#jamie flatters fan page

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from School for Good and Evil part 1 ❤️

[stewblog]

Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar: The Way of Water has a lot going on, but there is one thing abundantly clear throughout its (interminable) 3 hour and 15 minute runtime: Director James Cameron has a boundless love for the world he has created and all of its native inhabitants. When the credits finally rolled, I was left wishing he had simply made a couple of faux documentaries about Pandora narrated by Sigourney Weaver.

Cameron takes particular pride and care when depicting Pandora’s flora and fauna. His passion for marine biology shines particularly bright in this long-awaited sequel as the majority of it takes place in, under and around water. A Pandoran whale ends up becoming one of the most endearing characters in the film. He also has a palpable love for the new family unit(s) that are introduced here. This sequel may have taken more than a decade to finally arrive, but James Cameron wanted this to be about something and not just contain wall-to-wall spectacle.

Personally, I would have preferred the spectacle compared to what we got.

For as much obvious affection as Cameron has for this world and these characters, very little of that translates into an engaging story or characters that register. This would have been forgivable and perhaps even understandable in a 90 minute, or even two hour, movie. But when you have no real story to speak of and not a single character, new or returning, feels fleshed out in a meaningful way with a runtime that outlasts The Godfather by about 20 minutes, something is horribly amiss.

Following a bit of a recap, The Way of Water picks up in earnest roughly 15 years or so after the events of the original film, which saw humans pushed out of Pandora en masse and Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), now fully integrated into his avatar body. Jake is now a father to three children with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), as well as adoptive father to two wayward kids as well. There’s Spider (Jack Champion), the wayward human son of Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), and Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), the immaculately conceived daughter of Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), who died while inhabiting her avatar in the previous film. All of whom are forced into exile when the regrouping human colonists are determined to kill Jake and dissolve the insurgency he leads.

These kids are the driving force of the whole thing, both mechanically and thematically, for good and ill. What story exists on the page is theirs. Sorry, Jake Sully fans, he’s only going to show up sporadically to get mad at his sons for disobeying him and little else. Neytiri has even less to do. The rest of the time we’re largely stuck with these kids attempting to settle into their new lives among a new tribe of Na’vi who have adapted and taken to the sea of Pandora the way Neytiri’s tribe flourished in its forest. This, naturally, leads to all sorts of fish-out-of-water hijinx, both literally and figuratively. The boys, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) just want to fit in. Kiri begins to more fully realize the spiritual and physical connection she has with the planet itself. The youngest, Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), is also accounted for.

Dull and unengaging as most of their escapades are, though, it’s during this middle stretch that Cameron shows where his heart remains. As in real life, his passion is for the sea and its inhabitants. If James Cameron could grow gills and never rise to the surface again, he would likely have already done so. You’ll not find a more vividly rendered and realized environment in a movie than the seas of Pandora. It is a space that is at once familiar and yet wholly, rivetingly alien. He presents us a dreamy vista of a submerged paradise and intentionally lingers there for extended stretches. It’s entirely digital, and yet it feels as tangible and real as anything else on a movie screen this year. There are other talented special effects houses out there, but the work that WETA Digital has put forth for this movie is something an echelon above anything else I’ve seen in recent memory.

But sumptuous underwater escapades only retain their engagement for so long here. There reached a point where I stopped being able to tell which blue alien cat boy which. Kiri’s connection to the planet can only be so meaningful without some engagement deeper than “she just feels it.” There was certainly space to play here. At its core you could say this movie was, at least on paper, intended to be an examination of fatherhood and the ways that expectations of fatherly behavior are often at complete odds with how children, and sons especially, are failed by living up to those expectations. Fathers need to be more than just a stern voice and a “protector” (the latter of which Jake Sully fails fairly spectacularly at being).

This could have been especially interesting given what’s at stake for Quaritch. Despite becoming Neytiri’s new arrow quiver at the end of the first movie, he’s now back but in Na’vi form. Ostensibly implanted with his former self’s full batch of memories and even personality, New Quaritch must now wrestle with inhabiting the build and visage of the very thing he once tried to annihilate, all while reckoning with the (now grown) son he may or may not have even known he had. A tale of two fathers, both at odds with their brood, their life and their purpose.

All of it is largely ignored. We don’t even get a perfunctory moment where Quaritch finds himself even slightly contemplating the nature of his existence and why he must remain on the path his former self set in motion despite the fact that he’s only technically that person still.

At least the final hour of The Way of Water is an absolute banger and an explosive reminder that almost no one else does large-scale, big budget action like James Cameron. It’s cleanly executed, thrilling from moment to moment and brimming with the kind of kinetic spectacle that you’d expect from the man.

And in full honesty, it’s hard to be fully mad at a mega-budget movie that is such an unsubtle diatribe against destructive environmental practices, annoying dudebros who love to play the part of military tough guys and historical atrocities enacted by colonizers. No other director would likely dare to be so brazen in their messaging with so much money at stake. But when central themes are left unexplored and characters remain frustratingly underdeveloped, all the audacity in the world can’t keep your movie from bellyflopping onto the immaculately rendered ocean surface.

[tabloidtoc]

Us, May 3

You can buy a brand new copy of this issue without the mailing label for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Pregnant Meghan Markle: My Baby, My Way

Page 2: Red Carpet -- rufflemania -- Hollywood style stars are tier-ing it up in this flattering design with feminine flair -- Tracee Ellis Ross, Kaitlyn Dever, Margot Robbie, Logan Browning, Nicola Coughlan

Page 3: Lizzo, Maude Apatow, Lucy Boynton, Jessica Alba, Lily Collins

Page 4: Who Wore It Best? Anya Taylor-Joy vs. Isla Fisher vs. Regina King in Stuart Weitzman Nudist sandal

Page 6: Loose Talk -- Shonda Rhimes on the intense backlash she received over Rege-Jean Page's exit from Bridgerton, Kelly Ripa on her most embarrassing interview, Luke Bryan on his mother LeClaire's Instagram fame, Blake Shelton on The Voice's new coach Ariana Grande, Reese Witherspoon joking about wearing bottoms that aren't sweatpants

Page 8: Contents

Page 10: A Final Farewell to Prince Philip, his four children Prince Charles and Princess Anne and Prince Andrew and Prince Edward were among the loved ones who participated in the emotional ceremony, feuding brothers Prince Harry and Prince William (and his wife Duchess Kate) put their differences aside after the intimate service, due to Covid-19 protocols the grieving Queen Elizabeth stayed socially distant from the other 29 people who attended the funeral for her husband of 73 years

Page 11: ACM Awards 2021 -- Maren Morris teamed up with her husband Ryan Hurd and won Female Artist of the Year, Thomas Rhett won Male Artist of the Year, Carrie Underwood took the stage

Page 12: Hot Pics -- Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wore an orange coat during a visit to NYC, John Stamos plays a coach on the TV show Big Shot, Zach Braff goofed around on the set of Cheaper by the Dozen in L.A.

Page 13: Eva Longoria on her trampoline while aboard a yacht in Miami, Howie Mandel arrived to the set of America's Got Talent dressed as a bug in Pasadena

Page 14: Jon Hamm and his rescue dog Splash strolled around the neighborhood in L.A., Heidi Klum in all white in Pasadena, Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry take a stroll in L.A.

Page 15: Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes held hands after dinner at Il Segreto in L.A., Patrick Dempsey shot a scene for his show Devils in Rome

Page 16: Rachel Brosnahan in a blue dress and carrying a clear umbrella on the set of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in NYC, Lin-Manuel Miranda at the opening of a vaccination center for Broadway workers in Times Square, Trisha Yearwood feeds one of her rescue pups

Page 18: Gen Z Has Spoken -- these celebs are making the young kids proud -- Baggy Jeans -- Hailey Bieber, Tracee Ellis Ross, Bella Hadid

Page 19: Middle Parts -- Busy Philipps, Lizzo, Jennifer Lopez, Kourtney Kardashian, baguette bags -- Dua Lipa, Elsa Hosk, Irina Shayk, Kendall Jenner

Page 20: Seeing Double -- stars bear a striking resemblance to their famous counterparts -- Elizabeth Banks and Chelsea Handler, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Nina Dobrev, Betty Gilpin and Jodie Comer

Page 21: Rob Lowe and Ian Somerhalder, Jaime Pressly and Margot Robbie, Isla Fisher and Amy Adams, Rupert Grint and Ed Sheeran, Kyle Richards and Kacey Musgraves

Page 22: Clueless Crew -- stars are totally buggin' over Cher Horowitz's style in yellow plaid -- Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, Katie Holmes was rollin' with her homie beau Emilio Vitolo Jr. in NYC, Vanessa Hudgens, Dianna Agron

Page 23: Gabrielle Union

Page 24: Stars They're Not Like Us -- Jay Leno took one of his vintage automobiles out for a spin in L.A., Chrissy Teigen and John Legend took a selfie with a fan while grocery shopping in Beverly Hills, Kylie Jenner has custom vending machines

Page 25: Carrie Underwood in her massive walk-in closet, Denzel Washington signs autographs for fans in NYC, Megan Thee Stallion on a private plane, Drake and his bodyguard in Beverly Hills

Page 26: Stars They're Just Like Us -- Sarah Jessica Parker catches a yellow cab after working at her shoe store in NYC, Brad Paisley picked up five pizzas to go in Montecito

Page 27: Kelly Osbourne handed out goods at a drive-thru food distribution event at the Islamic Center of Southern California, HGTV's Egypt Sherrod transformed her closet into a meditation space in Atlanta, in between filming Law & Order: SVU's Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T take a selfie

Page 28: Hollywood Dads -- Scott Porter on parenting his two kids McCoy and Clover

Page 29: Jonathan Tucker on life with twins Hayes and India, parenthood is a lot tougher than Jovi Dufren imagined, Maksim Chmerkovskiy can't wait to show son Shai his work

Page 30: Love Lives -- Rihanna and A$AP Rocky are showing no signs of slowing down -- the pair enjoyed a night out in L.A. hotspot Delilah where they were holding hands and laughing and they're not hiding the fact that they're dating but they just don't want people in their business -- they're a good match and are each other's best friend

Page 31: Justin Bieber and Hailey Bieber may look like the picture-perfect couple, but Justin admits that their first year of marriage wasn't what he expected, saying it was really tough and there was just a lack of trust and he blamed the strain on his own personal struggles and said before he didn't have someone to love or someone to pour into but now, more than two years after exchanging vows with Hailey, he has that

* Kacey Musgraves' romance with Dr. Gerald Onuoha is giving her butterflies -- the pair are so happy they found each other and while Kacey, who split from her husband Ruston Kelly last summer, is trying not to get too ahead of herself, her connection to the Nashville-based doc is off the charts and it's got the potential to go a very long way

* Today's Savannah Guthrie is thankful to have husband Michael Feldman in her life, especially given the demands of her early morning work schedule

Page 32: Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker are getting serious -- all the details on their whirlwind romance

Page 33: Adapting to parenthood has been a breeze for Emma Stone and she's soaking in all the precious moments of being a mom for the first time -- she and husband Dave McCary welcomed their baby daughter in March and Emma is super protective and a very hands-on mom and Dave is also hands-on and helps with their daughter -- thanks to the little one, Emma's marriage with the comedian has also gotten stronger and having a baby has brought them closer in a way they never expected -- Emma is looking forward to getting back to work; she's taken this time off to embrace motherhood and her number one priority is to raise a healthy baby so that's what she's focused on right now

* Britney Spears is setting the record straight -- despite her ongoing conservatorship battle with her dad, Jamie Spears, she is doing totally fine, assuring fans that she's extremely happy and she has a beautiful home, beautiful children and she's taking a break right now because she's enjoying herself -- although the legal drama with her father is heating up, Britney is staying strong and she has this wonderful ability to see the positive even when the odds are against her

* Keeping Up With Us -- production for the Downton Abbey sequel is underway, Mossimo Giannulli is a free man, Chrissy Teigen returned to Twitter 23 days after announcing that she was leaving the platform, Vanessa Bryant remembered her late husband Kobe Bryant on what would have been their 20th wedding anniversary, Helen McCrory lost her battle with cancer at age 52 according to her husband Damian Lewis

Page 34: A Day in My Life -- Whitney Port

Page 35: Colton Underwood is ready to live his truth -- during an interview on Good Morning America, the former Bachelor came out as gay, saying he's run from himself for a long time and he came to terms with his sexuality earlier this year and he's the happiest and healthiest he's ever been -- now that he feels like he can finally breathe, Colton is excited for his next chapter, which fans will get to see on an upcoming reality show with Olympian Gus Kenworthy -- a huge weight has been lifted off of Colton's shoulders and he is looking forward to being his authentic self

Page 36: Moms Tell All -- Happy Mother's Day! From milestones and manners to rules and nanny-bans, celebs and insiders talk about raising kids in Hollywood

Page 37: Bindi Irwin says life at home with her daughter Grace Warrior has been positively blissful and her family with dad Chandler Powell is so full of love, adding that the newborn has already met some of the wildlife at the Australia Zoo where Bindi and Chandler live and work and of course she's seen some crocs and really lit up when she saw them -- while the Aussie conservationist is sad Grace won't get to meet her late dad Steve Irwin, Bindi's brother Robert Irwin and mom Terri Irwin have been by her side constantly and Robert is obsessed with Grace and has been helping out so much and her mom has been the biggest guiding light and she's already taught Bindi so much about being a mother, both in how she raised her and by showing her things day by day and Terri is quite the baby whisperer and she's so great a calming Grace down when she's crying -- first-time father Chandler is also a natural with Grace and he's been the most supportive and involved dad and together, he and Bindi make such a great team -- for now, Bindi, who stars with Chandler in Crikey! It's a Baby!, is hoping Grace will follow in her animal-activist footsteps, saying having three generations of strong women working as conservationists is a dream come true

* Jennifer Garner said teaching your kids is a lifelong job, and certainly values are something you have to show them -- Jennifer, who shares kids Violet, Seraphina and Samuel with ex Ben Affleck, is staying true to her word and has led by example when it comes to things like kindness and patience and she won't let anyone in the house to judge or speak ill of people, and she enforces the same wholesome, traditional values that she was raised with and the kids have been taught to be loving, hardworking and fair -- Jennifer has always taken a kids-come-first approach to parenting, and it shows as they bake together, enjoy movie nights, read books and have very active lives and it's a very healthy, happy household filled with laughter and love

Page 38: Gwen Stefani has her hands full with her sons Kingston, Zuma and Apollo with ex-husband Gavin Rossdale, but she wouldn't want it any other way -- Gwen's a tomboy, so having three boys wasn't daunting for her at all, plus she has fiance Blake Shelton by her side to pitch in with parenting duties and Gwen and the boys have a blast at Blake's ranch in Oklahoma where they enjoy riding their ATVs, and they play baseball and football -- it's not all fun and games, though because Gwen is big on boundaries and manners and she doesn't want to raise Hollywood brats and it's important to her that her sons be gentlemen

* Meghan Markle's pregnancy with Archie was no walk in the park, as she revealed during her bombshell TV interview with husband Prince Harry, the couple had concerns over whether or not the royal family would provide security for their son and claimed there were conversations about his skin color -- but this time around, as Meghan and Harry gear up for baby No. 2 at home in L.A., she's doing everything her way, without the royals and Meghan and Harry feel blessed that they're able to raise their daughter in the U.S. and can live by their own rules and make the decisions they feel are best for their children; having independence is the most important thing for Meghan and she's got free rein to be exactly the kind of mom she wants to be -- her parenting style is really like most mothers out there, and she's been craving pasta and doing yoga two times a day as her due date nears and she keeps a lot of art supplies out to foster creativity and healthy snacks around and she's a devoted mom and wants the best for her kids

Page 39: Kate Hudson has a lot on her plate, so the mom of three, who shares son Ryder with former husband Chris Robinson and son Bingham with ex Matt Bellamy and daughter Rani with boyfriend Danny Fujikawa, knows when to put her foot down as things can get a little overwhelming at times for Kate, but when she says no, it absolutely means no, and the kids respect her very much because of that

* Gigi Hadid, who shares daughter Khai with boyfriend Zayn Malik, wants to spend every waking moment with her precious little girl -- Gigi could easily afford to employ a team of nannies but chooses not to and she prefers to do everything herself and besides, she can't bear to be away from Khai for more than a few hours

* Candace Cameron Bure's three grown kids are flying the coop, but she's still super involved in their lives, despite slowly becoming an empty nester -- the mom of Natasha, Lev, and Maksim with former hockey player Valeri Bure says it's been a very transitional time and she's been trying to help them make decisions they feel good about and it's challenging, but they're figuring it out

Page 40: Oh, Baby! Meghan Markle's due date is just around the corner, and here are all the details

* Bump Brigade -- Halsey, Gal Gadot, Shawn Johnson East

Page 42: 10 Years of the Cambridges -- a look back at Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton's solid marriage for their anniversary

Page 44: Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez: What Really Happened -- cheating and lies? The truth behind J.Lo's split from fiance A-Rod

Page 45: Friendliest Exes -- these former couples managed to stay close after going their separate ways -- Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux, Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz

Page 48: Gifts for Mother's Day

Page 54: Entertainment -- Ben Barnes on Shadow and Bone

Page 58: Fashion Police -- the most daring Oscars looks -- Bjork, Whoopi Goldberg, Charlize Theron

Page 59: Rachel Weisz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Gaga

Page 60: 25 Things You Don't Know About Me -- Julia Michaels

[ilovesamheughan]

Herself is fun like no other! 😂

Diana Gabaldon's Foreword to Clanlands Reveals Behind-the-Scenes Stories from the Outlander Set

Here's your first look at the introduction to Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish's new book.

BY DIANA GABALDON

NOV 3, 2020

outlander season 2 2016ED MILLER / STARZ

Well, in The Beginning . . . there was a man in a kilt.

I’ve always figured that if there’s something you want to do, you should start doing it, and if it’s the right thing, the universe kind of comes out to meet you. So, I started writing a novel about a man in a kilt, and the universe brought me a television show.

I’ve been indirectly responsible for a lot of strange things since I wrote Outlander – from:

. . . five seasons (so far) of a hit TV series

. . . the names of dozens of purebred dogs, racehorses and housing developments

. . . thousands of babies named Brianna or Jamie (no one has ever, to my knowledge, named a child ‘Murtagh’, which is puzzling . . .)

. . . Lord John Grey’s Tea

. . . symphonic band compositions

. . . a musical

. . . a Scottish woolen mill specialising in tartan

. . . a marvelous pair of cookbooks

. . . three million knitted cowls

. . . dozens of female fans who lower their trousers at book signings to show me ‘Da mi basia mille’ tattooed on their tailbones (as my husband remarked to me, ‘Well, how many people can say,“Kiss my ass” in classical Latin?’)

. . . a 72% increase in Scottish tourism (as Visit Scotland was kind enough to tell me), and

. . . an excellent whisky called ‘Sassenach’

But this book may be one of the strangest, and definitely one of the best!

I’m deeply honoured that Sam and Graham have asked me to write the foreword to one of the most interesting, unusual (to put it mildly . . .) and hilarious books I’ve read in a long time. I’m not quite sure what you’d call it, but then I’m used to not being able to describe my own books in twenty-five words or less, so this is probably not a problem.

To start with, it’s a buddy book. Two good friends banter (and bicker) their way across the Scottish Highlands, risking life and limb in that casual way that makes men attractive. Why? Well, because they’re both Scottish and they have both been a large part of Outlander (not just the television show, but the whole weird phenomenon), have realised that they are Scottish (wearing a kilt every day for two years will do that to you), and want to find out where their heritage came from and what being Scottish actually means (aside from being born liking whisky)

It’s also a road book. (Think Jack Kerouac, but with fewer drugs, more paragraphs and no sex. Well, almost no sex . . .).

Our two friends are in fact making a television series about several historical locations in the Highlands. Accompanied by a small film crew – including a talented makeup artist and a drone operator – they visit spectacular historical locations in the Scottish Highlands to learn the true history of some of the best-known massacres, fights, betrayals, beheadings, and other typically Scottish recreational activities. This is the story of that journey, accomplished via an aged Fiat camper van, tandem bike, kayak and any number of other improbable modes of transport that only make sense to people suffering from testosterone poisoning.

And on their way, they talk. Not only to each other, but to themselves. In some of its phases, the book is a twin memoir. Each man recalls his life as an actor – in bits – because every actor (like every writer) pretty much makes it up as they go along. Which means a lot of the stories are of the kind that are only funny to the protagonists with twenty years’ perspective, but are endlessly entertaining to the spectators.

These reminiscences include a good many stories from the Outlander set, as well. I’m only on set myself intermittently, but I do recall the day in Season Two when Sam’s horse – which he was preparing to mount – decided to take its mother’s advice and relieve itself before setting out (there’s reason why most costumes are made in multiples). And another occasion during Season Two wherein Graham was required to ride a mechanical horse (as the director said to me, ‘It looks like shit, but you won’t be able to actually see it on film’)

The mechanical horse was carried on the back of a truck, followed by another truck with a camera, and Graham was supposed to leap into the mechanical horse’s saddle while moving (supposedly jump-ing from another horse). This being television, they filmed the scene many, many times to ensure enough footage to get the effect they were after. When they finally stopped, Graham staggered downhill from the road where they’d been doing this, pausing by me and Anne Kenney (brilliant writer of the other episode in that block of filming) to say, ‘I’ve just been having a conversation with my balls. They said, “We’d really rather you didn’t do that again”’. And staggered on, muttering, ‘I knew I should have worn a cup this morning . . .’.

And finally, there’s the actual history of the ‘clan lands’, woven through this tale of a journey. The travelers reach the most interesting/famous/relevant Highland locations, where they do learn what their history and heritage are, assisted by some of the most colorful inhabitants of those places.

So, you’re actually getting four books in one! (A real bargain . . .).

But the most important part of this book is the friendship between its authors, that colours and illuminates every page.

I was both intrigued and immensely entertained by the story, but also touched on a personal level. One of the most unexpected aspects of the whole ‘Outlander phenomenon’ is the amazing way in which it seems to draw people together. People read the books and watch the show – and they want to talk about it. So, they form fan groups and book clubs and Facebook forums, and deep, lasting friendships, all because of a shared love of a story.

I will always recall one woman who brought me a book at a signing, who told me that she lived alone, had been alone for many years, seldom got out and had no family – but that she’d become attracted to the story, found others who felt likewise, and who invited her to go with them to book-signings, premieres and conventions. ‘Now I have friends!’, she said. She cried, and so did I.

I hope you’ll feel that sense of friendship in these pages.

A final word, since this book is all about returning to one’s roots: Some years ago, one of my novels won the Corine International Prize for Fiction, and I was invited to go to Germany to accept the award. This was rather a Big Deal for the German publisher, and they took advantage of my presence to have me interviewed by the entire German press corps; newspapers, magazines, radio, television, literary journals, you name it. By the end of the week I was sleep deprived and a bit glazed over when I met a nice gentleman from one of the literary journals.

Delightful man, he went on at great (and flattering) length about the books. He loved my narrative drive, my characters were tremendous, my imagery transcendent!

So I’m sitting there in a pleasant daze, thinking, ‘Yes, yes, go on . . .’, when he suddenly said, ‘There is just one thing I wonder: can you explain to me, what is the appeal of a man in a kilt?’.

Well, had I been totally conscious, I might not have said it (then again . . .). Anyway, I looked at him for a moment and said, ‘Well . . .I suppose it’s the idea that you could be up against a wall with him in a moment.’

<ahem>

A few weeks later, home again in Arizona, I get a packet of interview clippings from the German publisher, and on the top is the interview from that journal. The publisher had attached a Post-it note, saying, ‘I don’t know what you said to this man, but I think he is in love with you!’.

A man in a kilt. A very powerful and compelling image, yes . . . And now you have two of them . . .

Pour yourself a good dram, open the covers and enjoy yourself!

Slàinte mhath!

Diana Gabaldon

Scottsdale, Arizona

August, 2020

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + The Divine Christmas Annual #1

Spoilers, obv.

There's a backbone of Specials which I consider essential to WicDiv's plot. This is one of the main reasons we've ended up putting the Specials trade into the schedule before the last trade in the series rather than after it – as fractally as WicDiv is structured, this is information you should know before the end rather than after it.

They also work off a weird time-switched aspect – so they're read at the time of publication (for single readers) and also at the latter point in the story (for trade readers). In other words, they're revealing different information and to different import depending on whether you read them as they're released or as they're collected.

Which is an interesting challenge.

The Christmas Annual is the first Special which doesn't work like this. Looking at the schedule, we thought it healthier to add an extra month to the gap between arcs. The next arc is six issues, as is the one after that. We decided to add another special, and then saw what would be fun to do.

This was a boon for me. The problem is never not having enough material, y'know? The difference between something I'd like to do and something that is essential I do is narrow. Jamie had the idea of going back to periods we skipped and showing some of their key moments. I initially kicked against it a little, but when the thing I was trying proved too hard to make work, it seemed the simplest thing to do for me, and seemed a cute gift to the fans in a year that's been pretty fucking brutal.

(That we rarely get happier than bittersweet speaks to me, really. All happiness is tinged with sadness. “I love you” is married to “and one day we will all be dead”.)

But it was also a fun time. We got a gang of our favourite people together and did a bunch of short stories. Most of all, I got to write a bunch of people I haven't written for a while. I've missed them.

How were the stories chosen? Rapidly! The main limitation was not choosing anything which would spoil anything in Imperial Phase: Part Two. The Specials are designed to be spoiler-free for any trade which isn't released when it's released. We also wanted to show a bunch of kissing and similar social activities, as for a book which has as much emotional and sexual stuff driving the characters, there's relatively little on panel.

I wrote 'em, showed them to the gang, and then we worked out who we could ask to draw them. I was expecting I would remove several of them, but they all ended up going in, with tweaks in some cases in the story's focus. In terms of the characters selected, I definitely paid attention to characters who had relatively little screen time – so, Lucifer, Inanna and Tara.

Jamie's Cover

Using a bought Photoshop filter, this actually a lot more work than Jamie was expecting. It is wonderful though. It is to my eternal regret we never actually arranged it as a Christmas Merchandise thing. This is a delight to me. Really, we're aware that Jamie doesn't do many playful covers, so this was an opportunity we grasped with both hands. For all the iconic drama, there's also a playfulness to WicDiv that doesn't always show up on the covers.

Kris Anka's Cover

It's a Christmas Annual in the mode of a British Annual – in that these are annuals released at Christmas rather than having Christmas as a major theme per se. Anyway, despite all that, Inanna and Baal in hot make-out beneath the mistletoe is an absolute joy. I am pleased we get to do this.

IFC

The main editorial note to Designer Sergio was “Tackier! Tackier!”

The photo was taken in North London cocktail bar “Every Cloud.” Jamie is probably drinking some manner of Old Fashioned. I think I'm drinking some kind of Buttered Rum-containing cocktail. Chrissy draped the only decorations she could find over our heads.

1-6

Kris Anka! Jen Bartel helped out on inks on this as well, due to time constraints. Kris is currently on a Marvel Exclusive, so we had to get permission to do this story. Marvel said yes, so thanks to them enormously.

Yes, if you examine the timeline, Valhalla was certainly erected quickly. And yes, “Erected quickly” is a major theme in this story.

It's one of the lighter stories in the issue – obviously delineating what we know about Baal to this moment says a lot, and the same for Inanna.

I tried to write the scripts to the artists, but I also was interested in leaving it open for them to express things in their own ways. Generally speaking, I let the artists choose how to show the characters in a sex scene, as I want to see their own interpretation. It was a delight to see Kris go as far as he did here.

We did wonder whether we'd be okay with showing hard cocks. We're told that hard cocks are fine, but ejaculation is the problematic limit. I'm glad it's not an issue. This is a hot scene, but it's primarily a romantic one.

I love what Matt is doing with the panel on page 5 – the pinks and purples of Inanna here.

Baals expression on the first panel is very funny, as is the confidence in panel 3 of it.

7-8-9-10

There's seven stories, but several were just two pages. We realised the best way to do it would be to group the shorter of the long ones with the short ones so all collaborators get 5-6 pages each. This makes it much easier with trade royalties down the line, and organising 5 artists (plus colourists and flatters) is a significantly easier one than organising 7 (and their associated collaborators).

This is the first of the stories coloured by Tamra Bonvillain. I've never worked with Tamra before, but we loved her work, approached her, and she said yes. Thanks for joining us on this journey.

The artist here is Rachael Stott, who is probably best known for her Doctor Who work, but is about to do Motherland for Vertigo with Si Spurrier, which looks excellent.

There was quite a lot of careful balloon work here, to try and guide the eye and provide the necessary exposition (or really, reminders – all this is building upon or just showing events that have been alluded to earlier.) The eye-guiding is key – for example, due to a minor quirk of the first two panels, the Shard is hidden by the column which means that the view in the second panel feels instantly wrong. We end up disguising the shard with the dialogue so it's far less noticeable.

This event is alluded to by Lucifer in issue 3 of WicDiv.

The penthouse is the one we see in issue 1, which I presume is rented by the Pantheon for their purposes.

Writing Lucifer after all this time was a pleasure. Well, pleasure may be the wrong word. She's herself, and she's always very able to show bits of herself. Lucifer says things that no one else in the cast does, which is obviously one of her huge problems.

Yes, the first panel of page 9 did make me think of an OBJECTION! style WicDiv Phoenix-Wright-esque game.

The panel is also a place where we really had to do the work to put this in continuity – the obvious assumption would be that Baal is pissed off about Lucifer sleeping with Sakhmet, which is only really a minor cause of WTF-ness.

That Lucifer explicitly fucked with Baal and Inanna was hinted at early in WicDiv and made explicit in WicDiv 23. Inanna didn't consider the relationship exclusive, as he doesn't see why anyone would automatically assume a romantic relationship is exclusive. Inanna's great weakness is not always realising that everyone is like him.

The “You're a bad person” ties off why Lucifer and Sakhmet never slept together many times, also mentioned in issue 3. Sakhmet, I suspect, just doesn't like the complications and drama. She is deeply averse to complications.

The last three panels are classic comedy steady-angle shots. That the sprinklers aren't visible led to adding an alarm sound at lettering, to avoid the possible assumption that Baal made it rain indoors or something.

Reading this I find myself thinking about Lucifer in the Special versus Lucifer in the Annual – in the sense that we're seeing her much more humanly, which is leaning into what makes her comic (and awful). The last three panels are not ones you could imagine in The Faust Act, as seen through Laura's star eyes. Nice fucked off expression in the last panel from Rachael.

11-12-13-14-15

Chynna Clugston Flores is just one of my indie comic crushes. Blue Monday is basically one of those key links between 90s and 00s comics. Bryan Lee O'Malley pitched Scott Pilgrim as Blue Monday meets Dragon Ball Z. We pitched Phonogram and Blue Monday meets Hellblazer. She's a wonder.

As such, writing for her was a dream, and I was explicitly writing for her. While this is much more rigid in terms of panel shapes than Chynna would write for herself (the steady angle on the two people in the front seat is very much me trying to write a sort of claustrophobic talking heads kind of set-up) but I'm really exploring a very Chynna type place.

I've been thinking of Dionysus as a “Umar” for a while. When thinking up Dio, the image of writer Umar Ditta leading the Thought Bubble dancefloor was definitely in my mind, and I thought it'd be fun if they share a name, despite being very different dudes. (Not least that Umar could bench Dionysus now.) I asked Umar, and he said yes, so Umar he is. His first comic Untethered has just come out, and is well worth your attention.

This is the second sort of story in the special. One is just showing some key things which impacted the rest of the book, which were usually sexy funtimes. The other was showing some key relationships in the pre-pantheon lives. We've said that Dio was a friend of Baph and Morrigan, but never actually showed what that meant. It was good to get it here.

For those studying the timeline, this is the same day as Hazel become Amaterasu. It would also be the same day Dio takes a photo of Morrigan, and Cameron sits in the tunnel waiting for Morrigan. Busy day!

If I call out my fave Chynna moments, we're going to be here forever. Cameron with his sign on the rain is a joy. Honestly, this is such an odd thing – it makes me imagine what a Blue Monday set in the Midlands would be like.

There was a panic when page 12 arrived and I thought that Chynna had (for some reason) reversed all the seating orders in the car and had the car riding on the wrong side of the road. This is obviously a disaster, because the only way this story works is the characters' speaking order is based upon where they're sitting. But then we realised that the page had been flipped in the dropbox for some reason. Phew.

The quote is from Young Avengers 13, which came out a week or two before this arrived. Yes, I know.

(The question who wrote YA13 in this universe, when Kieron Gillen's career ended with Phonogram: Rue Britannia, is open.)

Page 13 was designed to be a mood break of the lived-in autobio, and Chynna really goes for it, in terms of the leaves and the panel breaking. Not using techniques in the whole piece makes them especially meaningful when they turn up. Tamra also did wonders in the colouring, going for the spooky autumnal reds, teals and purples.

(Tamra and Matt basically split the issue near 50:50.)

This is definitely a more Morrigan way of publicising gigs rather than standing outside shitty clubs and passing out flyers.

The WHAT!? panel is everything I could have hoped for.

The “Oh god. He puns. Morrigan fucked a punner. A wet punner's in my car.” immediately made me feel that I'm trying to channel a Warren Ellis character.

The off-panel MOTHERFUCKER is also a delight.

16-17-18

Emma's one of my favourite people, but I haven't worked with her since a B-side in the second issue of Phonogram: The Singles Club, with a Kate Bush short story. (EDIT: Plus in the Young Avengers Afterparty, which I’d blanked. This is the second time that’s happened to an artist from that. Which, given the time period I was writing that, is unsurprising). So it's lovely to get back with her, and she does some of my favourite work in the Special. Do go and have a look at her Breaks, which she draws and co-writes.

When Tara has had so little panel time, trying to work out how to approach her is key – and Emma manages to find a place which is clearly her, but also informed by Tula's iconic take. Matt also brings us much of those choices to the page in the colours.

It's useful, as this story almost acts as a prequel to issue 13. It's essentially the first time Tara pitches what she wants to do to Ananke, a moment which is at least alluded to in 13.

I wrote the story originally as two pages – specifically, the last two pages. I talked about it with Editorial Assistant Katie, and she noted it's a shame we never actually see Tara happy ever. Which struck me as true, and a problem – at least in part this Special is about showing different sorts and times of happiness. So I added the first page, which is my best pitch for Tara at her most positive. This is the unspoken stuff that's under the surface in issue 13, and Tara talking about the drive is one of her main bits of happiness. I talk about how the cast are all me in different ways? Tara definitely includes the part of me which never feels better than after having written something I think is good. I've certainly done the “if get a disease which means I have six months to live, have I got time to finish writing WicDiv?” maths.

Much like issue 13, I wrote considerably more captions than are used on the first page. You write it like a diary entry and then edit to the core.

I always say that an artist can make the script their own, and that I try to write to the minimum number of panels. Of all the artists in the script, Emma's the one who added most panels. This looks great, and is very much a part of her style.

Quick call-out to Clayton in the second panel of page 17: that tiny string of notes positioned either side of those captions is beyond perfect.

The last page is all kinds of sad. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm pleased with how the masks work on the page.

19-20

Second Rachael story. She's an enormous Lucifer fan, so was very excited to do this.

This is as simple as the stories get, in terms of a tiny yet meaningful continuity insert. This was there already, but I felt underlining it and reminding people of it at this point in the narrative is meaningful for obvious reasons.

(I had things I wanted to do in Imperial Phase II which I never found space for – or when I did find space, felt off and wrong.)

Writing Laura captions again after all this time was definitely a thing which took a while to find again. But I liked it.

(Spangly New Thing has captions to the fore again, for various reasons, so them as a formalist element is certainly on my mind.)

21-22-23-24-25-26

This absolutely was formative Indie Crush mode. Carla Speed McNeil's Finder was one of my initial loves when I came into comics in the early 00s. It's just astounding stuff. I'd suggest starting with Mystery Story, I suspect, but there's two big omnibuses of it, and I'd recommend just getting them. She's continuing doing other Finder stories alongside her work elsewhere.

It was originally 5 pages, but Carla suggested an extra page. I'd deliberately left an extra page space in the issue, in case anyone wanted more space... and Carla grabbed it. Good work.

When writing this, I was thinking of Carla's storytelling... but I also realised that a part of Carla's storytelling is to warp and make her own. Seeing what she would do with my script was a big part. I wanted the Carla magic applied, and she did – the extra page is a big part of that.

Notice how Tamra uses the palettes to distinguish the two different settings. Eleanor in the dark and Hazel in the light seems pretty useful, right?

That Lucifer and Amaterasu were friends and knew each other were one of the elements of the background I never had a chance to really run with, for obvious reasons. In the same way as I wanted to do some Dio/Baph pre-scenes, doing a Lucifer/Amaterasu: The Early Years appealed.

H's fanart was mentioned in issue 15, I believe.

As much as it's a dual story, it's really more about Lucifer. Amaterasu may not even appear to really aware of how much she's been slighted in the story. Or maybe she is? It is Eleanor's perspective. This is also the first dialogue we've ever had as Eleanor, rather than Lucifer reporting Eleanor. The resentment and anger is so much cleaner, the saying the unsayable aspect with less glitter.

Hazel is right. Eleanor is mean.

Adding a page appealed for various reasons, but at least part of it was that it's the only in-story chance to see a Lucifer performance. There was an alternate cover in the first arc, but it's not the same – though it's probably the same performance. We've talked about her Brixton performances before, and this is there. This would be a gig that Laura saw, as previously referenced.

The last page (and final panel of page 5) is a take on a scene that's already on canon – specifically, the story as reported in the WicDiv Magazine Special.

The last-minute panic of the issue was Jamie realising we'd forgotten to have Amaterasu’s facepaint on her in the final panel, so that was a quick patch from Tamra. Phew.

The “I'm sorry” panel is A+.

As an example of the Carla Speed McNeil of it all, the last montage of shots is her addition, which brings a visual closure to the sequence.

27-28

Back with Emma Viceli, with a missing scene after issue 8. The actual core details were alluded to in issue 10, but this actually takes us there. If you remember, at this point Inanna and Baal are no longer in any way romantically involved, but fucking the best friend of someone you were with is almost always drama. The purple and red colouring seems to make that be the subtext there.

We checked Laura's age here repeatedly, to ensure she was 18 in these images. It would be actively illegal if we messed up.

Clearly my fave thing is the call back to issue 4's PLAY IT COOL gag.

This issue's structure came after all the art started coming in. It's a mix-tape curation – in terms of what's the best order to take people on a journey. Things like Kris' story being first seemed obvious – his was the alternative cover after all, featuring Inanna and Baal, which makes it a de facto lead story. That this story is furthest along in the timeline made it a suitable end, plus that we open with Inanna/Baal. The real thing is that it's a story which ends with something resembling a concluding beat. “This is going to be complicated” feels like something that ends an issue in the way that many of the stories don't. I suspect the only other credible option was Chynna's story, with Dio/Baph riding off down a motorway. What feels like it could be an ending? What feels like Closure?

IBC

The titles were all added in the last minute, when we realised the best way to actually discern which story was which for the credits was to actually give them a title.  

SUMER LOVING was miscorrected to SUMMER LOVING at every stage of production, and had to be changed back every time. There is no love for Sumerian humour in the modern comic market place.

Anyway – off for the season now. The Imperial Phase II trade drops in January, followed by The Wicked + The Divine 1923 special in February and the new arc in March.

Thanks for reading.

[aswithasunbeam]

Finding Forgiveness, Chapter 6

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: Eliza Hamilton can't keep punishing her husband forever. If she didn't intend to leave him, she would need to find a way to forgive him. But how? The Reynolds Pamphlet aftermath

Eliza and Hamilton finally have that big fight they’ve been avoiding...

June 1798

“Honey?” Eliza tapped on the office door lightly and peered through the open sliver into the room. Hamilton appeared to be absent, so she pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside. She needed more paper to finish her correspondence on behalf of the Widow’s society, and he always kept some in his desk drawer.

The worn drawer slid open with a familiar squeak as she pulled out a small stack of blank sheets. She shook her head as she looked at her husband’s messy desk, littered with papers, old quills and an empty ink pot. One letter buried in the mayhem looked like it had been folded and addressed, so she reached out to pluck it from the stack, intending to give it to the maid for the post. She didn’t dare touch the other papers, but she did place the worn quills into their holder and made a mental note to have water sent in so Hamilton could mix more ink.

The topmost letter on his desk caught her eye just as she was turning to leave, the word ‘Military,’ capitalized in the first sentence of the second paragraph, arresting her attention. She scanned the letter, eyes dropping to an italicized portion further down, dread growing in her stomach. “You intimate a desire to be informed what would be my part in such an event as to entering into military service. I have no scruple about opening myself to you on this point. If I am invited to a station in which the service I may render may be proportioned to the sacrifice I am to make—I shall be willing to go into the army.”1

She felt ill as the realization came over her: he’d lied to her. Again. Those pretty words he’d said in the foyer barely a month ago about how important she and the children were to him had meant nothing. He was going back to public service.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” She jumped at the sound of her husband’s voice, looking over at him with wide, startled eyes. He laughed gently. “I’m sorry, did I startle you?”

She nodded, heart racing and mind churning.

He leaned easily against the doorjamb. “I know you need to help look after your father, but it’s going to be hard with you gone. Alex and Jamie were just about to reenact the tragedy of Cain and Abel over a dish of strawberries. Where ever did they get such a sweet tooth?” He asked the question with a knowing smirk.

The comment was an open invitation to tease him about his own sweet tooth. Not five minutes ago, she would have done so in good humor; now she can barely look at him. He seemed to sense the change.

“Betsey? Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she nodded vaguely. She couldn’t confront him right now. Her throat felt tight and her eyes were watering. If she tried to speak, she’d burst into tears.

“You’re sure?” Hamilton looked unconvinced, and not a little concerned.

She hesitated, cleared her throat to avoid any quavering, and amended, “Actually, I’m suddenly feeling a little under the weather. Perhaps I’ll go lie down a bit before the party.”

His expression softened with sympathy. “Of course, sweetheart. Go take a rest.”

She nodded again, pushing by him to get out of the room. Mounting the stairs with haste, she shut herself into her bedroom and leaned back against the door. Perhaps she was overreacting, she considered. He had told her that he would reconsider his position on public office if war between France and America should come. Wasn’t that all the letter had said?

The sting of betrayal remained deep in her breast. He hadn’t talked to her about joining the army again. He hadn’t even mentioned he was considering it. His actions felt deceitful and underhanded.

The peace she had found over the past weeks, ever since he’d spoken those blessed words about choosing their family over his public life, washed away under a new wave of hurt and pain. It was silly, perhaps, to place so much meaning on that one conversation, but she had. For the first time in so many months, she’d felt as if she recognized her husband again.

She placed her blank pages on her dressing table and sighed. Rooting around in one of the drawers for a quill and some ink, she decided to continue her correspondence. Those poor women and their babe’s shouldn’t suffer because of her emotional turmoil, she told herself firmly. She found the items shoved towards the back; she needed them in here only on the rare occasion she wanted to jot down a list before bed.

Writing calmed her.

She was glad she hadn’t tried to bring up the letter downstairs; she needed time gather her thoughts and place them in perspective. They would need to talk, calmly and rationally, about what a return to public life would mean for them. Tonight, after the party, she would sit him down and they would discuss it.

~*~

Eliza laughed politely as Nicholas Fish, one her husband’s oldest and dearest friends, regaled her with an amusing tale. In the interest of fostering conversation, she’d been seat across and several seats down from her husband. She took a bite of the chicken from her plate and glanced down the table at Hamilton.

His shoulders looked tense and his eyes seemed deliberately trained on his meal. She didn’t recognize the man seated beside him. The man, whoever he was, gestured wildly as he spoke, his fork swirling through the air, dangerously close to the people seated on either side of him. His dazed expression and slightly manic smile signaled to Eliza that he’d partaken of too much drink.

John Church was seated on the other side of her husband, and he caught her eye as she was taking in the situation. He, too, looked tense and uncomfortable. She gave him a quizzical look. He darted his eye towards the unknown man and shook his head once.

“Poor Ham looks like he’s having a tough time of it,” Fish noted beside her.

“Who is that man sitting next to him?” she asked.

Fish frowned. “I’m not sure. Some distant relation of Jay’s, I believe, though I’ve never met him before. He certainly doesn’t seem to be making much of an impression.”

The man beside her husband raised his voice suddenly, his words noticeably slurred. “The bastards! We ought to take ‘em all out one by one!”

Hamilton replied softly, so she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“I don’t care who hears me,” the man shouted back at him. “Why? You one of ‘em?”

The person seated on the other side of the man said something else to him. His eyes widened and his volume lowered once more. Her husband’s face was flushed as he renewed his study of his dinner plate.

The meal past without further incident, and the party retired to the front room for music and dancing. Eliza paced over to the open window for a breath of air in the already warm room. The violins tuned up in the corner as couples took their places.

“Well, that was interesting.”

She looked around at Hamilton, who was now standing behind her. “What happened?”

“The only thing worse than having a political discussion over a meal is having a political discussion with someone who has clearly had more than their fair share of wine.”

She gave him a half smile.

“Would you like to dance?”

“Perhaps later, to a slower song,” she declined, hardly in the mood for the spritly dance that was to open the night.

“Are you still feeling unwell?” His brow wrinkled in concern and he reached a hand towards her cheek.

She leaned back away from him. “I’m fine.”

“My dear brother,” Angelica called, approaching with Church fast on her heels. “Will you dance with me? My husband refuses to indulge me.”

Hamilton smiled as he turned to face her sister. His eyes lingered for a moment on Angelica’s fashionable, low-cut dress. “With pleasure, my dear sister.”

A flash of unreasonable jealousy shot through her as she glanced down at the navy blue dress he’d so complimented when she’d worn it to the theater back in March. Hamilton and Angelica had similarly gregarious and flirtatious personalities. They’d been playful with each other ever since they first met, and it had never once bothered her. She trusted them both too much to be concerned. But watching her husband escort her sister to the dance floor, his hand at her waist, she felt a poisonous worm of jealousy wriggling in the back of her mind.

She smiled tightly at Church, still standing silently beside her. Turning her face back to the window, she opened her fan and waved at her face perfunctorily. She’d never much cared for these bright, loud parties.

“Would you care to dance, Mrs. Hamilton?” Nicholas Fish asked several minutes later before the next song began. He held out a hand to her hopefully. She glanced out at the dance floor, where her husband was still speaking quietly to Angelica, smiling widely at whatever clever retort her sister had made.

“You wouldn’t prefer an eligible young woman, Mr. Fish?” Still a bachelor at forty, she wondered if the sweet man would ever settle down. There was little hope of it if he kept dancing with married women at parties.

“I’d be quite content to dance with the loveliest lady in the room, ma’am,” he replied.

“If you’re going to flatter me, sir, at least make it believable,” she scolded, though she softened the comment with a smile.

“Hardly mere flattery, I assure you. Your kind heart and generous spirit radiate from you like a beacon. I’m quite sure your husband would agree.” The last sentence was spoken with a kind of finality, as if her husband’s agreement were all the proof any assertion required to make it true. Knowing Fish, he probably believed that.

She shook her head at the overt attempt to charm her, but she took his hand. When she took her place in line, Hamilton met her eye and smiled, his whole face lighting up at the sight of her. She smiled back at him, some of her bitterness towards him easing at his expression of pure delight. She turned her attention to Fish as the music began.

She found herself enjoying the evening after that. She danced merrily with Fish, then once with Church, and finally once with her husband. Hamilton twirled her around too many times at a key moment in the dance, throwing off the steps, and when she’d bumped into him as a result he had pressed a playful kiss to her nose before twirling her back to the proper place. She swatted at him even as she grinned adoringly.

“You did that on purpose,” she charged.

He grinned. “Of course I did. I can’t resist you, especially not in that dress.”

Everything was going wonderfully, until the end of the night.

The unknown relation of Jay’s lurched drunkenly towards their group when they’d sat to rest and have a companionable drink. The companion who’d sat beside him at dinner was tugging at his sleeve and whispering quietly, but the man shrugged him off. “We’ve got to actually do something,” he stated, apropos of nothing, as he came to a stop in front of her husband.

“Sir, I think it’s time you retired,” Hamilton replied calmly.

“No, no, we’ve got to do something. Those tri-colored bastards just…just get away with everything! Robbery, murder. Look at…look at poor Jemmy Jones!”

Fish looked incredibly uncomfortable at the reference. James Jones had been insulted by Brockholst Livingston in the republican Argus along with Fish, but where Fish had chosen to pointedly ignore the insult, Jones had flown into a passion, attacked Livingston with a cane, tweaked his nose, and ended up dying in a duel as a result.2 The duel had been a mere two weeks previous, making the reference in even poorer taste.

“Sir,” Hamilton tried to interrupt once more. His jaw muscle was bunched in a way that told her he was trying to reign in his temper. The man refused to be silenced.

“We can’t just let them get away with it! And you,” he pointed at Hamilton, “You should be leading us! If I were you, I’d be at the capital. Not off…off philandering about with pretty whores—”

“That’s quite enough,” Church roared, jumping from his seat and taking the man by the arm. Hamilton was on his feet as well.

Humiliation burned through her; she pressed a hand to her forehead as if to cover her face. Fear mixed in strongly as well. Was Hamilton about to get into a duel? Would he, too, be a victim of the dangerous political polarization gripping the nation?

Angelica wrapped an arm around her as the men stalked off. “My poor, dear love,” her sister whispered. “It’ll be all right.”

She half wanted to snap at her sister to take her hand off her shoulders. A deeper, younger part of her wanted to crawl into her big sister’s arms and weep. Drawing in a steadying breath, she looked over at Angelica and announced, “I’m leaving.”

“I’ll get Hamilton,” Angelica offered, already moving to stand.

“No,” she stopped her. “No. I’m leaving.”

She stood, walked purposefully towards the door, and ordered their coach be brought around. When it arrived, she told the driver to take her home, and curled up in the corner as the carriage clattered away on the rough road. Let him play politics to his heart’s content, she thought darkly, to his death if that’s what he wished.

She didn’t need him.

~*~

The front door of their townhouse slammed shut nearly an hour later. Eliza started in her seat, looking away from the dying fire to the doorway where her husband now stood, face red and livid with anger. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so furious, at least not with her.  

“What were you thinking?” he demanded, voice icy. “You just left me there. And you took the carriage. I had to ask Church to bring me home. Do you know how embarrassing that was?”

A slightly hysterical laugh burst out of her. She turned her gaze back to the fire.

He took a step into the room. “Why are you laughing?”

She ignored him.

His fist pounded into the wall and she jumped again. “For God’s sake, Eliza, we’re going in circles! We can’t keep doing this!” She could count on one hand the number of times he’d raised his voice at her like that. Watching him warily, she saw him rest his head on his fist, leaning heavily against the wall and breathing hard. He added, in almost a whisper, “I can’t keep doing this.”

“You’re joining the army.” She stated the fact flatly. To anyone else, it would have seemed a non-sequitur, but she knew he understood by how fast his head whipped around to face her again.

“You read my letter.”

“You said you weren’t going back.”

“I said wasn’t going back as long as it could be avoided. This is bad, Eliza. People are dying. I can’t avoid it any longer. After everything I’ve sacrificed—”

“You’ve sacrificed?” she repeated with disbelief. “You?”

“Yes,” he snapped.

A red haze seemed to descend over her vision.

“You’ve ruined my life!” she shouted at him. “You took everything I’ve ever known to be true, set it aflame, and published the ashes for the world to see.”

He stared at her, nonplussed by the outburst.

“And now you want to start all over again! Saddle yourself with overwhelming responsibility until you crawl back into the first open pair of arms you come across.”

“That’s not true. That’s not going to happen!”

“How do I know that? How will I know if it does? Would you have ever told me about the first girl if your public reputation weren’t on the line?”

“Would you have wanted me to?”

She ground her teeth together so hard she feared they would break. “I hate that you slept with her. The very thought of it makes me crazy. But the worst part was the deceit. You lied to me. You lied to me for years. And now you’ve lied to me again.”

“I didn’t lie to you about this,” he insisted. “And that’s not going to happen again. That wasn’t me, Eliza.”

“You keep saying that. Of course it was you! Stop lying!”

And they were off.

The fight that followed was unlike anything Eliza had ever experienced. She hardly remembered all the horrible things they started screaming. Pent up resentment, anger, humiliation, and confusion was suddenly spewing forth from both of them, raging through parlor like a great storm, destroying everything in its path. No one knew them better than the other; no one knew how to hurt them more. They tore into each other like wounded animals, shouting over each other, the vitriol worsening with every word. Every soft spot was prodded, every insecurity laid bare.

They lost the thread of the argument at some point, striking out with anything that could wound. She remembered echoing some the attacks she’d read in the press about his political corruption. Somehow, she linked that with an accusation that he was lusting after Angelica.

“I’m not sleeping with your sister,” he nearly spat back. “Though it is nice on occasion to speak to a woman who actually understands something of my work.”

It ought not to have hurt so much: she’d never claimed any sort of interest in politics, and she’d met several well-educated, even brilliant, men who’d found themselves awed by her husband’s genius. That she didn’t grasp every nuance of his work was hardly a reflection of her intelligence. Still, the thrust sank deep, feeding a deep insecurity that she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough, to be married to a man like him. The pain must have shown on her face, because the anger in his expression rapidly transformed into regret.

That was when she struck the killing blow, treading onto forbidden ground. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you were unfaithful, given who raised you.”

The color drained from his face. “Don’t.”

“Like mother, like son.”

He crumpled in on himself, turning away from her.

It was a hollow victory.

She fled from the room, up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door. It was then she suddenly remembered the house full of children she could only pray had slept through the horrifying display. Her dress tore at the back as she ripped it off, desperate to change out of the formal gown. She didn’t care; she couldn’t imagine she’d ever wear it again when it was linked indelibly in her mind to such a nightmarish evening. Tugging a nightgown on, she crawled into bed and curled up, sobs wracking her chest. She pressed her face into her pillow, trying to quiet them.

Some time passed, her sobs fading to hitching breaths and damp eyes, when she heard a soft tap at the door. She froze in place, waiting. Another soft tap followed. “Eliza?”

She stayed quiet.

“Eliza, please answer me.”

Tears started leaking from her eyes again at the pain in his voice.

“Those can’t be the last things we say to each other before you leave. Please,” he begged.

When heavy silence met him again, she heard a soft thud, as if he’d knocked his head against the door, and a light scratching, as though he had dragged his fingers down along the wood. At last, she heard footsteps retreating down the stairs. She heaved out a long breath.

The imagined image haunted her: his head resting on the door, his fingers splayed across the wood as he begged to be let in. Then the image of him hours earlier popped into her mind: smiling with delight as he spun her on the dance floor, pressing little kisses to her nose. It would be so much easier to hate him if she didn’t love him so much.

Eventually, perhaps hours later, the heartache and guilt overwhelmed the anger and pain, and she pulled herself from the bed. She went to the dressing room, where she collected a nightshirt and the spare quilt. Then she padded downstairs with the items, looking into the empty parlor first and then approaching the office. The door was slightly ajar, so she pushed it open gently.

Hamilton was asleep in his armchair, fully clothed, his arms crossed over his chest and his feet propped up on the foot rest. She knelt beside him. “Alexander?”

He snuffled lightly, his head rolling toward her, but he didn’t wake.

Sighing, she spread the blanket out over him and left the nightshirt by his side, in case he woke in the night and wished to change. The door closed behind her with a gentle tap.

~*~

She blinked slowly in the bright sunlight filtering through the curtains of her bedroom. The normal Sunday bustle sounded outside the door: the children readying for church, the maids hard at their chores. One of the servants had checked on her earlier, and she’d feigned sleep. She’d been alone and undisturbed ever since.

Some of the activity finally quieted outside. She’d nearly drifted off when her door opened once more. She kept her eyes closed, even as she felt a familiar weight settle onto the bed beside her.

“Eliza?” Hamilton asked.

Slowly, she opened her eyes to look up at him. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, and he looked tired, almost achingly soul weary. She wondered if the same sight would greet her in the mirror.

“Angelica took the boys with her to church,” he informed her. He reached out slowly, wary, but she stayed still until he finally placed the back of his hand against her forehead. “Are you ill? Should I send for the doctor?”

“No,” she said simply.

“Can I bring you anything?”

She rolled over to face away from him. “Just leave me alone.”

He complied, rising from the bed and closing the door behind him.

She did eventually get up. She finished packing and made sure Angelica and William both had everything they would need for their trip to Albany. William was still a bit too small to be away from her, and Angelica…well, the girl had nearly begged her to come along. She wondered how much of that was a desire to be with her mother and see her grandparents, or simply a desire not to be left alone with her father, with whom she was barely speaking.

Hamilton rode out with them to the sloop that afternoon. He gave their giggling baby a series of wet, sloppy kisses all over his face. Angelica surprisingly agreed to hug him goodbye, accepting a kiss to the crown of her head as she squeezed her father around the waist. “I love you, sweetheart. I’ll miss you,” he whispered to their little girl.

“I’ll miss you, too, Papa,” Angelica replied. It was, perhaps, the most words she’d strung together in a sentence directed towards him in months. He’d smiled slightly in response.

Finally, he looked at her. Their eyes met for a long, pregnant moment. He didn’t try to speak to her, or kiss her goodbye. She made no movement towards him, either. His shoulders fell, a deep despair plain on his face, as he walked back towards the coach alone.

~*~

A week later, she settled into a seat outside her parents’ estate, looking out at the water as she slowly sipped at her tea. Angelica had taken little William down to the riverbank, and she could see her daughter playfully splashing in the water, flicking little drops at the baby as he laughed gleefully. She smiled at the simple scene.

Her father seemed to be doing much better, but she didn’t regret her trip. She needed time away: time to think without her husband’s sad eyes to make her feel guilty. Not that she had escaped him entirely. When she’d arrived in Albany, she had two letters from her husband and one from her sister waiting for her. One of Hamilton’s letters and Angelica’s had both been sent on the day she’d left New York.

“I have been extremely uneasy, My beloved Eliza, at the state of health and state of mind in which you left me. I earnestly hope there has been a change of both for the better,”3 Hamilton had written. She’d nearly laughed. Did he really think a few days on a boat were going to do anything to improve the mess their lives had become?

He’d continued, “I always feel how necessary you are to me. But when you are absent I become still more sensible of it, and look around in vain for that satisfaction which you alone can bestow.”4 The longing in those sentences had made her ache a little. Did he mean that? If he did, if she alone could bring him satisfaction, why did he insist on going back to the army?

Angelica’s letter had helpfully informed her that Hamilton had gone to her house for dinner and that he was “very much out of spirits” over the course of the evening. She’d added that the unpleasant man from dinner the night before, or the “dirty fellow,” in her words, had been “effectually silenced.”5 She wondered queasily if he had been silenced in the same manner as James Jones.

“You look deep in thought, my dear heart.”

Eliza turned in her seat to see her mother carefully making her way to the table to join her. “Hello, Mama,” she greeted, conjuring a warm smile. “How was Papa this morning?”

“He’s getting a little stronger every day,” Kitty Schuyler replied. She lowered herself into a chair with a great sigh, and Eliza quickly set about preparing her a cup of tea. “What had you looking so serious on a such a lovely morning?”

She shook her head, trying to shrug off her troubles and concerns.

“Is it that husband of yours?” Kitty pressed. Eliza’s face must have given it away, because Kitty nodded to herself. “I thought something was wrong, when three letters preceded your arrival. What happened?”

Eliza swallowed around a sudden lump in her throat. “We had a fight,” she managed. “We had a…a terrible fight. We said such horrible things to each other. And then I left.”

Kitty laid one of her wrinkled hands atop hers, inviting her to continue, to unload the great weight she’d been carrying inside her for so long.

And so she did. She told her mother about her grief, her anger, her deep and abiding love, and how it all seemed to whirl within her in such a confusing and overwhelming way. “I’m trying so hard. I want to forgive him. Things between us used to be so wonderful, so easy. Now half the time he feels like a stranger. I just don’t know how to make things like they were before. How can I go back?”

“You can’t,” her mother said simply.

Her eyes widened, devastation surging through her. Her mother patted her hand affectionately. “It’s not so bad as all that, dearest. You know, your Papa and I have been married for a very long time now. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes things happen that change your relationship forever: sometimes good things, sometimes bad things. In either case, you can never go back to the marriage you had before. You can only walk forward.”

Eliza nodded, mulling the thought over in her mind.

“You know, many marriages, most I would venture to say, are little more than convenient economic arrangements between men and women. They live in separate spheres, perhaps exchanging polite words over dinner. Even if they don’t start out that way, they usually end up as such.”

She frowned at her mother. Was she saying she should accept the painful distance that had grown up between them? Give up on her loving relationship and accept a life of smiling politely at her husband over shared meals?

“But you and Hamilton, you’ve always shared an uncommon intimacy. You love each other so deeply and passionately. You’re friends, lovers, partners. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, like you’re his only light in a dark world. And he isn’t a stranger; you know him better now than you ever have before. Things between you are going to change, to transform. You’ll continue to love each other, of that I have no doubt. But you need to stop trying to go back to a golden past, sweetheart. You’ll never be able to, and trying will only drive you both mad.”

“How do I move on?” she asked, voice quiet. “How do I get past this?”

“Speak with him,” Kitty answered. “Truly speak with him. Try to understand how this happened, and how to stop it from happening again, so you can begin to rebuild trust. You can’t just hold this inside you and hope if you bury it deep enough, you’ll forget about it.”6

That was exactly the trap she had fallen into, she realized. Burying the hurt, pretending to be fine, and then retreating from him when it reared its ugly head once more.

Her mother leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Whatever happens, you’re going to be just fine, my sweet girl,” she added, taking another sip of her tea.

Eliza stared at her mother for a long moment, wondering how she’d become so wise. A thought occurred to her, a terrible thought: had her father…? Her world seemed to tilt on its axis for a moment as she considered the possibility that her heroic, loving father could ever do such a thing to her mother. Of course, such things happened with a disheartening frequency. The only difference in her case was her husband’s spectacular failure of discretion.

Her heart hurt even more for her daughter: if the idea bothered her this much at forty, what must it be doing to her impressionable thirteen year old?

She didn’t ask her mother, didn’t press her suspicion; she simply sat back and looked out over the water. She tried to soak in the advice. They had spoken very briefly about what had led to the affair: how the stress of his job as Treasury Secretary and his feelings of inadequacy in sufficiently providing for his family had driven him to indulge in a destructive kind of fantasy world. It was part of the reason she felt so worried about him returning to a public position. They’d both attempted to talk further after that conversation, several times, in fact. Hadn’t she been considering such a conversation the very same day they’d had their explosive argument? But now, with clearer expectations, she felt like she might finally be ready.

Her old marriage was gone: mortally wounded by her husband’s betrayal and finally killed by their last fight. But together they could forge a new marriage, a more honest love.

She’d write to him today, when she went inside, she decided.

She gazed out a the tranquil river, feeling lighter and more hopeful that she had in a very long time.

1. Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 2 June 1798

2. See Affairs of Honor, by Joanne Freeman, p. 172 and A History of the People of the United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War, by John Bach McMaster, p. 381.

3, 4. Hamilton to Eliza, 3 June 1798

5. Angelica Church to Elizabeth Hamilton, undated. All credit to runawayforthesummer and theelizapapers for making a remarkably convincing argument that the “Icarus” letter was not, in fact, written in the summer of 1797, but rather in 1798. Read the post here. Both Hamilton and Angelica mention Hamilton coming by for dinner after Eliza left that night. Also, Hamilton’s letter to Eliza on the day she left for Albany was written on June 3rd, which was a Sunday, and in Angelica’s letter where she talks about Eliza leaving on the sloop, she mentions taking the boy’s with her to church that morning, which also likely places her letter on a Sunday. Everything about it just matches up perfectly. That also means that the “dirty fellow” Angelica mentions wasn’t necessarily James Callender (although it could have been, as circumstances were heating up for him around this time, with the Alien and Sedition Acts coming out soon after). The drunk man (I didn’t want to saddle him with a real identity) at the party was all just my imagination trying to create a circumstance where Hamilton and Eliza would really fight it out.

6. Kitty Schuyler’s advice is sort of an amalgamation of a whole bunch of articles and advice columns I’ve been reading lately. One of the most interesting and insightful source I found was the Dear Sugar podcast four part series on Infidelity, which featured Ester Perel in one episode (another huge thanks to Iris970 for suggesting I seek her work out). Perel also just published an article in the Atlantic (Oct. 2017 Issue) entitled “Why Happy People Cheat: A Good Marriage Is No Guarantee Against Infidelity,” which was also very influential and helpful for this chapter.

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from School for Good and Evil part 3 ❤️

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from School for Good and Evil part 2 ❤️

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from School for Good and Evil part 4 ❤️

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from the FADE clip part 7 ❤️ - last part

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from Liar part 7❤️

[jamieflatterssources]

And the other one ❤️

via thejoellerae

[jamieflatterssources]

A little Jamie's crumb from Italy ❤️

via thejoellerae

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from The Forgotten Battle part 6❤️

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from The Forgotten Battle part 2 ❤️

[jamieflatterssources]

Pics from The Forgotten Battle part 1 ❤️