#but saying that makes it feel like lyrics are somehow lesser or my brain feels like thats what that sounds like. whatever

[strictly-confectional]

oh oops thats just a whole set of lyrics i made

[isitgintimeyet]

Just A Friend

AO3

Previous

Thanks for all the support. 

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for the beta

I’m on holiday next week so the  next chapter may be slightly delayed, but for now here’s...

Chapter 9: From Siblings to Safety Net

Jamie leads the way through the car park. I tread gingerly, the combination of unaccustomed high heels and uneven ground—a potentially lethal combination. He turns and notices my dilemma.

“Here,” he holds out his arm for me. I smile and gratefully take hold of his forearm until we reach the comparative safety of the marquee.

Once inside, Jamie pauses and looks around, trying to find his sister. I look around too, not that I know what his sister looks like, but I’m assuming, based on her brother, that she’ll be pretty easy to spot in the crowd.

The room is full with a steady stream of people moving swiftly towards the bar and rather less swiftly back to their tables carefully balancing bottles and glasses. I spot, through a break in the procession, Rupert sitting at a table talking to a petite brunette, who I assume is his wife Morag.

“Look,” I nudge Jamie and point towards the table. “It’s Rupert and—“

“Aye, so it is.” And he deftly negotiates our way through the maze of alcohol carrying individuals to the table.

Rupert and his wife stand up as we approach and he greets us enthusiastically, patting Jamie on the back and kissing my cheek.

“Nice tae see ye again,” he says, smiling.

“Good to see you too, Rupert.”

Jamie envelopes Morag in a huge bear hug. Is this the usual greeting for Rupert’s wife? I glance at Rupert but he’s totally unperturbed by this display of affection.

Eventually, Jamie stands up straight. “Claire, I’d like ye tae meet ma sister, Jenny. Jenny, this is ma friend, Claire.”

The intimate bear hug makes more sense now to me.

Jenny holds out her hand.“Nice tae meet ye Claire.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“And you too, Jenny. Jamie has told me so much about you and your family. And those photos that you took, wow, they’re amazing.” I can hear myself talking over enthusiastically and force myself to shut up. It’s a habit I have when I’m nervous.

Physically, Jamie and Jenny couldn’t be less alike. With his curly red hair and tall stature, Jamie is some sort of Viking throwback, whereas Jenny’s straight brunette locks and petite, delicate features give her a fragile, almost doll-like quality. I feel like an Amazon standing next to her. As she continues to talk to her brother, berating him for his last minute appearance, I rack my brains. She reminds me of someone, but I can’t for the life of me think who.

Then it dawns on me. When I was a junior doctor working in Trauma and Orthopaedics, the matron there was a brunette too, whose air of fragility belied a rock hard will and determination. Her wards were run with military precision and, without ever raising her voice, it was clear that her command was absolute. She never shouted, she never belittled, but somehow everyone, even the consultants, knew exactly who was in charge. I get exactly the same feeling with Jenny.

A noise behind me rouses me from my contemplation and a large tray of drinks is placed on the table.

“Ian, man, did ye get me a drink?” Jamie laughs.

“But of course, and,” Ian turns to me. “I presume ye’re Claire. I took the liberty and got ye a gin and tonic—double, jes’ in case that was yer tipple. But it’s nae bother if ye dinna want it. I can go and get ye something else. I’m sure I can think of someone who will drink it.”  He nods his head towards his wife and mimics drinking with his hand

“Cheek of the man.” Jenny playfully slaps his hand down and smiles. This time the smile lights up her whole face.

“No, gin and tonic is great, thanks very much,” I accept the glass gratefully and take a sip. Well, maybe a little bit more than a sip, but it is much needed.

“Seeing as yer man there canna be bothered wi’ the introductions, I’ll have tae do it maself. I’m Ian, Jenny’s husband and it’s a pleasure tae meet ye,” His introduction is full of real warmth.

“I was jes’ getting ‘round tae it,” Jamie says mock defensively and grabs a pint from the tray. “Anyhow, sláinte, everyone. Here’s tae a good night.”

**********

During dinner, I sit between Ian and Jamie who has Jenny on his other side. Ian is an absolute delight. He listens to my stories with genuine interest, laughing in all the right places and regaling Morag and me with tales of his son’s antics (‘Wee Jamie, jes’ as mischievous as his uncle ever was’).

Once dinner is over, Jamie and Ian spot an acquaintance on another table and excuse themselves. Jenny shuffles over onto Jamie’s newly vacated chair.

“Havin’ a good time are ye, Claire?”

“Oh yes, thank you. Ian has been telling us about your children. They sound like real characters. Just adorable.” And here I am, back to my nervous over enthusiasm. Just like that matron years ago, Jenny has the ability to do this to me.

Jenny gives a tight little smile that doesn’t linger. “Can I be honest wi’ ye Claire?”

My heart sinks. When someone says that, it’s never good. I mean, they never follow that statement with ‘your hair looks lovely’ or ‘the way you handled that developmental dysplasia of the hip was excellent.’ It’s always a criticism. Although I’m not too sure what I’ve done for Jenny to feel the need for such honesty, but I’m guessing it involves Jamie in some way.

“I ken Jamie invited ye tae come tonight as friends, before he met Kelly,” she continues. “But could ye no’ have stood aside and let him bring her as a date? He said he’d already asked ye when I mentioned it to him. But if ye’re just friends ye could have.”

I don’t know what to say. What can I say that doesn’t cast Jamie in a bad light with his sister? Jenny clearly wants there to be something between him and Kelly, which, based on what Jamie’s told me, just isn’t going to happen, no matter how much Jenny pushes. And I’m somewhere in the middle of this.

Jenny looks at me and I don’t think I have to speak. My glass face is doing the work for me. “Ah, I see.”

I spy Jamie making his way back to our table. He hesitates slightly as Jenny’s steely gaze falls on him, before continuing.

Jenny shuffles back to her chair, and pats the now vacant seat between us. He sits down and glances at us both.

“Have ye got something tae tell me, bràthair?” Jenny begins.

“About what?”

“About why ye told me ye’d already asked Claire when I mentioned asking Kelly?”

Jamie turns to me, as Jenny carries on talking. “Claire didna say a word about it. She didna have tae.”

I smile apologetically at him, but say nothing and take a swig of wine. This is between Jamie and Jenny. I’m keeping well out of this.

He sighs. “Jenny, ye wouldna let it lie. Ye kept telling me I should invite Kelly. On and on ye were. I had tae do it.”

“Ye said the date wi’ Kelly was good.”

“If ye think back, what I actually said was that the food at the restaurant was good. I didna say the date was good. That wasna good. We had a nice meal, then we shook hands and said goodbye. I made no promises tae see her again.”

“But Kelly—“

“Jenny, it isna going tae happen no matter how much ye mither. Ye dinna always ken what’s best fer me even though ye think ye do.”

I feel a hand on my arm and turn to find Ian sitting next to me once more. He jerks his head towards Jamie and Jenny. “I find it easier tae jes’ let them get on wi’ it themselves. This is what they’re like, wi’ the bickering. They’ll sort it out, they always do. That’s brothers and sisters fer ye.”

That familiar pang hits me for a brief moment. Of course, I don’t know what it’s like, this familial bickering or teasing, safe in the knowledge that you’ll always have their love. And then it passes.

“I suppose you’re used to it by now?”

“After twenty five years, I guess so. They were jes’ the same as children. See?” Ian points to my other side. I turn to find Jenny tenderly patting Jamie’s hand.

“Sae, Claire,” Jenny leans across Jamie to talk to me. “I see ye’re still drinking that horse piss. What say we send Jamie tae get us all some real drinks? I take it ye like whisky?”

Jenny smiles, and this time it’s genuine.

************

After that brief sibling squabble has been sorted, the evening can only get better… I think. Actually, it does improve. The combination of good whisky and a friendlier Jenny, and I begin to really enjoy myself.

The disco has started and the dance floor is filling up, mainly with groups of women while the men sit on the sidelines only venturing up once copious amounts of alcohol have been consumed and the DJ starts to play the classics— ‘YMCA’, ‘Night Fever’ and ‘Dancing Queen’.

We stay at our table, chatting, our voices becoming louder as the dance floor fills and the dancers begin to sing along to some of the songs. The singing rises to a crescendo for the choruses then rapidly quietening at the lesser known verse lyrics.

“D’ye no’ want tae dance? Jamie asks, a bit reluctantly, it seems.

“No, I’m enjoying myself here,” I reply and watch the relieved expression appear on his face.

“Unless, of course, you do,” I add teasingly.

“It’s no’ really ma thing. I’m no’ much of a dancer. Rupert and Morag enjoy it though.”

We watch for a moment as Rupert tries out some John Travolta moves. I pick up my glass and notice that it’s empty. That seems to be happening a lot tonight.

“I’ll go and get some more drinks,” I announce to the table.

“Let me,” Ian jumps in.

“No, you’ve bought more than enough. I’ll get these. Same again?”

Everyone nods and passes me their empty glasses. Jamie makes to get up, but I shake my head. “I’ve got this. Relax.”

I weave my way through the tables and lean at the end of the bar, money in hand waiting to catch the eye of one of the bartenders. Judging by the size of some of the orders being placed, I resign myself to being stuck here for some time.

A man squeezes next to me, mirroring my position— elbows on the bar, ten pound note in hand. “Snap!” He laughs. “D’ye think we’ll be served before last orders?”

I smile politely and shake my head, all while trying to breathe through my mouth. Even at this stage of the evening, his aftershave is overpowering, applied with all the finesse of a fifteen year old boy. I try to edge away from him a bit, although I do risk disappearing from the bartenders’ line of sight. He shifts a little closer to me which makes me a bit uncomfortable. It might be perfectly innocent, he might just be moving to try and get served quicker. I don’t really want to challenge him if all he’s trying to do is catch the bartender’s eye.

“I’ve no’ seen ye ‘round the club afore,” I catch him glancing at my ringless left hand. “Are ye here with friends or…?”

“Friends.” I mumble, trying to make it clear I don’t want to start a conversation and I turn my head away from him.

I feel a slight touch on the skin of my upper arm. Whether deliberate or accidental, that combined with his closeness, makes me feel even more uneasy .Instinctively I take a step back and my heel lands on someone’s foot.

A familiar voice whispers in my ear. “Oof, Sassenach, yer shoes are lethal,” and an arm snakes over my shoulder, pulling me towards his body.

In a louder voice, clearly aimed at the pest next to me, Jamie continues. “Ach, love, thanks for saving ma place at the bar. Tell ye what, sweetheart, now I’m here ye can go and sit down and I’ll get the drinks.”

He gives me a slight peck as I smile at him gratefully and make a quick exit. Walking back to the table, I can still feel the roughness of his stubble against my cheek. I stop myself reaching up to touch my face, and shove my hand into my pocket instead.

I sit down next to Jenny. “Jamie’s getting the drinks in.”

“Aye, he thought ye needed tae be rescued from that wee dickhead at the bar.”

“Yes, a timely intervention. Your brother’s a good pal.”

“Aye, he says ye’re good friends.” Jenny stares at me, as if searching for something deeper that I’m hiding.

“Yes, that’s it. Good friends.” I answer, confident that my face will tell the same story.

[wackygoofball]

Gwenspiration: The Wacky Version Vol. 3 - The Moodboards

So, here I go again parading myself and tooting like there is no tomorrow.

As people still brave enough to follow me on Tumblr will know, I do a lot of moodboards, or at least I call them such. Others call them collages or storyboards or pictures with random text. Either way, for me, moodboards became a neat tool to somehow capture story ideas not yet anywhere near a level that I could write fic about them - or serve as inspirations for fics I am actually writing.

And it gives me opportunity to hoard unhealthy amounts of Gwen and Nik pics, in the name of moodboards. And science. And stuff. Whoozah!

So yeah, in this post, I want to share some of my personal favorites. A lot of them actually, because I can’t decide, really.

I will start off with a group of moodboards which took inspiration from the Marvel universe, since the Marvel universe was my gateway into the more active parts of fandom.

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An all-time fave is the Iron Man AU... I mean, what not to love about a JB AU with Jaime as sassy Tony Stark and Brienne as the not-taking any shit from you army doctor, am I right? But yeah, seriously, Jaime *is* the Tony Stark of the GOT universe, and I can’t be convinced otherwise. And neither should be you.

Also, the Iron Man suits just totally fit the color scheme for both, which made creating the moodboards all the better for me. Jaime and Brienne were made for armor, now in medieval or modern times, let’s not kid ourselves.

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Another Marvel fave has got to be Captain Westeros. Because if there is a female GOT Version of Steve Rogers, it’s gotta be Brienne of fuckin’ Tarth. This one is really close to my heart because it gave me a lot of feels coming up with plot bunnies for it, and the tragedy of those two people missing each other in time over and over again, always trying to protect one another, only to end up on opposite sides because of the machinations of others... *sigh*

And I mean, one guy loses an arm. The other is blond and strong... I don’t make the rules but this delivers me enough material to re-imagine this as a JB AU... so yeah, I do kinda make the rules after all. Anyway.

Since I realized that this post’s gonna get even looooonger, I decided to make a cut here and put the rest below, so not to have you scrolling for five hours.

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Although it’s not the most popular moodboard amongst my followers (you brave people, I can’t parade you enough for staying through the madness lol), I really, really love that Fantastic Four moodboard and the concept behind it. And I just know a lot of effort went into making Valyrian Steel Brienne, which took all of my three computer editing skillz brain cells. But yeah, here again, I liked to play with the idea of them not admitting to their love until shit hits the fan and then they hide behind that because... drama, angst, feels, pining, yadda.

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And we go from Marvel to DC little quick. Because Brienne is, most certainly, a Wonder Woman. Nuf said.

Now, let’s move on to other big movie franchises that give me all the JB feels:

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Jurassic Park (aka Valyrian Park) evidently holds a special place in my heart because JB fighting dinosaur-dragon hybrids and kicking ass while being disbelieving about what was bred out in Valyria thanks to some certain someones to rescue Brienne’s adoptive daughter Arya is just... a thing? For me anyway.

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More down memory lane, I don’t know how often I watched the LOTR movies, suffice to say it was a lot a lot. We had the extended versions DVDs of the first two and basically it was the one thing to watch when nothing was on (which was the case a lot). Either way. JB in MIddle Earth long after the days of Frodo et al. - why? Because I just loved the idea (and aesthetic) of Jaime as a ranger and Brienne as a knight of Gondor working in disguise. And Hobbipod. I mean, Pod as a Hobbit. Come the fuck on. And Tyrion as an asshole wizard. What could possibly go wrong? This moodboard was very time-consuming as I had to do a lot of edits (pointy ears, tiny up people, smudge Brienne’s face on a lot of Boromir and Faramir images, smudge Jaime’s face on a lot of Aragorn images, you name it). So yeah. No matter its popularity... I dig it. Despite not having read the books yet (I know, shocking), I continue to ogle at the idea and go like: Must. Write. But. Must. Resist. Either way. Mood.

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So yeah, I grew up watching these movies a lot, too (I grew up watching a lot of TV, period). And when Gwen was cast as Captain Phasma, I got a lot of JB juices flowing as a result. Mehe. I found it was a fun idea to play with, to basically *kill* Phasma so *Brienne* can come into play and assume her identity. And a rundown Jedi!Jaime who’s lost faith in himself and everything else safe for his partner in crime/resistance is just... I needz. So you gotta cope with it. I still adore this concept a lot even if others may not. :)

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This one’s just... gah. Feels. And I really liked the color scheme lol. And I watched Horse Whisperer A LOT. Because of feels. And horses. And Honor is a horse and he deserved better than be barbecued at Highgarden, dammit.

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The No Reservations AU definitely has to be in this post because I live for this dynamic. Brienne taking care of the girls, not knowing how, though, constantly doubting herself while always trying to be perfect and composed, not just in life but on the job as well. And Jaime being the laid-back guy who’s just a darn good chef but may carry his own baggage of problems that keep him from his happy ending story is just... mah jam.

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This one was a lot of fun to do because you don’t really think about Erin Brockovich when you say Brienne of Tarth in terms of character. But when you scratch away the boob jokes and the differences in where they come from, what you find are two hard-working women who fight for justice, so I found that close enough. And it was excuse enough for me to go down the lane of biker!Jaime because... dayum.

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Music and Lyrics is an all-time guilty pleasure romcom of mine. It’s so light and easy and I kind of love how everyone is basically a bunch of awkward losers. All the more perfect for Jaime as a singer (we need that in our lives after the infamous video Nik was in to sing to us about global warming...) and Brienne as the unexpectedly gifted songwriter. What I like about the moodboard per se is how the color scheme turned out because it’s all warm and bright and... makes me happy.

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Very much in contrast to the former stands this one. I still love the overall mood of it and I dig the story idea because I dug both The Prestige and The Illustionist because they presented something dark yet very different, which made it all the more appealing to put into a moodboard for me. While not the most well-known moodboard of mine, I keep going back to it time and time again to basically lust at all the illusions and magic and drama. And blue butterflies.

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What is there not to love about a Pacific Rim AU for JB, am I right? Right?! JB ain’t just compatible when it comes to the Drift, yo, that’s all I’m gonna say. Reasons why I like the moodboard a lot is that it’s very different, flashy colors, gigantic robots, and I was mostly alright with how the edits turned out. It is tough to get images that fit the angles, yo.

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Jumping back in time once more, I really adore this one even though it’s not one of my popular moodboards. I dug the fusion of elements from Cinderella Man while granting Brienne as the female lead more space to develop as a character and make her a badass sniper nurse who is about to get her doctor’s degree. And Jaime doing anything to make it work because he owes her a debt (and his love) by boxing his way to their shared life is just... nice.

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Another supposedly lesser known moodboard is this one, though I really adore it for its premise and the amount of work I put into it (all the giffing and moodboarding). I also found use for that image of Gwen with what looks like the veil of a nun, which was probably what had me inspired in the first place lol. The plot bunnies revolve less around Se7en and more the novel El ùltimo Catón (2001) because it has a nun solving a mystery revolving around Dante’s works. But Se7en gives us the Seven, which is a delicious parallel too hard to ignore. For me at least. If only I knew how to write crime, dammit.

Now, to  move more into the serial (smooth transition from serial killer to serial TV shows, I know, I know) way of life, here is some moodboards inspired by TV shows (although some have since gotten movies which I also took inspiration from... yadda):

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Childhood memory galore. I spent many weekends watching The A-Team with the whole family. When the movie came out, I was happy about the feels it gave me (and the “you spin my head right round” scene still cracks me up more often than it should). Either way. I found it absolutely necessary for Jaime to be Face, for Tyrion to be Hannibal, for Bronn to be B.A. and cuss at everyone and everything and Brienne giving us the strangest genderbend of a Howling Mad Murdock. It added some angst, which I always need because I am a thirsty hoe for it. In case no one noticed yet. Ha.

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This one is very remotely inspired by The Bletchley Circle and the Imitation Game (because both feature encryption and one features Charles Dance already, yo.) I just really dug the idea of Brienne being so good at this because she is such a straight thinker but being underestimated because “she a woman.” And of course her not being done just encoding messages but getting into action, very much to the dismay of the stupid soldier wanting to defend the bae from harm. What could possibly go wrong? Right. A lot.

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Then. Elementary. Let me count the ways in which I love that show... ALL THE WAYS. And I really dig it as a JB AU. I have so many thoughts and feelings, I can’t even begin to tell you. I especially had my fun basically making Jaime Sherlock without making him really Sherlock because that guy was the one who taught him how to be an investigator before disappearing and fucking up his life for bad. And Brienne as the army doctor turned sober companion turned private investigator turned love interest is just too delicious to ignore.

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Pants down I mean hands down, this may be the actual favorite (currently) amongst them all for the plain reason that I also grew up watching that series and still watch it and keep obsessing about it. Ever since Discovery launched and has since given me both joy and grief, I found myself intrigued by the premise of a JB Star Trek AU where Brienne would be standing *with* the Klingons during the war around the time Discovery takes place, and Captain Jaime Lannister having lost far too much to this war already to truly trust anyone, even less so a woman who ran to the Klingons, for what it seems.

You would not believe how many ideas I have for a fic based on it. You wouldn’t believe that I basically have a sequel to that fic already in mind. And you would definitely believe, knowing me, that I am nowhere near writing that fic. But a fangirl can dream and moodboard, right? The moodboard was such a fun way of going about it, not only for the edits but because I could sneak some secret Klingon messages in there. :)

Now, on to the last part, which are the moodboards not inspired by movies or TV shows primarily but really just spewed out of my wacky, wacky brain:

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This has a special place in my heart because it combines military and the traumas it comes with for JB and.... the aesthetic of farming. And both finding a kind of peace they didn’t know they were looking for as they struggle to adjust and find their way back “to normal” after the horrors they have both seen in war. And did I mention the aesthetic? And Jaime in plaid? All dirty and sweaty? Do I have to say more?

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Why this one? Because it combines angst and romance and falling in love twice because DESTINY. And paintings. I love me my artist AUs. So that was my go at it, combining it with the “mystery” to be uncovered about what history Jaime and Brienne actually share as he tries to put his memories back together.  Also. This moodboard gave me opportunity to try out new filters and create JB paintings. :)

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This one’s gotta be on the list since I also added the Horse Whisperer. Now it’s Dog Whisperer Jaime and Brienne who won’t give up on her dog who’s seen some shit in the warzone (as did she, but Brienne will put it all aside for her doggish best buddy, of course). While it’s not a very popular moodboard of mine, I really enjoy the premise of it and how the dynamics can so easily change between the two of them if you see it in comparison to the Horse Whisperer AU. Also. I just really think Jaime is a total pet person.

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Another lesser known moodboard, I’d assume, but I really dug the premise of it (still do), and it was intriguing to do some edits to make Jaime’s hand *truly* golden lol. With people having developed strange mutations which aren’t nearly as much fun as they are in Fantastic Four AUs. What I liked about it was the idea that Brienne would have a kind of mutation/ability that links to the mind, since she is such a physically strong fighter that she may rather rely on that than on her own mind, fearing that she cannot control that with discipline the same way she can train her body with it. What unites the two is their strong wish to protect the people in their care, in a world on the verge of collapse forcing two unexpected allies together (okay, I totally expected it, but they didn’t). Either way. Much love for this one. :)

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Aaaand the last one (not of all the ones I made but the ones I picked for Gwenspiration). I really, really, really adore this one because I was so happy with how the aesthetic turned out and how the colors all match. And I dig the premise. Like holy moly do I dig it deep. Jaime and Brienne both serving in military, but on different fronts, and almost accidentally ending up writing each other letters? I mean... the PINING. And Brienne having to decipher Jaime’s chickenscratch. Yeah no, but for real. I just love the idea so much. That they are both committed to the cause while also yearning for a home, for peaceful times, for sweet, sweet love. And them meeting up and acting like stupid teenagers, only for drama to keep hitting because. It’s eh me angsty Wacky.

Either way. I dig the premises of a lot of my moodboards (in fact... basically all of them or else I wouldn’t be making them, I guess). I spared you listing all of them, though I listed a whole damn lot already. Moodboards are an awesome means for me personally to visualize and (re-)imagine. And since quite a few people seem to continue to be onboard with them, I am all the happier to keep making them.

That’s all for today.

Much love! ♥♥♥

*flies away*

[chiseler]

Boris Karloff: Creature Comfort

Not many actors paid their dues for as long and as hard as Boris Karloff did. Born William Henry Pratt near London in 1887, he was the self-described black sheep of his family (both of his parents were Anglo-Indian). In a photo at age three-and-a-half, he already looks alarmed by something, or by someone.

Pratt traveled to America to become an actor and changed his name so as not to embarrass his family. He played on stage in stock and learned through make-up how to become any character he wanted to be, much as Lon Chaney did. In between plays—and later in between films in the 1920s when he was slotted into many small and usually villainous roles—Karloff had to sometimes work as a day laborer or ditch-digger, which meant that he had problems with his back when he was an older man.

His 1920s villains were usually of Arab or Indian extraction, and his staring eyes and molded features lent themselves to glowering wickedness. Karloff very often didn’t get enough to eat in these years, which added to his impression of aesthetic gauntness. As a mesmerist in The Bells (1926), his best part in silent pictures, Karloff does mesmerize with abrupt gestures that he somehow slows down even before we have taken them in. Just watch the way he manages a very false slow smile, moving the corners of his mouth up and then tossing the smile contemptuously away. This shows an actor in tune with what the camera needs, and what it needed from him was menace.

What made Karloff such a distinctive screen player was the slow, lingering way he moved through space, which created its own atmosphere of dread. In Howard Hawks’s The Criminal Code (1931), which he had played in on stage, he is a convict named Ned Galloway, a man bent on revenging himself on the stool pigeon who got him sent back to prison just for taking a drink. Karloff has a way of suspending his words here—creating a whole little protective world around them—but it is the slowness of his movements that really makes the strongest impression.

Stealing up on the stool pigeon, Karloff approaches this man with slow and almost slow motion physical grace. The man turns and sees him and gives a start, and Karloff gives his own little start, as if to say, “You’re done for, and you must accept it.” There’s something almost tender about the way Karloff does that, something lyric and inevitable, like a movement out of a Martha Graham dance.

It is this skill in silent movement that would come to the fore in the part that finally made Karloff a star at age 44, the creature or monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). The creature was given the brain of a murderer, yet he is new born, innocent, and untouched. Karloff always gave make-up artist Jack Pierce much credit for the look of the creature, but he himself suggested the heavy eyelids.

Karloff had to make the full imaginative leap into the creature’s point of view in Frankenstein, and he chooses to portray him as a very poetic figure. Lon Chaney, who was supposed to play the part before his untimely death, would almost certainly have been far harsher in the role, far more the re-animated man with a murderer’s brain, whereas Karloff’s later partner and rival Bela Lugosi, who had made such a hit earlier in the year for Universal as Dracula, would have been scary as the creature, maybe, but never touching (Lugosi actually turned the role down).

Karloff has an essentially gentle, dreamy sensibility, and he emphasizes the pure yearning of the creature, the way he reaches out for light and smiles when Little Maria (Marilyn Harris) gives him a flower. What happens next with Little Maria is the stuff of child nightmares, a scene that was almost always cut but now stands in most release prints: Karloff’s creature throws her into the water of a lake after he runs out of flowers to throw. The murder of Little Maria is only mitigated by the uncomprehending way the creature reacts when he tries and fails to understand what he has done to his little friend.

Karloff’s creature has anger, but it never seems to be the anger from the past life of the murderer’s brain in his head; it is always the anger at what he sees in the world and how he is treated, and it was Karloff who decided to play him this way. “The Monster was inarticulate, helpless and tragic, but I owe everything to him,” Karloff said. “He’s my best friend.” Karloff would remain the fastidious, colorful silk thread winding through the coarse, itchy fabric of the horror genre, and he stayed with it through many incarnations and revivals.

He played a twitchy gangster for Hawks in Scarface (1932), and there his acting seems a bit old-fashioned and external, a mark of the stock theaters he’d played in as a younger man. Karloff is given a big build-up in the credits of Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932) and top billing, with a title card trumpeting his “great versatility,” but he was limited by his looks and demeanor.

It’s hard to imagine Karloff playing something like Alec in David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), or anything so romantically straightforward. In The Old Dark House, Karloff is a drunken and mute brute of a butler with a lech for Gloria Stuart, a straight man in a semi-spoof for the first of many times to come, and he brings some genuine menace and fear to the screen in between the campy laughs of that film.

He was billed as just “Karloff” now, like “Garbo.” He played The Mummy (1932), an Egyptian man buried alive and still seeking his love, and this was a feat of make-up and his slow vocal delivery. Over at MGM in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), Karloff is forced into a camp mode himself, for there is no other way to play the absurd and racist script of that film. “Boris was a fine actor, a professional who never condescended to his often unworthy material,” wrote his on-screen daughter in that movie, Myrna Loy, in her 1987 memoir.

After scads of work for years (he had 15 credits in 1931 and nine in 1932), Karloff slowed down and went back to England for the first time in decades, where he was reunited with his family and made one picture there, The Ghoul (1933). He made several movies with Lugosi, including Edgar Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934), and there was no feeling of rivalry between them, at least from Karloff’s side. His films with Lugosi could get pretty gruesome, with characters skinned alive and vindictive plastic surgery and other things to bring about the shudders and the heebie-jeebies.

“Poor old Bela, it was a strange thing,” said Karloff of his screen partner in an interview in 1964 for Films in Review. “He was really a shy, sensitive, talented man who had a fine career on the classical stage in Europe. But he made a fatal mistake. He never took the trouble to learn our language…He had real problems with his speech, and difficulty interpreting his lines.” Karloff was aware when his films were poor, whereas Lugosi didn’t seem to be, which makes Lugosi a lesser actor than Karloff but also somehow scarier because of this lack of awareness.

Karloff was a religious fanatic in John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (1934) and an anti-Semite in The House of Rothschild (1934) with George Arliss, but the public clamored to see him in more horror. He returned to the creature in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), where he went deeper into the Monster’s conflict between self-protective and even outright malicious urges and a vulnerable reaching out for beauty and love, and friendship. “Alone bad…friend good,” the creature says here, after being befriended by a blind hermit. (Karloff didn’t think the creature should talk, but he was persuaded otherwise.) Karloff’s creature even sheds a tear after deciding to blow everyone up because he has been rejected by his hissing bride (Elsa Lanchester).

Censorship helped to bring an end to the first cycle of horror movies, and so budgets for Karloff films plunged while he played many a mad scientist, his intensity and trouper’s belief rarely wavering in the grind of similar and often threadbare material. He tread a fine line between threat and camp threat, and few players can equal Karloff for pure stamina. Surely he must have sighed sometimes as he got script after script along the same lines, so that it is difficult to tell one of these films from another.

Karloff was reduced to appearing at the poverty row studio Monogram by 1938 but returned to his creature one last time in Son of Frankenstein (1939). He was a man who “looked like Boris Karloff” in the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace for years on Broadway and missed out on the film version because he was still playing it on stage.

Even his patience had some limits. He was scornful of the monster mash House of Frankenstein (1944), and he was vocal about the fact that producer Val Lewton subsequently saved his soul as a performer in a series of low budget, intelligent movies beginning with The Body Snatcher (1945), where he dug up graves himself as once Dr. Frankenstein had dug him up. Lewton allowed Karloff to play three-dimensional people rather than the cardboard cutouts he had gotten used to, and he responded expressively, with lots of careful, poetic character shadings.

There were some changes of pace after World War II for Karloff. He steals Douglas Sirk’s noir Lured (1947) in his reel as a demented and embittered fashion designer, which stands out in his career for its sheer unexpectedness. This film showed his skill at being slightly funny and also fully menacing all at once, which he also needed for the awkwardly titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949). Karloff often had better luck with parts on stage than in movies in his later years, scoring as Captain Hook opposite Jean Arthur in Peter Pan and winning a Tony nomination for his work in The Lark, which starred Julie Harris as Joan of Arc.

On TV, Karloff had his own anthology series and also played Kurtz in a 1958 adaptation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for Playhouse 90, realistically and stirringly shuddering about the horror he has seen, and he was the voice of the Grinch in the much-replayed animated special How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

A TV program called Shock Theater re-ran Karloff’s old horror films, and this brought him into the nightmares of Baby Boomers who are still scared by the thought of what happens to Little Maria, or by The Mummy. His program pictures became a staple on television, for they featured those baleful eyes and the hypnotic, soothing voice that could send late-night TV watchers off to sleep sure of a nightmare or two involving the supposedly dead and the supposedly living.

Karloff was in very ill health in his last years, but he still liked to work, finding himself in some campy horrors for producer Roger Corman that co-starred Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and a young Jack Nicholson. The gravity of his face and voice were undiminished by time or poor assignments, and he brought some human dignity and feeling to nearly everything he did.

Karloff played a vampire for Mario Bava in Black Sabbath (1964), and then he was given an affectionate and knowing swan song by the young cinephile director Peter Bogdanovich in Targets (1968), where he played Orlok, a retiring star of horror films. “Do I have to say such bad things about myself?” he asked Bogdanovich, fully aware that Orlok was based on his own image. Bogdanovich reassured him that audiences would disagree when Orlok calls himself a relic, but Karloff wasn’t so sure. He is maybe a little uncomfortable with the meta aspects of that film, but he was a good sport about it.

“He really was a gentle soul,” said his only daughter Sara for a TV documentary. “I don’t think he scared anybody, not in real life.” Karloff was a very generous man and very loath to have that talked about (look at the horrified way he reacts when something generous he had done was mentioned on the This Is Your Life show in the late 1950s). By the time he was finished, he had 207 credits, some of which were only being released after his reported death. Surely some real life mad scientist somewhere might one day re-animate him for us.

by Dan Callahan

[neuxue]

I've run out of good books to read, I naturally thought of you as someone to recommend others. I read the riddle master trilogy because of you and liked it so hunting for anything you like really! Pretty please

You read Riddle-Master!!! I really cannot overstate how excited I am whenever someone tells me they’ve read those books, so this makes me very happy!

Other recs...let’s see. I don’t know your taste in books, really, so I’ll just toss out some random ones. If you’ve already read them all, let me know and I’ll try again.

1. His Dark Materials will probably feature on just about any recs list I ever make, because these books were my Formative Fantasy Experience at age 7 and I never got over them. They also feature two of my favourite characters in fiction, and one of my favourite...well, ‘relationships’ is not really the word I’m looking for, but it’ll do in a pinch. This is one of those series that reveals something new every time I read it; I loved the story as a child and I love it as an adult and some of the things I love have shifted, but there are enough layers in there to be intriguing no matter what you’re looking for. These books are also somewhat Controversial and admittedly not for everyone - if you (or anyone else reading this) want more detail/explanation of that, feel free to message me. 

2. If you enjoyed Riddle Master, I’d recommend Alphabet of Thorn, also by Patricia McKillip. It features more of her beautiful, lyrical, dreamlike prose, along with a rather fascinating take on the nature of stories. It’s probably my favourite of her standalone novels.

3. Neverwhere might be my favourite of Neil Gaiman’s works. A familiarity with London takes this book from good to excellent, because he doesn’t stop at the surface level; the nature of the city is woven through the story and warped in a way that somehow perfectly captures the reality while at the same time painting a picture that is nothing like it at all. Gaiman is always good at twisting the mundane in alongside the magical to both juxtapose and seamlessly combine, and this book hit that balance just right for me. If you like his weirder side, American Gods is also incredible. The ‘I believe’ monologue has been burned into my brain since I first read it, because wow. If you are not as much a fan of his weirder side, may I suggest Stardust?

4. You may have heard of some guy called Brandon Sanderson, so I’m not going to spend that much time on his books here, but I’ll toss out a recommendation for The Emperor’s Soul, which is probably one of the lesser-known stories in his Cosmere universe, but is also one of my favourites. Shai is such a compelling and fascinating character, and the novella deals creatively with the nature of identity.

5. Time travel is usually a pet peeve of mine rather than a fondness, and I’ve never been all that into historical fiction, but Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book might be the exception that proves the rule. 

 6. In a sea of vampire stories that range from uninspiring to cringeworthy, Sunshine by Robin McKinley stands out as an excellent exception. This is dark urban fantasy done right with a side of freshly baked cinnamon rolls (literal, not figurative, and . If you imagine a story that is its own coffeeshop AU, this is precisely nothing like that. Well, except for the coffeeshop. The narrative is very stream-of-consciousness and if you find loose ends frustrating this book is probably not for you, but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s definitely worth a read. (Even the loose ends are done well). 

7. Speaking of Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword is another childhood favourite. I haven’t read it in probably over a decade, so I suppose I should go back to it before recommending it, but I read a lot of your standard fantasy hero’s journey stories in that time, and this is one of the ones that stands out in memory, so that probably says something.

8. It’s not fantasy or scifi, but I really loved The Still Point, by Amy Sackville. The prose is beautiful, and the way the chronology is split, with two separate and not-quite-linear timelines anchored more by the evocation of still summer heat and frigid arctic winter, suits the story (stories?) perfectly. It’s definitely one of the better examples of nonlinear storytelling I’ve come across. “It is exhausting enough, grasping at the past as it slides through the present, without letting the future interfere.”

9. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is one of those books where I know full well it has its flaws, and some of those would maybe put me off if it were any other book, but I love it to pieces. You know those books (or characters) that feel like they were written either as a personal attack on you or a personal gift to you or really a combination of the two because damn you, author, why must you do this to me? Yeah.

10. Throwing a random nonfiction rec in here with A Primate’s Memoir, by Robert Sapolsky. It’s worth reading even if you’re not particularly science-oriented, because the science and research is really only a backdrop against which the story is set. I laughed out loud, in public, on numerous occasions while reading this and it’s another regular feature whenever I recommend things.

11. I see Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein recommended frequently, and I wholeheartedly agree. Another historical fiction story, which again is not usually my thing, but it’s excellent and surprising, and very well-told.

12. Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey, is another that is very much Not For Everyone, and actually when I think about it it should in so many ways have fallen into the Not For Me category, but it didn’t and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked the first book better than the rest in the series, but YMMV.

14. Vicious, by V.E. Schwab, is just fun, if you enjoy friends-to-enemies and/or villains and/or superheroes. It’s unapologetically edgy and honestly kind of ridiculous, and doesn’t at all try to be anything else, which is what makes it work.

15. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Dianna Wynne Jones. If you’ve seen the movie, the book is...well. It’s sort of the same story, by which I mean if you were to write out the main plot points on index cards you’d end up with a roughly matching set, but other than that it’s almost completely different. And kind of incredible.

16. It’s definitely for younger readers, but one of the series that’s held up well for me is the Young Wizards Series, by Diane Duane. The first one reads a bit like the first Harry Potter book in the sense that it’s almost too young to work well as a starting point if you’re older, but even by the second book it grows up quite a bit. I’ve always enjoyed the way she’s constructed her magic system, and you can tell she’s a writer who knows her science but also sees art and beauty in it.

17. Bone, by Jeff Smith, is my favourite graphic novel, though it’s frustratingly difficult to get hold of a complete copy. It’s weird and fun and surprising.

18. Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre, is another nonfiction book, and I know there are a million and one WWII stories out there, but this one is wild. If you’re even remotely into espionage/intelligence type stories, give this a read. 

My goodreads is also here. It’s not even close to a complete list, but anything I’ve given three or more stars is something I’d say is probably worth a try. Also if anyone else reading this has recommendations to add, please feel free!

[cto10121]

mulling over my recent rewatch of the hungarian retj (rómeó és júlia) some more and while it’s still one of the best versions of the show, some things just stuck out like a sore thumb, such as

the choreography. now, i’m not in any way an expert or even amateur on dance, but 90% of this duda éva mess featured the dancers hopping around like bunnies and doing weird YMCA-style hand movements like some nineties nightmare. lehetsz király is especially an offender, but verona had some questionable choreography too. i’ve never liked the choreography in this version much, but in this rerun it was somehow more glaring. i guess since then i’ve gone back to the french choreography and since redha was directly inspired by jerome robbins’ work in west side story...well, yeah...

the part where one of the capulet servants gets kissed by a hyper rómeó after le balcon and the servant recognizes rómeó as a montague becomes unintentionally amusing when you consider that in this version, the differences between the montagues and capulets in terms of clothing and physical appearance are subtle and minimal at best, nonexistent at worst. how the hell did she recognize rómeó as a montague???? by his blue blouse? they’re not color coded, so blue wouldn’t automatically mean montague in this world. so what gives?

speaking of which - ditching the color-coded dress, while it arguably adds more ‘‘realism” (not really, imho), muddles the action a lot. in the original french, you always knew who was what, and not only that, but there were strong characteristics in their dance that differentiated them more. the montagues were wild cards, the capulets more restrained and scheming. it affirmed the divisive reality of the feud. in the hungarian, most of the feud is fought by the head of the families, which is a reversal both of the french and shakespeare. during la vengeance, if it weren’t for benvolio’s presence on one of the sides, i wouldn’t have known which side wanted to protect romeo and which side didn’t. they were all dressed in the same sleek dark leather costumes. i guess that was the subtle ‘‘point” of the production, but unless you show a difference other than clothing, all you’ll have is just people of the same ethnicity, same gestures, same choreography doing shit to each other and little understanding of why. so though the hungarian actually brings out the feud more and its violence, the french is actually more convincing

that orchestra. this may be due to the poor sound engineering of the dvd that privileged the singers than the instruments, but it still sounds awfully tinny and weak. the strings were so thin they were threadbare; the tempos were all over the place. songs that are definitely not meant to be played fast were played fast and other parts were slowed down to an excruciating degree. the arranger cut out the solos in the latter part of the choruses, so the hungarian versions feel more repetitious than even the french, even when they add new lyrics. they obviously got more of their budget toward the FIRE ACROBATICS and neat stage effects 

the acting. better than the french, obviously, since these are theater-theater people trained to do everything all at once. the script gives more of a plot and story to the musical-operetta than the french, which was more concert-based. but because of the dramatic needs of the story, the singing on stage suffered A LOT. imagine almost 3 hours of shouting and belting and everyone running around like kids high on candy. my ears were ringing at the end something awful. the french had pacing problems too, but that was because the addition of extraneous songs that could have been cut (le pouvoir, le poète, however much i like the latter) and some lazy directing. the hungarian has more ear fatigue; the energy that they establish is not maintainable for long. as a result, damien sargue sang much better, with better expression, than attila dolhai, who sounds like an operatically trained singer. hommonay zsolt as párisz was also operatically trained, it sounds like, but even at times didn’t sound good at all, especially during la folie, which should have been a picnic for him. at least the chorus was consistently good. 

everyone’s an asshole except résj. this production went back to the original shakespeare characterizations for some of the characters, particularly for the capulets and the nurse, so yeah. but where shakespeare was more nuanced and realistic in his portrayal of the capulets, here they’re mostly unlikable dysfunctional assholes. paris was a sleazeball (though the show tried to say he cared about juliet enough to want to die in her tomb hahahaha no), capulet a doddering fool, lady capulet chronically unfaithful to the extreme, the nurse bawdy and particularly tactless, and tybalt a walking talking disaster on two legs, an epileptic severus snape if there wasn’t one (even my dad thought he'd make a great snape, so it’s not just my hp-addled brain) plus incest issues with his aunt and cousin. lady montague is fierce as fuck, but of course her role is lesser, benvolio acts almost exactly like mercutio except he has a more puppy-ish air and mercutio is more eloquent and cynical. mercutio was closer to the original shakespeare, which means he could be a douchecanoe at times. all in all, the only truly sympathetic characters are rómeó and júlia, which would be terrific (kill the trend of making them into stupid horny teenagers DEAD, i mean it) if it didn’t feel so cheap and vaguely manipulative. of course you’d sympathize with them - they’re the only ones who aren’t crazy, high, mentally troubled, or into the stupid feud in the first place. of course, they’re entertaining to watch, much like you would a trainwreck, but the melodrama does reach a point of incredulity. 

speaking of résj, while they’re cute and all, (if way too old) they tend to feel almost extraneous to this production, so focused on the feud and violence as it is. this should have been called egy orült villág or something like that because that’s really what it was. 

the song order. the show does make it work, barely, but it’s still jarring and strange, even after all these years. i can’t get over c’est le jour and c’est pas ma faute switched around, and tu dois te marier following verona must have been one of the strangest decisions they’ve ever made. i would have liked to have been there in the room where they decided on this order. it isn’t really intuitive, just the opposite. it did solve some of the pacing problems of the french, but musically i think it suffered a lot. gyulölet and szívbol szeretni being close together was weird as well, although the former made for a good number. how strange

the ho yay is incredible in this version. like, purposely fanfiction-y. i never paid much credence to the tycutio and bencutio shippers of the shakespeare fandom, but someone in this production obviously did. mercutio is out-and-out bi, but you can probably read anyone in this production as such. tybalt is an atomic bomb of repression so of course he gets read as such. it adds nothing to the production except, of course, the pleasure of seeing attractive people being all over each other. those wily fangirls are at it again

OH I HAD NEARLY FORGOTTEN - in párisz halála, paris’ death scene, he says that he believes rómeó was here to desecrate júlia’s grave, as in the original shakespeare. rómeó actually had to tell him straight-up that júlia was his wife. but in la folie, the people were all crying that júlia’s death was rómeó’s fault, so obviously paris would have known that they had been together. so what gives? why wouldn’t hungarian paris make that connection and tried to turn him in on the basis that he was responsible for júlia’s death, officially ruled as a suicide? this is verona, after all, where everyone knows everything about everyone, and especially in the hungarian version they found out awfully quickly about résj. in the french, you sense that the capulets are in denial about the rumors (though french!capulet seems to hint that he knows based on his bitter ‘‘et je maudis tous ces amants’’ line) but the hungarian family seemed to have believed it quickly. so yeah, that’s a strange plot hole. i’m guessing galambos attila had to write this le duel reprise quickly and just fell back on shakespeare since there is no french equivalent.