reinbel

[hermesmoly]

me explaining how Menelaus/Helen Orpheus/Eurydice and Zeus/Hera are similar. In A Way

[honeylikewords]

Santi proposing? And how involved would he be with the wedding planning?

Aw, that’s so sweet! I already wrote one iteration of a possible Santi proposal before (viewable here), but I think it’s good to have options, so let’s consider what a different proposal from that darling man might look like!

Santi is the kind of guy who believes in lifelong commitments. He is fully willing to invest his entire life in something he believes in, whether that’s the service of his country, the protection of his mother’s homeland, his friends or, in more recent years, his beloved.

Now a man in a deeply committed relationship, Santi knows he wants to get married, and knows he wants to spend the rest of his life working with, for, and alongside his sweetheart in all that he does. But what he struggles with is how to ask her to marry him, since he wants to ask her in a special, loving, one-of-a-kind way that will show her just how much he loves her.

He agonizes over how to ask, running through hundreds of different scenarios in his head like the tactician he is. He worries himself over rings, over locations, over phrasing of the actual proposal itself; sometimes, instead of coming home after work, he’ll drive to the park and sit on a bench reading his WIP of the proposal from his phone aloud to himself so he can hear what it sounds like, often making changes or altogether scrapping the WIP and starting over. 

Eventually, he’s able to narrow down a few details, knowing that he doesn’t want to do the proposal in a too-public location because he absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, hates and despises people who make big public debacles of their proposals and engagements. There’ll be no skywriting for this man, no sir. Plus, he wants his sweetheart to have the dignity of a “no” option; public proposals essentially force the proposed-to into saying “yes” even if they don’t want to in order to avoid embarrassment and harassment, and Santi wouldn’t dream of putting his beloved in a position like that. Instead, he plans on doing the proposal in a private spot, but somewhere that, if she felt she had to leave, she’d be able to safely go on her own and take time away from him, should the answer be “no”. 

He also narrows down what kind of ring he wants to propose with; it’s a small, thin-banded gold ring that he picked specifically for its vintage charm, its jewel not ostentatious or gaudy but rather more a tasteful accent set into the classy, filigreed band. It’s almost floral in its shaping and the details carved into the metal, reminding him of something one might see in a museum. But it’s his to give to her, and he keeps it in a neat little black box, sometimes fidgeting with the box as he paces and thinks about how he’s going to propose.

Finally, Santi sits down and makes his decisions. He decides to forgo having a written-out proposal; he already knows in his heart what he wants to say, and he doesn’t need a practiced, stilted, word-for-word reading of a pre-written piece that may not match the mood of the moment. He wants to be honest and present with her, so he stops himself from going overboard and just decides to do it. He’s going to go home, tell her how he feels, and allow her to make the choice she feels is best. 

As he drives home from work the day he intends to do it, he finds himself both panicked beyond belief and strangely calm, as if standing in the eye of the hurricane. Santi is both entirely unprepared and ready as he’ll ever be, and he’s tired of waiting. Passing the parks of kids playing with their families, Santi smiles to himself; if she agrees to marry him, they’ll be making the beginnings of their own families, and maybe, one day, he’d be one of those dads standing in the park, watching their kid playing junior league soccer.

Before he knows it, Santi arrives at the apartment they share, hovering in the hallway. He stops before the front door, taking in deep, steady breaths, slow and assuring.

“You can do this,” he says softly to himself. “You can do this.”

He knows he won’t be going too far out on a limb; after all, in the years they’d been dating, growing more intimate and more entwined into one another’s lives, they’ve, of course, talked about marriage. It’s come up often; she wants to get married, and so does he. She wants kids and so does he. They’re on the same page. She’s even told him “I’d be happy to marry you, when you’re ready”, so he knows, somewhere inside himself, that this is all going to be okay.

But another, more anxious part of himself, gnaws on its own bones with fear that she’ll say no and leave him. Some panicky inner voice frets that she’ll reject him so wholly and so entirely that he’ll break on the molecular level and dissolve into particles, unable to ever be repaired again. Still, he has to try. The worst case scenario is a no: the best case scenario is all his dreams come true. It’s a gamble well worth the taking.

He unlocks the door and steps inside quietly, trying not to cause a stir, but he hears the TV turned on to some home improvement show and some sizzling in the kitchen, the familiar smell of cooking vegetables wafting through the air. He smiles when he hears his beloved humming to herself, drumming her fingers on the counter as she stirs the popping, snapping food in the pan on the stove.

“Hm hmm hm hmmm, I wanna cut to the feeling--” 

“Hey,” Santi says, leaning against the doorway that separates the kitchen from the main living room. She turns around and smiles at him, nudging her hip towards the stove.

“Stir fry night. Thought we could do veggies and rice since the chicken from the other night left a bit of a metaphorical and literal sour taste in my mouth.”

“I still can’t figure out how you burned it like that,” laughs Santi, coming to join her as he puts his hands on her hips and rests his chin on her shoulder. “I’ve seen you do chicken a hundred times, and it never comes out so... burnt and gooey at the same time.”

“I have two running theories,” she suggests. “One is that I accidentally deglazed with vinegar instead of wine, which made the pan start to congeal weirdly and thus burn in that really, really gross way. The other is that I’ve been hexed, but only hexed in a way that damages my cooking. Thoughts?”

“Much as a hex story would be a great one to tell at your next campfire,” Santi murmurs, kissing her neck, “I’m assuming you just mixed up the red wine vinegar and the actual red wine.”

“Darn. I was really hoping we could sell the movie rights to my hex story and be rich off the royalties from what would clearly be a very successful kitchen-horror film franchise.”

Santi chuckles as he rubs the ball of his nose against the column of her neck, delighting himself when he feels her shiver under his attentions. He kisses her lightly, almost teasingly, the way he knows drives her mad, and suddenly the silly atmosphere of the kitchen starts to heat into a much more romantic one. 

He glides his hands up and down her waist, all the way down to her hips, smoothing down her clothes and just taking in the solid warmth of her. Placing small pecks against her skin, he sighs.

“I love you,” says Santi, his eyes closed as he takes in the moment and savors it, holds it in his heart as a talisman to give him strength. “You know that, right?”

Her hand comes up and gently scratches his hair as she continues stirring the vegetables, an acknowledging hum leaving her chest while she pets him. Santi always melts when she works her fingers through his thick, curly hair; nothing makes him so pliant and soothed as the sensation of her touch on his scalp.

“I know, baby. I love you, too.”

“I just... want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says gently. “All my years. Would you... want that, too?”

She takes a moment, turning off the burner and pushing the skillet of vegetables back a few inches. Then, she turns around and links her arms around Santi’s waist, hooking her hands on the small of his back and smiling up at him, her eyes soft, sincere, loving. She nods and presses up to kiss his chin, then lowers her head and rests her forehead on his shoulder, swaying with him for a few seconds. 

“Of course I do,” she replies. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with every day.”

“Maybe our kids?”

At that she puts one hand on his chest and rubs affectionately, and he looks down to see her shy, excited smile. She seems both present and distant, and he knows that look; it’s the same one he gets when he daydreams about what their kids would be like.

“Yeah. I’d like to spend every day with our kids, too. You and the kids.”

Her voice is sincere, setting a fire in Santi’s belly that can’t be put out. He presses on, invigorated, needing to know what will come next.

“So... then, can I ask you something?”

“Mhm?,” she hums, tapping her fingers along his chest dreamily.

“Do you like the last name Garcia?”

She pauses, looking up from his chest, broken from her reverie by his strange question. She blinks at him a few times, then seems to realize there’s something about to happen. Santi smiles at her, even though his brows set together in an anxious knot, and he reaches into his pocket to pull out the ring box.

As she gasps, Santi lowers himself into a kneeling position (not without some grunting and sharp pains; he should have known better than to think he, of all people, would have an easy time getting onto his knees) and takes her hand, opening the ring box with his free one. The ring sparkles under the kitchen lights and he gazes up at her with reverence, devotion, and pure, unmitigated love.

“Because, well, if you do... we can share it.”

For a heartbeat, she stares at the ring, flabberghasted and speechless. Then she turns and stares at him before her expression shifts from blank shock to brilliant excitement, and she drops to her knees and kisses him, flinging her arms around his neck.

“Santi, that was so cheesy!,” she giggles, hiccups of tears beginning to bubble up into her words. “B-but I love it, and I love you, and I want to be a Garcia, I want to be your Garcia, let’s be Garcias-es together, oh, Santi--”

Her words run together, sentences bleeding into one another as she intersperses her words with fervent kisses, and Santi half forgets the ring as he clings to her and kisses her, his joy so abundant and all-consuming that he can hardly feel anything else except joy, joy, joy. 

They stay like that on the kitchen floor for a good, long while, wrapped up in each other with kisses and breathed words of love and gratitude, an unbreakable bond forming between them as they lay in one another’s arms. When Santi finally manages to compose himself enough to slide the ring onto her finger, they’re sitting on the linoleum floors, backs pressed to the cabinets, holding onto one another like passengers in a lifeboat, as if they’re the only two people in the world.

And, for a moment, they are the only two people in the world; at least, to one another.

As for Santi’s involvement in the wedding, he’s both very specific and not at all picky about what happens. That sounds paradoxical, but it’ll make a little more sense when contextualized and explained.

The first and foremost thing is that Santi, without a doubt in his mind, does not want a big wedding. He does not want hundreds of guests, he does not want a big, splashy affair, he does not want exorbitant and expensive locales, he does not want any of it. He wants it to be a small, private event for him, his wife, and their families (and closest friends). That’s all he asks.

He’s somewhat religious and would prefer to have a few of the Catholic rites of marriage involved, but understands that if his wife is of a differing religious background that they can have an interfaith wedding with presence from both their faiths. He just wants it to be the kind of wedding that his mother would have been proud of, for her memory and for his own comfort.

Aside from that, he’ll be as involved as his bride-to-be wants. He doesn’t want to do any big stuff and thinks they can have a meaningful wedding without throwing money at things like cake or dresses or whatever, but he also understands that, for a bride, it can be a very special time, so he wants to be respectful of that. Plus, he’s got money enough to make her comfortable on her wedding day, so he doesn’t mind spending a little here and there to help her feel special on her big day.

Still, he’d like to keep it low-key and simple, so the wedding probably ends up being a tasteful, rather rustic affair more centered around the togetherness of the event than the idea of it being the Party Of The Century(TM). I mean, it’s not like it won’t be fun, but it’ll be more about the community of the experience, the showing of their love and dedication, than about the money or the expense or the showmanship. 

So Santi and his bride end up doing just some very basic shopping, but they make sure that everything they buy is meaningful to them. Her bouquet will be special to her, her dress will be special to her, her veil special to her. They’ll be keepsakes, not just trinkets, for the two of them to preserve in their memories and to pass down as heirlooms.

Heck, Santi would love it if, in fact, most of the wedding stuff was traditional heirlooms from their families. If her wedding dress was handed down to her by someone she loved, that’d make him really happy. If her veil was from someone who was important to her, that’d be fantastic! If these aspects of their wedding could show the importance of their families, communities, and cultural heritages, he’d be overjoyed, because that’s all he wants from his wedding. To show the world that he is hers and she is his, and that, together, they are now part of their respective communities as one, and that they’re here because of the people they love and who have loved them.

It’s not that he’s a cheapskate, it’s that he’s a sentimentalist; he wants their wedding to be about the meaning, the symbolic and internal value of what they’re doing, not just the flash and panache of it. For him, it’s not about having the most stylish wedding, but the most meaningful one. That’s all.

That all sounds really round-a-bout and corny, but it’s how he feels, and how he wants to go about structuring his wedding. 

Oh, and he’s going to be wearing his best dress uniform from the service when he gets married. No question.

[acsversace-news]

Warning: This recap of the “A Random Killing” episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story contains spoilers.

Horror loses its bite when we learn too much about the villain. It’s not just that the unknown is always scarier than the known, it’s that we can’t help but develop a grudging empathy for a killer the more we get to know them. After Monster laid bare Aileen Wuornos’s many tragic tribulations before her serial killings, it became easy to forget she was a terrifying death-bringer for certain innocent people. Or in fiction, was there ever a bigger blunder than Rob Zombie attempting to explain Michael Myers’ childhood to us in the Halloween remake? Shockingly, finding out that The Shape had been bullied as a child completely robbed him of his terrifying, shark-like unknowability. But what happens when the reverse occurs, and a complex, borderline sympathetic villain is suddenly stripped back and streamlined into a dark void? Horror returns.

Three episodes in and it’s clear that Gianni Versace himself is only a side character in what is ultimately the horror saga of Andrew Cunanan’s crimes. But where the premiere introduced Cunanan as a verbal, witty, clever, and deeply troubled person motivated by jealousy and longing, this week reframed him as a straight-up horror movie slasher. His motives were opaque and unpredictable, his methods bizarre and hard to explain. I was terrified. Is there a chance the American Crime Story subtitle contains a typo? This week The Assassination of Gianni Versace was suddenly much closer in tone and effect to Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story. Which is to say, “A Random Killing” was one of the most disturbing episodes of TV I’ve seen in a while. Let’s talk about it!

We began with two women hawking perfume on the Home Shopping Network in the mid-’90s.

The perfume was ingeniously called “Pheromone,” and its mastermind was one Marilyn Miglin, the IRL baroness of a Chicago-area beauty empire. She was played here by the great Judith Light, who had been mercifully freed of her Transparent wig and personality. Judith Light was INCREDIBLE in this episode, which — though it was about the two murders Cunanan committed prior to Versace’s — centered the story around this woman and how she coped when her husband was murdered.

After her husband failed to pick her up from the Chicago airport, Marilyn arrived at her ominously empty house and recruited some neighbors to help check the place out. But from the long, tense tracking shots of the all-white, fancy home, we knew something was wrong. A stranger had been there. But what kind of maniac would leave ice cream out on the counter? The police definitely needed to be called! (Also there was a corpse in the garage.)

We then flashed back a week and met Marilyn’s husband, Lee, a well-respected and enormously successful commercial real estate developer. Right away we could tell the two adored each other, but in a married-my-best-friend kind of way. Lee was probably not interested in doing sex with Marilyn, but they definitely held hands in bed. We should all be so lucky!

Anyway, while Marilyn was away on her work trip, guess who swung by for a visit? Yep, Andrew Cunanan dropped in unannounced, and we gathered that Lee had hired Cunanan as an escort in the past. And though Lee clearly tried to be a gentleman toward his young companion, Cunanan took matters into his own hands. And in this case those matters were duct tape, a bag of concrete, and eventually a screwdriver.

Aside from brutally murdering older men, Cunanan loves to give a speech while doing so. In this case he monologued about how Lee was a powerful man attempting to build the tallest building in the world, but now Cunanan had power over him. So whereas we mayhave believed that Cunanan’s murders had been opportunistic, or methods for him to gain quick cash and stolen cars… It was now clear he was excited by the idea of destroying powerful men as a way of elevating his own status. Dark, dark stuff. And this extended sequence of torture and murder was one of the less pleasant things I’ve ever seen on TV. Poor Lee.

Rather than show you all that violence, let’s just settle for this image of Cunanan stabbing a honey-glazed ham! Think of it as sort of a metaphor for what had just happened in the previous scene.

Anyway, back to Marilyn. Her whole thing was, she was a sharp, professional woman who wanted the investigation undertaken in the most efficient manner possible. She verbally itemized every item Cunanan had stolen from their home, and vehemently denied any knowledge of why Cunanan had surrounded her husband’s corpse in gay porn rags. The killer must’ve brought them, duh.

I also liked this strange moment when the investigators were asking Marilyn questions but she just wanted to talk about her son’s burgeoning movie career. It’s almost poignant how in the midst of this tragedy she was still trying to maintain her composure as a strong businesswoman and image protectress.

But of course, eventually she crumbled and gave a moving (and convincing) speech about how much she loved her husband, and that it HAD been a genuine marriage, despite whatever his leanings were. They’d been best friends and partners and each other’s support systems. And it goes without saying that Judith Light’s work was devastating in this episode. Hope she still has space on her mantel for more trophies, because dang.

Meanwhile, Cunanan was driving around in Lee’s stolen Lexus, and browsing local Versace boutiques, which in my opinion is foreshadowing. But he soon realized that the built-in car phone was giving his location away whenever he passed a cell tower. It was time to find some new wheels!

And unfortunately for the poor undertaker who drove by Cunanan in a pickup, red was Cunanan’s favorite vehicle color!

Next thing we knew, he was following the man back to his mortuary, leading him into the basement at gunpoint, and then, well, you know. Truly heartbreaking. I have to be honest with you, I am not a fan of Andrew Cunanan.

We then ended with this moving scene, when Marilyn Miglin returned to the Home Shopping Network airwaves and memorialized her husband while clutching a bottle of her perfume. And while the juxtaposition of mixing pathos with consumerism could have been a salient satirical point, Judith Light’s pained emotions made it just simply devastating. In a series ostensibly about one famous murder, it’s clear Cunanan destroyed so many more lives than just Versace’s.

“A Random Killing” also served to make the point that many of the gay-related details of Cunanan’s crimes were swept under the rug in order to maintain reputations. Marilyn Miglin actively sought to prevent the press from knowing that her husband had known Cunanan prior to the murder, and while one can understand the protectiveness a victim’s family might have, it was this kind of public discomfort with gay men that hobbled Cunanan’s swift apprehension. Just another frustrating element to what has become an increasingly American horror story. (Get it? Like the show.) Great, if deeply unpleasant, stuff.