#and in true 'grew up to have a funky gender and returning to an old piece of media i once liked' fashion. odd is so gender

[lecliss]

Got full access to my bff's Netflix account finally and I started watching Code Lyoko and its kinda baffling to me how the theme song and the iconic reused shots and little sound effects activated neurons in my brain that have been dormant for almost 2 decades. It's like the same effect that the ps2 start up sound has on me. And the theme song is so good that the nostalgia hit is actually making me emotional.

[splinteredhq]

CHARACTER NAME: zelda ariella belmont / alias to the public: jane davis CHARACTER FACECLAIM: vanessa kirby CHARACTER AGE/DOB: october 13th 1989 / 34 years old CHARACTER PRONOUNS/GENDER IDENTITY/SEXUALITY ETC: they/she, non binary, bisexual & biromantic, polyam OC OR CANON: oc CHARACTER PROFESSION IF RELEVANT: unspeakable, particularly focused within the time room, has been a part of the unspeakables since three years after their graduation from hogwarts. jane's job/the public image one is a freelance writer for the daily prophet SCHOOL ATTENDED & HOUSE IF RELEVANT: hogwarts, hufflepuff ALIGNMENT (the order/death eaters/etc) + GENERAL OPINIONS ON THE WAR/THEIR SIDE: true neutral but it's funky zelda barely has a place in the war. the department of mysteries is often a neutral stronghold, one unaffected by the goings on in the outside world, committed to their studies instead. battles and fights come and go, sometimes they even touch upon the department, but none ever truly infiltrate. zelda, in a way, has become distanced from the troubles of the outside world. but that doesn't mean they don't have an image to upkeep-- the life of jane davis crosses over with the order from time to time, giving inside knowledge and names of people of note. it's also a way to ease their guilt over what happened to their family. CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY: zelda grew up the child of an infamous magical creative fiction writer and a muggle painter. the middle child of three kids, zelda grew up in a very progressive house and both of their parents were adamant that whatever zelda chose to do in life, it should be chasing happiness first and foremost.

a creative household, there was a lot of emphasis on exploring talents and hobbies over much else. schooling was of course encouraged, but it was always about chasing what made you happy over what society tended to tell you was right and what you could make a career out of.

zelda went off to hogwarts and her eldest sibling was in his last year of study (sixth with the plan of not returning for seventh). their youngest sibling was three years younger that zelda so not due to start anytime soon. tragedy struck at the beginning of zelda's second year. with her family all at home while she was at hogwarts, they were attacked for being blood traitors. their mothers were targeted for their often loud, outspoken nature on how toxic pure-blood ideologies were and as such, they were punished by death eaters.

both of zelda's mothers were killed alongside their brother and younger sister, leaving them orphaned with no family left to speak of in the magical world due to their mum being an only child, and only a distant uncle on their mother's side in the muggle world.

they ended up in a muggle orphanage and spent anytime not at hogwarts there, fighting against anyone that ever showed an interest in adoption.

it was the death of their family that turned zelda to a fascinated obsession with death and turning back time. they longed to find the deathly hallows, believing that if true of heart, you could master the resurrection stone. of course, they've never come across the object.

but what zelda did find along the way, was a world of research into extending life and turning back time. and when they learned the truth of time turners, the obsession only grew. from their fifth year and onwards, zelda became fixated on research into time turners, into the idea of controlling time itself and perhaps even bringing back what once was lost.

this in depth research and experimentations were what drew zelda to the department of mysteries and as such, three years after their graduation from hogwarts, after finishing a degree in chrono and horormancy, they were approached by someone from within the department and ever since, they have been focused on their research, dedicated not only to their work, but those bonds made within the department that run deeper than any friendship ever truly could.

of course, with committing to a new life within the department, came a need for a double life. for a cover. and so, jane davis was born. someone free to walk among the world, a covered used by zelda during their free time. jane interacts with the order from time to time, writes for the prophet and is quite the bookworm. apparently, she studied at beauxbatons. jane is a private kind of person, but there is clear power beneath. obvious grudges and hatred toward the death eaters and their leader.

only really those within the unspeakables department know the truth of what happened to zelda and their family.

ADMIN ALEX APP

[uptightcitizensbrigade]

ANNIE DOES DALLAS!

(download pdf of article + pix here)

As St Vincent, she is the art-rock provocateur who has been declared the spiritual heir to David Bowie, fronted Nirvana, modeled for Marc Jacobs – and dated one of the most famous women on the planet. Andy Morris meets the singer in her Texan hometown. Photography by Kate Martin. Styling by Laury Smith

It’s shortly after 9am on a temperate Sunday in Lake Highlands, Texas. Clark is wearing a white Parisian minidress with a pair of tangerine Barbarella-esque boots that defy both the laws of physics and the sanctimony of the state. Clark’s brother-in-law Andrew looks up from his coffee, her niece Stella discards her fidget spinner and Clark’s mother, Sharon, snaps the first of approximately 1,000 photos she will take during the day.

At 34, Clark is one of the boldest individuals in music. Under the moniker ‘St Vincent’, inspired by both a Nick Cave song and Dylan Thomas’s last-known address, she specialises in tracks with a human feel and a machine sound. She exists in the creative intersection between Brian Eno, Joan Didion and PJ Harvey – by turns personal, political, fearsome and funky. David Sedaris sung by David Bowie, if you will.

In the past decade she has made five studio albums, including Love This Giant with Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne. She sang Lithium with Nirvana for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Prince watched her perform in New York and David Lynch booked her for his own festival. Clark’s last LP won a Grammy, beating both Arcade Fire and Jack White. She has spent the past year recording a radio show for Apple Music, directing a horror film set in suburbia and designing a unisex guitar – at some point she’ll also probably release a new album, which she has already described as “the deepest, boldest work I’ve ever done”.

Alongside her musical career, Clark has become the darling of the fashion set – and not just because of her relationship with British supermodel Cara Delevingne. Clark has appeared in a Marc Jacobs campaign, DJed for Max Mara and become a front row favourite, appearing at Burberry (alongside Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch) as well as Chanel (alongside Karl Lagerfeld’s then seven-year-old godson, Hudson Kroenig, who happened to be dressed as an airline pilot).

But before her globetrotting began, Clark’s childhood was spent in this Dallas district. One of her earliest memories is of calling on her great aunt, a Texan socialite. Three generations would come together for a ‘sit and visit’ but even at the age of five Clark was easily distracted. “I remember  sneaking off to the bathroom where she had Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights and then staring at that for a really long time.” She shows me the St Christopher pendant her great aunt passed on: “I haven’t taken it off since I started touring, bar the occasional photo shoot. I’m not sure she was particularly religious: I think her faith was ‘sherry’.”

Clark’s musical education began in Dallas. “It was really kismet,” she says. “There was a giant box of CDs outside our house one day. Someone with great music taste had been moving and it had fallen out of their car.” Clark learnt to play guitar with Tommy Hiett from Zoo Music and created a bedroom studio at home with help from her uncle, jazz guitarist Tuck Andress. She played her first shows in Texas – for a secular audience in a bar in Deep Ellum and a devout one in the First Unitarian Church. It was to Dallas that she reluctantly returned after dropping out of Berklee College of Music in Boston, aged 22. At this point her sister, Amy, suggested Clark might be better off getting a job at Starbucks.

We hit the road in a 50-foot ‘Entertainer’ coach, whose retro styling and racks of fringed clothing make it feel as if we are in danger of an Almost Famous style singalong. Clark clearly delights in showing us her hometown – it takes some creative chutzpah to pose like Anita Ekberg outside a venue selling a ‘Loaded Up & Truckin’ Burger’. Having spent ten years on various tour buses, Clark is agreeably no-nonsense. “Make sure you ask her what it’s like being a woman in music,” says her mother Sharon, mischievously. Her daughter offers an eye roll for the ages. “Yes, I really love justifying every decision I have ever made through gender.”

As we cruise along Interstate 75, Clark flips through magazines, alighting on Cara Delevingne’s Chanel ad campaign: “It’s the goof! She’s so pretty. That’s definitely what I’d wear to skateboard.” Delevingne has visited Clark in Texas: “I’ve never seen someone eat so many tacos!” We discuss the British model’s status – a lone irreverent figure on the catwalk. “For someone so beautiful and so lauded by the fashion industry, she’s the least vain person ever.” I ask if the pair are dating again. “Erm… I would just say we’re really close and important to each other. She’s the sweetest, kindest person. That charm and being genuine is a rare combination.”

We arrive at the last location: a cocktail bar called Lounge Here. The owner, Julie Doyle, managed and sang with The Polyphonic Spree, the befrocked choir Clark joined in 2005. “Annie was shy but eager,” Doyle explains. “She grew quite a bit as a performer and guitarist in her time with us. She was a star before she even knew it, I believe.” Clark recalls that particular tour with unabashed glee: “I remember feeling so cool – we’re playing all these stages around Europe. Sonic Youth is playing after us! People were big and friendly and fun and manic. It was a dream come true.” Clark’s travels have given her a newfound affection for her countrymen. “There is an openness to Texans: there’s a saying, ‘Don’t get too big for your britches’. There’s a premium put on humility, which is nice and very rare in the world.” Yet many misconceptions about Dallas endure. “Either people have seen the TV show or they think of cowboys,” she explains. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve said, ‘I’m from Texas’, and people say, ‘Oh, did you ride a horse to school?’”

The following day is what Texan traditionalists might describe as “hotter than a two-dollar pistol”. Clark picks me up in her own black BMW saloon. She’s wearing a black Tupac T-shirt and shorts decorated with skeletons. The look is a little ‘Wednesday Addams at Summer Camp’ – until she changes with delight into the vintage Pearl Jam T-shirt I’ve brought along as a gift (she lost hers after a close encounter with West Texan wildlife, immortalised in her track Rattlesnake). She reverses the car, turns off her Steely Dan album, tells a true crime story that chills me to the bone, picks up an iced coffee and we drive to White Rock Lake.

Clark has brought me to her teenage hangout. It’s a chance to see a different side to Dallas, under Cormac McCarthy’s ‘unsheltering’ Texan skies. We park between Boy Scout Hill and ‘Big Thicket’, before walking over Mockingbird Bridge. At one point a cyclist overtakes us, his stereo blasting the preposterous sax solo from Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. As he puffily pootles away, Clark doesn’t bat an eyelid. She thinks that Texas still has an ability to bring out strangeness. “Throw in a touch of fire and brimstone, a splash of cowboy spirit… and you have a Texas weirdo.”

The temperature rises and we take a seat in the shade. An elderly couple fishing nearby politely  enquire, “We’re not going to distract y’all are we?” I ask Clark about life on the radar of international designers. “I feel like fashion has given me two kisses on the cheek. It’s not a full bear hug,” she says. Clark agrees Dallas is a city obsessed with style: “If you’ve ever watched Frederick Wiseman’s documentary film The Store: it’s all footage of women in the 1980s at the downtown Neiman Marcus buying clothes. Back in that day, fur was the biggest status symbol in Dallas – because for 364 days it’s completely irrelevant. It’s hot in Dallas. All. The. Time.”

Clark’s own memories of her time in Dallas centre on attempting to extricate herself from her surroundings by sheer force of will. “I remember driving around this lake alone, listening to music, waiting for something to happen,” she says. “I wanted to find the cool people, who were doing things and living wild lives. And I naively thought if I just drove around with the windows down, listening to music that I loved, that people would see and go, ‘Oh, I also love this. We can meet each other.’” She prides individuality above everything else: “I think it was Brian Eno who said cool is the by-product of being uniquely yourself.”

Performing live remains a cathartic experience. “At times, it has been an exorcism,” she says. “There have been moments on stage when I can feel everybody’s sorrow, joy, fears, hopes. It’s almost like looking into a vortex…” She stops herself, keen not to sound pretentious. “I’m a person who is frankly allergic to spirituality – I don’t want to ever say ‘Namaste’ to a white girl.”

What’s clear is that Clark’s in a good place: spiritually, metaphorically and, for the next few days at least, literally. She has also shown what’s possible with a life on the road. How you can grow up in Texas, educate yourself in Boston, experience Europe, work out of LA, New York and Seattle – before returning to your family and the places you’ll never forget. Hell, along the way, you may even fall in love with a British supermodel who loves Mexican food. Travel gives you a new perspective on home. It teaches you to love the state you’re in.