#i LOVE cinema and i can be a bit of a pretentious fuck about it so that *should* mean i like this movie

[talistheintrovert]

Yes I have:

No 👍

Has anyone here watched it and is it worth the time commitment?

[ophelialoveshandsomemen]

Get to know your moots

Thank you, @virtie333! for the tag, this is long and looks like fun!

What's the origin of your blog title? Ophelia because I fell in love with everything Hamlet when I first watched Sir Kenneth Branagh's '96 adaptation back in like '11 or '12. And I love handsome men. Easy as that!

OTP(s) + Shipname: uhm with shipnames? ( rummages around)...okay, think I found them! Anne Shirley & Gilbert Blythe ( Annebert) , Faramir & Éowyn ( Farawyn) , Queen Victoria & Lord Melbourne ( Vicbourne) , Anastasia * Anya* Romanov & Gleb Vaganov ( Glenya)

Favourite colour: A really good Navy Blue! Also sunset yellow and a mossy deep dark forest green!

Favourite game: Nintendo Donkey Kong 3 for video games, Mille Bornes for card games, World Wise for board games, tricking people for real games...

Song stuck in your head: ( oh hell) The Monarch Song from Horrible Histories. Really catchy!

Weirdest habit/trait? Weeellll, I bet everything I do is considered a weird habit by the majority of the populace, but it's probably the fact that I eat oddball things like the eggshells on boiled eggs and the paper on muffins and things like that.

Hobbies: Fiber crafts, woodworking, growing plants, beekeeping, playing the piano, writing fanfics, obsessing over historical fashions, reading history books, reading historical fiction/romance novels

If you work, what's your profession? oh geez, I can't really disclose that. Has to do with wee bairns. And farming.

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Acting on stage at the Globe Theatre in London.

Something you're good at: Being a walking encyclopedia and playing music. Also flying by the seat of my pants through life.

Something you're bad at: Dealing with people, dealing with stupid people. And yes, though rare, they do very much exist.

Something you love: Music, history, the Catholic Faith, trees, Midsummer Bonfires, dark haired men*gulps*, restoration era English royalty.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: Why monarchies are actually still a better way of ruling, over democracies and republics and all that 20th century bullshite... Also herbalism, history in general, and cinema!

Something you hate: Puritanism, Gnosticism, Satanism, the healthcare system of North America, Communism, Nazism,( fascists are on thin ice) how loud Americans( not yours truly who has been tagged of course) tend to be online, the visceral misunderstanding protestants have about Catholicism/Orthodoxy, the Canadian government, the way americans treat canadians like dirt( at least the americans I met in real life)

Something you collect: Wool blankets, antiques, CDs and DVDs, enamel pots and pans

Something you forget: I get distracted easily, but my memory is scary long and accurate. I mainly forget where my wallet is.

What's your love language? Sex

Favourite movie/show: Oh come on I can't pick one! *grumbles* I pick The Lord of the Rings trilogy and M*A*S*H

Favourite food: Hominy corn with butter and Anglo-Saxon Oatcakes with apples

Favourite animal: Moose and Musk Ox. Would 100% ride them if I could. Also sheep.

What were you like as a child? Daydreaming and very idealistic. Also read a lot of trashy 70s romance novels.

Favourite subject at school? History, as well as religious studies.

Least favorite subject? Algebra. Even though I was actually really good at it. Still hated it.

What's your best character trait? Super helpful.

What's your worst character trait? I can be pretentious as fuck if I feel like it and nothing will stop me. Bit too much of a non-conformist.

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? That I hadn't spilt the damned milk.

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet? St. Joan of Arc and King Charles II of England , Scotland and Ireland. Preferably at the same time, that would be a hoot. He would pretend not to understand her french as she would absolutely rip him a new one about his mistresses and I would enjoy the show whilst being starstruck!

Recommend one of your favourite fanfics (spread the love!): Oh! Here's one! ( or two...)

and

no pressure tags are: @thekenobee and @russell-crowe and @smolgreybunny

[teejaysnow]

Okay, so here is today’s P3 Morgen interview. Or at least most of it... 

(I’m sorry, I love my art-y little son very much a lot - but at one part he reads one of his own poems and you’ll have to find a real norwegian for that one. I can do regular norwegian, but I draw the line at pretentious norwegian, please and thank you...)

(Also, link to P3 Morgen: x)

P3 morgen 201120

Interviewer 1: What a friday it is. My soul is thriving by what I’m seeing in front of me - and what you get in your radio at six minutes past eight - and that is Ina Svenningdal and Tarjei Sandvik Moe here with us at P3 Morgen in a small Skam reunion. Good morning and welcome, Tarjei.

Tarjei: Good morning and thank you.

I1: We, I mean, Ina you’re here because you were the ugly bear [don’t ask - apparently some kind of guessing game where Ina was wearing a bear suit and the listeners had to guess who it was?]

Interviewer 2: Stop calling her that.

Ina: Oh, but I’m kinda liking it, it’s pretty funny.

I1: Tarjei, you were supposed to come here today anyway, but we had no idea that Ina was going to be here, but now you’re here, so… what’s it like with you two, do you see each other often?

T: Yeah, I think so. Honestly.

I: Yeah. Well, it’s been a while now.

T: Are we going to sit here and lie on radio, going naeeeeeh.

I: No, but it is a bit on and off, I think?

T: Yeah.

I: Sometimes you coincidently run into each other a lot and then nothing for a year.

I2: But I guess it’s difficult now, too.

I: Yeah.

T: Yeah, but I thought about it recently, I thought about it because, “Oh, I’m going to go watch Ina act and maybe grab a beer or something”, but then you just...

I: Yeah. But nooo.

I1: Of course. But can I ask, do you have… this is typical, when we get to talk to you Skam people we completely fall back into the Skam bubble, but you have of course gone on with your lives and are doing new things, and we are going to talk about that, but is there a Skam group chat where you send memes or something to each other?

I: Yeah?

T: Yeah.

I1: There is?!

I2: No there isn’t.

I: There is!

I2: It was too long a pause there.

I: No, but I hesitated because I got like, “should I say that there is one or should I say that there isn’t one?” But there is…

T: There is still a group chat. We can’t say that it’s terribly active, though, but…

I: No, it isn’t. 

T: But it does flourish sometimes. Like, like...

I1: Who’s the most active?

T: Well, maybe Julie Andem.

I1: No…

[I2, I and T all doing terrible impressions of Julie, going “What’s happening”]

I1: But… does it have a name? Because I feel like it says a lot about people, the name of their group chats.

I: Yeah, but… well, I’m so rarely on that chat that I can’t remember what it’s called. 

T: No, I can’t remember either.

I1: We’ll just continue… Tarjei, you’ve been in a Christmas movie.

T: Yeah!

I1: That’s really great, I love Christmas movies.

T: Yeah?

I1: What movie is it?

T: It’s a film called “Gledelig jul”, which is shown at cinemas around Norway. But not in Oslo.

I1: No. Because you can’t go to cinemas here.

T: Because it’s not allowed. So… but, just watch it if you’re outside of Oslo or maybe when Oslo opens up.

I2: What’s the film about?

T: “Gledelig jul” is about Annemor, played by Anne Marit Jacobsen, who always, together with her husband, played by Otto Jespersen, has celebrated Christmas abroad but this year decides that, “fuck it, this year we have to meet up with the family for the first time in ten years”. And everyone thinks she’s got cancer, so that’s why they come, but then she doesn’t have cancer, so they’re like “why are we here?” and then the family bonds get unraveled and secrets are revealed, and… comedy happens.

I2: So she doesn’t have cancer.

T: No.

I2: Okay, great, then it’s comedy.

I1: So, who is it you play in this mess?

T: I play Anne Marit’s grandson, so I’m there as like a bit of a weird character.

I1: Okay.

I2: What do you mean by a weird character? You’re looking at the floor in a very suspicious way now.

T: No, but he’s, like, I never really managed to fully decide why, but he is a bit weird. And he’s really in love with a girl and he’s trying to learn hebrew through one of those kinds of language courses to be able to talk to her in hebrew.

I2: It sounds almost like you haven’t listened to what the director or anyone has told you, you’ve just decided that, my character does these weird things, we have to continue, he does these weird things like learning hebrew and stuff.

T: Yeah, it’s a very difficult job.

I1: But how was it filming a Christmas movie, are you a Christmas movie buff?

T: Yeah, I like “Home Alone” at least? 

I1: Okay, that’s… do you have any more recent favourites? Or you’ve stuck to the classics?

T: “Home Alone 2”?

I1: “Home Alone 2”. 

I: But not 3?

T: Nah, it’s not the same actors. It has to be Macaulay. [in english:] They don’t do it without Macaulay. [If I never hear Tarjei pronounce Macaulay ever again it’ll be too soon…]

I1: No, I agree, I love the “Home Alone” movies and I’m happy that there is a new Christmas movie that you’re acting in and I’m looking forward to when the cinemas reopen so we in Oslo can go see it. And remember, you who live outside of Oslo can still go to the cinema. Ina, you’re acting in front of empty auditoriums [during Ina’s interview they talked about her two plays still being acted out on stage during the lockdown just to keep up the flow and to be prepared for when the lockdown is lifted], Tarjei, you were supposed to premiere a play today…

T: Yeah.

I1: We’ll talk more about this…

T [sounding absolutely crestfallen]: I hadn’t realised that it was today?

I1: It’s 20 November today.

T: Fuck, I had… 

I2: I just hope no one hears that.

T: It’s allowed on P3? To swear?

I2: Well, we get scolded by our bosses, but you know what? We’ll allow you to swear once, Tarjei.

T: Fucking hell.

I2: That was two. That was two.

I1: We’ll talk more about 20 November, the play that is, not just today’s date, after we’ve listened to some music here at P3. And to you, Ina Svenningdal, we’ll say thank you for coming and making our friday so much better. So thanks for your visit…

I: Thank you for having me….

I1: ...and this is “Mad At Disney”.

*****

I1: Rat City and Isak Heim with Kind Of Love [No, you didn’t miss anything, there were two songs with nothing said in between] sixteen minutes past eight this friday. We are visited by you, Tarjei Sandvik Moe…

T: Hello, hello.

I1: It’s very nice to have you here…

T: It’s very nice to be…

I1: How are… What kind of friday person are you? Are you one of those who gets extra excited by waking up on a friday?

T: I love fridays. Definitely.

I1: Okay, do you have a friday routine?

T: Umm… [laughs]

I1: Tacos or something?

T: No, not like tacos, nothing like that. All those routines are just [he makes a retching sound] so in case I ever had any then I’ve forgotten about them. No routines.

I2: I was wondering, like, do you live in a flat share, or?

T: No.

I2: Home?

T: No, I live in a flat with my girlfriend.

I2: Oh yeah, so you haven’t managed to make any taco routines with your wife? [wow, we went from girlfriend to wife really fast there…]

T: No, but we do eat together?

I1: I get really fascinated by people who have to decide on friday dinner like it can be anything, but that has nothing to do with you, Tarjei, it’s just me and my taco brain. 

T: You’re very strict about that, you’re eating tacos every friday, or?

I1: Do I ever. And get all stressed out on saturdays.

I2: And talks a lot about it too.

T: Yeah. And you, Martin?

I2: I eat tacos on sundays.

T: Sundays? Yeah? And do you have any routines for fridays?

I2: No, actually no. No, I’m a bit on the no routines team there, I just take it as it comes.

I1: So what is it today?

I2: I’m going to… it’s not... let’s not talk about me!

I1: You haven’t planned dinner? That’s fine.

T: Disappointing, Martin. Disappointing.

I2: Yeah, it’s bad.

I1: But, Tarjei, how’s this year, 2020, been for you?

T: Strange. Um, like it’s probably been for everyone. But there’s something about… how to put it… being on the brink of film- and theatre releases and it’s not allowed. Then I could just as well be a pimp or anything else illegal, it’s just weird when what you’re doing is… has become illegal.

I1: Yeah, but…

T: I feel like a criminal.

I1: So in case you’d picked another criminal job, you’ve probably seen a lot of action movies and such things, what would you have been?

T: [in english] I would do a heist. A robbery.

I1: Yeah…

I2: Do you want to be a criminal? Do heists?

T: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple of years ago... [no, don’t stop there, Tarjei. Tell me more.]

I1: Is there something… because you haven’t done a real action movie yet, have you?

T: No… I’d say that in “Skitten Snø” there were some stunts and fight scenes and such when I played a security guard but not a “pure action movie”, I haven’t done that yet. That’s still lacking.

I2: What’s your dream movie to act in?

T: Umm… dream…

I2: Genre.

T: Yeah, genre. That’s... I don’t… I just thought… on an airplane, maybe? No, but it’s… I want to play a lawyer.

I1: Yeah, why? Is it based on a series you’ve seen?

T: I’m really fascinated by what happens in a courtroom, and also, my sister is a lawyer and she has a lot of exciting stories from her studies and what she’s going to work with and stuff and her… 

I2: I think it would fit you to play a shady lawyer.

T: Yeah, right? So that would be absolutely amazing, to play a lawyer.

I1: Is it because you can see so clearly how you walk around the courtroom in a suit and just holding a long monologue and hitting the table, giving all the reasons for why your client is innocent.

T: Yeah, maybe a bit. Yeah, I watched the OJ Simpson series, fuck, that would be really cool to play. So, something like that. Maybe there’ll be a film in twenty years on the Laila Bertheussen lawsuit and then I can play prosecutor Frederik Ranke.

I2: So you want to play something that somber?

T: Somber?

I2: You want to do those kind of serious things?

T: Yeah, yeah, [in english] fuck yeah. Is it that.. It is serious…

I2 [giggling]: Yeah, it’s serious. And like the OJ Simpson series, “yay, cool”, and it’s about some of the darkest things that has happened. You have a real darkness inside of you.

T: Yeah, well, I do a lot of dark stuff. That’s just how it is. To be an actor is a bit like throwing up, you have to get the garbage out.

I2: Oooookay…

I1: Ooooookay… this is exciting, I’m looking forward to hearing how you “got the garbage out” in the way you’ve prepared the play that was supposed to premiere today. It’s called 20 November and we’ll talk more about it after Justin Bieber and Chance the Rapper with “Holy”.

*****

I1: It’s so beautiful, it’s Justin Bieber and Chance the Rapper’s “Holy” in P3 Morgen, it’s twenty past nine, and this friday we’re visited by you, Tarjei Sandvik Moe, who today, 20 November, were supposed to premiere a play with the same name as the date, 20 November. That won’t happen, unfortunately, because of these times we live in, but we can talk about the play anyway, so…

T: It can suddenly be that it’s allowed, so then you’ll just have to throw yourself into…

I2: One day we’ll get to see the play.

T: Yeah. 

I1: What is 20 November?

T: 20 November is a monologue written by the swedish playwright Lars Norén and is about a school shooter who was a real school shooter in Germany in 2006 and is based on the diary, notes, manifesto and photos he’s posted online, so I’m playing a real guy who actually died on that day, 20 November 2006, but no one else died, so in a way it’s the story about Sebastian Bosse.

I2: He was the school shooter?

T: He was the school shooter. So I am he, who’s explaining to the audience why I’m going to do what I’m going to do on 20 November, and… [in english] That shit is going to happen.

I1: It might be one of the darkest things you’ve done, or?

T: Yeah, I have acted out rape scenes and stuff, but school shootings are… it’s extreme.

I1: Yeah. And you shouldn’t compare dark things because that’s…

T: No, that comparison was completely…

I2: But I was wondering, when you act in such a dark play, or with such dark themes, isn’t it a bit strange… or, because you’re really looking forward to going out there and performing, isn’t that a strange feeling?

T: Yeah, it’s… it’s a mixture there, the performance is a visual… we could call it a feast, but it isn’t… I think it will be a very good performance that’s interesting in many ways. Art isn’t necessarily good because it’s important, but it gets important by being good, so I think a performance can be good in itself and exciting to act and exciting to watch. So I’m really looking forward to do it, and it’s hard to having started rehearsals in february and still not being allowed to perform it.

I2: So you’re ready.

T: It’s been postponed two times, so I’ve had to go bald twice in a year to do it…

I2: You’ve shaved your head for that part?

T: Yeah, that’s the thing, he shaved his head because he was doing it like a kind of military thing, but, so I do a lot for this, but… 

I2: Couldn’t they have said that it was postponed before you shaved your head?

T: Yeah, yes…

I1: I’m going to disagree a bit because I think a shaved head suits you very well, Tarjei.

T; Thank you very much.

I1: But… how is it, now that it got postponed again, how does that feel when you’ve worked that hard on something?

T: When life goes against you, you just have to laugh at it. 

I1: You have to do that. And did you manage to laugh at it?

T: Yeah, I did laugh. Because we were closing in on the actual premiere and I went into the lounge and sat by myself and checked the mobile and there it said that Raymond Johansen had decided that we were to close the theatre. And I just laughed. 

I1: Yeah, you can’t really do anything else. You either laugh or cry.

T: I saw myself from the outside, the tragic character of Tarjei who keeps shaving his head. It’s a bit like the greek story about Sisyphos or whatever his name is, who pushed that stone up and up to no avail because when he reached the top the stone just rolled down again.

I2: Your stone is the razor?

T: Yeah, that’s… that’s… I’m the modern version of Sisyphos.

I1: But when things close down you can start new hobbies, I feel like 2020 has been a good year for that. You have got a new hobby and we’ll talk some more about that on NRK P3 very soon, but right now we’ll listen to some music. Ava Max, two minutes before half nine, “Who’s Laughing Now”, guess it’s you, Tarjei.

*****

I1: Thank heavens for Sigrid [yeah, another one with multiple songs with a newscast in between] and for the kind of music that we just heard here on NRK, “Strangers” in your radio, twenty two minutes to nine here on P3 Morgen, which today is visited by you, Tarjei Sandvik Moe. 

T: Yeah.

I1: And you were supposed to premiere… 

I2 [giggling]: It was just such a good “Yeah”.

T: Yeah, it was just… continue with the show and I’ll think about it.

I1: Today you were supposed to premiere the play 20 November. It didn’t happen, like so much else this year, 2020, but when things halt for a bit you can do things you’ve never done before, try a new hobby. And that’s what you’ve done.

T: Yeah. That messed things up a bit because P3 was supposed to call me yesterday and I didn’t answer and then I had to call back half an hour later and apologise, “I’m sorry, the phone was in flight mode, I was writing a poem”, and that was an excuse that P3 had never heard before. They’ve had a lot of people saying that they’ve overslept, but never that they were writing poetry.

I2: Yeah, because that’s your new hobby, writing poetry.

T: Yeah.

I2: And I love that you used that as an excuse to not answering the phone. Because it’s something a bit classy about, “I was a bit preoccupied, I was writing a poem”.

I1: But, Tarjei, when you’re writing poetry and the phone rings and you don’t hear it, is it like you’re sitting at a desk by the window with a pen, like a quill that you dip in ink and a paper and stare into the air, or are we talking notes on the mobile.

T: I’m doing it on the mac.

I1: You’re doing it on the mac.

T: I have this very clever program called “word”.

Both inteviewers: Aaaah.

T: A lot of nice fonts. And… I turn the mobile off or set it in flight mode and put it somewhere else, which is why no one can get a hold of me because that’s often a part of the art of writing. I’ve, like, written other things like scripts and such, but I’ve never done any poetry. Nor read a lot of poetry either for that matter. But a couple of weeks ago I watched “Hannah and Her Sisters” where there was a poem by e e cummings, which I just loved and I immersed myself in him and then I thought, “fuck it, I have to try and write something too”, so this is a hobby that’s been going on for less than a week, hm.

I2: You said there were a lot of nice fonts in word, which font do you use when you write poems?

T: Oh, that… what’s its name, caruso or something like that? 

I2: So you’re actually using a pretty font when you’re writing poetry?

T: Yeah, because I got a bit provoked when I looked at my poem in Times New Roman.

I1: And now my thoughts go to submitting works in secondary school, not to the kind of creative writing that you’ve chosen to do yourself. But I’m happy to have found out that you can’t answer your phone because you’re writing poetry because today we’ll get a poem by you. [The interviewer stumbles on the norwegian word for poem - “dikt” - and says “drikt” instead. Which is close enough to “dritt”, which I guess every Skam lover by now knows basically means “shit”. Believe me, you need this knowledge from here on.]

T: Because I’m writing shit?

I2: Yeah, I heard that too.

T: Well, it is shit too. Shit poems.

I1: No, no, no.

I2: Is it possible to get to hear a poem here and now?

T: Yeah, it’s from my poetry collection, Shit Poems.

I1: No, Tarjei, it was just a slip of the tongue.

T: Yeah, but this… it’s just amateur poetry.

I1: Have you named it?

T: The poem?

I1: Yeah.

T: Destination.

I1: Oh.

T: [Reads his poem - and I’m sorry but you need a real norwegian for this one because he’s being annoying and pretentious and uses words with double meanings. So for any poetry loving norwegian out there, just… please translate it and put me out of my misery…]

I1: Oh my. Oh, shit.

I2 [applauding]: Wow.

I1: Oh my god. And you began just a week ago, it was really beautiful.

T [awkwardly]: Thank you. 

I1: Tarjei, you’re so multi talented.

T: Eeey. Shit. Shit.

I1: I just get so…

I2: I really liked the part with [yeah, so… something about crooked teeth - ask a norwegian, I don’t know…], was that it?

T: Yeah.

I2: Amazing.

T: Can we… should we just let it be and let us interpret it for ourselves or do you want to say anything else about it?

T: Interpret it yourself, art isn’t supposed to be explained. If I was a theatre director - which I’m never going to be - I would refuse programmes. People would just sit down in a dark auditorium, not knowing what they were about to see, and then walk away without anyone analysing it afterwards.

I1: Oh, rats, then we’ll just let you walk away without analysing this poem too much. Tarjei Sandvik Moe, thank you very much for coming…

I2 [yelling]: You have to explain what it’s about!!

T [yelling back]: NO!!

I2 [still yelling]: I can’t live like this!!

Music starts.

[with-the-same-tattoos]

I think the fundamental difference between the hobbit and lotr is the target audience. The hobbit was written for kids with this slight cyclical undertone, bilbo comes off as quite naive to me at least, kinda for kids to project themselves onto, and becomes a story about reevaluating the trust between yourself and the people around you, even if you care for them, which is a pretty good thing for kids to learn.

Lotr however was written for cynical adults, and the purpose for me at least was to allow downtrodden adults to add a bit of whimsy and joy back into their lives. You get beat down a lot when you’re older, and when you’re younger, everything seems great, both books aim to restore a bit of balance in their target audience, which reflects through their adaptations.

As someone who watched the hobbit first, it’s a lot better viewing experience when you’re a young kid huddled into the local cinema with your entire family (seriously there was like fifteen of us for all three movie releases, my grandma was fuckin hype), I fucking loved the barrel scene, and I still do. It’s probably one of my favourite fight scenes ever.

However, I wish the movie had worked a bit harder on goofy aspects, tonal dissonance is definitely a bit of a problem on reviewing for me, and also just not dragged poor Orlando Bloom back. Legolas does not need to be there. He’s not there in the book. It’s just weird.

I love the Hobbit movies, they’re flawed but I feel like people compare them wayyyy too much to lotr. They may be in the same universe and contain linked characters, but the books are fundamentally written for different people in different stages of their lives, and that shines through the movies.

Kinda like how the Silmarillion is written for people who want to suffer.

^^^^^ i think you have a lot of good points here!!!! Again, I DID ENJOY the hobbit movies. They were fun!!! I think Thorin was a lot of fun- I wasn't expecting to enjoy him as much.

I haven't read the books yet so I can't be too specific what I think abt the difference- ill get back to that when I have but itll take a while to finish, I think 😭💞

I havent, this far, however felt like lotr is cynical????? I think it might be like a difference between how we two see the word!!! Not sure. To me cynisism feels like that "well, nothing matters, things are shit for the sake of being shit" type of nihilism, and Hobbit comes to a lot closer to that w SOME of the characters, specifically in the water-town-whatever. I think i just mainly didn't like the town leader & Alfrids inclusion. It might be unfair of me to compare, but it is. Seriously such a stark contrast to having Théoden (cursed to silence and afterwards hindered by doubts of his own power and of loyalty, feeling alone) and Grima (clearly desperate for something; approval by others; coniving and cruel but made so by desperation) vs. dude likes gold & dude likes gold.

I might be hanging onto this one point bcs of my. MASSIVe crush on Grima, but 👁 — 👁 im not a professional movie critic I'm a dude w a crush on fuxkinh Grima Wormtongue from Lotr.... 💞💞

Anyways, yeah, idk, that just felt OFF to me. Idk id the books will have the same thing, but if they do, I gta say, not super into it? Maybe im being pretentious askinh for more complex characters in childrens media but AgAIN. The reason I was so enamored w Grima as a kid was. He was complex. That was interesting.

And you defi get that w the dwarves in hobbit!!! I'm just never a big fan of drawing clear lines between the enemy & the protags. I don't like othering evil characters, m a big believer in that seeing them as someone like us makes us understand that anyone can make bad choises, and makes us concider our own choises more?

I think the comedy to both of us is the issue. The baddies were mostly used for comedy, and the comedic parts were the least fave for me in general :( dunno.

I also have a mild weird thing for uncanniness and weirdness in movies. vISUALLY im more into Lotr; the weird constant fake moon light, older cameras, and i love the orc makeups..... augjdjj.. just more for me. But hobbits were fun!!!!

Sorry im rambling this is incoherent but u had fun thouthts so i thought id share some of my own ; v ;

[ughgclden]

bee, love, don’t apologise, please, it’s okay, and first and foremost, are you alright?? i hope you’re taking care of yourself, love, but i understand, i don’t think there’s been a year since third grade that i haven’t gotten pneumonia in the winter. I hope you’re feeling alright!!

honestly, dead poets society is one of my only personality traits anymore, i find myself drawing parallels to it constantly, for no reason but i love thinking about it. i’ve watched it so many times at this point, it’s,,, concerning. those tests always take me way less time than they give me, and i used to feel really awkward, i remember i took a bio one once, four hours they gave me, 45 minutes in, i was finished, and the moderator didn’t believe me. i aced it too, like the silly little neil kinnie i am. i’ve gotten used to the ‘worse’ side of being a neil kinnie, and honestly, now that my mum isn’t as controlling about everything as she used to be, it’s easier to deal with. i remember once, i’d gotten an 89 in algebra, and she threatened to pull me out of the fall show. that was a neil perry moment if i ever had one lol. the biggest thing these days is just imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome like oh you’re not hispanic enough, but also, you’re not queer enough, nonbinary enough, things like that. It’s exacerbated some days, but i try.

i watched the it movies on my cousin’s hbo,,, i may or may not have used it without her permission since she forgot to log out of my computer, but that’s neither here nor there. i remember having such a hard time taking the first one seriously initially, because of all the new kids on the block jokes, having a mum who was obsessed with them made it hard, especially when i actually got them all- in truth, the only midnight premiere i’ve been able to make was the force awakens, and i had school the next day too. i’m definitely a richie kinnie, and i have the internalised homophobia (only towards myself though) to prove it /hj my waterbottle has both a sticker of neil on it and a sticker of the r + e carving on it. in case there was any doubt about me lmao. stan kin makes sense for you, honestly, i can see it, i can see it.

okay so listen- no really, i’d bought them with the intention of only drinking half of one that night and spreading them out like that, but then came 9:45pm, and i had a research paper (on womens’ pockets/lack thereof) due at 10am that i simply hadn’t even started, so i downed them all in an hour and got the paper turned in at 5:56 in the morning. but i scare you huh? /hj bee, you’re too sweet, in truth, i’m fairly inelegant, but i try, as for the comforting and cosy, i’ll take you at your word, since that is something only someone interacting with me could discern. i do try to be kind to others for the most part. mainly i think because i’m usually on the other end of mean people.

i’m just perceptive like that bee, i dunno what to tell you, something just tells me, you know? /j and thank you, i always feel a little silly talking about it, because most of the tattoos i want are dead poets society tattoos, i guess some part of me, within the part of me that feels so incredibly tied to it, feels as if if i were able to get a tattoo i’d owe it to the movie in some way, if that makes any sense. i’ve already begged a friend of mine to go with me to get my first once i get to new york, the question though, is what to get first. i’ve got time to make a decision (for once in my life) i just spend a lot of time thinking about it.

honestly, i have never known a school rule to make sense. banning ripped jeans? banning dyed hair? it’s almost as if if they don’t stifle everything natural about kids expressing themselves they dont feel like they’re doing anything. but i digress. the same-sex couple rules were. awful. 12 year old me had enough going on without having an administrator yell at my friend and i for hugging in the courtyard and not leaving until we were a foot apart, but hey.

okay, jumping over a fence to go to a mcdonalds? how coming of age indie movie manic pixie dream girl of you /hj

200k words, is that a challenge? also ahaha not at all like my italian uncle up there just opened a ‘pizzeria’ /hj but mob!star au? might be a project i should start… granted, i’m not as good a storyteller as you, but i can try.

when i was little, i wanted to revolutionise things, i guess. i even actually wrote out a campaign, i wonder if its still somewhere. thank you for believing in me, but these days, bee, i’m thinking less about changing the world, and more about making it the next few weeks, and then the ones after that. little star was aware of so much, but also so little. i wonder what they’d think of me now, honestly.

i did, in fact, teach archery, it was so fun but my arms got SO SORE, and the kid who challenged my archery skills seemed surprised when i actually,, hit the bullseyes. my inner susan was happy then. incidentally the experience is also why i made a playlist called “touchstarved and wanting to teach you to shoot a bow” which low-key slaps when i’m lonely. and bee omg i cannot believe you said im better than susan pevensie i will be thinking about this for the rest of my life thank you- and yes, yes it was named aslan, however did you guess? /j prince caspian<33333

i’ll let you know my results from the tournament, as soon as they come out, and i say this having just put on pjs after taking off my suit, and sitting in the room with my cat in my dear evan hansen hoodie, frantically refreshing the results page because i’m anxious and impatient.

i hope you have a good night, with fitful and restful sleep, i’m sorry this got to be so long, but you know me, i certainly can talk. i’m honestly shocked i even made it to finals, considering i was running off four hours of sleep, having gone to bed at three last night. whoops.

all my love, hugs, and a warm mug of tea,

yours,

star✨

p.s i said yes so that?? happened?? it honestly feels surreal but we’re not gonna be in the same place anymore come the end of this year, so that’ll be something to deal with

P.p.s might just start adding spanish or latin or russian phrases to these if i keep having to translate your cute french bee /lh /hj

star my love, i know you said don't apologise, but i think the word 'sorry' makes up about 60% of my vocabulary. i'm okay!! was just a bit icky, but luckily i've recovered now!!

that's so nice - and again, makes so much sense for you. i think you would work perfectly in welton, i know it. i love bringing the messages from that film into my own life, as silly as it may sound. i'm astonished, and so fucking jealous of you. i used to finish tests maybe half an hour early, but hours is so impressive??? fun fact i did finish my physics final in about 45 minutes and slept for the other hour <3 neil would b proud my love!!! oh my god - i'm so sorry that happened??? but that is also so neil kinnie??? it seems futile me saying this, but i assure you that you are hispanic enough, and queer enough, and non-binary enough. you are enough, period. more than enough even. imposter syndrome is the worst, and i'm so so sorry you're dealing with it.

she did that to herself, you just saw an opportunity /lh a midnight premiere of the force awakens sounds so cute though omg - i hope you had the absolute best time. the r + e carving actually broke me. as a die hard reddie shipper since 2017, seeing the movie make it basically canon?! had me a mess in the cinema.

you are ridiculously comforting and cosy, everything about you feels like a warm hug from a familiar face and i love it. and the way you write is so smooth, it makes me think of a quill smoothly gliding across parchment, the deep black ink unsmudged and pristine. that seems a little pretentious of me, but oh well.

i also want some dps tattoos!! i desperately want "and still we sleep" from todd's poem, and was also so so tempted to get an outline drawing of meeks + pitts dancing on the roof. i love that, and i can't wait until the day you get it, whichever one it may be. my one concern is becoming addicted to them and making my bank account suffer - at least my piercing obsession is a little easier to fund /hj

i've NEVER gotten that - they claim it's 'distracting' but how on earth would it be?? when i got to college, no one was distracted by my dyed hair, and i certainly wasn't distracted by other people's outfits or painted nails. you were yelled at. for hugging. a friend.. what the fuck is wrong with these people??

just call me ramona flowers star /j it was possibly the highlight of my school career, sans hiding in the back room of the music room to avoid a maths test

i bet you're an amazing storyteller, if these letters are anything to go by. it would be a new york times best seller, i know it

we all have to take things one step at a time, i think. that's the only way i really get through things if i'm honest. one day after another and the cycle repeats. i love wondering what young me would think of me now - i'd probably be intimidated of myself, but i like to think i'd be proud that i'm still here, pursuing something i love

that playlist. sounds nothing short of sheer perfection. i too am touch starved and want to teach someone to shoot a bow - even though i.. cannot shoot a bow... but i can wield a sword so, it's close enough.

i saw your message about the tournament results - im so fucking proud of you!!!! you deserve it so so much and i couldn't be happier for you. see, your words and ideas are changing the world, even if you don't realise it.

ps; that is so fun???? omg im so happy for you star, you deserve tis <33 i hope towards the end of this year whatever happens leaves you both happy, no matter how far the distance.

pps; omg no.. please don't do that.. aha that would be awful... definitely wouldn't make my heart race.. haha not at all

all of my love, star. pardon the pun, but you are out of this world ;) i'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes;

il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé <3

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Grisly, Grim and a Fucking Delight: Feedback Review

TRIGGER WARNING: Torture, rape, daytime radio DJs. Don’t blame me, that’s just what’s in the movie.

Wow. Wow and a half. Wow and a half between two slices of thick white whoa. What a fucking movie. I’d say something like ‘they don’t make ‘em like that any more’, but they clearly do, because Feedback only came out a few years ago. I am astonished that I didn’t hear about it until tonight. You see, I was looking for an epic, slow-burn thriller to watch with my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, and I came across this little British movie about a radio talk-show host getting trapped in his studio when a bunch of masked psychos invade the premises. “Neat!” I thought upon reading the synopsis and watching the advert. “It’s Diehard but without schlubby, sarcastic Brits instead of overblown yanks.” As it turns out, I was wrong. Feedback is not an enjoyable but ultimately inconsequential gas pocket of a movie: it’s actually one of the most tense, conceptually horrifying and incendiary pieces of cinema- nay, Cinema with a capital C- that I’ve ever had the good fortune to witness. The more I think about it, the more impressed and enamoured I become. Unfortunately, in order to explain why, I’m going to have to spoil the whole freaking thing. For those of you who actually watch movies based on my recommendations (which would be, maybe, like two of you?) I’ll give you a nice non-spoilery recommendation right now: the acting is on-point, the plot is serpentine but not in a pretentious way, every prop and narrative element is used to maximum effect, the atmosphere gets tenser and tenser without ever letting you catch your breath and it’s exactly as long as it needs to be: there’s nothing missing and not an ounce of spare meat on it. It’s a lean, nasty predator of a movie and, if you let it, it will pin you down and rip out your jugular. I’ve only ever described one other movie as ‘transcendent’- a little psychological horror called The Perfection. Well, Feedback gets that exact same sticker but for completely different reasons. If you’re going to watch it- and you should- stop reading this review right now and go do it. It’s amazing.

And now for the spoilers. Consider this more of an analysis than a review. You see, the film reveals early on that the masked psychos invading the studio aren’t just randos with a political or philosophical axe to grind. They have beef with the radio host (whose name is Jarvis, incidentally. You don’t see enough Jarvises, either in real life or in movies. It’s a fun name and grossly underused, but I digress). You see, they think Jarvis’s friend raped a woman, killed another woman and beat the shit out of her boyfriend… and they think Jarvis knows all about it and may even have been involved. They force Jarvis to extract a confession from his friend early on and then kill him live on air, meaning that the rest of the film is devoted to a battle of wills between them and Jarvis as they try to force him to admit complicity, again live on air. Along the way, it’s also revealed that they aren’t just crusaders: they’re survivors of the incident and relatives thereof. Now, from the moment all these pieces were in place, I watched with an expectation of being disappointed. You see, I thought I knew what I was watching: Jarvis is visually and linguistically coded as am older slightly privileged but spiky elitist, so in most movies made after 2010 he’d automatically have been the bad guy (fuck me but do ageing white movie directors love to pretend they’re ‘woke’), while the people attacking him are visually and linguistically coded as youngish (except in one case) and victims, meaning that, in most movies, they would automatically be the good guys (hey, everyone loves an underdog, right?). I assumed I was watching one of those films. You know the ones I mean. One of those oh-so-clever ones that gets you to connect with and root for a character then reveals that he’s a shit-bag and punishes him and- by extension- you the viewer for taking his side. That was clever once, but I’ve now seen it on at least eight separate occasions, and it’s become trite. It’s particularly irksome because the victim-coded characters always get a free pass for their own shenanigans: they can murder, torture, brutalise and dehumanise but it’s always okay because something bad once happened to them. Frankly, I thought that’s what I was in for. Luckily. I was super wrong. That’s like regular wrong, only sexier and with sharper graphics.

You see, Feedback is way too smart to go for a black-and-white good-victims-versus-evil-central-character narrative. Instead, it’s a film about dehumanisation… or is it? You’ll see what I mean. In order to force Jarvis to admit complicity, his assailants don’t just fuck with him and his friend: they straight-up murder an innocent bystander and threaten to murder someone close to the protagonist. They hurt and do terrible things to Jarvis and the people around him, using torture methods that would make fucking ISIS throw up its hands and go ‘steady on, bruv’. They have a version of events that they’re convinced of but have only one unreliable character’s word for and Jarvis has a version of events that they refuse, point-blank, to believe. Jarvis’s story does begin to alter, but it’s never really apparent if he’s actually done something or if he’s just saying he has in order to keep the people around him (and himself) alive. Meanwhile, the ringleader of the little troop trying to extract a confession from Jarvis might be victim, but it also becomes apparent that she’s an unhinged psychopath intent on spilling as much blood as possible for her own personal sense of satisfaction and has as much interest in justice as a black hole has in the history of the stars it swallows up. Hooray! Some fucking moral ambiguity in a movie! I thought the entire industry had just forgotten how to fucking do that!

Much to my delight, Feedback doesn’t stop there. Merely by forcing the audience to make up their own minds about what they think happened and who’s actions are most justified, Feedback is already introducing a level of sophistication alien to modern cinema. But then it goes one step further by also subverting narrative expectations. You see, in a bleak, introspective, what-monsters-are-we-all flick like this, you expect the antagonists’ plan to succeed: you expect the last shot to be of the protagonist broken by the moral blankness of his reality, sitting in the wreckage of his life, unsure of whether he deserves what has happened to him or not. And that would have been a perfectly acceptable way to end this movie. But it doesn’t end like that. Because Jarvis is that rarest of things: a competent and determined dude. He’s not a superhuman. He doesn’t have special training. The flick doesn’t turn into an action movie or anything ridiculous. Jarvis just refuses to accept the bullshit happening to him and systematically works through every possible strategy to extricate himself without caving and admitting culpability that he doesn’t feel. He tries reasoned negotiation. He tries subduing one of the assailants temporarily and using them as a bargaining chip (the minimum necessary force approach), he tries escape and, finally, when all else fails, he uses a combination of psychology, surprise and familiarity with his environment to fight back with lethal force. It’s a considered, intelligent approach and, because his assailants aren’t organised terrorists just ordinary people who may (or may not) have a legit grievance with him, it succeeds and- to cut a long story short- he kills all of them in incredibly satisfying ways. There’s a bit involving a smug, I-can-be-as-evil-as-I-like-because-I’m-a-victim character getting skewered with a pair of scissors that instantly outranks anything in the Saw or Friday the 13th franchises as one of my all-time favourite movie kills (outright all-time favourite still goes to that bit in John Wick 3 with the really creative use of a library book, but that’s off topic).

During the climatic scenes of the movie, Jarvis screams his confession, but- as I said- it might only be a tool to distract his attackers and gain the upper hand while preserving the lives of the people he cares about. Equally, though, it might not. There’s a coldness to the character at the end of the film that wasn’t there at the beginning. Has he just been changed by the trauma of recent events, or are we seeing the facade drop away to reveal the true face of ruthless monster? And here lies the film’s final genius: not only doesn’t it answer this question (ambiguity for the win!) it also seems to suggest that the answer might not matter. Jarvis didn’t prevail because he was innocent- though he might be. His attackers didn’t fail because they became as bad as the thing they sought to fight (though they did). Victory and defeat aren’t defined by moral superiority. The film doesn’t assign winners and loser based on ethical or philosophical standpoint. Jarvis wins because he knows what the fuck he’s doing and his attackers are a bunch of overemotional quarter-wits with a half-baked plan that they can’t even stick to because they get too worked up. Survival, Feedback reminds us, has everything to do with being good at things, and fuck all to do with just being good. At every turn, the film tries to convince us that it has a moral point to make. Characters talk endlessly about truth and lies, justice and injustice… but in the end, it’s all smoke and mirrors. The film doesn’t have a central moral thesis (or, if it does, it’s a profoundly nihilistic one). Its real subjects are survival and will. It’s a study of what happens when two packets of brutal, remorseless determination meet eachother coming in opposite directions. It’s a dissection of the self-preservation instinct and its only real moral is ‘don’t fuck with a smart, grimly determined guy on his home turf if all you have to bring to the table is a short fuse and a big hammer’. Maybe that shouldn’t be refreshing, but in a cinematic landscape where every movie is determined to plant its flag on one side or the other of the political or ethical spectrum, it really fucking is. The fact that it gets you to think about ethical issues and who you believe on route elevates it, but the core of the film- the thing that makes it solid- is that refreshing element of nihilism. Breathe it in, folks: we don’t get many movies like this very often.

[cph-dreaming]

Zaterdag 08:44

(As requested by @lucidpantone)

Let me start by saying that this was actually the first clip of wtFock I saw live (or as real time as it gets when you have to rely on those wonderful people from @wtfockenglish who did such an amazing job of keeping us foreigners in the loop). I had heard rumours of a Belgium remake but at that time my life was very different from what it is now, just a bit more than half a year later, and I had never been into more than original Skam and the French version of season three. I still believe that apart from the format we wouldn’t be talking about any version of Skam hadn’t it been for season three but it is up for discussion. Season four could have changed the lives for so many just as season three did, but... Yeah. Let’s leave it at that for now.

I came home from my trivial work that Saturday in the fall of last year thinking my life had no meaning at all anymore. How can I even remember this day so vividly? Then the universe decided to introduce me to those two Belgian boys that ended up bringing me here on tumblr, meeting you guys, making me write again, shoved me that and how I needed to change my life, and even gave me a taste of love again that I will forever cherish. So bear that in mind if you read what I have to say as it will surely influence my view of this clip.

Dramaturgically speaking this is actually a simple scene if we see all the scenes from that Saturday as one. The first two episodes of Robbe’s season was used to establish him as a character and setting the premises for his journey. The only major difference as far as I can tell from most other versions of season three at this point is that we haven’t been introduced to his ‘Even’. No longing looks across the school yard (or the equivalent). No, he’s just not there. Until he suddenly is (actually in the clip before this).

Wow, talk about an ansatz taken to the extreme in this clip, like it or not!

Let’s just say you are new to the Skamverse when you watch this scene for the first time this Saturday that even before the next scene, with the croques, you should realise what you’re in for, a gay love story, so loaded is this scene (ok, unless you’re like my mother who would just wonder why that one boy has bleached his hair, because what’s the point of that?!)

In the first clip of that Saturday wtFock reminds us - in case we should have forgotten - how lonely Robbe is. He was with his girlfriend that he might like but isn’t into the night before, a night that ended in disaster, he feels abandoned by his friends, and he has even displaced his relationship with the one who has always made him feel safe and provided the only stability in his life however fragile, his mama (so beautifully symbolised by him trying to text her but ending up deleting his message).

Enter the antagonist! And what a dude he is (yes Noor, he is cool!) Those two clips (Zaterdag 08:23 and 08:44) are dramaturgically speaking (nearly) nothing more than that, an introduction to our antagonist who will dramatically change the life of our sweet little brown-eyed hero. In this clip it is early pointed out to us that Sander doesn’t abide by rules (“You don’t have to scan everything”), that he is still a mysterious character (“How do you even know Amber?”) , that he’s artsy as fuck (he even takes Bowie fans back to the Berlin days), that normal social conventions don’t apply to him (as he whistles walking past Robbe having shoved him into those stupid Lay’s crisps boxes). So three minutes of introducing us to this artsy, rebellious, Bowie-loving, (might I say?) pretentious dude. Nothing less, nothing more.

So why does this scene impact us so hard? Is it only because we have finally been introduced to our beloved Belgian Even, Sander Driesen? What is it in that scene that keeps us as a community to go back to this clip, to remember it with such passion?

Well, the simple fact of finally being introduced to Sander is definitely a part of it. But in my humble view it is not only the introduction to this character, but the way it was done, that is at the core of our fascination. Why we love this scene so much!

First of all it’s the simplicity in the scene. There are only two people in it, Robbe and Sander, and only two other people are referenced, Amber and Bowie (one of them plays a wonderful part in the rest of the story, the other plays a hilarious part in those conspiracy theories we have come up with in this community). The simplicity of the scene has only one point, to show us how infatuated Robbe is at this point already.

When I watched this clip the first time it was so easy to see, but then it was the first clip I ever watched from wtFock. I didn’t have the background with me, neither from previous seasons or from the first two episodes of season three. When you don’t have any references the scene is clear: Boy meets boy, boy thinks other boy is hot as fuck! It wasn’t until I had watched the start of the season I realised how different this scene was to what we knew about Robbe at this time. How out of character this scene actually is for him. And remember that we see the world through his eyes! Until this clip we have not seen Robbe being so genuinely interested in another person, we have not seen him being so open and unguarded and free as he is in this scene. My favourite part of the grocery clip is when Sander says “How crazy is that?!” and Robbe just answers “Zot!” Boy, does he go zot after that compared to what we have seen of him before in his season. He suddenly doesn’t give a shit about Amber’s grocery list anymore and ends up shovelling all of his favourite cookies and whatnots into the cart without even considering scanning them. Hell, he even stands up on the cart, trying to balance himself while Sander drives him around (point made?!)

And then there is the ‘roundabout-scene’. God, I hated it when I saw it the first time, how cringeworthy and banal, old-school and stupid, I thought. Until after rewatches I realised there is such a cool point behind this short scene. One is the simple tribute to old music videos, to Sander’s interests that we now call camp or cliche. The other is once again that small play with POV that wtFock ended up having as its trademark after season three. Do we really think it is a coincidence that we hear Sander singing along to ‘Rebel Rebel’ as the camera shifts from him to Robbe while the lyrics say “Hot tramp, I love you so”? Well, think again.

The end of the scene where Sander crashes Robbe into those cardboard boxes made for some funny theories in our community. From Sander’s affinity to violence to his homelessness and whatnot, oh that was a good time! To me, then and now, it is simple. This whole scene is only an introduction to our antagonist and to the story as it will unfold: Sander says, I am going to take you on the wildest ride of your life, I’m going to love you, but I’m also going to hurt you while I walk away from you. And you will still end up following me, smiling, as Robbe does at the end of the clip to the lyrics “pushing me to swim against the open tide”.

Dramaturgical simplicity in television, cinema or on stage is so underrated! Unfortunately, because it is so sweet, so fine, so beautiful, when it is done like this. Oh ansatz, I love you so!

[himbowelsh]

Pls Hoosier on Valentine's list!

valentines day alphabet  ( accepting! ) 

A   :   AFFECTION.   how does your muse show affection?

He doesn’t, if he can help it. Unfortunately, Hoosier’s a bigger softie than he likes to admit. His affection shows itself through small gestures   ---   a blanket tucked around someone’s shoulders, food shared, limbs resting casually against each other during idle moments. If Hoosier’s willing to go out of his way for someone, even a little bit, then they matter to him. His smile could make flowers grow, so being on the receiving end of it tends to send the people he cares about a clear message.

B   :   BOUQUET.   does your muse like flowers? which ones are their favourite?

Absolutely not a bouquet man. Doesn’t trust flowers, doesn’t know how they work, and is not inclined to find out.

C   :   CHOCOLATE.   does your muse like chocolate? which one is their favourite?

Abso-fuckin-lutely. Hoosier would shank a man for some cherry cordials.

D   :   DATE.   what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

He prefers to split the bill on any dates, because he’s cheap economically responsible like that. Hoosier’s ideal date wouldn’t involve paying at all; he’d have a great time doing something on just the right side of illegal, like sneaking into a movie (makes the cinema experience 10x more fun) or loitering in a potentially dangerous place. Coffee dates are pretentious, but he really likes coffee, so sometimes you’ve gotta take the good with the bad. He’d love to go to an animal shelter and, like, play with the dogs...  Hoosier’s not a hard person to take out, and he’s satisfied doing pretty much anything, so long as it’s not too boring.

E   :   EMBRACE.   does your muse like hugs? what are their hugs like?

what the hell is a hug   He doesn’t love them  ---  mostly because he’s been on the receiving end of too many of Chuckler’s post-workout sweaty bear hugs, and that’s something you never recover from. Hoosier’s particular about physical affection, unless it’s from someone he really considers His People  ---  even with his closest friends, he can be weird about hugs, though he’ll make allowances for his little siblings. He’s not a hugger himself.

F   :   FLIRT.   is your muse good at flirting? how do they flirt?

He doesn’t, because it’s a lot of effort, and frankly he just can’t be assed. Hoosier doesn’t do charming small-talk; he’s not going to wine and dine someone he’s just interested in taking to bed. If he wants more than that, well...  he doesn’t even know how to go about it, so they better appreciate the drinks he’s willing to pay for. The other partner’s got to carry the conversation, because Hoosier can’t make small talk to save his life. His good looks and bluntness tend to carry him far enough  ---  as far as the bedroom.

G   :   GIFT.   is your muse good at gift - giving or do they struggle to get it right?

He really doesn’t try that hard. The sort of person to literally ask outright, “what do you want?” a week before a birthday...  then, to his credit, he goes out and tracks the thing down. (Leckie once gave him a really obscure book title, just to see what would happen. Hoosier turned up with it. The book had been out of print of years. This was a first-edition copy. No one knows where he got it, how, or if it was obtained legally.)

H   :   HEART.   is your muse quick or slow to give their heart away?

He’s...  slow because the idea scares him. Hoosier and intimacy...  do not mix. On a physical level, sure, but emotionally? He’s gonna glower that idea into submission and keep any pesky feelings that bubble up down for as long as possible. Hoosier does not love the idea of opening himself up to getting hurt, and doesn’t think he’s very suited for romance, so he’d just...  rather not.

I    :   I LOVE YOU.   does your muse find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

Like we just said! Emotional intimacy is a Big Yikes for him! Anyone would be lucky to get an “I love you” out of him once. He’s got to be either very drunk or very sleepy to say it out loud  ---   both times are when he’s at his softest.

J   :   JEALOUSY.   does your muse get jealous in a relationship?

Oh yeah. Hoosier can be...  territorial when it comes to the people he loves. He passionately dislikes anyone getting too close to his partner; there’s being friendly, and then there’s being more, and he’s got strong instincts for when something’s more than friendly. Hoosier makes up for it by being bitchier than usual, glowering at them and being a bit more physical with his partner. He’s rarely one for PDA, but Jealous Hoosier has some points to make.

K   :   KISS.   is your muse a good kisser? why / why not?

He’s a very physical kisser, almost taking ownership of his partner through his lips; Hoosier Smith doesn’t kiss to play around. Hands on the ass, the thighs, gripping the hips as he grinds slightly against them; each breath seems to ripple between the two of them, a shared convulsion, before Hoosier goes right back in for more. He’s a hungry kisser, and a little feral about it  ---  bruises will be left along his partner’s neck, and their lips may be sore for days afterwards, but they way Hoosier leaves them seeing stars makes it all worth it.

L   :   LOVE.   who does your muse love?

He’s very fond of his little siblings, and very affectionate with them  ---  way more than anyone’s used to seeing out of him. Hoosier’s got Big Brother Instincts, even they don’t rear their head that often. He loves his mom and (very old, possibly immortal) grandparents; he’s very devoted to his friends, no matter how he rolls his eyes at Chuckler and Runner’s chaos or bitches at Leckie’s pretentiousness. That’s the thing about Hoosier  ---   he doesn’t love a lot of people, but the people he does love, he wants to keep.

M   :   MOONLIGHT.   is morning or night a more romantic setting?

Night, because he’s never up in the damn morning. Why would someone want to do things before 10am? Not this man. Anything that needs to get done can be done at midnight, or not at all.

N   :   NAUGHTY.   what is your muse like in bed?

He alternates between fierce and teasing, but Hoosier is very, very determined. God, does he love his partner’s reactions...  and he savors them, leading them along for as long as possible, dragging every encounter out until the end. Hoosier’s in no rush to finish; honestly, he has a bit of trouble finishing without his partner, and it’s usually seeing them go over the edge first that gets him there. He’s rough, rougher than he means to be at times; sex is the most energy he’ll ever expend at a given moment, and he turns it into a full-on workout, both parties slick with sweat by the end of it. Sometimes, he’ll just put his mouth to task, trailing it slowly along his partner’s body  ---  sucking kisses into their chest, their stomach, their hips, all the way to their thighs and what lies beyond.

O   :   ODE.   does your muse have a way with words?

Yes. Very succinct. To the point. Knows what the hell he’s saying. Fine with words, thanks.

P   :   PARTNER.   what does your muse look for in a partner? looks / personality?

Someone who doesn’t get on his last damn nerve. Hoosier would do well with a partner who goes with the flow  ---  probably someone more extroverted than him, but who really doesn’t demand much or tax his energy when he needs to just destress. He’d do best with someone low-maintenance. (Too bad the high-maintenance people are so damn attractive.) They have to love animals; they have to be able to keep things neat, because he hates a messy house; he’s fine with almost any quirk they might have, so long as they put up with his in return. He loves people who can sing...  and people who laugh at their own jokes really shouldn’t be as attractive as they are.

Q   :   QUESTION.   would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

He’d ask as soon as he comes to terms with the idea...  which’ll take a while, not gonna lie. His partner asking first would completely take Hoosier by surprise. He wouldn’t be expecting it, wouldn’t know what to do with it, and his off-the-cuff answer would be, “what the fuck”.  Promising omen of marital bliss right there.

R   :   ROMANCE.   is your muse a romantic or a cynic?

Definitely on the cynical side. He’s...  afraid of romance, a little bit, and definitely doesn’t imagine himself as anybody’s Prince Charming.

S   :   SWEETHEART.   did your muse have a childhood sweetheart?

He didn’t, really. Little Bill Smith had way more important things on his mind, like taking long naps, stealing cookies, and hiding in places where his mama couldn’t find him. Bigger priorities on his mind.

T   :   TRUE LOVE.   does your muse believe in true love?

...  nah, probably not. It’s not something he gives a lot of thought to, because thinking about love in general leaves him feeling half-starved and irritated. True love...  well, to be honest, he’s got no clue what it is.

U   :   UNREQUITED.   has your muse had their heart broken?

...  let’s say he hasn’t and call it even. He’s not gonna talk about it.  (He hasn’t, but he’s been on the cusp of loving people who didn’t love him back. Caution is learned; if you go to the edge of a cliff and almost fall off, you’re in no hurry to dance on that edge again. He learned to fear love without ever feeling the full sting of rejection, cause he’s just proactive like that.)

V   :   VALENTINE.   how does your muse feel about valentine’s day?

A complete waste of time, unless there’s chocolate involved. Chocolate for him. Get him chocolate, please.

W  :   WEDDING.   would your muse get married? why / why not?

Mmm. I mean. He’s not going to not get married, if the opportunity arises, but it’s also, like...  a lot of effort, everybody makes a big deal out of it, it costs a lot of money, and, like...  if all his siblings get hitched, does his Mama really need him to, too? (If Hoosier gets to the point where he’s head-over-heels in love with someone, enough to want to spend his life with ‘em, yeah, he’ll get married. But he’s prefer a quiet ceremony, no muss or fuss, to a big white wedding.)

X   :   XOXO.   does your muse use / like pet names?

Absolutely never... unless he’s in the mood. An arm tucked around his partner’s chest or waist, and a muttered “darlin’” against the side of their neck, is Hoosier-speak for ‘let’s get someplace private now, before I take my pants off right here.’

Y   :   YOURS.   does your muse get protective easily?

In, like, the laziest way possible. He’s perfectly willing to sit back and watch the fireworks, glowering as some fool gets bolder and bolder with the person he cares about...  but he’s not apathetic, he’s waiting. As soon as the bastard crosses a line, Hoosier’s on his feet and swinging. He doesn’t say anything; he just puts an end to the situation, with a few well-placed hits. Cross Hoosier Smith’s people at your own risk.

Z   :   ZZZ.   how many people has your muse slept with?

...  do you really want to know the answer to this question? It’s...  a lot. Many people. An amount that should maybe concern him. He couldn’t count if he tried, but the number is probably in the double digits. (How? He literally never goes out! Hoosier’s got ways, okay. When he feels like having sex, he will find someone willing and eager. It’s never a challenge to convince them. The job gets done.) Don’t ask, cause he’ll just smirk and say nothing.

[punkscowardschampions]

Zelda & Zach

ihatemyguts: Good thing you told me how bubble boy posi Robyn’s ‘rents are

ihatemyguts: ‘cos that felt like such a brush-off

ihatemyguts: I feel kinda bad, it’s low-key just upset her with no shopping trip pay-off 😬

inandout: your first date was today

inandout: the insane jealousy must have forced me to forget

ihatemyguts: Obviously

ihatemyguts: moping and staring out of open windows would be bad for your health

ihatemyguts: probably

ihatemyguts: can’t have that

inandout: mope hard enough and fling myself all over the house, they’ll call it exercise

ihatemyguts: I’d let Rob know but her parents would probably sue me

ihatemyguts: I did some research

ihatemyguts: and yeah, flare-ups fucking suck, but if she was struggling that bad rn she’d be in hospital getting her 💉 on

ihatemyguts: makes me ⁉️ if the meetup will happen

inandout: makes me wonder if her brothers are allowed out

inandout: if they are maybe they can help us smuggle her to the meetup

ihatemyguts: not just a pretty face

ihatemyguts: that’s a damn good idea

ihatemyguts: I can slide in their DMs

inandout: Cranking up the jealousy metre to give me a full work out, I see, are you gonna be a PE teacher when you grow up?

ihatemyguts: *prays they aren’t like 12*

ihatemyguts: imagine if that was my life’s ambition

ihatemyguts: wear unflattering sportswear and give kids complexes

ihatemyguts: even without the potential life-shortening illness, I’d reconsider that

inandout: it tracks that you’d wanna make them 💩 and bringing back the bleep test could work

ihatemyguts: okay I’m not 🦹‍♀️ or 🐯 levels of sweet but is that what you really think of me? 😏

inandout: I think there’s only one rebel teacher coming to mind and I haven’t watched that film so all I know is they stand on desks

inandout: probably not a perfect fit for you

ihatemyguts: I could force you to watch it for our first date

ihatemyguts: and ask you, what your dream job would be

inandout: Netflix and chill or cinema screening of the ‘classics’?

inandout: we could do a drive-thru

ihatemyguts: hmm 🤔

ihatemyguts: there are pluses to ‘em all

ihatemyguts: cinema, we could laugh at all the snobs and 🤓s

inandout: Cool, reach out to me with the time + date when it’s showing

inandout: Are you allowed 🍿?

ihatemyguts: oh hell no

ihatemyguts: have to find another way to hold my hand

inandout: 🦸‍♀️ said she was gonna look up ice breakers and stuff, hopefully it was a fruitful search and she won’t mind sharing the info

ihatemyguts: do you think she legit didn’t realize how thirsty that boy was for her

ihatemyguts: or is it all uwu coy-ness

inandout: It’s hard to tell

inandout: but if I remember my glasses I’ll do my best to decode her body language from 6 ft away

ihatemyguts: aside from hospital, have you ever met someone else with cf?

inandout: Nope

inandout: jokes aside, it really is discouraged

ihatemyguts: that’s a hard one to get your head around

ihatemyguts: far as adjustments go

inandout: getting Robbie at this meetup won’t be easy

inandout: separate ones mean we might not have her there

ihatemyguts: I reckon we can trust you and Kara to keep the teen love story fictional

ihatemyguts: for all our sake’s

inandout: She’ll get her man

inandout: it’s not like bad advice and dating pitfalls are just a click away

ihatemyguts: cosmos never steered ANYONE wrong

inandout: Yahoo answers neither

ihatemyguts: might be confused as to why they’re not related

inandout: [I like to think he’s just sending his fave yahoo answer answers now for the lols]

ihatemyguts: [meme back and forth lads]

ihatemyguts: if she gets her date we could go into the matchmaker business

ihatemyguts: start at home

ihatemyguts: 🤖 don’t last forever

inandout: Rob’ll need to be next or she won’t forgive us

inandout: and we’ll soon get tired/guilty of seeing the amount of 😿💔 spam the chat

ihatemyguts: we’ll have to liberate her first

ihatemyguts: in a literal way

ihatemyguts: not the pretentious, free your 🧠 type of vibe

inandout: Kidnap’s playing into her parents’ fears but we don’t have a better option

ihatemyguts: now it’s my turn for a potential 💡

ihatemyguts: what if that is exactly what she should do

inandout: jump scare them?

ihatemyguts: if she did some actual wild shit to show them they’re being suffocating, ‘scuse the mention, then they’ll have to compromise and let her do normal kid things and everyone will win

ihatemyguts: I realize getting her to wild out might be a problem

ihatemyguts: catfish it though?

inandout: 💡⭐️

inandout: getting her to agree to do it for real would take longer than we have but you’re right, faking it wouldn’t take any time at all

ihatemyguts: get Lauren to picture whatever the hell she’s up to

ihatemyguts: sorted

inandout: + there’s your next photo challenge ready to be accepted, dressing as if you were going on a date with 👵🌈✨ instead

ihatemyguts: hold my neon

ihatemyguts: and think, do we clue Rob in on this plan now or do it on her behalf first, ‘cos we could hit up her house phone with some madness to get ‘em sus now and when she’s like wuuuuut it’ll sound even more

ihatemyguts: or is that a bit evil genius instead of 🦹‍♀️

inandout: Does she even have a house phone? We don’t

inandout: you’ll have to find another way to trick my parents into believing I’m a badass

ihatemyguts: I bet they do

ihatemyguts: can’t trust a mobile

ihatemyguts: and I bet they don’t have a microwave, they’re that sort

ihatemyguts: obvs I’ll just direct them to Lauren on your friends list with a 🤔

inandout: We should probably warn her, in case she takes it the wrong way

inandout: or decides to stand up to them for her YA movie moment

ihatemyguts: yeah, you’re right

ihatemyguts: if she doesn’t go for it, her brothers might be of use still

ihatemyguts: have to focus my evil energy elsewhere

ihatemyguts: such as…

ihatemyguts: 🥁

ihatemyguts: [one of the crazier lewks from babyteeth for the photo challenge]

inandout: 🤞🏻 one of them is old enough to drive the people carrier

inandout: Uhh… that was a suspiciously fast transformation

ihatemyguts: didn’t know you was challenging a pro?

ihatemyguts: and someone with a lot of time on her hands

inandout: I do now

inandout: and I’m guessing it’s not every day you get stood up based on what else I know about you

ihatemyguts: it’s a first

ihatemyguts: not that I constantly ask people out

ihatemyguts: but that is what I’ve put across so fair enough

ihatemyguts: what am I interrupting for you?

inandout: I’m waiting on friends

inandout: this could end in both of us being stood up

ihatemyguts: am I a drag you down with me type?

ihatemyguts: hmm

ihatemyguts: nah, I’ll cross my fingers that your friends aren’t flaky

inandout: Late, but I’d be too if it wasn’t my house

inandout: What are you gonna do now shopping’s off?

ihatemyguts: life is one big photo challenge, right

ihatemyguts: yours is ‘whatever will make your friends double-take when they open the door’

ihatemyguts: it’s a good question

ihatemyguts: we’re going to virtual shop tomorrow but she wasn’t up for it today

inandout: Wait for it and their faces

inandout: + you’re virtually invited to watch movies and play games, you won’t be the only one who isn’t here in person

ihatemyguts: 👍

ihatemyguts: cool

ihatemyguts: meeting new people is my new thing, as long as your mates are down/not the level of nerd that they might get a nosebleed if a girl is about

inandout: Some of them are girls if that helps

inandout: and my brother won’t be there to bring down the cool

ihatemyguts: low-key a shame

ihatemyguts: have to meet him before the first date though

inandout: I’ve got a father you can ask for permission if you’re feeling old-fashioned

ihatemyguts: full set

ihatemyguts: fun

ihatemyguts: mines in scotland so we’ll let you off that trek

inandout: But a road trip is a coming of age movie staple! 😫 Has Netflix aired any YA without one + are you willing to take that risk?

inandout: mine’s a workaholic but we’ve got years to catch him

ihatemyguts: forget the meds, see who gets fucked up first

ihatemyguts: it’d be a journey, for sure

ihatemyguts: do you know what he does? ‘cos so’s mine and I couldn’t tell you, tbh

inandout: Or mix them up and see what happens when you take the ones for my 💩

inandout: He’s a sales manager, he says, but why so vague?

ihatemyguts: sounds like something they’d do at cool parties

ihatemyguts: and that sounds suspish

ihatemyguts: they should have this 🤓 but with a moustache instead of the buckteeth

ihatemyguts: dads are elusive creatures… conspiracy time, what are they all up to

inandout: Not sure that’s the topic Rich has been watching vids on but I’ll ask

ihatemyguts: he can always tactfully ignore you if he’s 😳

ihatemyguts: like he does with 👵🌈✨ when she’s extra

ihatemyguts: more than usual

inandout: Be harder to do that in person

ihatemyguts: I think everyone will still get on

ihatemyguts: unless fibrofog shows, then that’ll be teen show worthy drama, of course

inandout: I think he’s genuinely blocked, he’d need a 2nd account to find out about it

ihatemyguts: hope he’s seen catfish too

inandout: He’d be a fan of the one where the man refused to believe it wasn’t Katy Perry

ihatemyguts: it does seem like the sort of thing she’d do

ihatemyguts: poor bastard

inandout: 😂

ihatemyguts: ultimate photo challenge, catfishing everyone and then going for the ruveal

ihatemyguts: might need more than just a wig 🤔😏

inandout: Dressing like her would make my friends do a double-take

inandout: [pics of some of her outrageous lewks with his head put on]

ihatemyguts: 😂😂😂

ihatemyguts: you suit the 🍦🧁🍭🍩✨

inandout: We’ve probably got a can of squirty cream lying around for hot chocolate

ihatemyguts: inhaler but make it ~sExxxIii~

inandout: [a lil video of his failed attempt to re-create that in her insta DMs or wherever because idk if they can send stuff like that here]

ihatemyguts: Katy dat you 😍😍

inandout: I’ve agreed to only string you along for 4 years not 6 and I don’t have any savings to spend 25% of on a 💍

inandout: looks like the comparison starts and stops with our black curls

ihatemyguts: not much of an orlando bloom clone myself so it’s alright

ihatemyguts: pirate is always an excellent disabled-friendly costume though so add that to the ideas board we should start

inandout: If we decide the next meetup is fancy dress, Lauren will never go back home

ihatemyguts: that’s the mood

inandout: [sends her whatever he did for the photo challenge and his friends reaction to it because why not say they’ve arrived and there’s a similar feral mood here]

[victoirebisset]

[ VICTOIRE ELISE BISSET. 28. CISFEMALE. SHE/HER] is here! They’ve lived in Silver Lake for [ SIX MONTHS ] and are originally from [ WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS  ]. They are a [ PUBLICIST ] and in their downtime love [ CATCHING A MOVIE AT CINEMA PARADISO ] and [ ENJOYING A NICE BOTTLE OF RED WINE ]. They look a lot like [ ELIZABETH OLSEN ] and live [ ON SILVERWOOD TERRACE ]. 

the basics

full name: victoire elise bisset.

nicknames: v or vic. never, and i do mean never, vicky.

birthplace: wellesley, massachusetts.

birthdate: january 9th, 1992.

zodiac sign: capricorn. 

alignment: chaotic good.

personality type:  estj.

personality traits: dogmatic, loquacious, reliable, patient, rancorous, affable, critical & forthright.

gender: cisfemale.

sexual / romantic orientation: heterosexual / heteroromantic. 

the biography

-

the daughter to a (now) disgraced politician coming from old money and a disgruntled, yet loyal to a fault, housewife, there was never a time victoire didn’t know luxury  — or chaos. 

as a matter of fact, her entrance to the world was an example of both. the first  — and what would ultimately be only — child to gabriel and nicolette bisset, there was no expense spared as they prepared for her arrival; hundreds of designer onesies she’d grow out of within weeks were purchased, an italian artist flown in and commissioned to hand paint a mural in her nursery and her mother only received the finest of prenatal care. for most, it was an ostentatious display that was NOT needed. but that has always been the bisset way. flamboyant and shameless flaunting of their wealth was the norm as it was, so of course they’d go all out when expecting a baby.

at the same time, there was a certain level of disappointment. as far as her father went, at least. he had been hoping for a son to follow in his footsteps. but, he’d tell his wife in an attempt to convince them both, a little girl wasn’t so bad  — he’d love, cherish and spoil her regardless. and he did do at least two of those three things. but that son he’d been hoping for never came. once victoire was born, his wife refused to let him touch her. he assumed it was “baby hormones” but really it was because hours before her baby shower, nicolette had received a call from one of his mistresses confessing the affair because she felt “bad” knowing she was pregnant. nicolette never confronted her husband but their relationship was never the same.

growing up in the lapse of luxury, most would assume vic had nothing to complain about. while her material needs were always met, the emotional ones were often neglected. her mother, bless her heart, tried. but it wasn’t easy for her. nicolette was responsible for raising their child and presenting the bissets as the picture perfect family all while knowing her husband was fucking around on her. who wouldn’t become resentful dealing with that? snide comments were thrown across the dinner table, there were times she’d disappear in her room with a bottle of wine. she’d try to be there for her daughter as much as she could but she struggled. and her father, on the other hand, focused more on his career than his family. a lawyer turned politician, he campaigned, had frequent business meetings and a long list of secret lovers to split his time between. hard to be present with a schedule like that. 

gabriel’s career choice was confusing for young victoire. there were those that publicly villainized him and thought he was the devil. there were those that put him on a pedestal. it was overwhelming... and alluring. her father was the mayor of wellesley her entire life and was even campaigning for senate when the “scandal” happened. it was always a part of her life and politics intrigued her. she’d dreamed of being the first woman president. 

her father vowed to help her get into politics and the first step of that was hiring her to be his publicist as soon as she graduated from college. it was a blatant act of nepotism but at least she was really freakin’ good at her job. she gets word accusations of bribery would be hitting the local news and that same day there’s a press conference so shots of him shaking hands, kissing babies and making grand promises distracts from the news. his morality is called into question and he’s front and center campaigning for every local charity for six months. it was a bit grimey witnessing fully the seedy underbelly of politics and her idealistic view of it changed drastically. she no longer wanted to be president or a senator or anything else like that. she did, though, learn she really did like pr and enjoyed the role she had. at least until she was expected to pay off her father’s pregnant mistress who was threatening to spill the beans about their illicit affair.

while her mother had known about his infidelities for years, vic had no clue. she always assumed her father was working. that was why he couldn’t come to her recitals or presentations in school. that was why he was late to every single one of her birthday parties. she had convinced herself that her father wasn’t a scumbag but a highly ambitious politician and anyone else in his position would do the same.

to an extent, she had idolized her father  — glorifying the parent who was never really there and whose approval she would have died to get. the version of him she had created was destroyed. she was furious, heartbroken and confused. she quit that very day and a week later, the news broke. that one woman speaking out opened the floodgates and years of affairs and other naughty behavior was broadcasted across the state. her mother would have made tammy wynette proud with how she stood by her man but victoire did not follow suit. she worked in public relations so she never outright spoke against him because no one would hire her after publicly blasting a former client in the press. even if it was her father. but she knew how to expertly throw shade. and she did. quite a few times, actually. 

after she quit, victoire ended up in new york where she worked with a pr firm for a couple of years before getting a job with a more prestigious one in los angeles which prompted her move to silver lake. it’s been surprisingly difficult for her to adjust to life on the west coast. she’s a new england girl through and through and there’s just something about palm trees and sunshine that feels wrong. she also just really misses her family. well, just her mother really. they make do by facetiming twice a week and they’re even in the middle of discussing flying her out for the holidays. unfortunately, though, it’s unlikely to happen as her mother is insistent on bringing gabriel. victoire hasn’t seen or spoken to her father since the day she told him to go fuck himself and stormed out of his office. not because of any guilt from “abandoning” her father. — she’d add ‘essentially ruined my father’s political career’ to her resume if she thought it’d help her —  but because she is still so damn angry. the closest thing to contact they have is him wiring her money every month. this “allowance” isn’t really needed, victoire makes a very good living without needing any of what she calls bisset blood money. but she allows it to continue because she considers it restitution for decades of lackluster parenting and lies.

where victoire really shines is her career. she’s relatively new to the scene  — at least compared to most publicists in hollywood  — with only seven years of experience under her belt but don’t confuse quantity with quality. if you are a public figure, you want vic on your team. she’s tenacious and, while some may view her methods as underhanded, there is no story she can’t get ahead of. and if she can’t distract from it entirely, she can turn it into a positive or at least paint her client as the victim. duis, public disagreements with significant others, leaked sex tapes. she’s seen it all. she’d dedicated to the cause and makes up her own rules, but also has a strict moral code so she won’t do something or work with someone that goes against that.

victoire thrives in social situations and really loves to hear herself talk. she also tends to assume she’s the smartest person in the room and just expects everyone to go along with what she says. and she doesn’t really handle it well when that doesn’t happen. some may say she’s stubborn, she says she’s a leader who likes to take charge and handle things. she’s a very honest and straightforward person who is clear about her intentions in a relationship whether it’s professional, platonic or romantic. she doesn’t play games, she’s not wishy-washy and she has a tendency to see the world in black and white. 

coming from a long line of elitists, vic is proud to say that is at least one pattern she broke. she just isn’t one to parade around her wealth. yes, she has a nice house and she does tend to favor designer brands when it comes to clothing, but there really isn’t anything pretentious about her. the closest you’ll get is her having dinner at a five star restaurant or buying a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine. but that’s only because she likes good food and even better wine. she’s not one to show off and is just as likely to be seen at a fancy hollywood party mingling with clients as she is laying on her couch, wrapped up in blankets and watching golden girls reruns. she’s a combination of dorothy and blanche, by the way. 

-

anyways, i think this is long enough so i’ll wrap it up and just say i am excited to be here and that i look forward to writing with you all. i’ll be reaching out to everyone regarding plots at some point (i say some point because i’m a slow typer with a small attention span who is currently working 60 hours a week so i’m easily distracted AND tired) but you can expedite the process by sending me a message or liking this and i’ll put you at the top of my list. in the meantime, though, feel free to just assume connections. we can go with the flow and i don’t require connections before interacting anyway. aaaand now i’m really stopping! 

[gotatext]

 hello, its nora (she/her, gmt) n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam (she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck). raised in a farmhouse in vermont, big horse girl energy. very hungry for everything life has to offer. wakes up and smells the success in her blood. luvs the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. here is pinterest. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages but i might forget tho so pls message me x

application template.

『ELLE FANNING ❙ CIS-FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM is here for HER JUNIOR year as a CLASSICS student. SHE is 21 years old & known to be RESILIENT, MAGNETIC, CALLOUS & PROUD. They’re living in PERKINS, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ NORA. 24. GMT. SHE/HER.

aesthetics.

a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake. 

proceed w caution, tw for death, drugs, alcohol, violence

the short form.

— studying classics cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus and writing about how all women in myth are literally forgotten. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into radcliffe but she made an impression.... like... super fast and in her sophomore year she was upgraded to perkins accomodation n a paid scholarship bcos i think the governors kind of expect to see her in the supreme court one day or.

—  born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.

— both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years.

— very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french.

— studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin.

— isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.

— pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive

— obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. very amy dunne in the way she expertly reinvents herself to suit her audience, when she wants to impress

— act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning.

— her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.

plots.

here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:

study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library

if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends –  probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !

people who live in perkins n feel like they r constantly competing with one another to keep their place as one of the #elite only know each other from brief interactions in the lift or the canteen

honestly someone who is fully in love with her or crushing on her that she can just break would be sweet :/ or on the other hand someone she unexpectedly gets feelings for and actually wants to guage her own  eyeballs out bc of it

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !

hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!

fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning

i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties

people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse

A SECRET SOCIETY !!! honestly i would die for a slug club esque thing in which the children of notable families are invited to dinners OR alma’s also an art forger, so maybe like a club of students set up to basically forge paintings and documents from the university special collections

people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all

full biography.

alma olive putnam.

intro.

         the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.

biography.

         if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.

         at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.

         your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.

         language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.

         fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.

         the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to radcliffe. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive. you feel like a god.

[maggotmouth]

         hello, its nora again ( she/her, gmt ) n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam (she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck).  ive never used anya taylor joy as her fc before but anya has a smile that looks like she knows something u dont and thats completely alma’s vibe so we’re gonna try it out. she was raised in a farmhouse in vermont, big horse girl energy. very hungry for everything life has to offer. wakes up and smells the success in her blood. luvs the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. here is pinterest. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages but i might forget or get shy tho so pls message me x

application template.

ANYA TAYLOR - JOY   ,   CIS-FEMALE   ,   SHE/HER         →         according   to   the   school   records   ,   ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM   has   been   attending   sacred   heart   for   the   past   three   years   .   i   last   saw   them   hanging   around  the  sacred   heart   cathedral   ;   i   think   they   were   studying   the   stations   of   the   cross   with   a   smile   like   a   well - kept   secret.   at   twenty   -   one   years   old   ,   alma   has   been   studying   classics   and   get   this   ,   i   heard   that   she   has   made   a   fortune   on   the   black   market   by   forging   renaissance   art   to   sell   to   collectors   —   figure   it’s   true   ?   everyone   around   here   always   associates   them   with    neck   scarves   tied   around   your   throat   the   way   they   do   in   french   new   wave   films , running   barefoot   through   the   woods   drunk   on  red  wine   and  untapped   power , a  smile  like  a   locked   door   that   speaks   only  in   riddles  .   in   the   time   since   these   strange   happenings   ,   they   have   have   encountered   any   unexplained   occurrences   .         (   written   by   nora   ,   24   ,   she/her   ,   gmt   )

aesthetics.

a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake.

proceed w caution, tw for death, drugs, alcohol, violence

the short form. (still long af tbh)

— studying classics cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus and writing about how all women in myth are literally forgotten. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into sacred heart and the board really liked her in her interview. i think the governors kind of expect to see her in the supreme court one day or st

—  born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.

— both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years.

— very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french.

— studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin.

— isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.

— pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive

— obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. very amy dunne in the way she expertly reinvents herself to suit her audience, when she wants to impress

—  an incredibly talented dancer. she was accepted to juliard to study ballet, but after an injury to her foot she had to refuse her place, something that she’s incredibly bitter about. she went to princeton instead to study classics for a semester, before being expelled. 

— alma comes from a family of high-end art dealers. while her parents paid her way into the school, that was mostly due to previous expulsions, not low intelligence. she’s incredibly intelligent but will only put in effort when she deems the cause worthy. she’s frustrating to teach, because she requires evidence, truth, in order to accept something as worthwhile. she plays devil’s advocate, but academically she’s brilliant. 

—  she can recognise any renaissance artist just by their brush strokes. her aunt and uncle deal antiques and art, and from an internship with them after her expulsion from princeton, she learned how to market and sell art, how to recognise originals in contrast to fakes. from this, alma began to produce counterfeit art and sell it off as the original work to the contacts she had made in her internship. it’s disloyal, but it’s powerful.

— act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning.

— her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.

plots.

here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:

study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library

if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends –  probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !

honestly someone who is fully in love with her or crushing on her that she can just break would be sweet :/ or on the other hand someone she unexpectedly gets feelings for and actually wants to guage her own  eyeballs out bc of it

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !

hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!

fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning

i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties

people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse

a secret society !!! honestly i would die for a slug club esque thing in which the children of notable families are invited to dinners or alma’s also an art forger, so maybe like a club of students set up to basically forge paintings and documents from the university special collections

people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all

full biography.

alma olive putnam.

intro.

        the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.

biography.

        if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.

        at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.

        your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.

        language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.

        fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.

        the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to sacred heart. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive. you feel like a god.

[t8oo]

mimi do u have any movie rec? im starting movie school (idk how to say it in english) next year and im a bit anxious about my Movie Culture ™️

BROOO i smashed my fist on the table so hard readin this message i actually hurt my freakin hand HAJFHDKJGHD

ok first of all Movie Culture means jackshit. There are some historical movies that have shaped cinema as we know it, sure, but if u havent seen em yet it doesn’t make you uncultured !!! If some asshole tries shaming you for not watching every Kubrick movie… You don’t want to be that person’s friend bc they seem to think everyone approaches cinema the same way 🙄

Second of all just because I watch alot of movies doesn’t mean I have a good movies knowledge i watch a huge amount of really bad  Z series movies hahaha!

THIRD UR STARTIN MOVIE SCHOOL BRO?????MOVIE SCHOOL…im jealous. good for you!!!!!!

Bro I’ll give u some movies rec I’m insane about and u gotta watch em cuz they are GOOD incredible movies not bc ur tryin to be cultured.fuck that n fuck pretentious assholes. also remember the only things i know about cinema are the things iv read in internet articles i dont know anything bro. NOTHING

2001 : A Space Odyssey (OK this ones a bit hard to get into. It has very long shots and very little dialogues and its fuckin whack at the end and the pacings very slow. I saw it in the theatre and I kid u not it was the most magical cinematic experience in my life, BUT THATS BC I PERSONALLY CONNECTED DEEPLY WITH THE VISUALS. I went with my mom n she straight up slept through it so, take this rec with a grain of salt. I had to say it cuz im insane abt this movie for real. U can watch any of Kubricks movies they are classic i think)

Rope (or u kno; any Hitchcock movie, that’ll impress pretentious movie ‘buffs’)

Goodfellas (or like any Scorsese movie really. im insane abt Raging bull but its a hard movie to get into maybe?)

Dog’s Day Afternoon

Longway North

Lawrence of Arabia (that ones fuckin long as well but its a sight to behold)

City of God

Akira

Les tripelletes de Belleville

Paranorman

There Will Be Blood (ok I think i have a thing for long ass slow paced movies LOL BUT ITS GENUINELY A FANTASTIC MOVIE. remember if YOU don’t like its ok its hard to have an attention span)

La Haine

Some Like It Hot

Les Vacances de Mr Hulot

Im just gonna slide Point Break and Top Gun here cuz i love these actions flicks

TERMINATOR & SPIDERVERSE (DUH)

KirikouThe Thing (id say treat urself and watch all of Carpenter’s movies if ur into silly gore super cool special effects)

No Country for Old Men (or any of the Coen brother movies. theyr all pretty fun)

Tekkon Kinkreet

The Handmaiden (Park Chan-Wook is the G.O.A.T)

Mary and Max

The Royal Tenenbaums (or any of wes anderson’s filmography i guess)

Whiplash

Adam Mckay’s Vice

Eastern Promises (it’s the tamest n most accessible Cronenberg movie, but if ur into body horror u should look into his filmography)

If i dont stop i will continue until I die so im stopping there.

[rek88k]

sad/angry grrl music suggestions from high school part 1

@afoxnamedmulder yo this is more comprehensive then I meant but welp here we are. thanks for the push:

Also disclaimer bc like. Most of this music is either like. technically musically shitty or deals with a shit load of mental health or just flat up depressing/suicidal topics. Like seriously, lot of these bands deal or address heavy ass topics so. heads up if that is not your jam. I am progressively realizing as I get older I was wayyy more depressed in high school then I previously thought and i’m pretty sure the music helps prove that :/

ANY

MUSIC!

FLATSOUND: lofi/spokenword/ambient/instrumental music. Mitch is a blessing of gentle creativity. My top suggestions for him would be the albums sleep . Scotland, i wish you had stayed (i would die for the song i exist i exist i exist). I got into him through his spoken word piece you said okay because i was a sucker for spoken word in middle school (ngl still am :P) He has really dope collaborative projects in both photography and music, available at his site. <3

German error message: AHHHHHHHHH! I cry! every time I listen! Truly the music is just so reflective and biting in relation to my own emotions and shit, but it does it in the most gentle way possible. the music swells and swells and swells, but instead of crashing its a gentle receding of the tide, until it's a trickle. After the warmth is such a solid album especially ugh :)

Next 4 bands are all related so they all sound similar/ish and have similar themes woo.

JULIA BROWN: lofi/pop/indie. Library is such a killer song goddddd. To be close to you is my fave album but an abundance of strawberries is also vvvv good.

Starrycat: lofi/pop/indie it’s such a wonderful album just. pleasant so fricking pleasant

Teen Suicide/American Pleasure club:Lofi/emo/electronic/indie look. look - teen suicide is a hallmark of sad lofi indie music and for a good reason. they are sad as shit and good as shit. DC snuff film / Waste Yrslf is my fave teen suicide (combo of two of their albums), while i blew on a dandelion and the whole world disappeared is my fave American pleasure club. They are the same band btw idk why the name change happened.

Ricky eat acid: lofi/experimental. you get sick; you regret things is probs my fave

Salvia Plath: Lofi/experimental/electronic Melanchole. is such. a good. album

Next two bands are related

Elvis Depressedly: Lofi/experimental/electronic god do I love the weird ass stylings of Matthew Lee Cothran. Elvis Depressedly is either reaaaal weird sounding or nostalgic or sad. all good all around. Fave albums are goner (mickey yr a fuck up is gr8) Mickey’s dead (u angel u is just *heart eyes*). I haven’t had a chance to listen to the new album depressedelica but I’ve heard good things

Coma cinema: Lofi/experimental/electronic. Ditto to above basically. Fave album is posthumous release (i am a sucker for white trash vhs)

Dandelion hands: Lofi/Emo  Nick Heck is hecking good. sing me something sweet to sleep to is my fave album i think. this song tho is the best

Sandy (Alex G): Folk/Indie rock/pop I found him through fan music video for sarah and fell down the rabbit hole that is his music.He has so many albums and unreleased albums and limited release albums jesu s. He’s got a knack for describing certain weird emotions in life. idk lyrically and instrumentally he just hits really good for me. Album wise I’m partial to RACE (gnaw the most)

THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE & I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE (TWIABP): Ugh what can't i saw about this band. their music... reaches? idk how to describe it really but its good, the lyrics are so wonderfully and prettily written, and the instrumentals just :) .They get a bit screamy heads up but like. Tastefully screamy? Harmlessness and Whenever, If Ever are tied for my fave album. Also heads up about Between Bodies - I personally like it but it’s pretty different from everything else and some people have... strong opinions on it’s worth. make your own decision and ignore them tho bc people like to be mean.

TOLD SLANT: Look it's just gentle sad music sung in an interesting way? The vocal performance of the lead singer is aggressively gentle? like idk how else to put it it is just. delicate pain on the verge of  breaking. Tsunami is one of my fave all time songs ngl and the album it is from, is wonderful

ATTIC ABASEMENT: Look. Imma level with you - I found them off an 8tracks Steve/tony werewolf au mix and I have never been happier. downs the lot of them but good, good tunes. Dancing is depressing is a fucking kick ass album but give a listen to the attic abasement / Nod split - it is a collection of jams

SO YEAH!! there more downtempo/softer/depressing stuff I know I’m missing but that’s all i can think of atm :P Most if not all the bands here I think are own Spotify or youtue btw, I just listed them on bandcamp because I use it more than Spotify. I’m not claiming that any of this music is like, objectively good, most of it probs isn’t, but i love it dearly and will stand by it.

also check out David Dean Burkhart He’s made music videos for so many weird or solid bands. he’s doing mostly just music suggestions/uploads now, but those still, in general are really good as well. TheLazylazyme also is good for this. PanifisWater too.

Imma make another post later at some point about the like for uptempo/angrier stuff. 1 somewhat pretentious sounding genre down, another to go!!

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

hey so remember like last year when i was re-reading misadventures and fixing typos? (well, i say that, but it was just an excuse to re-read it and write some absolutely absurd commentary on it...) i found old notes in my phone from january with even more so guess i may as well post it because people seemed to find it funny at the time, it’s basically just The Misadventures of Aish Realizing Things though

[yeah so here’s the original notes i’m not even gonna change anything even though lots of Lore has happened in the show and we Know things now, you just get to see what january aish typed]

ok well let’s go then chapters 31-35 oh god

oh yeah the ML Blackout! I remember that

hm it’s occurring to me maaaaaybe I should post a bit of a warning on this chapter. like “yes this starts off stupid and cracky and fluffy but takes a complete 180 in the middle and you will end up sobbing.”

or maybe I should put that as a disclaimer on the whole fic cause it’s one hell of a ride

THE AROACE SCIENCE JOURNAL YESSSSSSS THAT COMES BACK LATER

yeah the reason why the early parts of this chapter are very lighthearted is honestly because the fic was getting a bit too bleak, I needed something cheerful, so paper planes and arm wrestles it was

wait... isn’t this just that scene from Anansi??? where like Nora challenges Nino to an arm wrestle but then he wins because Someone Else Nearby Did A Thing

also this is Peak characterization, damn Aish, you rly outdone yourself, congration

any time I drop the word “inkling” into a fic it is always 100% a splatoon reference

MAX WOW TONE DOWN THE GAY

heh... BI-ceps...

oh my godddd Max trying to play off his ogling as “ah yes I am scientifically studying Kim’s arm muscles ofc, it’s science I swear” is SO frickin funny I’m already losing it

Alix: “scientifically speaking I’m hot therefore you have to lose this arm wrestle” hshdhdghshskkjkdhshs

^literally the kind of nonsense every single teen I know spouts irl

including me when I was a teen, I just said things

(I still just say things)

you can’t bring up the sports bra thing goddammit, I agree it’s cheating because it has the power to one-hit kill anyone in the vicinity

I love how Max thinks his crush on Kim is “under control” while like. visibly swooning over him

OH MY GOD THE PILLOWS SHHDJDHDHDHSKHS

OKAY SO LIKE I was supposed to put the thing about Kim snogging a pillow in chapter 20 but I forgot or something and then I just had to get it in somehow, oh it kills me dead just thinking about it, I’m dying, I’m dead

and the fact that he admits to it as well, holy moly

KIM

K I M

THAT’S GAY

OH WOW

this is the moment when Alix’s Kimax shipper heart was suddenly feeling validated like “omg wait Kim DOES like Max??? like for real??????”

awwwww Kim, Max doesn’t have those kind of superpowers, you just have a crush on him that’s all <3

THE SKATEBOARDING SNEK!!!!!!!!!!!!

“What the heck is that?” “My snake.” DYINGGGG

Kim trying to figure out if the snake is sitting or standing is a whole mood

ohhhhhhhh my gosh poor Alix trying so damn hard to subtly ask Kim if he likes Max and Kim’s just. so DUMB he doesn’t even get it no matter how obvious she is

she’s even trying to pull out those stupid amatonormative “so is he MORE than a friend???” questions just to get this idiot to figure it out because she knows allo-romos are Like That and he still doesn’t get it,,

[future aish says: the word is alloro, past aish. it’s alloro]

AND SO NOW SHE ASSUMES THEY’RE NOT INTO EACH OTHER BECAUSE SHE THINKS EVEN KIM CAN’T BE THAT STUPID

YOU UNDERESTIMATE HIS STUPIDITY

oh no... oh NO.... the letter.... here we go....

btw yes Gabriel had Kim’s grandad assassinated, it was indeed his doing

...isn’t this lowkey the plot of The Lion King?

or Long Live The Queen

hmmm let’s just say in the sequel poor Kim really will have to deal with the stresses of ruling a country >:D

NO MY POOR SON HAVING A BREAKDOWN, I WANT TO HUG HIM

(also can I just say like... this chapter is actually well-written for the most part? I’m actually kinda impressed)

unfortunately I know the feeling of wanting, needing to return home, but it fills you with dread... *hugs Kim forever*

Kim crying all over Max both hurts me and sort of heals me because Max is so sweet and comforting about it ohhh my heeeaaart

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

THIS IS LOWKEY A LOVE CONFESSION I SWEAR, IT’S SO CUTE

chapter 32 being called “Un chat noir” is kinda dumb af but also it just so happened that I accidentally had the chapter called “Coccinelle” be chapter 64, aka exactly double of 32, so that was kinda neat

Plagggggg!!!!!!!!!!

and Wayhem lol, I think I’ve already mentioned how originally this noble was just some random irrelevant unnamed OC until I decided way later it’s gay stalker fanboy

oh yeah that’s how the nobility recognize the royalty, I forgot lol

(also nobles from countries with widespread newspress or tv will recognize them from news reports and stuff I guess)

the fact that Plagg just hates Wayhem is funny to me for some reason

MISADVENTURES

HOLY SHIT I ACTUALLY THREW IN THE ACTUAL WORD

except it was in reference to Adrien... let’s just say that The Misadventures of Imperial Prince Adrien may or may not make an appearance in the sequel >:D

...the Adrienette is literally just in this fic so that people would read it, ngl

hhhhhhhhhhhh okay it’s true Alix is an aro idiot who doesn’t know anything about romance but for once she’s RIGHT, Kim IS in love with Max, but she assumes she’s wrong hshgshdjhdnsnsh

oh my god noooo timeline twin go away and stop giving me nightmares

I still love how they hate each other, that’s some top-notch self-hatred right there and I need to get on their level

[future aish note: no past self!! be nice to yourself!! you are a cool bean!! own it!!]

YOU FOOL... EVERY CLASSMATE WOULD TAKE A SWORD TO THE HAND FOR ALIX, WHY WOULDN’T THEY

ỳïķèš,,,

honestly I probably should stop being lazy and actually go back to like idk chapter 8 and put in an actual monopoly game (it had to have been before the oracle sessions in ch10 at least)

fun fact!! I have indeed very nearly had a fist fight over the last dark blue card in a monopoly game!! also I blatantly cheated, and the main opponent locked someone else (an 8 year old btw) in a cupboard... it was Wild(TM)

me and my irl friend actually came up with the butterfly thing when we were at the cinema once, she made up this random angry gardener OC who stepped on a butterfly after being fired or something lol

I mentioned Rose liking unicorns!!!! before Captain Hardrock!!!!!!!

shdhdhkshs Alix is such a moody emo brat in this fic I adore it

“The only real difference between you and me is one dead butterfly.” goddammit that’s the creepiest fucking thing, I’m genuinely shaking

technically it’s a butterfly’s fault for ALL the timelines which means that we’re all one butterfly away from death at any moment

cheerful stuff

no, no, you’re not trying to block it out on purpose... I’M trying to block it out on purpose bc I’m highkey shamelessly projecting

god I wish my timeline twin would manifest in the astral plane and punch me in the arm too

“Count yourself lucky you’re not a pillow, idiot.” in-context this is contender for Most Cursed Line I Have Ever Written In My Life

and yes Alix was about to straight-up swear

Mylène rollerskating is extremely blessed and good

pfffffffff Max you coward, I stand on swivel chairs all the time

*me, chanting at the spider in my room* KIMAX! KIMAX! KIMAX!

Kim literally making every excuse to not put Max down is amazing honestly

Kim and Max’s origins story is sooooooooooo cute wtf

THIS IS SO BLESSED OH MY HEART

HE’S JUST STANDING THERE CUDDLING HIM I’M

DECEASED

I,,,, swear to god,,,,,,,

so like. I know it’s now canon in the show that Kim really is as oblivious to his feelings as I wrote him in this. but MY GOD. IT’S FRIGGIN PAINFUL

KIM YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH MAX, FULL HOMO, THAT’S WHY YOU’RE FEELING LIKE THIS, IT’S NOT THAT COMPLICATED DAMMIT

oh yeah I wrote the kimax bits rly early and my old url was @queenkubdel haha

aight now a no-kimax chapter, but at least it’s a goodun

there’s that catradora-esque weather girls frenemyship again

Kim having a full-on breakdown when he finds out Alix’s hair isn’t really pink is actually really blessed, no lemme explain

so this universe has magic, right?? so he thinks to himself that the reason his friend has pink hair is because she must be some sort of anime protagonist or Really Important and Cool or something, and it never even occurred to him to doubt her

in other words he’s betrayed because he WANTED HIS FRIEND TO BE A COOL SHONEN HERO

which is both hilarious AND very sweet

...oh wait I’ve scrolled down and it turns out I literally explained all that in the fic itself hhdgjdvzjdjhs

and yeah honestly I can’t blame poor Kim for taking it so badly, he’s still reeling from his grandfather’s assassination so it’s natural his emotions are not exactly Regulated atm

actually when are his emotions ever regulated

1703-1899 hm... might change that since the fic takes place in 1957-1960 so even though it’s a commissioned history of the empire it was before Gabriel was even born so like why would he even care lmao

“Great Western Ocean” so pretentious, just say the Atlantic omg

I’ve been playing way too much civ because the first thing that came to mind was that everyone’s denounced Agreste due to the high warmongering penalties of the industrial/modern eras

Chloé and Kim is one hell of a brotp okay I still firmly believe that

also Chloé still loves her rococo fashion, she’s just toned it down enough that she can fit through doors and it’s not quite as “in your face” towards commoners

listen I know in the show Kim still liked Chloé for a while after Dark Cupid but in this he got over her quicker because his crush on her wasn’t as deep in the first place

Kim literally tells Chloé he gave the brooch to Max and yet STILL doesn’t realize he likes him!!! KIM!!!!!!!!!!

Chlodemption arc yesssssssss

also she’s a lesbeean

(ye Pollen will be in the sequel don’t you worry)

god I’m so proud of her <3

it feels believable too, so I’m proud of myself!! (I’m trying to be nice to myself before next chapter where I will no doubt roast myself so badly I’ll never recover)

outdated laws about marriage... jeez was that cursed foreshadowing or what

YES IT’S IVAN, I LOVE THIS BOY, HE’S SO GRUMPY AND ANGRY ALL THE TIME AND HE HATES KIM

...actually wait this is sibling culture

I literally speak like this to my brother and he’s my best friend so in conclusion Ivan thinks of Kim as an annoying brother

Jalil why are you a historian. just go be a psychologist and stop your sister accidentally hecking up the country

omg the Antarctica thing, I’m just imagining Jalil in the freezing cold with a massive coat on and getting chased by penguins

I love how the timeline twin’s plan was “escape school, force Adrien to get a venomous pet, then abandon him immediately in the middle of nowhere” and later on it turns out she skipped step two and just ditched him lmaoooooo

being so ace that your brain goes straight to “death and murder” before anything else is the biggest mood, I speak from experience

Jalil knows... he had that conversation with Kim in chapter 20... he Knows

“a bit unsupportive” um that is an extreme understatement good grief he was more savage than ME

RISE OF THE KIMAX SHIPPERS

oh don’t worry the venom death still haunts me too

chapter I Hate You... “A rather rotten winter party” well it should have been named A RATHER ROTTEN CHAPTER DO YOU KNOW HOW IMPOSSIBLE THIS ONE WAS TO WRITE OMG I HATE WRITING MYSELF INTO CORNERS

you see I had to have a motive for the timeline twin to explain things properly so that I could put in a really really dumb pun later but that meant I had to unfortunately suffer many allergic reactions again

[future aish note: forgot to mention, i also needed a motive for kim to stop eating chocolate forever, so i had to Curse this chapter as a sacrifice in order to save his life later on]

alright, alright, here we go, I’ll stop procrastinating and just get this over with

oh yeah it’s chapters like these that the fic’s rated T lol

the Adrikim friendship is indeed important... for later... like, plot-relevant levels of important... life-saving levels...

“some event” is the Peace Ball actually and I can’t wait because that chapter’s actually a good one

KIM BRAGGING ABOUT KISSING ADRIEN LAST YEAR IS SO FUCKING FUNNY OH MY GOD I’M LOSING MY MIND???

like last year he was LITERALLY LIKE “oh boo hoo I cannot tell anyone about this because Adrien is Ã Bøyê” and now he’s just like “yeah I kissed a hot boy and what about it???”

to be fair he is on an extreme sugar rush from all the chocolate he ate, which will... be a plot point in just a moment...

PILLOW GIRLFRIEND

I’m the amused nobles, they are me

oh my god Kim we get it you want to kiss someone (Max) and you don’t want to outright say it

holy shit do any of these kids ever think before they speak??? not to sound like the timeline twin or anything but alix... you could have avoided this if you’d bothered to use your one (1) brain cell

[future aish note: bold of me to assume that alix has a brain cell]

Kim wants to now fight his PARALLEL SELF oh my god, get on my level Kim, I want to fight my actual self like right now so there

stfu all of you, this is poisoning my liver

Max is the biggest mood and at least mildly sensible thank god, but he really shouldn’t have left those two alone for even a second

I AGREE PLATONIC LOVE IS UNDERRATED

the chair... the fucking c h a i r... I’m already lying down but I need to lie down harder just to process the absurdity of this

(I think I was gonna have Alix fall off the chair just because that’s hilarious but I forgot)

look I can’t take heartrate seriously but if you ever write it then you are legally required to put in kissing contests or you’re doing it wrong

fudgin Adrienette kiss offscreen and irrelevant

DJWIFI!!! AND ACTUAL PROPER DJWIFI!!!! I was sick of seeing it treated as some kind of pair-the-spares beta couple so I flipped the script and had them literally call out that trope while treating Adrienette as irrelevant instead, which is also why the sequel will be extremely djwifi-centric

“super swanky bae” please stop misusing commoner slang I’m begging you

THERE’S THE PLOT POINT I WAS TALKING ABOUT

Theo was right here, he witnessed with his own eyes how much chocolate Kim ate, so he knows for a fact that if you give Kim chocolate he will scarf it down without a second thought... so hypothetically if one sent him poisoned chocolates... dyou see where I’m going with this...

oh and Theo still has like every job btw

Alya!!!! no!!!!! hire him again!!!!!!!! then he won’t send the chocolates!!!!!!!!!! aaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

there goes me hinting how alyadrininette is the ultimate ot4 again

...do I really wanna scroll down and keep going? no I don’t but I guess I gotta, and relive every one of my most embarrassing school sleepovers in the process

full offence to everyone bothering to read this but kissing sounds gross, actually

(for the record it was probably like... 10 seconds or something idk it was Not Long At All)

“probably not more than 5 minutes” omg I just said it was 10 seconds??? hmmm m okay like 20 seconds maaaybe, Kim just has no sense of time perception

neither do I based on my microwaving skills

SHIT THIS IS LITERALLY A SCHOOL SLEEPOVER

INNOCENT DUMBASS AROACE ASKING “what does that mean? what’s this? what’s that? it’s okay you can tell me :-)”

omg I forgot the snake was there ahshdhdkshfs I’m the snake, probably wants to launch itself out of the window so big mood

most of the fic so far had Alix being really aro so I was like damn... gotta make her really ace too

(if I ever bother writing the Kimdine AU then you actually get an aro character who isn’t ace, because we need more of them, but I won’t say who) (okay fine it’s Luka)

I tend not to be too British in my writing so as not to give the Americans heart attacks whenever they see someone referring to their mother as “mum” etc, but like... sometimes you just gotta throw in the word “snogging”

(I’m typing this out on my phone rn and it has exactly 69% battery, I hate this and also hate that I felt the need to mention that)

THE HOCKEY THING MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN BASED OFF A REAL LIFE THING. *SWEATS NERVOUSLY*

honestly I was soooooo tempted to actually write The Talk bit, it would have been the funniest thing ever, but I was also 99% sure I would have to change the rating to M (despite it not even remotely being smut lol, just a regular biology lesson) and there was no way I was doing that, pretty sure I pushed the T rating at some points as it is

[future aish: god i am still so tempted to write it. man, i’m tempted. it would be the funniest thing. but no... i have sworn not to write anything above a T rating so guess i won’t.]

YEAH THE THROWING UP THING TOO WAS DEFINITELY NOT BASED ON REAL LIFE OR ANYTHING *MORE NERVOUS SWEATING*

(it genuinely wasn’t a flowerpot though. it’s my life’s goal to throw up in a flowerpot and I still haven’t achieved it.)

all of this is an Ace Mood(TM)

also I love how elaborately I’ve worded this, like yeah idiot royal teenagers are too royal and posh to ever bother just saying the word “sex” like a normal person

to any 17 year old aces: you aren’t too young to know, I told myself that aggressively when I was 17 but now I’m 22 and I’m still just as ace as I always was sooooo yeah

I also hope I can wake up tomorrow and forget I read this trash

well tbh... it’s not total trash... it highkey reminds me of my school days, like, maybe that was subconscious or something... god who even knows

jeez if timeline twin slapped me in the face I’d just keel over and die from sheer terror, other than that that’s HILARIOUS

timeline twin: “YOU HAVE ONE (1) BRAIN CELL NOW P L E A S E CONSIDER USING IT”

fuckeninf hell listen,,, so when I was writing this chapter I didn’t know I was aro... I mean, I was kinda questioning it?? but all I knew was I was ace, and that me not knowing that as a teenager almost totally screwed me over because like

to be normal or to feel normal there’s things you do or say that you don’t want, and things you know would happen or whether you want something or not you’ll take it because you think you’re expected to, because otherwise you’ll have to confront yourself with the fact that something is wrong with you and you don’t know what or why or how to fix it

and being aro on top of that is misunderstanding how to navigate close friendships because of this fundamental fear that if you want to be close with someone then friendship can’t suffice, that how much you care about them doesn’t matter

and things I did or almost did, or had the chance to do and only stopped because (awfully enough) crippling anxiety which ironically saved me (let’s just say the dude turned out to be a creep)... yeah basically this is all a callback to that aroace teenager feel where you can’t help not being true to yourself because you don’t want to, because you don’t know what’s wrong or right, only what’s “normal” and the ache of knowing that you’re not, no matter how much you try

and I didn’t know I was aro while writing this but in hindsight it’s easy to see how that played into it too, and writing this definitely played a part in me realizing I’m aro and was somehow trying to work through some very pent-up feelings about friendship and closeness with people, as well as pent-up feelings about being ace and how that tied into everything too

...in short, do not phuck the pharaoh or you will get HOUSE ARRESTED and DIE

(jk jk she’ll just be awkward around you forever lol, and then SHE’LL get house arrested and die, because you’re not commoners so your actions actually have consequences you dumb idiots)

this entire thing is just a whole mood and lowkey my teenage years holy fuck holy fuck I hate that I’m only just realizing how bloody hard I was projecting

I literally read a post the other day about how unrequited love is only ever usually explored from the perspective of the person who’s in love, whereas aros are usually on the receiving end of it and it’s a tragedy in its own right that you might do things that wind up driving you apart because you can’t bring yourself to love them back but you can’t tell them because of the fear that it’ll push them away... and I gotta say, I totally nailed it 💪

...you know what I’ve changed my mind, chapter 34 is good actually, and now I need to make a time machine and go and hug my 17 year old self for living this, and then hug my 20 year old self for writing this, I’m sorry I was mean to this chapter it’s very relatable and I shouldn’t keep beating myself up over it

thinking makes me miserable too!! that’s why it’s optimistic nihilism only lads

impulse control, hmmm... someone who’s good for him, hmmmmmm... it’s almost like someone like that is right there and exists and is already in love with him 😏

so apparently timeline twin’s idea of “fixing her life” is burning all her bridges and then hecking off to the Kazakh wilderness for over a year

did Alix just... ask the snake if it’s aroace too???

I mean it definitely is, but...

UGH SNAKES DON’T BLINK, I’M STILL SO ANGRY ABOUT THIS

chapter 35, thank god, the title “Finally!” is very apt

(because I can finally change the music from Death Valley to something else lol)

oh poor Max, his heart goes on a real rollercoaster these few chapters doesn’t it? it’s okay buddy, in like 10 chapters you’ll get your man...

NO BUT SHE H A S FIGURED IT OUT!!! SORT OF!!!

I just misread “despite” as “despacito”, I’m going to bed and continuing this tomorrow dammit

alright I am now funky refreshed and ready to roll, let’s get this kimax party started

Max is angsting internally like “no one’s realized I like Kim :( well except Juleka but she’s a lesbian so she doesn’t count” ashgdjsghskk that mlm/wlw solidarity is holding out I see

YES ALIX YOU DO NEED TO TALK TO NATH MORE, THAT’S YOUR FREAKING BEST BUD IN THE SHOW MAY I REMIND YOU

this is all so Irony it’s murdering me dead

okay yeah I’m gonna be really honest and salty here for a second, this bit where Max is annoyed that Alix takes Nath more seriously as a contender than him was me being a bit salty over the fact that like... kimnath/tomato ketchup is a great rarepair but got so weirdly popular amongst people who didn’t seem to care about Max as a character at all despite how close he is with Kim in canon, and as a Max Stan it made me sad because he’s already not very appreciated in fandom

[future aish note: HE IS NOW BABEY!]

THERE IT IS

I WANT TO HUG MAX TOO, BLESS HIM

I also want to hug Alix because godddds I’ve been in that situation where if you were allowed to just TELL the idiots that they like each other then all their problems would be solved but noooo, you’re sworn to secrecy... *sigh*

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t change, ever...” me: *thinks about the sequel and cackles evilly while cracking my knuckles* well,,

A R O M A N T I C

listen it was VERY IMPORTANT to me that I actually put in all these actual words in the fic and made them relevant, like gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc (I think the only one I didn’t was trans, oops?? gotta remember that for the sequel, at least Nino IS trans in this even though I never said the word)

[future aish note: i feel like i didn’t say pan either, or nonbinary... more stuff for the sequel folks! i can’t put in everything but i may as well try!]

bc you see all these tv shows where a character is bi but they say they “don’t like labels” or a character with no love interest get suddenly paired up with someone random at the end... like NO I wanted to do the OPPOSITE of that bc people’s identities are IMPORTANT so I wanted to MAKE IT RELEVANT 💪

and even though I didn’t yet know here that I was aro and highkey projecting, there’s already a fair few fics dealing with asexuality but not aromanticism?? so I rly wanted to make the aro side of things important

almost relieved??? Max, you buffoon, she IS relieved, extremely

Malix friendship is good and severely underrated and I still haven’t forgiven myself for not putting more of it in this

“He was never eating chocolate again” HO-HO-HOLY SHIT THAT’S SOME FORESHADOWING RIGHT THERE

Rose is a distinguished bi who doesn’t realize Kim is a disaster bi

Kim oh my god you can’t just out Adrien “just about functional bi” Agreste like that

I love that Rose calls Kim a casanova even though he’s very much not... how many people are even into him over the course of the fic? Max, Adrien, it’s implied Marinette used to be, Lila is ambiguous, same with the lacrosse guy later, oh yeah Ondine highkey lmao along with 90% of the teenage population of Saharan Africa, Kim himself in about 2 chapters time...

Rose giving Kim the gay talk is so blessed omg I need more interaction between these two

“If you swung one way you were gay, if you swung the other way you were straight, more than one way made you bisexual, if you didn’t swing any way at all then you were probably just Alix...” I will literally NEVER be able to outdo this line, this is Peak

hmm I don’t think at any point in the fic Max says to Kim that he’s exclusively into boys... I guess he said it offscreen then lol, point is He’s Gay

OMG KIM, YOU FINALLY REALIZED WHAT THE NOSEBLEED SCENE MEANT, GOD BLESS YOU

this is like in Syren when he realizes the mermaid is Ondine and that she was trying to tell him she likes him... except this is the gay version of that

yeah Rose I really do need to get more sleep, that one was directed at me and I know it was

Kim being all like “fellas is it gay if you take off your shirt and a guy swoons at you 🤔🤔🤔”

no, no... Max is definitely a complete trainwreck at romance, just slightly less than you

god freaking dammit not the sports bra again,,, I s2g later in the fic all Ondine would have had to do is to show up in a sports bra and Kim would immediately go full ot3 mode no questions asked,,,,,,,, (I mean he does see her in a swimsuit but that’s not the same??? sports bras are in a different league okay shush)

psssssst!!! you should read heartbroken!!!! it’s a kimax fic and it’s so good!!!!! this was a lowkey shoutout!!!!!!!!

genuinely tho, even if Kim hadn’t liked Max too here, he’s being so sweet about it?? he’s worried about his poor friend’s emotional state and wishes he could have done better to help!! gahhhh their friendship/relationship is just So Blessèd

hsndhkdhdkshdh I only noticed it after finishing the fic and occasionally skimming back through, but so much of the time whenever Alix shows up Kim’s all like *ungrateful* “oh not you again” like WOW that’s one way to greet your friend?? mood tho

[future aish note: i did the exact opposite in No Romo, funnily enough! kim’s not in it much but whenever he sees alix he’s like “friend!!! friend!!!!!” and she’s just like -_- “oh it’s that guy again”]

he’s not even paying attention to her omg she’s trying to save the timeline here you idiot

POOR ALIX how frustrating,,, and also I’ve literally been there,,, the woes of being a wing-girl indeed

and now Kim wants to fight himself, why am I not surprised

aND YES HERE’S WHERE IT HITS HIM, THE EXACT FUCKING MOMENT

WHERE HE’S SUDDENLY LIKE “OH WAIT MAX’S LOVE FOR ME ISN’T UNREQUITED??? I LIKE HIM TOO HOLY SHIT????”

aaaaaaand he immediately asks the aro for love advice, why is he like this omg

gosh this is sooooo sweeeeeet

I did not let up, did I? just went ahead and made this as cheesy and cutesy and over the top as I could because It’s What Kimax Deserves

(there wasn’t rly much Kimax content yet in the fandom at this point so I had total free reign and went all-out with it)

sfjsgskdhs and there goes Alix getting her wing-efforts sidelined again

“I’m never asking out someone on a whim again. Or, uh, confessing that I like someone on a whim either.” so uh... you know how I said I’m considering making the sequel Kimaxdine? well if I do then uh. hm. this might change. because reasons.

I don’t know why I made nothing Alix ever says make sense but I’m glad I did because she’s so freaking funny

I swear I talk about Max’s eyes being “magnified in his glasses” multiple times in this fic, either that or I’m having serious deja vu

Kim’s so cute dammit!!! now that he knows he likes Max he’s just swooning over every little thing and it’s!!!! adorable!!!!!

(I wonder if this is how it was with Kimdine in the show? it does seem like Kim already liked her but just hadn’t noticed...)

huehuehuehue Kim later on you do indeed recklessly propose to Max on the spot... in like 18 chapters or so

also the fact that Kim thinks things through better when he’s around Max is just the total sweetest and also what Alix was basically trying to aim for

I love Kim showing off that he can pack all his stuff in half an hour like buddy, the porters can literally help you with that, you’re royalty remember

omg I’d forgotten I left a note here later for binge-readers!! being all like “drink water and eat food and go to sleep uwu”

lmao guess I’ll take my own advice then and leave it there for now

[future aish note: same, goodnight]

[bbclesmis]

Dominic West: I feel I’m in the summer of my life – it can’t last forever

The acting livewire talks being lazy as a teenager, worrying about the time he has left and his years at Eton January 1, 2019

At 16 my main preoccupation was with getting drunk. Oh yeah, and I played Hamlet in the school play. So I was quite focused on that, and the rest of the time I was trying to get illegal drinks in pubs.

Did I have a privileged upbringing? Well, I grew up near the moors, just outside Sheffield, with six brothers and sisters.

We had a couple of dogs and various other pets, hamsters and fish and all that crap. I spent most of my time on my bike running up and down the road. We were quite self-sufficient because there were so many brothers and sisters. We did have friends but I don’t remember leaving the house much because I just played with my siblings.

So yes, it was a privileged childhood, spending all that time on the moors with my big raucous family.

I have five sisters so even though I was going to an all-boys’ school, I didn’t have any fear of the opposite sex. Maybe by 16 I was starting to miss having girls around me at school, but we did have quite a lot of girlfriends coming down to visit us all so… Actually, I didn’t really have any girlfriends, I just wished I had. I had crushes that were unrequited. But when I was about 17 I started getting involved in plays, and going to the Edinburgh Festival, and then it all kicked off.

In 2002 with Idris Elba, his fellow cast member in cult US drama 'The Wire'. Photo: C Contino/BEI/Shutterstock

I think as a teenager I was closer to my mum. I got to know my dad much better in my twenties and I had a lovely time with him after they got divorced actually. So I ended up pretty close to both. I have traits from both of them. My mum was quite romantic and I’m also quite romantic in my ideas about things like Ireland and music and poetry. I’m quite a softie in that way. And I have romantic ideas about childhood and the simple life and living in the country.

From my dad, I think I get my sense of humour; he was a very funny guy. And also my fairly Victorian idea of fatherhood. I’m pretty strict. I heavily limit my kids’ screen time. I insist they’re in bed on time – mainly because we have five kids and I’m always knackered, so I get them out the way before we can start the drinking. But I’m also very affectionate with them.

What I got out of Eton was that they identified what I was good at – acting – and they gave me the facilities and opportunities to pursue that. I was incredibly lucky to go to a school that could do that. It’s true that Eton also gives people confidence but that’s a double-edged sword. Often that confidence is misplaced. As is those people’s assumption that they’re the best people to run things. That’s quite annoying and often quite offensive to people.

Of everything I’ve done I think the teenage Dominic would be most impressed by The Wire. He’d be amazed that I actually managed to get into it. My mum loved theatre and couldn’t understand why I’d ever want to do anything else. She came to see everything I did in the theatre and used to say, why on earth are you doing American TV, what a complete waste of time. I think because her mother-in-law was American she didn’t like America very much.

The teenage me would also not have expected to have five kids. And I certainly didn’t think one of my kids would get a trial for Southampton FC. He’s only 10, it’s just for the academy, but I was so bad at football I couldn’t have imagined that.

When I look back at my life I might say to my younger self, don’t be so lazy. Be bolder, shoot for the stars. I don’t know if it was through self-doubt or fear or just laziness but I feel I rather took the easy option a lot. In terms of work, and taking my job and – it sounds pretentious – but taking my talent seriously. I let other people make decisions for me.

I wish I hadn’t always gone for the job my agent wanted me to take, or the industry were guiding me into, which was often work that wasn’t that interesting. What I wanted to do in my earlier twenties was experimental and radical theatre, but I didn’t do it because I went off and got high instead. And maybe I did a bit too much partying and I should have… actually no, I loved partying, fuck it.

There was a wonderful woman in my life called Kay Eaton who very much looked after me when I was ill as a young child. She was my great granddad’s secretary and she helped me a lot. We had this joke that we were girlfriend and boyfriend – I was four years old.

She never married. I really regret not being with her when she was dying. I was on a job away, and I think she didn’t have a very nice death in a home in Sheffield. I wish I’d got to her and thanked her. She brought me great comfort when I was ill and I wish I’d been able to do the same for her when she was dying.

I’ve just turned 49 and I’ve thought a lot about the time that’s left. In terms of my career I do regret not doing all the great Shakespeare roles when I was young. Because I do love Shakespeare. But I don’t feel guilty about much, I’ve done my best in the way I’ve treated people. God, this sounds like I’m just about to die!

I don’t know… I’ve always been a bit frightened of death. I suppose what I’m really frightened of, apart from the moment of death and the actual condition you’re in when you die, is the worry that I didn’t do as much as I might have. But really, it’s all about my kids. I’m very conscious right now that I’m at the stage when it’s my last chance to be a big thing in their lives. So I’m taking a lot of next year off to do that. And actually, when I think about it… I couldn’t really give a rat’s arse about my work.

I’ve never been so happy in my life as I have been in the last 10 years. And it just seems to get better and better, because my kids and I are at a time when we give each other great joy.

Last Christmas we went to see the giant trees in South California. I remember the whole day, from getting everyone out of the RV and walking up to the wood.  There weren’t many people around and the mist was lifting in the forest and the sun was coming up and we were in the presence of these astonishing 3,000-year-old giants.  And I did get a sense of immense happiness and peace.

I have a strong sense of wishing my time would slow down so it could just be like this for a bit longer. I don’t have a great foreboding about the future, but I do feel I’m in the summer of my life. And it can’t last forever.

Dominic West stars in Colette, in UK cinemas from January 11 and Les Miserables, on BBC One from 9pm on December 30