#gotta love his distraction techniques tho lol

[4lexnilsen]

when poppy and lily reappear in the kitchen,  the cookie decorating station is all set up.   “oh,  wow!”   alex gasps dramatically,  seeing how their niece’s makeup resembles that of her favorite disney princess —   elsa.   bright lipstick,  a blend of pink and purple eyeshadow,  rosy cheeks,  sandy curls braided.   poppy’s clearly managed to make the little girl’s dream come true.   “babe,”   he whispers in a conspiratorial tone,  but still loud enough for their niece to hear,    “i think there’s elsa in our kitchen.   like,  real elsa.   not sure if we can let her near the cookies,  though.   what if she turns them into icicles?”   the little girl squeals in delight and proceeds to assure her silly uncle that she’s not the real elsa.   “it’s lily!”   she insists,  shooting her aunt a look that says boys are so dumb before hopping on a little ladder and helping herself to the bowl of green icing.

at first, alex doesn’t notice the not-so-discreet looks that lily’s giving him,  focused on putting glitter on the christmas tree-shaped cookie in front of him.   his tongue sticking out from between his lips,  brows drawn together as though he was performing an open heart surgery.   he’s having plenty of fun,  even despite the annoying festive songs playing on the radio in the background,  but as the saying goes…   it’s all fun and games until a curious,  observant child begins to ask questions.   “hm?”   he lifts up his head and looks across the table at his wife,  amusement gracing his features as the awkward conversation unfolds before his eyes.   “oh,  yeah…   the flu could definitely ruin the holidays.   your mom is right.   but hey,  does being sick on the holidays mean you get an extra present from santa?   you know,  a get-better-soon kind of gift?”   he babbles,  hoping to distract the little girl and save his wife from answering any more uncomfortable questions.   it doesn’t work.   lily refuses to be distracted from her agenda.

noticing their niece’s humored and rather dubious look,  the way her eyes flicker to poppy’s stomach so unceremoniously,  alex barely has the time to collect his thoughts before she’s firing that one blatant question —   are you having a baby?   god,  she’s way too smart and curious for her own good.   he doesn’t really know what to say.   in most cases,  he refuses to lie to children as all it does is make them distrust adults later on,  but at the same time he doesn’t want to share such an important,  private-as-of-now piece of information with a six year old.   it’s too early.   a lot of things can still happen,  he thinks.   besides,  he doesn’t really want his whole family to learn about this life-changing event from lily.   and much like any other child her age,  she’s the biggest gossip girl.   “sure you not pregnint?”   she presses on,  reaching that small,  icing-covered hand out and pulling poppy’s shirt up,  as if there was an answer written on her bare skin.   “mommy says you can’t say dat to peoples,  but you look kinda pregnint to me,”   she insists,  glancing up at alex for further explanations,  but all he can do is blush and stare like a deer caught in the headlights.

wouldn’t he be scared to have a baby?   of course,  he would be.   he is.   he just prays poppy can’t see it in his eyes,  knowing he can’t make this about himself and his irrational fear or childhood trauma or whatever.   when he was younger,  in his early twenties,  he’d tried to convince himself that what happened to his mother would never happen to his future wife.   it was an accident.   nothing hereditary.   a medical negligence.   but then he got the vasectomy and felt so…   relieved.   when he and poppy got married,  had endless discussions about their future and the possibility of some day starting a family of their own,  he was both delighted and terrified all over again.   he’s trying not to let this fear control his life,  but at the same time,  it’s impossible to just escape it.   “n-no,”   he fibs,  pale blue eyes meeting poppy’s and realizing that faint stutter,  that little crack,  is most likely enough to give his true feelings away.   god,  she really is so small,  so petite…   “well,  maybe a little bit because it would be a big change,  and almost everyone’s scared of big changes,  but…   hey,  that’s kind of how you must have felt when you became a big sister,  hm?   that was a big change,  too.   what was it life?”   his heart is pounding in his ears as he once more tries to distract lily,  the air around him stuffy all the sudden.

when they find lily in their guest bedroom, the immediate relief floods poppy's system and two things strike her at once. one day there would likely be a child of their own in the very spot lily now sits, maybe even a girl. doing exactly the same thing; and secondly, what she feels now will be intensified tenfold. her maternal instincts were about to skyrocket. but for now, with their niece safe, all poppy can do is smile and join her. "let me finish her look first," poppy replies. "but also? yeah. so go buy a dozen of them while you wait for us."

when both of the girls return, they find the kitchen in perfect condition. alex has moved everything to the table in preparation for the decorating and the look he gives poppy is one of pride. for his own work and for the apparent joy his niece bounds into the room with after having poppy's help with her makeup. they make a good team and the evidence is in everything they do.

but as they settle in to decorate cookies, poppy notices lily's attention; how it lingers on her but moves to her uncle every so often. she dumps half a shaker of glitter powder onto a snowman cookie before poppy finally decides to ask, "are you okay, lil? you seem a little distracted." lily stops then, eyes darting to alex as if she was in trouble. "is aunt poppy all right?" she doesn't bother looking at her aunt when she asks. her focus doesn't shift until poppy turns herself directly towards the little girl. "because my mom says if someone is sick that i should try to stay away from them. the flu could ruin the holidays." her response makes poppy laugh, which in turn has alex laughing, too. "i'm not sick, sweetheart." again lily looks to alex, "but i heard you puking. that means you're sick. i always throw up when i'm sick." it was a deductive way of thinking that almost makes them proud. "sometimes you can do that and not be sick, you don't have to worry."

lily's eyes fall to her aunt's stomach so visibly that poppy's shoot across the table to alex. "are you having a baby? because that happens on 'a baby story' a lot when women are pregnint." poppy giggles again, charmed by how her niece is entirely right without realizing it. for a split second she debates being honest, but given how she and alex only just found out less than thirty minutes ago, she doesn't. "that's very true. i used to watch that show when i was younger, too. it's wild, isn't it?" lily nods in agreement, "you blow up like a balloon! and you're so small, aunt poppy. i don't know if you should do that. it might hurt." the little girl only pauses to ask her uncle a question. "wouldn't you be scared to have a baby, uncle alex?"

[tumblunni]

Headcanons about maddiman's wife:

* name: Joy Nocturne

* her personality is like your classic 'overbearing wife' or 'loud woman' except its not a bad thing and i hate how its always stereotyped as a bad thing. She's confident and outspoken and badass and these are all the things that made Madds fall in love with her. Its also the things that makes everyone else think she's 'such a nag' and start rumours that their marriage is on the rocks, because he 'must be so whipped', etc. And back when they met in highschool everone thought she was a 'typical american thug' who was 'being a bad influence to that poor honor student'. Basically she's used to people hating her personality and she was already secretly doubting whether her husband also found her annoying/bossy/unattractive cos of this. Like she's usually able to be confident in the face of hate from strangers but as she grew to love this man she felt her old insecurities coming back. They were both having trouble talking about their feelings and worrying that their spouse didnt love them...

* oh and BIGGEST HEADCANON: she very much loved him and there was no villain of this story, just a sad tale of two people falling apart due to miscommunication. I think its infinately sadder if they were total soulmates and never stopped loving each other even after this tragic falling out. I feel like Joy just had to make the decision that was right for her son when her husband was never around to be part of his life. And with the way maddiman acted she had every reason to feel like he'd stopped loving her...she didnt leave because she hated him but because she didnt know why he was so distant and thought he hated her...

* She never remarried. She did manage to live a full life and raise their son to be an upstanding human being, but she never forgot about madds and never found anyone she loved more than him.

* She was actually there when he died. The point where he passed out midway through writing a diary entry wasnt actually the exact moment he died, his coworkers found his comatose body and rushed him into surgery. He was on life support for a few days befofe he faded away, having never woken up. Joy rushed over on the fastest flight possible to get to see him before it was too late, but she only managed to arrive in time to see his yokai self emerging and vanishing into the ether. This phantasm haunted her for the rest of her life and she sorta inherited his fatal yokai obsession, in hopes that what she saw was real...

* after her son died at just 17, she became even more tied to the desperate hope of her husband's old fairytales. Ultimately though, she was never able to find him. She actually could have walked straight past him and not been able to see him. And madds wouldnt have recognised her, only wondered why something in his heart says that this particular trespasser in the haunted hospital should be guided to the exit without harm.

* they first met in high school, oddly enough due to maddiman's dad being a massive asshole. Nogut always pressured his son to be perfect and live out all his dreams for him, blablabla, gotta get to the best schools and never get a single bad grade. Joy and madds werent in the same class so they hadnt talked much, and she only recently transferred anyway. But one day Nogut was in school for a parent teacher conference and he was being his usual pissy entitled self, blah blah im too important to be here and my son is the cause of all my problems somehow. So he got uhh.. "Distracted". Aka being an absolute fuckin creeper to underage highschool girls! Thus the day Joy first became friends with maddiman was also the day she became mortal enemies with his dad by kicking him in the balls. And shortly afterwards she bumped into maddiman who was hyperventilating in the same closet she coincidentally picked while hiding from Groinally Harmed Anger Dad. He was having a panic attack from the general stress of his dad being here, and she helped support him through it which became a really valued memory of his, and why he sees her as his hero. Well, that and shortly after when she was like 'lol i just met this total creeper and kneed him in the nads' 'THATS MY DAD' 'geez sorry dude' 'NO THATS AMAZING'

* she also helped him pull off his ultimate escape from trash dad. They had a plan in place for a long time that as soon as he turned 18 they were getting on a motorbike and riding off to Anywhere But Here. But he didnt expect her to literally bring a birthday cake and throw it in his dad's face! And then that was the beginning of their relationship. Madds had totally been crushing on her for quite a while but never knew how to confess, until the sheer awesomeness of that moment made him accidentally squeak it out while they were riding for their lives from an angry old man.

* oh and also there were probably a lot of funny cute clueless moments where it kept going over joy's head that he had a crush on her? I was thinking of a cute idea for a valentines day flashback where maddiman was too shy to give her a box of chocolates and she comes along like "man i didnt get any chocolates im glad you managed to get some!" "U-uhh no i umm..wanted to give them to someone but i...didnt." "Oh that sucks dude! At least now you can eat them all to yourself to help forget that girl. Lemme sneak one, tho!" And thus he ended up sharing the box of chocolates with the perosn he wanted to, even if she had no idea. And it was a very good day!

* also i think considering the pattern of him bottling up his feelings and running from relationship problems, it seems likely that he ran from the altar on his wedding day. But it was also one of the only times ever that that happened and it wasnt super sad. As he does, he got all worked up into a mess of anxiety and convinced he knew the only answer- the stupidest and most reckless answer! So even though he loved this woman he was so scared that he'd be a bad husband that he tried to jump out the window at the last second without even once trying to actually talk to her about any of this. But this time she did manage to find him! All the friends and family were like 'ugh leave him, he doesnt love you', but she knew there had to be more to it so she ran out in the rain in her wedding dress and searched for miles until she found him sobbing in a public bathroom. They managed to talk it out and get to the bottom of his feelings and actually resolved something for once, and it all went okay. It kinda helped that seeing her turn up all bedraggled in the wreckage of the dress she loved so much, bleeding from her tight heels and fighting off several biker gangs along the way helped convince him that "hey maybe she thinks i'm worth fighting for, so i should try and believe her". So yeah then she swept him off his feet and they danced all night as everyone else in the church was all "ugh she looks awful" and "why would she take him back", but the moment was so magical that they just didnt care. And thats how the biggest failure of a wedding was also the happiest day of their lives! (..though sadly the same doubts and communication difficulties would come up again and not be resolved so easily...)

* i keep flip flopping on what career i want to give her, but at the moment im thinking possibly owns a lil bakery/coffee shop type place? Madds is one of those people who cant stand the bitterness of tea/coffee and prefers caffinated sodas instead, but he used to drink strong coffee every day back when he was human just because his wife made it. He loved all the rest of her cooking so itd be cruel to say no! Its a lil detail that i figured would be cute but also foreshadow how he'd meet his tragic end, as it shows he's capable of bottling up his feelings for years even when talking would be so much easier. Also probably a comedic note that he's coming up with nonsensical mad science techniques to make himself able to drink coffee! "Shall i genetically modify my tastebuds or create an undetectable translucent plastic armour plate for my tongue?"

* also maybe she could make cinnamon rolls shaped like madds's doofy cyclops head when they reunite in the future. Just because i want to eat that.

[theboykingofhell]

(acting anon from earlier!!) i read ur whole thing and its FILLED with rly good info ty!! im british and im looking to start getting into acting but i always shyed away from it in schools etc cause there's always be a dance side to it and :/ no ty id rather eat nails than dance ever. but im rly interested in the acting techniques n stuff u mentioned and id defo read as many posts abt it as u wanted to write :0 ty for your time!!

OK YEAH now that i actually have time and by that i mean i have no time there’s like three things i’m supposed to be doing rn but i want to stall starting them lmfao I’MMA TALK MORE ABOUT THIS RN

imma be real i cant remember all the things i mentioned in that post i wrote and i cant be bothered to go back and look so IF YOU EVER HAVE A SPECIFIC QUESTION LITERALLY ASK ME ANY TIME

oooooooooooh... yeah.. love... babe.... go to acting schools lol it’s not even JUST the fact that they literally teach you how to act but. you. need to network. god. especially since you ARE british, acting schools are very important because a lot of companies will pretty much hire you based on what school you went to. just the short amount of time i was there made this VERY obvious that it is VERY hard to get picked up by a company if you haven’t gone to school, and getting picked up by a company is how you get consistent theater work for YEEEEEEARS...!!! also, usually a school will give you a rly good chance to network by having some sort of showcase at the end where you can get in contact with a bunch of agents and the more famous the school, the more agents see your work and try and help you out!!!!

and, like... the whole dance bit is just a hurdle you’re gonna have to jump. it’s def rly important to just partipate in the classes, you don’t have to be GOOD but it gives you just that little bit of awareness over your body and your movement that you might not have had before and that’s rly important, especially on the stage!! i felt the same way about singing but, man, the more you work at it, the more mangeable it gets. and you don’t want to have this grudge on you forever because it’ll really limit your work :/

but i mean man you don’t actually have to, there’s no set way to become an actor! if you find work, you have that work, it doesn’t matter how you get there t b h. i just think it helps and the more skills you acquire, the better of a chance you have to get that work...

(i RLY suggest lamda, it’s a hard school get into but it’s one of the best if not the best and also the education is beautiful and ALSO lamda-trained actors get the most consistent work because the uk just nuts all over itself about lamda-trained actors)

BUT YEAH. ACTING TECHNIQUES. GONNA FINALLY ADD A CUT LOL

i’m only gonna talk about these vaguely cuz tbh i’m not as ~studied~ as i should be because i’ve been far too lazy until now to actually sit down and read acting textbooks but HERE’S THE GIST....

stanislavsky is like... pretty much the most well-known most taught acting technique. so many of the other techniques you learn BUILDS on his work. there’s a huge range of shit that he’s got to offer because his and later similar teachings are SO focused on realism (which tbh is a very new thing in acting), but some of the most important is stuff like emotional recall and objective work aaaaand character building by using yourSELF and projecting it onto the character. it’s a very psychological form of acting and it’s... MY BASIS but not actually my fave!

now, a lot of parts of it is very useful. emotional recall, for one, is SUPER nice. it’s a very good way to build that vulnerability up, tear down a lot of walls and explore how to summon emotions up....

my first exercise with stanislavsky, i remember them making us lie down and pretty much meditate, and then you listened as the teacher described a bunch of things: your favorite beach as a child and what it felt like, all these sensory memories about the smells and tastes and sights of the beach. and then it moved on to the night of your first kiss, your first love, and then your first loss. a nice basic range of basic emotions, and then you build on that.

stanislavsky (and stuff like uta hagan who wrote a RLY great book that i havent finished reading yet but it’s a GREAT way to rly build on the technique) rly encourages taking yourself and putting it into the character. SO!!!! if your character is going through their first break-up, summon the feelings and memories of your first break-up and push that into your lines, so on and so forth.

the big criticism with stanislavsky and all the techniques like them is that it COULD be very unhealthy for you... considering it’s all about reliving and reliving old memories. and i agree, i mean, one of my favorite plays and one of my monologues of choice for auditions is from a play where the main character is kidnapped and raped, and i’ve been kidnapped and raped before so i am CONSTANTLY and purposely triggering myself just to perform that monologue well. THAT AIN’T RIGHT! helps tho! 

(stuff like method acting falls under stanislavsky and his successors strasberg and stella adler, so....! you can see why not everyone fucks with it)

MY criticism about stanislavsky, which is why it doesn’t work as much for me, is that it’s very VERY heavily text-based. uhhh THIS IS LONG ALREADY SO SOMEONE SEND AN ASK ABOUT OBJECTIVES AND I’LL EXPLAIN but they want you to do a lot in the moment that makes it very distracting if you don’t have this process pinned down and that’s AGGRAVATING FOR ME ANYWAY

chekov is another technique that’s interesting, again not a fave but VERY helpful. this one builds character more from the outside in, it’s all about like... a lot of very subtle details that you can add to the background to add color to your performances. a lot of it is about atmospheres, attitudes, body language, and how that affects your character and how your character is thinking through the scene. it’s VERY reactionary and very fun because you don’t have to think NEARLY as much. 

pretty much you form... gestures, or moods for your characters, and instead of perfoming an ‘action’ (stanislavsky thingy, i’ll explain that in another post i guess), you’re using this ‘gesture’ to explain yourself. it is far FAR more abstract than stanislavsky, which is a lot more technique and exact, and it’s very vague, which does make it very hard for people. it also doesn’t stress realism like stanislavsky and company does, so it’s not as popular at the moment!

 meisner technique is my second favorite technique and kind of hard to explain because i haven’t rly gotten a comprehensive course in it yet besides a few workshops and activities, but it’s a technique that stresses STRESSES ‘listening’. that’s something you hear a lot as an actor, it’s one of the hardest things to really get but it’s also, truly, the essence of good acting. you can’t be a good actor if you don’t listen, because if you don’t listen, you’re not in the moment, and if you’re not IN the moment, you’re just... reciting lines!!!

it’s so hard to explain so i’mma link a cute video i just found because it shows a lot of variety and also shows the actors messing up a lot and it’s cute omfg

it focuses a lot of repetition (either of the same one line for each person or they’re both doing the same line back and forth) which forces the actor to not think about what’s being said but how it’s being said. you’re stuck in the moment because you KNOW what you’re gonna say, you don’t have to worry about saying anything else, all you gotta worry about is what the other person does and how you’re gonna react to it. if they suddenly start screaming in your face UHH YOU’RE GONNA SCREAM BACK HOW DARE YOU? and it’s automatic and SO natural and that’s why i love it, because you don’t have to THINK through it. you don’t rly think through your life like they make you do in other techniques, so i adore the ability to not have to do that on stage.

however i’ve never gotten far enough in the technique to find out how to apply it to a set script but it might just be about building that openness to just... DO and BE and let whatever happens happens, which is NICE

LAST THING THAT I’LL TALK ABOUT IS FUCKING GROTOWSKI YE  S. ok so a lot of techniques overlap, so by this i’m also talking about lecoq and peter brook’s acting techniques. it’s all physical theatre which is all about the GROTEQUE and like UGH there’s so many fascinating things honestly just google ‘theatre of cruelty’ because it’s FASCINATING

the emphasis is... not rly on realism altho the acting i’ve seen come out of it is the most realistic i’ve seen? it’s rly gritty and about accessing the most... EXTREME of emotions, it’s about rly grasping human nature and twisting it and bringing it on stage. peter brook especially (who has a book called the empty stage or something like that that i got to read) stresses that... theatre shouldn’t be about costumes and sets and whatever, it should be just about the actor, and that you can do a PERFECTLY GOOD show with a completely empty stage, with just the actor in the center.

it also has an emphasis on YANKING the audience into the show and being very interactive and like... nothing’s held back, it should be hard to watch, THEATRE SHOULD BE CATHARTIC AND FUCKED UP AND YES.

so physical theatre involves pulling emotions from the body through your movement. life isn’t just about the mind, after all, your body holds emotions through it, there’s chemicals and hormones and what your body does on its own and against other bodies and just. again, hard to explain so HERE’S SOME COOL VIDS THAT SHOWS DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES AND COMPARES THEM ALL

i lied there’s one more technique i wanna mention: it’s called alba emoting! it, again, builds on the idea that trying to access emotions through the brain is UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS and that you can, instead, try and access it through the body! how???? cuz emotions are PHYSICAL. you feel sadness and anger and love and whatnot in your gut and chest and through your head and all through every nerve in your body, right????? so why not try and mimic that for the stage???

it’s SUPER COOL because! what you do with alba emoting is: affix yourself a certain way. it involves certain body postures or positions, certain expressions sometimes... EVERY time it depends upon a different breathing pattern... and all you gotta do is do it. and your body doesn’t know better, it gets tricked into it...!

so, if i were to alba emote fear... it’s hard to describe through text rather than do it but this one might be the clearest one... part of the positioning is to have your hands up in front of you, as if you’re trying to ward someone off or shield yourself. you have your mouth open, you have your eyes stuck to the floor in a submissive sort of way, (there’s more that i cant describe but then) you start to make yourself hyperventilate by taking short, quick breaths through your mouth. after a few seconds of this, your body just starts SHOOTING adrenaline through you because it starts thinking WHOA SOMETHING BAD’S HAPPENING I’M AFRAID?FUCKFUCKFUCK

and that continues until you stop! you can stop at any time and then just go. you get left with a ‘residue’ (which is very chekov in nature in that it ‘colors’ your performance) where you can just act and do the lines and do your actions (stanislavsky) without worrying about needing to push any fear into yourself because it’s THERE, it’s PRESENT and whatever happens in the scene will either alliviate it or make it worse!!!

it’s a BEAUTIFUL way to prepare for a scene right before you go on stage too omg. last semester we were doing julius ceasar, and there was a scene where i had to play a servant who just witnessed a murder and just. go in and beg for my life and the life of my master. so i did the fear emote, and then my friend (playing my master at the moment) decided to talk to me in character and give me the order to throw myself in front of the murderers and LMFAO by the time i ran on there i was like fucking in tears i was so terrified HA

THERE ARE SO MANY MORE TOO IT’S SO FUN YOU JUST GOTTA GO AND SEE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU WHOO!!!!!! HOPE THIS WAS FUN AND HELPFUL YES