domesticity/"femininity" was FREEDOM--until Les took advantage of Lou's vulnerability and the townhouse became his CAGE/JAIL; and he became just as miserable as Gabrielle was--cycles cycling.

And unlike Gabrielle de Lioncourt, who had the honor of being Les' biological mother/maker/creator (the one who knew everything about him), with the almost sacred idea(l) of her in his head as his childhood champion/savior that allowed him to defer to her and accept her wanting to do & go her own way, even as he clung to the idea(l) of his "Mother" that made him resent her abandoning him (again); Louis had no such privilege.

Les was HIS Maker--"I put you on this earth." "I chose you!" Lou was CREATED to be Les' person: his bespoke companion; groomed & Vegas Married to not know a thing about Les' past/nature that Les didn't want him to know; seduced to love the monster first (not the man). Les expected Lou to be happy; not reject Les/vampirism & read books at home rather than go on sexcapades & killing sprees; ashamed of his true nature full of "self-loathing" he projected at Les.

Even when Lou was too weak & hungry to have sex, he still spent his time reading; and cuz Les can't read his mind, it's the best way to shut out everything and focus on his fantasy rather than his body's needs, let alone Les' emotional needs. He gets so much worse during the Great Depression, when Claudia's gone & he's given up all pretenses that he's anything but the "unhappy housewife;" and Les gives up the pretenses of not resenting Lou for "not honoring the Blood [read: ME] as he should." Hence: Ep5; "crushing what you cannot own;" and Les pissing all over Lou's name & reputation in the Trial; as abusers often blame their victims, or outright lie to make them seem crazy, evil, or abusive.

Thankfully, Les has already come face to face with how effed up the Trial was, and how badly his participation in the Trial/smear campaign hurt Lou's feelings; "Come to Me!? Those were HIS words! F-- you!"

So while I fully expect S3 Les to emphasize his own childhood traumas & abuse, and while I fear Gabrielle will carry the lion's share of censure in Les' POV (and in the fandom) for abandoning him, hopefully Les doesn't do what many abusers do and make it all about him and his man-pain. Hopefully he's candid about how Gab was wronged too (by his p.o.s. dad & brothers, AND he himself); and that his resentments towards Gabrielle bled into his resentments towards Louis. But I ALSO expect Les to still have self-improvement to do--TVL/QotD is NOT where he pivots from being an a-hole to a saint; he does some ATROCIOUS stuff in those books, and in TotBT.

The Prince Lestat trilogy is Les's final redemption arc, his pride humbled & then rewarded--and even then he's still a work-in-progress ("I'm, a lot, I'm not perfect").

Lou (& Claudia) emancipated themselves from Massa Lestat after the Murder Plot (or at least, Lou tries to--Loustat canonical endgame, after all). But they only get back together after a long period of on/off stints, as Les gradually figured out how to be a normal effing person for once; and how to respect Lou's agency/autonomy/freedom.

Likewise, his relationship with Gabrielle also vastly "improves," as she, like Lou in PLAtRoA, finally decides to live with Les at the renovated Chateau de Lioncourt; letting go of the past to build something new.

But he STILL can't help but revert to treating her like his bride/wife, doll, and mother, all in one (until she gets sick of it, ofc, LOL).

At Prince Les' celebratory Winter Solstice fete in BC, Gab dresses to the nines as the belle of the ball to please him, as Queen Mother of his Vampire Court; just as Lou's his Prince Consort/Blood Spouse. Les gets everything he ever wanted, his happily ever after, and AR tries to make you feel he "earned" their forgiveness, but YMMV.

TL;DR:

Regardless of what Gab presents as externally, or the way she WANTS to be treated; the way Lestat TREATS her is consistent with the way HE thinks it is appropriate for her to be treated BY him--same with Louis. Gender/sexuality/race be darned--Les "wins" by virtue of being the white cis male protagonist & hero of TVC. 🙄

So yeah, I expect/hope S3 will show a lot of subtle/nuanced parallels & even explicit intersections b/t Gabrielle & Lou. But I don't expect them to dump it on us all at once, cuz this process of accountability, forgiveness & acceptance is protracted over the entire length of TVC, all the way to the very last book.

Hope my long AF rambling & tangents answered your question even a little bit, omfg. 🤦😅

[rosesocietyy]

Mulling on Lestat the musical again and I think the crux of the problem was it got crushed under the weight of its own ambition. The stories Elton John and Linda Woolverton have worked on before appear epic, but are actually quite contained; the lion king, aida, etc. Lestat's tale is too vast and meandering and trying to fit all that lore in 2 hrs, told almost exclusively through quite generic ballads (I'm guessing as an attempt to invoke the time period) was both too much and somehow painfully dull. Too much was happening too fast for you to care about anything. Les Mis was an anomaly, don't attempt to recreate it.

An effective approach would have been something akin to The Great Comet. Take a snippet out of the whole story, focus on that, and be a little experimental with the music. Or don't, the music can still be conventional, but the scope must be smaller. And don't be scared to go crazy, anne certainly wasn't. The main themes might be a little different when separated from the book series as a whole but that's alright, it still works as an individual piece of art.

They could tell a tragic story of the boy who finally made it out and escaped his father's bruising temper, his mother's passivity, and village's accusing eyes, only to have that life he's painstakingly built for himself stolen from him by a monster. It ignores the aspects of lestat that came with his vampirism but that's a fair trade off. This can end with Nicki killing himself, let that be the harrowing end. They can add their own creative spin to it, change the era, make it a folk opera, or something akin to cabaret, the possibilities aren't endless but they're quite a lot.

Or, they could make a 2hr introspection on the rise and fall of a relationship that starts Louis and lestat meeting and ends with lestat dying. Basically season one. Tackle intersectional issues with vampirism as a backdrop, or as a metaphor, take your pic. They can play with the structure a la The last five years; in fact the interview structure itself is already primed and ready for the stage, there's not much to tweak. Let the music rise and fall with their madness. I want to feel as suffocated as Louis does in small box lestat calls love.

They could go even smaller, make it about Claudia, birth to death. How everyone in her life failed her over and over and over again, the lament of a girl who was never truly seen. The framing device is Louis finding all her diaries and reading it for the first time and having a mental breakdown at the end.

There are so many fascinating segments one can zero in on to extract a gem, and as much as I hate to say it, that's kinda the beauty of anne's narrative clusterfuck. I truly hope one day another write and composer would take another look at her world and give it a genuine shot, there's gold waiting to be mined in there.

[ch3ri-ch3ri-lady]

one thing i’m super curious for in s2 of iwtv is how they’re going to handle the character of madeleine.

in the novel and 1994 movie, claudia forced louis to make madeleine to become her new adoptive mother-this was (along with other reasons) because in order to have any semblance of a life, claudia quite literally NEEDED an adult vampire. At age 5 (book) or 11 (movie), you literally can’t DO anything independently-rent an apartment, live on your own, travel on your own, etc. in a way, madeleine was almost more of claudia’s glorified servant/chauffeur, as she resented fulfilling the role of daughter and longed for adulthood/independence more than anything else. madeleine was a necessity.

madeleine’s personality was also perfect for claudia’s needs. she was a woman driven mad with grief and obsessed with children, she would mindlessly do anything for claudia in a heartbeat and the idea of spending an eternity with an immortal, never-ageing and never-dying daughter was a dream come true for her. of COURSE she’d become her vampire companion (*cough* servant). plus, the added factor that she was a dollmaker and could tailor any clothes/objects to claudia’s child size was definitely an added bonus (like in her miniature adult room, she could dress up in the clothes and pretend at the lifestyle she was always deprived of behind the safety of closed doors. she also really is lestat’s mini me lol and has his eye/appreciation for the finer things and materialism, as opposed to sweaters-eaten-by-moths dad louis)

however, amc claudia is 14, an astronomically different age independence wise compared to 5 or even 11. it’s established in s1 that with some clothes and makeup she can somewhat successfully pass as older, and she was able to live relatively functionally on her own during her era away from louis and lestat. unlike her book/movie counterpart, she doesn’t REQUIRE a physically adult presence in her life. instead we see there is a much greater emphasis on her love life (ex: charlie) and desire for emotional companionship. also, she COMPLETELY resents her status as a “daughter”, switching to referring to louis and lestat as her brothers because she wants to remove herself from that dynamic completely. narratively, it would make no sense for her to make a new parent after working so hard to get rid of that dynamic with her old ones. this is why i (and many other fans i’ve seen) wonder if madeleine is going to be aged down and become her girlfriend/lover in s2 instead.

i think this would also draw some more sweet sweet parallels between her and lestat. both lestat’s first fledgeling/relationship (nicki) and claudia’s (madeleine, and yes, ik louis is technically her maker but he rlly wanted nothing to do w/ her the whole time and the only reason claudia wasn’t her maker was because she was physically incapable of doing so) impulsively believed their mental issues and anguish would be resolved with vampirism when in actuality they only worsened it and made them “mad” (i.e. nicki’s eventual suicide and madeleine’s growing mental instability and just generally freakish behaviour. i feel like it’s not too far of a stretch to say that if she wasn’t killed it wouldn’t have taken long for her to crash and burn too). the lestat/nicki and claudia/madeleine comparisons would be sooo much stronger if madeleine was her lover as well (espc her first serious AND queer relationship, just like nickistat).

claudia and lestat are soo similar and i feel like this wasn’t explored enough in s1. i hope that as the unreliable narration or suspected memory tampering “unravels”, we see more of their dynamic. like, claudia was lestat’s BABY. deep down he was proud of how claudia killed him-because he admitted that if he was in her situation, she did everything the exact same way he would have. AAGH.

(on a side note, i wonder how they’d change up this metaphorical gf!madeleine’s backstory to accommodate the changes. she would still need to be off putting, deeply disturbed/internally tormented, and probably Not That Good Of A Person To Choose To Make Into A Vampire™, but her original backstory of “dead daughter who she creepily makes hundreds of doll replicas of to cope” would have to switch up (i’m maybe banking on something related to wwii, considering the setting of a just-liberated 1940s paris)

anyways lmk ur thoughts

[lestatetlouis]

reading “thread”: the vampire lestat, part iv: chapter iv (pt. 3)

[AUUUUUU.mp4]

the whole “bird flying further away from the natural world and drifting into darkness” metaphor for the depression that nicki has is so on point. at its worst, it really feels like this, this is too relatable. when you’re in pitch black darkness you can’t really register anything.

and it’s something that lestat goes through existential dread and panic attacks with it, but so far he hasn’t been described as someone who has the same brand of depression as nicki. at least, there is somewhat of a distinction between lestat’s episode and what nicki goes through that seems way more chronic.

so he does have hints, from nicki opening up once about it to once he becomes a vampire and he can feel that there’s smth off with nicki - but most of it is a projection of the disease on nicki’s feelings towards lestat. still, he can’t really grasp it, so this is a one of a kind opportunity for someone who doesn’t have these issues to truly understand the complexity of it all, which is something us with depression also struggle with because we don’t want people to go through that, but we’d like them to actually know what it’s like to get us.

but because lestat had vastly underestimated all the signs, when he’s actually given the opportunity to step in nicki’s shoes he’s basically asking the world to stop because he needs to come off it.

i do wonder if gabrielle was able to keep track of the ordeal through nicki’s perspective of it, and thus at least “feel” how much in despair lestat was. i’m saying this because for once since her turning she actually puts herself back in the role of a mother and addresses him directly as her son, and the imaginary around her is also the one of a mother (the most famous mother of all time, i’d say).

to rephrase this: lestat says back in part i gabrielle was only capable of reaching him (even if in a distanced manner) as a mother when he was under severe pain or stress, so her being there for him, even if it’s to say it’s a disaster, but still commiserating and aware that her presence and her acknowledgement of their familial bond is the biggest support she could give is rooted in her awareness of lestat’s pain in this situation.

i get hints of upcoming jealousy - gabrielle is looking after nicki (kind of like you’d expect for a son?) and they have now the ability to talk to each other out of lestat’s reach. lestat looking them from afar while they move together feels like he now feels alienated from them both.

i do think the clothes are apt but not from the cleric pov, but from the “gabrielle is dressing him for his funeral lol” pov

on one hand, i get where lestat is coming from: nicki just unleashed Depression 2 on him, when he did so lestat probably understood how nicki actually felt about everything him included, and then stole his mom.

plus, this is consistent: when lestat found out his mother was physically dying, he spent a long time avoiding her. now, he finds out his bf is emotionally dead, and is also avoidant of him. like, lestat is good at this game, and nicki will now be forever a reminder of the pain of the vision, of course he would want to shake away that whichever way possible.

doesn’t not make it an L though, i guess.

and this is it for chapter 4! see you soon for chapter 5!

[ike-mcswains-mortician]

Hi uh late response to your question however! I wrote them all down so prepare yourself this will be a long text:

Darryl: Human with magic powers (doesn’t accept it until later in life- metaphor cough cough) 

Carol: Human with magic (Has contact with Mercedes) 

Grant: Human with learnt magic 

Marco: Human without magic 

Linc: Demigod child- God of Sunlight

Henry: God of the Earth

Mercedes: God of Nature (basically mother earth) 

Sparrow: God of Flora (like her mum!) 

Lark: God of Beasts/Fauna (Changed to god of beasts in his teens) 

Rebecca: Human with learnt magic

Normal: Demigod of Joy 

Hero: A Hercules kind of person- her quest is to kill the Doodler obviously 

Glenn: God of festivities

Morgan: Underworld god 

Jodie: Literally Hades/King of the underworld 

Nicky: Prince of the Underworld

Cassandra: Human with magic

Taylor: Demi-demon of the underworld (demi demon?) 

Ron: Human (he’s a simple guy!) 

Samantha: God of healing

Terry: Demigod with learnt magic

Veronica: Human with learnt magic

Scary: Demigod of Tragedy 

Scam-likely: Chaos god (of course) 

Hermie: God of Theatre

Dood: Chaos entity 

(I just realised this could be in post form but anyhow- hope you enjoy the craziness of this au!)

hi!!! even later response to YOUR ask uhhh sorry about that!! I had no access to tumblr literally all day lmao

ANYWAY!!!!!! I LOVE THIS!!!!! Ron especially got me good. he is just a simple guy!! and Hero/Hercules is making me UPSET (/pos)

all of these are amazing and I am getting so much secondhand brainrot from all of this /pos PLEASE keep sending me updates!!!

[dotthings]

Kung Fu episode 3.08, the midseason finale and it’s a doozy. Extra props to Olivia Liang, who always brings strength and grace and vulnerability in her depiction of Nicky every episode, but she really escalated her game in this one.

Nicky’s trauma over Xiao’s attack on her parents and her sister Althea combined with her sense of betrayal as she realizes Bo was involved hits her deer in headlights. After her ferocity defending her family, she dissassociates a little from the frantic activity of her family in crisis mode. She’s terrified by this direct attack on her family, in their home, by the sight of her mother bleeding.

She loves very deeply and she loves her family and she loves others so someone she trusted and gave her heart to being part of this attack, plus her beloved Shifu Pei-Ling being used to attack her family.

It’s a lot. And she’s blaming herself for so many people she loves being put in danger. The self-blame. ‘I let him Bo in, I gave him the blade” “It’s my fault Xiao has Pei-Ling” “I should have seen through him”

We get Bo back story, and it’s not that it excuses him, but he was a young, frightened child and completely alone when Xiao found him and started manipulating him. Child Bo having a unique ability that manifested without warning, trapped in some kind of depleted apocalypse world. He would be extremely vulnerable to Xiao. Who blackmailed him emotionally—there’s no one else who can help you except me—and spun him a pack of lies about herself and her motives. So he believed she entirely a victim, he didn’t let himself see her ambition and greed. So he believed she was good and that she was intending to free the souls. “She’s my shifu”

Now he’s waking up to Xiao’s true nature. “I would have done anything for you. I did horrible things. This whole time I was just a pawn?”
“Yes.”

At least she’s honest about it.

“I told you to watch her. You’re the one who got involved.”

It wasn’t Xiao’s idea to emotionally manipulate Nicky and it wasn’t what Bo was setting out to do. He’s still dishonest but he did fall in love with Nicky and hadn’t yet woken up to how corrupt his shifu is.

Sebastian leaving, oh no. Mei-Li is very comforting to Ryan about it, she’s right about how overwhelming things are for Sebastian (who is a bit of a mirror to Nicky’s self blame) and he needs time, he’ll work it through and he’ll come back. But I’m sure it won’t be easy. I’m looking forward to seeing what Sebastian’s arc on his journey back looks like.

Ryan is coping about as well as he can and being the smartie and solving the puzzle again. But the sadness is hovering over him, with Sebastian gone. And on Mei-Li, but like Ryan she keeps on going.

With a little ascerbic comment to Carrie about being down a chef.

Mei-Li building a better dumpling for the mass market, crunching numbers, and going over Carrie’s head and taking initiative to protect her standards for Harmony Dumplings, that will still make a profit even if it doesn’t meet corporate’s “target” and Carrie (played by the wonderful Kim Rhodes who has to walk a line with Carrie, making her brittle and something of an antagonist for Mei-Li yet not an enemy) has to respect it.

And I’m going to say the quiet part out loud — metaphor for creatives in the tv industry having to convince corporate.

Jin advocating for systemic change, for rehab, for better care within a community, as crime prevention, rather than adding cops and rent-a-cops.

A lot of genre relies on world-without-parents, or they are involved peripherally. And a lot of genre plots hinging on the trauma parents inflict. Kung Fu stands out as a show where Mei-Li and Jin are supportive and nurturing, have some short-sightenedness and vulnerabilities and flaws, who get to grow along with the younger characters, and show their comptencies, experiences, and strengths.

The sense of family and community is so strong on Kung Fu, both by blood and chosen family circles and the community around them.

Nicky’s very single minded and going over the edge throughout this ep but I did enjoy the Henry: Nicky, no Nicky: Nicky YES vibes where Nicky knocks out the cops who catch Nicky, Henry, and Zhilan breaking in to steal evidence.

Also I need more team Nicky, Henry, and Zhilan.

But Nicky is really not okay and going over the edge, and in her confrontation with Bo, she loses her grip. Her hurt, her guilt, her sense of betrayal, her anger, spills over as she beats up Bo in a way we haven’t seen Nicky go against an enemy before. She does as much as she has to and no further, usually. She stops herself short of killing Bo.

And afterwards she completely falls apart. She can’t wash that blood off her psyche and can’t even wash it all off her hands.

That final scene with shattered Nicky, who was about to run off somewhere, instead sobbing in her father’s arms. Because Jin finds her and intercepts her on the way out the door. Oh my HEART.

[2001hz]

RIP VIrgil Abloh

Virgil Abloh died on November 28, 2021, after a private battle with cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. He was 41. The Off-White founder and Men’s Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton was most recently seen in Doha, Qatar, at the opening of his exhibition “Figures of Speech.”

Personal Life/A Hero Is Born :

Abloh was born on September 30 outside of Chicago. He and his sister are raised in nearby Rockford, by Ghanaian immigrant parents. Abloh attends the Boylan Catholic High School—official colors green and white—and graduates in 1998. His mother is a seamstress and teaches him the tricks of her trade.

Abloh completes his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. (In 2015, he would return to design commemorative tees for the university.) Rumor has it that on the day of his graduation, he skips his final critique to take a meeting with Kanye West’s then-manager John Monopoly. West and Abloh begin officially working together soon after.

In 2006 Abloh completes his master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology. During his time at IIT, a Rem Koolhaas building is completed, which Abloh says, “piqued my interest and opened my gateway into fashion.”

The Beginning Of A Legend:

In 2009 Abloh and West become interns at Fendi in Rome. Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke recently told The New York Times, “I was really impressed with how [Abloh and West] brought a whole new vibe to the studio and were disruptive in the best way. Virgil could create a metaphor and a new vocabulary to describe something as old-school as Fendi. I have been following his career ever since.”

Abloh and West, along with a crew of famous friends, make the rounds at Paris Fashion Week, turning heads in the process. They’re photographed by Tommy Ton for http://Style.com outside of the Comme des Garçons show in what becomes a widely circulated pic. Abloh tells W magazine, “We were a generation that was interested in fashion and weren’t supposed to be there. We saw this as our chance to participate and make current culture. In a lot of ways, it felt like we were bringing more excitement than the industry was.”

In 2010 Abloh officially assumes the role of creative director at Donda, West’s creative agency.

In 2011 Abloh art directs the album Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and West, an achievement that earns him a Grammy nomination. The album cover is designed by Riccardo Tisci, then the creative director of Givenchy, a role Abloh was rumored to be up for after “Tisci’s departure” in 2017.

It’s 2012 Abloh launches his first brand, Pyrex Vision, in New York. He purchased deadstock Ralph Lauren flannel shirts for $40 each, and screen printed them with the word Pyrex and the number 23, an homage to his childhood hero, Michael Jordan. They sell for $550 each.

2013, Abloh shutters Pyrex and founds Off-White, a multi-platform creative endeavor based in Milan. Its main medium is fashion. At Off-White, he combines ideas of streetwear, luxury, art, music, and travel, defining the brand simply as, “the gray area between black and white as the color Off-White.” From the get-go, hovering quotation marks become Abloh’s signature.

In 2014 Abloh launches womenswear for Off-White and begins showing his men’s and women’s collections during Paris Fashion Week.

2015 Abloh’s womenswear operation gains steam when Beyoncé wears a palm-print sweatshirt with the word Nebraska on it, an homage to Raf Simons’s Fall 2002 Virginia Creepers collection, in Nicki Minaj’s video for “Feeling Myself.” That same year, Off-White is named a finalist for the LVMH Prize. He loses the grand prize and special prize to Marques’Almeida and Jacquemus, respectively.

i’m 2016 Abloh opens his first concept store in the Aoyama area of Tokyo. The store features a watercooler with Off-White branded cups that visitors take for free and resell on the secondary market.

Abloh debuts his Grey Area furniture collection in Milan, his first furniture venture under the Off-White brand. It features iron grid chairs, benches, and tables with leather cushions and Carrara marble tops.

In 2017, Even with the announcement of a collaborative exhibition with Takashi Murakami opening at Gagosian; the release of his first song; the opening of his New York store; the British Fashion Award for Urban Luxe Brand; and collaborations with Warby Parker, Jacob the Jeweler, and Jimmy Choo, the biggest news for Abloh in 2017 is The Ten, his sneaker partnership with Nike. Abloh re-creates 10 of Nike’s iconic silhouettes in a work-in-progress style, each adorned with a safety tag around the laces. The limited release leaves the sneaker market hungry for more, and Abloh hosts panels and workshops with Nike and additional releases throughout the year.

17 Year Old Virgil Is Very Proud:

2018 Virgil Abloh is named the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections, stepping into the role vacated by his friend and mentor Kim Jones. “It is an honor for me to accept this position. I find the heritage and creative integrity of the house are key inspirations and will look to reference them both while drawing parallels to modern times,” he says in a statement.

2019. Virgil Alboh’s artworks will be the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and his Ikea collaboration will be released through the brand’s international stores.

Virgil Abloh. A Hero. A Black Superhero. Who Left An Impact In Everyone’s Life, This Is Not The End His Spirit And Kindness Will Roam This Earth Forever. Thank You For Beating The Odds And Making It Possible For Kids Everywhere. We Love You. You Can Now Rest. (9-30-1980)- (11- 28-2021)

[wamiandayne]

no because like. warning this is so long keeping most of it under the cut for all of our sakes anne rice would be shocked

becoming a priest was lestat's [first] escape. it is where he finally got the (positive) attention his mother (and father, and brothers) denied from him. its where he was taught to read and told for the first time that he was good. thats unbelievably powerful.

he had no power at home. he was the seventh son, the third living one. they were penniless and unloving and neglectful. lestat knew from a young age that he had no use, no meaning, no love. but then he goes somewhere that not only pays attention to him, tells him that he is worthwhile and actually nurtures him. the idea that someone (even god) loves him unconditionally just because he exists is like. thats outrageous. thats unheard of. not even his own mother loves him like that, if, to his 12 year old brain, at all.

this is even more delicious because [in canon] lestat never really believed in god; not even when he was at the monastery. lestat in general has a really complicated devastating relationship with god. just like extrapolating but i think he was kind of catholic but i dont think gabrielle or the marquis ever fostered that kind of relationship w god in any of their children, let alone lestat. to lestat god is a sort of ambigious Thing. a Concept with Weight and Eyes and Power. he believes in god, because how can you not, but it isnt really. Real. not to mention hes like. 10. But in the monastery hes taught love n especiallt Love Through God. after he loses that connection in the monastery to his. idk. support system where he had learned to connect religion with love and recognition in show he talks about returning to his family and having that religion beaten and starved out of him, and of course being utterly demolished by the fact that god doesnt save him. the dissonance lestat has with religion makes up a lot of his character in religion, like it does in anne rice's life and the overall complexity that comes w being a christian[-adjacent] when it comes to experiencing any sort of trauma. I am rambling. Where was i. So if we dont remove lestat from this environment. If the marquis simply forgot him and left him to rot in the hands of the church, lestat learns like. Godliness. Priestly-ness. Idk shit abt catholicism or 18th century monasteries bear with me. Lestat at heart is begging for attention. For Love. For Anything. all attention is good attention for him.

i think that even if he wasnt removed from this place, he wouldnt suddenly believe fully and truly in god. or at least in religion. i think he would try. i think he would devote himself fully and try, so, so hard to be what he is told god wants him to be, but theres just some kind of fundamental disconnect between him and the sort of all-consuming, totally unshakeable faith he Should have in The Bible. in God. The Whole Thing. his relationship with religion is so complex and nuanced that the 1700s wouldnt even be able to handle it. but lestat is still a performer at heart, even if he never ran off to join a troupe of actors in this . well. thought experiement. so he plays the part of the most loving beautiful sheep in the world. jesus himself would be in awe of lestats devotion. but in his heart, lestat knows its fake. so thats just like, a new level of religious . well. trauma i suppose. for him.

especially as hes wrestling with some latent homosexual tendencies i think he still meets nicki and they kiss and stuff n lestat accidentally ruins nickis life cause they get caught but no one would ever, ever think Lestat de Lioncourt would be up to Such Horrid Depravity so nicki like runs off to paris in shame (surprise tool that will help us later) and then i think there is some sort of stand in for magnus with a shitty predatorial priest or bishop or some shit and the metaphor of lestats turning is less metaphorical than we would all personally like it to be etc i could go on for a While but like. Later.

the picture we need 2 have of lestat is thus: a Surprisingly young priest, outwardly charming and disarming. he's humble; subservient, the way priests should be. (im presuming. subservient to god snd community. idk. ive never met a priest.) altogether not very intelligent or worldly, but with a fondness for those who can play the violin and an encyclopedic knowledge of scripture. much beloved and easily reduced to tears. a perfect shepherd for gods children.

internally though. a tormented young man, convinced there is something wrong with him and that if hell were real theres a cage with his name on it. someone who feels... abandoned, and misunderstood, and fake. someone with no control over his life and no one to turn to.

In walks the Louis of it all.

believe it or not there are still vampires. idk if i like it more that louis is on his european soul search... post-claudia? (who i cannot decide the place of in this au. i like a grown up claudia, a sister for louis and abandoned fledgling of their maker who has recently decided to hate and abandon him. or maybe shes dead, post killing their maker. or maybe shes still not yet born, and louis baby traps lestat in this one. (which would be insane btw. claudia awakening maternal instincts in lestat he didnt know existed, given how gabrielle treated him. louis turning lestats words on him- youre like a mother. youre like your mother.) Honestly i think lestat still baby traps louis. I talk like this is a story that will exist and not just a thought experiment for me and my best friend ben) or maybe lestat is sent overseas to new orleans or maybe louis has all that fucked up history with armand (who is in paris at this time) and hes just trying to escape for a minute in fuckin. auvergne. Idk. idc. louis and lestat meet and it is like a fucking car crash.

louis is, of course, catholic and tormented. louis stumbles into the church at 1 am when lestat is supposed to be cleaning or asleep but is jnstead staring at the moon smoking a cigarette or something or maybe lestat is praying and grappling with his own faith and is enraptured with this beautiful, bizarre, man who is asking for confession when lestat isnt even frocked (this is funny wording just take it) and then they get there and louis is like. bless me father for i have sinned. forgive me father because i am going to sin again. i have killed. i will kill again. quite possibly this beautiful young priest who frankly smells delicious and will haunt my every waking dream for months.

jokes. louis doesnt come on that strong. he just says hes done something terrible and he will do it again, and lestat is fascinated. the worst sins people ever want to confess to are- what? coveting thy neighbors wife? nothing awful. nothing so horrible as to not explain. nothing so delicious as this.

so obviously lestat falls in love instantly and wishes to forgive louis everything if only so they can have some wild passionate love affair or skmething. lestat wants to either dissect him or be dissected, frankly.

but louis Hates that shit. he wants torment. he wants shock and horror. he wants fear and to be feared and to have someone else hate him just as much as he hates himself. sadly! no lestat could ever hate a louis, especially not one so... repressed. shenanigans ensue. lestat begs to be turned. lestat is both claudia and madeline . lestat is daniel . lestat wants to be free. louis does not want to be responsible. etc.

theres more. theres so much more. i just cant get into it here. its too long

i know that he got pulled out of priest school at age 12 but like. what if lestat had been a priest. what if louis was a tormented vampire looking for compassion and a release from sin. what if..... no. i shant say

[wickedpact]

dear tumblr user crim wickedpact pls write the essay/dissertation about nicky being shakespeare's fair youth (if you have time, ofc!!)

Not To Imply Nicky Was Shakespeare’s Fair Youth But Ive Read The Fair Youth Sonnets & Nicky Was Definitely Shakespeare’s Fair Youth, an essay by me, tumblr user crim wickedpact

background knowledge: our man shakespeare wrote some 120 sonnets about a young man referred to as the Fair Youth during the mid 1590s; there has been some debate among shakespeare enthusiasts whether shakespeare’s interest in the Fair Youth was platonic or romantic (but like. they were definitely romantic). no one knows for sure who the Fair Youth was, but it was definitely nicky and my first and most important piece of evidence regarding this hypothesis is the ‘lmao babe do you remember that guy who had a crush on me?’/ ‘i try not to remember the guy who had a crush on you’ look joe and nicky exchange when Merrick brings up shakespeare during the movie. especially since gina confirmed in a tweet that joe and nicky canonly did know shakespeare

my second piece of evidence is that it just Works (except for a couple small facts like.. the Fair Youth was prolly closer to his 20s than his 30s. and the fact that shakespeare implies that the Fair Youth slept with his mistress at one point. but he doesnt know what hes talking about shhh we IGNORE)

long post under cut

A. The Description Matches

when describing the Fair Youth (who I’ll call the FY from now on), shakespeare says he has a ‘gold complexion’ and ‘beautiful eyes’ and compares him to a ‘summer’s day’. He says the FY has “A woman’s gentle heart" and “An eye more bright than [women’s are], (...) Gilding the object whereupon [they] gazeth”

As much as shakespeare’s perceptions of sexuality and gender are very........  late 1500′s (whoo boy sonnet #20 is a wild ride) ...... the description does match, and also:

  B. The Fair Youth Refused to Get Married

it’s never really said why one way or another (shakespeare assumes it’s because the FY is selfish) but the FY didn’t/wouldn’t take on a wife and have a kid, and this was something that was a real sticker for our man Willy S. because, as he says in his sonnets a million times: beauty doesn’t last forever, but having a child not only passes down the FY’s beauty, but also blesses the woman the FY would have a child with (im not saying shakespeare wanted to bear the FY’s children, but he definitely did)

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

(ie. If you don’t renew yourself/ have children, you deprive the world and deprive a woman from having your child, since what woman out there is so beautiful that she wouldn’t want to bear your child?)

Like.

1.) if nicky is the FY then so many of these poems center around the idea of nicky growing old sometime soon and that must have been pretty funny to Nicky and

2.)  the fact that shakespeare would have been So Desperate for nicky to find a wife must have been the opposite of funny to joe. considering the ease of his and nicky’s relationship and the fact that being gay in late 1500s england was probably not a walk in the park, it is very likely shakespeare wouldn’t have known they were in a committed relationship-- or at least not known how close they actually were. Thus:

  C. The Rival (aka. Joe)

shakespeare mentions having a poetic rival in regards to the FY in several sonnets. In sonnet #21 he talks about how he’s not like Those Other Writers who use grand metaphors to talk about their muses

So is it not with me as with that Muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,

(ie. I’m not like other poets who, when inspired by a ‘painted beauty’ use heaven and every other beautiful thing on the planet to make a grand comparison to their muse: he specifically lists the sun and moon as examples as well as other beautiful things)

He then goes on to say

And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

(ie. my love [the FY] is as beautiful as any other beautiful person, though I wouldn’t compare them to the stars/heavens (which is what he means by the 'gold candles’. those are stars.))

So shakespeare insults poets who compare their subjects to the sun, moon, and stars (amongst other things) and in the comics, Joe does literally exactly that

That man is the stars in my sky, and the sun that lights my days. That man is the moon when I'm lost in darkness, and warmth when I shiver in cold.

shakespeare also goes on to say in the same sonnet “Let them say more that like of hearsay well / I will not praise that purpose not to sell” which is to say ‘let people who like that kind of language use it, I wont because I don’t want anyone else to have the subject of my affections (the FY)’.

(which is a bit of a contradiction regarding his feelings abt the FY getting married, but these sonnets are full of contradictions. shakespeare was a confused dude; man spent the first 100 or so sonnets convinced the FY loved him back only for him to start wondering if the FY ever loved him near the end)

(not to mention Marriage For Love wasnt really.. much of a thing in Ye Olden Times but thats a different conversation. so shakespeare prolly didnt associate marriage with love/competition? anyways)

Shakesy-boo goes on to complain about this rival several times. In #79, he says

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, And found it in thy cheek: he can afford No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.

(ie. everything ‘your poet’ (as the FY apparently favored this unnamed rival) says about you, he takes it from you in the first place. he talks about your virtue, but learned the word from watching your behavior. he calls you beautiful but only discovered beauty by looking at your face. every compliment he gives you he took from you in the first place)

[and, as a smaller example, he also bemoans the fact that people want to paint the FY in #67, saying, “Why should false painting imitate his cheek, / And steal dead seeming of his living hue?”. and yknow. Joe’s an artist.]

And then another example in #86

Was it the proud full sail of [the rival’s] great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

(ie. he’s talking about how he’s having difficulty writing abt the FY and is rhetorically asking if ‘the proud sail’ of the rival’s verses was the reason his ‘ripe thoughts’ were killed in their ‘womb’. He then asks (again rhetorically) if it was the rival’s ‘spirit’ (or creativity, maybe) ‘’’‘by spirits taught to write’’’’ that killed his own drive to write. none of the analyses I’ve read really explain what shakespeare means by ‘spirits taught to write’, other than maybe being a joke or reference to something we dont know, but... ‘taught by dead people to write in a way mortal people can’t’ very much sounds like a description of an immortal poet, eh?)

Which brings me to,

  D. Willy Boy Thinks There Are 500 Year Old Writings About the Fair Youth

shakespeare talks about people having written about the FY ‘500 years ago’ from the late 1500s in #59 which......................... would have been around 1100 AD. :thinking face:

Oh that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done, That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame;

(ie. Oh if I could look back 500 years and see how you were described in some old books so I could see/reference what people used to write about you)

Which again brings me to,

  E. I’m Not Saying shakespeare Stole From Joe, But:

1.) In #22, shakespeare says this,

For all that beauty that doth cover thee, Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me: 

(ie, your beauty is due to the ‘clothes’ my heart gives you-- probably means something like ‘you’re beautiful because i love you’. goes on to say his heart lives in the FY’s chest, and the FY’s heart lives in shakespeare’s chest)

so: shakespeare tells the FY he has shakespeare’s heart. in comparison, Joe calls nicky ‘my heart’ in the comics...... :thinking face x2:

2.) In #109, shakespeare tells the FY ‘thou art my all’,

For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

which rings similar to Joe’s ‘he’s all and he’s more’ as well as (from the comics) ‘he is my everything’

and just saying. joe looks pretty #done the mention of shakespeare.

  F. The last One

Despite shakespeare writing 30+ poems about the FY eventually growing old, the very last poem he writes about/for the FY says,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein showest Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest. 

(ie. you [the FY] have power over the ‘mirror’ (fickle glass) of time as well as time’s ‘harvesting’ ability (sickle hour) and as you grow older, you remain beautiful while your lovers [shakespeare] wither and grow old)

The transition from ‘get married and have a baby before you get old!!!!’ in #1-20 to talking about the FY’s presence in 500 y/o books in #59 to admitting the FY isn’t growing old in #126 kinda seems to imply shakespeare learning of/about nicky’s immortality at some point, and this last poem is him accepting it.

TLDR: not only does it make perfect sense if nicky was the Fair Youth from the FY sonnets, but it also makes perfect sense if joe was the Rival from the FY sonnets. its canon nothing will convince me otherwise

[jonesyjonesyjonesy]

Wildflowers (pt. iii)

a john paul jones x fem!oc fic

summary: Julia Morgan knew nannying for three girls who had recently lost their mother would come with many challenges. But she never thought their father, the enigmatic musician John Paul Jones, would be causing her the most trouble. And while Julia is not in the business of saving broken men, her tenderness might be meant for more than little girls and wildflowers.

pt. i, crocus pt. ii, gorse pt. iii, primrose pt. iv, willow 🌼 pt. v, heart’s-ease pt. vi.i, daisy 🌼 pt. vi.ii, daisy pt. vi.iii, daisy 🌼

(🌼) denotes nsfw

notes: angst, oc for the oc, hurt/comfort, grief, slow burn, eventual nsfw

a/n: Thank you all for your continued support. I know I said it would be awhile until the next bit, but I don't find it healthy to stifle things I want to write if they're ready to be born, so here we are.

Side note: I know the timeline is a little wonky for this fic as I'm taking canon events and smooshing them all around for my purposes. Let me know if you would ever like a post as kind of a behind the scenes look at the timeline and any points of reference I have.

Thank you for all your love and support in all forms. It means the world.

pt. iii, primrose

"If you’re around them long enough, I don’t see you being able to resist that kind of trouble. And we know how that turned out the first time."

need to catch up? click here for pt. ii, gorse

“Oh dear, Julia…” Nick murmured, thumbing through the document. “This is…”

“Bad?” I asked.

His easy brown eyes flicked up to mine and his lips curled to the side. “You can’t sign this.”

It was the middle of the first Sunday in April and the sun eagerly beamed through the lace curtains of the apartment. We sat opposite one another on the matching sofas, two cups of once steaming tea lazing on the coffee table.

“You know what kind of money these guys have?” Nick asked and then laughed at himself, gesturing to the room. “I mean, you’re like living at Wildfell Hall or something.”

“So, it’s iron clad?”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter if it is. They’ve left plenty of holes for you to twist your pretty ankles in, Julia. You’d think you’re getting away with something and then you’ve tripped and fell flat on your face.”

I frowned, “But I’m not looking to get away with anything.”

“But on the off-chance you did –”

“What do you think I’m going to do, Nicky? Take the girls’ grade reports to the press?”

Nick gave me a look, “You’d be backing yourself into a corner by signing this, that’s all.”

“Stop it with the metaphors,” I rolled my eyes and reached for the pack of cigarettes he had left out on the coffee table.

He grunted in response and flipped through the pages again as I lit a cigarette. Nick looked lovely that day. I wasn’t going to lie to myself. He had coiffed his dark bronze hair nicely, a perfect curl fallen out over his forehead. And he was immaculately dressed in slacks and the brown tweed sportcoat he had tailor made for him just a few months ago. New, creaseless leather shoes too. When I first met him, he looked so much younger, still with the baby fat in his cheeks and slacks that were a little too short for him. Boyish and sweet. And now, he was slim and handsome, the slightest wrinkles forming on his forehead from all the nights spent reading and writing for school. The boyishness and the sweetness had been exchanged for maturity and misanthropy.

“How did you get wrapped up in this, huh? I mean, bloody Led Zeppelin, that’s not nothing.”

“You read my contract; you know there wasn’t a pin about it.”

He sighed and suddenly slapped the papers back into a stack. His eyes shot up to mine. “Lover.”

Lover. A pet name that fit so well five years ago that in the end only bubbled up when things needed desperate attention. Now, though, in my mind, we were separate. I was not “lover”. The cigarette smoke in my lungs went cold.

“I can’t in good conscience let you stay here.”

I looked away and snorted, “The contract told you that?”

“No, no, forget the NDA. Forget it and look at me,” he said.

“I’m looking.”

I wasn’t.

“You’re not.”

Damn.

I raised my eyes to his. Brown like the beetles running through soft and rain filled bark. His eyes alternately gave me thrilling goosebumps and made my skin crawl. “You know what those men are like, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re heathens.”

“Oh, come on, Nick.”

“They destroy hotel rooms and drink excessively and have Dionysian orgies and – “

“Orgies. You’ve gone absolutely mad.”

Nick’s jaw fell agape. “Have you read a single thing about them?”

“Have you?” I shot back. “You a big fan all of a sudden? Traded in your beloved Chet Baker vinyls for something a bit harder?”

“A bit? That’s generous,” he said and, without missing a beat, reached into his briefcase and pulled out several magazines, splashy tabloids that in his pale hand looked totally out of place. “I’ve read into them plenty. More than I would ever have liked to. They’re despicable from what I can tell.”

I side-eyed the stack. Melody Maker, Creem, Best…“That’s silly, Nick.”

He sat up straight. “Silly?”

“Are you trying to collect all the posters while you’re at it?” I asked, reaching for one of them, covered with a striking image of Jimmy slinging his guitar across his front with his head tossed back in an aural fury. It was a funny feeling to know I had met the man in the flesh. “A full color of Jimmy Page in this one. You can hang it on the wall of your new flat.”

“You’re not taking this seriously,” Nick snapped at me, his lips going thin.

“I’m taking it plenty seriously. I asked you to go through the contract, not to go gathering gossip.”

Nick’s ears were deaf to me now. “I did this for you, Julia. I came all the way out here to go over your little NDA and I’m giving you my professional opinion and – “

“Nicky, you’re not giving me your professional opinion,” I said in annoyance. “You’re making it about something completely different than what’s on the page and editorializing about people you don’t know to avoid what you actually want to say.” I stamped out my cigarette. “You know I can’t stand that. Say what you mean.”

Nick opened his mouth to reply and then stood up with a gruff exhale. In moments like these, I felt miles older than him, even though it was just two years. His petulance often led to infinite feeling silences. He exhausted me.

“And may I remind you that you’re the one who insisted you come out here. We didn’t have to do this,” I murmured and looked out the window at the driveway where there were dark treads in the gravel driveway from where the Interceptor peeled out earlier.

I hadn’t wanted Nick to visit me at Warren House, but he wouldn’t relent. “After all,” he had said. “You owe it to me for all the worrying I’ve done.”

John and I had not yet discussed the boundaries of my life at Warren House. This is always one of the tricky things about living in someone else’s home, negotiating where their life ends and yours begins. I approached John about it after dinner the night after I called Nick while the girls were all distracted around the television.

“John?” I rarely said his name if I could avoid it. It almost gagged me each time, that crossing of a familiar line when I couldn’t help but feel he wanted me so distant.

He lifted his gaze from the magazine he had been reading, a Beat Instrumental with Mick Jagger on the cover (I did recognize him since his face was hard to avoid ten years ago), and raised an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“My legal counsel would like to meet with me in person and –“

“He can come out here, then. Whenever you need the time,” he said quickly before I could even finish and returned to reading his magazine.

I was stunned. “I could go up to London if that’s easier, I don’t want to encroach on your space. Or the girls or –“

“The girls should get used to you having a life outside of them. You know, if you’re staying on.”

I carried the word “if” heavily around the rest of the week, that small yet formidable operative in his sentence. It would certainly be a convenient way to get rid of me if that’s what he wanted. But I hadn’t actually considered that anyone else was negotiating the idea that I might decline to sign and leave. And so, I begrudgingly called Nick back and he said he’d drive out for a cup of tea on Sunday afternoon.

When Nick arrived, 20 minutes earlier than expected, John answered the door and sent Jacinda up to fetch me. Jacinda and I had become good friends over my first weeks at Warren House with all the time we spent over her school books. She was most talkative during homework time; when her sisters were around, she tended to go quiet. After all, Kiera was the littlest, a handful and Tamara was withholding and dramatic, often changing the mood of a room just by walking into it. Jacinda waited to share until she was sure she’d be heard.

“Maureen’s girl,” Annie murmured in my ear once as we watched the three girls playing a boardgame. Kiera and Tamara were arguing over the rules while Jacinda stared at instructions, attempting to find the words to describe the solution to her sisters. “Those two were stuck together like glue.”

Parents say they don’t have favorites, and this is true, but just as with our friendships, some children are easier than others, and those are the ones parents tend to keep close. Jacinda was a “good friend” type of child, easygoing and respectful. But, like most children kept close, it was clear she was reliant on that familiarity and camaraderie with the adults around her. Without her mother, Jacinda’s anxiety had been born in the smallest things like the loose threads of her school uniform and the egg yolk that dripped off the edge of her plate. I was certainly no replacement for Maureen, but Jacinda had found comfort in my presence.

“Your friend is here,” Jacinda had said in the doorway of my bedroom.

“My friend?”

Jacinda shrugged. “That’s what daddy said.”

I was unsure how Nick introduced himself to John. He wasn’t an idiot (necessarily), but I could see him undercutting me and characterizing our relationship in familiarity rather than professionalism. “Come here, pick out which lipstick I should wear.”

She sorted through the golden bullets of lipstick on the vanity and chose a soft and subtle shade of mauve which I applied quickly before leading her out the apartment to the back staircase. “What do you think of my outfit, Cin?” It was perhaps disingenuous of me, but I had dressed up for the occasion too in a blouse and long skirt that I knew he loved.

She paused, let her eyes cross from my shoulders to my shoes, and then smiled, “It looks pretty.”

“Thank you. I have to say, I’m feeling a little nervous,” I said lightly even though my insides had been churning since the middle of the night.

“Butterflies or bees?”

Butterflies or bees, the code we had come up with for when she was feeling overwhelmed. The children I had worked with before had often taken to the idea of their feelings as animals. Something a bit easier to understand than amorphous emotions. When she was overwhelmed, I would ask her if she felt like there were butterflies in her stomach or bees on her fingertips.

“Both. Have you ever been that nervous?”

I was too distracted by the two men’s voices beyond the door to hear her answer. I couldn’t make out the words, John’s voice too gentle and Nick’s too low. But when I heard a shared bit of laughter, I felt an unfair stroke of frustration at them getting on and took that as my cue to enter.

Nick’s attention snapped to me at once and made his way over to me. “There she is,” he said, his voice as grave as ever even if he was smiling. “You look lovely.”

“So do you,” I replied, flushing.

I felt him leaning toward me, leaning in for something closer than I wanted. I couldn’t very well turn away and start our meeting off so coldly when I needed his help. So, I let Nick close the space between us, giving me a soft and lingering kiss on my cheek and resting his hand on my waist.

We were, of course, being watched on both sides. John’s eyes met mine over Nick’s shoulder, his head cocking slightly as he observed the way Nick greeted me. I averted my gaze and whispered quickly, “You’re early, you know.”

“Prompt, more like it.”

“Yes well, I wanted to be able to meet you at the door,” I replied, pulling away from his touch entirely. There was a small, uncomfortable silence over the entire room. Nick’s eyes in mine, waiting for me to say something, Jacinda and John watching and trying to understand who we were to one another. I cleared my throat, “Why don’t we go upstairs and we can –“

“I’m about to take the girls out to run some errands,” John interrupted suddenly. “Perhaps you’d like to give Mr. Westerling a look around the place before you get down to business.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and was about to refuse before Nick bubbled, “I’d like that very much, thank you.”

“Is that really necessary, Mr. Westerling?” I asked, forcefully lingering on his last name. “After all, you charge by the hour.”

“Not for my favorite client, Ms. Morgan,” he replied.

I had intended on paying him his hefty going rate, but now that seemed out of the question if he was going to use our time casually. “Well, fine, as long as we won’t be a bother to you all,” I said to John with a careful nudge toward rescinding his offer.

“No, not at all,” John replied. “Jacinda, get your shoes on, I’ll get your sisters.”

After John disappeared to up the main stairs, Nick was much more forward with me, even though Jacinda was still in the room, tying up her trainers. He brushed my hair off my shoulders and gave my waist a squeeze before saying at full volume, “I forgot how beautiful you are.” I felt Jacinda’s eyes and ears on us until we disappeared through the drawing room and out onto the stone patio.

Nick clearly hadn’t expected me to be so cold through his visit. As I showed him around, I dodged his affectionate gestures whenever I could, even though I knew the Baldwins weren’t even around. He was able to steal a kiss underneath the beautiful Beech tree on the edge of the main part of the property that became greener by the day. Once in the privacy of my apartment, he exuded a sort of dangerous hope to get through the work and then toss it aside dramatically so that we could take care of other ‘unfinished’ sorts of business since we had had such a lousy goodbye in London. But to my mind, we had used up our allotment of dramatic plot twists, been broken up and returned to one another too many times. I was getting too old for that.

And now, here we were. Nick finally broke the silence between us. “They’re animals.”

“Well, I’m not working with them, I’m working with three little girls.”

“I bet they’re animals too,” he said under his breath.

I quickly snapped at him, “You can slander grown men all you want, but I will not tolerate you speaking about children like that.”

Nick went red and turned away, masking a very small ‘sorry’ in his hand. The silence fell again, shorter this time, until he found my gaze. “I don’t want you around them, Julia.”

“I’m the nanny, not a groupie.”

“You don’t know what –“

“You don’t trust I can handle myself, do you?”

He went silent. That was answer enough. He didn’t and that was clear. Even on nights out when we were in London, at functions and dinners, Nick’s hand always seemed to find the back of my neck as if I were his marionette.

“Unbelievable,” I scoffed.

Nick quickly tried to backtrack, “You’d be doing a foolish thing by signing that, that’s all. Come with me or don’t, but you should go back to London at the very least.”

“Come with you?” I asked. “Is that an option now?”

Nick frowned, “It was always an option.”

I let out a blistered laugh. “You never even asked.”

“Well, I don’t know Julia. You didn’t even seem interested. You kept going on interviews and then you wound up here, why would I have asked?” he shrugged.

“Stop it, just stop that.”

“What?”

“It’s not my fault that you didn’t ask,” I said.

“Would you have said yes? Be honest, would you have agreed?” Nick shifted toward me with a fiery look in his eyes.

No, I wouldn’t have. “It doesn’t matter now if I would have said yes because you didn’t.”

“See, this is so like you. You want to have the option to tell everyone no. It’s why you called me out here, isn’t it? You’re going to sign the damn thing no matter what but you wanted to tease everyone into thinking you were going to leave so that when you stay it’s this big sigh of relief and –“

“Don’t act like you know me and my every move, that’s so childish,” I intervened.

Nick’s turn to laugh, loudly and reproachfully, “Julia, lover, I know every single thing about you.”

I swallowed.

“Every single thing.”

Nick did know every single thing. After five years, how could he not. He knew things I rarely speak aloud. Things that weigh on my mind to this day; a combination of mistakes and regrettable events, questions of understanding I hold for the universe that are never answered. These secret things would find new audience in due time, but with Nick, they only required slight allusion to put me ill at ease.

His voice softened, “If you’re around them long enough, I don’t see you being able to resist that kind of trouble. And we know how that turned out the first time.”

I held my breath, tears irritating the corners of my eyes. I pulled my gaze away and looked back out the window. The sofa bent beside me as Nick sat, his hip brushing against mine.

“You don’t deserve that kind of pain again.”

“I’m not a child, I’m not going to…“ I couldn’t even finish before the tears started spilling.

“Oh, lover, of course, you’re not,” Nick replied gently, his hand finding my knee. “You know I don’t think that.” He was getting closer, his breath starting to slip through strands of my hair. “Why risk it, though? You can come with me. I’m a sure thing. No surprises.”

At the root of all of this was the simple notion that I no longer loved Nick. On paper, he was wonderful: handsome, a good job, well-humored, often compassionate if he could stomach it. But when it comes to love, it doesn’t matter what someone looks like on paper. I knew that I couldn’t stomach Nick’s love the rest of my life.

My delay in reply left a gap for Nick to lean in and kiss me. His lips were desperate for me to return the kiss with some ferocity. I wanted to vomit. I pushed him off of me and glared, “You’re a self-important arse.”

“Julia –“

“You want to play a hero. That’s the only reason you’re offering now.”

Nick recoiled, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Acting like I have no self-restraint, that you need to cart me off to Paris where I’ll just sit in your flat until I off myself.”

“Christ, what is –“

“I asked for your help in good conscience. I don’t need your antics.”

Nick was icing over by the moment; his brand of ire was hypothermic. “You’re nothing but a bitter fool,” he seethed through his teeth.

The Interceptor rolling into the gravel driveway gave us both pause. “You should go.”

“They pay you to be here. They don’t care for you.”

Car doors slamming, the girls’ voices tittering, John calling after them with some sort of direction.

“As soon as they’ve found use for you, they’ll get rid of you.”

I mirrored his coldness, “I’ll take your opinion into account as I make my decision.”

Nick’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared. Cruely was inevitable. “You want to accuse me of being a hero, but just look at yourself trying to play mother to children that aren’t your own.”

Nick knew too much. What was once something I gave him in the cloak of night that he took with tender hands and held carefully had become something to use against me in anger. Several tears escaped my eyes. “That’s enough.”

Nick’s anger broke, jaw dropping, the boyishness I remembered fondly overwhelming his hard-edged persona. The redness on his face was no longer his blood pressure rising but the utmost embarrassment. “Julia…”

“Leave.”

Nick was a good listener; of that I was grateful. Nick retrieved his briefcase and moved toward the back stairwell before pausing and deciding if he should speak.

“I care for you, lover. I wish you realized that.”

And with that, he was gone.

Thank god. I couldn’t contain the tears longer, crumpling over my knees and letting out a heaving, relieved sob. The few hours we had been together had been so tense and seemingly unending. Now, my coffee table was a dissonant amalgam of black and white legal documents and gaudy news rags. I didn’t even know where to start with picking up after the blustery mess.

I pulled back on the lace curtain and, bleary-eyed, watched Nick and John’s paths cross. They greeted each other, Nick anxiously trying to exit John’s attempt at conversation. John didn’t keep him long and watched Nick retreat to his car across the driveway. Then, his eyes flipped up to my window with curiosity. I tossed the curtain closed as quick as I could and retreated to my bedroom where I rode out the rest of my tears for the next several hours between fits and starts of napping.

If I had been leaning one way or the other on if I was to sign the contract, I was now staunchly in the middle. There was something to be said for Nick’s concern; the juggernaut of Zeppelin was all red tape and platform shoes and I very well could twist my ankles in those. But I couldn’t shake the girls from my mind. Even Tamara, who was cold to me a good deal of the time, was starting to show signs of thawing to my affection and presence (although this breakthrough would not come without a coup de grace).

I awoke to a rapping on my bedroom door. To my surprise, the room was already completely dark and the sounds outside my window were those of a world starting to nestle into nighttime. After a moment, there were whispers on the other side of the door, a small voice met with warm coaxing.

I rose from the bed, rubbing my eyes and readjusting my shirt as I went, entirely mussed from my unanticipated slumber. When I opened the door, I found Jacinda with a paper in her hands, nervously shifting from foot to foot, accompanied by John who hung back near the doorway to the apartment.

“Well, hello there, Cin,” I said with a small smile. “What are you doing here?”

Jacinda looked back to John who nodded with all the affirmation a father can give and a small gesture of his hand for her to speak. “This is for you,” she replied, holding the paper out to me.

I accepted it gingerly with a wondrous gasp, “Jacinda! Oh, my goodness.” I unfolded the paper and found a delicate drawing of light-yellow flowers being visited by jolly butterflies and bees, completed with a dedication at the top – To Julia. Love, Jacinda and Kiera. “Look at those beautiful lowercase letters,” I remarked with awe. She was known to rush through her writing and use all capitals if I wasn’t on her about it.

Jacinda walked me through the process of her picture: the flowers that were supposed to be primroses, her representation of each member of the household as a bee or a butterfly, and letting Kiera sign it even though she didn’t do anything.

“That was very nice of you to include her,” I giggled. “Oh, this is just so lovely, Cin, really. You are such a fantastic artist. Thank you.”

Her face burst into an excited redness as she beamed up at me.

“May I give you a hug?”

She nodded vigorously. I bent down and wrapped my arms around her. “You are so sweet to think of me,” I said with an extra squeeze.

Jacinda laughed into my neck as I lifted her just enough so only her toes were on the ground. When I pulled away, I gave her a big smile and she smiled back bashfully before looking to John.

“Okay, to bed now,” John said quietly with a jerk of his head. “I’ll be in in a minute; I want to talk to Julia.”

I felt my heart sink at the idea of him wanting to talk to me. What it could be about, I could only guess. Jacinda disappeared into the main hall quickly without any fuss. John and I were quiet a moment before both trying to speak at once.

“I’m sorry for interrupting –“

“I hope it wasn’t a bother to have – “

We both stopped short and smiled uncomfortably. “You go ahead,” I murmured.

“Well, uh, I…I know it’s Sunday so I apologize for interrupting your privacy,” John said and then cleared his throat. “But we thought you should know you were missed at dinner tonight.”

The earnestness and care in his words was so jarring that I couldn’t muster words. I realized that tonight was the first dinner I had missed with the Baldwins. I always made a point to eat with them, even on my off-days. Everyone was most at ease over dinner, even John.

It was nice to know I was missed.

“Without swaying whatever decision you’ve come to, the girls are very taken with you,” he said, lowering his gaze to the coffee table, scanning the mess Nick and I had made. Perhaps he would have said more if it weren’t for the magazines. A small smile blipped onto his face. “You were doing some reading earlier then?”

I swiftly went to pick them up and fumbled through my words, “My lawyer, he brought those, they aren’t – I didn’t – “ I looked back to him and sighed. “I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to –“

“Relax, Julia,” John chuckled, running a hair back through his hair. “Seems your man thought he was well-researched.”

Emphasis on the word thought. “Yes, brought a whole newsstand with him,” I mumbled.

“May I?” he asked, a hand going toward the stack of magazines in my arms.

“Please, I have no use for them.”

As he took one of the magazines, I noticed the slightest ripple of musculature in his fingers, skill and craft oozing from his touch. It was all well and good to talk about the mighty Led Zeppelin as hedonistic savages, but I had to hope they were deserving of the glory. He began to flip through the magazine until he landed on the spread on Zeppelin. He smirked, “God, that was a look.”

I peered at the page featuring a group shot of the band in front the jet of a huge airliner. None of them were recognizably John, at least not at first, until I spotted him at the end, sporting a fringed bob look and a denim button-down entirely undone. I couldn’t help but laugh. “I didn’t even recognize you at first.”

“Hard to believe it wasn’t that long ago,” he blushed. The accompanying article title no doubt threw him off balance: Has Zeppelin Gone Down Like a Lead Balloon? “Feels like eons.” He snapped the magazine shut and started to hand it back to me. I pointed toward the bin in the corner and he laughed before dropping it in. “You alright then?”

“Hm?”

“Your lawyer looked quite perturbed on his way out.”

I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t that normal for lawyers?”

John conceded with a nod, “That’s fair, although I’ve been in some pretty tough rooms and I’ve never seen a lawyer have such a pitiful look in his eye while walking out of a meeting.”

I was quiet a moment. John was a very observant person, although it probably wouldn’t have taken a genius to gather that my relationship with Nick was anything but platonic. “I didn’t want him to come out here and be a bother to you and the girls, I –“

“No, Julia, that’s not what I meant.”

“I know it’s not what you meant, but I am…” I looked up to catch a word from the sky. “I am mortified.”

“Mortified? What for?”

“All of it,” I answered with a humorous jostle of my head, feeling drunk from the emotions of the day.

“Please, nothing so dramatic as that.”

“But I am,” I said grimly. “I was trying to be –“

“You were trying to be prudent,” John interrupted. That’s how I had described the maneuver a few days earlier, a gesture of prudence. “You needed to talk with your lawyer. Anything else is your business.”

I stared at him. His softness was almost unsettling, bothersome. “I had no idea who you were,” I said quietly. It was not an apology or an attack, but an observation I felt must be said.

“Which was how I wanted it,” John replied with a nod. His brow knit together as he processed the impact of his withheld information. “And was a mistake in hindsight. Was a bit…dishonest, I guess. But I didn’t see it that way at the time.”

I couldn’t look him in the eye too long before becoming flustered. “I don’t hold it against you.”

He smiled, “You didn’t answer my question.”

I laughed, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember it.”

“’Are you alright?’ Are you alright, Julia?”

I had thought I had cried out all my tears, but the pricking sensation suddenly returned to my eyes. I nodded heavily, “Yes, just been a long day.”

John hummed knowingly.

“Thank you, though, for the – “ I pulled the card out from the stack of tabloids pressed against my chest. “I needed this; I really did.”

John looked to the card; the tenseness in his cheeks dropped, casting a solemn pall on his face, even though he smiled. “You said they know more than we give them credit for, right?”

“They do.”

John leaned in and murmured, “And for the record, it was all Jacinda. Kiera really did just come in at the last minute to stamp her name on it.”

“Oh, you’re a snitch, are you?” I teased.

“They may be my children, but dammit if I’ll let them get away with that kind of behavior,” he added wryly.

I laughed and couldn’t help but wonder if John’s sudden ease with me was from the understanding that I was, indeed, a broken person too. We bid one another “goodnight” and before John left, he reminded me to make a decision that felt right for me: “We’ll be alright.” I wasn’t sure if I believed him from the way his face broke so subtly in certain places.

Not ten minutes later, the ink of my signature was dried on the contract and I was crawling into bed for a well-earned sleep, eager to start the next day with a phone call to Mr. Page.

click here for pt. iv, willow

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