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denimbex1986 · 8 months

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'The love stories of British filmmaker Andrew Haigh aren’t the kind of Hollywood romance flings that will have you wanting to toss your partner into bed; rather, they are the kind of anxiety-provoking films that keep you awake at night fixated on the ceiling. Exploring how love can enhance your life but also how it can torment you in times of loneliness, Haigh’s clear interest in the search for self and the fantasy of true love culminate in All of Us Strangers, his latest feature that treats wistful sorrow as spectral manifestations.

Such gothic apparitions are treated as ghouls in Taichi Yamada’s original novel Strangers, but in Haigh’s adaptation, they are no scarier than your mother asking if you ‘want more tea’. “That idea of meeting your parents again is so fascinating as a central idea, and I’m sort of confused, it’s not been done more often,” Haigh says of the central concept, “So, I took that idea, and then it was like, ‘Okay, how can I make this personal to me.’”

Partly inspired by Haigh’s own experience dealing with his father’s dementia and the eventuality of revealing his sexuality to him once more, All of Us Strangers tells the story of Adam (Andrew Scott), a screenwriter penning a tale about his childhood who, upon revisiting his childhood home, finds their ghosts occupying the space as if they’d never passed away at all. Understandably, he refrains from revealing this to his newfound lover, Harry (Paul Mescal), seemingly the only other occupant of the towering apartment block on the edge of London.

Once Haigh had stripped away the more fantastical elements of the novel and added the gay romance, “it sort of unlocked everything” for the filmmaker, “’Ah, okay, I can now talk about queerness in relationship to family, I can talk about essentially the trauma of growing up gay in the 1980s, and I can associate it and wrap it up with another trauma which for Adam in the story was the loss of his parents”.

It was a “knotty and fascinating” writing process, especially as it was penned during the Covid-19 pandemic, with this sense of isolation and existential vulnerability seeping into the film like a steady stream of city smog. Extraordinarily timely, its themes seem like a direct moral antidote to the contemporary epidemic of loneliness, with Haigh being wary of his film’s efforts to solve this phenomenon.

“It is about trying to connect, trying to know people, getting them to know you, being compassionate to each other. That is what love is about,” he eloquently exclaims, “When you are a parent to a child, you have desperate compassion for that child, you want to understand that child. Really, that’s the same in romantic relationships, too. That is what a romantic relationship, if it’s successful, is, because you feel deep compassion for that person, and you don’t want them to be alone”.

This isn’t the first time these themes have arisen in his filmography either, with ruminations of abandonment and vulnerability bubbling beneath the surface of everything from his breakthrough 2011 romance Weekend to his Oscar-nominated 45 Years. “I am so well aware that everything I’ve done, even the things that might not seem like they are related, are related,” he admits, even linking the BBC drama The North Water to his feature films under one central interest in complex characters searching for a morsel of stability.

Undoubtedly, it’s Weekend that shares the most likeness with his latest movie, with the humble indie film being the last time Haigh last made an explicitly gay romance, telling the story of two men in Nottingham who fall in love after a chance encounter. “I knew this film was always going to be in conversation with that film,” Haigh states, well aware of the similarities, “But it’s 11 years later, and everything has changed in 11 years for queer people. So much has changed, and in a weird way, there’s a lot of new things to talk about and discuss, but at the same time, the central feeling is similar”.

“Adam is feeling the same separation from the world that Russell feels in Weekend,” Haigh adds, drawing parallels between the leads in All of Us Strangers and 2011’s Weekend, “That in itself is interesting to me, that time can move on, that everything can change, but you can still feel trapped in a feeling unless you can go back and unpick why you have that feeling inside you”.

Untangling such a network of complex emotions about one’s troubled past is no easy feat, but the music so often acts as the remedy to this bewilderment, allowing everything to seemingly make sense, if just for a few minutes. This is a comfort for Adam throughout All of Us Strangers, where the likes of the Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes to Hollywood become figurative family members, giving weight and comfort to his every emotion.

“I can still now listen to music from the late 1990s, and I can suddenly feel like I’m in a club again. I can feel it,” Haigh expresses with wistful investment, “And a song from when I was a kid, I can suddenly know what it was like to listen to that in my bedroom. And you know, those were songs that I cared about when I was young, and most of them were written into the script”.

Used as some sort of therapy throughout the movie, Haigh took great care as to what songs did and didn’t make the cut, focusing largely on 1980s pop music: “The great thing about pop music is that it reflects and articulates ideas and complicated emotions that people can’t always express. I think that’s why teenagers and kids love pop music because it expresses ideas that they can’t express yet because they’re not old enough to and they’re not wise enough to”.

As Adam utters in the film, “It doesn’t take much to make you feel the way you felt back there again,” and with every cinematic flourish of Haigh’s wand, he proves this beyond doubt, effortlessly dragging the protagonist and audience back to a different time and place entirely. The visceral meditation on adolescence has already enchanted critics the world over, with Haigh’s film being recognised at the Bifas, where it walked away with the lion’s share of prizes, the Golden Globes and the forthcoming Baftas.

“I’m not craving awards,” he modestly admits, “But we won at the Bifas and that was really nice to have won there. I’ve been in British Independent Film for quite a long time, and I’ve never won anything at the Bifas, so it felt like it felt special”. Haigh’s tune may indeed change if he was to be given a nod in a major category at the Academy Awards, but he asserts, “You want to be in the conversation because it means that people hear about the film and it’s very hard when you make an independent film for anyone to actually know about it. You’re constantly battling to try and get it into the ether”.

Regardless of the potential of awards recognition, Haigh’s film has already profoundly captured the ethereal sense of contemporary loneliness that shrouds the zeitgeist, bottling a mood not too dissimilar to Charlotte Wells’ wondrous 2023 debut Aftersun. An odyssey of love that spans generations, Haigh’s sombre drama pulsates with a genuine hope for human connection, protesting the differences that keep so many of us apart.

Given his fondness for love stories focused on characters learning to find themselves before falling for anyone else, it’s likely that Haigh’s next project won’t stray too far from this path. “I would love to make a musical,” he admits, with this being somewhat unsurprising given his perfectly timed needle drops throughout his filmography, yet his desire to make “a massive apocalyptic disaster film” is a little more off-brand.

Still, in the same vein as Mike Leigh’s 1993 Palme d’Or nominee Naked, whose apocalyptic musings have made the film an iconic piece of British filmmaking, it’s certainly not outlandish to see Haigh’s recent movie as part of the same thematic genre. “That’s my apocalyptic end of the world movie,” he jokes when the idea is broached, yet in all the film’s delicate sadness and hopeful plea in the face of catastrophe, it’s now hard to see it as anything but.'

#Andrew Haigh #Weekend #45 Years #All of Us Strangers #Andrew Scott #Paul Mescal #Strangers #Taichi Yamada #The North Water #Frankie Goes to Hollywood #Pet Shop Boys #British Independent Film Awards #BAFTAs

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secretlittlerandezvous · 4 years

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A Day With The Benns - Jamie Benn

Summary: A look into the Benns household and a day spent with the family.

To the angel who requested this: From the bottom of my heart THANK YOU. I don't know who you are but I love you - for this request and for the beautiful words that came with it. It keeps making me feel like my heart will burst from happiness. I also thank you for giving me a reason to write about how I see my future life and what I hope for (this is basically me writing about my dream life) 💘🕊💫

Note: D/n means “daughter’s name”. The bedtime story is an excerpt from the book “Goodnight, hockey fans” by Andrew Larsen.

Words: 2487

“The truest, best love had nothing to do with luck. Luck was faithless, and worth little. True love wasn’t fancy, and it wasn’t magical, but simply true in every sense: honest, loyal and sure.” — Sonja Yoerg

It was that kind of a morning when you wake up and you know summer finally arrived. The sun was nicely warm and comforting unlike the stinging and cold winter sun, the birds were chirping in the trees from early in the morning and the air was fresh and warm. Y/n was woken up by the streaks of sunlight creeping into the bedroom through the window. She opened her eyes for a second and then closed them again and enjoyed the peace she felt which was quite unusual in the past few weeks. She didn’t hear a baby crying or the older kids running around the house wildly, she wasn’t woken up by them jumping on the bed to wake her up or by her husband leaving early for work. She loved her life and the chaos of it but it felt so nice to have a calm morning for once. After she fully enjoyed the silence, she opened her eyes, stretched her arms, and with a smile already present on her face she turned around to see her husband. Jamie had his back to her, but she certainly enjoyed the view at her husband’s muscular back and arms and she even blushed at the sight of him. But what warmed her heart, what couldn’t be beaten by his tattoos or muscles was the way he talked to their four months old baby girl. He had his arm protectively around her and Y/n found the contrast of his strong tattooed arm and her tiny little hand and fingers covered in a pink onesie absolutely adorable. He tickled her on her belly, and she smiled at him or watched him with her bright eyes with pure love. Y/n and the kids wished he could spend a little more time with them but they all understood why he couldn’t and whenever he was home he made the most of it and he dedicated his time to help his wife and to entertain the kids.

“Good morning my loves,” Y/n said happily as she looked over Jamie’s shoulder, kissed his cheek, and then smiled at their daughter who got even more excited when she noticed her.

“See? I told you mommy will wake up soon to give you a breakfast,” Jamie said to the little one. “Unfortunately, that’s the only thing I can’t do honey.” He said to Y/n and kissed her back.

“Not sure if anyone would want you to breastfeed babe,” she joked and took their daughter into her arms to feed her. “Are the kiddos awake?”

“Don’t think so,” Jamie mumbled. “I’ll go wake them up in a bit.” But first, he wanted to enjoy his wife’s company.

She was beautiful. He found her so beautiful. And he adored everything about her. Her kindness, the way she always loved him even though he could get a little grumpy sometimes. The way she handled everything with such ease. How smart she was. How supportive and understanding she was of him and his career. How she raised the kids, took care of them and their household on her own when he was away, and never used that against him. How good she was at her own job. How she created such a loving atmosphere in their family. Everything.

Jamie soon left to wake up the two older boys who even despite the complaints got out of the bed pretty quick and happily ran downstairs to help their dad in the kitchen. Y/n stayed behind a little to take care of D/n and to put herself together before she headed to the kitchen to join the rest of the pack. She heard laughter and giggles coming from there and she stopped and listened to the conversation they were having, she smiled to herself and enjoyed everything that was said.

Y/n often felt that she didn’t have enough time to pause and enjoy the present moment, but she was slowly learning to do so. The kids were growing up way too fast for her liking, life kept moving forward without a chance of it ever slowing down and she got sad at times when she realized how fast the kids will turn into adults. Y/n wanted to stay stuck in time, stay this old for a little longer and have the kids stay little longer, and have more time to process it all. But mostly she wanted a little more time off for Jamie who even though never said it out loud regretted not being there for them all the time. But they knew he loved them more than anything or anyone else in the world and that was enough.

“Can we go skating with you dad?” Their oldest son asked with hope, but he knew what answer was coming. He asked the same question, every morning when Jamie was home and about to go to practice. Each time the answer was no but he never gave up. The positive attitude towards everything and how he was never losing hope was Jamie’s favorite trait of their oldest son. It reminded him of Y/n.

“You know you can’t come with me buddy,” Jamie said with a sad voice. He hated saying no to him and he even wished he could bring the boys with him, but it was never convenient. “But I can ask the boys and we can go skating together on the weekend. What do you think?”

“I think we should hurry up,” Y/n joined the conversation, but no one heard her because the boys started screaming in excitement. She then sat down at the table and enjoyed the pancakes Jamie and the boys made for her and she helped their younger son with eating because he preferred to play with it rather than eating it. “Did you guys tell daddy where you’re going today?”

“No,” the older boy said. “We’re going to the zoo with the kindergarten.”

“And you wanted to miss the zoo to go skating? The zoo’s more fun for sure.” Jamie answered.

After the tasty breakfast, everyone headed to the bathroom to get ready for kindergarten and the day. Jamie helped them brush their teeth and hair, he even let them use a tiny little amount of his deodorant because both boys adored their dad and wanted to be just like him. It wasn’t rare for the boys to draw on their hands and pretend the drawings were real tattoos or them putting on Jamie’s hockey gear and playing hockey around the house. Y/n in the meantime prepared their outfits, soothed the crying baby, and managed to get dressed up without being disturbed.

“I’ll drop the kids at the kindergarten,” Jamie whispered as he wrapped his hands around Y/n’s waist from behind and hugged her tightly. “And I’ll try to get back home sooner than usual, and we can then do something fun.”

“Aren’t you amazing?” Y/n said happily, turning around to face Jamie, wrapping her hands around his neck, and kissing him before he got to answer. She expected a cocky answer from him, and she wanted to avoid it.

A few minutes later the whole family was outside their house, all of them about to head in different directions to different places. The boys were going to the kindergarten, Jamie to the arena and Y/n and D/n were going for a regular check-up at the doctor. “I love you boys,” said with a proud face and kissed all three boys goodbye.

“And we love you girls,” Jamie said, kissed Y/N and their daughter and the boys repeated after him before they all jumped into the car.

Later that day after Y/n returned home from the doctors and the grocery store, she cooked lunch for herself and then picked up the boys from the kindergarten. They then went for a walk around the neighborhood to put D/n to sleep in her stroller and the boys being the amazing brothers argued about who was gonna push the stroller. Y/n felt joy in her heart she couldn’t describe. She was simply proud of how loving the boys were.

When Jamie returned home, 2 hours earlier than usual, he expected to find his pack in the living room and he secretly hoped they would greet him, but the house was empty. He went to the living room and that’s when he finally found Y/n and the kids. They were in the garden enjoying the warm weather and the sunshine, eating some fruit, and playing with way too many things but they seemed to be enjoying. Jamie watched them from behind the glass door and adored Y/n once again. She was smiling widely, she glowed and looked even prettier than usual at that moment. She was showing D/n some flowers they probably picked in their garden and D/n was from what Jamie saw laughing at it. The boys were sitting on the blankets around the girls, their younger son was drawing something (and judging from the dozens of papers lying around it wasn’t his first artwork that day) and the older son was playing the puzzles while telling Y/n some exciting story. She listened carefully to every word and looked at the kids with so much love and adoration that Jamie wondered how he could get so lucky.

“Dad!” The younger boy screamed when Jamie came to the garden and both boys happily ran towards him to hug him.

“When you said you were gonna come home earlier I didn’t expect it would be this early,” Y/n said to Jamie as he sat down next to her. “But I’m not complaining. I missed you.”

“Missed you too love,” Jamie whispered as he leaned closer to kiss her and he then picked up D/n and took her in his arms to cuddle with her. Jamie was such a great dad and Y/n always knew he would be even though Jamie used to call himself a boy dad and say that he wouldn’t know what to do with a girl. But the moment they found out their next baby was going to be a girl he changed his mind completely and couldn’t wait to have a daughter. And from the second she was born she had him wrapped around her finger. “If you want you can go take a nap, I’ll stay there with the kids. I know you didn’t get much sleep.” Jamie offered.

At the first moment, she wanted to accept the offer and go to bed but when she looked around, she changed her mind. The sky was still blue, the sun was still shining, and the kids were having way too much fun and there was no way she was gonna miss this moment with her whole family. “I think I’ll stay right here.” She said with a smile.

The family stayed in the garden until the sun disappeared from the sky and just when the air got significantly colder, they all realized it was time to head home and have dinner. Neither one of them wanted to move because they were having so much fun but all of them were hungry and tired after a long day. The boys happily helped Y/n with dinner and although it took a little longer and the kitchen was a little messier than if Y/n did it on her own she enjoyed it as any other activity with her loves. Dinner was a favorite time of the day in the Benn family because it was usually the time when they all gathered and spent time together. For Y/n it was a time where she finally had everyone home and that was when she felt best even if it meant Jamie would leave for a game later. Jamie loved it because he was finally home with the ones most important to him and nothing could ever compare to the warmth of being home with his family. The kids loved dinner just as any other time they would get to eat but even they knew it meant they would most likely be all together.

“Dad? Can you read to us tonight?” One of the boys asked Jamie after the dinner.

“Of course!” Jamie answered with excitement. “Go brush your teeth and I’ll be there in a second okay?”

The boys listened and ran upstairs to their bathroom to brush their teeth and put on their pajamas and quickly jumped to bed and waited for Jamie. Jamie soon left Y/n alone in the living room so she could feed the baby in peace and went to the boys’ room.

“Alright, boys, ready?” Jamie asked the boys as he sat down with the book the boys picked. It was their favorite book about hockey that Jamie got them when they were younger and both Jamie and Y/n lost track of the number of times they read it to them. “A young boy doesn't want to go to bed. The hockey game is on! ‘What if I can't fall asleep?’ the boy says. ‘Don't worry,’ says his dad. ‘You will.’ After his parents have tucked him in and turned out the light, he shines a flashlight on his prized hockey possessions around his room: the posters of his favorite players, the pennant for his favorite team, the puck.” Jamie read. Not for too long though, the boys well asleep after a few minutes. “Good night boys,” Jamie said quietly as he left the room.

Y/n just finished putting D/n to sleep when Jamie walked into their bedroom. “That was quick,” Y/n noted.

“Told you I have a talent at putting the kids to sleep.” He said with a grin. “Abd good night to my little princess.” He whispered and kissed his little girl gently on her forehead before Y/n put her into her crib.

“You’re just lucky,” Y/n answered.

“I am,” Jamie said with a proud smile as he looked at his wife. He knew he was lucky. He hardly ever told this to his family, but he knew they knew he loved them more than anything. “And now I can finally focus purely on you.” He announced when he got out of the shower and went to Y/n.

“This was one of the nicest days in a while Jamie,” Y/n snuggled to Jamie and traced Jamie’s tattoos mindlessly. “Oh, and you better don’t forget to take the kids skating on the weekend. They were talking about it all day.” She laughed.

“I told the team and they all agreed to hang out,” he said. “And now give me a big kiss.” He said seriously.

“You’re horrible,” Y/n laughed before she kissed him. No matter how annoying and cocky he could get she loved him with all her heart.

#jamie benn #jamie benn imagine #jamie benn one shot #jamie benn writing #jamie benn imagines #dallas stars #dallas stars imagine #dallas stars writing #dallas stars one shot #dallas stars imagines #nhl players imagine #nhl imagine #nhl one shot #nhl writing #nhl imagines #hockey imagine #hockey one shot #hockey writing #hockey imagines

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thetrap · 4 years

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why i think deancas just might go canon

i’ve been wanting to write this for a bit, but i haven’t really had the time until now. basically this is just a super unorganized collection of thoughts i have on why i think that dean and castiel actually have a fairly decent shot of becoming canon (and by decent shot i mean like.....a solid 5% chance. and that’s being generous). this is based off of the show itself (obviously), quotes from andrew dabb, and other things.

1. andrew dabb is deancas positive

i made a post a while back that never made it out of the drafts, but it was basically a summation of all the good deancas shit dabb has given us as a writer. here are the bullet points:

- the hug/"i'm not leaving here without you!" moment in purgatory (8x02)

- "don't lose it over one man"

- "he's in love.....with humanity"

- cas/colette parallel ("dean. stop.") in 10x22

- just the fight scene from the prisoner in general like......wow

- sam/jess and dean/cas parallel in 12x23

- "we've lost everything......and now, you're gonna bring him back" + dean's just generally overwhelming grief in 13x01

- "and how is it that you lost dean? i thought the two of you were joined at the.....you know, everything"

and these are just the big moments.

also notable is the fact that an activist sent dabb (and some of the other producers of spn i think) a book about dean and cas and why the fans want it/why it would be a good thing for the show. a few years later, meghan fitzmartin (who wrote the most recent episode!) was hired as dabb’s assistant, went into his office and posted a tweet a with pictures of the book, saying something along the lines of “doing some reading for work!”

the fact that dabb actually kept a fanmade deancas book for years.....the fact that he’s consistently written episodes with really strong subtext for years.....the fact that the dean and castiel romantic tension has only picked up since he took over as showrunner (mixtape, lily sunder, cas’s death, dean’s grief arc, the entirety of season fifteen, etc.)......idk i just think it’s really interesting that there has been such a marked shift since he was put in charge.

2. the mixtape

i know this was a few seasons ago, but it’s still relevant because like. a mixtape is not platonic. this scene was not platonic. full-stop.

and it’s not even the act by itself; it’s also the dialogue!! “it was a gift. you keep those.” this is more than likely a direct callback to aragorn and arwen in lord of the rings (that’s the first thing i thought of, at least).

the fact that dabb let this slide, like......he knows what this looks like. berens and glynn, who wrote this episode, know what it looks like. they knew precisely how this would be perceived, and then wrote and aired the scene anyways.

and that’s not even getting into the camerawork. like what?? was this shot???

yeah so. definitely not platonic.

3. the trap

honestly i thought about just posting this part of this overlong essay thing, because to me, this is the episode where i went okay, so this might actually happen.

there are SO many things in this episode that made me go insane the first time i watched it (”i left, but you didn’t stop me”) but the thing that stuck out to me the most was dean’s reaction to castiel saying, “you don’t have to say it. i heard your prayer,” when dean tries to tell him something.

like?????? he does not look relieved!! nor does he look particularly happy!!

hell, if you go back and watch the video you can literally see him swallow his words down like....jensen ackles is the master of micro expressions and that shit is Not Accidental. this moment 100% gives the vibe that there is something that is not being said. the camera following dean as he gives cas a lingering look is really interesting too.

3. dabb’s comments about dean and cas in season 15

this part is actually sort of related to the point above, since a lot of dabb’s comments are in reference to “the trap.” here are some interesting ones that i want to point out:

But the Leviathan won’t be the focal point of the purgatory story. Rather, it’s about what Dean and Castiel are going through. “They’re not going to resolve the emotional stuff, but it allows them to redefine their friendship a little bit in light of what’s happened especially earlier this season,” Dabb says. (x)

the key thing here is that dabb said that, in 15x09, dean and cas are “not going to resolve the emotional stuff.”

now. i don’t know about you, but dean falling to his knees, praying to cas and weeping feels a lot like emotional resolution to me. like, sure, things will probably be awkward between them for a while, but surely this is the peak moment of their emotional vulnerability with each other, right? surely this is the moment where they’ve resolved the issue between them? like how the fuck does it get more intensely emotional than this??

yet dabb seems to be implying that it will, which leaves us with the million dollar question: what is left about dean and cas’ relationship to resolve?

keep in mind that as of 15x16, there hasn’t been much forward movement on that front; that is, we’ve had some cute moments between them, but in terms of serious conversation about their relationship, there’s been basically nothing. so we can assume that this development, whatever it is, will occur in 15x18, since dean and cas will be separated for most of 15x17, as cas will be off with sam.

aka the episode where cas will likely get yanked away by the empty. aka the episode with the teary (!!!) conversation we saw in the promo between dean and cas.

also notable from the above quote is dabb saying that dean and cas are redefining their friendship. like....redefining how? to what?? that wording is just really interesting to me.

another quote from dabb re “the trap”:

(x)

it forces them to “start that process.” indicating yet again that the prayer scene between dean and cas is not the moment where whatever is between them is resolved. yet, from where we are right now, dean and cas seem mostly fine. which means that whatever they have yet to work out doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with their fight.

lastly:

a really significant chunk of what happens to dean in 15x09 is him confronting his issues with cas. don’t get me wrong - there are other important things that happen in the episode - but the fact that an episode where so much time/emotional energy is given to dean and cas’ dynamic is considered a turning point for dean is very notable and, to me, speaks to the importance of their relationship for the rest of the season.

4. dean/cas and sam/eileen being set up as units

i’m of the opinion that sam and dean will (by choice) go their separate ways at the end of the show. i think this for a variety of reasons that i wrote about here, and to add onto this, i think that dean/cas and sam/eileen are, in a way, being set up as two units.

this theory comes from two points:

1. the fact that eileen got brought back at all

this isn’t to say that eileen isn’t an interesting character all on her own/outside of her romance with sam, but the fact that they brought her back and then proceeded to set her up in this romance feels really significant to me. what’s especially interesting is how, even after she leaves in 15x09, we get a continuation of their romance in 15x14. i don’t necessarily think that she’s sam’s endgame in the sense that the final episode will show sam going to her or whatever, but i do think that part of the reason she was brought back was so that sam would have someone who he loves/someone he could potentially build a life with after he and dean defeat chuck.

2. the way the two couples were portrayed in “the trap”

like....just watch the future scenes in the bunker. there’s very much a sense that these are two couples living together. and “ever since the mark made cas go crazy, ever since i had to bury him in a ma’lak box.” note the use of i, not we. and then dean/cas and sam/eileen are directly paralleled when dean tells sam he needs to give it up after eileen’s death, comparing it to how dean has given it up after having to bury cas in the ma’lak box.

5. dean does not do Well without cas

this is probably an understatement. there have been a couple of notable instances in this season where the viewer is given a glimpse of what happens to dean when cas dies/is in danger of death/is separated from dean (in case the whole ass widower arc in s13 wasn’t enough).

two of these are from “the trap”:

1. dean freaking out/crying/praying when he’s separated from cas in purgatory

2. dean giving up on life/hunting after burying cas in the ma’lak box in the future world

3. dean’s reaction to cas temporarily going to the empty in 15x13

the one i want to spend the most time on is number two, in large part because sam was witness to it and i think that this might get brought up in 15x17.

part of my spec for that episode is that cas will tell sam about his deal/sam will find out somehow, and in reaction sam might tell cas about how dean reacted to his death in s13 - a conversation that was notably absent from the show when cas finally returned in 13x05. i also think that he might mention no. 2 above, basically telling cas that if he dies, dean is done. that he won’t be able to handle it/move past it. the show has been telling us this over and over for a while now, and it’s only been emphasized more in season 15. i think that 15x17 is the episode where this will finally be verbally expressed.

to me, all of this emphasis on dean giving up when cas is gone isn’t for nothing. in my opinion, it’s being done very purposefully to set up an endgame where dean and cas are together in some sense of the word. and a lot of what i’ve said above is what makes me think it’ll be a Romantic together.

5. bobo berens’ three part deancas saga

so we all know that berens is pretty much spn’s foremost deancas warrior, and what i want to point out here is how this season has been utilizing him as a writer.

this season, berens has three solo episodes (he wrote “galaxy brain” with meredith glynn):

1. the rupture

2. the trap

3. despair (formerly known as “the truth”)

so far, these first two episodes have had major deancas moments. you could even label them as:

1. the rupture (the breakup)

2. the trap (the reconciliation)

3. depair (???)

keep in mind also that berens wrote 14x18, where the dean and cas sort of had a preliminary breakup. he’s been in charge of this arc for a while, and the fact that so much of his writing this season has been deancas focused.......i don’t know, i just think it’s significant in part because, while berens has always been deancas positive, he also writes plenty of episodes that aren’t focused on dean and cas. but now, in the final season, the dean and cas emotional arc has been handed to him, and it’s been the primary focus on his writing.

(sidenote: berens was promoted to executive producer for this final season)

to me, this is all leading to a big moment between dean and cas in 15x18 - and the fact that it was at one point called “the truth,” only to be switched back to despair - makes me think that there will be some sort of confession involved. my money is on cas being the one to say it (especially since this would line up with the leak), especially given the glimpse we saw of (what might be) this moment in the promo. which leads me to...

6. cas does not cry

i saved this for last because the promo where we see teary-eyed cas is actually what pulled me back into this shitshow.

cas does not cry. like. ever. he got a little teary in 15x15, when jack told him of his plan to sacrifice himself, but we have never - never - seen him shed actual tears. and in the promo, particularly that shot where cas says “you have fought for this whole world,” it 100% looks like cas is about to cry cry.

cas has seen his son die. he has seen dean die. he died himself, over and over and over. and we have never seen him cry.

yet for some reason, in this moment of vulnerability with dean, he’s crying. i find it highly unlikely that cas would cry because of his impending death, for a number of reasons (for one, he wouldn’t want to upset dean more than he has to). so, assuming he’s not crying because of his own death, then what is making cas so emotional that he is genuinely crying for the first time in the twelve seasons he has been on the show?

my guys.....i can only think of one thing.

#THIS IS SO FUCKING LONG OH MY GOD #i'm so sorry for this i just have SO many thoughts about this and had to get them all down #disclaimer: i still think it's highly unlikely we'll get confirmed romantic deancas #but i do think there's a chance #and this is why #deancas #destiel #s15 spoilers #spec

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Anonymous said: I didn’t know too much about the late British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton until I followed your superbly cultured blog. As an ivy league educated American reading your posts, I feel he is a breath of fresh air as a sane and cultured conservative intellectual. We don’t really have his kind over here where things are heavily polarized between left and right, and sadly, we are often uncivil in our discourse. Sir Roger Scruton talks a lot about beauty especially in art (as indeed you do too), so for Scruton why does beauty as an aesthetic matter in art? Why should we care?

I thank you for your very kind words about my blog which I fear is not worthy of such fulsome praise.

However one who is worthy of praise (or at least gratitude and appreciation at least) is the late Sir Roger Scruton. I have had the pleasure to have met him on a few informal occasions.

Most memorably, I once got invited to High Table dinner at Peterhouse, Cambridge, by a friend who was a junior Don there. This was just after I had finished my studies at Cambridge and rather than pursue my PhD I opted instead to join the British army as a combat pilot officer. And so I found out that Scruton was dining too. We had very pleasant drinks in the SCR before and after dinner. He was exceptionally generous and kind in his consideration of others; we all basked in the gentle warmth of his wit and wisdom.

I remember talking to him about Xanthippe, Socrate’s wife, because I had read his wickedly funny fictional satire. In the book he credits the much maligned Xanthippe with being the brains behind all of Socrates’ famous philosophical ideas (as espoused by Plato).

On other occasions I had seen Roger Scruton give the odd lecture in London or at some cultural forum.

Other than that, I’ve always admire both the man and many of his ideas from afar. I do take issue with some of his intellectual ideas which seem to be taken a tad too far (he think pre-Raphaelites were kitsch) but it’s impossible to dislike the man in person.

Indeed the Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen reportedly once refused to teach a seminar with Scruton, although they later became very good friends. This is the gap between the personal and the public persona. In public he was reviled as hate figure by some of the more intolerant of the leftists who were trying to shut him down from speaking. But in private his academic peers, writers, and philosophers, regardless of their political beliefs, hugely respected him and took his ideas seriously - because only in private will they ever admit that much of what Scruton talks about has come to pass.

In many ways he was like C.S. Lewis - a pariah to the Oxbridge establishment. At Oxford many dons poo-pooed his children stories, and especially his Christian ideas of faith, culture, and morality, and felt he should have laid off the lay theology and stuck to his academic speciality of English Literature. But an Oxford friend, now a don, tells me that many dons read his theological works in private because much of what he wrote has become hugely relevant today.

Scruton was a man of parts, some of which seemed irreconcilable: barrister, aesthetician, distinguished professor of aesthetics. Outside of brief pit stops at Cambridge, Oxford, and St Andrews, he was mostly based out of Birkbeck College, London University, which had a tradition of a working-class intake and to whom Scruton was something of a popular figure. He was also an editor of the ultra-Conservative Salisbury Review, organist, and an enthusiastic fox hunter. In addition he wrote over 50 books on philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture, sexuality, and religion, as well as finding time to write novels and two operas. He was widely recognised for his services to philosophy, teaching and public education, receiving a knighthood in 2016.

He was exactly the type of polymath England didn’t know what to do with because we British do discourage such continental affectations and we prefer people to know their lane and stick to it. Above all we’re suspicious of polymaths because no one likes a show off. Scruton could be accused of a few things but he never perceived as a show off. He was a gentle, reserved, and shy man of kindly manners.

He was never politically ‘Conservative’, or tried not to be. Indeed he encouraged many to think about defining “a philosophy of conservatism” and not “a philosophy for the Conservative Party.” In defining his own thoughts, he positioned conservatism to relation to its historical rivals, liberalism and socialism. He wrote that liberalism was the product of the enlightenment, which viewed society as a contract and the state as a system for guaranteeing individual rights. While he saw socialism as the product of the industrial revolution, and an ideology which views society as an economic system and the state as a means of distributing social wealth.

Like another great English thinkers, Michael Oakeshott, he felt that conservatives leaned more towards liberalism then socialism, but argued that for conservatives, freedom should also entail responsibility, which in turn depends on public spirit and virtue. Many classical liberals would agree.

In fact, he criticised Thatcherism for “its inadequate emphasis on the civic virtues, such as self-sacrifice, duty, solidarity and service of others.” Scruton agreed with classical liberals in believing that markets are not necessarily expressions of selfishness and greed, but heavily scolded his fellow Conservatives for allowing themselves to be caricatured as leaving social problems to the market. Classical liberals could be criticised for the same neglect.

Perhaps his conservative philosophy was best summed up when he wrote “Liberals seek freedom, socialists equality, and conservatives responsibility. And, without responsibility, neither freedom nor equality have any lasting value.”

Scruton’s politics were undoubtedly linked to his philosophy, which was broadly Hegelian. He took the view that all of the most important aspects of life – truth (the perception of the world as it is), beauty (the creation and appreciation of things valued for their own sake), and self-realisation (the establishment by a person of a coherent, autonomous identity) – can be achieved only as part of a cultural community within which meaning, standards and values are validated. But he had a wide and deep understanding of the history of western philosophy as a whole, and some of his best philosophical work consisted of explaining much more clearly than is often the case how different schools of western philosophy relate to one another.

People today still forget how he was a beacon for many East European intellectuals living under Communist rule in the 1980s. Scruton was deeply attached in belonging to a network of renowned Western scholars who were helping the political opposition in Eastern Europe. Their activity began in Czechoslovakia with the Jan Hus Foundation in 1980, supported by a broad spectrum of scholars from Jacques Derrida and Juergen Habermas to Roger Scruton and David Regan. Then came Poland, Hungary and later Romania. In Poland, Scruton co-founded the Jagiellonian Trust, a small but significant organisation. The other founders and active participants were Baroness Caroline Cox, Jessica Douglas-Home, Kathy Wilkes, Agnieszka Kołakowska, Dennis O’Keeffe, Timothy Garton Ash, and others.

Scruton had a particular sympathy for Prague and the Czech society, which bore fruit in the novel, Notes from Underground, which he wrote many years later. But his involvement in East European affairs was more than an emotional attachment. He believed that Eastern Europe - despite the communist terror and aggressive social engineering - managed to preserve a sense of historical continuity and strong ties to European and national traditions, more unconscious than openly articulated, which made it even more valuable. For this reason, decades later, he warned his East European friends against joining the European Union, arguing that whatever was left of those ties will be demolished by the political and ideological bulldozer of European bureaucracy.

Anyway, digressions aside, onto to the heart of your question.

Art matters.

Let’s start from there. Regardless of your personal tastes or aesthetics as you stand before a painting, slip inside a photograph, run your hand along the length of a sculpture, or move your body to the arrangements spiraling out of the concert speakers…something very primary - and primal - is happening. And much of it sub-conscious. There’s an element of trust.

Political philosopher, Hannah Arendt, defined artworks as “thought things,” ideas given material form to inspire reflection and rumination. Dialogue. Sometimes even discomfort. Art has the ability to move us, both positively and negatively. So we know that art matters. But the question posed by modern philosophers such as Roger Scruton has been: how do we want it to affect us?

Are we happy with the direction art is taking? Namely, says, Scruton, away from seeking “higher virtues” such as beauty and craftmanship, and instead, towards novelty for novelty’s sake, provoking emotional response under the guise of socio-political discourse.

Why does beauty in art matter?

Scruton asks us to wake up and start demanding something more from art other than disposable entertainment. “Through the pursuit of beauty,” suggests Scruton, “we shape the world as our own and come to understand our nature as spiritual beings. But art has turned its back on beauty and now we are surrounded by ugliness.” The great artists of the past, says Scruton, “were painfully aware that human life was full of care and suffering, but their remedy was beauty. The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation…It shows human life to be worthwhile.” But many modern artists, argues the philosopher, have become weary of this “sacred task” and replaced it with the “randomness” of art produced merely to gain notoriety and the result has been anywhere between kitsch to ugliness that ultimately leads to inward alienation and nihilistic despair.

The best way to understand Scruton’s idea of beauty in art and why it matters is to let him speak for himself. Click below on the video and watch a BBC documentary broadcast way back in 2009 that he did precisely on this subject, why beauty matters. It will not be a wasted hour but perhaps enrich and even enlighten your perspective on the importance of beauty in art.

vimeo

So I’ll do my best to summarise the point Scruton is making in this documentary above.

Here goes.....

In his 2009 documentary “Why Beauty Matters”, Scruton argues that beauty is a universal human need that elevates us and gives meaning to life. He sees beauty as a value, as important as truth or goodness, that can offer “consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy”, therefore showing human life to be worthwhile.

According to Scruton, beauty is being lost in our modern world, particularly in the fields of art and architecture.

I was raised in many different cultures from India, Pakistan, to China, Japan, Southern Africa, and the Middle East as well schooling in rural Britain and Switzerland. So coming home to London on frequent visits was often a confusing experience because of the mismatch of modern art and new architecture. In life and in art I have chosen to see the beauty in things, locating myself in Paris, where I am surrounded by beauty, and understand the impact it can have on the everyday.

Scruton’s disdain for modern art begins with Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. Originally a satirical piece designed to mock the world of art and the snobberies that go with it, it has come to mean that anything can be art and anyone can be an artist. A “cult of ugliness” was created where originality is placed above beauty and the idea became more important than the artwork itself. He argues that art became a joke, endorsed by critics, doing away with a need for skill, taste or creativity.

Duchamp’s argument was that the value of any object lies solely in what each individual assigns it, and thus, anything can be declared “art,” and anyone an artist.

But is there something wrong with the idea that everything is art and everyone an artist? If we celebrate the democratic ideals of all citizens being equal and therefore their input having equal value, doesn’t Duchamp’s assertion make sense?

Who’s to say, after all, what constitutes beauty?

This resonated with me in particular and brought to mind when Scruton meets the artist Michael Craig-Martin and asks him about how Duchamp’s urinal first made him feel. Martin is best known for his work “An Oak Tree” which is a glass of water on a shelf, with text beside it explaining why it is an oak tree. Martin argues that Duchamp captures the imagination and that art is an art because we think of it as such.

When I first saw “An Oak Tree” I was confused and felt perhaps I didn’t have the intellect to understand it. When I would later question it with friends who worked in the art auction and gallery world, the response was always “You just don’t get it,” which became a common defence. To me, it was reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s short tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid or incompetent. In reality, they make no clothes at all.

Scruton argues that the consumerist culture has been the catalyst for this change in modern art. We are always being sold something, through advertisements that feed our appetite for stuff, adverts try to be brash and outrageous to catch our attention. Art mimics advertising as artists attempt to create brands, the product that they sell is themselves. The more shocking and outrageous the artwork, the more attention it receives. Scruton is particularly disturbed by Piero Manzoni’s artwork “Artist’s Shit” which consists of 90 tin cans filled with the artist’s excrement.

Moreover the true aesthetic value, the beauty, has vanished in modern works that are selling for millions of dollars. In such works, by artists like Rothko, Franz Kline, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin, the beauty has been replaced by discourse. The lofty ideals of beauty are replaced by a social essay, however well intentioned.

A common argument for modern art is that it is reflecting modern life in all of its disorder and ugliness. Scruton suggests that great art has always shown the real in the light of the ideal and that in doing so it is transfigured.

A great painting does not necessarily have a beautiful subject matter, but it is made beautiful through the artist’s interpretation of it. Rembrandt shows this with his portraits of crinkly old women and men or the compassion and kindness of which Velazquez paints the dwarfs in the Spanish court. Modern art often takes the literal subject matter and misses the creative act. Scruton expresses this point using the comparison of Tracey Emin’s artwork ‘My Bed’ and a painting by Delacroix of the artist’s bed.

The subject matters are the same. The unmade beds in all of their sordid disdain. Delacroix brings beauty to a thing that lacks it through the considered artistry of his interpretation and by doing so, places a blessing on his own emotional chaos. Emin shares the ugliness that the bed shows by using the literal bed. According to Emin, it is art because she says that it is so.

Philosophers argued that through the pursuit of beauty, we shape the world as our home. Traditional architecture places beauty before utility, with ornate decorative details and proportions that satisfy our need for harmony. It reminds us that we have more than just practical needs but moral and spiritual needs too. Oscar Wilde said “All art is absolutely useless,” intended as praise by placing art above utility and on a level with love, friendship, and worship. These are not necessarily useful but are needed.

We have all experienced the feeling when we see something beautiful. To be transported by beauty, from the ordinary world to, as Scruton calls it, “the illuminated sphere of contemplation.” It is as if we feel the presence of a higher world. Since the beginning of western civilisation, poets and philosophers have seen the experience of beauty as a calling to the divine.

According to Scruton, Plato described beauty as a cosmic force flowing through us in the form of sexual desire. He separated the divine from sexuality through the distinction between love and lust. To lust is to take for oneself, whereas to love is to give. Platonic love removes lust and invites us to engage with it spiritually and not physically. As Plato says, “Beauty is a visitor from another world. We can do nothing with it save contemplate its pure radiance.”

Scruton makes the prescient point that art and beauty were traditionally aligned in religious works of art. Science impacted religion and created a spiritual vacuum. People began to look to nature for beauty, and there was a shift from religious works of art to paintings of landscapes and human life.

In today’s world of art and architecture, beauty is looked upon as a thing of the past with disdain. Scruton believes his vision of beauty gives meaning to the world and saves us from meaningless routines to take us to a place of higher contemplation. In this I think Scruton encourages us not to take revenge on reality by expressing its ugliness, but to return to where the real and the ideal may still exist in harmony “consoling our sorrows and amplifying our joys.”

Scruton believes when you train any of your senses you are privy to a heightened world. The artist sees beauty everywhere and they are able to draw that beauty out to show to others. One finds the most beauty in nature, and nature the best catalyst for creativity. The Tonalist painter George Inness advised artists to paint their emotional response to their subject, so that the viewer may hope to feel it too.

It must be said that Scruton’s views regarding art and beauty are not popular with the modern art crowd and their postmodern advocates. Having written several books on aesthetics, Scruton has developed a largely metaphysical aspect to understanding standards of art and beauty.

Throughout this documentary (and indeed his many books and articles), Scruton display a bias towards ‘high’ art, evidenced by a majority of his examples as well as his dismissal of much modern art. However on everyday beauty, there is much space for Scruton to challenge his own categories and extend his discussion to include examples from popular culture, such as in music, graphic design, and film. Omitting ‘low art’ in the discussion of beauty could lead one to conclude that beauty is not there.

It is here I would part ways with Scruton. I think there is beauty to be found in so called low art of car design, popular music or cinema for example - here I’m thinking of a Ferrari 250 GTO, jazz, or the films of Bergman, Bresson, or Kurosawa (among others) come to mind. Scruton gives short thrift to such 20th century art forms which should not be discounted when we talk of beauty. It’s hard to argue with Jean-Luc Godard for instance when he once said of French film pioneering director, Robert Bresson, “He is the French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music.”

Overall though I believe Scruton does enough to leave us to ponder ourselves on the importance of beauty in the arts and our lives, including fine arts, music, and architecture. I think he succeeds in illuminating the poverty, dehumanisation and fraud of modernist and post-modernist cynicism, reductionism and nihilism. Scruton is rightly prescient in pointing the centrality of human aspiration and the longing for truth in both life and art.

In this he is correct in showing that goodness and beauty are universal and fundamentally important; and that the value of anything is not utilitarian and without meaning (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s claim that “All art is absolutely useless.”). Human beings are not purposeless material objects for mechanistic manipulation by others, and civil society itself depends upon a cultural consensus that beauty is real and every person should be respected with compassion as having dignity and nobility with very real spiritual needs to encounter and be transformed and uplifted by beauty.

Thanks for your question.

#ask #question #sir roger scruton #scruton #art #aesthetics #beauty #architecture #music #paintings #film #cinema #personal

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peachcitt · 3 years

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Hi! You've mentioned on Discord that you read a lot of books, and I was wondering if you could rec some? Either your favourites, or ones that had a big impact on you/your writing 🥺

yes!!! all my favorite books generally affect my writing style, and often after ive finished reading a really good book, i'll write something and end up emulating that book's style (either on accident or on purpose haha). sometimes on my ao3 you'll find in my author's notes me saying what book i just finished, and if you read or know those books, you'll probably see me mimicking certain aspects of style

for other reccommendations/more in depth descriptions of book plots, i also have a reading list that i posted this past winter on my writing blog that you can check out, and im planning on posting another one at the end of the summer!! (in fact ive already started the list lmao)

the list will be structured as follows: book or series name, author, and a couple reasons why i like it. in addition to this, i will put stars by author's names if i have read other books by them and greatly enjoyed them.

without further ado:

The Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo*

this has got to be my favorite series of all time. i love bardugo's capability to write complex characters and complicated plots, and i really like the way she structures her books. the series is just so artfully done and when i finished it i was so perfectly satisfied and so perfectly sad because i mourned the fact that it was over

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak*

literally my favorite book. this is the book i tell people is my favorite if anyone asks. i love zusak's casual humor alongside his ability to write such heartbreaking and heavy moments in just little scraps of images. it's a romantic book without being about romance - it's about love and kindness and how powerful those things can be be, and that shit gets me every time. i have reread this book so many times - yearly since i got it, i think, and i got in middle school, i think. im in college now. and every time i reread it, i get something different out of it

The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness*

i think about these books constantly. these were the first books i read by patrick ness, and, now that ive read some of his other books, i know in classic patrick ness fashion, these books haunt me. patrick ness has this uncanny ability to take genres you think you know and twist and warp them until you're on the edge of your seat trying to figure out what will happen next without the safety net of genre supporting the story. in addition to that, his characters are always wonderfully flawed - he puts real people into fantastical situations, and it's fascinating and always an emotional and satisfying read

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith*

dude i think about the alex crow so much. i said i normally call i am in the messenger my favorite book, but every so often i'll say this one is because i just love it so much. the alex crow is just so bafflingly weird but the teenage boy main characters are so real and gross and hilarious. andrew smith has the amazing knack for writing weird as hell plot lines and telling stories that are about everything, all at once, while still making it about one thing. that doesn't make sense, but if you read the alex crow (or his other book i've read called Grasshopper Jungle that is actually on my summer list) then you will know what i mean. the alex crow is so many things, and i love all of them

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson*

i used to read a lot of ya romance and, to be honest, the stuff i used to read was not all great, but this book absolutely changed the game and probably made me raise my standards exponentially. the timeline of this book is so creative, and it's done in such a way that it leaves you wondering how the timelines will reconcile. in addition to this, both romances in the book are so interesting and loveable, and the relationship between the two main characters (who are twins) is an amazing thing to see unfold. this is a peak ya romance book, and i can't recommend it enough

Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven*

another ya romance, and i have to say the romance in this book is so beautifully done. generally, this is just a really sweet book that gave me butterflies, to be quite honest. i think niven has a really good knack for writing characters that are diverse and a little strange but all have their own distinct personalities that mingle really interestingly with each other.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe By Benjamin Alire Sáenz

this one is an obvious choice, and for good reason. aristotle and dante is just a classic queer novel, and it's earned its place as such. it's a poetic sort of book, and i love the voices of the characters, as well as the pictures of the world we get through ari's voice. this is a visual book written in text - i think a lot about the steady, careful romance of the book and the way sáenz makes ari an unreliable narrator by artfully excluding his feelings from scene descriptions and dialogue tags. it's such a creative and heartbreaking technique that i often find myself wanting to do

The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld

oooohh this trilogy changed me. for starters its such a weird, creative concept - alternate history steampunk and biopunk world war I. like doesn't that sound so interesting?? and this trilogy's main characters are so easy to love - and watching their relationship unfold and develop is so endearing. also, my copies include these wonderful illustrations (which i think might be in all copies?) that really let you put images to the weird fantastical things westerfeld included into the world.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

this book was actually on my winter book list, and i read it so fast and so obsessively because i wanted so badly to know what was going to happen. the plot absolutely pulled me in, and the first line - "I forgot everything between footsteps" - stuck with me because just look at the way that's written!! it's so artful and intriguing, i was just dying to know what would happen next. the timeline is this amazing maze that as i read i couldn't help but admire how long or how much turton had to plan in order to make everything line up in just the right way. it was a fascinating book with so much to say - im really looking forward to reading it again

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

this book was also on my winter book list, and it just absolutely enraptured me. its witty, quiet sort of voice was amazing to read, and the imagery instilled into every scene made it seem like everything was so real, just right there for me to touch or smell or taste. the plot of a secret huge magic library really roped me in, and i think this is a love story for people who read, people who love stories, people who love the magic of a library.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero*

cantero's works are just so creatively written - not just by plot or character standards, but by style standards, too. meddling kids is great not just for its complex, loveable characters or for its fantastical, dark, and mysterious plot, but also for the weird and intriguing liberties cantero makes with style. in his other books, too, is the switch between snarkily written prose to stage directions to video or audio transcripts, and it makes for such a visual sort of book - i mean, i could easily see any of cantero's books being made into a film or series because all the material is right there. cantero's creativity with style is so intriguing to me, and because of him, i've become more familiar with playing around in style in an attempt to create something as interesting as his novels

and that's all i'll put down here now!

i mentioned it a little, but probably my biggest style references are leigh bardugo, markus zusak, edgar cantero, and andrew smith for various reasons that i am more than willing to talk more in depth about if anyone is wondering<3

thank you for asking im always willing to talk books :')

#ask #miabrown007 #book rec list #book recs #long post #I ALWAYS TALK SO MUCH WHEN IT COMES TO BOOKS IM SO SORRY #someone: what are you favorite books? / me (vibrating at the speed of sound):#anyway if anyone is truly curious about my style references just send me an ask and i will answer!

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Philippe Cohen Solal & Mike Lindsay: A Pop Tribute to Outsider Art

From Left: Mike Linsday, Hannah Peel, Philippe Cohen Solal, Adam Glover; Artwork by Gabriel Jacquel

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Outsider visual artist and writer Henry Darger’s fame was essentially happenstance, so it’s fitting that Philippe Cohen Solal’s decades-long obsession with Darger is chock full of coincidence. In 2003, the member of longtime neotango group Gotan Project found himself with a day off on tour in New York City and decided to venture over to the American Folk Art Museum, a choice that would change his life and culminate in Outsider (¡Ya Basta!), April’s collaborative album with Tunng’s Mike Linsday, the first adaptation of Darger’s words in music.

At the museum, Solal, unaware not only of Darger but of outsider art in general, saw a Darger work, and, as he told me over the phone earlier this year, “fell in love.” Looking closer at the details of the work, he saw something he recognized: the name Kiyoko Lerner, who had lent the work to the museum. The very same name of a woman he was set to meet the next day in Chicago as recommended by a mutual friend back in Paris. The friend suggested they meet due to their love of tango. “We met and talked a bit about tango,” he said, “but quickly, I asked her about Henry Darger.” She began to tell him exactly who she was, the story that’s become increasingly well-known in the annals of Chicago cultural history.

Lerner and her late husband Nathan (himself a prominent Chicago photographer) were Darger’s landlords; Nathan discovered Darger’s work in his “very messy room” shortly before Darger’s death in 1973, most notably his 15,000+ page novel In The Realms of the Unreal as well as his magazine-traced illustrations and watercolors accompanying the book. (The book, a fantastical epic about child slave rebellions, would go on to inspire visual artists and musicians for decades; indie rock band Vivian Girls took their name from characters in the book, and Darger would even be referenced in The Venture Bros.) Nathan immediately knew he had something special, and he and his wife took control of Darger’s estate. Darger would start to become formally recognized by the art world, his work prominently featured in museums and documentaries. Nathan died in 1997, and Kiyoko would continue to operate as head of the estate and donate her collection to various museums across the world.

In 2006, Kiyoko flew to Paris and met up with Solal at the first Darger exhibition in the city, at La Maison Rouge. It was immediately when he left the show that Solal had the idea to make music inspired by Darger’s art. “At the time, I didn’t [even] know that [Darger] wrote lyrics,” Solal said. “I had no clue.” In reference to Darger’s war between children and adults, Solal had the idea to write “adult music for children,” or vice versa, and wrote a track that wouldn’t even end up 15 years later on Outsider. He visited Kiyoko at her Chicago apartment. “I spent a few days immersed in his art. I didn’t know precisely what I wanted to do, and then I discovered he wrote lyrics. It very much changed the project.” Nobody had thought to put Darger’s lyrics to music, and Solal wanted to put his stamp on the increasingly large pool of reinterpretations of or references to Darger in the arts and culture world at large. Kiyoko put him in touch with art historian Michael Bonesteel, who led Solal to more lyrics.

Not wanting to go at it alone, Solal got the idea to do a collective project adapting Darger’s lyrics to music with various friends. He reached out to the likes of Calexico’s Joey Burns and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, but Lindsay was the one who really stuck. Solal and Lindsay were fans of each other’s bands, and the latter visited the American Folk Art Museum while on tour at Solal’s recommendation, he himself rediscovering Darger’s work. In 2015, there was another Darger retrospective at the Paris Museum of Modern Art, and Kiyoko, who attended, suggested to Solal that he reveal his song adaptations of Darger. “I didn’t tell her I only had one song at the time,” he laughed. That was his inspiration to reach out to Lindsay. “I thought maybe I’d do a 5-track EP. I called Mike and reminded him of my project and asked him, ‘Are you ready to work on that with me?’”

Solal and Lindsay separately wrote the melodies and basic arrangements of the songs that would end up on Outsider, and they recorded and produced the record together. Lindsay introduced Solal to Northern Irish musician/singer/multi-instrumentalist Hannah Peel, who would voice the Vivian Girls. Solal asked Adam Glover, a singer he knew through his manager, to be the voice of Darger himself. (“He was very young...but he can sing like Sinatra or Dean Martin,” Solal said.) The four created an album with Darger’s words using traditional pop instrumentation and song structures but also children’s instruments; Peel even created her own music box to play some of the melodies. Sometimes, the words were spoken, as on “Hark Hark, My Friend, Cannon Thunders Are Swelling”, while other times the vocals are isolated in harmony, as on “We Sigh For The Child Slaves”. “We know more about Darger as a painter and visual artist, so it was important to have Darger as a storyteller,” Solal said. Furthermore, the group wanted to capture the raw spirit of Darger’s art by rendering the voices distorted, shifting their pitch to make them sound almost out of tune. The instrumentation, meanwhile, ranges from slinky electric guitars to strings, and even barroom-style piano on the penultimate “We’ll Never Say Goodby” [sic]. “With our small team, it was lean and simple to do this music,” said Solal. While most of the titles and words were taken directly from Darger, down to the spelling of “Goodby”, the album touches on Solal’s story, too. Instrumental interlude “851 Webster Avenue” is named after the address of Lerner’s apartment Solal visited for the first time, when his fascination with Darger really took off.

Solal can’t exactly pinpoint what ever fascinated him about Darger, both in general and as the world changes, but he has some clues. “At the time, what was interesting to me was it was clear [Darger] was a self-taught artist, and maybe I felt a bit moved by that because I’m a self-taught musician,” Solal said. “I never went to music school, but I understood that without any specific art education or practice at an art school, you can create something...Henry Darger is an amazing example of someone who created his own world.” Darger’s style of illustration, his drawings traced from magazines, made up for the fact that he wasn’t a technically great drawer, and it complemented his heightened sense of color. Moreover, Solal feels kinship with some aspects of Darger’s childhood. Part of the inspiration for In The Realms of the Unreal was that Darger himself was sent to an asylum that put children to work. “When he was a kid, everybody called him crazy,” said Solal, “But I’m sure he didn’t think he was crazy. I remember when I was 9 or 10, I thought I was crazy. Nobody called me crazy, but I thought I was.” He found commonalities in, simply, being misunderstood.

Solal also questions what it means to be an “outsider” artist; in reality, Darger spent most of his time inside, confined in a room creating fictional worlds. Funny enough, according to his diaries, he was fascinated with the weather, tracking the accuracy of the predicted versus actual weather, but that’s about all for the outside world. On the day JFK was killed, for instance, Darger had nothing about it in his diary entry. He chose to interact with the world through the magazines he would trace, and through collections of items like Pepto Bismol bottles, National Geographic issues, and broken glasses. He wasn’t much for interpersonal relationships. Not only was Nathan Lerner unaware of Darger’s artistic enterprises, but neither were the young artist couple with whom Darger actually shared his apartment. Solal thinks that Darger’s resistance to presenting himself as an artist was as a result of his childhood experiences. “If the outside world was not so mean to him, maybe he’d be less scared to show who he was to the rest of the world, even just to his neighbors,” he said. “It’s funny that we call him an outsider. He was more an insider but was protecting himself from the outside world.”

Perhaps, subconsciously, the more that creative folks learn to look through Darger’s eyes, the less likely his, or any genius goes unnoticed. Solal remarked that many of the folks involved in Outsider almost had to “unlearn” their craft. Andrew Scheps, who mixed the album, at first didn’t know the context and gave Solal and Lindsay a product that was “too clean;” Lindsay explained Darger’s story and the importance of having strange-sounding narrative effects in the records. “When he worked [after that] on the mix, we found Henry was back in our songs,” said Solal. The individuals involved in coming up with animated videos for each of these songs, French animator Gabriel Jacquel with art direction by Pascal Gary (aka Phormazero), also had to abandon their fundamentals and learn to draw like Darger. Overall, exploring his work provides admirers like Solal the opportunity to dig deeper, from figuring out how to bring Outsider on stage to “finding new ways to tell the story,” like podcasts, interactive maps, short films, and Spotify playlists of Darger’s favorite music. “This man is full of mysteries,” he said. “I hope my future is Outsider for a while.”

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calzona-ga · 4 years

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SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you haven’t watched the March 11 crossover episodes of “Station 19” (“Train in Vain”) and “Grey’s Anatomy” (“Helplessly Hoping”) on ABC.

RIP, Andrew DeLuca: surgical attending at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, ex-boyfriend of Meredith Grey, brother of Carina DeLuca, and, as of ABC’s crossover episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Station 19″ on Thursday night, murder victim by the hand of a henchman in a trafficking ring. Yes, DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) was stabbed by one of the human traffickers he and Carina (Stefania Spampinato) had chased through Seattle, and despite receiving care at his own hospital, he died. But his efforts weren’t in vain, we learn: The traffickers are all arrested.

It was the culmination of a “Grey’s Anatomy” story that had been cut short by the COVID-19 production shutdown in March. In what turned out to be one of the final episodes of Season 16, DeLuca suspected a patient was being trafficked by her so-called “aunt” who had brought her to the hospital, but because he was in the middle of a manic episode, no one believed him. In the midseason finale of “Grey’s” in December, DeLuca — medicated for his bipolar disorder, well-rested and clear-eyed — spotted the trafficker, Opal (Stephanie Kurtzuba), and this time, he wasn’t going to let her get away.

In an interview with Gianniotti, who was on “Grey’s” for seven seasons, he said that when he learned how his character was going to die, he’d wanted to make sure that it was apparent that DeLuca — “a very brave and noble person,” in Gianniotti’s words — go out as “a pillar of representation for people struggling with mental health.”

“It wasn’t that he was unmedicated and unrested, and that’s what led him to put himself in a dangerous situation,” Gianniotti said. “This was the most DeLuca thing DeLuca has ever done.”

In the episode, as DeLuca hovered between life and death, he communed with Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) on the beach where she has spent most of this season, also in a liminal state, having been taken down by COVID in the season premiere. There, Meredith has hung out with Derek (Patrick Dempsey), her dead husband, and George (T.R. Knight), her dead friend — as well as characters who are still alive.

Of his beach scenes with Meredith, Gianniotti said: “You see DeLuca more happy and relaxed than you’ve ever seen him ever on the show, because all of those stressors are all gone. And he’s with the person whom he loves, which puts them even more at peace.”

“Grey’s Anatomy” — now its 17th season, and still the one most watched shows on television — is itself in limbo, according to showrunner Krista Vernoff. With negotiations with Pompeo for a contract extension ongoing, Vernoff told Variety she has to “plan for both contingencies” as she and the writers room map out the end of the season — or the series.

Though DeLuca is dead, Vernoff revealed that we haven’t seen the last of him — that’s what the beach is for, it seems. And Gianniotti, mentored by “Grey’s” executive producer-director Debbie Allen, returned recently to direct an episode that will air in the spring. He will miss the fans, Gianniotti said: “I’ve never seen a show be so beloved. To feel that love, and have felt that love over the seven seasons has really been remarkable.”

As Vernoff said, “He’s still in the family.”

In an interview, Vernoff talked about how she conceived of DeLuca’s death, the difficulties of not knowing whether the show is ending and how shooting during COVID has changed “Grey’s Anatomy.”

And what in God’s name is happening on the beach!?!

You killed DeLuca.

I’m the worst.

How did this story come about?

Honestly, the story told itself to me. I went for my walk on the beach to come up with my pitches, and these episodes came in whole cloth, like a vision. And I was like, “Oh, no! Really, that’s the story?” And it was. We knew as I pitched it that it was the midseason finale story.

Sometimes stories tell themselves to you, and your heart just breaks. You’re like, “That’s not what I want the end of that story to be!” But that’s so much of life this year.

Can you talk about killing a major character this season, and having the cause of death not be COVID?

That was born, I’m certain, of my psyche wrestling with all of the ongoing tragedies and traumas in the world not stopping due to COVID. There’s this feeling of injustice, like, no, COVID is enough. But sometimes you’re going through all of it at once.

Can you talk about putting DeLuca on the beach with Meredith, and the larger meaning of the beach as a storytelling device this year?

The beach was born out of desire to have an escape from the pandemic.

We came back before almost anyone else. And the actors were scared, and nobody really knew for sure that all the safety protocols were going to work. Doing the pandemic felt like the right thing creatively, but it also felt like the thing that was going to make the actors feel safe to come back to work, because they were all going to be able to be in masks. And if they weren’t, they would be outside. And once the decision was made to do COVID, and then the decision was made to give Meredith COVID, it felt like a way to get Meredith outside without a mask, and in a non-pandemic world.

If you’re a magical thinker like I am, that beach is a real magical in-between place. But if you’re not, if you are not a believer in magical things — if you are an atheist, a scientist, a whatever, my stepsons don’t believe in a magical place — we’ve designed it very carefully so that it also could just be a dream. So anytime someone’s on that beach with Meredith, they are also in her room so she’s hearing their voices from her hospital bed.

When DeLuca visits her on the beach, for me, DeLuca’s between life and death. For my stepsons, Meredith heard in her hospital room that something happened to DeLuca. So now she’s dreaming DeLuca! I wanted very much for the motif to work no matter what you believed.

It just feels to me like whatever you believe, that’s right.

DeLuca has been on the show for a long time. What did you want his final episode to say about him?

I think he went out a hero. I think that he went out fighting for what he believed in. And he was through his mental health crisis. He’d become a very productive member of the hospital staff. And he wasn’t going to let this woman walk away again.

What was it like when you told Giacomo Gianniotti what was going to happen to DeLuca?

He was so relieved that I was not having him kill himself, or go out in a mania frenzy. And he was excited to play it — he played the hell out of it. He actually does appear in a couple more episodes this season. And he’s directing an episode.

I’m going to assume that Meredith wakes up and finds out that he’s dead. Do you see the beach as a place she’ll have an awareness or a memory of in any way?

Yes.

OK!

I don’t have too much more to say about that, because I don’t want to spoil too much. And also: Sometimes I change my mind. But at the moment, yes.

It’s been such a heavy season for both “Grey’s” and “Station 19,” reflecting the world right now. But I know that’s not necessarily where your heart is as a storyteller. Can you talk about where the thinking is on continuing “Grey’s Anatomy”?

When you’re living through a pandemic, and you’re coming back amidst a pandemic, and you decide to do the pandemic, the nature of the storytelling turns a little bit darker. And so for this moment, it is where my heart is.

And I also feel like my heart as a storyteller, my sense of light, and my sense of hope and beauty and joy that infuses most of what I do is expressed through that beach. The joy, the collective joy for all of us in getting to see Derek Shepherd again, getting to see George O’Malley again, in getting out of the hospital and getting onto the beach, and seeing Meredith’s relief there — I know that we’re worried about her, but also there’s joy.

And in terms of whether or not it’s the last season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” I don’t know. And that’s the truth. I wish I knew. It’s a source of frustration at this point. And it sort of doubles my job, my workload, because I have to plan for both contingencies. But I am. And God willing, I’ll know soon.

It can’t end like this! Can you reveal how many episodes will be in this season of “Grey’s Anatomy”?

17.

That’s a lot.

It is a lot. Yeah, it’s a lot, considering what we’re navigating.

Will anyone else be joining Meredith on the beach?

Yes! But I won’t tell you.

Returning cast members or current?

There are some surprises in store.

Now that you have shot more than half the season during COVID, can you talk about what you’ve learned over the course of the year?

The crew is exhausted because they’re behind masks and visors all day. The masks and visors are dehydrating and stultifying, and as a result, you need more breaks. You need to send everybody off the stage to take their masks and visors off to hydrate. You can’t ask everybody to be there for 12 or 13 hours at a stretch. So we’re shooting 10-hour days. And that is a really significant change to what we’re able to accomplish and shoot.

What I’ve learned, and I’m continuing to learn, is how to write the show in a way that makes it producible — we cannot have scenes with as many characters in them. And we cannot have as many scenes. And we cannot have as many locations! Because we can’t have as many company moves. All of it has to become smaller, and that changes the stories we tell. If you usually have five or six people in a scene, and now you usually have two people in a scene, sometimes the whole cast isn’t in the episode. You look at an episode and you’re like, “Where’s Amelia?” Well, she’s home with the kids! We didn’t make the company move.

I think that there are silver linings: Deeper, longer richer scenes are really beautiful things sometimes. But they’re different for “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel, both for these fictional characters and for all of us?

Yes, I do! I feel like we’re all living the light at the end of the tunnel right now as our parents and grandparents get vaccinated. And as we begin to emerge, hopefully, from this year of cocoon. I feel like we’re living in in some light, and I do see a light at the end of the tunnel for these characters,whether this is the end of the series or the end of the season.

There’s so much coming up! I know this one is going to be devastating for the fans. And I feel it too. I cried harder watching this episode, this cut, than I’ve cried since I watched the episode where George O’Malley died. And that is a really powerful tribute to the character that we built and to the actor.

#grey's anatomy #krista vernoff #andrew deluca #giacomo gianniotti #variety #spoiler #17x07

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wordsandshawn · 4 years

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Drunk on a Sunset | 4 #ShawnMendesWritingCircle

ANNNDDDD WE’RE BACK! Huge shoutout as always to @saysweartogod-og for organizing this. I really enjoyed writing this next part of this amazing story created originally by @mendesficsxbombay. I hope you all enjoy this part. I’m so excited to read the next parts of all the stories I’ve fallen in love with.

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

ShawnMendesWritingCircle Masterlist

word count: 1.5k

Shawn was given a choice and he clearly didn’t choose you. Between leaving that morning when he thought you were still sleeping after you spent the night together following your birthday party to cozying up to Alessia shortly after, Shawn clearly is not interested in you. He basically acted like the night you spent together meant nothing and didn’t even happen. Every part of you knows all the reasons why you should just get over it, keep pretending to be busier than you are and create space in order to keep things professional, but that doesn’t change the fact that it hurts. Your heart aches, and you feel all alone, like there is no one to turn to.

The one person who you felt comfortable enough to talk to about all of this was Alessia, but after seeing her with Shawn, you don’t feel safe enough to talk to her either. You have never felt more alone on tour than you have since seeing Shawn and Alessia talking, practically leaning into each other. Instead of letting yourself feel all the feelings of wanting someone you cannot have, you throw yourself into your work, keeping busier than you need to be and working yourself harder than necessary, all so you can avoid the uncomfortable experience of real emotions.

Shawn wanted to run after you, when you saw him sitting with Alessia. He wanted to explain he was just trying to get some advice because he didn’t know how to bring up that night, because he didn’t know how to tell you that you’re the only one he’s thinking of and you somehow make him feel so insecure because he sees you and how effortlessly wonderful you are. He sees your genuine kindness, your attention to detail, and your ability to connect with people, and he can’t help but feel like you’re too good for this world. You’re too good for him. He doesn’t know how to tell you that you’re the only person he wants, and it’s been like that for a long time.

He tried following you, but you disappeared into the women’s restroom without even glancing back to see him chasing after you, and then Cez materialized, seemingly out of nowhere to tell Shawn that he needed to get backstage immediately if he didn’t want to be mauled by fans entering the arena. So, Shawn numbly changes directions and disappears backstage and into his dressing room leaving you alone in the bathroom thinking he never even attempted to follow you.

The next time Shawn sees you, the only way he can think to describe your behavior is cold. You only tell him the information you needed to, not even bothering with any pleasantries or lighthearted conversation, and then you’re gone before he can even attempt to start a conversation. He’s left alone because you’re gone so quickly, and for the second time, he wants to chase after you, but he doesn’t.

Maybe you don’t feel the same way about him, but Shawn is so tired of analyzing your every move, word, breath, and trying to make sense of it all. He’s tired of wondering what you’re thinking and if you think about him at all. He’s tired of the way that even when you’re acting cold to him, practically ignoring him, he can’t help but feel drawn to you, pulled in by your presence.

Shawn finally made a decision. He is going to tell you how he feels about you. He’s going to talk about that night, to ask if you remember it at all and mostly to tell you how stupid he was for leaving before you even woke up. He has already gone over the potential conversation in his mind a hundred times. He’ll tell you that he regretted it, that not a moment has gone by since that he hasn’t regretted it and wondered what might have happened if he had stayed instead. He thinks about what it could have been like to watch you wake up. Sleepy snuggles, getting coffee and having breakfast. He thinks about the possibilities, the what if’s.

Shawn’s tired of the ache in his chest, of watching the girl he loves go on like he doesn’t exist, and if you don’t feel the same way, then he’ll learn to live with it, but he’ll have to hear the words from your mouth so that he can finally move on and know how you feel. He needs to know for sure.

Shawn made this resolve in his bed on the bus at one am, three days after you saw him talking to Alessia. When he emerges from his slumber, or more like hibernation at ten am the next day, he hasn’t changed his mind. He’s just waiting for the right moment, a time to get you alone and not take no for an answer when he asks if you have time to talk. Five minutes, that’s all he’s going to ask for. Just five minutes to pour his heart out to the girl who already owns his soul without even knowing. Five minutes to put it all out there for you to potentially crush him. The thought of rejection hurts, but the thought of going on like this hurts even worse.

If you were anyone else, he wouldn’t even put himself in this situation. Truthfully, he hasn’t found himself in this situation before. He’s so used to being the person on the receiving end of declarations of love. He’s used to sneaking out of a hotel room in the early hours of the morning before they wake up. He’s not used to regretting it.

Shawn goes about his morning, all the while keeping an eye out for you, the anticipation building. He’s waiting to get a glimpse of you running by or waiting to see a text from you letting him know some piece of information he’ll probably forget shortly after only to have you remind him again, but the text doesn’t come, and he doesn’t see you. It’s nearing showtime. He’s already done the soundcheck, and he thinks, probably for the fiftieth time today, where are you?

He finally asks Andrew about you.

“She left.” Andrew responds, getting ready to walk away as though that was answer enough, but it’s not. Not even close. Shawn’s mind is spinning at those two words. What does he mean? How could you have left? How did he not know about it? Why?

“What do you mean? Where did she go? Why?” Shawn sputters questions out. Was it something he did? Are you mad at him? Did you quit?

Andrew doesn’t seem to be experiencing any of the same panicked emotions Shawn is. He doesn’t seem to feel the urgency of the situation. He’s busy sending a text or reading an email or something on his goddamn phone and he’s not paying attention to Shawn. Shawn wants to take Andrew by the shoulders and shake him to get his attention, to get answers to the pressing questions.

Cez appears at that moment, interrupting Shawn’s attempt at interrogation, not that Andrew even really noticed. “Shawn you’re supposed to be in your dressing room. The band’s getting ready to go onstage and they’re looking for you.”

“Wait--” Shawn tries, but Cez’s urgency rivals Shawn’s.

Dave pops his head out of the dressing room, saying, “Shawn we wanted to talk to you about Mutual before we get onstage.”

Shawn knows he has a job to do, so as much as he wants to grill Andrew to get information, as much as he’s wondering how you could leave without even saying goodbye, how you could leave without him knowing, he pushes those thoughts to the back of his mind and forces himself to focus on the task at hand. Working with his band and finding a way to gather enough energy to step onstage soon.

While walking to the stage less than an hour later, he asks Cez about you, about why you left and where you went and why it was so sudden, but Cez says he has no idea. He didn’t even know you left. Andrew seems to be the only one who knows, and Shawn doesn’t see Andrew before he steps onstage, plastering a smile on his face and praying the energy from the crowd is enough to get him through.

The entire time Shawn stands on that stage, he feels like he’s faking it, just going through the motions because even as he sings the lyrics he knows so well, his mind is only with you. Given the chance, he’d run offstage to badger Andrew for information and then catch a flight to wherever you went. He needs to talk to you, but he doesn’t know where you are. Just like after you ran off after seeing him with Alessia, and just like earlier tonight when he was called into his dressing room, he makes the logical decision and puts his career first, remaining onstage, but regretting it the entire time.

#Shawn Mendes Writing Circle #Shawn Peter Raul Mendes #Shawn Mendes #Shawn Mendes imagine #Shawn Mendes fic

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denimbex1986 · 7 months

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'The fantasy-romance film All of Us Strangers is finally on Hulu after its theatrical release last year. If you’ve made it to the end of All of Us Strangers, you probably have more questions than answers — and a box of tissues at hand thanks to the emotional final scenes.

Based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, the film stars Andrew Scott as Adam, a British screenwriter trying to write a script about his parents (played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) who passed away in a car accident when he was a child. He starts to interact with his deceased parents in his childhood home, who appear to be living life just as they were. The movie also centers on Adam’s blossoming relationship with his mysterious neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal).

“Our job as actors is to build, to service this extraordinary, amazing relationship that Andrew [Haigh] created, and it was really, really easy for us to do that,” Scott told Out Magazine of Harry and Adam’s chemistry. “I think both of us are really interested in playing romantic love. I think it’s something that we both really take pleasure in acting, so it was very, very, very easy for both of us.”

“A lot of the things that Harry’s experiencing, I knew and understood,” Mescal added. “The party culture side to Harry is like a tool that he uses to escape, but in terms of queer culture and in terms of learning…I have a proximity to that in my own life, so it didn’t feel like that part of it wasn’t necessarily eye-opening or anything to me personally.”

Written and directed by Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers beautifully tackles grief, loss and loneliness while also telling a queer love story. “All the people in the film are longing for something – to be understood, to be known,” Haigh told The Guardian. “There’s a generation of queer people grieving for the childhood they never had. I think there’s a sense of nostalgia for something we never got, because we were so tormented. It feels close to grief. It dissipates, but it’s always there. It’s like a knot in your stomach.”

Explore the ending of All of Us Strangers below.

How Does All of Us Strangers End?

After Adam tries to introduce Harry to his parents, Harry runs off. Adam takes a few final moments with his deceased mom and dad until they decide that they shouldn’t keep visiting one another so Adam can move on. He says goodbye, and now Adam can begin to process his grief.

Adams returns to his building and heads to Harry’s apartment (remember: viewers never actually see inside his boyfriend’s flat or see Harry out on his own). When Adam knocks on the door, no one answers. Adam goes into the apartment and sees Harry’s body on the bed. He’s wearing the same clothes from the first night he knocked on Adam’s door, asking to hang out.

What Happened To Harry In All of Us Strangers?

Harry has been dead for a majority of the time he’s been with Adam in All of Us Strangers. If you think back to the scene when the couple first met, Harry knocked on Adam’s door drunk and asked him to hang out while holding a bottle of whiskey, which Adam declines. When they run into each other the next day, Harry apologizes — and their relationship begins at the same time as Adam’s ghostly reconnection with his parents.

When Adam enters Harry’s apartment, he notices drugs on the counter and a messy kitchen. Then, he discovers Harry’s dead body on the bed, along with an empty alcohol bottle, suggesting he drank it and died from loneliness that night. So, what does this all mean? Well, everything that happened after their first meeting was all in Adam’s imagination.

In another twist, Harry’s ghost reappears outside his apartment. He slowly starts to put the pieces together that he is dead and no one has found his body. “I’m in there, aren’t I?” Harry asks him, while Adam reassures him that everything will be okay.

Adam and Harry enter Adam’s flat and cuddle on his bed. Adam puts on the song “The Power of Love,” the track playing at the beginning of the movie. As the shot pans, a bright light forms between them and they become one star in the sky out of many in the universe.

Haigh told Time that by the end of the film, “It is basically saying that what is important in life is love in whatever way you manage to find that, whether it’s in a relationship, whether it’s with your parents, whether it’s with a friend.” He continued, “You go through life finding love, losing love, and finding it again.”

Is Adam Dead In All of Us Strangers?

It’s unclear whether Adam is dead now that we know Harry was gone for most of the film. However, there are a few moments in All of Us Strangers point to Adam being a ghost. For example, he lives in a deserted block of empty apartments, which is uncommon for a bustling city like London.

Ultimately, whether you believe Adam is alive or a ghost is up to your perception of the film. Haigh expressed to EW that he doesn’t care for the logic behind the ending of All of Us Strangers and what’s real or what’s not. “It’s about the emotional feeling that you get from it,” Haigh says of the film. “That’s the key.”'

#Andrew Haigh #All of Us Strangers #Andrew Scott #Paul Mescal #Strangers #Taichi Yamada #Claire Foy #Jamie Bell

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abigailnussbaum · 4 years

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How to do Garak/Bashir in Canon DS9

Yesterday there was a fun tweet asking people how they would remake DS9 if they were given the option today.

Which led to some fun discussions (you can see my answers here). Obviously one thing that pretty much everyone said was “canon Garak/Bashir”. That’s generally considered one of the show’s big missed opportunities, with both Andrew J. Robinson and some of the show’s producers expressing regret over never having gone there. But it did get me thinking: how would you tell this sort of story? Because look, it’s one thing to write Garak/Bashir in fanfic, filling in gaps in the canon or changing the entire tone of the story to suit your ‘ship. But if you’re retelling DS9 along basically the same lines - the end of the Cardassian occupation, the discovery of the wormhole, the Jem’hadar, the Dominion, the war with Cardassia - and with the personalities of the characters and the tone of the show largely unchanged, how do you fit Garak/Bashir into that story?

There are some obvious issues with trying to work this ship into the show’s story and overall tone. For one thing, Bashir is a Starfleet officer. We like to make fun of his early, annoying incarnation, but even in that form he is clearly a decent, principled man with strong values. It’s one thing to flirt (literally or figuratively) with a mysterious, sexy spy, but getting into a relationship with him would not only be stupid, it would run counter to Bashir’s image of himself. You could go in a dark direction with this - Garak seduces Bashir purely as a way of gaining power over him (and perhaps out of force of habit); maybe they end up in a kind of Hannibal/Will relationship. But that doesn’t seem sustainable in the long-term, or congruent with the type of show DS9 was. Bashir can’t trust Garak, and Garak has done things that Bashir would consider disgusting. That’s something you have to take into consideration if you want to write them as a long-term couple.

It’s also worth considering that, as much as the Garak/Bashir pairing lingers over the fannish perception of the show, it’s not actually that prominent in the series itself. The last episode that I would call a Garak/Bashir story, “Our Man Bashir”, is an early S4 episode, well before the Dominion War happens. And Garak is absent for a lot of the later developments in Bashir’s life - “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” (you’d think Garak, with his complicated relationship with his father, would have something to say about Julian having been illegally genetically enhanced by his parents) or “Statistical Probabilities” (a troupe of savants who claim to be able to predict the course of the war would surely be of interest to Garak). In most of these stories, Bashir is accompanied by O’Brien, a much safer option as far as suppressed sexual tension is concerned (it should go without saying that this feels like a deliberate choice on the show’s part, to undermine any idea of a Garak/Bashir relationship). Meanwhile, Bashir is absent from most of Garak’s important Dominion War stories - his relationship with Ziyal and her death, his position in Damar’s rebellion, “In the Pale Moonlight”. So if you’re going to retell DS9 with Garak/Bashir as a real ship, you'd have to rewrite a lot of these stories to take that into account.

Finally, you’ve got the show’s ending, which is an extremely dark one for Garak, who gets everything he thought he wanted - his position restored, a place of honor in Cardassian society - just at the point where Cardassia is decimated and, in his words, left dead. Working a romance with Bashir into this ending would be tricky, and risks ending up with the final scenes of Man of Steel - two people making out atop a mass grave.

(Obviously, I’m taking it as a given that this hypothetical version of DS9 is much, much better at writing mature, complicated romantic relationships than the real one. Most actual DS9 romance was painfully juvenile, and the one exception, Sisko/Kasidy, was also an extremely low-drama ship - Sisko literally sent Kasidy to jail and the next time they met they were like “so, that was a bit of a bump in the road; dinner later?” It should go without saying that Garak/Bashir would not be a low-drama ship, so the writing would need to be there to support it.)

Anyway, complicated but obviously not impossible. This is what I’ve come up with for how I would rewrite the show with Garak/Bashir as an ongoing couple. I’m sure there’s plenty of fanfic with other, better ideas.

To start with, lose the claustrophobia business. Or, you know, keep it, but the reason Garak was expelled from the Obsidian Order and banished from Cardassia is that he’s gay. (To be fair, I feel like “claustrophobia” was pretty clearly code even in the original show.) A lot of people in the upper echelons of the Cardassian hierarchy know this - Dukat certainly knows - and miss no opportunity to harass him about it.

Obviously, in this version of the show Cardassia is deeply queerphobic. I don’t think this is a huge leap. Cardassian society is deeply conformist, and family-oriented in a fascist-adjacent sort of way that prioritizes the father as the master of the home. It’s hard to imagine a society like that tolerating deviations from gender norms, and it seems fair to assume that reprecussions for such deviations would be severe.

Garak doesn’t actually have a problem with this - or at least, not that he expresses. Garak’s defining trait is that he believes in, and loves, Cardassia deeply, and espouses its chauvinistic (in both senses of the word) values to anyone who will listen. But at the same time, he’s smart enough (and enough of an outsider) to know how hollow and destructive those values really are. So Garak will explain to anyone who challenges him on it that Cardassian homophobia is right and proper, while knowing that he has fallen victim to it himself.

Bashir is out. Though “out” might not be the right word because the Federation is so nonchalant about queerness that the notion of being closeted doesn’t really exist anymore (this is a version of Star Trek where we actually follow through on the promise of a more progressive future). But at any rate, to Bashir and the other Starfleet characters, him being gay is so unremarkable that it doesn’t even come up until his and Garak’s frienship is already established. This deeply shocks Garak - he knew humans were perverted, but the good Doctor, his friend? Bashir, meanwhile, wastes no opportunity to needle Garak about his society’s barbaric homophobia (Garak: “humans may be prone to such... urges, but Cardassians are made of finer stuff”; Bashir: *rolls eyes so hard he can see the back of his head*). But at the same time, and without being entirely willing to admit it to himself, Garak is intrigued.

And so we continue for about five seasons. Garak flirts with Bashir, partly because he thinks this is a way of unsettling the good Doctor, but really because he wants him. Bashir assumes that it’s all an act, and plays along with it a little because, hey, sexy spy. But he never imagines that it could go somewhere real, and probably wouldn’t follow through if it did.

And then Bashir gets replaced with a Changeling (this is a version of DS9 where that idea was seeded throughout the first half of the fifth season instead of being decided on five minutes before “In Purgatory’s Shadow” started shooting). And the changeling takes one look at Garak, sees an obvious in, and seduces him. Which clearly causes some awkwardness when Garak finds the real Bashir in a Dominion prison camp.

Bashir finds out. Worf tells him (this is a version of Worf who isn’t weirdly sexist and judgmental about other people’s sex lives). (Bashir: “why is Garak being so weird around me?”; Worf: “he and the fake you were doing it”; Bashir: “what”; Worf: “they were boning”; Bashir: “WHAT”; Worf: “they were engaging in sexual intercourse”; Bashir: “that's not possible. Garak only flirts with me to keep me on my toes”; Worf: *shrugs* “if that’s what you want to call it”.)

So now Bashir is upset because he’s spent the last five years bugging Garak about Cardassian homophobia and it turns out that Garak was a victim of it, plus he’s now been victimized by someone wearing Bashir’s face. And Garak is upset because he let his attraction to Bashir (Garak: “my base lust!”) blind him to the fact that his friend had been replaced by a changeling, leading to him being comromised as an agent (I will leave it as an exercise to the readers which one bothers him more). And, well, if you can’t get from there to romance on your own, you may not have read enough fanfic in your life.

Then you get the war, and honestly, I don’t know. You could do an on/off thing. You could make it a very casual relationship in between the two of them trying not to die and/or lose the Alpha Quadrant to the Dominion. You could have Bashir say “fuck it, I might die tomorrow and this guy makes me happy; who cares if my boyfriend is a liar and a murderer”. You could even go the Worf/Jadzia route and have them muse romantically about having a life together after the war. But either way, they spend more time around each other than they did in the original series.

But! When Garak goes back to Cardassia to help Damar’s rebellion, there’s a lot of tension between them, because Damar heard from Dukat that Garak is a pervert (you could still keep Ziyal’s death and Garak’s anger at Damar over it; those two always made more sense as friends anyway). And then it turns out that there’s an entire Cardassian queer underground, and in typical Cardassian fashion they’ve turned it into a whole spy network with operatives at every level of government. (Garak: “why did you never approach me?”; queer Cardassian underground: “dude, have you met you?”) And they’re willing to work with Damar if he promises that in the new Cardassia, they will no longer be persecuted (I think this dovetails pretty nicely with Garak’s observation that Damar needs to be disillusioned about the flaws of Cardassian society). So all of a sudden Garak is looking at a future where what he is doesn’t make him a pariah anymore.

And then you get to the destruction of Cardassia, and, again, I’m not sure how that combines with Garak/Bashir. The entire ending of DS9 is pretty rough on romantic pairings in general, but at least when Kira/Odo and Sisko/Kasidy break up, it’s bittersweet, and in service of other new beginnings. Garak’s ending is just bleak, and I’m not sure how you deal with a romance on top of that. The best I can come up with is Bashir saying “yes, this is horrible, but you can rebuild, and if you need my help with that, I’m not far”, leaving a door open for them to reconnect in the future.

Thoughts?

#deep space nine #garak/bashir #this got long

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Lady Liberty and The Captain / Part One

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader (1940′s Brooklyn AU)

Summary: You are a rising young star and the newest breakout actress in Hollywood’s Golden Age! When war finally descends on the west, your reputation as America’s Sweetheart finds you cast in a promotional picture alongside Captain America himself.

Yet, he looks eerily familiar, like your Stevie from childhood…

Word count: 4.7k+

Warnings: fluff!!

A/N: hello, everyone!!!! I hope you’re staying home, warm, and safe during these crazy times. I’ve been snuggling with my doggie and continuing with my university’s online classes in my final semester..absolutely crazy how things are rn. I hope this new story can help brighten up your day just a little bit.

First of all, I just want to say thank you💖💛for all the love that old and new readers alike have shown this blog recently. I’ve been writing on this platform for a little less than a year and I never thought l’incendie would blow up as much as it has. You guys are amazing. I’m really excited and eager to share new pieces and hope you enjoy the content I have coming! Please don’t hesitate to pop in and say hi, or shoot me a message. I’ve really enjoyed connecting with readers and would love to know your thoughts on my fics, or just to talk about fandom stuff! Timmy included! PAHAHA

So, this chapter is gonna be a part of a mini-series for a 1940′s writing challenge and I’m using the prompt of wartime romance! This will probably be split into two or three parts and I will tag the host as soon as the last chapter goes up, I’ll most likely make a masterlist in the end as well. Reader has a name in this fic, but hopefully the choice of name will make sense later on :D

As always, feel free to drop a ask/message if you’d like a tag in the next update.

ENJOY!

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Film: ‘Apple of Discord’, Lola Swanson’s Dazzling Debut!

By NICHOLAS WATTS September 1, 1943

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The film drama from the original screenplay written and directed by Andrew Campbell opened to a roar of applause and acclaim at the Radio City Music Hall yesterday evening. Apple of Discord is a reimagining of the myth and Plato’s allegory, focusing on the tumultuous, profoundly elegant life of a young noblewoman during the Trojan wars.

The film’s frontrunner and leading lady is Hollywood newcomer, young and fresh-faced Lola Swanson. Swanson’s performance is so thoughtful, so unfaltering, so intelligent and controlled that it is hard to believe this is little Lola’s long awaited motion picture debut. And what a debut this is!

Starring opposite Hollywood veterans Sean Schultz, Kash Dennis, and Gracie Smith, this star-studded cast packs punches and sizzling chemistry and yet, Swanson does not fizzle out but confidently holds her own, demanding your attention in every scene, and rightfully so. Watching Swanson in this picture is watching a major actress in the making.

Born and raised in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen before moving to Brooklyn to pursue acting, some may recognize Lola from her daytime television roles in Insanity and Passion, It’s a Date! and as Jessica in Jessica Davis Returns.

Now we know these roles were preparing Swanson for the debut of the decade.

“APPLE OF DISCORD” is now showing at the Radio City Music Hall and Cinema 2. Tickets at 25 cents. Running time: 139 minutes.

★★★★☆

——

APPLE OF DISCORD, written and directed by Andrew Campbell; director of photography, Laszlo Kovacs; edited by John Wright; music by John Barry; released by Universal Pictures.

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The newspaper trembles hard between your fingers, threatening to tear its edges. Pulse pounding, ears ringing. You can’t stop smiling. You feel like crying.

You reread the words again and again, the words written by legendary film critic Nicholas Watts, the man you’ve only dreamed of making an impression on, that he’d someday see you in a picture. And here he’s written a glowing review of your major motion picture debut.

You erupt in a fit of giggles and screams, twirling around the small space of your apartment in a swirl of nightgown, pinned curls. A neighbor, Mr. Krisinski, you think, pounds on your wall to shut you up.

It’s still early morning and you had gone downstairs at first light to buy a paper from a newsboy. Outside your window, the streets of New York already yawn and bustle with morning commute. The movement of people, gleaming automobiles against the red brick buildings and muted gray of Manhattan. Warm sun washes over it all, your heart brimming and full, mirroring the glow of golden dawn.

You feel on top of the world. Maybe you’ll finally make it here.

Your phone rings. You rush over to the mint blue rotary telephone on your bedside table, snatch up the receiver before Mr. Krisinski can break down your door with all the racket you’re making.

“Hello?” You say into the mouthpiece, cradling it between your hands. You feel breathless, high strung and buzzing, like you’d just downed a whole case of Coca-Cola, whirring with the taste of sugar and success, bubbling with starpower. Maybe it’s Kash or Gracie calling to congratulate you. Hell, maybe even President Roosevelt.

“Lola! It’s me. Have you read the paper?” The cool voice of Peggy asks you through the receiver. You quietly laugh at your own fantastical expectations. Of course it’s Peggy. Punctual, collected Peggy.

Peggy Carter is your talent agent and manager at MGM. Peggy had snatched you up while you had been working as a background actress on Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, so hopeful and beholden just to be in the presence of such respected artists, willing to stay the extra hours even after the other girls had gone home when realizing they wouldn’t be seen in the shot. It hadn’t been your first time on a hot set, you were used to the itchy costumes, long hours of endless waiting, and the empty stomachs, but no way you were going to miss a chance to see Ingrid Bergman and Madeleine LeBeau up close.

Back then, only a few years ago yet a lifetime away it seems, Peggy had been a casting assistant, seeing your dedication and marching right up to you between takes to hand you her card. On the back, written in smooth blue ink, a time the next morning for an audition at MGM Studios in downtown New York. Eight o'clock sharp.

You didn’t sleep at all that night after you wrapped.

She’s worked at getting you into audition rooms and meetings for years, pushing you onto writers, production assistants, riggers, directors. She had secured you an audition with Andrew Campbell after “accidentally” leaving your headshot in his mailroom and later calling his assistant with threats of stolen property. MGM’s new fresh face had been penciled in for a side read the following week.

Fierce, ingenious, and your own bright star, you’ve risen through the ranks and fought your way up with Peggy at your side.

“Yeah, Peg. I have it here in front of me. This is...absolutely nuts.”

“Not really, you were brilliant in the picture, darling. But it’s a comfort to know Watts has finally replaced that cotton in his brain with some sense.”

Another laugh from you, twirling the telephone cord around your finger.

“Let me have this one, Peg.”

“If you insist.”

You hear the rustling of newspaper from the other end. You can practically see Peggy sitting at her desk, perusing the paper over a morning cup of coffee, her hair curled, makeup and nails all scarlet red and perfect. The golden placard glittering on the frosted glass of the door.

Margaret Carter, Casting Director.

“I’m calling to tell you about an offer we received this morning from Paramount. I think you should take it.”

That rush of giddiness burns bright again in your veins, pulse skyrocketing.

“Paramount? Geez, what did they say?”

“They want you for a promotional picture that’s being produced by Senator Brandt. Brandt is hoping to boost the homefront’s war bond sales with a little starpower from you and from Captain America. You’ve seen his posters, haven’t you? That costumed bloke?”

You have. Plastered everywhere and looking like an absolute buffoon. Nice physique, though.

The disappointment that settles in your stomach is ugly and cold, like a fruitless pit, hard, rough, a sour taste in your mouth. It’s stupidly childish, yet your own expectations for your first movie, first box office hit, for that very first taste of the promised fame and fortune of success, begin to blink out. Expectations you’ve held on to since you were a little girl, since you realized this is the type of work you want to do for the rest of your life.

You’ve managed to impress Nicholas Watts, the most cynical film critic in all of Hollywood, and this is your big break? A Paramount picture featuring you and a tights-wearing mascot?

Peggy is practically asking you to star alongside Mickey Mouse.

“Is that all they offered?” You respond. You wince at the demanding, ungrateful tone. Afterall, showbiz has hardened you to go after what you want, to take and take because this lifestyle does not guarantee anything. You’re told no more than you are yes, the constant rejection having molded you into a diamond tough girl, glitzy and solid, unbreakable, beautiful.

But how many girls would kill to be in your place?

“The only sensible deal. They also offered you the role of Violet for It’s a Wonderful Life, and Ruthie in The Grapes of Wrath.”

“What?! Peggy, contract me for those instead!”

“Well, I’m not going to. And you listen well as to why.”

You twist your lips together. Peggy’s voice filters clipped and disapproving through the phone line, the way she always gets before she offers you damned good advice.

“Not just Watts is impressed with your work, Lola. You’re finally turning heads and for all good reasons. Anyone can get in front of a camera if they have the right look. But you’ve shown them that you have the look and the raw talent. Critics are saying you’re rivaling Judy Garland, darling. And you’re telling me you want the part of a lousy love interest? A secondary daughter? All because the pictures have big names behind them and people may go see it?

“No,” you mumble.

“No is right. You know better than anyone that people expect young stars to burn out fast so they can take their place. It’s all business. If I put you in for those roles, we’d be playing right into their hand. We’d use up all your potential in one summer. The public would get sick of seeing your face in every big picture. We have to earn their affection, darling. It’s slow and tame and not always glamorous, but this deal is smart.”

You listen, silently.

“Morale is low. War is when people turn to familiar pastimes and simple pleasures. To treat themselves, to take their minds off all the grizzly headlines. Captain America embodies all of that and more. If we take this, I promise you, Lola, that people will remember you as the girl who got them through the darkest times. This will do wonders for your career years down the line. And then, if you still want to play Violet, I’ll phone Frank Capra myself.”

You close your eyes and draw in a breath, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

“Well, it looks like I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“Wonderful. I’ll phone Paramount now. We’ll be in touch.”

Growing up with poor Irish immigrants for parents, the rare moments you could afford to splurge on luxuries, you spent them at local cinemas and theaters with your brother. Any day was a good one when you and Samuel bought tickets for a noon screening, the cheapest showing of the day, scraping together pocket change to split a popcorn if you were feeling extra special.

And reclining in a nearly empty theater with refreshments and goodies between the two of you, you’d watch the silver screen with hope in your mouth and stars in your eyes. In here, it no longer mattered how little money you had, or the discrimination your family faced, or the war in Europe, or the meager apartment you’d go home to, lucky if the electricity and heating had been paid for. In here, nothing else mattered but the visual stories.

And you realized that you wanted to help tell them. You wanted to be in front of the cameras, to embody characters and personas and let audiences worldwide empathize and identify with your performances.

You’ve loved playing make-believe since you were a little girl, having never really grown out of it. You could do it, you think. Dangerous dreams, perhaps, but what child doesn’t hold this wish within them? To see their name in lights and to be admired and commended, but most of all, to provide for their family?

How hard could it be?

At sixteen, you land your first speaking role. It’s pathetic. You’re working on set as background, per usual, only this time, the director picks you out from the crowd and gives you the line of, “Good morning, sir.” You’re to look off camera as the actor playing Kent entered the scene and you would then say your line.

You’re stupidly excited. Three simple words. You’ll be uncredited, of course, but your face would finally be seen! With butterflies fluttering in your stomach, the scene resets, Kent takes his mark, the cameras roll, and you deliver.

The scene is cut from the final reel.

You pound the pavement. You scour newspapers and flyers for casting calls, you phone agencies and playhouses, you save up to get your picture taken on glossy photo paper. You keep looking. You keep working in background until you can land a steady role.

Then, you finally get one. A miniscule part of a friendly neighborhood girl on a TV drama for CBS. You only have mere minutes of screen time, but the checks that arrive in the mail from Columbia Broadcasting System after your first few episodes air say otherwise.

You open a savings account. You plant your paychecks and watch them grow into a comfortable sum of money. You land another guest starring role for a daytime soap, the secretary of the title character. Combined with your parents’ salaries from your mother’s sewing and your father’s work on the railroads, you become the main breadwinner.

You move your family out of Hell’s Kitchen, out of your cramped, dark apartment. You sign a new lease under your new stage name and move to Brooklyn together.

Brooklyn is slightly cleaner, but the familiar hustle and bustle, the noise of shopkeepers and dialects and children and cars is comforting, grounds you in your roots. When your CBS drama wraps months later with your last check in the mail and you’re looking for your next gig, your brother works odd jobs to help shoulder the burden. Brick laying, chimney sweeping, milk and mail delivering, Samuel becomes no stranger to any and all work, so long as it pays. You become a typist on the side as you wait for auditions and callbacks.

Samuel tells you his aspirations to be a poet, a writer. He hasn’t said a word to your parents, but he shows you the small bound notebook he carries with him, leafing through pages of prose and verse. You encourage him to submit his work to newspapers, publishers. He gives you a shy smile, says he’ll consider it as soon as you get your motion picture debut. You shake on it. Together, your already close bond of brother and sister grows stronger as you each work to support your art.

You’re waiting for Samuel to finish his shift so you can catch a late showing of His Girl Friday, a warm September day when you first meet Bucky Barnes down at the wharfs. He’s tall, lean, and glistening with sweat when he rounds out of the warehouse with an armful of crates and nearly knocks you off the pier.

“Hey, watch it!” he snaps. His eyes flash like the water around you, blue and cold and dangerous. Brown locks curl with perspiration against his forehead, the sleeves of his workshirt rolled up over his shoulders, the exposed skin of his throat and arms flushed and tan.

Embarrassed, you try to steady him, to which he growls in annoyance and spins out of your reach. He makes a great show of bearing the weight himself, grumbling as he sets down his load. You don’t miss the way the muscles in his back flex and dip. It isn’t until he slowly stands back up, wiping his palms on his khakis, that you get a good look at each other.

The hostility in his eyes softens ever so slightly, simmering into a look that cinches your chest tight when his gaze travels shamelessly up from your kitten heels to the curves of your lips and cheek. His breathing is still labored as he surveys you and you can feel heat and color blooming against your skin. When his eyes finally settle on your face, you can’t decide whether you want to slap or kiss him.

“You lost or something, honey?” He asks with a whisper of a smile. He strolls in a lazy half-circle in front of you and moves to go back up the ramp to the warehouse. Then, he pauses and turns back to you.

“Have we met before? I swear I recognize you from somewhere.”

This delights you deliciously, that a handsome young man you’ve met by chance has seen your work. Not glamorous, acclaimed roles by any means, but recognition nonetheless. You bite the inside of your lip to suppress your smile and give him a coy, bashful flutter of your eyelashes.

“If that were the case, I’m sure I’d remember you.”

He grins wolfishly, pleased, and takes a step closer. “Yeah? Think you’ll let me take you out for dinner tonight?”

“She’s got plans with me, Buck.” Samuel’s voice carries across the water. Your brother emerges with wooden boxes and sets them between you and Bucky in a huff, as if he’s implementing a physical barrier, both childish and endearing. Bucky glances at you and Samuel.

“Are you two..?”

“Steady? No. She’s my sister.”

Bucky snorts and his eyes find you again, glittering in the evening light. “You never told me you had a sister, Sammy. And such a looker too..”

“Makes you wonder why I never brought her up,” retorts Samuel and gives him a playful shove, traps him briefly in a headlock. “At least Steve wouldn’t ogle.”

“Stevie would get a nose bleed and pass out.” You hear Bucky grunt back. Samuel moves as if to dump him into the drink and Bucky pinwheels, scrambling. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Satisfied, Samuel releases him and socks him in the shoulder for good measure. Bucky stumbles, looking boyish and smooth despite his shirt and hair all disheveled.

You’ve seen his type in casting offices all across New York; bold, alluring, and charismatic. It’s a look and type you’ve longed to act opposite of someday, as all young starlets dream of, but a look that simultaneously sparks the feminine temptation that shivers between your breasts. You wonder if Bucky would look the same in a dark bedroom, with him on top of you and your fingers running over his back…

Bucky grins toothily when he catches you staring and shoots you a wink. None of those movie star hopefuls hold a candle now to his rugged, spirited charm.

Samuel guides you back up the pier so he can punch out his time card and the two of you can be on your way. And as you’re about to set foot on solid ground, you hear Bucky call out to you.

“What’s your name, honey?”

Samuel sighs and shakes his head. “Cripes.” He mutters to himself. Before Samuel can stop you, you laugh and turn back to the water with a fresh and girlish aire, warmth and excitement whispering through your veins, young and naive and sixteen.

“Dolores!” You give him your full name, your real name. For once, you don’t want to be Lola Sparks. You want to be your natural, honest self, the girl who deserves young love and joy and an untroubled adolescence. The sound of your voice rings clear and strong, the diva that you are, and Bucky’s mouth curves upwards.

“See you ‘round, Dot.”

Much to Samuel’s displeasure, you tail your big brother around the docks like a lost pup whenever you have time. And being a C-list actress and a part-time typist, you have plenty of it. You loiter with the excuse of bringing sack lunches, waiting on Samuel and Bucky at the edge of the warehouses. It’s lonesome and bores you to no end being all by yourself, until one afternoon when someone is already waiting at your spot by the pier.

Small, skinny as his own shadow with a fringe of blonde hair, he leans hunkered and folded within himself, timid and seemingly conscious of how he occupies space. His jacket droops over his shoulders, eyes downcast even as you approach. He has a sketchbook in his hands, concentrated as the pencil moves across the page in fast, gentle strokes. You see an impressive likeness of the piers and Bucky’s distant figure in charcoaled lines.

“That’s really something.” You say.

He jolts so hard the paper tears and he crumples it into his fist in a single motion. “Huh?” he answers. When he looks to you, you realize his eyes are a pretty shade of teal. He flushes, petrified, the tips of his ears coloring pink. You feel horrible when he goes to pocket the ball of paper.

“I’m so sorry for scaring you,” you breathe. Gently, you offer your palm to him. “If you’re not keeping it, do you mind if I have it?” You ask softly. A few seconds pass and he shakes his head before placing it in your hand. You unfurl the paper, carefully smooth it out as he watches you from the corner of his eye.

Shyness is a barrier of art you’ve known all too well, from your own experiences in audition rooms to your brother’s reluctance to find a publisher, you understand that sting of insecurity better than anyone. So, you let him watch you as you admire his work, let him know of his talent and let your actions speak for you. You smile and slip the drawing into your purse.

Then, his stomach grumbles audibly, almost comically loud. He folds his arms around his stomach, so tight you’re afraid he’ll snap in half. You quickly reach into one of your paper bags and hand him a sandwich wrapped in cellophane and a can of lemonade.

“Here, let’s trade.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, but I can’t accept..” he starts. The timbre of his voice is surprisingly gallant and sure, pleasant, sweet. You have a gut feeling that the world has been taking advantage of that kindness his whole life, scaring him away from genuine compassion, that everything must have a catch. It makes you press harder.

“I insist. Please. It’s the least I can do for sneaking up on you.” He eyes you warily and again that feeling of regret washes over you. “Consider it payment.” You smile.

Finally, he takes Samuel’s lunch from you and unwraps the sandwich. He eats quickly and quietly, draining the lemonade only minutes later. Perhaps it’s his bony statue, but you feel happy to see this stranger eat.

When he’s finished, he wipes his mouth and turns to you. His lips, pretty, pink, part as if about to speak, yet no words leave him. Instead, he stands frozen with that transfixing blue-green gaze keeping you still, lingering.

That is until a stream of brilliant scarlet red dribbles down his chin and splatters onto his dress shirt. He pinches his nose, doubling forward and his flustered complexion matching the blood spilling from his nostrils.

“You must be Steve,” You laugh lightly and quickly hand him your handkerchief of cream yellow lace and embroidered flowers. You help steady him as he keeps his head tilted down. “Bucky’s told me all about you.”

Steve groans and presses the handkerchief to his face, blushing all the way down to his neck.

Steve returns your handkerchief days later with an embarrassed hush, carefully cleaned and laundered. It smells of lavender and clean linen and the image of him working the fabric between his thin fingers with soap and suds warms your heart.

You tell him it’s his. He blooms and keeps it neatly folded in his breast pocket.

You and Steve quickly grow close in the hours you spend together waiting on Bucky and Samuel. You pack extra lunches for him and sit by the piers chatting, skipping stones as Steve sketches the Brooklyn skyline day in and day out.

“Draw me!” you tease. “Isn’t that the request that all artists want to hear?”

But surprisingly, he does. He always draws you and Bucky and Samuel with striking, intimate familiarity. His sketchbook gradually fills with portraits and pictures of you, sketches that could put your very headshot to shame.

After their usual shifts, the four of you head to the drugstore for your ritual of sodas and sundaes. Two pairs, brother and sister and brothers by blood enjoying a rare wartime treat. With the rations on sugar, it’s a special and memorable circumstance just to be together and sharing something sweet.

It’s there, at your corner booth in Wolfe’s Pharmacy over ice cream, that Bucky opens up a paper for that night’s television network schedule and sees your name.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Dot,” he says. “What do others call you?”

Defeated, you twist your lips, hesitant to break the short spell of normalcy you’ve had with your new friends. Samuel sips at his Coke with a silent grin.

Time for the truth to come out.

“Well, ‘doll’, by Stevie,” you giggle and toe Steve’s foot under the table. Steve shyly shrinks back into his seat. “But CBS calls me Lola.”

Bucky’s jaw drops.

“Get out of here. You’re pulling my leg..”

“I absolutely am not.”

“Sammy, tell me she’s pulling my leg.”

“She’s not.”

Two pairs of brilliant blue eyes dart between you and your brother. Bucky’s face breaks into an open smile, laughing. Steve lurches forward.

“Have you ever met anyone famous?” Steve prods with a hint of that honest, innocent charm.

You wrinkle your nose sheepishly. “Mason Cook?”

“Who?” Bucky asks around a mouthful of sundae.

“Exactly.” Samuel snorts.

“Well, I’m sure he’s very talented.” Says Steve.

You swipe his maraschino cherry and let the stem dangle between your lips. “At least Stevie believes in me.”

“Dot, honey. I saw your pilot episode. If anyone’s a fan, it’s me.” Bucky feigns hurt, hand to his chest.

You stick out your bottom lip before sucking in the stem, working it into a tight knot in your mouth. “Are you still gonna be when your girl is signing autographs with John Wayne?”

You place the knotted stem on your napkin. Bucky nearly chokes.

“I better be.”

Samuel coughs. Steve giggles.

You thank your stars that your secret doesn’t change anything between Steve and Bucky. They treat you just the same; as Samuel’s baby sister who tags along with the boys. The teasing, the fleeting looks all unchanging.

Girls, you’ve unfortunately realized, are catty and mean. You’re competing for roles, after all. But with Bucky and Steve, your first taste of homecoming since moving to Brooklyn, you don’t have to worry about silly competition, or fame, or being the best in the room. They keep you level-headed, reminding you of your girlhood and life’s simple pleasures.

Bucky drives you and Steve around town in the company truck on weekends. Hopscotch and jacks on brick roads and warm nights, watching sunsets until the sky blushes peach and mango yellow at Coney Island.

A Saturday afternoon on Rockaway Beach, a vacation for you all after a draining week of work and auditions when Bucky promises to win you a stuffed bear when he sees you eyeing the one on careful display.

“Buck..Bucky, give it a rest, we can try the next one.” Steve chides.

Another plastic ring pings off the neck of a glass bottle. Bucky curses, rings his hands together and slaps another dollar onto the counter.

You and Steve trade looks. Bucky’s been at it for ten minutes. At this rate, you know you’ll be walking on the train tracks home tonight.

So, you and Steve huddle close and cheer him on. Do it for our doll! says Steve. Finish it so you’ll stop wasting money, you dolt! you cry. Hell, even the vendor finds it humorous and joins in.

And when Bucky wins that grand prize and you’re handed a teddy bear as big as Stevie, you hoist it on your back, careful to not let it touch gravel or dust as the three of you walk in line with the train tracks later that evening.

Paradise, a sheltered haven from the broken landscapes and realities that the European newsreels broadcast home in grim black and white.

True to Bucky’s word, they become your biggest supporters, helping you run lines and monologues and accompanying you to auditions. Bucky’s not bad for a scene partner, and Steve’s awareness of emotion and character motivation is impressive.

The attention you receive from casting directors and auditionees doesn’t hurt your chances either, lanky Steve and smoldering Bucky wishing you luck before stepping into the green room.

You book a drama. Then, a short film. Then another. You call them your lucky charms.

And when your humble little short film “premiers” at the corner cinema, squeezed in between an empty noon showing of a cartoon rerun, Steve and Bucky whoop and holler when your character is shown on screen. They throw popcorn and gumdrops, jostle you by the shoulders. Bucky even runs down the aisle and mimes kissing the projector screen.

“That’s our girl! That’s our Dot!”

The usher threatens to throw you out. Steve tells him you’ve paid good money for your tickets and you’ll stay and watch as long as you please.

The following week, you’re scouted by Peggy Carter.

Your world, your career will never be the same.

#steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x you #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #captain america x reader #captain america x female reader #captain america x you #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier x female reader #winter soldier x you #steve rogers fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfiction #steve rogers imagine #bucky barnes imagine

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spilledinkstories · 4 years

Text

Darkness and the Man in the Window: by Nicole H (a short story)

“It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring; he bumped his head, and went to bed, and couldn’t get up in the morning.”

*****

Andrew Bennett was tired of killing people.

In his twenty years working as a gardener, he had been hired by three separate estates to trim both their hedges and their family trees, and while he’d appreciated the extra cash and the opportunity to utilize his highly underestimated artistic flare, his partnership with the grim reaper had taken its toll.

It was due to this fatigue, this growing hollow place inside his chest, that he was absolutely dreading his eight-o’clock-in-the-morning meeting with Morticia. But if Andrew was anything, he was a man of his word, and so at seven-fifty-seven on August 29th, his knobbly, weathered fist rapped sharply three times on her heavy black wooden door.

“Punctual as always,” she said tartly. Her smile sent a troupe of ants parading up his spine, but he simply smiled back at her. They did not speak as she led him through the cavernous front entry of her manor house, down a hallway, and into her drawing room. Andrew personally found it strange that the drawing room was at the back of the house, but the view onto the lawn he groomed so meticulous was quite nice.

“Tea?”

“Coffee, if you’ve got it.”

“Of course.” And she poured a steaming cup of coffee, its aroma warming Andrew to his very core, giving him the courage he had been grasping for since entering this vapid house.

“I don’t want to do it, you know.” His words came out a great deal sharper than he’d meant them to. As she slunk toward him, cup of coffee extended, he braced himself. She simply continued to smile.

“I don’t see that you have a choice,” she said quietly, once she was directly in front of him. He gulped.

“Is that so?”

“I know what you’ve done. What you are. I could turn you in.”

Andrew stared into her cold eyes, his heart nothing but a heap of ash. His eyes burned, bile stinging his throat, his stomach in the soles of his feet. He had a family that loved him, and a granddaughter that thought he was the most precious thing in the world. He couldn’t bear to make them deal with his mistakes. He sat down on the uncomfortable sofa, and accepted the coffee from Morticia.

“There, now. Let’s discuss the specifics.”

She took her time arranging herself amidst some lavish cushions on a sofa across from him, and took her time again studying his anguished features with devilish intent written all over her angular face.

“As you know my husband and I own the morgue here in town, so first of all I’d like to extend our sincere thanks to you for all the business you’ve brought us.”

Andrew tried to swallow his coffee, but his throat had turned to a roll of sandpaper, coiling tighter and tighter, and as he spluttered and choked she gave a tinkling laugh that made him want to hurl the delicate porcelain cup right at her face. He didn’t though. He steadied himself, taking off his cap and resting it on his corduroyed knee.

She continued to speak. “As it happens, Mr. Bennet, my husband and I are well connected people. We know who comes into our morgue just as well as we know who put them there. And now that we’re in a spot of trouble, we can only be bothered to hire the best help in town.”

“I’ll garden for free for you,” Andrew ground out.

“Actually you’ll have to be fired as my gardener, you’ll understand that I can’t be connected to you once you’ve done the job. It’s a great pity too because we’ve been nothing short of thrilled with the work you do.” She cast an appreciative gaze over her shoulder to the back lawn of the house, with the pretty garden beds and well groomed hedges.

“No, I need you to kill someone for me. And make it look like an accident.”

“Would you get to the point, madam?” Andrew said. He was nauseous and wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and never face the sun again, and she was clearly toying with him.

“I need you to kill a surgeon.”

Andrew blinked. He leaned back. He let out a booming laugh that took both himself and Morticia by surprise. It wasn’t that he thought it was particularly funny, but stress plays strange tricks on the mind. It was an impulse. He took the last gulp of his coffee and set the cup roughly on the polished table between them.

“And why would I do that?”

“It’s actually quite strange. A little funny, really.”

“I don’t...”

“My name is Morticia and I own a morgue. Does that not point you toward any ideas?”

“You have a dark sense of humour,” Andrew ventured weakly.

“My darling, I am Death, incarnate.”

There was a stark silence in which Andrew considered the very real possibility that the woman before him was raving mad.

“Is that so?” was all he said.

“This surgeon is after my husbands career, so I need to fix that. And, I need to have it look like one in a string of many unfortunate events.”

“A few things there,” Andrew said, and he stood up and began pacing, trying to burn off the nervous energy. “First of all, does your husband know what he’s married to? and second, why can’t you just kill him yourself?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “No, he doesn’t know. He thinks I’m an ordinary woman. And I can’t kill the surgeon myself because it’s against the rules. They wouldn’t let me.”

Andrew returned to his seat, not taking the bait to ask who “they” were. As his knee began bouncing convulsively and he rubbed his palms together to stop them prickling, he asked, “how could a surgeon be after a morticians job? Aren’t those direct opposites?”

For the first time, Morticia’s smile wavered. She rose and refilled their cups, taking a few steadying breaths. The twisting in Andrew’s gut intensified. That hollow place in his chest was swallowing up what was left of him, and if he carried this act out, he knew that would be the final straw.

Morticia handed him the full cup and he gripped it, savouring the warmth it provided. It grounded him, made him feel real, and human. She sat, and finally met his eyes.

“Whenever anyone pictures Death as a person, they picture the devil, or a creature in black cloak. Someone with horrible intentions and a penchant for evil. That isn’t who I am though. I have a schedule to follow, lists to maintain, it’s actually quite stressful. I don’t go around with a pitchfork killing people — big fan of your pitchfork murder, by the way, I thought that was really clever. Anyway, I simply facilitate death.”

Andrew wasn’t sure he understood how you could facilitate death without causing it, and he didn’t appreciate being called out for one of his killings either. He said nothing, and she continued.

“I normally visit the local hospitals, under the guise of asking for follow-ups on our paper work. Those nurses are always getting it wrong. But I also visit the wards. I go to the ICU, and I speak to people. I see who is ready. I check it against my books.”

Morticia stood, and crossed to the end of the room where vast bookshelves lined the walls. Andrew thought it was a shelf full of prop books, and wondered privately if she was just trying to seem impressive. But she ran an expert finger along the spines, selecting one once she was sure, and brought it to show Andrew. She sat next to him on his sofa, and he would have sworn before God the air got colder.

She opened the book, and he was stunned to see a ledger.

“This is last year,” she said, with the air of an accountant in a business meeting telling him he really ought to trim his expenses. Looking closer at the pages, Andrew saw that beside each name was a date, and in a third column there seemed to be one of four letters. N, M, A, or S.

“What are these for?” He asked, pointing to an N.

“N is for natural. A is accident, M is murder, and S – ”

“I see,” Andrew cut across her. “You still haven’t told me what mistake you made. Stop stalling.”

Morticia sighed and went back to her sofa. Andrew was grateful to feel warmth return to the air around him. His head was getting fuzzy. It was as though he could hear a faint static, and see faint blurs in the edges of his vision. His pulse had quickened, and all together he felt quite ill. His eyes flicked to the lawn, and he imagined could smell the freshly mown grass and damp earth. Andrew swallowed, and the acid in his throat burned a little.

“I was at the hospital, and I overheard the surgeon talking to a technician. This surgeon happens to be my husband’s twin brother, and they also went through school together. One became a surgeon, the other a mortician, and everyone found it darkly funny. Anyway, I heard that he wants to take over my husband’s business. He wants to commodify his patients even further. It’s sickening. I was angry. I acted rashly. I wanted to make a note so I’d remember to talk to my husband about it and I just wrote the name of the surgeon down.”

“In your ledger?” Andrew asked. This was the most ridiculous story he’d ever heard, and vowed to himself that once he was out of this mess he was going to retire once and for all and never leave his house if he could help it.

“It’s not something that can be undone.”

“So I have to kill a man for you because you wrote down his name, have I got that right?”

“I’m so glad you understand.”

“I don’t,” he said, nonplussed.

“If he’s successful he will basically become a serial killer. He will make sure his patients die, so he can send them to his morgue, and double the bill for their loved ones. His name is in the ledger. So it’s final. I haven’t written a date yet. When can you get the job done?”

Andrew blinked at her. “You can’t be serious,” he spluttered, beginning to stand, but she lifted and imperious finger and he halted. He thought of his family, his granddaughter, and the dark hole in his heart.

“I will do it on one condition. Don’t pay me. Write down my name too.”

“What?” Morticia whispered. Her eyes were wide, and the flare she normally spoke with was replaced by an almost childlike awe.

“I am old. I hate myself. I’ve become a monster. Either kill me here and now, or if you insist I do it, kill me afterward. I can’t have my family knowing what I’ve done, so I’ll do what you say if it will protect them from knowing. But I don’t want to be around after.”

“That’s no way to talk, Andrew. What’s one more?” She said it soothingly, like a mother speaking to a child being theatrical over a mild case of the sniffles.

“What’s one more?” He croaked. “What’s…? It’s everything. I’m being swallowed up, and not much of me is left as it is. You’re pushing me over the edge. You’re driving me to it.” He was spitting the words at her, but she did not flinch.

She spoke in a dark, low voice. “Making a deal with Death is no laughing matter, Andrew Bennet.”

“You’re the one striking the deal here. You’re welcome to walk away, and neither of us gets what we want.”

She did not answer. She picked up a pen that had been on the table between them, and slowly opened her ledger on her lap.

“Simon Travers is the name of the surgeon,” she said, pointing her pen at the spot on the page that marked Simon’s fate. With a flourish, she began slowly etching a name underneath it, in the next vacancy.

“Andrew Bennet. Call me when you’ve finished the job, and I will add the date for your entry.”

It was about noon when Andrew Bennet finally left Morticia’s house. She’d told him what hospital Simon worked at, and he’d said he’d call her.

The hollow spot in his chest was writhing and expanding, pushing on his lungs so that he was panting for breath. He walked through downtown, and as he passed a shop window he saw a hunched, careworn man slouching down the street with no trace of life left in his eyes. It was his reflection, of course. His cellphone rang, and he watched the man in the shop window reach into the pocket of his jacket and answer the call.

“Hi, Grandpa!” Came the happy little voice. He looked away from the man in the window, unable to watch.

“Hello, dear,” he said happily. She mustn’t know anything was wrong.

“Mom said next weekend we’re gonna come visit you,” she said happily. They talked for a minute, and he promised they’d make cookies and watch her favourite movie, and go out for lunch somewhere special, and then he hung up. He couldn’t handle this. Not again.

As he continued past shops, the man in the window fell into step beside him. He allowed a small smile to cross both their features, appreciating that the lighting was just right that day so that he didn’t feel like he was walking to the hospital alone. Feeling alone is so much worse than simply being alone, Andrew thought. Today, the world seemed to have understood that he couldn’t feel alone. Not now.

It was an odd twist in the tapestry of life that caused Andrew Bennet to become a gardener in the first place. He had been a factory worker, close to retirement because his lungs couldn’t handle it much longer. His wife had suggested that he take up gardening on the weekends, to force him to get outside and clear his lungs. He’d fixed up their front lawn so beautifully, that when his wife threw his retirement party and invited the neighbours, he got quite a few requests. It was the combination of his exacting eye for careful detail, and his vision for what things could be, that gave him his edge.

As he thought of this edge of his, the man in the shop windows looked at him and seemed to say do you remember how proud you were of your plan? He’d set up an elaborate mouse trap of gardening tools that resulted in his wife’s killer being run through in his own backyard. Technically an accident, and while many of that man’s neighbours had seen Andrew milling about the place tending to the flower beds, they’d also seen him carefully arranging his tool box every day. They knew him to be a measured, thoughtful man. Never absent-minded. He’d gotten off scot free.

What about the second time, we weren’t so careful then, were we? The man in the window mocked. But Andrew was approaching the intersection in front of the hospital, and he decided it was too exhausting to go through his own ledger, so he said goodbye to the man in the windows. He crossed, and headed up the steep steps to the front doors.

The lobby of the hospital was lit by large green-blue glass walls, giving the impression that it was a gloomy, rainy day outside despite the sun. It was sombre and sterile, and Andrew heaved a sigh as he approached the reception desk.

“I have an appointment with Simon Travers, could you tell me where his office is please?”

“Of course, and may I get a name?” Said the receptionist without glancing up from her screen.

“I’m a good friend of his brother, Scott, actually. My name is Andrew.”

“I don’t see you here.”

“His brother sent me. We spoke on the phone. Where’s his office?”

“Whatever. Fourth floor, room two-fifty-one.”

He walked away without thanking her.

On the fourth floor, he got off the elevator and was greeted by a wide hallway, across which was a large cafe and seating space. Andrew felt the hollow spot inside him settle into a calm, background type of feeling, as a mixture of resolve, focus, and resignation took over his mind. He glanced at the signs on a post which told him that the room he was looking for was to his left. He crossed the hall and bought two coffees, then took them to a table in the corner where he could look out over the balcony at the floors below.

He wasn’t really looking though. The main thing was that his back was to the hallway.

He unzipped his jacket a little bit, and pulled out an envelop. Inside were some dried plants he’d brought with him. While he hadn’t known who Morticia had wanted him to take care of, he’d known what the meeting was about, and he’d come prepared. Being a gardener had given him certain advantages.

To the untrained eye, he was an old man sitting alone with two cups of coffee, looking at a dried Queen Ann’s Lace flower, possibly mourning the death of a loved one, or else praying for their swift and safe recovery. To an expert however, he was carefully avoiding touching the Hemlock roots with his bare skin, as he rolled the dried stems between the paper of the envelop, dropping the fine powder and liquid from inside the roots into one of the coffees. Highly toxic, all he had to do now was get Simon Travers to take a few sips. He replaced the envelop carefully in his jacket pocket, and rose.

Room two-fifty-one was a prestigious office at the very end of the long hallway. The door was open, and hands laden with coffee, Andrew knocked gently with the toe of his shoe.

“Simon Travers, yes? I’ve been so keen to meet with you.”

Simon Travers looked up from the papers he’d been reading, and his furrowed brow deepened as he said, “sorry, do I know you?”

“No, we haven’t met, young man. I’m here for a chat about your practice,” Andrew said boldly, using the same foot to now ease the door shut. He crossed the room with a confidence and ease of gait that only comes with age and experience.

“There you go, son,” he mumbled, setting the coffee down in front of Simon. He took a seat directly across from him, took a laboured sip of his own coffee, and set it on the edge of the desk with a satisfied “aahhh, there we are.”

“Who are you?” Simon pressed, trying not to be too rude while speaking loudly and slowly.

“Andrew Bennet is the name,” Andrew said in the same tone. Simon’s brows shot up, and he pursed his lips, an invitation for Andrew to continue.

Looking at the young man before him, the hollow darkness in Andrew’s chest reared up, pushing on his lungs so hard he felt he might faint, pushing up his throat so that he could barely speak, and reaching his brain to form a dark cloud over his thoughts. He couldn’t very well snatch the coffee back, could he. His palms prickled with sweat, and he suddenly became aware of his own body odour. It was too late. His head was swimming. He was here. It was about to happen. Again. He didn’t want to watch. He shut his eyes, pressing his lids so tightly together he thought he might be able to force blindness upon himself.

“Are you okay?” Simon’s voice sounded a long way off. Andrew hadn’t prepared anything to say to this young man. His plan had simply been to give him the coffee.

“Listen, sir, I’ve got a surgery I have to perform in an hour. If you have something to say, spit it out.”

And just like that, eyes screwed shut, a blinding clarity came over him. Maybe he wasn’t a bad person. He had been exacting justice this whole time. Avenging his wife was noble, and preventing the murder of several patients at the hands of a surgeon with a tendency for malpractice, well, that wasn’t so bad either. Andrew opened his eyes. Over Simon’s shoulder was a stunning view of the city. He let his gaze wander, curious if he could spot home from where he was sitting.

“Sir, I’m going to have to insist that you make this quick.”

Andrew’s eyes stayed on the glass but his gaze shifted, so he could see the man in the window again. He supposed he’d followed him from the shops on the street. Andrew watched the man in the window speak to the back of Simon’s head.

“I haven’t got a lot of money and that coffee was a gesture you know,” he snapped. Simon pulled a face, picked up the cup and tilted it toward Andrew as though to say “cheers”, and took a swig.

“Now, I’m here because Morticia said you’re her husband’s twin.”

“Oh, here we go,” Simon said, rubbing a hand over his face. “What did she tell you, that I’m driving her business into the ground because I’m so good at saving people?”

“What? No, she said you’re killing people to support your brother’s business, the business that you plan to steal from him.”

Simon leaned back and let out a laugh without mirth. His chair turned a bit, and he stared out at the city before turning back to Andrew. “I save people for a living, do you understand that? I could never do something that monstrous.”

“Why should I believe you?” Andrew said, feeling the roiling monster inside him start to gnaw on his ribs.

“Go ask any of the staff on this floor. I’ve been working at this hospital for nearly two decades and I’ve only ever lost two patients on the table, both during my fellowship at the beginning of my career. I’m a miracle worker, Mr. Bennet.”

The smooth arrogance on Simon Travers face was not enough to condemn the man to death. If what he had said was true, Morticia had told a boldfaced lie, though why that should surprise Andrew he did not know. He no longer felt present. The darkness inside him had made its way through his brain, his bones, his heart…he watched Simon raise the coffee for another drink, the whole time staring with a triumphant glint at Andrew.

When he set the cup down again, Andrew could see it was half empty. More than enough had been drunk.

“My mistake then lad, sorry to bother you.”

“Tell Morticia she can rot,” he said darkly. Andrew merely nodded and left the office, careful to close the door behind him.

He made his way out of the hospital, and realized it wasn’t the glass that made the sky look rainy. It was now pouring. He didn’t care. He pulled out his phone, and called Morticia. She answered, and he said, “It’s Andrew. It’s done,” and hung up.

He pulled his hat down more snugly on his head, and let the rain soak him as he stepped outside. He let it work through the thick denim of his jacket, let it make the corduroy of his pants turn to lead from the weight of the water. His feet squelched in his shoes, his socks sliding down and balling up under his toes. He let the water get into his eyes, welcoming the stinging, blurred vision. He let his nose run. He let all these things happen because they grounded him, made him feel present and real and human, even though the dark hollow thing in his chest was doing everything it could to prove otherwise.

He had been right, when he was sitting in Morticia’s drawing room that morning. This murder had been the last straw.

As he walked up the final block into the suburbs where his house sat, he wondered who had been the liar: Morticia, or Simon. He wondered if it mattered. He wondered whether he would have acted differently if it had been Morticia. He wouldn’t have, because she’d blackmailed him. He thought of his sweet granddaughter. He wondered if Simon had a family of his own. He hadn’t bothered to ask.

While he was wondering all this, Andrew hadn’t been paying attention to his footing. His toe caught on a raised lip in the sidewalk that he trod every day - he had memorized this little raised lip and normally carefully stepped over it, but today was different. He crashed to the ground, smacking his head off of the concrete.

He rolled onto his back.

He let the rain thunder onto his face for a moment, allowing it to soothe the stinging on his forehead where his skin had broken. He swiped at his face. There didn’t seem to be too much blood. No one had been around to see Andrew Bennet fall, and as the old man hoisted himself back to standing he felt a small relief that his dignity wasn’t hurt. He shuffled the remaining few steps, not bothering to take his usual glance at his immaculate front lawn as he entered the house.

Though it was only about five in the afternoon, Andrew shuffled upstairs and changed into dry clothes, and climbed into bed. He embraced the weight and warmth of the blankets after the long walk in the rain. He hadn’t turned on any lights, and as the dim early evening light lulled him into that blissful middle state between sleeping and wakefulness, he wondered if Morticia would keep her promise to him.

As the rain kept pouring down, the darkness inside him pounded in his chest and in his head - though he couldn’t be sure if his head didn’t just hurt from its introduction to the sidewalk.

Evening turned to twilight, which turned to night, and the darkness inside him ate up the entire room, easing him into slumber.

When morning came, Andrew Bennet did not wake.

#short story #spilled ink #writeblr #my writing #writers on tumblr #story #story prompt #writing prompt #writing portfolio #nursery rhyme #dark humor #neil gaiman #writing inspiration #murder story

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soliti · 4 years

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ASTRID SWAN

1. Taylor Swift: Folklore (2020, album) This year the so-called mainstream and the sidelines flow into each other. There are no borders between formula, selling, style and that is freeing for all who make art. Maybe in that sense a global pandemic is putting us on a more even creative keel. It’s providing time for all to actually make art rather than to focus on its marketing. Maybe. Taylor Swift’s first quarantine album became my favorite immediately. I have had it on probably every day for the past months. The marriage of Aaron Dessner’s delicate looping swirling riffs with Swift’s sugary pop vocal hooks and storytelling were just what I needed for inspiration and comfort while sitting at my desk, staring at the screen, writing and glimpsing the sky each day, through the seasons.

2. Beyoncé: The Lion King – The Gift (2020, visual album) The visual album directed by Bey herself is another border breaking effort, questioning the imagined fencing between super fame and unknown artists, elevating the African continents, black and brown humans and culture and healing with beauty. The music relates to the Lion King film that came out in 2019 and so does the film, but its free too, writing and rewriting additional meanings, imagining differently. It’s abundance, shared space, nature, form – an amazing fiction and a powerful narrative to black and brown children: you matter, you are beautiful. My 8-year-old LOVES every second of it. It is radical to be one of the most famous identifiable voices in pop and to share the vocal space and songwriting with all these other voices. It is radical to believe in your own power to do many things well, and then do it.

3. Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters (2020, album) What a year! It feels like I am 17 again with all these albums that become part of my musical interior. My new, yet familiar furniture to lean on. Apple’s album is an amalgamation of all her albums so far. It’s a language I speak. It’s like listening to my big sister. It makes me glad to be alive in 2020 to hear her be able to bottle the vulnerability and wit and shake shake shake…

4. Shawn Colvin: Diamond in the Rough (book, 2012) I read a lot this year, which is no news. I’m always reading. Still, this is a revelation: since 2018 I’ve been listening to Colvin’s album A Few Small Repairs from 1996 every week. Yes, every week at some point I have to listen to this. This relates to the fact that I’ve rediscovered a lot of my 90s favorites and realized that I still love them. So, finally I realized that she published a memoir in 2012. I loved reading this book because it hasn’t been so long that I can read books by women songwriters. There just haven’t been that many. And this one addressed song writing and the conditions of her becoming a musician very well. It also dealt with alcoholism, mental health struggles and weaved mothering, romantic love and parental love into the narrative. Again, reading this inspired me to do what I do. Her writing made me feel less lonely and inspired to play the guitar again.

5. Hari Kunzru: Into the Zone (podcast) Podcasts have become an almost too present noise in my mornings, my walks, my cooking, my escape from the family… in a small home with everyone home, you can make space by listening to your own boring talk shows so loud that it drowns out Neil Young and muddles YouTube kids and the endless video game or Lego reviews. So, I discovered Into the Zone. I love it passionately. It’s a literary writer’s and a researcher’s dream. Kunzru is able to tell narratives of far apart subjects and show how they relate and influence each other. He talks much about music, racism, ideas of genre, imagined futures… to be honest, I felt like writing a letter of thank you to him, that’s how much I loved this. I haven’t written the letter though, because I could not find his email address.

6. “How to Stop a Power Grab” by Andrew Marantz in The New Yorker. November 23rd, 2020. This great article looks into what we know about peaceful dissent, interviewing Erica Chenoweth who is an important voice for all kinds of civil organizing and dissent such as the Black Lives Matter -movement. Chenoweth has studied and found that peaceful dissent is more likely to lead to political change than violence. Her book with Maria Stephan Why Civil Resistance Works came out in 2013 and is considered a watershed book for civil organizing. Reading this article gave me hope; maybe instead of a major global disaster bigger than 2020, we are learning, we are on the brink of better times, of realizing that we all have to care for all and act upon the betterment of our conditions. That science is showing us that violence is a dead end. That things are changing. That from the perspective of centuries, our slow learning is accelerating.

7. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (TV Series, HBO) Michelle McNamara’s book by the same name was a hit a little while ago and this year, the HBO documentary series brings the entangled narratives of McNamara, the horrific victim stories and the story of the EAR/Night Stalker together much like the book. The criminal titled EAR who violated the lives of so many and killed many from 1960s until recently in California, USA is kind of at the center of the story, but also, he is a side character to something more interesting. For me, the true crime aspect of this program was not as compelling as the story of McNamara’s discovery of writing, her ability to fuse detective skills and storytelling and her inability to address her personal struggles while doing it. It is a tragedy. I was struck by the documentary’s skill at talking also about mothering, a romantic relationship and childhood and to relate all this to the way this woman worked, developed her professional situation. And all this, while investigating murders and rapes that happened long ago and were never solved. Watching this made me a fangirl of McNamara and it made me want to become an amateur sleuth and also a filmmaker in my next life. Finally, during the year I fluctuated between wanting to watch old films, familiar series and yearning to be shook out of my usual corners. Being true crime this series was super scary for me – but it was more about telling stories really than about the crime, so I grit my teeth and closed the blinds and told myself I’m safe and I watched the series twice already. Guardian review of the show.

#astrid swan #soliti #end of year lists #2020

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mendesstories · 5 years

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From the Ground Up

A/N: This idea came to me when I first heard the song ‘From The Ground Up’ by Dan + Shay a few months ago and this has been sitting around in my drafts ever since. I never liked how it kept turning out and I’m still not a 100% proud but here goes nothing. Tell me what you think!!

Taglist: @mendesficsxbombay @particularnervous (if you’d like to be added or removed let me know)

March 2016

“So...it’s time, eh?” He sighs looking at her.

She glumly nods, her eyes roaming everywhere but refusing to meet his. Her mouth opens to say something but her throat runs dry and suddenly words seem hard to find. Truthfully, she’s not sure what to say to the boy she loves when he’s about to leave for what, she prays for his sake, is the first of many of his own world tours.

She steps towards him, takes a deep breath and attempts to gather her resolve for him.

“I’m only nervous because I don’t know how things will work out ahead.”

“But I’ll call ever-”

“No wait let me finish, I want you to know that this-” she gulps and her fingers fidget with the frill of her top, “-this is big and it’s going to change your life. I’m so so proud and happy that you get to do this because, my dude, you deserve to live your dream more than anyone else I know. And, even if all the distance and time changes us, I won’t hate you ever, you’ll always be my best friend first.”

He wants to tell her that her fears are irrational. They are them, they’ll get through it all together but he’s not sure he can actually convince her this time. If he’s being honest he’s terrified she’s going to be right like always, that’ll he’ll get caught up in the glitz and glamour of it all and lose her.

He moves towards her tentatively, hands snaking around her waist and she melts into his embrace. Her head rests on his chest, her shoulders shuddering and for a split second, he blames himself for choosing to do what he loves and hurting the ones he loves in the process.

For a fraction of a millisecond, he has this feeling although nothing might ever be the same in his life again, that somehow the two of them will pull through it. That little glimmer is enough for him. Now, it’s his turn to take a deep breath and garner some strength for her sake.

He whispers softly, “Believe me, baby. We’ll be alright.”

Her dad watches them wearily from the side. He knows Shawn is a bright young boy with big dreams filling up his mind and only the best intentions at heart but he cannot help his fatherly inhibitions from clouding his thoughts.

He wonders how right Shawn is in choosing to make this his career and not going to college. He isn’t sure if they truly understand how the dynamic of their relationship is about to alter, both of them ambitious but heading down starkly different paths. He worries the scrutiny and attention that is bound to come, will wear out even his strong-willed little girl.

August 2019

Post-concert Shawn is always on an adrenaline high. Tonight, however, was truly special. He’s played the biggest show of his life. A sold-out stadium in his home city. The same place he would pass by numerous times as a child with his gaze fixated and eyes wide unable to wrap his mind around big it is.

Certainly, he never imagined that one-day a deafening crowd would sing the words he wrote in his journals back to him when his slacked jaw and welled up eyes leave it hard for him to swallow and finish the words.

She’s out there in the deafening crowd with her hair flying in every which direction with his sister singing along to every song just like everyone else in the audience. His biggest (and possibly favourite) supporter since day one.

He gets off stage a jittery mess with his heart still pounding fast against his chest and the whole room is electrified with his entrance. He hands his guitar to Cez and is pulled in for a hug.

There are bottles clinking, friends and family making rounds hugging him and each other. There’s enough energy in the room to spark up the CN tower standing tall behind them.

The past five years of his life and career have gone by in the blink of an eye. She was right when she predicted everything would change but the one thing that’s stayed constant is that he wouldn’t want to do any of this without her by his side, be it having to clean up the beer bottles and leftover pizza after Brian’s roaring 21st or playing a twice as roaring Rogers Stadium.

So, smile a mile wide and hands still clammy he makes his way towards her. He picks her up giving her a quick twirl and she lets out a little laugh. It’s enough to ignite his burning heart further.

He puts her down and she pulls him in closer for the tightest and warmest hug ever. Her blanket of love, happiness and pride envelops him.

He did it

Something lights up in her holding him so close in her arms. A glimmer, like the one he had in the airport all those years ago, tells her as long as they are hand in hand giving life their all, they’ll have many more moments like this one.

September 2019

He’s seated in the crowded auditorium between her parents and little brother, adjusting his dress shirt and formal slacks waiting for the graduation to start.

He recalls that one late night during the Europe leg of the tour when he woke up to fetch some water and realised she wasn’t in his arms. He found her with her shoulders bent over her textbooks and laptop, reading and rereading the words attempting to make sense of the page. She rubbed her eyes and willed herself to stay awake.

5 more minutes she convinced herself every five minutes

His heart plummeted looking at her haggard appearance knowing he was partly responsible for it. He never asked her, he never had to, she magically always knew. She could tell sense his anxiety building up. The initial buzz of being on tour fading away. He wanted to come home, tease his sister and press kisses to his mother’s cheek.

She would give him the world if he so asked and if there was anything she could do to keep his heart even slightly happier, she would. So without much hesitation, she makes a few adjustments in her budget for the rest of the month and flies out to him.

The glint in his bright eyes and his warm laugh reverberating through her eardrums when she surprised him made it all worth it.

Standing in the dim light of the tour bus it occurred to him how selfish and unfair he was to be so caught up buzzing around in excitement of her arrival to see how all that she does for him takes a toll on her as well.

He knows she’s going to compensate for this trip by working a few extra and long shifts around her classes. Her classes are a whole other story. They are far from easy and he has come to understand computer science is an incredibly time consuming and draining major despite her being passionate about the subject.

Recording albums, selling out stadiums, and writing heart-wrenching, gut-twisting songs was never her dream but she believed in his nevertheless. While chasing her own dream, she’s continued to support his.

Decidedly he wipes the sleep away from his tired eyes. He makes up his mind that he’s going to help her study even if that meant simply keeping her company.

“What? Why are you awake?” She asks him breaking out of her trance as he settles into the space beside her.

“Here, please take care of yourself, honey.” He mumbled into the dark placing a cold glass of water and some fruit in front of her.

Andrew may have found them the next morning all cuddled up, soft snores leaving their exhausted bodies, but they had successfully finished her linear algebra 1 work.

His face breaks into the biggest grin when they announce her name. Hands clapping as loudly as possible while she walks up on stage beaming with pride and standing tall in all her 5 feet 5 glory. Her dad even whistles a few times. He can only imagine how proud her parents are of their daughter.

She did it

His chest constricts with a bubbling feeling and he isn’t quite sure what it is. Perhaps it’s pride but something tells him it’s just the all-consuming love he has for her and all of her.

4 years later

The second she is pushed out the room is engulfed in an overwhelming torrent of emotion.

She’s beautiful

It’s his first thought. Certainly, she’s covered in baby gunk but she’s still beautiful.

The silence in the room for the first few seconds seemed piercing. Is she alright? She’s supposed to cry, right? Why isn’t she crying? Then it’s replaced by her faint little cry which grows louder and louder until it has turned into an all-out no holds scream. She’s loud but he doesn’t mind in the slightest. She’s safe. His wife is safe. His own family is here safe and sound.

“We have to clean her up first.” The nurse declares gently picking her up from her mother’s chest where they placed her for barely a minute.

He doesn’t want to let her out of his sight. So, he drops his head and presses a kiss to his wife’s forehead, whispers an ‘I love you’ and speeds off after the nurse.

Not so much to one’s surprise she cries and shrieks as they take a prick of her blood and check her vitals. It takes everything in him to not pick her up and coo into her little ears that he’s right here and as long as he’s round he won’t let anything bad happen to her.

“Hi angel, I love you.” He bends down and mumbles as the nurse runs a washcloth across her tummy.

He never imagined those five words would alter his life and perspective forever. Her cries seem to subside and he knows that newborns have little to no muscle power and she can’t really see but he swears she looks at him and calms down.

4 years later

Estela Mendes is nearly four now. She has more fun each day than should be legally allowed. She struggles with sharing toys and her parents’ undivided attention with her toddler brother (her parents promise you they are working on this), while her curiosity about the baby in her mama’s belly grows each day.

4 years and 7 months later

Gotta support the neck Gotta support the neck

The thought has been drilled into his head by his parents over the past few months. While his fans may have said countless things about his large hands, some of their words managing to leave him haunted, he never really noticed how large his hands actually were until now. She seems so little and fragile in his arms compared to the first two now notorious Mendes siblings.

It’s safe to say the youngest Mendes daughter wasn’t planned yet somehow she came at the perfect time.

The two of them had spent a fair number of nights with goosebumps rising on their skin in the Toronto breeze, after putting their kids to bed, (god, how do they sound so old?) huddled shoulder to shoulder as she indulged in her choice of cravings for the night (it was a jar of pickles more often than not) dreaming of what the baby girl growing inside would be like.

Now, she’s here and he’s enamored with her very existence. He can’t keep his eyes off her. If it was all up to him he’d sit there for hours on an end memorizing every little detail of her being and watch her attempt to clasp her small figures around his large ones.

His wife rests her head on his shoulders, exhaustion rimming her eyelids with her matted hair against her forehead. She moves her hand that is free of the IV needles and tubes to bring the two older children, smitten with the latest addition to the family, closer into her lap.

Everything he’s ever wanted - needed really - is right here in his arms. He feels complete.

7 years later

The youngest Mendes child is clutched to her waist, hands moving animatedly describing plans she has with her siblings for the rest of the day, as the pair of them make their way out to the rest of the family in their backyard.

His wife’s heart grows in size finding both sets of grandparents recollecting stories while Shawn teaches his two older children how to strum a certain chord on his guitar.

The mess of curls - that is her son - seated on Shawn’s lap has a glint of mischief lacing his eyes trying to think of ways to add his touch of fun to the relatively calm backyard.

She puts her daughter down who wobbles across the grass to where her dad and siblings are seated.

Now, all four of them are playing some game. He somehow manages to lift all three of them into the air, makes the sound of a bear growling, places them back onto the grass gently and tickles them until they’re all in fits of laughter.

The delirious belly laughs they let out at his antics have him grinning ear to ear. The simplicity of the moment overwhelms him. This is all he could ever dream of having and more. A family of his own, people that are his own and people with whom he can cherish the wild rollercoaster of moments his life has been and continues to be.

All those inhibitions her dad had at the airport years ago no longer hold true. He’s watched Shawn grow into being the incredible partner and father that he is today.

He’s the man her dad hoped he would be.

65 years later

The morning sun streaming in uninvited kisses them awake. He opens his eyes to the slivers of light peeping in through the gaps in the blinds casting thin stripes across her tan and angelic skin.

She blinks multiple times adjusting to the sudden light drowsily, mouth curving into a lopsided grin as he pulls her closer into his embrace.

65 years old now, in this little house that they made home when they stepped foot into young, first child on the way, eyes dancing with excitement for the future.

The pictures that adorn every nook and corner of this warm and humble abode are a testament to their tale. The clouds may have rolled and the earth may have shook but they sheltered each other through the wind and the rain.

They did it

#shawn mendes #shawn x oc #shawn mendes fic #blurb #shawn #shawn x reader #mendes #writing #shawn mendes fanfic #fluff #fics #shawn mendes fics #fanfic

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