#brona´s sadness

[romangoldendreams]

The siren´s song

[minas-writing]

@homesteadhorner‘s Moodboard Monday - Silent

I read this week's prompt and almost assumed (again) that I didn't have anything to qualify for it. And then I remembered one character who chooses not to speak... and another whose voice was destroyed by a magic potion, and a third who sold her electronic voice box off. So my assumption was incorrect. This moodboard is for Ellie, a native Martian (which was originally colonized by humans from Earth in the first place). The story is a retelling of The Wild Swans.

Long story short, Elise's brothers were sold off by their stepmother, she was tricked into going to Earth illegally and almost killed there. Now she has a cybernetic neck and jaw, and she sold off the voice tech to make money to try and find her brothers. In this snippet, they find her. She is working at a theater as special effects, due to her particular (non-magical) talents.

About 2k words, angst and fluff and whump all in one. This isn’t 100% my best work, especially the ending, but I am proud of it and I’m glad I sort of finished it.

Elise’s heart hammered. They were here. Brona had really done it. Only a few hours ago, he’d proposed, but she had to decline - it was clear that their relationship had always been one-sided, and Elise was busy trying to find her brothers, anyway. Enraged, Brona had called the police on her. Elise’s only crime was that of finding a new home here, but laws were laws.

And now the police were here.

Panicking, Elise snatched Vaun’s carving of a swan off her dresser, shoved it in her pocket, and opened her window. The police were coming up the stairs to her room. Elise heard the startled shrieks of the other theater girls that were awake. She ignored the pounding on her flimsy, though locked, door and did her best to inch quietly and quickly out the window.

It wasn’t quick enough. Elise had one leg out the window and one in her room when the door splintered at the handle and swung open. Three people dressed all in black rushed into the room.

Elise lost the sensation of “up” for a moment as she was dragged from the window and through her destroyed door. The operatives were fast. Two held her shoulders while the third cleared a path through the crowd of barely-dressed, garishly-made up theater girls. They were Elise’s compatriots - most not really friends, but they knew her and she knew them. Elise was too stunned to be properly embarrassed, and she was moving too fast to respond to any questioning looks.

Outside the girls’ home, the pace slowed. There were more people in black - male or female, Elise couldn’t tell - and one came forward to roughly take her finder and prick it with some red box. It beeped, and the person shook their head.

“She’s alien, all right,” the person said, their voice revealing them to be a female. Elise winced. She’d harbored one, small, last hope that somehow the test would come back negative. “Blasted things,” the woman muttered. The people behind Elise began to tow her forward, towards the ship that was the only real source of light in the fading daylight.

“Hold on,” a man said, coming close and leaning toward Elise’s neck. She attempted to pull away or push him, but she was held back. The man reached out a gloved finger and tapped the silicone skin there. Elise had been meaning to repaint that, but there were a few chips in the flesh-covered paint that revealed what it really was. “This looks Terran.”

Despite Elise’s struggling and her dirty looks, the man proceeded to chip away at the paint on her neck and jaw. It didn’t take much - she’d last sealed it over a month ago - but it felt invasive and very uncomfortable. Before long, Elise’s inhuman neck was bare, and she’d been pushed down with handcuffs on her wrists in front of her.

The operatives took a moment to discuss things, and eventually decided against their original plan of immediate deportation. Elise didn’t know what would happen to her. She couldn’t answer their questions, her ability to speak taken from her. She probably wouldn’t ever see her brothers again, despite these years of trying.

Elise stood at a man’s prompting. Vaun’s swan tumbled from her pocket to the grass, a dark brown stain on the graying greenery. Elise lunged for the carving, desperately wanting to keep it close. Someone caught her arm with a hand like steel, and a boot kicked the carving away, dismissing it as unimportant.

Involuntarily, Elise’s eyes filled with tears. Air escaped from her mouth, unaccompanied by the sob that had built up. She pulled, kicked, struggled more than she ever had in her life, but she simply wasn’t very strong. All the while, no sound escaped her throat, except for the faint whoosh of air as she breathed. It couldn’t. The operatives holding her grunted, spoke, but Elise didn’t hear them. There was no sobbing, but there were tears. Her hopes were dashed. Life was hell. No point -

“Ellie!” came a cry from a distance away. Elise froze, allowing herself to be dragged. No one called her Ellie anymore. But, then, who -

Elise looked up. A single shadow drew closer, and the light of the ship brought a sandy-haired man into sharp relief. The operatives ceased their pulling, curious but on guard. The man got within a few feet of Elise before a man spoke from behind her.

“That’s close enough. Who are you?”

The sandy-haired man paused, his green eyes fixed on Elise. He leaned down, silent, and picked up the carved swan from the ground. He brushed a few stray blades of grass off its smooth surface, and Elise recognized those hands.

“Vaun,” she said. Or tried to. Only air came out, vaguely shaped by her mouth. It wasn’t speech, but sometimes she could get things across with the technique. The man in front of her - her brother - smiled worriedly at her.

“You are dismissed,” Vaun said with an air of authority, turning his attention to the people behind her. Elise scrunched her eyebrows, and clearly the operatives thought the same way. One scoffed.

“Once again, who are you?” they asked brusquely.

“No one you’d recognize,” Vaun answered with a shrug. “But I do have a signed pardon here, and you’ll find that it’s quite legitimate.” He held out a piece of paper with a small blob of blue wax on the corner, and someone in black snatched it.

After a moment of looking at it, the person with the paper nodded to another one of their number, who jogged to the ship and came back a minute later.

“It’s true,” they said, reaching the group standing there in silence. “Anyone I reached confirmed it.”

With a grumble, the person handed the paper back to Vaun, who took it graciously. Elise’s shoulders suddenly felt lighter as hands were retracted. Someone removed the cuffs from her wrists and shoved her forward. Elise hadn’t been expecting that, so she stumbled and would have fallen if Vaun hadn’t caught her.

“Take her,” a woman spat, and the operatives were gone, flying away in their prison ship.

“Ellie,” Vaun said, sounding close to tears as he held her. Ellie squeezed her eyes shut, the tears coming out in force again. She squeezed him tightly back, and she didn’t know how long they stayed like that. It was fully dark when he pulled away.

“Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you, did they?” He looked her over, and suddenly Ellie felt six years old again, safe with six older brothers who loved her. Ellie shrugged, thinking about the hard fingers on her shoulders and on her arms that probably left bruises, then shook her head. Vaun’s gaze lingered on the silicone and metal that made up Ellie’s neck now, and she ducked her head, blushing, trying to shield most of it from view.

“What happened there?” he asked, straightening up. He was very tall, amplifying Ellie’s feeling of being small. Ellie couldn’t answer his question without a lot of charades or something to write on, so she just looked at him. Vaun’s face was pinched in concern. His voice got deep.

“You can’t speak, can you?”

Ellie hesitated, but there was no hiding it. She shook her head, confirming his theory. Emotions crowded his face - anger, sadness, worry. Feeling guilty, Ellie looked away.

Vaun exhaled and ran a hand over his face. “It’s all right. Come on, we have places to be.” He took her hand and led her around to the theater, which was just a little distance from the girls’ home. Parked out in front of the majestic building was another ship, smaller and less threatening than the prison ship that had flown away a few minutes ago. It was gray and a little bit beat up, and there was some kind of crest painted and scratched up on the side. Ellie vaguely recognized the design as maybe something to do with the government in the area, but she wasn’t well-versed enough in that to really tell.

The back hatch lowered with a quiet hiss, and Ellie stopped in her tracks. Vaun continued for a step before stopping and chuckling. Jeremiah was hanging out of the hatch, grinning at her. He’d grown, too, and while maybe he wasn’t taller than Vaun anymore, he was definitely more muscled. Without a conscious command, Ellie let go of Vaun and sprinted forward.

“Ellie! There you are!” Jeremiah caught her in a hug and lifted her off the ground. If Ellie could have, she would have laughed loudly. As it was, she just smiled widely and clutched Jeremiah back. He let her down after too short a moment. Vaun had caught up, and the three of them walked into the ship.

“We found her!” Jeremiah hollered. His voice echoed through the body of the ship, and then they arrived in the main lobby, which, due to the ship’s small size, also seemed to serve as a command center. Sitting and standing there, manning different stations or just loitering around, were Ellie’s other brothers.

Ellie broke down. She hid her face in a hand, the other hand firmly grasped in Jeremiah’s, and cried. Immediately, more brothers surrounded her, seizing her as she was clutching at them. She almost couldn’t tell who was who, they’d changed, but they were still hers. Tristan, Rikan, Jakob, Keon… and Vaun and Jeremiah joined the hug-fest, too. All too soon, though, the knot loosened, and Ellie was standing on her feet again.

Jakob scowled. He was still wiry, and moved with a fluid grace, and the angry expression seemed all too at home on his face. “That rat didn’t tell us he’d hurt her this badly,” he snarled, the direction of his gaze clearly indicating that he was talking about Ellie’s neck. She couldn’t get redder, but she did hunch her shoulders as she tried to stop crying and dry her face.

“Wait, you think it was him?” Vaun clarified, a hand dropping onto Ellie’s shoulder protectively. Wait, who were they talking about?

“What else do you think happened?” Rikan called from the front of the room, where the windows were. He was pressing buttons, and from the way that the floor began to rumble, Ellie assumed that he was preparing the ship for takeoff. “The kid told us he’d kind of sort of tried to kill her, and that it had almost worked.” Ellie blinked. They weren’t talking about Draven, were they?

“What did happen, Ellie?” Tristan asked. He shoved a few tubes into the wall and clicked a hatch shut, wiping his hands on a blackened rag. “We’re doing a terrible job of guessing.”

Ellie wet her lips and opened her mouth, but almost as soon as she did, she shut it again and glanced at Vaun, who realized immediately.

“She can’t talk, Tris,” he said lowly. That made all five of the brothers pause. Tristan froze, Rikan stopped punching in coordinates, Jeremiah turned his head sharply, Jakob bared his teeth, and Keon fumbled the screwdriver he was holding. They returned to their various activities after a brief moment, but the damage was done. Ellie could almost feel the ire welling up in the room, and her face drooped. She didn’t want them to be sad, but she couldn’t snap at them to cheer up, or to not worry about her.

“I hate that guy,” Keon muttered as he crawled halfway into a dark space with the screwdriver in his hand.

“I think we all do,” Tristan agreed darkly. He tossed the dirty rag on an empty shelf and went back over to pat Ellie’s hair. She was sure he was getting some grime on it, but she didn’t mind one bit. She leaned into his touch. “Was it a man named Draven?” he asked.

Confused, Ellie nodded slowly. How did they know him?

As if he had heard her, Tristan continued. “We’ve been looking for you for a while,” he said. “We stumbled upon a guy who claimed to know you well, and he gave us this tip, ultimately, but refused to come with us. Not going to lie, none of us were sad about that.”

“I was ready to punch his lights out,” Jakob grumbled.

“Ready for takeoff,” Rikan interjected loudly. He turned his head and gave Ellie a tight smile. “Next stop, the palace.”

[aion-rsa]

The Best TV Performances of Billie Piper

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Most people know Billie Piper from her turn as Rose Tyler, the first companion of Doctor Who‘s modern era. Since she left the iconic science fiction show, however, Piper has been steadily carving out a niche for herself in well-written, often subversive TV drama as an actress who isn’t afraid to take chances with her performance or on a controversial role. Her latest turn, as hot mess celebrity Suzie in I Hate Suzie, is yet another example of Piper’s willingness to take on new and challenging roles. Piper blew us away with her performance as Rose in Who. Since then, she’s just continued to get better and better.

Let’s take a look at some of Piper’s most memorable TV performances so far…

Rose/The Moment, Doctor Who (2005-2006, 2008, 2010, 2013)

Sorry to make you cry in the middle of the workday with that above clip, but needs must. For Piper, Rose Tyler will no doubt always be a career-defining performance. Luckily for the British actress, even in her early 20s, Piper was already a formidable actress. She imbued Rose Tyler with a fierce and honest vulnerability that immediately made her likable and, as audience surrogate, in no small part carried the show. When she left the show as a series regular in season two, her absence was sorely missed.

Piper was particularly memorable in season one’s “Father’s Day” and season two’s “Doomsday,” the latter of which is featured above. Her affecting, nuanced performance as Rose Tyler — in which she held her own opposite acting veterans like Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant — made people stand up and take notice. Piper was no longer “that teen pop star,” but a talented newcomer actress able to co-lead a hit show.

Piper’s eventual return for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special “Day of the Doctor,” in which she played The Moment, showed just how much the actress had matured in a few years, and was one of the highlights of an historic Doctor Who installment.

Sally, The Ruby in the Smoke/The Shadow in the North (2006/2007)

Directly after her time on Doctor Who, Billie Piper filmed two television movie adaptations of the first two books in Philip Pullman’s The Sally Lockhart Quartet. The stories follow the adventures of Sally Lockhart, a young woman living in 19th century England who is thrown into a dangerous mystery following the death of her father. The TV movies also feature Matt Smith in a supporting role and Julie Walters as a seriously scary villain. Well worth a watch.

Sally is headstrong like Rose, but she is also much more reserved than we came to expect from the NuWho companion. As wonderful as Piper is in these TV movies, they also give a glimpse of what Piper’s career might have been like if she continued to choose more traditional, safe roles post-Doctor Who.

Hannah/Belle, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007-2011)

Billie Piper proved she wasn’t afraid to take risky roles with the Showtime drama Secret Diary of a Call Girl, an adaptation of the blog and books by Belle de Jour, a real-life high class London call girl.

Also starring James D’arcy, Lily James, and featuring an appearance from future Doctor Matt Smith, this series is often underrated because of its scandalous subject matter, but — at its best — it is funny, engaging, and addresses some topics you pretty much never see addressed on TV.

As the central protagonist who often breaks the fourth wall and straight-up talks to the audience (before Phoebe Waller-Bridge made it cool), Piper needs to be good in this role for this show to work. Belle/Hannah is too much of the formula for her not to be.

Piper is more than up to the task, making us care about the life of one London call girl, in all of her complexities. This show doesn’t always work, especially in its later, uneven seasons, but it’s never because Piper isn’t turning in an engaging, affecting performance.

Brona/Lily, Penny Dreadful (2014-2016)

Most people point to Eva Green’s raw performance as Vanessa Ives as the standout role in Penny Dreadful, and understandably so, but to discount what Billie Piper brought to the horror drama series would be doing the show, and its legacy, a great disservice. Piper’s turn as the sad, but loving Brona and the unpredictable, angry Lily in Penny Dreadful was bold, nuanced, and unforgettable.

It’s hard to speak about this performance without giving too much away, but Piper’s performance in the third and final season of Penny Dreadful was not only one of the best of Piper’s career at that time, but one of the best performances on television in 2016, full stop.

Suzie, I Hate Suzie (2020)

Billie Piper serves as star and co-creator (alongside Secret Diary‘s Lucy Prebble) of this new dark comedy-drama launching tomorrow in the UK. A look at modern celebrity, I Hate Suzie follows Piper’s Suzie, an actress whose career is threatened when her phone is hacked and a personal photo is leaked to the public. Speaking to Metro about Piper’s performance in the new series, Prebble said:

Billie can kind of access emotion and play it more resonantly than any other actor I’ve ever worked with. She’s a real weapon. I think that there’s a sort of trust and shorthand that comes from working with me.  When you’ve got that level of communication as close friends, she’ll trust me to write that. And then I trust her to understand what the layers of it are and to perform it. I write for Billie, in a way that I wouldn’t for any other actor. I leave the spaces because I know what she’s capable of.

Do you have a favorite Billie Piper role? Sound off in the comments below…

The post The Best TV Performances of Billie Piper appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[romangoldendreams]

Ethan falling in Vanessa´s spell

John Logan, part III

Joy. When Vanessa appears before Ethan in 1X04 "Demimonde", he cannot help but feel joy, and stand up to look as neat and elegant as possible. Considerations that he has never made with any other woman given his love curriculum based on sporadic sexual adventures.

Anyway, Vanessa is cold, she does not give Ethan more importance than any of the members of the Company. Her toughness makes Vanessa the seductress, and  Ethan the seduced. We are before Vanessa's whip. She seems to be too powerful, beautiful, or strong for someone as bohemian as Ethan Chandler.  He us used to another kind of women, vulgar women. Vanessa  looks so far away, in the vastness, someone Ethan can dream of but could never afford to be with. She is unattainable for him, Vanessa knows it and that is why she is so distant and arrogant in a way. Throughout the entire series Ethan will be in charge of exposing his romantic feelings for her and not the other way around.  It´s part of Vanessa´s cruel feelings. Part of her powerful siren-seduction. 

The river water overflows. Ethan does not hide the feelings of happiness when  is meeting Vanessa in the theater. Brona is in front of them, but Ethan doesn't stop to think for a moment that he should be more diplomatic, that his attraction to Vanessa is obvious, and Brona is in fact his official girlfriend, and is noticing about this. 

Ethan, as responsible for Brona's sadness. Ethan starts flirting with Vanessa unconsciously, given the idealization he silently feels for her.  It is a powerful situation, very revealing. In Vanessa's words there is a cordial greeting for Brona, and another full of friendly feeling for Ethan, she is glad to see Ethan there, because in fact he is an actor. Vanessa is cruel in a way here. She knows that Brona is at a disadvantage, because Ethan is infatuated with her, and not with Brona really. The great culture, elegance and beauty of Vanessa are nailed in the look of Brona, who darkens herslef  even more. Ethan just laughs and looks at Vanessa, it's like he's really happy now. As if before, being with Brona had been happy, but now when Vanessa arrives something inside him has been released, and he is complete. Vanessa is the company he really wants, and Ethan doesn't hide it. Laugh like a man in love would. He is flattered in his vanity that Vanessa praises him. Ethan has now, what he didn´t get in the morning, when Vanessa arrived. 

Jealousy. Dorian Gray arrives, claiming the mermaid. It is the untimely sea of fatal seduction. Everyone is attracted to Vanessa Ives. They are all sailors, they all love her in a metaphorical and even real sense. Ethan notices how Dorian calls Vanessa by her name ... "Vanessa", and this feline approach of Dorian bothers him in a way. Josh Hartnett has developed his first reaction as a jealous advance. Yet another man, who also wants Vanessa. To his Vanessa. There is poetic injustice in this scene.Over all for Brona, she´s there too, but so eclipsed by Ives... If Ethan ignores Brona Croft, his lover, he would want to ignore Dorian as well.

Sadness. Ethan looks Vanessa´s face. She´s delighted by Dorian, like he´s with her. Ethan & Brona are feeling an unrequited love. It´s sad in fact.  

Brona is nervous, Dorian, her last client is looking her. It's cheeky, but in a way the scales balanced.

Brona is not invisible, Dorian likes her, and more than meets the eye at a glance. The situation is changing...

Attack. The mermaid attacks again,  Vanessaa is full of ideas and an excellent education, culture, feelings and funny comments,  that she uses as a seduction´s weapon and between the two suitors she metaphorically chooses Ethan, who gives himself to her completely. Both begin to speak next to Dorian, but in a moment Ethan is lost in Vanessa and Dorian is in suspense, like Brona.

Vanessa's spell grows. Ethan and Dorian, attracted to each other, leave together. Here Vanessa's strange spell on Ethan operates through Dorian. Dorian Gray is the channel.

Vanessa returns to see the theater performance. Brona has left because of her illness, and filled with jealousy and pain over her shortcomings compared to Vanessa and Dorian, she feels that she doesn't make Ethan happy. Brona feels reality. It's cruel, it's cold, merciless, but true. The truth is hurtful, powerful in Penny Dreadful. Don't be merciful.

When Dorian mentions Vanessa,  Ethan's expression goes wild. Mentioning Vanessa to Ethan is like touching something sacred to him and dirtying it. That is why Ethan is not passionate about the reason for Dorian's toast. He's tired of everyone loving Vanessa ... he feels they have no right, no more than him. Vanessa, again. Dorian says that she is the most mysterious woman in London. Ethan's attraction to Vanessa now turns into an obsession. Everyone is obsessed with Vanessa, all the men who Ethan knows, from his circle with Ives & Sir Malcolm.

Ethan makes the love with Dorian, seeing Vanessa's face among many other visions that the effect of absinthe is leaving him.