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villainousshakespeare · 4 years ago

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Learning a Lesson Chapter 9

iLearning a Lesson Chapter 8

Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here, Part 3 Here, Part 4 Here, Part 5 Here, Part 6 Here, Part 7 Here, Part 8 Here

Young Actor Tom Hiddleston/OFC

Rated E -Smut, Angst, Complicated Relationship - Teacher/Actor Posing as Student, Feels, Flirting, Fluff, Oral Sex, Sex, Shower Sex, Threats, Breakups, Angst…

ANGST IN THIS CHAPTER! (but don’t worry… I’m a hopeless romantic)

Summary: It’s your first day as a teacher and things are going well. That is, until a tall, gorgeous boy with blond curls and dramatic ways saunters into your last class. When he ignores all the swooning girls to flirt outrageously with you, it is secretly thrilling. Even more so is when he tries to steal a kiss after class ends. How long will you be able to keep your defenses up?

Up and Coming actor Tom is under cover in high school for research for a movie, but the pretty drama teacher is making the long assignment so much more enjoyable

@arch-venus25, @caffiend-queen @ciaodarknessmyheart @frostbitten-written @just-the-hiddles @kellatron55 @myoxisbroken @nonsensicalobsessions @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @shae-annelore @thecutestlittlebunbunfairy @hiddlesholic @yespolkadotkitty @vodka-and-some-sass @wolfsmom1 @tom-hlover @toozmanykids @delightfulheartdream @whyispistashanuttaken @hopelessromanticspoonie; @loki-yoursaviourishere @is-it-madness

The Monday morning walk to school was the longest of Emily's life. With every step she took she was tempted to turn around and run the other way, hiding under her blankets and weeping rather than going on. Only a deep seated stubborn streak kept her from giving in to her fears and doing just that.

She needn't have worried. Tom was true to his word. There was no sign of him to be found in school. No infectious laugh ringing through the hallway, no tousled halo of blond hair floating above the shorter students amidst a throng of admirers, and no ice blue eyes seeking hers for a secret wink or speaking glance.

Emily told herself it was for the best. She hoped she would eventually believe it.

The other god-send was that Jim Howard seemed to have called in sick. A substitute was in his classroom when she got there, and never had she been so glad to see the old woman than she was that day. She assumed that it was his pride that kept him from walking into the building with a black eye and a swollen jaw, and took evil delight in the fact that Tom had so thoroughly trounced him.

Tom. There he was again. She could not go five minutes without calling him to mind. It was going to be a long day. Hell, it was going to be a long forever as far as she knew. How long would it take to get over the golden boy who had so completely won her heart?

Half a day was how long it took for the news of his exit to hit the school grapevine. Emily began hearing his name whispered during her fourth period class. By the time that class ended and she made her way to the staff lounge it was all anyone was talking about. Ada, Janis, and Mike were gossiping about it when she came in, a pathetic lunch of coffee and a banana in her hand.

"Well, anyone with eyes could have seen that that boy should be a movie star," Janis was opining. "It doesn't surprise me one bit."

"Oh, come on Janis," Mike laughed, skepticism showing, "he was handsome, sure, but there's no way you saw this coming!"

"I'm not saying that," Janis sniffed. "Obviously I didn't know he was an actor. But if anyone in this school was destined for greatness it was Martinsson."

"Hiddleston," Mike corrected her. "Apparently that's his real name. You're awfully quiet, Emily. You were close with the boy, weren't you? Tutoring him after hours and all?"

"Not that close," she said with a half shrug. "He claimed to want help with an audition monologue, but that was obviously for show. We never actually worked on it. Just class."

The words were true enough as far they went, even if the meaning behind them was an all out lie.

"Still, he clearly preferred you," Ada said, giving her a probing look. "I heard all sorts of chatter about how he always flirted with you, volunteering to read romantic scenes with you. I was a little jealous, to tell the truth. I mean, and I can say it now that I know he's a genuine adult - what I wouldn't have given for a chance to sculpt a nude of that boy!"

"No wonder Howard hated him so much," Mike laughed good naturedly. "It seems it's not just the high school girls who had a thing for him."

Emily did her best to tune them out after that, and took to eating in her classroom. The days blended into each other, with no end of the day secret to make them stand out as special.

The kids in her drama class were all excited of course. The thought that they had read scenes with an honest to goodness actor, one who was going to be starring in a movie, made them practically giddy. Kate began recirculating the lie that the two of them had been involved, and no one dared to correct her. Emily was angry on his behalf, offended that anyone would believe he would fool around with a student, until she realized the implications of that thought.

It was that guilt that was the worst. Well, along with the loneliness. Even if he had been an adult, she hadn't known that. She had thought him no different than Kate or Zack or Jamie, and she had slept with him anyway. She deserved all the pain she was feeling. Deserved more than that; to loose her job and never be hired again, even. More and more she slipped into a depression.

It was nine days after she had thrown him out of her apartment and her life that the first letter arrived. She grabbed her mail from the small slot inside the door and rifled through it on the way up the stairs as she always did, expecting nothing more than bills and solicitations. When she turned over an envelope addressed in an instantly recognizable hand, she felt as though she had been punched in the gut. Hands shaking, she opened the seal, afraid that if she didn't do it at once she would never find the courage, and unfolded a letter.

"My Darling Emily," it began in Tom's loopy mess of long hand, "I know I have no right to write to you, having broken your trust in the most caddish way possible. I only hope that you will allow me the opportunity to once more take advantage of your goodness of heart and kindness of disposition, that I may try to explain why I orchestrated such a hurtful charade.

"As you are patently aware now, I am an actor of both stage and screen. I take my profession very seriously, perhaps more so than it deserves, though I like to believe that you among all women will understand why. If I can peel away the layers of a character enough to expose the beating heart within, allowing my audience to sees even a piece of the truth of humanity in my portrayal, then I truly believe that I am contributing something to this shared experience we all are living. Pretentious as that sounds, it is my goal every time I assume a role, be it Iago or a soldier, or even Mr. Toad.

"When I was cast as a student from the States, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I was educated, I blush to say my love, in the best schools in England: Eton, Cambridge, and RADA. My good fortune has been quite excessive, I know, though no teacher I encountered in all of my tutelage could hold a candle to you, my darling. In any case, I was woefully unprepared to know the struggle such a young man was going through. My director came up with the idea to have me pose in a small town school, and I admit I leapt at the chance.

"Never in a million years would I have guessed that I would meet the woman of my dreams in such a situation.

"I confess that in the beginning I flirted with you to amuse myself. You are quite breathtakingly beautiful, my sweet, and I was bored beyond belief. As the days went on, however, I began to uncover the woman underneath the starched blouses and pencil skirts. A woman with a mind that soared and a soul that sung. One who shared my passion for stage poetry, and did not back down from a challenge.

"In short, my darling Emily, I fell in love with you.

"I should have told you the moment our relation crossed over the line. Alas my love, I fear that it is a coward who worships you. I was afraid that if you learned the truth you would be angry, and I wanted to collect as many precious moments with you as I could before your warm eyes turned cold. My sin is great, I know. I do not deserve to be forgiven. Nonetheless, I place my heart at your feet in hope that you will take it up, take pity on me, and not stomp it beneath your shoe.

"The film I am working on seized the opportunity afforded by my early matriculation to begin shooting. I am relocated to New York City to start principal photography. I know it is a mere two hours from you, and yet it feels the length of the world. Knowing I will not see you each day, hold you at night, is a weight on my soul that I know I have only myself to blame for.

"I ask nothing of you, my dearest Emily, but that you allow me to write to you. I do not expect you to write back, although I live in hope that one day you will. The distance keeps us apart, but perhaps that need not be all bad. Perhaps it can give you time to heal and to trust me once more. Let me write to you, to tell you about myself - my real self - and try to win your friendship back if nothing else. It has been the most important of my life.

"I do not flatter myself that I will ever hold you again, kiss your soft lips, feel you beneath me as you gasp in passion. I have too great a mark against me to hope for such grace. I would die to have it, but will not impose it on you. Just let me try to heal the hurt I have done, and I will be content.

"If you cannot find it within you to accept my offer of friendship in the form of epistles, simply write me with one word. 'Stop' and I will cease. You are in control, my heart. I will bow to your wishes.

"Please take good care of yourself, my Emily. I wish I could be their to tend to you myself. Be warry of the dread maths teacher. I know it is no longer my place, but I would ask you to not be alone around him.

"Enough of that. I will end for now. Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

"My heart is yours.

All my love,

Tom."

Emily read the letter through, barley able to make out the words through the tears welling in her eyes. When she had finished, she collapsed onto the bed and read it through again, openly weeping this time. All of the pain and guilt she had been holding in came flooding out. In the end, she had to put the letter aside so that the deluge of her tears didn't permanently mar the ink composing the lines. By then she knew it by heart, but she still loved to see his strong hand scrawled out over the page.

She did not for a moment consider writing him to stop. Perhaps she should have. There was no future she could see for the two of them. Her trust had been shattered, along with her mental image of herself, by the situation. On top of that, he was away, filming a movie in the big city that she rarely went to. When this movie was ended, who knew where he would be? Jetting off to exotic countries? Treading the boards in London? His life was exciting and adventurous, and she was a little mouse of a school teacher from a small town. How could they hope to make a relationship work, even without their drama?

The letters came far more frequently than she had expected. While it was not every day, Tom was clearly grasping every spare moment he had to pour out his heart to her. He told her all about the filming process. She felt as though she knew his costars, so vividly did he depict them. Against her will, Emily would find herself laughing at ridiculous anecdotes, or groaning in commiseration at delays in the shooting.

In the midst of all of these tales of misadventures and productivity, Tom made clear to he still hoped to win Emily back. He never missed an opportunity to praise her, calling her darling, his sweet, his dear, his love. He mentioned how he had suggested that one of the teachers should be young, smart, and sexy as an homage to her, though no one could possibly do her justice. He let slip that he had been making his costars groan with his continual referencing her, to the point where they teased him any time her name arose.

At the end of each letter he dropped all pretense, stating plainly that he loved her and would do anything to win her back. He insisted that he would wait, that the decision was entirely hers, but that he lived in hope that one day she would write him back, telling him she forgave him. Until that day, he would soldier on and try to deserve her.

Several times Emily found herself sitting down, trying to pen a reply to him. She wanted, desperately wanted, to do so. But each time, the fear would come crashing down and she would end up tearing the letter to shreds.

About two months after the letters started, there was a longer than usual gap between arrivals. Emily began to think that he had given up on her, and a panic she had never felt gripped her. She had not realized the extent to which she had been living for his words.

When an envelope finally arrived, it was in an international envelope, and the return address was London, England. That was it, then. He was out of the country. All of the stories of his homecoming, complete with welcoming family, were a dagger to her. He still professed his love, but now an actual ocean separated them along with the sea of emotion.

Their were two more letters, spread over a month and a half, and then nothing for three weeks. Depression returned. She had all but given up when a card shaped envelope, gilded on the edges, arrived in her box.

***

"Alright, out with it!"

Emily looked up from the pile of papers she was grading to see Ada standing in her classroom door, arms crossed over her paint splattered apron and a determined look on her face.

"Out with what?" Emily asked, confusion genuine.

"It's been four months, Emily," the older woman said, shutting the door behind her as she walked in and sat at one of the student desks. The same desk, Emily couldn't help but note, that had once been Tom's.

"Sorry?"

"Four months that you have been moping around! Barely showing your face in the teacher's lounge, looking like someone stole your dog and kicked your kitten. This, from the girl who was such a spark of joy when she was hired that she even ignited passion for teaching in an old war horse like me!"

"I'm sorry," Emily mumbled.

"Don't be sorry, girl! Tell me what's wrong!"

"It's nothing."

"Emily, do you think I'm blind?" Ada asked with a sigh.

"No..."

"Or that I'm stupid?"

"Of course not!"

"Good," Ada snorted. "As I am neither. Four months ago, a certain long-legged boy with more looks than are good for anyone swaggered out of this school, and you have been a ghost ever since. It's not hard to put the pieces together."

Emily gaped at her, all color draining from her face. If Ada knew, or strongly suspected, was it then general knowledge? Was her shame a joke amongst the faculty, or a cause of scorn?

"Don't worry, hun," Ada said, as though reading her mind. "Most of the people around here are blind and stupid. No one else has any idea. Well, maybe Jim, but that's a whole other can of worms that I am not too keen on digging around in. So, you fell for the boy, huh?"

"You must despise me," Emily said, voice hardly above a whisper.

"So you're failing is that you're deaf," Ada shook her head. "How many times did you hear me rhapsodize about him? Hell, I was undressing him with my eyes every damn day!"

"But you never took it farther than that."

"No, I didn't. But then I am decades older than either one of you and was not given the opportunity. Who knows what I might have done if he had batted those long golden lashes at me and flashed a dimple."

"You wouldn't have slept with a student," Emily said doggedly.

"Is that what this is? That you feel guilty? Tell me something, Emily: would you ever even consider anything inappropriate with say... Jack Simmons, or Zach Lewis, or Dan Fielding? Would it even occur to you?"

"No," Emily said at once, repulsed by the very idea.

"Of course not. Because they are children. The Simmons boy is a hulking child, true, but even though he is big, he is still an adolescent. You can easily tell in a moment he is not an adult. Now, compare that to Tom. He has a baby face, and is all gangly, but there was something about him that flatly identified him as a man. You knew that, instinctively. That is why you let things play out the way you did."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I know you," Ada said simply. "You are a good person, with a moral compass. Was it a stupid thing to do? Of course! It could have ended horribly for you, and thank god it didn't! But don't beat yourself up for listening to your intuition when it turned out to be right! Even if the boy did end up being a snake."

"What if he wasn't?" Emily asked carefully.

"I just assumed... he left, and you didn't seem happy about it... Emily, what did happen?"

Emily looked at her friend, chewing on her lip as she decided what to say. Ada already knew the worst; what harm could it do to let her in on the rest? In a rush it all came out. The clandestine affair, the trouble with Mr. Howard, seeing Tom on Nicholas Nickleby, their disastrous fallout, all of it. Ada sat there rapt as Emily spilled the whole sordid story.

"He really punched Jim?" Ada asked when she had finished, a huge grin spread over her face.

"Twice," Emily confirmed, answering smile on her own mouth. "Hard. Knocked him flat onto the ground."

"Oh, would I have loved to have seen that."

"I could have lived without it, honestly."

"Oh, hun, I don't know what to tell you," Ada shook her head. "I don't even know whether to feel jealous of you sorry for you. Both, I suppose. Ah, to be young again."

"He's been writing me letters," Emily confessed, face reddening. "Ever since he left."

"What does he say?" Ada's eyes were huge.

"Different things. How his day is going. About the filming. That he loves me and wants to be with me."

"Well what the hell are you doing here then?" Ada stood from the desk to stare at her.

"Ada..."

"Girl, if that young man wanted me, you can bet that nothing would keep me away!"

"He's in London," she muttered.

"Did something happen to all the airplanes?"

"No... In fact..."

"In fact what, Emily? Spill it? Give a woman something to live vicariously through!"

With a sigh, Emily dug through her bag and pulled out the card she had received the day before. It was an invitation to a movie premiere in New York City. Folded along with that was a train ticket, prepaid first class, and a small note:

"I would not wish Any companion in the world but you, Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of.

Tom (with all thanks to Miranda in The Tempest)"

"Well," Ada smiled at her, "when shall we go shopping? You, my dear, are going to need a dress!"

#Tom Hiddleston #tom hiddleston rpf #Tom Hiddleston/OFC #fic #fanfic #love #angst #pining #letters #love letters #smut (in other chapters)#teacher/student relationship #BUT NOT REALLY #he is undercover for a role #I am a sucker for a happy ending I promise!

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asaravias · 4 years ago

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( OSCAR ISAAC + CISMALE ) — Have you seen ANTONIO SARAVIA ? This FORTY-TWO year old is an ATTORNEY who resides in MANHATTAN. HE has/have been living in NYC for HIS ENTIRE LIFE, and is known to be GOAL ORIENTED and PERSONABLE, but can also be EGOTISTICAL and IRRESPONSIBLE, if you cross them. People tend to associate them with SUNLIGHT REFLECTING OFF SKYSCRAPERS and SLIM FITTED SUITS. | @codstarters

about —

full name: josé antonio saravia age: 42 birthday: january 6th, 1977 sexual orientation: heterosexual gender: cis male pronouns: he/his

tw: domestic abuse, child neglect, teenage pregnancy, death, murder.

past —

born in queens and raised in the bronx, antonio knew the city way too well from an alarmingly young age. he’d be the young child the adults would whisper about (where is his mother? why is he out by himself?) when he was seen wandering around the streets, looking for something to do other than watch his parents scream at each other. sometimes he’d get lucky and manage to guilt the mcdonald’s workers to give him some free fries and a soda, which would end up being his only meal of the day. sometimes, when he was really lucky, he managed to talk them into giving him some free toys from the new happy meals.

at some point, he remembers being taken from his mom’s dingy apartment in queens to his grandmother’s house in the bronx. he was way too young for it to be a clear memory, he doesn’t really remember whether he’d been taken there by his mother herself, or by child protective services. but if he had to take a guess now, he’d say it’d be the latter.

thankfully, he grew up surrounded by friends and family in this new home, and truthfully, a little bit too spoiled. a result of his abuela feeling guilty about her daughter’s treatment of the child, and the pity that came with receiving a boy so thin, he’d break if he fell too hard. while his grandmother was not affluent in any way, tony was never hungry, and he always had everything he needed. there is this saying — an eye for an eye, right? well, the saravia’s version of this was receiving food and shelter, and in return he never heard or saw his parents again.

tony never knew what he wanted to do with his life: all he knew was that he wanted to be big. bigger than anyone would expect: he wanted glitz, glamour, money. a private jet, even. while ambitious, the then teen was not stupid. he knew how much work went into becoming rich and powerful, but he had nothing to stop him from getting it.

until, at age 16, he found out he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, after their first time together, no less. in a panic, tony mentioned abortion to violet, many places in new york would do it on the down low. was it safe though? absolutely not. but what he cared about was to not have any distractions on his path. in the end, however, he could not convince violet — and jamie was born.

surprisingly enough, tony was actually really fond of the boy. the fact that he was his... well, and having him out in the world rather than inside violet truly made a difference. tony picked up a couple of jobs and finished his high school career at night — this coming from an actual threat from his family. no studies, no shelter. take it or leave it. despite this, the couple received a surprising amount of support from their families, his grandmother being completely infatuated with the little baby, she would dote him with many hand-knit presents to deliver each time he would visit violet at her home.

the couple got their own little place when they reached the legal age, and they lived in some kind of struggling bliss for a couple of years. until the reminder of what tony’s life could’ve — no, should’ve been hit him like a ton of bricks. he wasn’t meant to just live with an associate’s degree from a community college. he was meant for greatness.

there was an argument. he applied to universities behind violet’s back, his first intentions to stay in the city, with the difference of attending a real university. but he didn’t get accepted into any — but he did get accepted into the george washington university in d.c. the opportunity was too grand to pass up... so he didn’t. it was his life, and he was meant to live it that way. he tried to butter violet up with promises of riches, big homes in the city and upstate... with the condition that he was going to go alone. he needed a few years, maybe five? maybe six. then he’d be back! but of course that did not fly, it ended up being a big fight, and tony walked out within the day.

never did he think of how his son would react to him leaving. he was too young himself — but, in his mind, tony saw it this way: he had been left, and he turned out just fine! he had the same hopes for little jamie.

thanks to his previous degree from the community college, it was a faster process for antonio to finish a pre-law degree, quickly following it up with a the appropriate successor. it was all going according to plan. he graduated in the top 10% of his class, passed the bar, and started working for smaller firms in the nation’s capital.

when his grandmother started getting too old to be by herself, antonio returned to new york, with the prospect of becoming district attorney. it wasn’t a great time — he lost the job to olympe banks, and his grandmother died of old age within months. the worst part of dealing with it was that the only luxury he managed to provide her with, after promising her so much, was a terribly expensive funeral. the best for the best.

the one good thing about this time was the start of his own firm with an friend he’d made at law school. they worked mostly as prosecutors, and they were damn good at their jobs.

and still, this was quite a dark time for antonio. no self respect, no self restraint. he went on trips, expensive vacations to exotic locations with people he didn’t care about. all funded by his earnings, and a little bit of the firm’s budget. the only reason he had to stop was the giant sermon he got from his partner, about his “unhealthy coping mechanisms.” right.

present —

every case has a certain degree of difficulty, of course. recently his firm has been hired by the state on the case of a murdered young woman. nothing he’s never seen before, but the evidence photos and files have managed to make his stomach turn.

he’s tried to contact jamie the last few years. mainly to have him come to a trip to dubai with him, but mostly so he could attend his great-grandmother’s funeral, given just how much the woman had loved the boy. it was just another way in which tony let down the woman who raised him.

he lives in a fancy penthouse unit in manhattan — literally his dreams come true. ( and in the words of ann perkins: AT WHAT COST? )

headcanons:

someone pls be his sugar baby, bye

#codintro #domestic abuse tw #child neglect tw #teenage pregnancy tw #death tw #murder tw

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heroicadventurists · 4 years ago

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Comic Con @ Home panel and exhibitor list (so far)

Source: Comic-Con@Home

Source: SDCC unofficial blog

TV & Movies

American Dad: Ever wanted to learn how to draw one of your favorite AD! characters? Now is your chance, join show Supervising Director, Brent Woods, as he teaches the cast and executive producers how to draw Roger! Grab a sketchbook & pens and learn to draw everyone’s favorite alien alongside Rachael MacFarlane (Hayley), Wendy Schaal (Francine), Scott Grimes (Steve), Dee Bradley Baker (Klaus) and EPs Nic Wegener and Joe Chandler as they chat about the current season and look toward the series’ 300th episode airing on TBS this fall.

[NEW] Archer (July 24 at 5PM PT): with Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer, Lucky Yates, Amber Nash, and moderated by Casey Willis.

The Blacklist

Bill & Ted Face the Music: with stars Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, as well as Wyld Stallyns, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, William Sadler, and director Dean Parisot and writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson. Moderated by Kevin Smith.

[NEW] Blast Off with Disney+’s The Right Stuff (July 25 at 1PM PT).

Bless the Harts: Join the Harts, in quarantine of course, for a Paint & Sip! Watch Kristen Wiig (Jenny Hart), Maya Rudolph (Betty Hart), Ike Barinholtz (Wayne Edwards), Jillian Bell (Violet Hart) and Fortune Feimster (Brenda) with executive producers Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Andy Bobrow try to recreate Bless The Harts characters while chatting about their favorite moments from season one, what they’re looking forward to in season two on FOX this Fall and how they’ve kept busy during quarantine while drinking the show’s favorite drink – boxed wine!

Bob’s Burgers: The Emmy Award-winning animated FOX series “Bob’s Burgers” invites fans into their homes for a virtual panel with all of the laughs and surprises they generally bring to the Indigo Ballroom. Creator and executive producer Loren Bouchard will break news about the upcoming season, and the always entertaining cast including H. Jon Benjamin, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal, Eugene Mirman, Dan Mintz and Larry Murphy will have you howling with laughter with never-before-seen footage, followed by a lively panel discussion and fan Q&A.

Constantine: 15th Anniversary Reunion: with Keanu Reeves, director Francis Lawrence, and Akiva Goldsman.

Crossing Swords: Hulu Original Crossing Swordsfollows Patrick, a good hearted peasant who lands a coveted squire position at the royal castle. His dream job quickly turns into a nightmare when he learns his beloved kingdom is run by a hornet’s nest of horny monarchs, crooks and charlatans. Even worse, Patrick’s valor made him the black sheep in his family, and now his criminal siblings have returned to make his life hell. War, murder, full frontal nudity—who knew brightly colored peg people led such exciting lives? With Scott Mantz, Seth Green, Alanna Ubach, Tara Strong, Yvette Nicole Brown, Adam Pally, Tom Root, John Harvatine IV, and Adam Ray.

A Conversation with Nathan Fillion: Showrunner Alexi Hawley (“The Rookie”) talks with Nathan Fillion (“Firefly,” “Castle,” “The Rookie”) about his career in film and television. With special appearances by Joss Whedon, Alan Tudyk, Gina Torres, Mekia Cox, Molly Quinn, Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas.

Director’s on Directing: with Robert Rodriguez, Colin Trevorrow, and Joseph Kosinski.

The Dragon Prince: with creators Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond, as well as voice cast Jack Desena, Paula Burrows, Sasha Rojen, Erik Todd Dellums, Jason Simpson, Jesse Inocalla, and Racquel Belmonte

Duncanville: Join executive producers Mike & Julie Scully, executive producer and star, Amy Poehler, along with stars Ty Burrell, Riki Lindhome, Joy Osmanski, Yassir Lester, Betsy Sodaro and guest stars Rashida Jones and Wiz Khalifa for an exclusive first look at the upcoming second season; returning next Spring on FOX.

Emily the Strange: with creator Rob Reger and illustrator Buzz Parker

Family Guy: Join cast Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green and executive producers Rich Appel, Alec Sulkin and Kara Vallow from FOX’s hit animated comedy “Family Guy” as we celebrate 350 episodes with a virtual table read! After, we’ll take a look back at some of our favorite moments from the last 18 seasons, plus a special sneak peek at the hilarity and hi-jinx coming up in our 19th season premiering this fall on FOX!

Fear the Walking Dead: Fear the Walking Dead will present a panel for the series’ upcoming sixth season, premiering later this year. Moderated by Hardwick, the panel will feature Gimple, Showrunners and Executive Producers Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg and cast members Lennie James, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Colman Domingo, Danay Garcia, Karen David, Jenna Elfman and Rubén Blades.

G-Loc: with director Tom Paton, and stars Stephen Moyer, Tala Gouveia, Casper Van Dien, and John Rhys-Davies. Moderated by Jacob Oller.

The Goldbergs: with cast members Wendi McLendon-Covey, Sean Giambrone, Troy Gentile, George Segal, Hayley Orrantia, and Sam Lerner

Helstrom: As the son and daughter of a mysterious and powerful serial killer, Hulu Original Helstrom follows Daimon (Tom Austen) and Ana Helstrom (Sydney Lemmon), and their complicated dynamic, as they track down the worst of humanity — each with their own attitude and skills.

HOOPS: The star-studded voice cast of “Hoops,” a new adult animated series for Netflix launching this summer from 20th Century Fox Television (“The Simpsons,” “Family Guy,” “Bob’s Burgers”), gathered for an irreverent-in-the-best-way conversation about coming together to make this show that follows a foul-mouthed high school basketball coach who is sure he’ll hit the big leagues if he can only turn his terrible team around. Voice stars Jake Johnson, Rob Riggle, Ron Funches, Natasha Leggero, Cleo King and A.D. Miles join creator and executive producer Ben Hoffman and moderator/ guest voice star Max Greenfield (Johnson’s former “New Girl” co-star) for a truly wild and hilarious Q&A. Fans will be treated to an exclusive first look at footage from the premiere episode. “Hoops” comes from writer-comedian Ben Hoffman (“The Late Late Show with James Corden,” “Archer”), Phil Lord and Chris Miller (“The Lego Movie”), with animation produced by Bento Box (“Bob’s Burgers”).

Kevin Smith: You know what this is.

LGBTQ Representation on TV: with Jamie Chung (Once Upon A Time), Jamie Clayton (Roswell: New Mexico), Wilson Cruz (Star Trek: Discovery), Tatiana Maslany (Perry Mason, Orphan Black), Anthony Rapp (Star Trek: Discovery), J. August Richards (Council of Dads, Angel, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Harry Shum, Jr. (Shadowhunters) and Brian Michael Smith (9-1-1: Lone Star). The panel will be moderated by TV Guide Magazine West Coast Bureau Chief Jim Halterman.

[NEW] A Look Inside Marvel’s 616 on Disney+ (July 23 at 1PM PT).

Motherland: Fort Salen: TBA

NEXT: Coming to FOX in Fall 2020, “NEXT” arrives at Comic-Con@Home with a sneak peek of the thrilling opening scene of the propulsive, fact-based thriller about the emergence of a deadly, rogue artificial intelligence that combines pulse-pounding action with an examination of how technology is invading our lives and transforming us in ways we don’t yet understand. “NEXT” stars John Slattery (“Mad Men”) as a Silicon Valley pioneer, who teams with cybercrime agent Fernanda Andrade (“The First”), to fight a villain unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Panelists will include creator and executive producer Manny Coto (“24”), John Slattery, Fernanda Andrade, Michael Mosley (“Ozark”), Jason Butler Harner (“Ozark”) and Eve Harlow (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) for a fascinating conversation about the new series and how AI and technology infiltrates all of our lives, moderated by Thrillist’s Esther Zuckerman.

NOS4A2: Moderated by Entertainment Weekly’s Clark Collis, the panel will feature Showrunner and Executive Producer Jami O’Brien, Executive Producer Joe Hill and cast member Zachary Quinto.

[NEW] Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe (12PM PT).

Rooster Teeth: Yssa Badiola, Torrian Crawford, Barbara Dunkelman, Fiona Nova, Kerry Shawcross, and special guest F.J. DeSanto are going to virtually smack you in the face with exclusive reveals and new information about Recorded by Arizal, Red vs. Blue Zero, RWBY Volume 8, and Transformers War For Cybertron: Siege.

The Simpsons: They’ll never stop The Simpsons!…from appearing at Comic-Con; this time on zoom. Join Al Jean, Matt Selman, David Silverman, Carolyn Omine, Mike B. Anderson and moderator Yeardley Smith. Find out how the show has surmounted social distancing and turbulent times en route to season 32!

Solar Opposites: Your favorite Shlorpians are getting together for Comic-Con at Home! As Hulu’s most-watched original comedy premiere to date, “Solar Opposites” centers around a team of four aliens who escape their exploding home world only to crash land into a move-in ready home in suburban America. They are evenly split on whether Earth is awful or awesome, while protecting the Pupa, a living super computer that will one day evolve into its true form, consume them and terraform the Earth… Join Justin Roiland (“Korvo”), Thomas Middleditch (“Terry”), Sean Giambrone (“Yumyulack”), Mary Mack (“Jesse”) and executive producers Mike McMahan and Josh Bycel for all things “Solar Opposites” including an exclusive clip from the upcoming second season!

Stumptown: with cast members Jake Johnson, Cobie Smulders, and Michael Ealy

TV Guide Magazine’s Fan Favorites: Hale Appleman (The Magicians), Chris Chalk (Gotham, Perry Mason), Robbie Amell (Upload), Kennedy McMann (Nancy Drew), Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Picard), Richard Harmon (The 100), Lindsey Morgan (The 100), Harvey Guillen (What We Do in the Shadows), and Alex Newell (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist)

The Walking Dead: The Walking Dead will make its 11th San Diego Comic-Con appearance with a panel spotlighting the Season 10 Finale episode, “A Certain Doom,” which will air as a standalone episode later this year. Moderated by Hardwick, the panel will feature Gimple, Showrunner and Executive Producer Angela Kang, Executive Producer Greg Nicotero, who directed the season finale, and cast members Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Josh McDermitt and Paola Lazaro, among others.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond: The Walking Dead: World Beyond makes its Comic-Con International debut as the third series in wildly successful The Walking Dead Universe. Moderated by Hardwick, the series’ panel will feature Gimple, Showrunner and Executive Producer Matt Negrete and cast members Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, Hal Cumpston, Nicholas Cantu, Nico Tortorella, Julia Ormond and Joe Holt.

[NEW] What We Do in the Shadows (July 25 at 5PM PT): with Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Mark Proksch, Harvey Guillen, Paul Simms, Stefani Robinson, and moderated by Haley Joel Osment.

Wynonna Earp.

COMICS

Celebrating 80 Years of The Spirit: Moderated by Danny Fingeroth.

Decoding the Kirby/Lee Relationship: with Danny Fingeroth.

[NEW] Howard Cruse: The Godfather of Queer Comics.

In Conversation with Robert Kirkman: Creator Robert Kirkman answers fan questions on his titles including THE WALKING DEAD, INVINCIBLE, FIRE POWER, OBLIVION SONG, and more!

[NEW] LGBTQ Comics and Popular Media for Young People.

[NEW] Out in Comics 33: Virtually Yours.

[NEW] Marvel Comics: Next Big Thing: Friday, July 24, 11:00 AM PST

[NEW] MARVEL HQ: Thursday, July 23, 4:00 PM PST

Skybound Presents: Comics & Creators: A panel of Skybound’s comic book creators including Robert Kirkman, the team behind EXCELLENCE, and more come together to discuss their latest projects.

Tribute to Dennis O’Neil: with Danny Fingeroth.

The Wonderful, Horrible History of E.C. Comics: Moderated by Danny Fingeroth.

OTHER

The Art of Collaboration: Duos Behind Top Films, TV Shows, & Video Games.

California Browncoats.

Creative Renaissance: How to Thrive When it’s Hard to Survive. The continued need for social distancing has brought about a creative renaissance in the digital space. Join the conversation with Joe Barrette (Creators, Assemble!), Phil Jimenez (Creators4Comics), Alonso Nunez (Little Fish Comic Book Studio), and Kit Steinaway (Book Industry Charitable Fund) to hear how nonprofit organizations are working with comics creators to support each other and their communities during these challenging times. You will hear about new learning opportunities, collaborations, how to forge new creative friendships in a time of global disconnect and what it means to find your tribe through fandom and shared passion. Moderated by Dan Wood (Comics librarian, EPL).

From Script to Screen: Behind-the-Scenes of Your Favorite Film & TV Shows.

The Future of Entertainment.

GirlsDrawinGirls Presents Industry Professional Women Artists in Quarantine: Balancing Work, Art, Homeschooling, and Life: With Melody Severns, Debbie Mahan, Sherry Delorme, Rehana Khan-Tarin, Aisling Harbert-Phillips, and Christine Chang.

The Legal Geeks.

Making a Living Being Creative: with Lee Kohse, Brendan Hay, Lex Cassar, and Johnny Kolasinski.

Masters of the Illustrated Film Poster.

Music for Animation.

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rachelthompsonauthor · 4 years ago

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Hi, everyone! It’s time to venture back out into the world which is a little scary, right? That’s where we are in Northern California – like turtles starting to stick our heads out just a little bit. We’re starting to visit family, actually going to the grocery store, and getting haircuts for everyone – a good thing since we’re all looking a bit like muppets.

Though with the latest numbers in California, who knows where we’re headed. It’s terrifying. Masks, masks, masks, wash, wash, wash.

In case you missed the last two installments of my blog posts, you can catch up by clicking here for week one and here for week two.

This week I’m thrilled to share an insider look into the mind of author Barbara Delinsky, who just dropped her latest hot read, A Week At The Shore, which immediately hit the New York Times bestseller list – her twenty-third novel to do so.

Both Pip and I enjoyed A Week At The Shore immensely.

Full disclosure: Barbara is one of my BadRedhead Media clients (and I’m supremely grateful for that!). I handle her social media, street team, blog and book review optimization, and a good deal of her book promotion.

After finishing the book (which I loved), I had a few questions for Barbara about her writing style, so I emailed them to her and she was kind enough to respond.

A Week At The Shore by Barbara Delinsky Interview

Q: I notice you don’t only use ‘she said’ for dialogue, which I personally love, though as I’m sure you know well, it’s a DEBATE.

A: I’ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about this. I don’t use half as many other words (“she exclaimed,” “she intoned,” or “she declared”) as much as I used to. Yes, there’s something to be said for simple and real. That said, the constant monotony of “she said” gets boring, so I try to find a comfortable balance. This actually ties in with your next question.

Sometimes, the sub for “she said” can express emotion, as in “she cried,” or “she dare say,” or “she whispered.” So it does add something. Still, though, not quite the “show, not tell” rule (see more on that below).

Q: Also, the ‘show, not tell’ rule regarding feelings. You sometimes say what emotions Mallory {Ed. the main character} feels (at times). If I wrote that in my creative writing classes, my teacher would’ve jumped out a window, yet it works. Again, love. All this ‘do this, not that’ advice can be confusing for writers, regardless of genre, myself included.

A: Yes, it does work at times, at least, for me. But then, I never took a creative writing class, so maybe I just don’t know how to show rather than tell. Here, too, I think you have to be guided by common sense. If by “show,” you mean having a character “start to huff and puff,” to show upset, rather than simply to “cry in alarm,” I’d opt for the simpler.

The image of huffing and puffing will distract the reader from what you’re saying. IMHO, the “show, not tell” rule applies to larger things, like rather than saying “her husband could be nasty,” saying something like, “her husband could see her scrubbing the dinner dishes and tell her she was made for this.” So, it’s really giving an example of what you’re saying in summary. Does that make sense?

Q: Yes, absolutely. Also, you write about the past in the present tense – I do this with memoir and blog posts, and prefer to read books or even blog posts/articles written this way. It’s more immediate. When I work with writers in my workshops, they tend to write in the past tense. I haven’t read all of your other books, so I wonder if you do this with all your books?

A: I’m actually not even aware of writing about the past in the present tense, unless it’s a bonafide flashback, in which case it would be in the present. I’ve been experimenting with different tenses book to book. My last book, BEFORE AND AGAIN, was in the first-person past tense, A WEEK AT THE SHORE is in first person present tense.

The latter took some getting used to. And it’s possible that I botched the flashback tenses simply because I’m not ultra-experienced with first-person present. My editor didn’t catch or change anything, though. I agree with you. There is an immediacy to first-person present tense that is nice. That said, the new book I’ve started is in first-person past tense.

Q: Basic skills – I get it. This is how new writers learn. You aren’t new (after writing hundreds of books and stories), so you break rules – is that it?

A: I’m not “schooled” in writing, so I don’t know I’m breaking the rules!!

Q: You’re so skilled, Barbara. Your characters are intricate and layered. This book is a CLASS in writing. Do you ever think about young writers reading your work and learning from you?

A: You are too kind, Rachel. Seriously. I’m just muddling along, basically doing what works for me as a reader, since I have no formal training. Truly. Now I’m just enjoying it.

Barbara has written a few articles for me on my biz site about breaking the writing rules, which I hope you’ll read. She’s a true writer’s writer. I hope you’ll read her books and articles. She’s also an avid reader herself and does weekly book reviews on her blog.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m now reading the third book in the Discovery of Witches series, The Book of Life, and it’s fabulous, just like the others in this series. I’m not going to spoil it for you if you haven’t read these. Harkness is a wonderful writer, and she weaves history, passionate love, and the supernatural together in a way that carries you into other worlds. Even though it’s vampires, witches, and demons, it’s not glowy, corny vampires and evil witches on broomsticks. Harkness’ stories are wholly imaginative.

When I found out Sundance made the first book into a series, I paid for the app ($5.99/month – totally worth it) and watched the entire series in one day. SO GREAT. Perfectly cast, well-acted, leaving me yearning for more. I’m now re-watching it.

What Else I’m Watching

I never did see Being John Malkovich so I watched it with my daughter. Weird flick. Good, but super weird. Definitely takes the, ’15 minutes of fame,’ motto and turns it on its head. Speaking of heads, I’ve never seen such horrible hair in any movie.

Have you seen it? What are your thoughts?

Space Force just came out on Netflix and it’s hilarious. If you’re super conservative, you may not like it, so beware (though they poke fun at both parties). If you can laugh at the ridiculousness of government, please watch. Carrell is great, as usual, and the relationship dynamics are brilliant (and there’s John Malkovich again – great, as usual).

Vanderpump Rules I mentioned previously that this is the one reality show I watch with my 20-year-old daughter, Anya, and we watched the reunion shows – all three of them. I know, ridiculous. Jax is such a joke (his blatant homophobia disgusts me, though he says he supports gays – what?), Jax and Brittany together are just ugh, and Max makes me want to vomit (breaking news – he just got fired – ha!).

And honestly, could Vanderpump be any more white? We’ve been saying this for years.

SO much has happened since last week – wowzers. They’ve fired four people as of this writing for making racist remarks. Either the show will be retooled or canceled. I’m sad to see the epitome of white-girl whiteness Stassi gone – she was at least honest about her privilege. What do you think?

I’d be pretty much done with this show if it wasn’t for my daughter begging me to watch with her (we do watch movies and other shows as well). I’m glad Pumpy fired their asses, otherwise, I’d be done DONE.

Compassion

What’s missing from most reality shows is compassion, which is why I don’t enjoy watching them. We see (and hear, loudly and repeatedly) the negativity, toxicity, and the worst in people because that’s what the editors and producers know will keep viewers coming back – drama.

There are flashes of compassion, e.g., when dealing with the death of a loved one, coming out, infidelity, or mental health issues. I appreciate when Bravo, for example, handles these issues well. I don’t appreciate it when they have not – and they have not in many cases. An overall lack of compassion appears to be missing from many of these people’s lives; however, using The Four Agreements, that’s an assumption on my part; we don’t see behind the scenes or when the cameras are off.

I do have compassion for the casts of these shows who have decided money is worth more than their privacy. They are adults making decisions about their lives, and all that comes with it, as any celebrity does. Now, they’re dealing with the fallout.

“Make good choices!” as Jamie Lee Curtis’s mom in Freaky Friday admonishes a young Lindsay Lohan’s Anna (and we all know how that turned out). Oh, Lindsay. Honestly, she’s such a product of dysfunction, it’s truly sad, but that’s a whole other post.

If only people would listen to their Hollywood movie mothers…

Products Supporting Black Lives Matter

In no particular order, here’s what I’ve bought and am loving:

YUBI: The original fingertip makeup brush is amazing. Worth every penny. How did I not know about this?

Pat McGrath Real Makeup: I’m a sucker for a great eye shadow palette. McGrath’s are pricey but fab-u-lous. Why so spendy? All her products are highly-pigmented so you don’t need much; they’ll last a good long time. Here’s the one I purchased on Amazon. For when, ya know, I actually have somewhere to venture out to.

Body Butter Lady: Lip stuff and of course, body butter. Affordable, smells amazing, and will last a good, long, time.

LipBar: Lips for days, tons of colors and textures to suit anyone.

LipSlut: Awesome colors, and 50% of all proceeds go to support women and children’s charities all the time. Right now, they’re supporting Black Lives Matters. 50% towards charity, 100% against tyranny. Cruelty-free, Vegan.

Their newest shade, F*ck Trump on pre-order, will support civil rights organizations specifically targeted by the Trump organization – I mean, administration. Oopsies.

Here is my current personal selection (F*ck Kavanaugh is a favorite – a pretty brownish-red that wears well):

***

So that’s it for this week. Would love your feedback on COVID-19, books, movies, shows, makeup, racism, or whatever you want to discuss. Thanks for stopping by!

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

The post Venture Out Of Quarantine With Me appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

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torestoreamends · 5 years ago

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Recap: Cast Four – 22/23 & 26 May (Part Two)

Because my recap of these two shows got so long, I split it in half for ease of reading. You can read Part One and my first impressions for Cast Four here, and Part Two is below!

Death Eater Dance (Act Three, Scene One)

I had the nerdiest way of figuring out they’d changed this bit of choreography. At the very start, before anyone comes onstage, a wall of white light unfurls across the back of the stage, and I looked at it and thought ‘wow, that light doesn’t normally move so fast’. About two seconds later, the lead Death Eater stepped through it, which he’s never done before, casting a shadow, and I realised I had been right.

My first thought was is nothing sacred? On reflection, however, I absolutely love this new version of the dance (and I love how this cast performs it — I’ll say it again, they’re all great movers).

The lead Death Eater stands at the back initially, watching and occasionally gesturing to direct those walking across the stage. It reminded me of a darker version of the Sorting Hat’s choreography from the opening of the show.

After that things proceed in a very similar way to how they always have, but there are just enough little changes to throw the whole thing off kilter slightly, and I mean that in a good way. There’s a vibe that there’s something unsettling going on here, something slightly unexpected. The lines are clean and precise, but there’s an occasional lean or spiky gesture that throws the lines out of place. As a viewer you feel like Scorpius in that world — like the whole thing is unpredictable and untrustworthy, dangerous almost, and it leaves you on edge.

My favourite moment for that is when all the Death Eaters are walking in their arrow head towards the back of the stage, and they suddenly all lean to the side. It’s a sharp movement that comes out of nowhere. Very jarring, as it should be.

The other fun little detail at the end is that the Death Eaters sort of bow to Umbridge. It’s not quite a bow, more a sort of arms in the air, lean forward ‘all hail’ kind of motion, that feels so true to the dictatorial nature of this world and of Umbridge’s hold over the school.

Inside Hogwarts (Act Three, Scenes Two, Four, and Five)

This section in the Voldemort timeline really emphasised for me how much I enjoy this cast’s Yann, Polly, and Karl. On Thursday we had Craig’s Karl doing a badass jumping, spinning high kick as he came on stage, and on Sunday we had Gordon’s brilliance (and slightly more restraint), which matched really well with Luke’s Yann. I noticed in both shows as well that Yann and Polly share a moment of eye contact as Yann goes off after confronting Scorpius. I like the idea that those two come as a pair.

Polly’s scene on the stairs was really nice too. She seemed truly confused by Scorpius. At the end of the scene she starts walking down the stairs, but as the staircase is swept towards the wings she starts running back up them again, peering over the bannister and frowning down at Scorpius, like she wants to keep watching him for as long as possible to try and figure him out. It’s almost as if she realises that this isn’t her Scorpius, it implies a relationship with and knowledge of the Scorpion King that’s really interesting. There’s a lot to think about there.

Have I mentioned before that Ronnie as Craig is wonderful? Even if I have it bears repeating a thousand more times. In the scene with Scorpius in the library he’s sort of skittish, constantly keeping his distance, shying away, head bowed. He’s just very sweet, with a soft northern accent. Not really pompous in any of the timelines. Just a good kid who wants to get on with his quiet life. Sadly it’s never going to happen for him...

My love affair with David’s blackboard writing is well documented, and over cast change he really delivered with some appropriately feelingsy Latin phrases. For cast four’s first show we had the perfect Carpe Diem — seize the day. It was such a sweet little message from Snape to a brilliant incoming cast, and I hope this will become a tradition now (just assuming that David will stay as Snape forever, which hopefully he will).

Scorpius joins Dumbledore’s Army (Act Three, Scenes Eight and Nine)

There were definitely a few things to mention in the second half of the Voldemort timeline, so here’s a quick rundown:

It is an inescapable fact that on Thursday the Dementor trick didn’t work for Michelle. As far as I’m aware that’s only happened now three times in the history of the show, and it was heartbreaking to see it happen to someone on their first show in front of an audience. Thankfully on Sunday it worked, and I can only assume they practiced it about a thousand times on Friday because she was almost as quick as Tom that time (which is saying something because Tom has got really good at it).

There are some interesting new colours going on with the Time-Turner in Part Two, which I have a very underdeveloped theory for (I’ll work on it). It looks like whenever the Time-Turner is used in the past or an alternative timeline, the face is blue not yellow. Having said that, when Delphi uses it to take the boys back to the maze it’s also blue, and technically that’s from the restored timeline, so who knows! Also, just for fun, the gold Time-Turner (which is an entirely different entity) flashes pink when the adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow.

Jonathan feels like he’s pushing himself really hard and trying so many new things. I absolutely loved his interactions with the Dementors and hiding from Umbridge. He’s doing a wonderful job, and I think acting with Dom is going to bring some really fun new stuff out of him.

On Broadway the Patronus is sort of lifted out of the floor already lit (I’ve only seen it once, but that was how I remember it and how it was described to me as well), and I think that might have made it to London now. From further back on Sunday I saw the Patronus very distinctly being lifted from the ground, and the clunky ignition is definitely a thing of the past. I’m not sure if the London trick is now exactly identical to Broadway’s (I doubt it, just because the abilities of the spaces are slightly different), but it’s certainly more similar now.

Edge of the lake and McGonagall’s office (Act Three, Scenes Nine cont. and Ten)

Blythe’s McGonagall is so gorgeous, just a sunshiney human being. I loved how on Thursday she couldn’t stop herself from smiling at Scorpius’s antics as he came out of the lake. For as stern as she is, she also recognises a boy thrashing around in complete joy (and how can you not smile at Scorpius’s happiness? You’d have to be heartless).

No one will be surprised to hear that the gossip choreography has changed, just like everything else. There are a lot more people on stage at once, so there’s a lot going on. For me sometimes the interactions seem a little less clear, there’s no longer one message being passed in a clear sequence, but the chaos isn’t bad either. The weirdest bit for me is that Yann now, instead of being lifted off the stairs, sort of falls sideways over the bannisters. Also, at the end of the dance, the kids now end up on the stairs in a different order, with Karl at the bottom, below Rose, James above her, and then Yann and Craig at the top as they always were.

Once they’re all in McGonagall’s office, I have to mention Draco because he’s wonderful. When McGonagall called Scorpius brave, Draco lit up smiling at his son. He looked so unbelievably proud, it was stunning. Also, we all know about how he puts his hand up when he says ‘seems fair’, but it’s worth mentioning that Harry now also raises a hand to mock him. Petty idiots that they are.

The dorm scene with Harry (Act Three, Scene Eleven)

I absolutely adored the dorm scene between Harry and Albus. It was a beautiful example of how similar Harry and Albus are. Not until they’re together on stage do you realise that Dom and Jamie B’s mannerisms are almost identical. They both twist their hands together and make a lot of gestures. At times they seemed to mirror each other. And then of course there’s the similarity in how heated they get.

One of my favourite Dom lines in both of these two shows was ‘I know, okay? I know’. I don’t know why, but the word okay is a real speciality of his. It’s guaranteed to hit you in the feels no matter when or why he’s saying it.

In this scene it was an explosion, accompanied by this big gesture with his hands. He’s so frustrated by Harry, all wound up and taught (his shoulders are constantly hunched, chin sticking out, a bit like a little turtle), you can see the tension in his body, and at a moment like this he can’t keep it all contained. The emotion bursts out in his tone of voice and in his gestures.

The other really interesting thing from this scene is right at the end, when Harry mentions that Ginny was really scared by Albus running away. It seems as though Dom’s Albus takes that to mean that Harry wasn’t scared or worried. Harry didn’t really care. Ginny did, but he knew that already. And then of course Harry realises how Albus has received that and the mention of him being scared too comes almost as an afterthought, a clarification. Which is why Albus scoffs at it. ‘I thought Harry Potter wasn’t afraid of anything.’

This scoffing, sarcastic sharp Albus is so wonderful. He doesn’t have time for his dad’s crap. He doesn’t have the energy. Everything Harry says seems to confirm the worst for him, so while in this scene other versions of Harry and Albus have begun to connect, these two are driven even further apart.

The dorm scene with Scorpius (Act Three, Scene Fourteen)

Oh the glorious new antics that come with a cast change. This scene is a prime example of Jonathan trying new things and them working delightfully well. On Thursday not much was different, but by Sunday it was completely new.

Albus sleeps on his side most of the time, and in this scene he slept on right side, so he was facing into the room and towards Scorpius. So when Scorpius woke up he got off the bed and crawled across the floor to Albus, at exactly face height with him, and when he finally shouted Albus’s name, he was inches from Albus’s face. Albus essentially woke up to a face full of Scorpius attempting to be scary — as if the poor kid needed any more trauma.

It’s the closest I’ve seen Jonathan (possibly any Scorpius) get to Albus when he’s yelling in his face, and it actually did look scary. It’s one of the most effective versions of the waking up yet, so I hope it stays.

There’s a really nice new line in this scene. When Scorpius tells Albus that he was fighting alongside him, Albus asks ‘really?’ I think it just emphasises how much Albus needs to hear Scorpius’s story. He’s so deep in his own despair, and feeling so guilty about having caused all this, that to hear that he had some hand in sorting it out is a real boost for him. It’s exactly what he needs to hear right then, and isn’t that what Delphi says? ‘You don’t know what he needs, you only know that he needs it.’

Owlery Scene (Act Three, Scene Sixteen)

There are some new lines in this scene! As if anyone didn’t know.

Essentially, the order in which Albus and Scorpius exchange lines throughout the scene has been switched (I think in its entirety, but I can’t be sure because I keep forgetting there are new lines until ‘and wake up everyone in Hogwarts’ jars me halfway through). But basically, now Scorpius is the one making all the suggestions (even the stupid ones) while Albus shoots them down, and I’m still not sure what I think of that.

Before I really enjoyed that Albus was making ridiculous suggestions and Scorpius was vetoing them, because then it came to Godric’s Hollow there was a nice switch, with Scorpius making all the suggestions until Albus came up with the big one. So now it feels like Albus doesn’t really suggest anything until he solves it right at the end.

I suppose you could argue that that makes sense character wise. Scorpius is the more magically knowledgeable, Albus at that point is lacking in confidence, and I feel like as a planner Albus is probably the more inclined of the two to sit in silence and think before speaking.

But at the same time I liked how Albus’s reckless energy came out in this scene. Particularly with Joe there was a sense of fun and freedom, that they were about to end at least some of their problems. It was nice to see the two of them unleash their more ridiculous sides, and it showed so much of their friendship. Perhaps the scene still does that, but I don’t think it does it in quite the same way.

I know we get ‘let’s make history’ out of it so we can’t really complain, but as nice as that line is, and as strong as it is as a line that sums up their relationship, I don’t know if even that has the power of what’s been taken away. I’ll have to have a few more watches.

A quick shoutout to Jonathan in this scene though. I love how his Scorpius sits up straight, crosses his legs, and prepares to go into full, slightly sanctimonious, lecture mode as he says ‘I think it’s a much underestimated part of modern witchcraft’. We’ve always known that if Delphi didn’t interrupt the scene would go on with the boys arguing for hours, but it’s never been more apparent. That lecture alone is about to last at least a good ten minutes until Albus gets bored and threatens to do something stupid to make him stop.

But Delphi does interrupt, and that’s when the fun begins.

I mentioned earlier that Madeleine’s Delphi curtsies a couple of times during the show, and this is the second of those. When Scorpius calls her The Augurey she acknowledges it with a little bob. She also emphasises the ‘The’ in The Augurey when she repeats the title. She seems so pleased by the idea of being the one and only, someone really unique and important.

The interesting thing about Madeleine’s Delphi is that she doesn’t seem to change much after the reveal. When I first saw her I was almost disappointed by that, because she seemed to be playing Albus and Scorpius so hard, but now I actually love it. The fact that she can be bubbly and nerdy and young but also a heartless torturer is really creepy, and it seems quite real too. She’s someone with a mask so good that it’s part of her, and even once she’s shown her true nature, that thing that was attractive to Albus and Scorpius never quite goes away. That’s still in there.

Sunday’s Owlery Scene provided the perfect start to the torture sequence, setting a momentum that never let up. It was one of the most exciting torture scenes I’ve seen, and I’m willing to bet that it won’t be long before we see some of the wildest torture scenes ever from this cast.

Torture Scene & the maze (Act Three, Scenes Nineteen and Twenty)

This whole sequence is one of the most difficult for a new cast to nail, and on Thursday I didn’t particularly like it much, but on Sunday it absolutely blew me away.

It all began with Delphi kissing Scorpius on the cheek. It’s always particularly gross to see her kiss him, not Albus, probably because she has no interest in him whatsoever, but also because it psychologically affects both boys, and that’s her ultimate aim. To break them both.

There was a great rhythm to this version of the scene. Each element was given time, but it didn’t feel slow. Delphi torturing Scorpius for the first time and Albus running at her were two very distinct actions. You could hear exactly what Albus yelled, and it meant that when he was knocked back by her spell and collapsed in a heap on the ground, all eyes were on him. (Dominic makes that knockback spell look much more lethal than anyone else ever has, and I love that because it’s just like her. She wouldn’t not hurt Albus simply because he’s useful, and I like that he gets his fair share of pain.)

Once Albus is on the ground he stays there through the second torture and Craig’s death. There’s a new scream of Albus’s name before Craig runs on, and I’m convinced it’s Craig, but others have reckoned it’s Scorpius. It’s very difficult to tell, but I’ll keep an eye on it (cause I’d love to know who it is).

When Ronnie dies, he throws himself straight back onto the table that catches him, and he ends up falling with both feet off the floor. I love the idea of the AK blasting Craig off his feet, and there’s something morbidly beautiful about him falling to the ground in slow motion (which in a way mirrors Delphi’s fall from grace later). It could be that the boys are just seeing it in slow motion thanks to their horror, or it could be that the AK really does slow everything down like that.

There were a couple of other noteworthily creepy bits and pieces in this scene. On both Thursday and Sunday, Delphi held Scorpius by the chin while she talked to him and Albus, before throwing him aside like a piece of rubbish so he collapsed to the ground. Also on Sunday she held him so close to her face that they were inches apart, while telling Albus that if he didn’t help her, Scorpius would die. It was horrifying.

Moving into the next scene, I have to give a shoutout to Gordon as Krum. He was perfect. Clean and sharp and precise. The other person who was perfect was Ryan as Cedric. On Sunday we had the most beautiful little interaction between him and Albus.

Dom’s Albus doesn’t sit or kneel down in this scene, so when he interacts with Cedric he’s standing. He still looks small and nervous, shoulder rounded, but it takes so much boldness to reach out like he does. It’s so brave. And on Sunday it was said with just the right amount of softness. Sort of stammered, blurted out at first, but then more considered the second time. I don’t think Dom’s Albus will ever be quiet, but he’s thoughtful and gentle as well as fierce. It’s such a perfect mix, and it makes this scene work so well.

With cast three Ryan was good, but he’s really come into his own this year already. His Cedric has just the right nobility, but he also seems perplexed by Albus. He doesn’t know what to make of this strange boy, and that confusion is tangible throughout the scene, even when he says thank you. But he has courage too, because as uncertain as he is (he even thinks twice before freeing the boys), he still accepts Albus’s words. These are two boys putting themselves out there and blindly trusting, even in the midst of so much fear and uncertainty. It’s gorgeous to watch.

On Sunday this whole sequence finished perfectly with a shower of glitter in the air (on Thursday it all fell straight to the floor). The boys had so much energy and dynamism as they tried to work out what to do. The whole thing was fabulous. Full of life and interest, and it’s only going to get better.

Delphi’s room (Act Three, Scene Twenty-One)

There’s a really cool new creepy purple light in Delphi’s room. When Ginny takes the lightbulb off the wall, the diamond behind it starts glowing with the purple light, ready to spread and illuminate the whole room. It also emits puffs of smoke that curl across the scene. It really works, accompanying the Parseltongue to instantly suggest that they’ve found something here.

Godric’s Hollow (Act Four, Scenes Three and Five)

There were some really sweet little moments throughout the two Godric’s Hollow scenes (as there always are).

I love watching how Albus hides (or attempted to hide) from Bathilda. His idiot side comes out, and he does delightful things like freezing in plain view and pretending not to exist. Dom was no exception, and he went pretty much face first into the wall. If she can only see his back, he’s not there, right? (Wrong, Albus, but you’re adorable so we’ll let you off.)

When Scorpius was freaking out about Bathilda, Albus did a little ‘breathe’ gesture. It’s something that Joe used to do a long time ago, and James does it as Draco sometimes after Scorpius and Draco hug. I adore the fact that both Jonathan’s associated Albuses and his Draco have all agreed that he doesn’t breathe enough, and are all on a collective mission to remind him to do so. There’s something sweet about the fact that all these people have separately come to the same conclusion about the role they need to play in relationship with this boy.

At the beginning of the second Godric’s Hollow section, Albus and Scorpius duck under their dads’ arms and walk in a circle around the stage before taking up their thinking positions. On Thursday they did this, and on Sunday Jonathan did it, but Dom did something way more interesting. Instead of walking in the circle, he paced back and forth across the stage a couple of times, gesturing silently like he was thinking aloud.

It reminded me of what Samuel used to do during the part of the Voldemort timeline where Scorpius is explaining to Ron and Hermione in slow mo about the Time-Turner and the other timelines. He’d pace around, making talking gestures with his hands, and ultimately arrive in his final position with the conversation almost mid-flow.

When Dom finally sat down on the doorstep on Sunday, he started talking and it felt like he’d been thinking and talking for hours and that we just happened to have tuned in on this bit of the conversation. It was very cool to see an Albus so obviously mid-planning. That little bit of movement worked incredibly well, and I hope it stays.

Dom and Jonathan’s version of the eureka moment felt more measured than others. There was still lots of energy, but there wasn’t lots of running and leaping around the stage. In a way that was quite nice, because it kept the focus on the fact that they actually had to make this plan happen now.

One of the best bits of their celebration was actually the moment when they opened Bathilda’s door and did a delighted double high five. I love it when the boys do recognisable best friend things, and that one really resonated with me because just a week earlier in a moment of sheer joy I’d done exactly the same thing. It felt really right.

My other favourite little detail from this scene was the fact that Dom’s Albus, exactly as it says in the script, didn’t seem entirely sure how to pronounce demiguises. There was a minute hesitation there, and he said it almost as a question. I think of all the Albus’s I’ve seen, Dom’s is instantly the one that most takes me back to those details from the script, which is lovely.

The adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow (Act Four, Scenes Six, Seven, and Eight)

Ever since Cast Three, the scene where Harry and Ginny find the blanket, especially the line ‘we’re starting with Dad’, has become an absolute favourite of mine. Dom’s Albus is so adamant about that line, in his own firm, fierce way. I love how that line shows Albus starting to assert that he wants some sort of relationship with Harry. It’s such an important moment for the character, and when it’s delivered with such power it really sings out.

I also want to talk about Harry and Ginny’s interaction at the start of this scene in Albus’s room, because it’s the culmination of an arc that really starts with that new silent interaction they have in the scene by the map back in Act One. There’s a really interesting conflict established in their relationship. Although Ginny understands that Harry is trying, her priority is Albus, and Harry keeps pushing him away. It happens in the blanket scene, in the second timeline, in the dorm scene, and now here he is in Albus’s room, and there’s almost a sense of judgement in Ginny’s ‘surprised to find you here’, which instantly puts Harry on the defensive. The conflict seems set to continue, but then, instead of fighting, they take a breath and start talking.

This is a scene that sees them, in a real mature way, address the conflict they’ve had and apologise to one another for it. They forgive each other in just a couple of short lines and instantly start working together and comforting one another. In a sense, it’s the strength of Harry and Ginny’s relationship that saves Albus and Scorpius. If they’d fought instead of coming together and talking maybe they’d have never found the message on the blanket.

I can’t write about the arrival in Godric’s Hollow without mentioning James Howard — you know how it is. Once the hug with Scorpius is over, Draco sets about trying to calm his son down. He puts a hand on his shoulder or reminds him to breathe. Recently, as part of this, he’s started cupping Scorpius’s cheek with his hand, as both a reminder to focus and a gesture of intimacy.

I love the juxtaposition of that gesture. There’s the size of Draco’s hand, the heaviness of the rings on his fingers, the perception the world has of everything Draco is — dark and dangerous, maybe even cruel. And yet the gesture is so tender and gentle. It’s his past versus his present almost, everything coming together in this one moment to show the person he’s become. I love that something so simple can mean so much, especially coming from that particular character.

As the action moves into St Jerome’s Church, it’s worth a mention that the blocking in the transition has changed slightly. The pumpkins now all line up, and then form a sort of diamond shape, instead of the blob that they used to.

St Jerome’s (Act Four, Scenes Nine, Ten, and Eleven)

Albus now sleeps the other way round on the bench in St Jerome’s. He used to have his head facing the audience, but now it faces the centre door. I was wondering whether it’s so people can see his face during the scene (not that it does much during that scene). Although the show sends very mixed messages on this. There’s a point in the scene where Ginny walks away from Albus to talk to Harry by the door, and when she does, the light that is on Albus slowly fades out so Albus is in shadow. We’re definitely not meant to be looking at Albus at the time (and I always feel like the lighting is calling me out for doing so) but in my defence, sometimes it’s nice to watch him all peaceful like that.

There’s some slightly new positioning in the main St Jerome’s scene. Hermione now stands directly behind Scorpius, so when Albus asks what the history books say it could feasibly be a question directed at either of them.

I adore how proud of Scorpius Draco looks when Ron says ‘blimey, there’s two of them’. Scorpius glances back at him, and Draco gives him a big, warm smile. It must be so nice for Scorpius to finally be bathed in his dad’s approval, especially after everything he’s been through.

Jonno and Nicholas have ruined ‘Draco, trust my dad’ for me forever, so I was very grateful that Dominic made the decision to stand about as far from Draco as he could get when he said that line. In fact Albus was right next to Harry, and he kind of glanced at Harry as he said it too. I love it when that line is really for Harry, and when Harry takes it as the gift that it is. He sometimes looks at Ginny afterwards, who smiles at him to tell him he’s done well.

I made it my business to make sure that I could see Albus and Scorpius at the back of the stage during Harry’s transformation, and I spotted Scorpius holding tight to Albus’s arm as Albus stared in horror at what was happening to his dad. Sometimes it feels like Scorpius is all that’s supporting Albus during that moment, and that Albus might collapse without him there.

When the Malfoys are watching for Harry and Delphi by the door, Draco puts a hand on Scorpius’s shoulder, and Scorpius jumps out of his skin. It’s sad how unused to being touched he is. It’s like when he tries to run away when Draco goes over to hug him. Jonathan’s Scorpius is so skittish around physical touch (including from Albus).

The final battle (Act Four, Scene Eleven cont. and Twelve)

One of the changes with this cast is that Delphi’s voice manipulation has sort of come back. It’s not the same effect as it used to be, where she’d sort of throw her voice around the auditorium, now it’s a more subtle effect that’s applied directly to her speech. There’s a darker, hoarser voice beneath hers that’s a kind of homage to the original trick, and I’m actually really glad it’s back.

There are a bunch of different possible inspirations for the name Delphi, but one of them is the oracle of Delphi, an Ancient Greek prophet. It links to the fact that she has a new prophecy, and obviously in Harry Potter, true prophecies are spoken in that hoarse, deep voice. I like the connection to that, and with the importance of a prophet as a speaker, a teller of truth and setter of agendas.

Delphi’s voice manipulation always had real meaning to me. There was a reason to it being there, even if in a narrative sense it sort of came out of nowhere (the trick isn’t introduced to the show before St Jerome’s, which I think I most other things are). There’s no real foreshadowing of it, which is perhaps why it was originally cut. But I am very glad it’s back.

In this show what I want is to see changes with meaning, purpose, and thought. Changes that have the same level of artistry and love to them as was applied to the original show. Not all of the new changes seem to have that, but I think this one does, so I’m very happy to have it.

A less successful change in this scene is that they now very briefly unhook Delphi from the wires so she can walk to the front of the stage, before going back and getting hooked on again two seconds later. On Sunday the result was that her face was in darkness for some key bits of dialogue (they took the spotlight off her while someone was unhooking her). It seemed really random and unnecessary, and I get that it’s desirable to show her getting near the pool of light Harry is trying to entice her towards, but ultimately it seems like so much work and faff for very little gain. Hopefully it’ll be smoother next time I see it, but at the moment it’s not really working.

At the end of this scene, I absolutely loved Delphi’s ‘fall from grace’. As she fell from the air she flapped around, and it looked like a bird whose wing had been injured, which worked so much better than her going horizontal and staying totally still — when she does that it looks like she’s dead, which she’s obviously not.

Once Delphi had been bound she was really feisty. She snapped at Ron when he grabbed hold of her to keep her still, and then when Albus is telling the others he’s seen her murder she goaded him, giving him a big evil grin, daring him to do it.

On the subject of Albus during that line, it was one of the most beautiful and effective deliveries I’ve seen. Dom’s Albus runs at Delphi, like he really does intend to try and kill her. It’s almost like Albus has forgotten his wand. All he wants is to get to her and strangle her with his bare hands for what she’s done. He was so desperate to get to her that Harry had to put real physical effort into holding him back, and even Ginny ran round to grab hold of Albus’s arm and help restrain him.

I love that as a detail because this is the first moment that Albus has had physical power over Delphi since she first bound him and Scorpius. This is his first opportunity to get back at her for the torture she’s put them through and the fact that she murdered Craig. Everything he’s just seen and been through comes bubbling to the surface and he wants her to feel the same pain that he’s been feeling. It’s one of his most powerful moments, and even though it’s misguided, I love that grey side of Albus, the side that is desperate for revenge, the side that is in so much pain that he’s ready to snap. It’s what makes him human as a character. And the fact that Harry and Ginny fight to hold him back as hard as they do shows such love and commitment to him. They’re going to help him stay on the right path no matter what. There’s no judgement associated with it, they perfectly understand why Albus wants to do what he wants to do, but the simple fact is that it’s not the right thing, in fact it’s what Delphi wants, and they’re going to protect Albus from causing himself even more pain by acting emotionally in a moment when his trauma is still so fresh.

When Albus did finally back off, he and Harry ended up gripping each other’s forearms for a moment, and there was something mutually supportive about that. It’s a band of brothers sort of gesture. They’re in this together. They understand each other. And they’re going to get through it together.

Another moment of Albus supporting Harry comes during the death scene. I actually saw two different versions of this, because Dominic did it slightly different on both the Thursday and the Sunday.

On Sunday he gently took Harry’s wand from his hand (Joe style) when he said ‘there is something you could do, to stop him. But you won’t’. It was like he was taking the lesson his parents had just taught him, and the compassion they’d shown him, and was passing it back to his dad by disarming him so he wasn’t tempted to do anything he’d regret. It was a beautiful little reflection of exactly what had gone before. Subtle and quiet and loving.

On Thursday it was much more of an emotional struggle. When Harry collapsed to the ground after Lily was killed, Albus was holding onto Harry’s wand at the same time as Harry, and was trying to wrestle it out of his hand. Harry’s grip was so strong that it was impossible, so they ended up kneeling next to each other, struggling together, as they were spun away into darkness. Albus was much more desperate about trying to disarm Harry on Thursday, and he didn’t manage it, but just the attempt was really powerful. And the fact that it came at such an emotional moment was beautiful. It wasn’t clear what Harry was going to try and do about what he’d just seen, but he was in such desperation that perhaps anything would have done, and Albus was trying to relieve him of that desperate temptation.

A big shout out has to go to Ryan, Lucy, and David for their death scene, particularly on Sunday. When I say that Ryan has come into his own with this cast this is the sort of thing I mean. The raw emotion of his performance was breathtaking and so powerful. Lucy was brilliant too, and David brought a creepy softness to parts of the scene that made it spine chilling.

Penultimate scene (Act Four, Scene Fourteen)

The biggest thing to talk about in this scene is the hug, if that’s what it can be called. This Albus and Scorpius have some truly awkward hugs, which are very sweet but they’re a massive disaster. In this one they ended up doing a lot of patting of each other’s shoulders, chests, arms, hands, and just generally looking like they didn’t quite know what to do with their hands anymore once they’d hugged. Did they want a second hug? Did they want a friendly pat on the back? Who knows! Not me. Possibly not even them.

The best thing about this scene though is that it was a return to happy Albus. When Dom’s Albus smiles you can see it from miles around. It’s this enormous oval grin, and it’s adorable. I love Dom’s Albus’s capacity for happiness, and it’s nice to see Albus have that side again after two very depressed Albuses in a row.

Final scene (Act Four, Scene Fifteen)

The ending of the show is sprung upon you in this new version of the show, because they’ve arranged the order of the lines, so lines that used to mark the gateway to the end of the show have now been switched with lines that were a bit earlier on in the scene. It means that as a viewer you’re relaxed thinking you’ve got plenty of scene left to enjoy, and then suddenly Harry and Albus are looking at Cedric’s grave and it’s seconds from the end.

Basically, the scene goes as normal until about halfway through the section where Albus is talking about his Slytherin side. At that point Harry addresses his names and why they shouldn’t be a burden before going back to the part where he tells Albus his heart is a good one. In a way, the names are used as an explanation of why Albus is fine just the way he is. They’re more integrated into the scene in a way, and I didn’t mind the change (although some people have argued that it interrupts the flow of the scene a bit).

During this scene, Dom’s Albus sort of hid among the gravestones, keeping his distance from Harry until the very end. He was still clearly anxious around his dad, but when he eventually let go of his inhibitions he was rewarded with one of the most glorious final hugs we’ve ever seen.

Jamie B and Joe used to share a really tight, warm hug as the lights faded at the end of the scene, but they would always wait until they were almost entirely in darkness. It felt more like them embracing as two actors who’ve just gone through something emotionally exhausting together, and I don’t think Joe’s version of Albus would have hugged his dad like that. However, with Dom, essentially the same hug now begins before the lights have started going down. It becomes much more part of the characters, and I think that shows a real different between Dom and Joe’s Albuses.

By the end of the show Joe’s Albus still had a long way to go, and he was always going to be a bit of an awkward, miserable teenager. Whereas Dom’s Albus feels much more on the verge of things being okay. He’s happy to accept a hug like that and for it to feel like a sign of things to come. His ending of the show is less about hope and more about arrival — he and Harry are already there, and everything is okay.

So that’s the recap (which got very long, sorry about that...). One final thing to mention before wrapping up is that when you think the show has run out of things to change, they go and make all the post-curtain call music different too. Typical.

The changes this year are many and overwhelming. The first time I saw them they were almost exhausting because there was a feeling that nothing was the same anymore. But actually, I think a lot of them are good, and we’ll get used to them soon enough, especially when they’re being performed by a cast like this.

Cast Four really are brilliant. I know there are mixed feelings among fandom about some portrayals, but I’m confident that after a settling in period everything will be wonderful. Already there’s so much detail and so many interesting thoughts. Once we get into the part of the year where the cast really start exploring and digging and playing around we’re going to get some really incredible shows. I think it’s going to be a nice year.

#Harry Potter and the Cursed Child #Cursed Child #hpplayldn #Cast Four #Dominic Short #Jonathan Case #Jamie Ballard #Susie Trayling #Madeleine Walker #My writing #Notes from the show #Keep The Secrets #really this recap is all about Dominic #it's always the Albuses #every single year

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thesinglesjukebox · 7 years ago

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TAYLOR SWIFT - LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO [4.39] Man, look what she made US do.

Elisabeth Sanders: Here is the thing about Taylor Swift: anybody that has truly loved (despite themselves) Taylor Swift has done so because of her sharp, frightening edges, because of the way in which she is the mean girl in the midst of a panic attack, because she's petty, because she's crazy, because she believes in things and at the same time when those things aren't as they seem wants to crush them in the palm of her hand. Any interpretation of Taylor Swift that doesn't incorporate this is simply bad research. In 2006: "Go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy--There's no time for tears / I'm just sitting here, planning my revenge." In 2010: "And my mother accused me of losing my mind /But I swore I was fine /You paint me a blue sky /And go back and turn it to rain /And I lived in your chess game /But you changed the rules every day /Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone, tonight /Well I stopped picking up and this song is to let you know why" In 2012: "Maybe we got lost in translation / maybe I asked for too much / or maybe this thing was a masterpiece / til you tore it all up." And finally, in 2014, a culmination of the songwriting combined with the publicity--well, just listen to "Blank Space." I can't quote the whole thing. At the time it was brilliant, a parody that dipped just enough into the real, a joke about both media extrapolation and actual content. But we're past the time for parody. It came, it was good, it went. The criticism still followed, for other reasons, for deeper reasons, for real reasons. Along with, I'm sure, superficial ones. But if "Blank Space" was Taylor Swift's petty Gone Girl fan fiction, "Look What You Made Me Do" is the unfortunate chapter in which we have to acknowledge that the fiction was never that self-aware, and that an excavation of complication, when confronted with complicated times, sometimes reveals not a complex sympathetic maybe-villain, but simply a person not equipped to be making mass art right now. Taylor's pettiness, her villainy, her strangeness, has always been her most interesting feature. Maybe, now, too many years into seeing but not seeing it, it's just--not that interesting anymore. She's not your friend, and she's not your enemy, she's just--well. As she says, "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me." I think that might be her final truth. [3]

Stephen Eisermann: I've never been a big Taylor Swift fan -- I like her music well enough, but there was always something about the details she painted and the cards she showed that it felt a bit... made-up. Still, I always had a weird feeling that Taylor and I had very similar personalities and personal life trajectories (bear with me) and this song reinforces that. When I was younger and "straight" (16-18), I was very quiet, nice to a fault, and introverted. Thanks to my name and skin color, a lot of (racist) older people always said it was hard to believe I was a Mexican teenager because I was so quiet, polite, well-spoken and bright. Much like Swizzle during the "Taylor Swift" and "Fearless" era, I was considered naive but genuine-hearted and people loved to love my niceness. However, I soon started coming to terms with my sexuality and started being a bit more open with myself and others about who I truly was, just like we saw glimpses of pure pop and more evocative lyrics in "Speak Now" and "Red." I still built stories and a narrative that painted me as more mystery than gay, just as Taylor toed the line between squeaky clean young adult and Lolita, but I was a bit more willing to explore. Soon after, the inevitable happened and I finally had my first NSFW encounter with a man, and was even MORE willing to be who I really was. I let my gay flag fly and if people asked, I wouldn't dance around the question, but own who I was. Taylor didn't hesitate one bit when she announced 1989 would be a pop album in its entirety, and I didn't so much was stutter when telling questioning friends my realization. Still, a part of me hid things from ass-backwards family members and people who I knew wouldn't "understand," just as Sweezy continued to play the victim card to hold on to some of the innocence that was slowly falling through her fingertips like sand on the last day of vacation. However, there is only so much sand one hand can hold and BAM -- my family became aware of my sexuality and Taylor was exposed. I was at a crossroads -- do I drop my family and throw out ALL the dirty chisme I had accumulated over the years at different holidays, effectively exposing the most bigoted family members, or do I keep my mouth shut and weather the hate, being all the stronger for it? I wanted so badly to be vindictive and evil, but I choose the high road for reasons I'm not really sure I can effectively communicate. Taylor, however, has opted for the darker route. "LWYMMD" lacks detail, yes, but it's intentional. I just... I just know it. She has secrets up her sleeves she will soon reveal -- nobody willingly takes the villainous role without ammo, and Taylor has been MANY things throughout her career, but unprepared is not one of them. This song is calculated, petty, unnecessary, and very much beneath her, but it allows me to live vicariously through her and I want her to drag her detractors just as I want to drag my family members through the mud they continue to think I belong in. And just as my bigoted family members will get theirs, so will Taylor's enemies, I'm sure. [10]

Will Rivitz: "I think I have a part to play in this drama, and I have chosen to be the villain. Every good story needs a bad guy, don't you think?" -Lorelei Granger, Frindle (Andrew Clements, 1996) [9]

David Moore: Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (Image Comics, 2015) Synopsis: Years ago, a young woman obsessed with music videos and mythic pop celebrity made a deal with the King Behind the Screen -- she gave up half of herself to gain the mystical power needed to eventually lead a coven of music obsessives. Now the deal's gone sour, and her darker, sacrificed self has switched places to destroy the coven with an ill-advised electroclash revival. [7]

Alfred Soto: Electronic swoops, piano on the bridge, lots of boom boom bap -- this single could be the new St. Vincent, or, to return to once upon a long time ago, to a track from Lorde's estimable Melodrama, a flop also largely co-written with Jack Antonoff. A skeptic of her first singles since 2009, I approached "Look..." with caution; on the evidence she's anticipated this caution. "I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me," she sings while soap opera strings add the requisite melodrama, and for a moment I thought she sang "I don't trust my body." I've never cared about biographical parallels in any art, especially in popular art where the insistence feels like conscription; the blank space where she wants the audience to write his/her/whatever's name is a sop to us. Less persuasive is the talk-sung part informing her audience that the "old Taylor" is "dead," as if Fearless fans needed an 808 dug into their faces. It will sound terrific on the radio. I'll skip it when I buy the album. [5]

Crystal Leww: The emerging narrative of Jack Antonoff as the next king of pop production is perplexing because his resume is honestly pretty thin. It's unclear what Antonoff actually brings to the table other than an amplification factor; Antonoff's songs have only been as good as his collaborators. This works when artists are working with a strong vision they can execute against -- e.g., CRJ's "in love and feeling like a teen again" on "Sweetie," Lorde's earnest wide open heartbreak on Melodrama. It is damning if artists are falling into their worst habits. Taylor Swift is a very solid songwriter -- it's nearly impossible to have the kind of career she had in country music if you're not -- but it always falls back on specificity, the emotional connection that she can forge with her fans when she knows what she's trying to convey. "Look What You Made Me Do" fails because it's unclear what it's about -- is this song about haters? Kim and Kanye? Her exes? The media? -- and Antonoff using Right Said Fred makes it all seem very clunky. The song sounds like it could have really leaned into a psycho ex-girlfriend vibe, but it's not self-aware, not funny, not sure of itself. Ultimately, "Look What You Made Me Do" isn't awful, but it's not catchy, which is its worst sin of all. Taylor Swift's still a decent songwriter ("Better Man" was great; "I've been looking sad in all the nicest places" almost made up for that Zayn collab), but this isn't even yucky -- it's just kinda boring. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: The curse continues. Maybe it's that the past month I've been listening to very little but "Anatomy of a Plastic Girl" by The Opiates and "Justice" by Fotonovela and Sarah Blackwood, and here's the exact conceptual midpoint. I've heard comparisons to electroclash, NIN, mall emo, Lorde, but I hear more Jessie Malakouti or Britney on Original Doll: frantic tabloid petulance, slightly updated with a "Problem" anti-chorus, but otherwise things I like. Otherwise, Swift's style has not changed: self-referential ("actress" and "bad dreams" shuffle her images to make her the heel) and threaded with subliminals ("tilted stage" is literal, "kingdom keys" keeps up with the konsonance) Just as "Dear John" parodied its subject's lite-blooz guitar, "Look What You Made Me Do" parodies the austere tracks of 808s and Heartbreak on, like "Love Lockdown" in curdled Midwestern vowels: trading soporific for loaded. The song has inevitably become about everything but itself. Her milkshake duck brought all the boys to the yard, and they're like, this is garb, and I'm like, the Internet deplorables haven't adopted this in any better faith than they did Depeche Mode; any of pop's myriad songs about the tabloids would read as "political" if transplanted into 2017 (is Lindsay Lohan's "Rumours" about FAKE NEWS?), and Swift's suffocatingly prescriptive "Southern" "values" pre-Red were as politically suspect as this, and more insidious. The next salvo of attack: its rollout being unprecedentedly gimmicky and exploitative, never mind how aforementioned Depeche Mode did the same pre-order thing, or Britney Spears upholstered-carpetbombed "Pretty Girls" in everyone's Ubers, or Rihanna's Talk That Talk was launched with gamified "missions", or Srsly Legit Band Arcade Fire spent months on fake Stereogum posts and fake Ben and Jerry's. Doesn't help that when Taylor is bad, she's stunningly, loudly bad; the second verse, in its magnification of the cringiest parts of "Shake It Off" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," seems to last forever. (The phone call is fine, though; no one had a problem with "How Ya Doin'" or, like, "Telephone.") It's no good for catharsis, definitely not relatable, maybe on purpose: like being too sexy for your shirt, all you feel is cold. [6]

Katie Gill: On the one hand, Taylor using the language of abusers in the chorus of her song is clueless at best and worrisome at worst. On the other hand, blatantly riffing off of "I'm Too Sexy" is a surprisingly smart choice for a chorus and I'm shocked that I can't think of anyone who's tried it before with this level of success. But on the one hand, for a song about how she's getting smarter and harder, the lyrics don't reflect that, giving us some petty Regina George level nonsense instead of anything remotely resembling depth or nuance. But then again, that snake is pouring Taylor Swift some tea and all the Taylor Swifts are beating up the other Taylor Swifts in a battle royale hahaha this video is so amazingly dumb. I guess I'll split the difference and give it a [5]

Alex Clifton: I've always wanted give-no-fucks Taylor Swift, but I'm dying for context, as this album (and sing) will sink or swim based entirely on the narrative she creates. She's clearly setting herself on fire in order to rebrand herself, although I question her self-awareness. The music video indicates yes, with a brilliant 30-second scene featuring various Taylors mocking each other. Yet "Look What You Made Me Do" is also curiously passive, with a reactionary title and a bored chorus--more a sign of privilege and status. The ambiguity between honest, wronged victim and villainous persona here is intriguing, especially given Swift's penchant for earnestness; obviously she cannot be both, but the tension drives the song. The song itself is a mixed bag; Swift returns to the messy rapping last heard on "Shake It Off" with an equally cringey spoken-word interlude, but her voice is simutaneously delicate and confident as she comes out swinging. While I love seeing Blood!Swift writing a hitlist of enemies like an evil Santa Claus and the hint of confronting the less attractive/more honest parts of her role in the spotlight, only time will tell whether this is truly a playful new direction or more of the same old tune. (Also, what did we make her do? The answer is classic Swift, diabolically obvious: we made her write a song about it.) [7]

Jessica Doyle: A week on I still hear more self-loathing than anything else. Nothing the supposed New Taylor offers up comes off particularly convincingly; there's no glee in her reinvention. Compare the way she rushes through honey-I-rose-up-from-the-dead when she once sounded like she was thoroughly enjoying Boys only want love when it's torture. She doesn't sound smarter, or harder; look what you made me do, when she's spent the last eighteen months making a point of not doing anything. There's no air in here, no space beyond the multiple annotated versions and multiple thinkpieces declaring her a walking horsebitch of the Trumpocalypse. Just Taylor Swift practicing telling herself to shut up, Taylor Swift wondering about karma, Taylor Swift reading Buzzfeed and taking careful notes, Taylor Swift unable to make a point about anything at all except Taylor Swift. You don't realize, when you're in the thick of it, that self-loathing is just as relentlessly, narrowly egotistical as any other kind of self-obsession. It gets old, finally. It wears you out. It wears everybody out. Right? Yes? Can we all agree to be worn out now? Are we going to allow her to move on? She can't rise up from the dead if we don't let her die first. [3]

Cassy Gress: There was a time when I thought 1989 pajama-parties-and-kittens Taylor was the "real Taylor." I don't know if that really was. What I do know is that trying to figure out who the "real Taylor" is, and arguing on the internet about it, is fucking exhausting. So much of her musical output has been autobiographical, or meant to sound generically autobiographical to women listeners; so much of her reads as "pussycat with claws." Sometimes she emphasizes the pussycat side, soft and vulnerable; "Look What You Made Me Do" is the claws side. But Taylor, who we know has the ability to be nuanced and evocative, is here transmitting her intent (to destroy Kanye, or Katy, or Hiddleston, or her old selves, or just to be the cleverest sausage) like a hammer to the skull. This, like much else about her, is exhausting to watch/listen to. I would much rather close the blinds and put on my headphones and watch GBBO reruns in my jammies. [2]

Olivia Rafferty: Washing in with the arrival of her sixth album are a tidal wave of thinkpieces on Swift, all set within the context of her A-list feuds, miscalculations and politics, or lack thereof. We've all sifted through stories of fake boyfriends, cheap shots and oblivious colonialism, and I'm going to speak for all of us when I say we probably should just all take a goddamn break from the vortex. I'm placing LWYMMD in a vacuum for now. Reaching into the embarrassing depths of my personal history, I can draw up two different past-Olivias who would be a perfect fit for this song. I'm gifting the verse, pre-chorus and middle eight to my 10-year-old self, and the chorus to my 17-year-old self. Olivia at 10 would lap up the overly-dramatic opening lines, the "I. Don't. Likes" and their thick punctuation. It's served with the attitude that would have made you want to stick on a crop top and pick up one of your tiny handbags to fling about during an ill-prepared dance routine -- no, Mum, it's not finished yet! And the moment of absolute pre-teen glory is the cheerleader delivery of the spoken half-verse, "the world moves on another day another drama drama," I can literally see the Beanie Baby music video re-enactment. All of these melodic aspects are playful but lack the precision or maturity you'd expect Swift to deliver on this "good girl grown up" song. When the chorus hits you suddenly mature into that 17 year-old whose friends-but-not-really-friends played that Peaches song at someone's house party. You could probably embarassingly attempt a slut-drop to it in your bedroom, pretending you're a dominatrix who's just split some milk on the floor. But the overall impression is that if Swift is trying to be naughty, sexy or dangerous, she's missed the mark a little. Now at 25 I'm listening and thinking that the chorus still snaps, but if this track was an attempt at sexualising Taylor in a way that's not been done before, it's only made it clear that she's still got a lot of growing up to do. [6]

Joshua Copperman: From the first bar chimes sound effect, I was worried, and I suppose my feelings didn't improve by the time the "tilted stage" line happened. On "Out Of The Woods", Antonoff and Swift brought out the best in each other (Jack's big choruses, Taylor's specific references), but on "Look What You Made Me Do", they bring out the worst (Jack's obnoxiousness, Taylor's pettiness.) Antonoff can do flamboyant earnestness, especially when it blends with Lorde's self-awareness and quirkiness; he just can't do dark and edgy. Or even campy, apparently: the glorious video mostly takes care of that, giving the song an intensity and glamour that it doesn't have nor deserve on its own. Yet even the video often misses the humor inherent in moments like the terrible rap in the second verse, or the already-infamous lift from "I'm Too Sexy". The ultimate effect is like John Green praising a burn of himself without realizing why the burn was deserved in the first place. In this case, it's one Taylor saying to another Taylor "there she goes, playing the victim, again", even though the preceding song couldn't even play the victim or villain well enough. [4]

Mo Kim: There was a time in my life when I looked up to Taylor Swift. I was eighteen once, clearing my throat of all the doubts that haunted it, and the only way I had to express myself was through songs about slights that exploded like firecrackers. But a voice with that strength comes with responsibility. Sometimes you need to stop reveling in the volume of your own speech to see the platform of power you stand on; otherwise you might build a version of yourself on the rickety foundation of innocence only to find it crashing down. On "Look What You Made Me Do," she's still trying for the pottery shard hooks that once made her so important to petty queer kids like me. It works in bits and spurts: that second verse is a bucket of water and an emergency siren to the face, and the pre-chorus utilizes a sinister piano and eerie vocal production to great effect. Too bad, then, that the flimsy chorus and winky-face lyrics cave in on themselves more easily than almost anything she's written before (like a house of cards, some might say). That it so blatantly abjects responsibility onto her audience, however, is the biggest point against it: instead of personability, or at least the pretense of it, there's just layer after layer of metanarrative. Instead of a telling that acknowledges her history -- a complicated, troubling, rich one -- there's just Queen Bee Taylor, sneering over a landfill heap of old Taylors before she discards of all her past selves. I used to hold stadiums in my chest as I listened to the stories Swift spun; now I feel like the lights have finally crackled out, and here she is, dithering in the debris of her crumbling empire, and here we are, looking down. [5]

Josh Love: If Taylor wants to go in, that's her prerogative, but because this is a song that none of us plebes can actually relate to, it's only fair to judge it solely based on whether it goes hard, and I'm sorry to report that Taylor has no bars. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "Shake It Off" seemed like wild stabs at first too, but they possessed an inclusivity that's curdled into Yeezus-level petulance here. There's nothing here to suggest she's capable of making Reputation her Lemonade. At least the video gives me some hope that maybe she realizes she's a complete dork. [3]

Anthony Easton: This is the hardest for me to grade, because I still don't know if it is good, but it is constructed in such a way that people like me (critic, liberal elitist, homosexual) are pressed to have opinions. It steals with such quickness, and with such weirdness that the opinions give birth to other opinons, somewhere between a snake hall and the ouroboros she already quotes. It sounds like Lorde, it samples Peaches, it plays with electroclash, which was a genre that was already heavily recursive. It tries to be without feeling, but it feels all too deeply. That is enough to spend time with, that is enough to unpack. It sounds like Lorde because they are both working with Jack Antonoff. Who is cribbing from who here? Is Lorde playing like Swift, is Swift cribbing Lorde's lankness, are both pulling outside of their influence, by the commercial, mainstreamed weirdness of Antonoff? Swift was always pretty; her main skill was using guile to a stiletto edge. This edges on ugliness, but it is still "ugly." Women like Peaches or the cabaret singer Bridgett Everett know how to sing, have the ambition to sing well, but chose to reject good taste for social and political power. Taylor playing with being ugly, with being flat, with kind of half singing, with no longer being the cheerleader, is not a formal refusal of beauty as a political means but has the louche boredom of a hanger-on, with maybe a bit of anger at not being cool enough. It's a capital blankness that raids and doesn't contribute. Part of the ugliness of Peaches, part of the joy of electroclash, is not only how it absorbs the amoral around it--Grace Jones, The Normal, Joy Division, Klaus Nomi--but that the sex of it works so hard. The fucking is less pleasure than hard work--the grit of dirt and sweat and bodies. When Swift quotes Peaches, she is quoting the reduction of pop to a stripping down of bodies through a formal aesthetic choice. When she quotes noir, it is an attempt to self-consciously think of herself as a body who is capable of doing real damage. Swift flatters herself as someone whose suicide could be a nihilist aesthetic gesture. She flatters herself as a fatale. She's still the kid who does damage, and plays naif. You can't be pretty and ugly. You can't be a naif fatale. You can't pretend not to care about gossip and make your career about what people think of you. You can only be so much of a feminist and rest on your producers this much, and you cannot play at louche blankness if it is so obvious how much work you are doing. This might suggest that I hate the song, but I can't. Swift doing an "ugly" heel turn fills me with poptimist longing, and I want to hear more. [9]

Eleanor Graham: There is a bit in an old Never Mind The Buzzcocks where Simon Amstell says to Amy Winehouse, "We used to be close! On Popworld, we were close." And Amy Winehouse runs her hand down his face and says, half-pityingly and to thunderous laughter, "She's dead." I don't really know why I'm bringing this up except to illustrate that a woman killing off her former self, against Joan Didion's worldly advice, has a kind of power. The crudest hyperbole. Like Amy in Gone Girl. You don't like this thing about me? You wish I was different? Well, guess what -- I'M DEAD! This line, which Swift delivers with the manic kittenish venom of Reese Witherspoon's character in Big Little Lies, is the only redeeming feature of "Look What You Made Me Do." And yet -- even as someone who has openly thrown politics to the wind in the face of such forever songs as "Style", "State of Grace" and "All Too Well" -- this single is too hallucinatory to be a flat disappointment. Quite aside from the Right Said Fred debacle, the "aw" is reminiscent of Julia Michaels, the second verse of a lobotomised Miz-Biz era Hayley Williams, the production ideas of a mid-2000s CBBC show, and the whole thing of a middle-aged man in a wig playing Sky Ferreira in an SNL skit. Disorientating. Almost euphorically horrible. Say what you want about T Swift, but who else is serving this level of pop Kafkaism in 2017? [2]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Weirdly, everything works for me sorta kinda with the second verse. The percussion thuds in the distance just a little more effectively, and Taylor's whining drone of a rap screams up into that high-pitched melodrama, only to crash and burn into an anemic "Push It," as written by someone who forgot Lady Gaga once could fool us into thinking she was funny. Past that subsection and prior, however, the record truly never clicks. You get the sense that Swift, someone so eagerly to seize the moment, doesn't realize that the horror campiness plays her hand too hard. [2]

Edward Okulicz: Saved from being her worst ever single by an out-of-nowhere, brilliant, Lorde-esque pre-chorus (and the existence of both "Welcome to New York" and "Bad Blood"), this is pretty thin gruel for the first single off a first album in three years. Remember how dense her songwriting used to be? See how clumsy it is on this. Taylor Swift's devolution from essential pop star to somewhat annoying head of a cult of personality is complete. At least there'll be better to come on the album. I hope. [4]

Rachel Bowles: I am guessing (and hoping) that "Look What You Made Me Do" is Reputation's "Shake It Off," a comparatively mediocre introduction to what is ostensibly a good album with some timeless songs ("Style" in particular on 1989). Functionally the same, both songs have to reintroduce Taylor in a new iteration to a cultural narrative she cannot be excluded from, both heavy on self-awareness and light on her signature musical flair. Where "Shake It Off" felt anodyne and compressed, "LWYMMD" is beautifully stripped back, chopping between lowly sung and rhythmically spoken word over a synthesiser, strings or a beat -- verses, bridges and middle 8's passing, though ultimately building to nothing -- the chorus of "LWYMMD" being the swirling void at its centre, one that cannot hold, however fashionable it is to build then strip to anti-climax in EDM and pop. What did Taylor do? The absence of her critical action, the bloody, thirsted-for revenge, can only leave us unsatisfied, like watching a Jacobean tragedy on tilted stage without the final release of death for all. What's left is a painful, public death of media citations of Taylor, played over and over, joylessly. [5]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: 1989 is Taylor Swift's worst album, but that shouldn't necessarily be seen as a bad thing. For an artist whose vocal melodies were able to effectively drive a song forward, it was a bit odd hearing her rely so heavily on a song's instrumentation to do all the heavy lifting. Additionally, the painterly lyrics that drew me to her work in the first place were mostly abandoned for ones more beige (simply compare the most memorable lyrics from 1989 and any other album and it becomes very obvious). It didn't work out for the most part, but I was fine with the mediocrity. And considering how stylistically diverse the album was, I very much saw it as a stepping stone for a future project. Which is why I'm completely unsurprised by the doubling down of "Look What You Made Me Do" -- it's a lead single that's heavily tied to her media perception, finds her abandoning any sense of subtlety, and utilizes amelodic singing to put greater emphasis on the instrumentation itself. It's conceptually brilliant for all these reasons, but it doesn't come together all too well. Namely, the lyrics are almost laughably bad and distract from how physical the song can be, and her calculated attempts at announcing her self-awareness have reached the point of utter parody. That the music video ends with Swift essentially explaining the (unfunny) joke only confirms this. [3]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Every new Taylor Swift single is Vizzini from "The Princess Bride," letting us know that she knows that we know that she knows that we know that she is Taylor Swift, and since she knows that we know (etc. etc. etc.), she can be confident drinking the goblet in front of her, since she knows that she switched around the goblets when we weren't looking, and she's laughing like she's clearly outsmarted us, but little does she know that we've been building up an immunity to her odorless white poison for years. [2]

William John: The hyper-specificity is gone. There are no references here to paper airplane necklaces or dead roses in December or in-jokes written on notes left on doors. In their place, platitudes abound, choruses are forgotten, "time" rhymes with "time", and "drama" with "karma". The latter is pursued with a maniacal intensity, the parody spelled out rather brilliantly in "Blank Space" quickly undoing itself. Rather obviously, "Look What You Made Me Do" does not exist in a vacuum, and the timing and nature of its release are what render it particularly dismaying. Its author, not playing to her previously demonstrated strengths, is seemingly at great pains to fuel fire to certain celebrity feuds, all the while insisting on her exclusion from them. It wouldn't matter so much were she to denounce some of her new fans with the same fervour, but for some reason this era she's opted out of interviews, perhaps at the time when some explanation driven by someone outside her inner circle is most needed. It's one way to forge a reputation, indeed. I do like the way she screams "bad DREAMS!" though. [3]

Leonel Manzanares: An auteur whose entire schtick is about framing herself as a victim, now emboldened by the current climate to address "the haters" using the language of abuse, embracing villainhood. No wonder she's considered the ambassador of Breitbart Pop. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: "Don't you understand? It's your fault that I had to go and become a mean girl!" Yeah, okay, whatever, Ms. White Privilege. [2]

Anjy Ou: For the woman who singularly embodies white female privilege, it's kind of embarrassing that she doesn't have the range. [2]

Will Adams: If you had asked me three months ago, "Hey, between 'Swish Swish' and whatever Taylor Swift ends up putting out this year, which is the more embarrassing diss track?", I wouldn't have thought I'd need to think about the answer this much. [2]

Anaïs Escobar Mathers: "Taylor, you're doing amazing, sweetie," said no one. [1]

Sonia Yang: With an artist as polarizing as Swift, it's easy to make the conversation a messy knot about the real life conflicts she's had, but I find it more interesting to tune that all out and focus on the simplicity of her work as a standalone. "Look What You Made Me Do" is Swift at her most coldly bitter yet, but betrays the resignation of long buried hurt. It's "Blank Space" but with none of the fantastical fun; it toes the line between wary irony and jadedly "becoming the mask." Most telling is the dull echo of the song title in place of a real hook, which is actually a favorite point of mine. Reality doesn't always go out with a bang; it's more likely for one to reach a gloomy conclusion than stumbling upon a glorious epiphany. Musically, I'd call this an awkward transition phase for Taylor -- it's not her worst song ever, but it's admittedly underwhelming compared to the heights we've seen from her. However, I've sat through questionable attempts at reinvention from my favorite artists before and I'm still optimistic about the potential for Swift's growth after this. [7]

Jonathan Bradley: There is nothing Taylor Swift does better than revenge, and this is not that. This is the first Swift single that exists only in conversation with Swift's media-created persona -- even "Blank Space" turned on internally resolved narrative beats and emotional moments -- but it offers little for those who hear pop through celebrity news updates, not speakers or headphones. Compare "Look What You Made Me Do" to "Mean," a pointed and hurt missive that scarified its targets with dangerous care; this new single, however, barely extends beyond the bounds of Swift's own skull. "I don't like your little games," levels Swift, her voice venom, "the role you made me play." The central character -- the only character -- in this narrative is Swift, and she enacts an immolation. Her nastiness is the etiolated savagery of Drake in his more recent and loutish incarnation: lonely and lordly, "just a sicko, a real sicko when you get to know me." "I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time" could be Jesse Lacey on Deja Entendu but sunk into the abyss of The Devil and God -- only it's delivered over ugly, the Knife-like electro clanging. The line that succeeds is classic Swift in its brittle theatrics: "Honey, I rose up from the dead; I do it all the time." The spoken-word bridge -- the song's most blatantly campy and deliciously gothic moment -- acts as a witchy incantation, walking most precariously the line between winking vamp and public tantrum. Swift has brought her monstrous birth to the world's light; contra the title, what it is we've made her do isn't even apparent yet. [8]

Lauren Gilbert: I was 18 when "Fearless" was released, and listened to it on repeat my first term of undergrad, feeling freedom and joy and hope. I listened to "We Are Never Getting Back Together" on repeat in an on-again-off-again relationship that should have ended years before it did. I listened to 1989 over and over again after recovering from a nervous breakdown and for the first time, really, truly focused on choosing a life of joy. I should be Here For This. I am not. Pop music thrives on specificity, and Taylor Swift in particular has made a career of writing about hyperspecific situations. This is... generic; it could be sung by Katy Perry, by a female Zayn, by Kim K herself. Taylor offers no hooks to her own life here, and perhaps that's not a flaw; female songwriters have the right to choose not to expose their own lives, and to write the same generic pop song nonsense that everyone else does. But as someone who bought into the whole TSwift authenticity brand -- even while I recognized it as a brand, even while I knew that she was a multimillionaire looking out for her own interests first and foremost, even as she was the definition of a Problematic Fav -- I can't really say I care that much about new Taylor. I could fault Taylor's politics and personality -- and I'm sure other blurbs will -- but the primary failing here isn't Taylor's non-music life. It's that there's no feeling here; it feels as cynical as the line "another day, another drama". Next. [4]

Andy Hutchins: "I'm Too Sexy" + "Mr. Me Too" - basically any of the elements that made "Mr. Me Too" compelling = "Ms. I'm Sexy, Too." [4]

Tara Hillegeist: Let's leave this double-edged sword hang here for a minute: Taylor Swift's personhood is irrelevant to the reality that she is a better creator than she ever gets credit for. Since her earliest days of the demo CDs she'd like to keep buried, Taylor Swift has never been less interesting or more terrible on the ears than when her songs are forcibly positioned as autobiography. For a decade she has cultivated an audience of lovers and haters alike that never felt her--or truly felt for her--because she never wanted them to know her, driven to own her brand even as she's deliberately averred to own up to what lies behind it. Witness the framing of an Etch-a-Sketch of a song like "Look What You Made Me Do": she releases a song about vengeful self-definition mere weeks after finally winning a years-long case against a man who sexually assaulted her and tried to sue her to silence over it on the sheer strength of her own self-representation, and the air charges itself with intimations that she instead meant it for Katy Perry, whose flash-in-the-pan "friendship" she publicly and memorably disowned in a bad song about bad blood an entire album ago, or perhaps Kim Kardashian-West, a woman whose "feud" with her arguably began with Taylor Swift's attempt to paint herself as the victim in an argument with Kim's husband but ended inarguably and decisively in Kim's favor. To claim someone would mangle her targets so ineptly even the conspiracy theorists have to resort to half-guesses and deliberate misquotes to draw out the barbs is a claim it's especially ridiculous to pin on a musician like Taylor Swift, a control freak who once built a labyrinth of personal references into an album full of songs about protagonists nothing like herself just to prove a point to anyone listening to them that closely about how sturdy the songs would be without knowing any of it. A public conversation that misses the point this drastically can only occur if there's a deliberately blank space where any sense of or interest in the person it's about could exist. There is a hole where this most powerfully self-determining popstar lives where a human life has never been glimpsed--because she cast that little girl and her frail voice aside years ago in search of something altogether more influential than such a weak vessel could ever hold. The girl who cajoled her family into spending enough Merrill-Lynch money to cover for her inability to sing until she had enough professional training to sing the songs she wanted to put to her name was never the girl who could truly be a flight risk with a fear of falling, was never the girl who never did anything better than revenge. But she wanted to be the girl who sang the words for that girl, who put her words in that girl's mouth, more than anything else in the world. She staked her name on nothing less than her ability to capitalize on the reputation she acquired. The Taylor Swift of Fearless and Speak Now was a Taylor Swift who believed she could be someone else in your mind, a songwriter dexterous enough to slip between gothic pop, americana-infused new wave, and pop-punk piss-offs without shaking that crisply machine-tooled Pennsylvania diction. A decade on, she's learned a lesson enough women before her already learned it's shocking she wasn't ready for it: when you're a girl and you make something about being a girl, everyone thinks you just had yourself in mind. The proof that she was more than that--more than the songs on the radio, you might say--was always there; it wasn't hidden, it wasn't obscured. But from Red onwards that Taylor began to die; a straighter Taylor Swift emerged in more ways than just her hair, all the kinks ironing themselves out in favor of her remodeling herself into a different sort of someone else's voice. Where once stood a Taylor Swift who sang for the sake of seeing her words sung by someone else's mouth back to her, there now stood a Taylor Swift who sang everyone else's words about her back to them. Tabloids cannot resurrect a life that a woman never lived, and no amount of retrospective sleight of hand about the girl she might have lied about being can hide the truth that neither can she. Conspiracy theories only flourish when people treat the mystery of human motives like a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be solved--ignoring that she already made it clear that was, still and always, the wrong answer to the questions she wouldn't let them ask. She wanted fame, she wanted a reputation; she wanted them on terms she defined; she never wanted anything else half as much as she wanted that. She has used every means available to her to earn them. Her awkward adolescence took a backseat to her life's dream of conquering America's radio. It's no shock, then, that all this gossip-mongering rings as hollow as a crown. The messy melodrama of Southern sympathy and thin-voiced warbles that defined the sweethearted ladygirls of generations before her and beside her and will define those that come after her, the sloppy humanities of Britney and Dolly and Tammy and Leann and Kesha Rose; these fumbling honesties, these vulnerabilities have never been tools in Taylor's narrative repertoire the way she uses the white girlhood she shares with them has been. She owned her protagonists' anxieties; but those songs have never defined her. This was always the moral to the story of Taylor Swift, to anyone--condemning or compassionate--who cared to really hear it: behind her careful compositions and obsessive pleas, Taylor Swift was never interested in making herself a real person at all. That would have cost her everything she ever wanted. And we, the Cicerone masses, ought very well to ask ourselves, before we let that double-edged sword finally fall: would it have been any more worth it, to anyone, if she had been? [2]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Taylor Swift #Look What You Made Me Do #reputatio

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oxfordeliterp · 8 years ago

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❝ The need to go astray, to be destroyed, devoured, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.❞

Miles Kenilsworth | twenty (II) | The Riot Club | Bill Skarsgard | open

Miles' name makes waves at the simplest mention on the corridors of the university — fifth generation to attend Oxford and drag the surname further in the Riot Club as well. Naturally, the expectations are up to the sky, with his father cheering after him as if he were part of a sports team rather than an elite secret society, and his grandfather showing his teeth, as if all the Club represented was a competition, and asking Miles if he managed to snatch the crown and follow his steps into leadership. Yet, the grandson isn't like the first versions of Kenilsworths. He, with the fragility, the sensitivity, the subtle snapping of a violin and a rosy grace, has nothing of his father's physical posture and his grandfather's beard. Although certainly not a malleable and weak person, he simply relies on different means to stand out, and as much as he used to take pride in his softness, now there are times he finds himself imitating his father's resonant voice, as bitter of a taste as it leaves in his mouth. All he truly wants is to pull a string of pride out of them and not remain in history as the unworthy Kenilsworth. Like every child who only means well and tries to please impossible parents with their own versions of reality, too busy to appreciate the gesture and love him for what he is, the process drains Miles and it paints him not only frustrated, but depressed to never be tall enough to reach the top shelf of their validation and conditional love. On campus, when he forgets about what is bringing him down back home, he becomes something even the young versions of his relatives, the ones that attended Oxford, would be jealous of. On campus, he is known for his first name, rather than a legend left behind by generations of ruthless men, because Miles turns into a fox as soon as he walks on the sacred grounds of the ancient university. Cunning, receptive, sharp and knowing how to use his self-deprecation to his advantage, making jokes on it and turning sadness into laughter, Miles shines in his own way and everybody but his own family is blinded by the light. He isn't faltering away under the shadows of the expectations pinned up for him to fly to; he made up his own kind of glimmer, and it seems to leave an impression on, at least, the people of Oxford. Not too determined or decided about what he wants to do further in life, he is afraid of failure, and his family's concerns makes the burden of choosing a path even heavier on his shoulders. Just when he was starting to accept and get comfortable in his own skin despite the unsaid disappoint of his relatives, his grandfather fell ill and as his death is approaching aggressively, Miles is stuck, yet again, in a vortex of trying to give him one last reason to smile about, as his only grandson. But no matter how hard he would try, he just isn't his little sister. Although generally shy, Miles doesn't mind being the center of attention if it's in a good light, and for that, he is quite the apparition. Always dressed in black to ensure as shocking of a contrast as possible between the clothes and his pale skin tone and with a smart, lazy walking pace, as if he wants time to stand frozen and spare him, the young man knows all his qualities when he isn't in a bad phase, hating everything that isn't helping him fit in the pattern of his family. The thing he enjoys most in the world is feigning innocence and displaying the angelic, clueless deafness to the obvious, because playing dumb makes him more intelligent than all the people he is fooling — and he is, after all, one of the brightest people in the university, in every meaning of the word and by every definition. Yet, the role playing isn't constant, because even he is too prideful to perform a full show and let people believe the worst of him. As inconsequent and inconsistent as his moods and behaviors are the discrepancies between what lies inside of him and what he is trying to express through his appearance and general aesthetic. Despite the dark, elegant vibes he is trying to give off, Milo has always been a sweet child, who grows plants in his flat — out of which only a small amount is cannabis — and talks to them. Quite the peculiar figure, he is trying to leave behind as much of him as possible, until a minimalist version of him would remain, pressured by his eagerness to fit in and prove himself. Little does he know that what makes him so unique and special has nothing to do with cutting off bits of himself that he thinks people might not like enough, and that he would never become exactly what the others expect him to be, no matter how versatille and adaptable he is and how long his chameleon tail grows. Shamefully, he is too lonely and desperate to get everything right to think objectively and look at the bigger picture, realizing his own worth for exactly what it is and facing the young adult in the mirror for once, being the first of many to accept himself and grow happy like the plants in the pots by his window.

Jamie Heather If there is one thing that Jamie hates about himself, it’s the weakness he has for people who hate themselves. The hero complex made him get close to Miles to begin with, because the boy is a lost cause, and ever since, he’s been chasing, feeling more and more stupid by the day. He is doing his best to give the other boy confidence, no matter what it takes. Miles can see what Jamie’s intentions are and he lets him do his part, knowing apathetically at the end of the day that it won’t change a thing. If it’s just attraction or more, the blond can’t tell because he doesn’t pay enough attention, but it certainly frustrates Jamie enough to keep trying to get something out of it. Jacob de Terreros His entire life has Jacob got the same generic stares at the cling of his name, but it leaving Miles completely indifferent and unimpressed is a sensation he has never met before. Everybody is at least slightly influenced by his title, but not the blond, which frustrates him to the point where he would get out of his little bubble made of gold, stepping on his pride and going to whatever length to prove that he is awe worthy. Although finding Miles antipathic to the bone, he is fighting his distaste trying to get under his skin and show him what he is made of, as if the validation of a boy who is chasing hard for the world's matters for some reason more to him than the other dozens of open mouths. Miles, on the other hand, is too busy to even as much as notice him, or so he claims, pretending to look the other way and toy with the duke after spotting this need for proving himself. Charlotte Zerilli As probably the true geniuses of each of their club, some sort of partnership had to be built imminently, and although they don't get along on every aspect, when both are in the room, they create some sort of bubble of exclusivity that you'd need to take an IQ test and match their results to be welcome in. Yet, differences aside, they need each other's brains and conversations that nobody else would be able to stand over brunch. Charlotte is happy to, for once, be mentally challenged — no matter how much she loves everybody in her group of friends — and feels like, without Miles, her brain would rot. On the other side of it, the man is just as grateful, and no matter how competitive and inamicable their interactions get, he still considers Charlie his only friend in a strange, distanced, unfeeling way. Sophia Clare Either the drinks have really been that heavy that night that none of them remembers a thing about it, either they don't want to remember. Although she is, without a shadow of doubt, nothing like his type and although he wouldn't get a second glare from her on a regular basis, the Christmas soiree they both attended would recall otherwise. Be it boredom or just the result of tipsiness, the two slept together and didn't talk since, mainly because there is nothing to say. Ignoring the momentary weakness and the mutual embarrassment with vehemence, they are determined to look away from each other until the elephant in the room turns transparent and they are past the moment. The brief fling being revealed would put both in an uncomfortable position and leave them with a lot to explain and they can't afford that.

#lsbio #bio rp #lsrp #bio rpg #literate rp #a #miles kenilsworth bio #miles kenilsworth #r #or #o

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yoramkelmer · 5 years ago

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Hogwarts Overexposed Chapter 2: An Old Friend Part 2

Welcome back. The last time we left off, the Sues - excluding Jamie - decide that their time on the nudist cruise will be spend as (underaged) singles.

I hate this fic.

"Will you guys hurry up?" Jamie urged. "It's traditional for all passengers to be topside when the ship casts off." "Sounds like another stupid tradition to me," Emily complained. "Especially, since we have to get dressed to do it."

SHUT UP EMILY, SHUT UP!

Jamie didn't make any further comment thankfully, but rather just stood tapping her foot as Emily took her time dressing.

After they had finished lunch and toured the ship, everyone had returned to their staterooms to relax until it was time to set sail. Kim was already dressed, having chosen to stay that way. Actually, Kim would be quite content to remain clothed the entire cruise. She was dreading dinner. It would be her first time nude in front of a bunch of strangers, and she was extremely nervous.

You know, I really love how the other Sues go on and on to reassure Kim that it´s totally okay for her if she wants to remain clothed, yet all seem instantly more happy when she actually then takes her clothes off.

"Come on girls," Harry urged. "You don't want to miss the ship casting off and leaving port."

Cut for more boring. Oh, and Ron is totally fascinated by how not everyone on board is attractive, and indicates a overweight man that Harry and Hermione met the previous year in France - that is like one of the very few times where non-attractive nudists are ever acknowledged.

"May I have your attention please," the voice echoed over the public address system. "We have now cleared port. Although not required, except in the ship's four swimming pools, clothing is now optional in all areas of the ship. As long as you remain on board, clothing will not be required until our return to Fort Lauderdale. Anyone going ashore at our various ports of call will be required to dress appropriately."

Emily looked at her watch and then at Caitlin and Kim. "We have an hour until dinner; let's go for a stroll about the ship."

"Sounds like a plan," said Caitlin, who, like her sister had undressed upon returning to their quarters.

I´m surprised that it had to be mentioned that she was naked already.

"Okay," agreed Kim, as she headed for the door.

"Didn't you forget something," Emily asked as Kim reached for the knob. "You're still dressed."

See what I mean?

"Oh! Yeah! How dumb of me," Kim said nervously, as she hesitantly started to remove her clothes. The moment she had been dreading had actually come sooner than dinner. In a matter of less than a minute, Kim was ready. At least, she was physically ready. She doubted she would ever be truly ready for what she was about to do.

For G-ds sake Kim, just remain dressed if you wish to be dressed!

Without pause Caitlin opened the door and walked out into the corridor. Emily, bringing up the rear, practically pushed Kim through the door. As she heard the door click shut, Kim heart leapt to her throat. They were out in a public area and about to walk about the ship. Instinctively, one hand reached to cover her vagina and the other arm tried to cover her breasts.

"What are you doing?" Caitlin laughed. "This is a nudist cruise."

"She's right, Kim," Emily added. "All you're going to do by trying to cover yourself is draw more attention. Relax; we all have the same equipment."

I really hate this fic and its euphemisms.

Kim left her arms fall to her sides and tried to relax, but that was much easier to say than do.

Much to Kim's relief, they made it to the lift without running into any other passengers. 'Maybe everyone is in their staterooms getting ready for dinner,' she thought to herself, not sure exactly what it would be necessary for a nudist to do in order to prepare for dinner.

You know, I kinda have a feeling that Neil never actually met any nudists in real life.

Anyway, it´s time to meet Kim´s Love Interest/Relationship Sue!

As the lift stopped at the Caribe deck so the deck is where the caribs live? and the doors open, Kim held her breath, but there was no one waiting to enter. Once again, she held her breath as they stopped at the Dolphin deck, only this time there was someone waiting to board the lift. It was the handsome boy that Kim had eyed in the serving line.

What a coincidence!

He was alone, but fully dressed and Kim automatically went to cover herself. Emily and Caitlin, as if reading her mind, were too fast for her, each grabbing a hand and holding it to her side.

Why does this sound so creepy?

“You shall be assimilated!”

"Hi," said the boy pleasantly. "You all certainly didn't waste anytime getting with the program. My name is Brian."

"I'm Emily, that's my sister Caitlin and this is our best friend Kim," Emily said.

Department of Redundancy Department

"Nice meeting you," Brian said as the lift came to a halt at the Promenade deck and they all exited.

"I have to meet my parents now for dinner, but there is a teen social tonight. Hope to see, you and your friends there," he said, giving Kim a smile.

It is never mentioned how old Brian exactly is, but it is implied that he is around 16 - which doesn´t make anything better, especially if one knows about a scene that comes in a later chapter.....

"Talk about working fast," Emily said, after Brian was out of earshot. "Not even an hour out of port and you've already landed the best looking guy on the ship."

Again, Kim is around 13....

Kim would have blushed, but she had turned scarlet the moment Brian had entered the lift and she still maintained her pinkish glow. "He was talking to all of us," Kim said defensively.

"He might have been talking to us all," Caitlin agreed, "but he was definitely chatting you up."

"I can't believe he saw me naked," Kim said, physically shaking.

NAAAAAAKEEEEED

"He's a nudist. I'm sure it was no big deal to him; he's probably seen hundreds of girls naked," Caitlin said reassuringly. "Besides it's a plus for you. Now that he's already seen you nude, you shouldn't be as nervous later tonight."

"You forget," Kim said, fretfully, "I'm not like you two. I'm the girl that actually likes to wear clothes."

Yet who still succumbs to the pressure to be naked by the other Sues.

* * * * * *

Cut for boring - and Ron still feels awkward about being on the cruise.

Anyway, they are all in the dinner room, and Kim feels like everyone is staring at her, and tries to concentrate on the food, as is Ron.

Then this happens:

The only time he looked up was when Sam mentioned that the same young couple was looking their way. Ron glanced at them quickly and then, for no explicable reason, waved at them. Much to both his and Sam's shock, the couple smiled broadly and waved back.

This is the introduction to a very stupid subplot that goes nowhere, if one looks at it in the context of the whole fic.

After dinner the adults returned to their rooms and decided to call it an early evening. Taking the time change into account, and all the emotional turmoil, it had been a long exhausting day. The girls, however, weren't sleepy and decided to check out the teen mixer that Brian had mentioned. Kim wanted to see Brian again, but was thwarted in her efforts to get the other girls to agree to slip on some clothing.

Did Kim really think that this would work?

"The brochure says nudist cruise," Emily reminded Kim. "No one is stopping you from putting clothes on LIES LIES LIES, but this girl isn't going to except when absolutely necessary."

"I'm sorry Kim. I'm with Emily," Caitlin said. "This is our holiday; our chance to be ourselves."

As if anyone is actually stopping them from being themselves on Hogwarts, where everyone basically worships them.

"Being Emily and Caitlin's best friend doesn't come with a requirement that you be a naturist," Jamie said, putting her arm around Kim. "If you'd be more comfortable wearing a little then by all means, do it. None of us is going to coerce you into practicing naturism."

Shut up Jamie, you´re the one who started this nudist cult in the first place!

Once more, Kim was faced with the decision to either dress or not. And once more, she halfheartedly chose to emulate her best friends.

Grow a backbone, Kim.

"Remember, if at any time you change you're mind, its fine with us," Emily said. Caitlin agreed.

L I E S L I E S L I E S

With that out of the way, the girls quickly headed for the teen center.

Although Kim still felt anxious, she at the same time felt somewhat relieved. This had been her decision and if worse came to worst; she knew she could wear clothes anytime during the cruise. She kept trying to convince herself that this was something she wanted to do.

So she is getting assimilated.

When they reached the correct deck, it was easy to find the teen center. All they had to do was walk toward the blaring music. While there was a dance floor, no one was dancing; instead they were competing against the sound system and trying to hold conversations.

They had no more than entered the crowded room when Jamie waved excitedly. "Look! It's Chantal and Felicite," she shouted.

We know what´s coming.

Jamie had met these two girls last summer at Cap d'Adge, and had become fine friends with them. Why are we being told this again? I mean, I guess most of the people who read this fic back when it came up on Schnoogle already read the previous two fics.... After everyone said hello and introductions were made, Emily, Kim and Caitlin stood listening in awe as Jamie conversed with the two girls in fluent French.

MARY SUE DETECTED BEEP BEEP BEEP

For the most part, they didn't understand any of the conversation, only picking up on an occasional word here and there until Emily and Caitlin heard Felicite unmistakably say 'Roz' and point toward the far side of the room.

I told you so.

Isn´t it really bizarre how the nudist cruise - which started in Florida, of all places, mind you - is filled with most of the people who regularly go to Cap d´Agde?

End of Chapter Two

****

Ebony was really creeped out by the place she had jumped in to - it wasnt just the fact that CWC was written all over every sign, roof, and wall, but that there otherwise was something really off about everything. She saw no people outside.

As she walked through the street, someone seeming whispered to her.

“Hey, you there!”

Ebony looked around, and saw a dark shadowed corner where the voice came from. She walked inside.

She saw several people hiding there, behind a trashcan.

“What are you doing here? And what is this place? And what does CWC stand for?” Ebony asked them.

We are all gays and lesbians, and we are hiding from the creepy hedgehog monstrosities who serve their master, Christian Weston Chandler. Since he got hold of the city of Charlottesville through unknown means with his creatures, everything has gone downhill, and he persecutes LGBT-people!”

“How horrible!” Ebony said, and gasped.

“And all Chris Chan, as this maniac calls himself, wants, is to find himself a Boyfriend Free Girl. He wants to own every white girl he can find, and he has killed several young men because he thinks that they are taking girls away from him!” one of them said.

Another one then said “The leader of the resistance, Mary Lee Walsh, has gone underground, and is trying to figure out how to dethrone him. She has had several battles with him and his right hand, Sonichu, one of his hedgehog monstrosities.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? I WILL IMMEDIATELY REPORT THIS TO CHRISTIAN WESTON CHANDLER, ANOTHER HIDEOUT OF HOMOSEXUALS HAS BEEN FOUND!”

Ebony looked around - it was a purple creature, unbelievingly ugly and did not look like a hedgehog.

“Oh no, this is Magichan! We are all going to die!” one of them said, crying.

Ebony knew what she had to do.

She took out her wand and yelled AVADA KEDAVRA at the creature, making it explode.

Everyone cheered around her.

“You did it, you finally did it!”

To be continued.....

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tanyacaudillus · 7 years ago

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Jupiter parents issue warning about magnetic toys

JUPITER, Fla. – You may have seen magnetic balls in someone’s home or even received one as a holiday present.

They are mainly marketed to adults but children can easily grab them and accidentally swallow one or more.

One Jupiter family could have lost their son and they have a warning to other parents about the toys.

The Mariner family had a very busy holiday, starting with the Friday before Christmas when one-year-old Colt had the special opportunity to meet and be held by President Donald Trump at the airport — but that night, things quickly changed.

“He had the best and potentially worst day of his two-year life,” said Jason Mariner, Colt’s father.

His parents had no idea that Colt accidentally swallowed toy magnetic balls.

“It was truly the scariest thing that we’ve ever been through,” said Charlene Mariner, Colt’s mother. “We felt very powerless, there was nothing that we could do.”

The toy, which is normally marketed to adults, was a gift from friends.

“Playing around on the inside of the house, he opened up a drawer and found these magnetic balls,” said Jason, who added that the family friends decided to give them to Colt since he enjoyed them so much.

The Mariners supervised Colt but because the toys are so small, Colt accidentally swallowed several balls without their knowledge. Neither parent understood how powerful the magnets were.

“There’s so many instances of kids being injured by these things, yet it’s not mainstream knowledge,” said Jason.

Colt wasn’t throwing up but complained of pains. His parents rushed him to Palm Beach Children’s Hospital.

Doctors said it’s not uncommon for a child to accidentally swallow small objects but those tiny magnets can be incredibly deadly.

“They can be especially dangerous especially if you swallow two or more,” said Dr. Jamie Marchand, a pediatric emergency doctor at St. Mary’s Medical Center. “If there’s a tissue in between, the power is so strong that they will eventually erode through the wall of the intestine.”

The X-rays shocked everyone. Doctors could see 20 magnetic balls inside his stomach.

“They had to remove six of them with a scope they had to put him under anesthesia,” said Jason.

Colt passed the other pieces naturally. Dr. Marchand said Colt was very lucky.

“And that’s usually a small percentage of cases but that could’ve been a case that proves fatal,” he said, adding that the best prevention is to keep such magnetic toys away from children.

But with the easy accessibility of magnetic toys on the Internet, the family has hired an attorney to pursue legal action.

They are launching an investigation of their own to see if there is any way to better warn families of these toys containing rare earth magnets, which are more powerful than other types of magnets.

“The Mariner family and I want other parents to know this product poses a severe danger to children,” said Michael Herman, the family attorney. “William W. Price, PA plans to take legal action against the manufacturers and sellers of this dangerous product on behalf of the Mariner family, with the hope the product will ultimately be removed from the market.”

The biggest manufacturer is Bucky Balls, which recalled the product and went out of business in 2014. You can still find the specific brand available for purchase online at various websites. Other companies have popped up with similar toys, which we easily found on Amazon.

“It’s back on the market and now they’re marketed as an adult desk toy,” said Jason. “There’s several toys on the market that have magnetic parts and these rare earth magnets. It just turns out that they’re incredibly dangerous.”

The Mariners told me they just want other families to be aware of what could’ve happened to Colt and are thankful for the doctors at St. Mary’s who helped save their son’s life.

His second birthday is coming up in the next few weeks and the family’s wish for his special day is actually to give back to the hospital. If you would like to bring a toy to donate, just email [email protected].

Source link

source https://southfloridareview.com/jupiter-parents-issue-warning-about-magnetic-toys/ from South Florida Review http://southfloridareview.blogspot.com/2018/01/jupiter-parents-issue-warning-about.html

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torestoreamends · 6 years ago

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child NYC Recap 28/09/18 (Part Two)

Once upon a time the original cast gave me my favourite ever Part Two, in a show performed on a Friday night almost two years ago, and last Friday’s performance reminded me of why their Part Two shines so much. There was so much about it that lived up to the bright but distant memories I had of what they used to achieve when they were on form, as well as some gorgeous new details that made the show sing. So here, without further ado, are my as many highlights as I can remember from last Friday’s show:

-It’s quite clear how much Anthony respects Alex and enjoys acting with him. The second they were in a scene together he came alive (hilariously Anthony thought that office scene was his worst scene of the show — it was not). That office scene was precisely what I needed for closure with these two, and it was a lovely thing. I forgot that Alex doesn’t face Anthony when Draco and Scorpius are close up and talking about Astoria, instead he faces off the front of the stage, with Scorpius to his left all small and hunched with his shoulders up and his arms folded like he wants to disappear. And as they talk they’re shining with that silver light, and they’re uncomfortable with each other but there’s so much desperate love there, with Scorpius hanging onto his dad’s words the way he does with no one else.

-I noted the Rakie influence when Noma did the ‘I’m minister for magic’ line. It’s not quite as vindictive, but it is an authoritative statement of power to Snape and it’s beautiful.

-Floorpius. Everywhere. I finally remember how Anthony inspired that mess, because he IS Floorpius. Most of the Voldy timeline was spent with him lying on the floor, and in Snape’s office he actually crawled across to the door before he got up to go through it. He also sat on the floor by the lake during the Patronus scene, and once he was out of the lake and back in the real world, he stayed on the floor. He was down there saying hi to everyone, and sort of kneeled up to say hi to his dad, who threw the robes right in his face, knocking him back to the ground. Then when he realised the Time-Turner was missing he lay down on his front by the lake and scrabbled at the water with his hands. There was more later on, but that sequence was the best Floorpius I’ve ever seen in my life. The people around must have been so confused about why I was laughing so much throughout the entire thing...

-Time to continue gushing about Jamie and James! I missed Jamie’s angry Harry so much. When he explodes, he really goes (having said that this might be one of the most restrained shows I’ve ever seen from him, which was cool), and there was a moment in this scene when he fired up so much that Albus actually flinched, shuffling back, head bowing, body hunching up small. I’m always astounded by how tiny the Albuses can make themselves, and James is one of the tiniest I’ve seen. More on those two later.

-The first fuck up of the day was when the jump scare didn’t work — the hand went before the sound. I’ve seen worse, but it was less than ideal.

-Jamie Parker reacting to Harry’s dreams. I love this man so much. When his Harry starts to spiral he crashes to rock bottom so fast, and this was the start of the spiral. He woke up screaming and convulsing and clutching his scar, absolutely panicked, unable to breathe. You know he’d rather be alone with his nightmare but it made me glad Ginny was there to take care of him, because he was lost to it. And then of course the second he realises what the dream means, Harry takes off running, because Jamie’s Harry is the quintessential action hero Harry. He’d rather be doing than standing around waiting. If he can feel like he’s doing something, influencing something, then he’s marginally more okay. (The way Jamie Parker runs — a hundred times faster than anyone else on stage, leaving them all in his dust — is one of my favourite things about his Harry.)

-This was a fun dorm scene. It was the start of the adorable little Scorbus moments, and by that I mean the physical signs of a ridiculous friendship. There was so much larking about between the two of them, and the scene ended with the sort of play fight that I’ve been desperately missing since the original cast left. The handsiness, I’m pleased to report, continued on throughout the rest of Part Two, especially in Godric’s Hollow.

-One of my (many) favourite James Romney moments came in the Owlery Scene. Albus handed Delphi the Time-Turner, and the second she took it he sagged in relief and buried his face in his hands. It was clear even from the dorm scene prior that he didn’t want responsibility for it, and that he was desperate to find someone who would help them — Delphi was his someone. He called her, she came, and he was so glad to have an adult in charge of the object that had ruined worlds. I’ve never seen an Albus so pleased to have the thing out of his hands, to be taken care of by someone. In fact it might be one of my favourite ever little Albus things, because it fits so perfectly with so much of what’s going on with him at that point in the show.

-Paul knelt for the reproposal and my heart melted. It was also so good to hear him say Scrupius again (and to see everyone’s reactions to Ron’s infuriating speech in that scene — he was having so much fun talking about getting drunk).

-The maze was the first time a bit of blocking on broadway made me jealous. Although the maze itself has been lifted and brought to London now, the blocking is very much not the same. My biggest complaint about the London blocking is the amount of time the boys spend offstage — Krum hovers at the front of the maze for a while unnecessarily, so the boys aren’t onstage for the line ‘what heroes do we have within our midst?’ Whereas in New York, Krum leaves the stage before that line, and the boys arrive back onstage during it. On the night we saw it, Scorpius stopped and hid with his back to the hedge, while Albus peered down the other pathway, they then whispered the next couple of lines. I’ve never seen an Albus and Scorpius really trying to hide like that before. I’ve seen them panicked and running and hoping they’ve got away, but never truly believing it to the extent that they’d try and hide.

-Because of the new blocking, Albus ended up on the other side of the stage during the second bit of torture, and the ensuing encounter with Cedric. It was strange to watch it in reverse, but I didn’t mind it at all. I actually think that Ben might be my favourite Cedric. The pacing of this encounter was beautiful. There were so many long pauses that were held perfectly still. Ben and James worked magic with this moment, and Ben had exactly the right poise and nobility to him. I also really loved how Albus reacted to having his bonds released. He gave this little hiss of pain and relief and rubbed his wrists.

-Another great result of the new blocking is that now, when Albus says ‘no, wait!’ as the walls pull back to reveal Delphi with the time-turner, it actually does make some sense. He sees what she’s doing and it seems as though he’s trying to work out what to do about it before they rush into something. I remember talking to Theo at one point about that line, and how Albus can’t see what’s happening, and I definitely prefer it when the walls peel away simultaneously and it’s very clear that Albus can see Delphi at the same time as Scorpius.

-The second fuck up of the day was the Time-Turner noise not working as the boys went back in time with Delphi. At first I thought this was deliberate, and I actually really liked it. It made it sound as though something was wrong, like they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing. You could hear the reverb of their voices (‘your dad loves you very much’ etc.) but not the ticking of the clock. However, when the voices faded and there were still no clock ticks and no smash of sound when they arrived in the past, it was clear that something had gone wrong. That arrival in the past is way less effective without the smash of sound: the boys just sort of hurled themselves away and kept going, but it didn’t have the same impact. However, there was some great acting thereafter, particularly when Albus ran at Delphi and tries to grab her foot to pull her down. I also loved the amount of Time-Turner glitter that rained down on the boys once Delphi started flying up.

-The blacklight section at the Lyric is really cool. In London not every surface is covered with writing, and the stuff written on the ceiling seems to be a projection rather than bona fide blacklight writing. However, in the Lyric they’ve covered everything and it’s all genuine. From the balcony I could see everything, all the boxes lit up, and the ceilings and the walls, throughout the entire theatre. The most exciting thing I spotted during the short time we had to take everything in was a huge snake drawn on the ceiling above my seat.

---

This cast come into their own in Act Four. I suspect that’s how it’s always been, but I never had anything to compare it to. It’s also worth noting that the best shows I’ve ever seen them do have been on Friday nights. So basically we picked the right show to go to.

-The one time Jamie P resists being action hero Harry is at the end of the second EGM. When he’s wheeled offstage then, he sits on the steps in despair, and you could fully believe that Harry would just stay there for a while, sitting alone on the steps and feeling utterly hopeless and helpless before going off to his office to start reading those papers.

-I actually didn’t mind the Broadway station master! He was incomprehensible at least, which is always fun.

-The Broadway pumpkin transition is a lovely thing. I haven’t seen such a joyful Sorting Hat since Ged left. He threw the snow up in the air above his head, so it sprinkled gently down onto the stage as he walked away. The other highlight was that James and Lily actually interact during the scene. After they play with the snow together they put their arms round each other, and they’re the last couple to walk offstage as the boys run on. It’s so sweet, and it’s the most interaction they’ve ever had in any version of the show. And as they leave, the doors fall into a new, jumbled formation, leaving Lily and James’s door (red, with a lion’s head knocker) right at the heart of the street.

-Some Albuses run after Lily and James when they leave the house, some fall after them like they’re tied by a string; this one walked trancelike in their wake until Scorpius caught him and pulled him back.

-For those unfamiliar with my current interests, Lily and James’s door in New York remains lit with this white spectral light, even when the scene moves away from Godric’s Hollow. This gives the effect in other scenes of the ghosts of Harry’s past haunting him. It basically destroyed me. If anyone’s interested in the full meta (which includes ramblings about the doorway as a link between Harry and Albus), it’s here.

-I basically paid $400 and flew to New York just to see Jamie’s office scene again, and it really did not disappoint. It’s not the sob fest of London (and actually the second part with Draco was the more powerful for me on the night) but oh it’s still wonderful. One of the papers fell on the floor and he angrily snatched it up. He slammed his hand into the desk on ‘years! Years I spent there’ just the way he used to. Although there was more terseness, a Harry closing himself off from Dumbledore, rather than the emotion of London, every single decision, no matter what it was, come right from the core of Harry. Perhaps the only person in the world who understands Harry better than Jamie Parker is JK herself. He just gets it on a profound spiritual level, and everything he does works for the character. This scene (this whole act, the entire show in fact) is one of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen. Jamie is just stellar and professional and a cut above. It was a true joy to see him again. Also shoutout to Edward, who was a great Dumbledore and supported the scene beautifully.

-I forgot how much I love Alex’s version of the second half of the office scene. He didn’t do the ‘mwahaha’ at the start, which was sad, but instead he did this limpid laugh, like he started off laughing evilly and then realised how pathetic he sounded given the situation so it turned into a mockery of itself. Draco mocking his own behaviour as an adult is great, it shows how much self awareness he’s gained. As the scene goes on, Alex and Jamie get to flex their considerable rapport, and Alex gets to show off his emotional side. I’d forgotten until halfway through the scene that when Alex is acting emotional he makes himself sound on the verge of tears (when he actually cries there’s no indication in his voice), and he absolutely got me with it. This was another scene full of long pauses and lots of space. Harry hesitates, wanting to say yes, that they should go, but when he thinks about it logically he knows it doesn’t make sense, and if he’s to protect his son he needs something that will really work, not just get more people hurt. This is one of the moments when Harry and Albus are just so similar — their realisation that rushing into things has got people hurt, and the guilt they feel for that.

-The Lyric Theatre stage is pretty huge, and the Godric’s Hollow doors are pushed nearly all the way to the back. I’m pretty sure this is part of the reason why, on Broadway, Albus doesn’t do his traditional thing of starting the central Godric’s Hollow scene sitting on the doorstep. Instead the boys start the scene sitting at the front and centre of the stage, right on top of where the lake normally is. It made for a more intimate scene, and I actually loved the realism of it. It felt like they were two boys who had been out in the cold for hours and were running out of energy and ideas, sitting together on the freezing ground and grasping at straws. This was also the scene where they most felt like friends, with a healthy dose of play fighting, high fives, and messing around. This, for me, was the scene where the Scorbus came into its own, and it was the best friendship I’ve seen Anthony play out with a cover.

-At stage door after the show, Poppy said that she and Jamie had been trying some new things that night, and undoubtedly the scene where they find the blanket was one of the scenes where that was in evidence. There’s a different rhythm to these scenes now, different and fresh, but they’re just as emotional as they ever were. In this one they knelt together for a long time without speaking, clutching each other, in tears. When Harry finally picked up the blanket and realised that it was damaged, Ginny was so heartbroken for him that she didn’t move away from him to look at the blanket for a long time. She held his hands and comforted him, before finally acknowledging the problem and looking at the blanket.

-One thing that’s relevant to this scene that I forgot to mention in my Part One recap is how this cast rewrites lines to suit them. They say some of these lines in ways that aren’t written in the script and in ways that no one else will ever say them, and that is in no way a criticism. One such line comes in the blanket scene — ‘and maybe I can come and find it, and you, on Hallow’s Eve’. Jamie rewrites that line to centre it around Albus, whereas the line as it’s written focuses on the blanket. I love that his Harry is making that effort to make this about Albus, he’s trying, and that minute bit of phrasing is an example of how true he is in his love for his son.

-Back to Part Two, and I just want to acknowledge the fact that Jamie still does my favourite thing ever, and it’s still breathtaking. When Albus throws the blanket up in the air for Ginny to catch and goes sprinting off, Harry’s head whips round, like he’s felt the ghost of his son running by, like he can feel Albus’s presence in the room with him, and he’s going to keep staring at the spot where he knows Albus disappeared because it’s everything he has to hang on to. It was stunning when I first saw it, it’s stunning now, and I missed that moment so much.

-I enjoyed the blocking changes when the adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow. Ron is placed with Hermione between him and Draco. When Hermione says her line about old times it’s clearly not directed at Ron, which makes complete sense because he was never in Godric’s Hollow. It also means she can act as intervention between Ron and Draco, and that’s exactly what Noma does. She stands between them, a powerful presence who won’t let them fight each other when there are bigger things at stake. It really does give her a greater sense of authority over the scene, and I love that.

-That. Malfoy. Hug. Somehow in the last year and a half I’d forgotten about the magic, the genius sleight of hand, that Alex does with the Time-Turner to somehow have his hands completely free and unimpeded when Anthony comes running at him, so he can just hug, unencumbered, and keep hugging and holding for the rest of the scene. It’s something that no one else has ever been able to accomplish and I still don’t understand how he does it, but he does. Anyway, Anthony comes flying at him hard enough to knock him over, and Alex grabs him and catches him in the air, and there are legs everywhere and it’s so emphatic and joyful and it’s so Draco and Scorpius. That hug is everything. It’s the world and it’s beautiful, and it gets such a reaction and rightly so. And once the hug is over they keep going, holding each other’s hands, Draco ruffling Scorpius’s hair, more hugs, foot nudges, everything, because now they’re together again and everything is okay they can’t bear to be physically apart from another second.

-It’s a different story with the Potters. Ginny accepts her son into her arms with such utter relief. She squeezes him so tight and in this performance he looked so tiny, even next to her, small and swamped in his mum’s arms. Then, Ginny reaches desperately out to Harry, who hasn’t yet joined them, and she keeps reaching out. He looks at her, then he draws his cloak around himself, adjusts his cuffs, and turns away. He’s not ready yet. They’re not safe, Voldemort is still there, he still has so much to feel guilty for. He can’t. And that is the story of how the Potters broke my heart at the exact same time as the Malfoys were trying to heal it.

-This show was all about pacing. Careful, slow, deliberate. The cast had all the time in the world to play with. The scene between Ginny and Harry while Albus was sleeping on the bench had every ounce of that slow deliberacy. It was such an intimate conversation, different again to how it’s felt to me before — Ginny was a bit harder with Harry (that was sort of a theme of the whole show actually), but he thrives on that and they get there in the end, to that place where they’re holding each other again. That’s how they always end up, because they’re a team, and they’re facing everything together, no matter what.

-I think the Transfiguration may have been done in a different order here, but I didn’t keep a note of who joined the spell when so I can’t be sure. I suspect Hermione may have joined earlier, as she was on the other side of the church in the preceding scene (standing right behind Scorpius so their impeccable connection on ‘you’re right’ was all the more impressive and sweet).

-One thing that I noticed for sure with the Transfiguration was that every time someone joined the spell and there was that awful sizzling sound, Albus flinched, like just seeing his dad in pain was giving him pain. I also very much noticed that as well as the strobe lights that we have in London, which illuminate Voldy as he emerges from Harry’s robes, in NYC there’s a matching strobe light shining directly into Harry’s eyes and onto his face. How Jamie handles that I do not understand. It looked painful.

-We travel halfway round the world and we still get Paul’s Ron checking in on the Malfoys while they’re keeping watch by the door to Godric’s Hollow. He just can’t resist interfering with their business. You also get Draco touching his son on the shoulder not necessarily affectionately, but more to tell him to remember to keep watch.

-I missed grumpy Ron lingering outside the door to glare at Draco after the ‘mildly enjoying it’ line. Thornley really makes his point with that one (as he always has)

--So in London, Jamie B runs directly at the Expulso flame, so he’s painfully close to it when it erupts out of the ground. He seems to end up right on top of it, deliberately going towards it, and while I acknowledge that this is for dramatic effect, it’s still very stressful, and I swear he gets much closer to it than is reasonable. Anyway, Harrys wanting to set fire to themselves is clearly an international problem, because Jamie did the same thing. It did look a little safer on Broadway, but I suspect that was partly to do with my distance from and angle to the stage. One day someone’s going to slip or run an inch too far, and then it’ll be the bench all over again except there’ll be fire involved this time.

-I dearly missed Jamie’s screams in the death scene. No one can scream like Jamie P. He’s a master of it. He channels every ounce of Harry’s pain until you feel it like it’s your own pain. I’d like to say that I know exactly what Paul and Noma and Alex and Anthony were doing in this scene, but let’s be honest, I was clinging to my seat as the Potters ripped my heart out.

-This was actually the site of another of my favourite little Albus things too. When Harry fell, Albus didn’t go with him straight away, and he lost all physical contact with him in the process. He stayed standing, awkwardly, sort of glancing at the house like he didn’t know what to do. Then he slowly bent down and hovered his hands over his dad’s back, like he desperately wanted to touch him but wasn’t sure if he was allowed. Finally he dared to touch his dad’s back, and when he did he melted down onto the ground next to him and that was how they were when the lights faded, father and son, finally connected.

-I never thought I’d use this word to describe Anthony or his Scorpius, but there’s only one way to describe his descent down the stairs towards Rose in the penultimate scene: smooth. Of course smooth is a very relative term. Basically what I mean is that when he hurled himself down the stairs he didn’t look like he was putting himself in physical danger like he used to. There was no falling, no awkward splits, he just ended up sitting on the step with his cloak wrapped round himself, attempting to look suave. But there was something impressively slick about the manoeuvre. It’s been well practiced.

-I forgot how much I love the slow hug. I remember very clearly the first time I watched that one (it might have been the first time it happened because I remember not being alone that day and I remember everyone else also freaking out). Scorpius slowly, deliberately walking up the stairs to Albus like he’s doubting himself every step of the way but that he won’t be stopped by anything. And when he gets to Albus he stands on the step below and he reaches out and awkwardly leans in and administers a tight hug that wraps round Albus’s body and arms, and renders him incapable of hugging back or escaping until Scorpius realises what he’s doing and runs away. That was the quality of the hug on Friday night, and I wasn’t prepared to be reminded of how much I miss it.

-I’m sure I’ve mentioned the back wall of the stage in recaps before, once I was going to write a full on meta post about it but I never finished it, but if you haven’t seen me talk about this before, here’s some context. In the final scenes of the play (once upon a time from when the burning bed emerged from the floor but now only for the very last scene) the brick wall at the back of the stage peels away from the wood panelling below it to create a gap. In London this always gave the impression of extra space, but mostly of the stage becoming the ruins of Lily and James’s house and then a sort of framework, a scaffolding or structure for Harry and Albus to grow their new relationship around. Everything had been torn away, destroyed when Voldemort cursed the baby Harry, and now they were left with the raw materials to start over. In New York, where the stage is enormous and the wall pulls back a lot further, I got a different feeling. It made the space Harry and Albus meet in during the final scene feel very much outside, but somehow contained, like the sunlight was streaming through cloister windows or over a garden wall. It felt like the graveyard was contained within a courtyard at the centre of the castle or perhaps a walled garden in the grounds. It gave the final scene such a strong sense of setting, and it was beautiful. That scene felt new and unique, airy and bright, which is appropriate because it is absolutely all of those things.

-I have always loved with a passion the way Jamie does the ‘and I know that heart is a good one’ line. He did it differently in this performance, with a ferocity, no pauses, tearing straight through like he had to make his point and have Albus hear him. When he zipped up Albus’s jacket and ruffled his hair he was almost rough with it, rough and forceful and desperate, but then when he was done there was a long moment where they just looked at each other, Harry and Albus, shining in the golden sunlight, Albus hearing from his dad that he’s a good person and actually believing him for the very first time. The long beat of silence felt so bright and warm and hopeful, and then Albus bowed his head in a nod and Harry knew he’d understood and they moved on. I suppose the point of this description is to say that it was different but no less beautiful than ever before.

-Of my favourite James Romney lines, the pigeon racing line has to be well up there. I’ve talked about the pacing in this performance before and how masterful it was, well this was one of the bits where the pacing of lines really changed how the characters reacted. Here Albus said ‘I’m not going to be a wizard dad’, and then he stopped for a good second while his dad’s expression changed to confusion and horror. He toyed with him for a moment before finally making it clear that he was joking: ‘I’m going into pigeon racing’, and Harry was flooded with relief as he realised his son was teasing him. I think that might actually be my favourite pigeon racing line. There was that something to it that made it more than just an awkward joke.

-I can’t not mention the final hug, which was one of those ones where Harry took hold of Albus and hugged every inch of him, squeezing his body tight and cradling his head. I love it when they give us those hugs at the end of everything, and it’s pure beautiful relief.

To sum up, I’m so glad I went. There were things that I didn’t like about this performance, which I haven’t mentioned above and don’t really intend to discuss apart from in person. But on the whole and on reflection, I got everything out of my trip to New York that I wanted. I saw Jamie and Poppy and Paul again. I fell in love with Noma in a new way. I got my closure on Alex and Anthony. And I met a wonderful new Albus (I have now seen every Albus so far). There was nothing more I could have wished for from it, and I know that other people haven’t necessarily felt the same, but that was my personal response.

This performance gave me everything I always want in a performance of this show: it taught me new things about the characters and allowed me to explore in new ways the story I love. It also let me reconnect with a cast that I’d forgotten how much I love. The original cast do something to me, they give me this ability to see the show with such clarity, they sharpen my focus and my memory, and when I see them they make me want to write and write and keep writing until I’ve chronicled every tiny detail of their immensely rich performance. I love that about them. It’s unique to them, and no other cast will be able to do that for me. Cast two felt like home, cast three make me so immersed in the story and emotionally connected to it, and the original cast bring out some kind of intellectual depth in the show that captures and fires my imagination. They did that for me over two days in New York and I’m immensely grateful for that.

It’s also worth saying that I’ve thought a lot about the fact that James Romney will be the only Albus I ever see just once. I’m certain I’ll see Ryan again in London, and all the others I’ve seen multiple times. At first I didn’t know how I felt about it. I loved his performance so much that I thought I would be sad or feel like I was missing out, and I do a little bit. I wish I could see him many more times and find every little nuance in what he does. But actually, now, I’m happy that I get to have these glowing memories of his performance. He will always be the Albus whose performance is locked in my memory, that I will never be able to go back to. The memories will remain untarnished, unexplored, because I can’t look further than I did in those five hours, and that’s kind of cool. I will see his Albus though rose-tinted glasses, and maybe I’ll forever love him unreasonably, but that’s alright. Maybe that’s how other people who only see the show once and love it feel about everyone and everything involved. It’s fun to be able to get a glimpse into that world for once...

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