#also they should have never made any story lines about Rachel and Ross like they are the worst couple that has ever existed on the tv

[irascible-iridescent]

When ppl say that there is no stories about friendship I can't help but wonder what do they mean? There are lots and lots cartoons for kids and teens about well, friendship! Its the main point of almost all stories there. I don't like watching movies so I dunno if there are a lot of movies about friendship nowadays but I have watched old films about it. Like yeah it will always have some romance too for main characters or for the background characters bc if your story has like 10+ adult ppl most of them would look for relationship for the sake of building a family or sex. But also if you can excuse how the women are drawn you can just read/watch one piece and like NOBODY has any romance or sex there even though there are like billions of adult pirates.

[ava-candide]

Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

The newly married heart-throb actor learnt to paint left-handed for his new role, and he’s still daubing now, he tells Ed Potton

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath Leonardo

I’m trying to work out where Aidan Turner is Zooming from. Is it London, where he moved to in 2017 after his Ross Poldark became the drooled-over king of Sunday-night television? Dublin, where he grew up, trained as an actor and returned to spend the first lockdown with his parents? Or Rome, where he shot his new series, Leonardo, in which he plays a young Leonardo da Vinci?

“None of the above!” Turner says. “I’m in Toronto.” The enigmatic charm, feline eyes and gleaming locks that he deployed so mercilessly in Poldark, The Hobbit films and Being Human are all there. “My missus is working here,” he explains, and so is he. That’s the American actress Caitlin FitzGerald, his partner of three years, whom he met when they starred in the 2018 film The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot. At first I assume the “missus” is laddish affectation but it turns out that it’s official: Turner and FitzGerald, both 37, got married in secret in Italy in August after filming finished on Leonardo. You can almost hear the sighs of disappointment ripple around the world.

Turner won’t say any more — he is famously guarded about his personal life — but he looks insanely happy in the couple’s rented apartment. FitzGerald — whose grandfather Desmond was a CIA agent and organised several plots to assassinate Fidel Castro — is shooting a series, Station Eleven, in Toronto while her husband works on another project that he’s not allowed to talk about. In their downtime they’ve been watching I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, an HBO documentary series about the Golden State Killer, and, on a lighter note, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles. They share the apartment with Charlie, an ebullient Norfolk terrier that Turner has to eject from the room halfway through our interview when he starts yapping. “I’m surprised he behaved for so long,” he says

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping history

Like many of his fellow thesps, Turner has been doing a great deal of lockdown painting. “We have a roof garden here and the light has been really good,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this because I don’t know if the landlord knows. It’s not messy work anyway!” Unlike some of his peers — I’m looking at you, Pierce Brosnan — he has yet to unleash his daubings on the world. How would he describe his style? “I struggle to say abstract, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.” Did it help with playing Leonardo? “I don’t know. If you saw my paintings, you’d assume very much not,” Turner says. He has a studied line in self-effacement, honed after years of “sexiest man on TV” questions.

Leonardo premiered in Italy last month and was watched by seven million, many of them doubtless keen to see Turner brooding in a succession of smocks. The eight-part series has been criticised for warping history, having the artist accused of murder and featuring an apparently fictional muse, Caterina da Cremona, played by Matilda De Angelis from The Undoing. Luca Bernabei, the chief executive of Lux Vide who produced the series, defended it stoutly. “Matilda De Angelis’s character did exist. She was a model Leonardo asked to paint,” he said. “We have been really careful in our research. But this is not a documentary, we are not historians and this is not a university history lecture.”

And if the history pedants are spluttering, the art pedants should be happier — the series goes to considerable lengths to make the painting look authentic. Each episode is themed around a different masterpiece, from the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci to The Last Supper to the Mona Lisa, and the candlelit cinematography is often sumptuous. Turner’s research included a private view of a Leonardo exhibition. “I spent some time alone with the actual paintings, which was brilliant,” he says. “They’re just like high-definition photographs. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a human had done this.”

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming started

The series opens in Florence in the 1460s, with Leonardo a pupil of Verrocchio, played by the veteran Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini. Before the shoot Turner and his co-stars went on an artists’ boot camp (brush camp?) supervised by professionals. He says the hardest part was learning to paint, as Leonardo did, with his left hand. He compares it to learning to ride a horse for Poldark, which he pretended he knew how to do before going on a crash course when he got the part.

Brushwork was the same, he says. “I realised I had to get good quite quickly and look like I knew what I was doing with my left hand, which is more difficult than you would think. It’s keeping it steady — you find it just moves around a lot. Leonardo was very slow and precise — I think I got it down. After a few weeks you start picking up the brush with your left hand, it becomes natural.”

Leonardo was a vegetarian, Turner tells me, “and apparently later in life opened some sort of vegetarian restaurant”. He was also gay, something that, despite reports, the series does not shy away from. Was this Turner’s first time kissing a man on screen? He laughs. “Of all the things I was expecting you to ask next, that wasn’t one of them! In a lot of ways it was just another love scene. The fact that the gender was different — that was never a thing. No, it felt right. It didn’t feel any different at all. But yeah, to answer your question, that was the first time, which I’d never really thought of until now.”

What did feel weird, he says, were the Covid protocols. “Suddenly people are wearing masks and shields and hazmat suits. We had a big sanitisation machine as we walked in that would spray us. You take off the mask when you shoot the scene and it’s a bit strange for a second. Then you realise it’s the first time you’ve seen your co-star’s face that day. It’s not conducive to a very creative environment, for sure. But we made it work and nobody got sick.”

Turner spends a chunk of the first episode painting De Angelis, and both actors know what it’s like to be ogled. She has been asked endlessly about her naked locker-room sequence in The Undoing, just as he has been reminded of his shirtless scything scene in Poldark. Before that there was his lusted-after vampire in Being Human and his sexy dwarf in The Hobbit — branded a “dwilf” in some quarters — although that “definitely wasn’t the intention”, he says. “I think I just had less prosthetics on my face. My make-up call was 20 minutes and everyone else was sitting in the chair in the morning for three and a half hours. It wasn’t good to be around the other dwarfs in the mornings, that’s for sure.

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

We move on. According to a recent survey Cornwall has overtaken London as the most desirable place to live in Britain. Does he think Poldark played a part in that? He laughs. “Maybe we nudged a few people in the right direction. I think people forgot how beautiful that side of the world is. One of the first reviews of Poldark we read was like: ‘We can’t believe that this is our country, it looks like the south of France.’”

Could Poldark return, and would Turner be in it? If they stuck to the chronology of Winston Graham’s books they would have to leap ahead a few years. Maybe he could play an aged-up Ross Poldark in latex and fake paunch? “I don’t know if I’d be keen on the ageing-up thing,” he says. “It never really works. I don’t know whether they need to be too strict with that gap anyway. There’s the possibility someday, maybe. I enjoyed working with everybody on Poldark, from the writers right down to all the cast and crew. It really is like a family. So I’d be open to chat about it. But not for a while.”

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator of The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

“You want what’s best for the film. And if you don’t fit into it, you don’t fit into it,” Turner says in the tone of hair-shirt devotion that actors tend to use when talking about Malick. With a cast including Ben Kingsley and Mark Rylance as Satan, the movie is meant to tell the story of Jesus through a series of parables. Turner doesn’t really have a clue, though.

“You don’t necessarily know what you’re signing up to. You’re signing up to Terrence Malick,” he says. The director has “a great way of working. Everything is around ‘where is the sun’ at this particular time. That’s our natural light and it’s all we use. So things happen fast. There’s no trailers, hair, make-up, we’re just all together. You don’t know from day to day what you’ll be doing. It’s quite renegade stuff. That’s the way I always wanted to work.”

It’s closer to the immediacy of the theatre, which is where Turner started out. The son of an electrician, Pearse, and an accountant, Eileen, he represented Ireland at ballroom dancing before falling into acting. After studying at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin he acted in plays for five years and in 2018 he returned to the stage to rave reviews in Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in the West End. Rave being the operative word — his performance was bracingly unhinged. “I can’t wait to get back to the theatre,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking at probably next.”

Turner’s character in The Lieutenant of Inishmore was an Irish freedom fighter, but he is reluctant to talk about the prospect of Irish reunification (“So I don’t get shot when I get home,” he told one interviewer). Culture is safer ground, and his native country is going through a purple patch with Sally Rooney in literature, Fontaines DC in music and the likes of McDonagh, Jessie Buckley and Denise Gough in drama. “It tends to happen in waves,” Turner says. “Coming out of drama school, Colin Farrell was such a big thing. When these actors really make it you can feel some of their light begin to shine on the industry back home.”

Like Farrell, Turner is an international star, although it has mainly been in period roles: Poldark, Leonardo, Andrew and his breakout turn as the 19th-century poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It must be something about the hair.

That could be about to change, though. Toronto often stands in for New York, which suggests that his current mystery project has a contemporary setting. Does he yearn to act in jeans? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says with a laugh. “After Leonardo, I think tights and knee-length boots are out for a while.” Many would beg him to reconsider.

[captain-ross-poldark]

Poldark’s Aidan Turner on playing Leonardo da Vinci

Ed Potton

Friday 2 April 2021

Aidan Turner takes on the role of Renaissance polymath LeonardoJUSTIN SUTCLIFFE/EYEVIN

I’m trying to work out where Aidan Turner is Zooming from. Is it London, where he moved to in 2017 after his Ross Poldark became the drooled-over king of Sunday-night television? Dublin, where he grew up, trained as an actor and returned to spend the first lockdown with his parents? Or Rome, where he shot his new series, Leonardo, in which he plays a young Leonardo da Vinci?

“None of the above!” Turner says. “I’m in Toronto.” The enigmatic charm, feline eyes and gleaming locks that he deployed so mercilessly in Poldark, The Hobbit films and Being Human are all there. “My missus is working here,” he explains, and so is he. That’s the American actress Caitlin FitzGerald, his partner of three years, whom he met when they starred in the 2018 film The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot. At first I assume the “missus” is laddish affectation but it turns out that it’s official: Turner and FitzGerald, both 37, got married in secret in Italy in August after filming finished on Leonardo. You can almost hear the sighs of disappointment ripple around the world.

Turner won’t say any more — he is famously guarded about his personal life — but he looks insanely happy in the couple’s rented apartment. FitzGerald — whose grandfather Desmond was a CIA agent and organised several plots to assassinate Fidel Castro — is shooting a series, Station Eleven, in Toronto while her husband works on another project that he’s not allowed to talk about. In their downtime they’ve been watching I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, an HBO documentary series about the Golden State Killer, and, on a lighter note, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles. They share the apartment with Charlie, an ebullient Norfolk terrier that Turner has to eject from the room halfway through our interview when he starts yapping. “I’m surprised he behaved for so long,” he says.

Eight-part series Leonardo has been criticised for warping historyPA

Like many of his fellow thesps, Turner has been doing a great deal of lockdown painting. “We have a roof garden here and the light has been really good,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this because I don’t know if the landlord knows. It’s not messy work anyway!” Unlike some of his peers — I’m looking at you, Pierce Brosnan — he has yet to unleash his daubings on the world. How would he describe his style? “I struggle to say abstract, but I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet.” Did it help with playing Leonardo? “I don’t know. If you saw my paintings, you’d assume very much not,” Turner says. He has a studied line in self-effacement, honed after years of “sexiest man on TV” questions.

Leonardo premiered in Italy last month and was watched by seven million, many of them doubtless keen to see Turner brooding in a succession of smocks. The eight-part series has been criticised for warping history, having the artist accused of murder and featuring an apparently fictional muse, Caterina da Cremona, played by Matilda De Angelis from The Undoing. Luca Bernabei, the chief executive of Lux Vide who produced the series, defended it stoutly. “Matilda De Angelis’s character did exist. She was a model Leonardo asked to paint,” he said. “We have been really careful in our research. But this is not a documentary, we are not historians and this is not a university history lecture.”

And if the history pedants are spluttering, the art pedants should be happier — the series goes to considerable lengths to make the painting look authentic. Each episode is themed around a different masterpiece, from the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci to The Last Supper to the Mona Lisa, and the candlelit cinematography is often sumptuous. Turner’s research included a private view of a Leonardo exhibition. “I spent some time alone with the actual paintings, which was brilliant,” he says. “They’re just like high-definition photographs. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that a human had done this.”

Aidan Turner attended an artist’s boot camp before filming startedVITTORIA FENATI MORACE

The series opens in Florence in the 1460s, with Leonardo a pupil of Verrocchio, played by the veteran Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini. Before the shoot Turner and his co-stars went on an artists’ boot camp (brush camp?) supervised by professionals. He says the hardest part was learning to paint, as Leonardo did, with his left hand. He compares it to learning to ride a horse for Poldark, which he pretended he knew how to do before going on a crash course when he got the part.

Brushwork was the same, he says. “I realised I had to get good quite quickly and look like I knew what I was doing with my left hand, which is more difficult than you would think. It’s keeping it steady — you find it just moves around a lot. Leonardo was very slow and precise — I think I got it down. After a few weeks you start picking up the brush with your left hand, it becomes natural.”

Leonardo was a vegetarian, Turner tells me, “and apparently later in life opened some sort of vegetarian restaurant”. He was also gay, something that, despite reports, the series does not shy away from. Was this Turner’s first time kissing a man on screen? He laughs. “Of all the things I was expecting you to ask next, that wasn’t one of them! In a lot of ways it was just another love scene. The fact that the gender was different — that was never a thing. No, it felt right. It didn’t feel any different at all. But yeah, to answer your question, that was the first time, which I’d never really thought of until now.”

What did feel weird, he says, were the Covid protocols. “Suddenly people are wearing masks and shields and hazmat suits. We had a big sanitisation machine as we walked in that would spray us. You take off the mask when you shoot the scene and it’s a bit strange for a second. Then you realise it’s the first time you’ve seen your co-star’s face that day. It’s not conducive to a very creative environment, for sure. But we made it work and nobody got sick.”

With his wife, the American actress Caitlin FitzGeraldREX FEATURES

Turner spends a chunk of the first episode painting De Angelis, and both actors know what it’s like to be ogled. She has been asked endlessly about her naked locker-room sequence in The Undoing, just as he has been reminded of his shirtless scything scene in Poldark. Before that there was his lusted-after vampire in Being Human and his sexy dwarf in The Hobbit — branded a “dwilf” in some quarters — although that “definitely wasn’t the intention”, he says. “I think I just had less prosthetics on my face. My make-up call was 20 minutes and everyone else was sitting in the chair in the morning for three and a half hours. It wasn’t good to be around the other dwarfs in the mornings, that’s for sure.

“I get why people are interested,” he says of the ogling. “It’s just when it keeps coming up.”

We move on. According to a recent survey Cornwall has overtaken London as the most desirable place to live in Britain. Does he think Poldark played a part in that? He laughs. “Maybe we nudged a few people in the right direction. I think people forgot how beautiful that side of the world is. One of the first reviews of Poldark we read was like: ‘We can’t believe that this is our country, it looks like the south of France.’”

Could Poldark return, and would Turner be in it? If they stuck to the chronology of Winston Graham’s books they would have to leap ahead a few years. Maybe he could play an aged-up Ross Poldark in latex and fake paunch? “I don’t know if I’d be keen on the ageing-up thing,” he says. “It never really works. I don’t know whether they need to be too strict with that gap anyway. There’s the possibility someday, maybe. I enjoyed working with everybody on Poldark, from the writers right down to all the cast and crew. It really is like a family. So I’d be open to chat about it. But not for a while.”

Turner with Eleanor Tomlinson in PoldarkMIKE HOGAN

Before that he will appear as the apostle Andrew in The Last Planet, the forthcoming biblical epic from Terrence Malick, revered creator ofThe Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Well, he doesn’t know for sure if he will appear. Actors of the calibre of Rachel Weisz, Mickey Rourke and Jessica Chastain have seen their performances in Malick films vanish during editing.

“You want what’s best for the film. And if you don’t fit into it, you don’t fit into it,” Turner says in the tone of hair-shirt devotion that actors tend to use when talking about Malick. With a cast including Ben Kingsley and Mark Rylance as Satan, the movie is meant to tell the story of Jesus through a series of parables. Turner doesn’t really have a clue, though.

“You don’t necessarily know what you’re signing up to. You’re signing up to Terrence Malick,” he says. The director has “a great way of working. Everything is around ‘where is the sun’ at this particular time. That’s our natural light and it’s all we use. So things happen fast. There’s no trailers, hair, make-up, we’re just all together. You don’t know from day to day what you’ll be doing. It’s quite renegade stuff. That’s the way I always wanted to work.”

It’s closer to the immediacy of the theatre, which is where Turner started out. The son of an electrician, Pearse, and an accountant, Eileen, he represented Ireland at ballroom dancing before falling into acting. After studying at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin he acted in plays for five years and in 2018 he returned to the stage to rave reviews in Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore in the West End. Rave being the operative word — his performance was bracingly unhinged. “I can’t wait to get back to the theatre,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking at probably next.”

Turner’s character in The Lieutenant of Inishmore was an Irish freedom fighter, but he is reluctant to talk about the prospect of Irish reunification (“So I don’t get shot when I get home,” he told one interviewer). Culture is safer ground, and his native country is going through a purple patch with Sally Rooney in literature, Fontaines DC in music and the likes of McDonagh, Jessie Buckley and Denise Gough in drama. “It tends to happen in waves,” Turner says. “Coming out of drama school, Colin Farrell was such a big thing. When these actors really make it you can feel some of their light begin to shine on the industry back home.”

Like Farrell, Turner is an international star, although it has mainly been in period roles: Poldark, Leonardo, Andrew and his breakout turn as the 19th-century poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 2009 series Desperate Romantics. It must be something about the hair.

That could be about to change, though. Toronto often stands in for New York, which suggests that his current mystery project has a contemporary setting. Does he yearn to act in jeans? “Yeah, you’re right,” he says with a laugh. “After Leonardo, I think tights and knee-length boots are out for a while.” Many would beg him to reconsider.

All episodes of Leonardo will be on Amazon from April 16

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poldarks-aidan-turner-on-playing-leonardo-da-vinci-wnmqhxqxr

[serendipitous-posts]

Doctor Who Q&A!

Who is your Doctor?

Matt Smith! Funny story about him actually-he was the first doctor I ever watched-it was Time of the Angels, but at the time I watched that episode, Matt Smith’s run was over. I went back and watched Nine and Ten, and then rewatched Eleven before hitting Twelve up. Eleven has always had a special place in my heart

Your favourite Doctor?

Funnily enough, Twelve. He faintly edges out Eleven in this regard. I think I just really enjoy his humour, dry and sarcastic, and the character arc of wondering whether he’s a good person or not really spoke to me. Yeah, stinky eyebrow man wins in this regard

Least favourite Doctor?

Either Nine or Thirteen? I found Nine to be somewhat boring, I liked his humour, but most of the time was spent setting up his backstory, or that weird romance thing with Rose, and since romance has never interested me, except in certain areas *shrugs*

Thirteen isn’t anything to do with Jodie Whittaker, it’s just that the best moments of Doctor Who are when the Doctor is sad, or vulnerable or angry. The Oncoming Storm is a big part of it all. And it seems that she never really has the oppurtunity to be emotional in this yet. That’s the scriptwriters fault, not hers, and I’m happy they’re starting to change it with the new season.

Best regeneration?

Oh god, that’s actually a tie between Ten, Eleven and Twelve for me

Ten dies alone and it is awful. His last lines brought me to tears, and there’s something so sad about him being killed protecting one of his friends. 

Eleven had me sobbing. Out of the three, he’s the only one who met this whole thing with acceptance, and he’s the only one to not be alone when it happens. His was the nicest out of the three, but because he was MY Doctor, I was bawling like a baby. When Amy appeared I  b r  o k e

Twelve is heartbreakingly realistic. He’s not resisting change like Ten is, he just wants to rest, for once. Like Ten, he dies alone, with only memories to comfort him, and I remember tearing up when he told Thirteen what he told Clara

Who is the most human Doctor?

Either Ten or Twelve. Both of them are conflicted about their morality and whether they should do the right thing or not, both of them try and fail and try again. Twelve is just the one to realise he’s not good or bad, he’s an idiot.

Best Companion?

Donna Noble or Amy Pond and Rory. 

I am a sex repulsed ace-aro, this means I would rather stick my hand in a woodchipper than be in a relationship with someone. Platonic friendships and family have always been my bread and butter and these three are perfect for the Doctor.

Donna Noble? Bold, sassy, determined. Her mom is constantly putting her down, and yet she’s the saviour of the Universe. She doesn’t hesitate to call Ten out on his bullshit, and her departure hurt me on so many levels. I have loved her ever since Pompeii, and I will decry the erasure of her character as unfair until the end of bloody time

Amy Pond and Rory. I’m putting these two together, because I only really started to like Amy when Rory came in. I love their character arcs, growing and changing. Their relationship is also fun to watch, once you get over the drama. I like relationships like Chandler and Monica, natural, fun to watch, not Ross and Rachel, dragged out, on and off again, and after a brief buffer period, these two sorted out their differences and their banter was amazing to watch. Also, the fact that they’re the Doctor’s in laws? They are the epitome of found family and I am LOVING IT

Shoutout to Martha Jones btw, runner up as always. I wish we got to see more of her when she WASN’T enamoured with the Doctor, watching her call him out in the Poison Sky was magnificent.

Worst Companion?

The Companions relationships with the Doctor are the most important thing in the show; what they think of him, how much they trust him, what extent are their feelings towards them, and to me, none was quite as boring as Rose and the Doctor.

I HATE will they-wont they plots, and that basically sums up their entire run together, getting jealous of eachothers partners, vaguely alluding towards their attraction to eachother, but not saying it, it drained all of the fun out of Rose. Her making out with a clone of the Doctor, in front of the Doctor was the final thing for me.

And while I’m all for the return of a Companion, she seems to linger throughout Ten’s run. I can understand why for Martha’s; that was her entire character arc after all, learning to expect better of yourself, but she didn’t need to be there for Donna’s; they very easily could have thought of another way to create DoctorDonna. Her presence was everywhere throughout David Tennants run, and I found it annoying

Favourite Doctor Who Ships?

River Song with Eleven, Twelve or Thirteen. As I said, banter and comedy is how you establish a good relationship, it shows how relaxed two people are together, and River with whichever Doctor she’s with at the time always has this flirty back and forth going on between them. They’re very open about their attraction to eachother, and I love it. Also, Thirteen and River because if you don’t think Thirteen is a raging pansexual then I have news for you.

Amy and Rory for the reasons I listed above; they sort through their issues, have good repartee and are a very enjoyable couple to watch

(I briefly shipped Eleven x Amy x Rory before I found out they were in laws, so shoutout to that.)

Least Favourite Doctor Who Ships?

Rose x Doctor. It would have been fine if they ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING WITH IT INSTEAD OF JUST HINTING AT IT

Martha x Doctor. Martha’s whole arc is about learning that the Doctor is treating her badly and that she doesn’t need him. To go back to him would invalidate that whole thing

Controversial Thought?

I know a lot of people hate Clara, but to be honest, I’m more apathetic/warm towards her. I loved her relationship with Twelve, and how she was almost a caretaker towards him. She starts to act like the Doctor after a while, but then that’s what the Companions DO, they become more versatile, more able to handle tough situations. I’m not happy how they made her immortal and gave her her own TARDIS, but other than that, I’m pretty mild towards her

Best Two-Parter Episode?

Heaven Sent and Hell Bent. It was one of those episodes, ones that are genuinely, deeply horrifying. I got chills when I realised how long the Doctor had been trapped in the Confession Dial. I wasn’t really happy with how the brought Clara back from the dead, but I was okay with it, because watching her read the High Command the riot act for how they treated the Doctor was so, so worth it

Best Doctor/companion pairing?

Ten and Donna. Loved their brother-sister duo relationship

If Two Doctors could meet, who would you choose?

Thirteen and Four would be fun; they have similar energy and scarves after all. Think that would be fun to see. Thirteen and Twelve would also have a nice energy between them I think. Maybe throw in some height jokes.

If any Companions could meet, who would you choose?

Donna and Amy would probably end up flirting with each other. But, at the same time, I think Donna may help Amy come away from her hero worship of the Doctor. 

Martha and Rory would bond over how they sometimes feel like third wheelers and probably share medical knowledge. Martha and Clara would be fun, caring for the Doctor’s health.

If any Companions could meet any Doctor, which would you choose?

Martha meets Twelve. Twelve is actively trying to figure out whether he’s a good person, and I can see him trying to make amends for the way he’s treated her.

Thirteen meets Amy and Rory. She probably wouldn’t tell them who she is, but she would be so excited to see them again

Donna meets Nine. They would spend the entire time snarking at eachother

The Fam meets Ten. He would be so overwhelmed when he sees how many people are joining him right now

[phantomofthepairofdice]

The Rosscars 2020

Wow. It’s that time of year again, only this time it’s different because it’s on a blog that no one will read! (hold for applause) Welcome to the first annual online publication for the Rosscars (hold for applause while the reader acknowledges how positively droll it is that I combined my name with “Oscars”). Who can forget such indelible Rosscar memories like when Steven Soderbergh surprised us all and won Best Director for Out of Sight or Bill Irwin’s beautiful speech upon winning Best Supporting Actor for Rachel Getting Married?! The Rosscars mean something different to everyone, but we all know that they mean quality choices made by a committee of one schmuck. This year’s Rosscars are bizarre because in an effort to be more like the Academy guidelines, film’s nominated have been released between January 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021. As usual, theatrical windows be damned, streamers are welcome. Of course, I have my gripes. I like categorizing movies by release year – specifically, when they become available to the plain old public like yours truly – not at festivals, limited runs in NYC and LA. Well, the Oscars are still weeks away and I feel like everybody wants to forget about last year and move onto this one that we’re already three months into - So here are my awards for the films, performers, and craftspeople that stood out in a pretty exceptional year for movies even though distribution was stranger than ever. 

**A few caveats and guidelines to Rosscar newcomers (which I imagine is just a formality since we all know the Rosscars so well)**

The rules and categories are a little different around here. First, not every category is honored directly. That’s for a few reasons, chiefly that I don’t feel qualified to reward the technical categories properly – I suppose I should say that I feel less qualified to do so than the “above the line” categories. In keeping with the Academy standard, there are five nominees in each category, except for Best Picture, Best Non-Fiction/Documentary Feature, and Best Ensemble Cast which allow up to ten. Every category, save those three, will have the possibility of honorable mentions, because I want to highlight some things that just barely missed the cut. The narrowing down of a lot of these categories was awfully tough.

Nominees are listed alphabetically, and the winners are in bold and italics.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that I couldn’t see everything (this isn’t a job and it’s still $20 to rent The Father, y’all) and that these are just the opinions of one (self-described) “bozo on the internet.” If you’re a reader and have different picks, feel free to share!

Special Commendations for some things that I want to recognize: • Ludwig Goransson for his Tenet score which is an absolute banger • The costumes of Emma. (Alexandra Byrne), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Ann Roth), and Small Axe (Jaqueline Durran, Sinéad Kidao, and Lisa Duncan) all struck me as exceptional • Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with their scores for both Soul and Mank. Crazy that Pixar is working with the guy who made “Closer” • The cinematography of Da 5 Bloods (Newton Thomas Sigel), First Cow (Christopher Blauvelt), Beanpole (Kseniya Sereda), and A White, White Day (Maria von Hausswolff)

The Rosscars red carpet was, as usual, a bizarre affair. People filed into the theater and it seemed like the only encounters were awkward ones. Vin Diesel showed up in character as Bloodshot, Aaron Sorkin started getting really verbose about what a lovely night it was, and it became clear that most of the celebrities in attendance didn’t read their invitations closely enough to realize that this was not, in fact, the Academy Awards.

Everyone’s seated, and the show is under way. After a medley about the nominees this year by Common and Seth McFarlane that was more corny but clever than it was funny, the first official category is here, and the presenter is none other than... Ross!

Best Supporting Actor:

1. Chadwick Boseman for Da 5 Bloods

2. Matthew Macfadyen for The Assistant

3. Jesse Plemmons for Judas and the Black Messiah

4. Paul Raci for Sound of Metal

5. Glynn Turman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Honorable Mentions:

• Lucas Hedges for Let Them All Talk

• Orion Lee for First Cow

• Bill Murray for On the Rocks

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Vanessa Bayer for Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

2. Candice Bergen for Let Them All Talk

3. Gina Rodriguez for Kajillionaire

4. Amanda Seyfried for Mank

5. Yuon Yuh-jung for Minari

Honorable Mentions:

• Jane Adams for She Dies Tomorrow

• Charin Alvarez for Saint Frances

• Talia Ryder for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

• Debra Winger for Kajillionaire

Everyone loves a montage. The audience gets comfortable in their seats as the video screens start to show a montage of some of the most famous moments from Hollywood’s most magical movies. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers waltz, gliding across a dance floor like two hovering angels. There’s a clip of Leo declaring himself king of the world in Titanic, the flying bicycles in ET, Bogart stares longingly into Bacall’s eyes, and then there’s some scene where Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle from 2010′s Knight and Day. The audience all seems confused how that last one got in there. The John Williams music swells as little Kevin McAllister screams when puts on aftershave. We see clips of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia embrace Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, Bruce Lee smoothly declares that boards don’t hit back and... wait... was that a clip from Michel Gondry’s Green Hornet with Seth Rogen? And that’s a clip from What Happens in Vegas... Bad Teacher... Vanilla Sky... Shrek 2... Any Given Sunday... Everyone is flummoxed. The last clip fades out and a sole editing credit appears: Cameron Diaz. The lights come up and there’s some applause, but mostly confused murmurs. 

The ceremony has had a bit of a misstep, but nothing it can’t recover from, especially as the next category is announced over the PA, and it looks like the presenter is... Ross!

Best Ensemble Cast:

1. Bacurau

2. Da 5 Bloods 

3. Kajillionaire

4. Let Them All Talk

5. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

6. Minari

7. Nomadland

8. Pieces of a Woman

9. Small Axe

Best Original Screenplay:

1. Danny Bilson and Paul Dameo & Spike Lee and Kevin Wilmott for Da 5 Bloods

2. Lee Isaac Chung for Minari

3. Brandon Cronenberg for Possessor

4. Sean Durkin for The Nest

5. Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles for Bacurau

Honorable Mentions – a very difficult task to weed this down to five.

• Shaka King and Will Berson for Judas and the Black Messiah, from a story by Kenny and Keith Lucas

• Steve McQueen, Alastair Siddons, and Courttia Newland for Small Axe

• Kelly O'Sullivan for Saint Frances

• Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm for Another Round

Best Actor:

1. Ben Affleck for The Way Back

2. Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

3. Delroy Lindo for Da 5 Bloods

4. John Magaro for First Cow

5. Mads Mikkelsen for Another Round

Honorable Mentions:

• Riz Ahmed for Sound of Metal

• John Boyega for Small Axe

• Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah

• Hugh Jackman for Bad Education

• Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson for A White, White Day

We have a break in the action and it looks like Darius Rucker has showed up to perform what he would have nominated for Best Original Song. The crowd is absolutely furious as he starts playing a song that apparently was in Trial of the Chicago Seven. An ocean of sonorous boos and curses overtakes the the once docile crowd. The Rock just ripped his chair from out of the ground. Jane Lynch somehow smuggled in a civil war era flintlock pistol that she’s now pointing at the stage! Suddenly, the crowd unifies around what started as a confident chant of one lone audience member - John C Reilly. It’s growing... Ja Ja Ding Dong, Ja Ja Ding Dong, Ja Ja Ding Dong - it’s like the macabre circus performers from Tod Browning’s Freaks, but instead of chanting “Gooble Gobble” they’re clearly pining for Darius to change his tune to the silly and delightful jam from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Darius, scared for his life, leaves the stage, but here come Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams to deliver the goods. Busy Philips and Michelle Williams burst into tears. Tom Hanks nods in approval. A segment saved by brave artists placating a toxic group of fans... we’ve just witnessed a live version of the Snyder Cut, folks.

Jack Nicholson seems completely unfazed, giving a thumbs up to the camera and blowing a kiss to the next presenter. Coming to the stage is... Ross... again...

Best Actress:

1. Jessie Buckley for i’m thinking of ending things

2. Carrie Coon for The Nest

3. Han Ye-ri for Minari

4. Sidney Flanagan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

5. Vasilisa Perelygina for Beanpole

Honorable Mentions – these cuts were especially painful

• Haley Bennet for Swallow

• Morfydd Clark for Saint Maud

• Frances McDormand for Nomadland

• Christin Milioti for Palm Springs

• Geraldine Viswanathan for Bad Education

Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Charlie Kaufman for i'm thinking of ending things from Iain Reed's novel

2. Sarah Gubbins for Shirley from Susan Scarf Merrell's novel

3. Kelly Reichardt and John Raymond for First Cow

4. Simon Rich for American Pickle from his short story "Sell Out"

5. Mike Makowsky for Bad Education from Robert Kolker's "The Bad Superintendent"

Best Non-Fiction/Documentary Feature:

1. Boys State

2. Collective

3. David Byrne’s American Utopia

4. Dick Johnson is Dead

5. Feels Good Man

6. In & Of Itself

7. The Painter and the Thief

8. Time

Jimmy Fallon has come out on stage to do a bit about the pandemic and watching movies at home. People are just absolutely not having it. He tries not to laugh at his own jokes while doing what I guess is technically a pretty good impression of Dr. Fauci interviewing James Corden as Martin Scorsese (the less said of this impression, the better) on what is or isn’t cinema. The bit doesn’t track and Fallon is absolutely tanking. The producers cut away from the stage to spare the viewers at home from this monstrosity. We see crowd shots of Millie Bobby Brown shaking her head in dismay, Colin Firth is simultaneously grimacing and trying to stave off laughter, Cynthia Erivo is texting, and director Tom Hooper is taking notes for his next film. Corden yells, “Carpool Karaoke! Remember?!” Ron Howard has fainted. This thing is almost completely off the rails.

Coming back to the stage is the next presenter, a clearly embarrassed... Ross! He’s in a total flop sweat, but stumbles his way through a joke about how Fallon should try co-hosting the Oscars with James Franco sometime. There are scant chuckles throughout a crowd that mostly just wants to see who won and go home.

Best Director:

1. Christopher Nolan for Tenet

2. Spike Lee for Da 5 Bloods

3. Steve McQueen for Small Axe

4. Kelly Reichardt for First Cow

5. Chloé Zhao for Nomadland

Honorable Mentions:

• Kitty Green for The Assistant

• Eliza Hittman for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

• Charlie Kaufman for i'm thinking of ending things

• Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round

Best Picture

1. Bacurau

2. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

3. Da 5 Bloods

4. First Cow

5. i'm thinking of ending things

6. Judas and the Black Messiah

7. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

8. Nomadland

9. Small Axe

10. Tenet

Accepting the award for best picture is none other than Eve, the cow actor who played the titular First Cow! The audience is enamored with how graceful she looks in her cow gown, and her speech, though indecipherable, is likely simple, observational, and deeply profound for those who speak cow.

Wow, what a ceremony! Hearts were broken, property was damaged, dreams were fulfilled... blood was shed? Damn it, Meryl Streep came in and mugged Charlie Kaufman before absconding with the trophy. Oddly, she’s a previous winner, so the attack isn’t out of need for hardware. People are reading through articles about production on Adaptation for potential motives. Streep made time for a photo opportunity, but remains at large.

I could go on ad infinitum about all of these nominees and winners themselves and why they did or didn’t make the cut, but that’d be better served in a different piece. For now, my thoughts on most of these can be found on the Best of 2020 write-up and over on my Letterboxd. And, as always, these awards can be revoked and redistributed at will, so don’t get too cozy with that statue, Danny Bilson!

On behalf of the RAOGL (Rosscars Association of One Guy at a Laptop), thanks for reading, and stay tuned as we’re establishing a tip line for anyone has seen Ms. Streep or her stolen valor Rosscar. We’ll see you next year. Keep watching movies, and keep arbitrarily quantifying them in terms of subjective quality!

[orderuponthe99prettygrimmdiaries]

Road to Recovery 👣

Well, this is gonna be a long ass one. Also, this has been kinda drafted over the past... week? So it’s gonna be a real rollercoaster of a ride. 

Had just binged Lucifer’s new season and was on reddit, looking at comments of redditors yelling at Luci to enjoy whilst he was finding stuff to freak out about. 

Like him, I should have just been in the moment. Appreciated it. Instead of worrying about the next. 

The past week has been.. emotional. Have been getting used to the fact that I might never speak or hear or see him again. Been also trying to focus on the bad to kinda ease the pain. At least it hurts a little less, less crying too. But it’s also like one day you do great, no crying, not much of missing and pain, but then the next, everything creeps in altogether and you fall apart. 

The thing is... why does it hurt so bad? Things had been weird for months. I mean, I was the one who was always preparing myself for him to leave, I was the one who told myself I’d be okay even if we never went on the date. And I guess it just boils back to... expectations. 

I expected him to care more, I didn’t expect that he’d be able to leave just like this. From regular convos to nothing in a week, now almost 2 weeks. I mean, we’ve had breaks. 1 day, 5 days, 10 days... It’s kinda strange if we were actually interested in the other. Maybe he wasn’t much of a texter and wanted to talk when we met. But did we really share much when we met? It’s odd... He doesn’t reply properly to texts, he disappears, he doesn’t really care much at times, but for some reason, I seem to remember the good more. It seemed like he does listen (at times), there were moments when I felt like he cared. A part of me still trusts him or sees the best in him. 

Initially, I was trying to avoid talking about him so I would also stop thinking about him and I could move on. But I think talking about it also helps. Did also google about moving on from crushes, and that is a major point. Maybe I’ll never figure out what really went wrong, but maybe I could still give myself some sorta closure.  Though reminiscing does hurt too. Going back to the place where we met, which is basically my workplace which I’ve to be at almost every day... The memories flooding in about the conversations we had. But it also helps me to acknowledge my feelings and fears, stuff that I suppose I didn’t acknowledge then. Maybe if I had been less afraid and tried harder, especially during the times we were both around considering how hard it was to get our schedules together. He probably thought I wasn’t that interested and moved on. Guys fall fast, but they seem to move on pretty quick too.

Ended up dreaming about him last night... It was really nice. There was a shipment, I didn’t let myself have hope that it would have been him. And he turned around, and it was him. I said hey and touched his arm. I headed off downstairs talking to the other guys, one of them was teasing me for giving him my number. He came down too. We sat there for a bit, and I asked if I could lean on his shoulder, and we ended up hugging too. That was just wonderful, but it’s sad to know it’d never be reality. 

And I guess all those breaks we had throughout the months still gives me the slightest bit of hope that he might return... But now, 2 whole weeks of not speaking. The glimmer of hope fades as each day passes. Maybe, distance is just what we need, I tell myself. 

But now, there’s also a new guy. So I’m guessing the likelihood of seeing him ever again is almost impossible. But is it really so bad if we never spoke or see each other again? Did he even really care? What were we? 

Feels like history is repeating itself, and honestly, after re-reading old posts, maybe it is. Okay, but this time was slightly different. I fought harder. I should be proud that I got his number, or well, convinced him to get mine. I should be proud for initiating those texts, for finally picking up that video call, for asking him out. 

I do wonder at times if it would have been better if I was just honest from the start, that I was interested and I felt there’s something special, different, but not entirely sure what it was. I had friends tell me that I shouldn’t be too emotional about too much, especially at the start. I mean, I did do this the last time, granted they were all online friends, and now we’re still friends. Maybe it’s different being online vs irl. 

Should I continue fighting for him or just let this be another regret/what if? I guess I chose the latter. I was still too afraid to make a move, I was still too afraid to admit my feelings. I wanted to tell him, I wanted to give him the choice. But I was afraid, what if he only says he feels the same because knowing what I felt? I couldn’t take the leap. 

And the more I thought, the less I knew. What did I ever really know about you? What did I like about you? I guess I didn’t listen to myself enough, or to the rational part at least. The closer you look, the less you see. By the time I remember this, it was a little too late... 

I guess I need to stop trying to define everything. Some questions don’t have answers. Some stories won’t get closures. Not all friendships require daily talking. Why aren’t I okay with this? Am I just too attached to everyone? Does my life just basically revolve around people? Who the fuck am I?

I had been looking back at my old posts, all the way back to 2015, the darkest period of my life. I wanted to see what I did then, how did I handle it and pushed myself through. How the heck did I move on? Sure, it took me like... at least 2 years of moping around, then finally actually properly reaching out to get the help I needed. A couple months of counselling, pushing the focus back on myself, on self love and self care.

And all this unravelled within a couple months.

Granted, I think it was already starting to unravel early this year. All these work and personnel changes really fucked things up, with Covid just adding to it. And then comes those unexpected feelings, not knowing how to deal with it, worrying about how I’m gonna fuck it up, and in turn, fucking it up. Also, not giving myself a break when I truly needed it. I was afraid that if I took a break from texting him (okay I wasn’t really obsessively staring at my phone and replying immediately either, but I could have taken a proper break), I might have ended up losing him, and now, I’ve lost myself, I’ve lost him. 

So yep, losing myself... this time, I don’t think I was able to keep it as contained as I did previously. Loss of appetite, exhaustion... I guess at least I don’t exactly sigh as much as I did during the start of the year? But I guess now with Covid and mom at home, she’s noticed the symptoms too. And I guess how I tend to stay cooped in my room, retreat back after meals etc, not really making as much convos with my parents too... Maybe even agitation or irritation as my mom noticed too... 

She thinks it’s more physical, with my abnormal periods and stuff, like maybe I’m anaemic. Oof, and that one day she asked if I was alright because I didn’t seem happy. I literally broke down when I went back to my room. I try so hard to mask it all because I don’t want people to worry, and I want people to still be able to count on me when they need to. Though I’m pretty sure my colleagues noticed too. So I push myself. Sometimes I guess I pretend to be alright, cope with humour as my defence mechanism (self preservation through dissociation, amirite?), but then it comes crashing down the next day or next minute. 

I’m just human. I need to allow myself to feel. I need to embrace that I feel a lot, sometimes a little too much. I shouldn’t hate myself for caring too much, for feeling too much. I need to remember to allow myself to rest, or else this burnt out and exhaustion won’t do me or anyone any good. Yes, I want to be there for others, but sometimes you need to save yourself first. 

I’ve got one life to live, so I gotta live it. Right now it feels like I’m just surviving, otherwise basically floating through time and space. But it’s time to really live. it’s time to stop trying to keep everything under control. Sometimes a mistake is a destiny and sometimes we mess things up for the better. Stop comparing your progress and path to others. 

Recovery isn’t a straight line. You’re gonna feel good and then bad. You’re gonna feel like a bad-ass bitch who needs no one, but then the next you might be crying from the pain of missing him. Sometimes it will just get worse before it gets better. Real growth isn’t linear, it’s a step forward and 20 steps back. You’re gonna be tempted to text him, to hear his voice, to try one more time, but then you also gotta remember all the progress you’ve made. People are hard to forget and change takes time. 

Like Chandler and Joey were nudging Ross to move on from Rachel back in Season 1, maybe your friends had nudged you to move on too. My friends have been. Maybe our happiness just aren’t meant to be with each other. But I would love for you to be happy, even if it’s without me. 

So, I guess imma do a separate post about all the lessons I’ve re-learnt. It was a real headache trying to write this piece already. Thanks to anyone who’s actually taken the time to read this. Take care everyone!��

X

[violetlunette]

Tropes/Cliches I Hate

So there are a lot of lists stating cliches people hate and this is another one. If you like these, that’s fine, I just get irked when I see them myself and want to rant a little. This isn’t a top ten list, just a list of things I dislike. There won’t be any romance tropes here as they deserve and have their own list. Also, most of these are story telling tropes, so just a heads up. Anyway, let me know what you personally think and tropes you hate and why. Oh, and SPOILERS! Before warned.

Tropes/Cliches I Hate

Too Much Drama/Unearned Drama: My most HATED trope. Don’t get me wrong; I like drama okay, but if it’s over loaded or feels like it was just thrown in for by the writers I get frustrated. Yes I know that writers do that to keep people interested, but can’t they make it feel natural or earned?

I liked “Finding Carter’s” drama; This is a story about a girl who discovers she was kidnapped as a toddler by the woman she called mother all her life and being reunited with her birth family. The drama makes sense and is earned by the whole family; (SPOILERS)

Carter’s whole world is turned upside down so her attitude, while mean at times is understandable.

Taylor has spent her whole life terrified of disappearing like her sister and has had her fear fed by her parents, so has lived a sheltered life.

Their mom lost a kid which has affected her marriage so she started to sleep with her partner and was even planning to leave, however when she found Carter she didn’t want to break her family again. Hell, even the drama with the villain is understandable as Carter and Taylor came from her eggs/she was a surrogate mom who was sleeping with the father at the time. You can see why she might think the twins were hers and that she had a right to take one. This is great drama and I would have loved it, but then they had to give the side characters the angstiest backstories they could which distracts from the family at times and felt unneeded.

And I know; that what drama are about. Angst central, I know, but that’s why I don’t watch a lot of drama. At the very least I want it to be earned an in character or story.

The fifth book of Harry Potter did this fairly well as all the drama came from the characters and their actions. Sirius died due to Harry’s impulsive actions and Dumbledore want to keep Harry in the dark to “protect him.” And the drama hits all the harder because it’s something that could happen in real life (minus the magic stuff.).

A bad example is Gilmore Girls where they force the character April in with a bunch of random drama just to keep Luke and Lorelei apart. There was a legitimate way to put off the wedding; have Luke be afraid of rushing things and feeling like he’s the one who has to make all the compromises and give up things and he runs away for awhile. Hell, they could have kept the plot line of her jumping into bed with Christopher because as terrible as that was it was still a very Lorelei thing to do. But the plot with April and everything after? UNNEEDED AND UNWANTED.

We’re not together, but I’m Pregnant/The Baby Plot: Okay, I love babies—when I don’t have to change them or be woken up at 3:00 in the morning. They’re soft, cute, adorable, and squishy! However in TV the baby is usually born to a “will they won’t they” couple as a way to force them together when the writers made the audience believe they were separating them or for drama. News flash writers; if the only way you can keep a couple together is to throw a baby in the mix, then just give up on the pair!

Babies are used for like one arc to cause drama, then are tossed to the side with maybe a passing mention so it’s like what’s the point?

It’s a cheap way to keep a couple together. A child should NOT be a plot deceive to keep a couple together or create drama. Ross and Rachel were the worse along with Belle and Rumple; Ross and Rachel had fallen into a slump and the audience were starting to move on and look at other options for them so the writers thought they could yank us back by revealing they had sex and Rachel was pregnant. All this led to was the same slapstick they went through when they were together before and they never worked through the issues they had before, mainly that they were jealous, possessive, and vindictive except now they had a BABY.

With the Rumbelle the writers couldn’t decide what the hell they wanted with Rumple (did they want him to be evil or a hero), but knew his actions were pushing Belle (and the fans) away. So what did they do? Threw a baby into the mix with a whole contrived plot that was just—what? I mean, it COULD have worked, but not the way the writers did it.

Writers, people; IT IS NEVER A CHILD’S JOB TO FIX A COUPLE. A baby is not a plot device they are people and deserve more respect than they get. If a couple can’t stay together by themselves, then a baby is not going to help. All it does is trap two people and why would want a couple that’s forced together that way?

“We’re trying to protect ya so we ain’t telling ya shit” and Bad communication skills: How many problems in stories could be solved if two people just sat down and talked instead of keeping secrets. Like “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” If Dumbledore had told Harry that Voldemort could get into his head and could hurt people Sirius might be alive. And in a couple? I don’t need to list an example. You’re already thinking of a moment where a couple got into a fight because they didn’t just sit down and talk.

That being said I do like this trope as a potential reason for a hero being ignorant of their past at the beginning of a series as I like the hero from a muggle world. At the very least I want the person keeping the secrets to be called out on it.

Insane maniac pixie girl: This a low one as there are some I like, however I feel this character is over done lately and honestly I can only take so much of the personality. They’re always so loud, screaming all the time, squeaky, and have no sense of personal space. I mean, I like Webby and Mabel, but even then I can only take so much squealing. (I dunno, maybe I have sensitive ears.)

I’m not dead!: Disney gets away with this because the brought backs happen towards the end of the film and isn’t done time and again in the same movie. Compare to the Dragon Ball series were death is like a mosquito bite. Why should I care if they get hurt or the world dies? Just wish them back and everything is fine! Seriously, is anyone who watches DBZ concerned when a character gets hurt or dies still? It’s a cheap trick that feels like a “ha! Fooled you!” moment.

High school drama / Skewd Priorities: Okay when I say high school drama I mean focusing on a school dance when the world is at stake or worrying about whether or not a boy likes you when a murder is on the loose, or focusing on school junk when we as the readers want tto focus on the fantasy elements. This is mostly in YA dealing with kids, so some of this is understandable, but even so it’s not fun to read and even teenagers hate being portrayed like this (at least the one or two I know). When I  was teenager I liked the prom and stuff for quiet moments in stories, but NOT when there was a villain loose or danger was coming. Whenever that popped up I was like, ‘bitch wtf is wrong with you! Who cares about a zit when you have super magical powers.’ When I read a fantasy I want to focus on the fantasy elements, not school! School is boring.

Too Easily Forgiven: Forgiveness is wonderful thing, however it should be earned and you know some things can’t and shouldn’t be forgiven. For me it’s murder. Now if it’s between two warriors in a fight that’s one thing, but hurting or killing innocent civilians? No. No, no. Or hey, what if a person has been horribly bullying you or making your life miserable? Do you have to forgive, fuck no. Now I’m not saying you should seek revenge, but I’d rather they just choose that they don’t want to be angry and anymore and decide to move on.

Forgiveness should be earned when they’ve truly hurt someone and even if they feel remorseful, characters still have the right to be angry when they’ve been hurt or had someone they love taken from them.

All humans /muggles are bastards / idiots: Yeah, humans are assholes. We get it. No one knows how bad humans are than other humans, but you know what? Humans have done amazing things to conquer natural selection and the fact that other humans is humanity’s greatest enemy shows just how powerful the human race is. And not everyone wants to blow up shit, some of us work VERY hard to help and save everything we can and the rest are just trying to live our lives without hurting anyone. We may not be top dog, but we’re not bottom of the barrel either. And why should other races get put on pedestal as the woobie race or holier than thou? That doesn’t make them more interesting it just makes them annoying. I see this trope in almost every fantasy, can’t we switch it up a little?

magical speciesism / the blood must remain pure: Ignoring the real life implications this trope’s just been over done. Can’t we turn this around and have it that cross breeding between a magical and a human is considered the norm or a good thing? Switch it up a bit?

Ron the death Eater and Draco in Leather pants: This annoying enough in the fandom where we like to exaggerate and things we like and dislike, but in the actual show it’s insulting to the character AND the fans. If there’s something wrong with the character then the writers should make an arc to improve them, not drag the character through the mud.

On the other end if a character is an asshole you can’t just make them a hero suddenly and expect the audience to buy it. The characters have to earn their redemption.

And those are ten tropes I hate. How about you guys? What’s your thoughts? Do you hate them or am I alone? And what do guys hate to see in stories?

[statusquoergo]

A marvey prompt: how about Mike thinking about everything Harvey has done over the years and suddenly realising that Harvey's in love with him

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When Michael James Ross was eleven years old, he lost hisparents to a car crash.

This isn’t a secret to anyone; the test isn’t who earnshis trust enough to tell. No, the test is what they do with the informationonce they have it.

Usually, the answer is nothing. Usually, the answer is totiptoe around him for a day or two and then ignore it completely, pretend hehasn’t told them, maybe forget about it altogether until the subject comes upby accident and then it’s more of an “Oh god Mike I’m so sorry, that was sostupid of me.”

Sometimes, the answer is “Oh, well, now I get it,” andwhat they mean is “Now I understand the way you are,” even though they don’t,because that’s a big part of the story but it’s not the whole thing, and on itsown, it just floats in a sea of static.

There’s this one time that he tells someone and that’snice but it’s just another piece of him, a thing that can be an asset (empathy)or a burden (too much) or a detail that’s good to know but doesn’t define Mike,might have shaped him in some ways but doesn’t make up the core of who he is(his own man).

Harvey Specter is a good person.

—

The secret is fun for a little while, when everything isso fresh and new that none of it seems real and surely this won’t last foreverbut let’s have fun while we’re here. Mike works as hard as he can and tries toexceed Harvey’s expectations, which he manages to do every now and again, andeventually the secret moves to the back of his mind; if he isn’t thinking aboutit, then surely no one else is, either, so they’re safe and it’s fine and don’tworry about a thing.

Then Jessica finds out.

Mike distracts himself from being terrified by submerginghimself in work until he’s drowning, until he can barely breathe from thestrain of it, pretending that feigning ignorance will somehow melt intomaintaining the status quo; maybe he’ll lose any chance for advancement, buthey, that was never part of the deal to begin with, and he’s happy where he is.

Then everything really does go back to normal, andeventually Jessica even admits that he’s worth keeping around after all, andMike remembers that he’s living in the most fucked-up fairy tale ever writtenbut it’s also the best one he’s ever heard.

Much later, when he finds out that Harvey was the reason,he has to feign most of his surprise.

—

It was a mistake to leave Pearson Specter, but a mistakethat needed to be made, like spending the week at a friend’s house after a badfight with a roommate or significant other; Mike is sure there’s a flawsomewhere in that logic, but he’ll be damned if he can figure out whereexactly.

It doesn’t feel so bad while he’s away, but then he goesup against Harvey, and oh, yeah, there it is.

A little while later, when Louis has gone behindJessica’s back to re-hire him because he doesn’t know any better, Mike settlesback into his role very carefully and resolves not to make that mistake again.

—

The thing about the secret is that once is was discoveredfor the first time, the idea that it might eventually destroy him stopped beinga theory and started being a fact.

The thing about the two of them is that when you destroyone, you destroy the other.

Mike is mostly frustrated with Harvey’s efforts to takethe fall for him, when the time comes to lay down their arms; it’s him, it wasalways going to be him, it has to behim, can’t Harvey see that? After everything Harvey’s done for him, every jamhe’s bailed him out of, how can he think that Mike would ever let anythinghappen to him that he could so easily prevent?

Lying on his threadbare cot in his tiny cell andcataloguing all the ways that he hadn’t expected prison to be so disgusting,because television and movies leave out the mold and the dead bugs and the leakingwalls and ceilings, and they can’t really convey the pervasive stench of sweatand cheap cleanser, Mike remembers that Harvey volunteered to go to this placefor him, to spend days and weeks and months in this hell so that Mike wouldn’thave to learn these things. Mike could have gone to his grave not knowing howto peel and slice five dozen potatoes in under an hour, or the spitefulsatisfaction of “accidentally” walking off with another man’s unbroken showersandals, or the quiet dread of those simple words, “The counselor wants to talkto you.”

It only takes a couple of days for Gallo to start speakingto him with extra spitefulness, a layer of anger over the vicious taunting thattells Mike that Someone must have said Something, and it doesn’t take a geniusto reason who or what it might have been.

Harvey doesn’t mention it when he gets out. It’s okay;Mike knows.

He’d say “Thank you,” but he isn’t really sure what for,and he doesn’t want to give the wrong impression.

Anyway, the words are too small to encompass everything they’resupposed to mean.

—

The drop that makes the cup run over, as it were, isn’tthe moment Mike gets into the Bar, the moment that all of the sacrifices andhard work, all the unabashed fraudulence and self-deluded justifications, allthe years of stress and struggle and concern come to a head and turn outsomething “worth it.”

No, that drop comes early the next morning, when Mikewakes up to a brand new day and nothing is the way it was when he went to sleep.

Lying beside him, her tired eyes crinkled up at thecorners, Rachel reaches slowly to stroke his hair; “You did it,” she murmurshappily, and he smiles and nods and—no.

No.

He didn’t.

They did.

Harvey did.

It’s always been Harvey, from the moment he stepped up toMike’s stupid challenge—I’ll become thebest lawyer you’ve ever seen, as though he wasn’t asking him to set himselfon fire for a stranger—to the moment he saved Trevor (he’s my oldest friend, Harvey), the moment he rescued Mike from theHarvard Club (if I hadn’t paid him off,you’d be in jail right now), the moment he threatened to beat up Tess’shusband for daring to lay a hand on him no matter what the circumstances (that’s not who I am) and everything inbetween, it’s always been Harvey.

Harvey, who was willing to give up his license for Mike.Harvey, who was willing to sacrifice his dream, his senior partnership(well-deserved and hard-won), for Mike. Harvey, who was not only willing to doall that but tried so desperately tomake it happen when he couldn’t see any other way because this is Mike, Mike,it’s all for Mike.

It’s always been for Mike.

Today, Mike will walk into his office—Harvey’s oldoffice—with the world laid out at his feet, every arrogant demand met and everylofty desire granted because Harvey was so pleased, so excited, so gratifiedthat Mike is going back where he belongs, and he’ll prove his worth a dozentimes over if that’s what it takes because it’s the least he can do for a manwho loves him so much.

He does.

Holy shit.

“Mike?”

Rachel stands over him, buttoning her skirt along her hipand dangling a pair of glossy stilettos from her fingertips, and he looks up ather, flustered.

“You coming?”

How can I?

(How can you not?)

“Yeah,” he says, pushing the covers aside and stretchinghis arms overhead, “yeah, just gimme a sec.”

Smiling falteringly, she leaves the room; he hears adrawer open and close in the kitchen.

He’ll go about his day as though nothing has changed. Asfar as everyone else is concerned, nothing has, so it’ll be alright.

Everything will be alright.

—

Mike doesn’t keep his promise to himself.

He tries, god, he tries so hard; be grateful, be grateful for what you have, over and over on a loopon the seventh track of his train of thought, the back of the line, but bumpingup to six-five-four-three-two-one is that reminder, he loves me, louder and louder and louder, he loves me he loves me he loves me, over and over again.

He doesn’t mean to skip lunch; it just sort of happens.

At some point, day becomes night; Mike turns his desklamp on when it’s too hard to read otherwise, realizing some time later thatit’s gotten dark out.

“You coming?” Rachel asks sweetly, leaning against thedoorframe with her coat hanging from her fingertips over her shoulder, and helooks up at her, startled.

“I wanna finish this before I go,” he says, seeing in herposture and her pursed lips that she’s going to offer to wait, to stay so theycan go home together, which is the very last thing that should happen (trackeight). “It’s gonna be awhile,” he finishes apologetically, and she nods,shrugging her arms through her coat sleeves.

“Don’t work too hard,” she teases, and he offers a weaksmile as she walks away.

At some point, he’ll be the last one here.

A gentle knock at the door jerks him upright to stare atthe offender—ha, offender. Right.

Harvey, of course.

“What’re you still doing here?” Mike asks, closing hislaptop (“PSL PSL PSL,” reads the screensaver).

Harvey steps carefully inside, pacing around invisiblelandmines.

“I didn’t think they’d give you so much stuff for your firstday back,” he says, and Mike smirks.

“You would know,” he retorts. “And, you didn’t, I wasjust…thinking.”

Harvey puts his hands in his pockets and raises hisshoulders. “Everything okay?”

Sighing out through his nose, Mike folds his hands infront of his face and narrows his eyes at his desk.

Well, once the promise has been broken, there’s nowhereto go but down.

“Are you in love with me?”

A kinder man would have phrased it more delicately.

(To be fair, a kinder man wouldn’t be asking in themiddle of the night when no one else is around.)

A wiser man would have refrained from asking at all.

(To be fair, a wiser man wouldn’t have found himself inthis situation to begin with.)

Mike is neither.

Harvey looks him dead in the eye and clenches his jaw, asilent dare to keep talking, to push this further than it’s already gone.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Harvey purses his lips for a moment before he answers,gathering his thoughts.

“You know why.”

True enough.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

Bracing his hands flat on his desk, Mike stands with hishead hanging down and speaks to the floor underneath Harvey’s shoes.

“Would you believe I just figured it out?”

Harvey scoffs.

“Some genius you are.”

Mike chuckles quietly.

“Nothing has to change,” Harvey says after a beat. “Thisisn’t on you.”

“Uh, it kind of is,” Mike refutes, raising his gaze toHarvey’s face. “Unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s mostly about me.”

“I mean you don’t have to do anything about it.”

Oh.

Oh, that.

Mike raps the side of his fist against the edge of hisdesk; a highlight reel of Mike and Harvey’s Greatest Hits scrolls through hisbrain on repeat as he gathers his nerve and braces for the worst.

“What if I wanted to?”

Harvey’s response is immediate and predictable:

“Mike, you’ve got Rachel.”

Mike is about to argue, the words on the tip of histongue when he remembers how this must sound to Harvey; the wounds of hischildhood cut deeper than he lets on, and he won’t break up a marriage, even anengagement, when he could suffer in silence instead.

“I would never cheat on her,” he says (and don’t forgetthat she did it first). “But, Harvey, I…”

“Don’t say it.”

Mike gapes at him. “Why not?”

Smirking, Harvey shakes his head. “Remember that partwhere I said nothing has to change?” He gestures to himself, ending with theblade of his hand resting against his sternum. “It’s all on this side of thetable, Mike. Let’s keep it that way.”

It’s the ultimate out. Mike should take it, he knows heshould; maintain the status quo, that’s what’s gotten us this far, that’s what’sgotten us everything we have, everything we are.

Bullshit.

“It’s not,” Mike corrects, and the sorrow in Harvey’seyes splits him right down the middle. Stepping out from behind his desk, hestops a few feet away and feels suddenly weary, worn down and beaten.

(Is this what you’ve been living through?)

“You know what wears off?” he inquires. “Gratitude. Heroworship. Shock and awe. You know what doesn’t?”

Harvey glares at him, but speaks without fury. “It does.”

“Not this time.”

It’s written all over his face that Harvey still doesn’tbelieve it, or won’t, maybe, and Mike doesn’t know exactly why he keepspressing but this is important, this is so important.

“You know all that time you spent saving my ass?” he asks.“All that time you spent looking out for me, protecting me, doing everythingyou could to help me? To make me happy? Well you know what I was doing?”

Harvey opens his mouth to reply, but no, that was arhetorical question.

“I was trying to do the same for you, alright, I wasdoing everything I could to prove that you hadn’t made a mistake by hiring me,to prove that I could do you proud, to prove that I was worthy of you. To prove that I could make you happy, too.”

Mike hears himself, hears his voice ratchet up in ashallow slope until he’s nearly shouting, and he pulls himself back, gettinghis breathing back under control before his denouement.

“I was falling for you,” he admits. “I just…didn’tnotice.”

Harvey pauses for a moment before he laughs quietly,rubbing between his eyebrows and looking away.

“You picked a hell of a time to figure it out.”

“We haven’t even set a date for the wedding yet.”

Then Harvey sighs, and Mike wonders if that was the wrongthing to say.

“Look,” he tries again, “I’m not asking you to take herplace. I’m not asking you to marry me, or move in with me, or…get a dog withme.” Harvey scoffs, and Mike carries on more boldly than before:

“But if that’s really how you feel, and I’m telling you,this is how I feel, then I think…we oweit to ourselves to try. I think this feels right to me, I think it’s the firstthing that has in awhile.”

“After getting into the Bar.”

“Oh, no, that’s still way too surreal to be true.”

Harvey smiles softly, sliding his gaze sideways to Mikewithout facing him head-on just yet.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he confesses.

“Me neither,” Mike stage-whispers, and Harvey laughsagain.

Squaring up, he turns to Mike and offers his hand.

“To trouble.”

Mike glances down perplexedly, then up at Harvey’sincreasingly uncertain face.

(Fuck that.)

Wrapping his arms around Harvey’s shoulders, he cradlesthe back of his head and draws him in for the headiest first kiss he’s everexperienced; Harvey withdraws his arm from between them and brings it to reston Mike’s back, closing his eyes and giving in like he’s been waiting for it.

Well, to be fair.

They come apart much more slowly than they came together,and Mike smirks.

“To trouble.”

[newyorktheater]

“The Wrong Man,”  a sung-through musical starring the spectacular Joshua Henry,  may remind people of “Hamilton” in its catchy rap-inflected eclectic score and jerky hip hop choreography, but it is nearly the anti-“Hamilton” in its lack of real-world resonance.

Now, I don’t need a show to be socially conscious or rooted in history in order to enjoy it. But if you’re going to enlist a black actor to portray a man framed for murder, it seems like a missed opportunity to create a story that has no more relevance than a folk tale.

Duran (Henry) impregnates Mariana (Ciara Renée), after he meets her at a bar in Reno, Nevada for a one-night stand. Her jealous ex-husband, called only Man in Black (Ryan Vasquez),kills her and frames Duran for the murder. Duran is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

“The Wrong Man” is written by Ross Golan, a pop songwriter responsible for a slew of number 1 hits (for Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Lady Antebellum, Maroon 5, Pink,  et al.) The musical began as a single song that Dolan has said he wrote in 2004 after he learned that Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in the state (which was subsequently made permanent by Gov. Pat Quinn) and Golan imagined “a guy who is in prison for something he didn’t do.”  The one song grew to many, which Golan performed in L.A. in 2014 on a guitar, accompanied by a dancer and video projections.He turned that into an animated film, which was presented at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, and then a concept album released a few months later.

Many talented people have participated in the staging of the 24 songs that make up “That Wrong Man” at MCC Theater, including director Thomas Kail, and musical supervisor and orchestra Alex Lacamoire, who both won Tony Awards for “Hamilton.” (Three of the nine cast members, including Henry, are also alumni of “Hamilton.”) It’s choreographed  by Travis Wall of “So You Think You Can Dance.”

 Despite all the talent, “The Wrong Man” never really gels as a work of theater for me. It can feel like a 90-minute live music video – catchy, lively, superficial.

It reminds me in several ways of Paul Simon’s 1998 musical “The Capeman,”  about a Puerto Rican gang member who commits murder. It, too, was a concept album before it was a staged musical, it too was put together by some prestige talents. The music was catchy.  But the individual songs told the story rather than dramatized it. What remains most memorable to me about that musical is how unmemorable the supposedly central act was, the stabbing murder; it nearly didn’t register at all.

As  with “The Capeman,” so with “The Wrong Man”: In place of involving drama or insight, there is…rhythm and melody.

This parallel struck me during the “scene” in “The Wrong Man” when the Man in Black frames Duran – in the song called “Stays Here”:

“He dropped the pistol in my lap,” Duran rap-sings, while the Man in Black drops the pistol in his lap, “And then he ran into the street and yelled.”

Then the Man in Black raps: “Police, that man just killed someone and now he’s after me.”

Duran continues: “I threw the gun like it was burning through my flesh and bone/I took off and I ran/And that’s the way the story goes.”

The song continues with Duran telling us that he rushed to Mariana’s home to find her stabbed to death; he called the paramedics; and then he ran away.

Ironically, the refrain of the song is: “They say all kinds of clichés here like, ‘what happens here stays here’”

The plot is so vague and far-fetched that it feels pointless to view it logically – to wonder, for example, why his fingerprints on a gun would implicate Duran in a stabbing death.

It is worth noting that “The Capeman” was based on the true story of Salvador Agron, and attempted an exploration of the social forces that shaped him.  Goran had an almost endless number of recent true-life stories of wrongful imprisonment that could have inspired him, but he instead seems to take his guidance from country ballads and B movies. It is fitting that the music includes a synthetic whistling that sounds borrowed from the score of a spaghetti Western. There is even a direct allusion to Johnny Cash’s Folson Prison Blues: “It wasn’t me who shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die.”

Golan makes a few weak stabs at social significance, such as a lyric in the song “Line Up” that suggests corruption —  “the court appointed lawyer walked in, her arm around the chief  — and the song “Free Duran” in which protesters lead a chant against the injustice of Duran’s conviction. But these don’t have much effect in a show that has such a melodramatic villain in the Man in Black (the name another allusion to Johnny Cash.) The character acknowledges his own evil repeatedly, especially in the song “When Evil Men Go On The Run”:

Y’all ready know I’ve been in prison for passing fraudulent checks while abating arrest for soliciting a minor for sex 

I’m a cold, cold man with little to no pity I killed my pregnant wife and left for Mexico City

  That there are any genuinely moving moments at all in “The Wrong Man” feels like  a testament to Joshua Henry’s tremendous power as a performer.  “The Wrong Man” is as close to a one-man show as is possible with a nine-member cast (Mariana and the Man in Black are the only other specific characters), and Henry makes the most of it. He turns what in other hands might have seemed simply an unending stream of self-pity – “ God, tell me why me? /Why oh why oh why oh why me?” – into cries from the heart. Henry’s role is so demanding physically – and I suspect emotionally — that Ryan Vasquez, normally portraying the Man in Black,  is performing as Duran on Sunday matinees and occasionally one other day during the week.

 My building up Joshua Henry should not be read as a put-down of the rest of the cast, all of whom are amazing dancers and great back-up singers.  “The Wrong Man”  is such an attractively staged entertainment  that some theatergoers might not mind that it’s a concert with nothing to say.

Click on any photographs by Matthew Murphy to see it enlarged.

The Wrong Man

MCC Theater

Book, music and lyrics by Ross Golan

Directed by Thomas Kail, music supervision, vocal arrangements and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire, choreography by Travis Wall, scenic design by Rachel Hauck, costume design by Jennifer Moeller and Kristin Isola, lighting design by Betsy Adams, and sound design by Nevin Steinberg, hair and make-up design by Tommy Kurzman, music direction by Taylor Peckham,

Cast: Joshua Henry, Ciara Renée, Ryan Vasquez, Anoop Desai, Tilly Evans-Krueger, Malik Kitchen, Libby Lloyd, Amber Pickens, Kyle Robinson, Debbie Christine Tjong, and Julius Williams.

Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission

Tickets: $56 – $132

The Wrong Man is on stage through November 17, 2019

The Wrong Man Review: Hamilton-Like in Form, The Anti-Hamilton in Content “The Wrong Man,”  a sung-through musical starring the spectacular Joshua Henry,  may remind people of “Hamilton” in its catchy rap-inflected eclectic score and jerky hip hop choreography, but it is nearly the anti-“Hamilton” in its lack of real-world resonance.

[5point9million-blog]

A Glimpse Of Hope

When I was walking to work today I was playing some song that were downloaded on my phone.  I try to play music to get me in the mood to work.  About the 3rd song in, my phone played the song I made for Trenece for her birthday a couple of years back.  I actually wrote the song and recorded it on a video in like 30 minutes.  That was back in the day when we were just close friends.  I played it for her during nap time and emailed it to her.  A couple years later, after we had reconnected, I went to the studio and recorded it and gave the CD to her for her birthday.

Listening to the song brings up a lot of different feelings.  I remember listening to it and thinking to myself, “Why would I do this for someone who obviously does not feel the same way that I feel about her?  And what is going through her mind when she listens to this song??”  It took a lot to fight through the feelings and continue on with life.  Some of the most happiest moments where when I just knew that she wasn’t coming back in my life.  That she was happy with whoever she was with at the time and it was all for the best.

But then I hear from her cousin or her sister that she is going through something and that the person she is with is “going out for self”.  That made my heart hurt knowing that she would be better off with me.  That I would be there for her and help her grow and become the woman that God intended her to be.  When she came back the very last time, I had no idea what to think,  I mean... to this day, I still worry about her leaving me and going off to do her own thing.  Especially because of what happened a couple of weeks ago.  The kids don’t seemed to be phased.  Yet that could be a big front just because they love me so much.  Deep down inside they may still harbor a fear of me at the very same time.

These past couple of weeks have been a real trial.  Having to get up and go to work and come back home and do the same thing over and over again.  Never really seeing any blessings or miracles come from it.  At my job, I am a laughing stock and everybody makes fun of me.  They laugh at everything I do and everything that I say is a joke to them.  It makes me try harder and focus on my job even more.  I try to better than I did before each day just so I can secure my spot and get my hours.  I seem to get overtime a lot lately.  So that is testament to how the managers feel about my work.

I work the front register, the drive thru and both sides of the line.  I work hard at being a team player and help out everyone as much as I can.  So much to the point were they seem to take it for granted and get mad when I tell them no... which isn’t that often.

I remember a couple of weeks ago, a few days after my last drink, Trenece’s cousin was telling me that I should just stop doing stuff for her and let her fall by herself.  She said that I should just focus on working on me and not to trip off of spending time or doing stuff with her.  

I didn’t listen.

It was just a week later that I gave her the money to be able to rent the car that she now drives for Lyft.  I know that I wrote about this is a couple of posts ago... but I just want to recap just so you know where I am coming from at this present moment.

So.... I am listening to the song and I am trying to hold on to the little bit of faith that I do have.  I want to believe that we are still together but yet the evidence of the current situation seems to be saying otherwise.  We don’t speak. We don’t spend time with each other.  And supposed to be satisfied with the conversation that she had with me a couple of weeks ago telling me that she would be “out of the loop” for a while and not to get discouraged from me not talking to her or seeing her for a while until she gets her routine down pat.

I am trying to hold on because I know that if I do and we do start to see each other again.  That we will be back and better than before just because she is making her own money and I wouldn’t have to spend so much.  So I am trying to hold on the that belief because it is the only thing that I got right now.  A deep part of me wants to explore my options with other females.  Not only has Ashley been low-key pushing up on me (literally and figuratively).  This girl, Ebony, that used to be my old assistant back at the day care now works with us.  I used to have a real bad crush on her.  She is actually one of the reasons why I started to grow my hair out.  Truth is, I’ve been friend-zoned by her for a while.  Then on top of that, she really isn’t someone that I see myself in a relationship with.  Then it’s this girl named Leslie.  She used to work at Taco Bell when I first started working there.  Long story short... she left and now she is back.  Leslie is so nice and kind and sweet to me.  Every time I she sees me she gives me a big hug and squeezes me.  She makes me feel wanted.

That’s something that I have been missing with my relationship with Trenece.

She used to be all huggy and kissy in the beginning but then as the relationship got old.  She just stopped trying as much.  And it’s funny because she would do things around people or not do things and I would just think to myself... Would (so and so) do this to their man??  And often times the answer would be no.  I look at the interactions with other couples and notice the big differences between us.  Most of them are not good are our end.  Now these are some things that I would love to talk to Trenece about but because of the current situation and what I did a couple of weeks ago... I can’t bring myself up to having these conversations with her.

I tried to call her around 5:30 yesterday evening and she didn’t answer.  I am not sure if I told you but I ran into her sister the other day.  She drove me home and we talked a little bit.  She asked me if I spoke to Trenece and I was like... no.  Haven’t seen or spoke to her since the Hershey Park trip on Saturday. (Which is one of the things that I was talking about... her not taking me home that night.)  And then I tried to make up some excuses about it being summer and her having the kids.... But then her sister told me that she didn’t have the kids.  The younger ones were out of town and the older ones went to spend the week with their grandfather.  So I was just left to assume that she was using the time to work.  So, I was like ok whatever.  Let me just do me and get myself together.

Yet at the same time, even that is kind of difficult because the money that I gave her set me back a bit and now I am just waiting on this next check to even myself out.... but I am getting ahead of myself now...

So I go to work and grind it out for a couple of hours learning how to make breakfast (the food items).  After that, I take my break and go sit on the bench hoping to gather my thoughts and prepare to grind it out for the rest of my shift.  After about ten minutes in, Trenece calls me.  We talk for about 5 to 10 minutes catching up.  Then she starts making breakfast and a whole bunch of other stuff with the girls and pretty much has me on hold.  By this time I clocked in back to work and I have my ear piece in my ear just listening to them while I work.

After a while, she comes back on the phone and she telling me how she is barely breaking even just because “everyone” is beckoning for her time just because she has a car now.  And because of that, she can barely get time in to actually work.  And because she can’t work; she cannot make any real money.  So I’m basically five-stepping her and halfway paying attention to her.  I can tell by the sound of her voice and her inflection that she misses talking to me and that she had something else to say to me but she wanted to drop the girls off first at her friend’s house first.  She said that she would call me back to which she never did.

However,  that made me feel some type of way.  It’s like a bittersweet hope.  That call just solidified that we still have a relationship.  Yet at the same time, it also means that until she gets some sort of routine down then I will have to just be alone until she does.  I was really expecting a call from her.  I knew that she would get busy.  I mean just the simple fact that she picked up the phone and called me today and stayed on the phone with me that long was good enough for me.  I am still kind of sad... but now at least I have hope.  I don’t want to be with anybody but her.  Those other females I mentioned may tickle my fancy to some degree but I would never have nothing more than sex with them... and that is just something that I cannot do.  It reminds me of Ross & Rachel on Friends.  Right now I consider this a break and I really need to take the time to get myself together and find a spot for me to live.

With that being said, so the guys of the house had a meeting today while I was at work.  I thought that kind of odd being as though that we were all in the house yesterday... but whatever.  The truth is that we are behind again in out rent.  The water and the light bill is due and even though we got another guy to move in that’s just not gonna be enough.  So the dude, Andre, said he is moving out tomorrow because he tired of all the lies that these guys have been telling folks and have been low-key sabatoging the house and enabling us to fail month after month.  I mean.. hay.. at the end of the day, it’s gonna be them that is gonna have to owe Oxford House World Services... not us.  I could leave this house and be in the clear and never lose a night’s sleep about it after today.

I started back hitting the gym and just last week I got my tiki tattoo redone and I got a spider put on my hand.  I am thinking that these will be my last tatts ever but you never know.  I have about 12 in total now and I am satisfied with the way they all look.... however I might get a couple of them covered up.  I asked my tatt man if he could do it and he was like...idk.  And the more that I think about it... I really don’t need to be throwing money away like that when I need to be saving to move.  I am also on the fence about dying my hair again.  I think I’m good but I have been saying that for the past year and I have been dying my hair every 3 mos ever since I started saying that.  I want to dye my hair blue and then bleach it blonde.  But I am going to have to wait at least another 2 or 3 months to wait until my new growth shows more of my natural hair color.  Or I might just be like fuck it and dye it blue next week... IDK... we will see.

With Love,’

5.9 Million

[jenmedsbookreviews]

It is official. I am broken. Well … when I say official, I mean that I feel it. Let’s face it – none of us are getting any younger, me included, and it’s fair to say I’ve been working some pretty wacky hours of late. Well … they are finally catching up with me and if the bags under my eyes get much bigger, I’m not going to have to worry about taking my bags for life to Tesco for the weekly shop anymore …

This week was less hectic than previous weeks, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s a good thing. You know how it is. When you’ve been running around like a loon for ages, the minute you finally take a step back and relax, the worse you feel for it. That’s me this week. Only one trip out, although it was a long one. 0300 start to drive the 170+ miles to Southampton for an 0545 start. Then a day out on the van with one of my team who was using our new POD system for the first time. Thankfully the weather was good as I spent the day travelling around various customer in Southampton and seeing places I had read of in books. In fact at one point it felt as though I was on a Helen Grace mystery tour… Lots of views of the Solent and I saw some really big butts in the docks and some slightly smaller butts on a shelf … (that’s boats to people who have never watched Finding Nemo …). Actually, I suppose to the navy they’d be ships – boats go under water …

Actually, the worst part about the day wasn’t the early start or the 12 boxes (8 bottles bottles of water cooler water included) that we had to take to the second floor of an oldish building with no lift and a rather small staircase. Nope. That’s all bread and butter stuff and nothing I can really complain about as my drivers have to do it every day. The worst part … that was the nearly 5 hour drive home. Bloody Friday traffic and being that horrid hybrid weekend at the end/start of a half term week. Yak. No easy way back whichever way I played it. Got about 60% through my next audio book though so it’s not all bad, but I am fluffing knackered now.

The weekend was much better. Headed down to London late morning (I know – I’m nuts) for the TBC 3rd Birthday party. I have no pictures as I am not a selfie gal and I have already done something foolish this weekend which will haunt me (and you) for years :p, but there will be some knocking about of me on social media to prove I did it, and I do have witnesses by way in Susan Hampson, Linda Hill, Fiona Wilson and Rachel Gilbey amongst others 🙂 A big thanks to Tracy and the gang for organising it as it was a fab night and I got to meet some great folk and catch up with a few authors I’ve met before or have been chatting with on Social Media.  I even rounded off the weekend with a trip to what is quite possibly my favourite restaurant now – Ole and Steen – for some Halloween cakes before heading home Sunday morning.

I know. Just … don’t say anything about the picture on the right. It is white chocolate, filled with a kind of chocolate cream.marshmallow and a marzipan base. It is very tasty and it is a ghost!!! Not all mine. I shared with family as a thank you for poochie sitting.

Anyhoo – back to the books. Well – Saturday night came with a whole host of them as each attendee had a tote bag full of goodies and I was also given a couple of new books by the lovely Karen Sullivan of Orenda Books. What did I get? Well, a side from back ache carrying them all home 😉 – from the party: The Watcher by Ross Armstrong; The Mine by Antti Tuomainen (love that book); Will You Remember Me by Amanda Prowse;  Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward and The House by Simon Lelic. From the lovely Karen I received Maria in the Moon by the equally lovely Louise Beech and Deep Blue Trouble by the also very lovely Steph Broadribb. I will admit to getting a bit Gollum over them and perhaps stroking my new books a little too much … Moving on.

Book post wise, just the one this week but it is a cracker and I am very, very excited to read it. Again from the lovely Karen Sullivan and Orenda Books I received the CWA Short Story Anthology – Mystery Tour featuring some very fabulous authors. Bouncy happy tigger moment for me then. The only thing to cheer me after a very long Friday of travel. You find the last reserve of energy for the good books. Isn’t it stunning?

Book purchase wise I have been very reserved. I only ordered/pre-ordered the following books: The Cover Up by Marnie Riches; Truth or Dare by Richard Parker; Come Out To Play by Dylan Young; The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman; Before You Go by Clare Swatman; The Prodigal by Nicky Black and The Good Samaritan by John Marrs. No new Netgalley titles. I know!!! And no new audio books either.

Reading wise … well I really need to buck my ideas up as I’ve been pants again this week. Only three completed plus about 2/3 of an audio book and just about started another book. I am now a book and a half behind plan but determined to catch up. If I am missing from the world of blogging and sharing, you know why.

Books I have read

The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?

The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.

Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

But now someone’s on to her—Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?

The sinister truth is within Ryan’s grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to…

Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.

Oh, oh, oh. Now I loved Mr Marrs last book The One (met him over the weekend too – lovely chap), but I have to say I think this one is even better. It’s quite a taboo topic and the main character is very, very dark. The creeping, twisting and unravelling story had me completely hooked, even if some of the characters made some mad decisions. Gah. I can’t talk about the book without spoiling things, but I am going to have to try as my review is due on Saturday – eeek. Out on December 1st, you can pre-order your own copy, as I have done, right here.

…

Killing State by Judith O’Reilly

The bullet in his brain isn’t the problem. She is. Michael North is a hero, with a bullet in the brain to prove it. A bullet which has rewired his neural pathways and heightened his sense of intuition. A bullet which is driving him mad.

Working for an extra-governmental agency called The Board, North knows one thing for sure. He is very good at killing very bad guys. But what happens when a hero is ordered to kill a good woman rather than a bad man?

Because it turns out that rising political star, Honor Jones, MP, can’t stop asking the right questions about the wrong people. 

He should follow orders.

Shouldn’t he?

Wowsers. What a book. I don’t know quite what I was expecting when I started to read this but it wasn’t this. Part action thriller, part psychological thriller and part conspiracy theory, this is a most unusual but very entertaining and gripping read. You shouldn’t love a guy who is essentially a gun for hire but there is something about Michael North which engages you and has you rooting for a man you should want to see taken down. I’ll be reviewing this for the blog tour at the weekend but you can order a copy here.

…

White Out by Ragnar Jónasson

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kálfshamarvík. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop?

With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thór Arason discovers that the victim’s mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, twenty-five years earlier. As the dark history and its secrets of the village are unveiled, and the death toll begins to rise, the Siglufjordur detectives must race against the clock to find the killer, before another tragedy takes place.

Dark, chilling and complex, Whiteout is a haunting, atmospheric and stunningly plotted thriller from one of Iceland’s bestselling crime writers.

Man… I wanted to savour this, the last in the Ari Thor series, but I just couldn’t. I had to read and read and read until I was finished. What a haunting story; what a wonderfully atmospheric setting, what a brilliant way to say goodbye to Ari. Oh … but now I have to review it and there are only so many times you can use the word brilliant and perfect and magnificent and … well you get the picture. You’ll see if I managed to find any unique and seldom used adjectives next Monday. In the meantime go order yourselves a copy here.

…

And that was it. As I say I am most of the way through another audio book which I hope to complete and review this week, and I’m part way through another book I started last night, but I have a way to go to catch up with myself right now. Still if I go into radio (or social media) silence, you’ll know it’s in a good cause. And I have a pretty full week on the blog this week just as I did last, which you can see the highlights of below:

Review: Christmas at the Falling Down Guest House by Lilly Bartlett

#BookLove: Karen Cole

#BlogTour: Dead Lands by Lloyd Otis

#BlogTour: Absolution by P.A. Davies

#BlogBlitz: A Cosy Candlelit Christmas by Tilly Tennant

#BlogBlitz: The Lost Child by Patricia Gibney

Review: Now We Are Dead by Stuart MacBride

Review: The Binding Song by Elodie Harper

Broken Bones by Angela Marsons – Prologue Preview

The week ahead is a mixture of blog tours, and a little book love, this time from Annie at The Misstery Book Blog. Blog Tour wise I’m dropping in reviews of Murder Game by Caroline Mitchell, The Good Samaritan by John Marrs, and Killing State by Judith O’Reilly. I also have a special review planned in for later in the week, but trust me – soon said, soonest mended on that front. You may won’t want to miss it…

So that is it folks. I am off to read. Or sleep. Or some weird hybrid combination of both. If you share my posts this week – thanks in advance. If you see me about on Social Media – tell me to sod off and get some reading (or work) done.

Have a fabulously bookish week all

Jen

Rewind, recap: Weekly update w/e 29/10/17 It is official. I am broken. Well ... when I say official, I mean that I feel it.