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miniwolfsbane · 2 years ago

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This is long, go get a drink and a snack!!

Legend (for those not in this fandom):

MC=Main Character/you

TRR=The Royal Romance

TRH=The Royal Heir (Sequel books)

Not that anyone cares, but I've been playing Choices on my phone for like a year. It was like my comfort game when my mom was passing away. Not every book in Choices is something I would support or read for myself, but The Royal Romance, Distant Shores and Perfect Match are a few of my favorites. I'm sure I'd write them a bit differently and I won't get into the hows or whys here, but I would.

I got suuuuper into The Royal Romance, so here's headcanons for my game and random crap, just because it's a niche fandom and no one talks about it except for like here and Reddit. (I only lurk on Reddit.)

I don't think the early character designs are THAT bad. (Saw a post really bashing into them once.) One that could use some work is Maxwell's. Oh, and the actual blonde Liam the book wants you to use is ewww (to me anyway). Yeah, I'd change him up A LOT! I believe this was one of Choices first books they put out, so that explains it.

Liam is named Vincent for me, and since I adore hot Asian men, I picked that face. ((Purrs)). Gonna get a button of him off Pixelberry's tiny TRR selection in their store sometime. Maybe that cuters corgi phone case if it fits mine or my future phone.

Naturally, I got to the point of madness and started using Taylor Kitsch's voice in my head for Drake, since he looks like him. (My first thought in my first play was "LOL, he looks like Gambit!") So, looks like Gambit, acts like a more romantic verison of Wolverine and loves his whiskey. Vincent has him one upped for being a Prince/King. Drake and I's daughter will be named Morgan. Simple, but fitting as Drake is no frills and I've always loved that name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_OmNBXes3k

I felt bad for Vincent, so instead of doing my usual "take 30,000 years to pick a name" rigamaroll, I let him choose Elanor for our daughter. Maxwell's baby is named Baylana, because that's actually my top pick if I ever had a girl. (It's pretty to me, can be shortened to Bay and nicknamed Bayleaf, like the Pokemon...or the spice.)

I don't know where my brain pulled Vincent's voice, but it reminds me of a gentler, softer sounding Cyclops from X-Men:Evo, but not exact. If I ever hear it anywhere specific, I'll let you know. (1) X-Men: Evolution Jean and Scott favorite moments - YouTube

Since Maxwell starts off the immature, fun one, I got it in my head he should sound like Iceman from X-Men Evo. I think it fits. https://youtu.be/wtoQjM8eX3A?t=79

Hana's voice is another one pulled from some obscure part of my brain. It's pleasant sounding, but not from any specific character. Closest would be a sweeter sounding 90s Sailor Mars, probably after SMR, because she didn't do that whole "grr-ing" shrill (??) noise with her voice that the earlier one did. And voice file not found!

Bertrand sounds like a smarter, slightly deeper version of Nigel Thornberry, who was voiced by the awesome Tim Curry. Gen Z, go look that crap up about The Wild Thornberry's, it's great! I just saw him and thought "butler"! Hence the voice. (I know he's NOT a butler, but he looks like one.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr-CFZCphjM

It was soooo stupid, but with Vincent's baby in TRH book 2, I picked the Mexican/other looking baby because I thought it was the cutest. Looks TOTALLY out of place in the pictures with the family together, so in my headcanon, she's lighter. Probably should've just gone with the Asian looking baby, but I wanted her to look more like me, because the book didn't already have enough narcissism. (Kidding!) Edit: Bahahaha! I'm not the only one who said "That one single white brown-haired baby we get is ugly, I'm picking this one!" (3) Pinterest (But really, picked her for my Maxwell route and she looks TONS better smiling!)

My heart lies with Vincent and his stability, even if he is a bit bland and straightforward with a fun/smexy side, but my hormones want Drake, as explained above. Maxwell is the bestie who I really thought was super sweet in my first play-through, but I probably wouldn't go for usually (in fiction or real life because I've almost never fallen for the funny, goofy guy), but I gave him a shot. He's the personality of the three and has a lovely character arc.

Hana is great, a good friend, but I would've given her more character flaws besides "my parents controlled me and I had no friends before you guys, so I'm insecure in my decisions and have low self-esteem/self-confidence." All the characters could use more flaws, but I guess that's why they're games and not a TV series or something. At least they're fleshed out, fully realized (whatever that means) and mostly well-written. MC is a bit naive or something though.

Savannah should've been less bland in personality. (again, an issue.) There's literally nothing that makes her stand out. It's reeeeally hard to see why she fell head over heels for Bertrand. I know the book explains why, but...I don't see it? IDK, maybe she would've looked better as an auburn brunette or another redhead besides Olivia. Maybe more like this? Look-Alike Face Models/Women - 2018 | Choices: Stories You Play Wiki | Fandom

Also, this is Savannah: Savannah Walker | Choices: Stories You Play Wiki | Fandom

Likewise, it's hard to see why Bertrand falls for her because of her personality. She's a bit fiery and outspoken, and she's a nice girl, but that's about it. What the heck? Missed the mark with her. She could've been Drake's complete opposite; Tough looking but shy and introverted. (Or would that be beautiful, but tough on the inside? Crap. Well, you get it.) Just SOMETHING INTERESTING!!

Olivia is awesome, like, super awesome, but sure goes on about smiting her enemies a lot for someone who's never canonically killed someone. Not that I want a bunch of gore and violence, but a bit more drama like she accidentally killed but got off on a technicality or it was never proven. Edit OR...or something lighter. Don't know why I went so dark, sorry. Maybe she accidentally stabbed a few awful people or something in her mis-spent youth, lolz.

*Shrugs* Like, if you're gonna make your character all...light violent (she talks about having knives all the time, but never stabs anyone, thankfully)...at least give us some kind of thing to chew on to finalize her mystique, her personality, give it some weight. Make her satisfying for us so it makes more sense. Committ to how you made her, Pixelberry! Hope this makes sense. Also, as much as I love Hana, I'd trade her straight across for Olivia as the there-all-the-time best friend. She doesn't quite avoid or subvert the action-girl trope, but at least she's equally feminine. That's not always the case.

Other:

VARIED BODY TYPES ALREADY!! I knoowwww the art is hard enough to create with just skin/hair colors alone, as I draw for a hobby, never mind objects and those killer, stellar animated backgrounds, but they already re-use characters to make it easier. I'm a sad panda that TRR (and all other books) can look mostly like me, but don't have my body type. I would DIE HAPPY if Drake/some other man were drooling over me as me and not skinny-minnie-Mary-Sue-esque-Main-Character-body-number-five!! (No offense to skinny or average weight people, but we don't all look that perfect.) Come to that, more skin types and vitiligo like Disney Dream Light Valley graciously put out would be awesome. They wouldn't have to give us moles and whatever, but some more variation would be beyond lovely!! Dear gawds, could you imagine seeing even side characters with vitiligo in a Choices game?!?!

Edit: I'm not saying EVERY book should be re-tooled to have chubby/really skinny MCs, but maybe just a handful of books that are popular or proven to have done well. Then go on to do that for newer books. If you're gonna have 5 faces and one body type and give all this time and attention to the details, just go whole hog and put the body types in there too! Giving us even one big girl and one waif-like one would be a major improvement. I can play as a girl two sizes bigger than I actually am, no complaints. We're just not all shaped the same and by now, Choices should really try and reflect that, even if it's a small change in one or two books to start.

I wish the VIP weren't the price it is, but I find it's worth it and it's painful waiting for more keys.

WHEN ARE WE GETTING A MERMAID BOOK?! THAT IS NOT 17+ glorifying abuse or whatever...stuff? (Not my cup of tea, thank you.)

I just want more fantasy books, dagnabit!!

My stupid dipstick self thought my Drake route for TRH couldn't POSSIBLY be that far along even though every book saves your stopping point if you leave, so I restarted the book. I AM AN IDIOT!!...But I'm not complaining too much because it's a bit nice doing the book all over again with my other favorite fictional hubby. ^_~

If there's TRR fan fiction, I probably need to find it. I want more of this series.

Okay, getting all these feelings out was kind of tiring. And it's only Thursday. 0_o Hope you enjoyed reading this insanity.

#Choices stories you play #Choices game #The Royal Romance #The Royal Heir #Liam Rys #Drake Walker #Savannah Walker #Bertrand Ramsford #Maxwell Ramsford #phone #game #fandom #rant #fangirl #fangirling

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adamwatchesmovies · 4 years ago

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show needs to be seen a certain way or you almost shouldn't bother. You've heard about this one, that it's a classic bad movie, that it has legendary performances and infinitely quotable dialogue. You know it's often shown at midnight with an audience that dresses up, sings along, and shouts non-stop at the screen. That’s exactly how you should see it. At home, or with an audience composed non-Rocky Horror Fanatics, it just isn’t the same.

Newly engaged couple Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) are stranded by a rainstorm. Seeking a telephone, they knock on the door of a creepy castle. Inside, they find the Annual Transylvanian Convention. Bizarre-looking characters are singing, dancing, and being extremely frank about their sexuality, much to Brad and Janet’s shock. Things become even stranger when the head of the convention, Dr. Frank N. Furter (Tim Curry) arrives, gleefully boasting about his new creation, Rocky (Peter Hinwood).

I’m not even sure why I own this film on DVD. I can’t recommend that anyone watch it at home. It just isn’t the same seeing it on a tiny screen while people aren’t screaming “Slut!” whenever you hear Janet’s name and the floor doesn't wind up covered in wet confetti and bread slices. While Tim Curry makes this movie memorable and the songs are terrific, the plot is nonsense. The acting isn’t particularly good (aside from Curry), the plot is nonsense. There are wardrobe malfunctions, badly choreographed dance numbers, puzzling directional choices, and technical errors. You'll wonder what you're watching.

Further hampering your enjoyment will be the show's reputation precedes it. I doubt anyone who's heard of, but not seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show has any idea what it's about, or what to expect out of this bizarre homage to B-movies and horror films. All they’ll know is that it has a huge cult following. Outside of its home field, it's dumbfounding to discover it's a big deal. Rocky Horror is like ‘Nam, man. You just have to be there to understand.

You shouldn't watch it at home but if you are, how is it? Easy to make fun of, that's for sure and if you aren't trying to think of clever things to say, it can be amusing to look around and see what's on-screen. Movie buffs will appreciate the nods and winks towards horror films, most notably the Hammer and Universal classic horror films. Some are obvious - anything relating to Frankenstein. Others are more subtle and are more evocative of the genre than straightforward references or parodies. Being in a nice quiet room does allow you to properly hear the songs, who hold up well even without the accompanying crowd-generated chaos. It’s not like there’s necessarily a single favorite either. There's always something to look forward to. Finally, there’s something to be said about Tim Curry as Dr. Frank. He’s so wild and dedicated to his part he saves the film.

Reviewing The Rocky Horror Show is kind of pointless. The fans will fight and die for it. Without them, there's no movie. Trust me, I tried. Think of it as one of those "indoor roller-coasters", those rides where a video plays while your seat rumbles and swings back and forth. You're not meant to watch the video by itself. With an audience that knows what it’s doing, and an MC and people dressing up, it’s a blast, an experience you'll never forget. (On DVD, at home with a non-participating audience, May 15, 2015)

#RockyHorrorPictureShow #movies #films #reviews #MovieReviews #FilmReviews #Musicals #JimSharman #RichardO'Brien #TheRockyHorrorShow #TimCurry #SusanSarandon #BarryBostwick #1975Movies #1975Films

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hsiao-kang · 6 years ago

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Fiona Shaw by David Yeo for The Telegraph, ‘Killing Eve's secret weapon Fiona Shaw on finding new fame, and falling in love at almost 60’ by Jessamy Calkin (full article under the cut)

Fiona Shaw has found a new audience thanks to her scene-stealing turns in Killing Eve and Fleabag. The Shakespearean actor turned small-screen sensation talks spies, celebrity, tragedy, and getting married later in life.

You look great, I tell Fiona Shaw. Must be the pig’s placenta. Shaw, 60, pretty and angular in a soft grey shirt, smiles enigmatically from the sofa of her north London home. Pig’s placenta is her MI6 officer Carolyn Martens’ beauty secret in the second series of Killing Eve, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s dark, wildly successful thriller about a psychopathic female assassin called Villanelle and Eve Polastri, the agent hunting her down.

But pig’s placenta aside, Shaw puts her youthful appearance down to ‘not being in the theatre every single night’. Which is where she’s been for pretty much the past 30 years. Formerly known for a huge body of iconic stage roles, including Hedda Gabler, Medea, Electra and Richard II, as well as for playing Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films, Shaw’s fame is now more attributable to her transition to television.

In Killing Eve, Waller-Bridge has taken a genre that’s a little worn out – the international-assassin thriller – and given it a completely different slant. The show won five awards at the Baftas earlier this month – including Outstanding Drama Series and Best Supporting Actress for Shaw, who in her acceptance speech referred to the ‘glass-shattering genius’ of Waller-Bridge.

Carolyn Martens, head of Russia at MI6, is a perfect example of Waller-Bridge’s wayward approach. Carolyn is very still. Arch, deadpan, erudite, severe. But she has a tipsy flirtatious side, and a hidden messy streak. She’s oblique – and the viewer doesn��t know how much she knows, or whether or not to trust her. Nor does Eve (played superbly by Sandra Oh). ‘I once saw a rat drink from a can of Coke there,’ Carolyn says earnestly to a bemused Eve when they’re in a rubbish-strewn alley. ‘Both hands. Extraordinary…’

‘Carolyn’s a joy to write,’ says Emerald Fennell – best known as an actor for Call the Midwife, and The Crown’s new Camilla – who took over from Waller-Bridge as lead writer on the second series (Waller-Bridge remains an executive producer). ‘Her blood runs very cool. She’s like a freediver who has trained herself to hold her breath and slow down her heartbeat – she’s done it for so long it’s now a permanent state. Her ability to steer an awkward conversation into blithely surreal territory is unparalleled and somehow seems very British.’

The character is entirely dependent on Shaw, adds Fennell. ‘She is unbelievably brilliant, funny, and scarily clever. In one of the episodes, another character mentions [11th-century saint] Anselm’s ontological argument [for the existence of God], and during the read-through it transpired that Fiona had written a literal thesis on it. Quite embarrassing for those of us who only had the most passing Wikipedia acquaintance with Anselm (me). Fiona’s cleverness and wit are built into the fabric of who Carolyn is.’

Shaw compares playing the part to keeping a secret at the same time as delivering a line. ‘It’s not easy to do. I have to say I do lose sleep over it – I’m playing somebody very different to what I normally play. Normally I have to expose the truth. When I’m in the theatre, where I would be swimming with the tide, it’s my job to lasso the audience and to make sure they understand the moral dilemma of the piece – that’s what leading players do. You are sort of the MC for the night…

In Killing Eve, most of my work is about knowing more than everybody else in the scene and hiding it. And it’s a terribly lonely thing to do. It feels all wrong – like rubbing my tummy and patting my head at the same time. I want to smile, I want to make jokes – but you are left with an ambiguity. You don’t know whether I know I’ve made a joke or not. It’s very good exercise for me.’

Even though they are friends, stepping into Waller-Bridge’s shoes must have been tricky for Fennell. ‘I think of Killing Eve as a beautiful, haunted doll’s house that Phoebe built,’ she says. ‘She’s already made this incredible world full of insanely compelling people, so the pleasure of writing it is to get to play in there, to put in a few of your own trapdoors and secret passageways, to move those characters around and occasionally push some of them down the stairs.’

Earlier this year, Shaw appeared in the second series of Waller-Bridge’s other seminal television show, Fleabag. Initially she had to turn it down because she was directing Cendrillon at Glyndebourne (directing opera is another of her talents). Then Fleabag overran, and she was able to join in after all.

Waller-Bridge is the definitive young auteur of our times, and it seems she can do no wrong. The stage production of Fleabag – coming to the West End in August – sold out in an hour. ‘I feel she’s nearest to Oscar Wilde,’ says Shaw now, ‘which is to say she’s greater than the sum of her parts.’ Comedy, in some ways, is quite a conservative thing, Shaw thinks, although it may not seem that way. ‘But it always has a frame; it stays within that frame but it kicks against it, like a child in a playpen.

‘Phoebe develops people so they turn into bigger people, and bigger people, and I think that’s  a confidence that’s come with her previous work. She’s mastered one form, and she’s been able to take the gate off and let the characters run out into the field – and yet they’re still intact, and the audience follow them. It’s superb.’

For actors, she says, that approach couldn’t be better, which is why so many of them, including herself, Andrew Scott and Kristin Scott Thomas, are desperate to work with Waller-Bridge.

‘I could have played the boss of MI6 and pretty well come up with the same “ker-chings” every week,’ says Shaw, who also played an MI6 officer in BBC One’s recent Mrs Wilson, ‘but that isn’t what happens in Killing Eve.’

Waller-Bridge was always on set during the making of the first series, constructing and reconstructing her work like a Rubik’s Cube. When Sandra Oh pointed out that the actor Sean Delaney, who plays Kenny Stowton (a young ex-hacker recruited by MI6), looked like Shaw, Waller-Bridge decided to make his character her son in the story, and wrote it in, just like that.

Killing Eve, though it seems so British, is a BBC America production, having been initially overlooked here, according to executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle (this was before Fleabag became a TV hit). Woodward Gentle had read the Codename Villanelle novellas by Luke Jennings, on which Killing Eve is based, and approached Waller-Bridge. She had seen her one-woman play in Edinburgh, and thought she would bring a different energy to the show.

Shaw is taken aback by its popularity, and  particularly by the wide demographic to which  it appeals. ‘Fathers and sons watch it, mothers   and daughters, husbands and wives. I don’t think it bears much analysis. I suppose it has no politics, it’s fantasy really and that’s why I think the violence is nearly allowable – it’s cartoonish.’

It’s also stylish – the music is great; the costumes are superb; the graphics are slick – and clearly a high-budget project, shot in London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam. Shaw is often recognised for playing Carolyn. She was amazed when, on a New York street recently, someone reacted so wildly on seeing her that she appeared to be having a fit.

Fiona Shaw grew up in Montenotte, Cork, with three brothers. Her father was an ophthalmic surgeon and her mother was a physicist. She always wanted to be a tennis player, she says, but instead studied philosophy at University College Cork and then went to Rada in London. She still remembers the audition: the teacher told her later that she smelled of libraries.

That’s because it was as if she was born into the 19th century, she says now, compared to the other applicants. She was not cool. Everyone was instructed to wear a black dress. Shaw had made her own and it was a bit wonky. She was terrified. ‘I remember some American guys at the audition were doing press-ups, and people were talking about the Royal Shakespeare Company – and I thought, I haven’t a hope in hell.’

Hearing she’d got in was, she says, ‘one of the nicest moments in my life’. She is still an advisor at Rada. She worked hard and went straight into the cast of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Rivals at the National Theatre, alongside Michael Hordern and Tim Curry (‘I couldn’t have been in better company’). Her father had his reservations, ‘but I think he thought I would come to my senses’. A year later she joined the RSC. Her parents would come and watch her, and her obvious success calmed her father’s fears. ‘He got much more interested when he could read about me in the paper – in the end he was incredibly supportive but I had to go through the firewall of his disapproval for a while.’

Then her brother Peter was killed in a car crash. Shaw was 28 at the time. ‘That was such a blow to my family. Neither of my parents could really function for about a year after that. It was very hard for them.’

Two years after her brother died, she was offered the role of Electra (for which she won the first of two Olivier Awards), and in some strange way found herself channelling her grief. ‘I loved comedy – but then I was asked to do Electra. Deborah Warner was directing and I thought, oh well, I’ll give it a go. But I didn’t see the point of a tragedy and I couldn’t do it at all. And slowly I realised that it’s much more about yourself. And I discovered a new world through tragedy.

‘Electra has a brother who she thinks is dead – and I knew something about having a brother who was dead. I wouldn’t say in any way that I was mainlining my brother, but I suddenly realised that plays are about life, and domestic tragedies are heightened in the theatre – but they are the same as all our tragedies – and that is what the theatre is for. I don’t know why I hadn’t worked that out before.’

It was the first of many collaborations with Warner (with whom Shaw also had a relationship), which went on to include Hedda Gabler, a controversial Richard II at the National in 1995, and Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.

Shaw’s first major film role was in My Left Foot with Daniel Day-Lewis (1989). Soon after came Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), and later the Harry Potter series. It is the former, she says, for which she is most recognised by the public. She has just finished filming Ammonite, an historical drama directed by Francis Lee, in which she plays Elizabeth Philpot, a palaeontologist, opposite Saoirse Ronan, and Kate Winslet as fossil hunter Mary Anning.

Was there a moment when she felt she had made it on her own terms? ‘I think I was very lucky. I didn’t do film on my own terms – you’re either a film star or you are not – because I was so obsessed with the theatre when I was young. Probably I would have had to go and sit in Hollywood – but I wouldn’t do that.

‘But I have done a lot of things on my terms, just being allowed to do those shows: Electra, Hedda Gabler – and Richard II, which seemed quite nerve-racking at the time, but that was part of the thrill of it. So I’ve always tried to do things which are hard to do – maybe even to a fault.’ She has never, she says, been trapped in a long run of a West End show she didn’t want to do. ‘There always had to be an element of experiment.’

And she loves taking theatrical risks. Like her rendition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which premiered at Epidaurus in Greece in 2012, then went to the Old Vic Tunnels in London in 2013, and on to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Or (with Warner) the dramatisation of TS Eliot’s The Waste Land she performed in locations including an old disco in Brussels and a former munitions factory in Dublin. Last month she revisited it in New York, reciting it against the backdrop of a sculpture exhibition in Madison Square Park – it wasn’t advertised but word spread and people came in their hundreds. ‘It was a huge pleasure, it happened almost by accident – “Will you turn this water into wine?” And I did. It was lovely.’

Shaw’s father, Denis, died in 2011, but her mother, Mary, is 93 and still lives in the house that Shaw grew up in. She drives, plays tennis. When Shaw goes back home she sleeps in her old bedroom. ‘Well, I try not to – it’s awful to sleep in the bedroom you had when you were 14. Some things are still exactly the same, the wardrobe and the poster of Narcissus – do you remember those terrible posters?’

Shaw lives between the house in north London and New York, where her wife Sonali Deraniyagala, a Sri Lankan economist, teaches at Columbia University. In 2004, Deraniyagala was on holiday in Sri Lanka with her family when they were caught in the tsunami. Her husband, parents and two young sons died. For years, Deraniyagala lived in a haze of madness and grief. In 2013, she wrote an extraordinary memoir, Wave, which won several awards and had some remarkable reviews.

Shaw was in New York performing in Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary when somebody gave her Deraniyagala’s book. She read it in her dressing room. ‘I thought it was the best thing I’d read for a long time, on any level.’ She mentioned this in an interview. Then things came together in a felicitous way: Shaw was supposed to return home straight after the play closed, but she had a serious ear infection (due to having to disappear for several minutes in a plunge pool every night on stage), and was unable to fly. She stayed in New York and went to a Laurie Anderson concert, where she was invited to Anderson’s book club – they were reading Wave – to meet the writer.

‘I was so surprised that she was that person – not the person in the book. We spent half an hour chatting. When I left I thought, I have just met life.’

She pauses. ‘The play had been exhausting and so much about death, and I was feeling so miserable, and I thought, that person is life – even though she has had more death than you would wish on your worst enemy, there’s a force in her that is just life.’

When Deraniyagala came to London they met up again. ‘Very quickly I thought, I just want to live with this person, and it’s been one of the most marvellous things to happen – but it was also highly unlikely. But in my profound self, at my core, I thought, I want to live with this person. It was deeper than anything. And thankfully, she thought the same – it’s been a beautiful thing to happen at this stage of my life.’

They got married in Islington town hall in January of last year, and then had their wedding party on the day of the royal wedding. ‘It was fantastic. Half of Sri Lanka came and it was a very beautiful wedding – everyone was wearing saris and looking gorgeous. My mother played the piano and sang, which was quite hilarious, and we had a band and dancing, a very late party.’

Her mother sounds very enlightened, being 93 and coming from a small town in Ireland. Were there no raised eyebrows at the fact that Shaw was marrying a woman? (As well as Warner, she previously had a relationship with the actor Saffron Burrows.)

‘More than raised. But it’s fine – the world is changing fast. My mother was very good about it and also very impressed by who Sonali is.’

So she’s not religious? ‘Oh she is, but she’s also terribly funny about it. And she’s a sort of nouveau old person. I think being old is quite a shock for her – and a lot of friends are dead, and some of them have lost their minds. But she’s very well – and very happy for me.’

Deraniyagala and Shaw have been to Sri Lanka several times to visit Deraniyagala’s aunt, and love it there. Given what happened to Deraniyagala, recent events – the bombings at Easter – must have been completely destabilising. ‘Sri Lanka has been very much at peace for the last 10 years since the war, but the scale of what happened with those 250 people dead – it’s as big as 9/11 for them, because it’s such a small island. They were innocent people, and it’s the most depressing thing – and terribly hard for Sonali – because the mass funerals are very near to the mass funerals of her family; it’s terribly hard for her to revisit that time. It feels a bit like a natural disaster because it has no rhyme or reason. It’s a black hole of destruction.’

Shaw is about to start work on a film called Corvidae, a thriller co-written and directed by young film-maker Joe Marcantonio. Then Killing Eve series three is on the cards for next year. If she had to choose only one discipline to work in for the rest of her life – theatre, film, opera or television – which would she choose?

‘That’s a cruel question. I would find it very difficult, but I would probably say television because I’ve done 30 years of the theatre. I’ve worked morning, noon and night, sometimes rehearsing all day and performing every night for decades. That’s a lot. I don’t have any great need to do that again.

‘And I’m very interested in television now because one of the new pleasures it’s given me is the scope of the audience. We used to be thrilled when we had 500 people, or 1,000. Now we have millions and you think, oh God, this is so obvious. Especially when the material is of such great quality and so uncynical. A few years ago they were just churning television out, but they aren’t now – it has some of the best minds working in it. So I feel in a way like I’m in the same profession, it’s just the shape of the stage which has changed.’

In the end, she says, in any medium, it all comes down to the same things she has always aspired to, and which she is so excited about – that sense of infinite possibility in a role, and the thrill of making the heartbeat of the audience quicken.

Killing Eve returns to BBC One and iPlayer in June

#fiona shaw #killing eve #not a particularly well written profile #there's a huge chunk about pwb at the beginning wtf #but it's behind a paywall so i thought i'd post #fshaw fascinating as always #she talks about how she met her wife and their wedding!!!#it's so sweet #(obligatory: that's what i want)#it's also the most i've read about/heard her talk about her personal life #pwb #sonali deraniyagala #for future reference

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vintagegeekculture · 7 years ago

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Dead Fandoms, Part 3

Read Part One of Dead Fandoms here.

Read Part Two of Dead Fandoms here.

Before we continue, I want to add the usual caveat that I actually don’t want to be right about these fandoms being dead. I like enthusiasm and energy and it’s a shame to see it vanish.

Mists of Avalon

Remember that period of time of about 15 years, where absolutely everybody read this book and was obsessed with it? It could not have been bigger, and the fandom was Anne Rice huge, overlapping for several years with USENET and the early World Wide Web…but it’s since petered out.

Mists of Avalon’s popularity may be due to the most excellent case of hitting a demographic sweet spot ever. The book was a feminist retelling of the Arthurian Mythos where Morgan Le Fay is the main character, a pagan from matriarchal goddess religions who is fighting against encroaching Christianity and patriarchal forms of society coming in with it. Also, it made Lancelot bisexual and his conflict is how torn he is about his attraction to both Arthur and Guinevere.

Remember, this novel came out in 1983 – talk about being ahead of your time! If it came out today, the reaction from a certain corner would be something like “it is with a heavy heart that I inform you that tumblr is at it again.”

Man, demographically speaking, that’s called “nailing it.” It used to be one of the favorite books of the kind of person who’s bookshelf is dominated by fantasy novels about outspoken, fiery-tongued redheaded women, who dream of someday moving to Scotland, who love Enya music and Kate Bush, who sell homemade needlepoint stuff on etsy, who consider their religious beliefs neo-pagan or wicca, and who have like 15 cats, three of which are named Isis, Hypatia, and Morrigan.

This type of person is still with us, so why did this novel fade in popularity? There’s actually a single hideous reason: after her death around 2001, facts came out that Marion Zimmer Bradley abused her daughters sexually. Even when she was alive, she was known for defending and enabling a known child abuser, her husband, Walter Breen. To say people see your work differently after something like this is an understatement – especially if your identity is built around being a progressive and feminist author.

Robotech

I try to break up my sections on dead fandoms into three parts: first, I explain the property, then explain why it found a devoted audience, and finally, I explain why that fan devotion and community went away. Well, in the case of Robotech, I can do all three with a single sentence: it was the first boy pilot/giant robot Japanimation series that shot for an older, teenage audience to be widely released in the West. Robotech found an audience when it was the only true anime to be widely available, and lost it when became just another import anime show. In the days of Crunchyroll, it’s really hard to explain what made Robotech so special, because it means describing a different world.

Try to imagine what it was like in 1986 for Japanime fans: there were barely any video imports, and if you wanted a series, you usually had to trade tapes at your local basement club (they were so precious they couldn’t even be sold, only traded). If you were lucky, you were given a script to translate what you were watching. Robotech though, was on every day, usually after school. You want an action figure? Well, you could buy a Robotech Valkyrie or a Minmei figure at your local corner FAO Schwartz.

However, the very strategy that led to it getting syndicated is the very reason it was later vilified by the purists who emerged when anime became a widespread cultural force: strictly speaking, there actually is no show called “Robotech.” Since Japanese shows tend to be short run, say, 50-60 episodes, it fell well under the 80-100 episode mark needed for syndication in the US. The producer of Harmony Gold, Carl Macek, had a solution: he’d cut three unrelated but similar looking series together into one, called “Robotech.” The shows looked very similar, had similar love triangles, used similar tropes, and even had little references to each other, so the fit was natural. It led to Robotech becoming a weekday afternoon staple with a strong fandom who called themselves “Protoculture Addicts.” There were conventions entirely devoted to Robotech. The supposed shower scene where Minmei was bare-breasted was the barely whispered stuff of pervert legend in pre-internet days. And the tie in novels, written with the entirely western/Harmony Gold conception of the series and which continued the story, were actually surprisingly readable.

The final nail in the coffin of Robotech fandom was the rise of Sailor Moon, Toonami, Dragonball, and yes, Pokemon (like MC Hammer’s role in popularizing hip hop, Pokemon is often written out of its role in creating an audience for the next wave of cartoon imports out of insecurity). Anime popularity in the West can be defined as not a continuing unbroken chain like scifi book fandom is, but as an unrelated series of waves, like multiple ancient ruins buried on top of each other (Robotech was the vanguard of the third wave, as Anime historians reckon); Robotech’s wave was subsumed by the next, which had different priorities and different “core texts.” Pikachu did what the Zentraedi and Invid couldn’t do: they destroyed the SDF-1.

Legion of Super-Heroes

Legion of Superheroes was comic set in the distant future that combined superheroes with space opera, with a visual aesthetic that can best be described as “Star Trek: the Motion Picture, if it was set in a disco.”

I’ve heard wrestling described as “a soap opera for men.” If that’s the case, then Legion of Super-Heroes was a soap opera for nerds. The book is about attractive 20-somethings who seem to hook up all the time. As a result, it had a large female fanbase, which, I cannot stress enough, is incredibly unusual for this era in comics history. And if you have female fans, you get a lot of shipping and slashfic, and lots of speculation over which of the boy characters in the series is gay. The fanon answer is Element Lad, because he wore magenta-pink and never had a girlfriend. (Can’t argue with bulletproof logic like that.) In other words, it was a 1970s-80s fandom that felt much more “modern” than the more right-brained, bloodless, often anal scifi fandoms that existed around the same time, where letters pages were just nitpicking science errors by model train and elevator enthusiasts.

Legion Headquarters seemed to be a rabbit fuck den built around a supercomputer and Danger Room. Cosmic Boy dressed like Tim Curry in Rocky Horror. There’s one member, Duo Damsel, who can turn into two people, a power that, in the words of Legion writer Jim Shooter, was “useful for weird sex...and not much else.”

LSH was popular because the fans were insanely horny. This is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the thirstiest fandom of all time. You might think I’m overselling this, but I really think that’s an under-analyzed part of how some kinds of fiction build a devoted fanbase.

For example, a big reason for the success of Mass Effect is that everyone has a favorite girl or boy, and you have the option to romance them. Likewise, everyone who was a fan of Legion remembers having a crush. Sardonic Ultra Boy for some reason was a favorite among gay male nerds (aka the Robert Conrad Effect). Tall, blonde, amazonian telepath Saturn Girl, maybe the first female team leader in comics history, is for the guys with backbone who prefer Veronica over Betty. Shrinking Violet was a cute Audrey Hepburn type. And don’t forget Shadow Lass, who was a blue skinned alien babe with pointed ears and is heavily implied to have an accent (she was Aayla Secura before Aayla Secura was Aayla Secura). Light Lass was commonly believed to be “coded lesbian” because of a short haircut and her relationships with men didn’t work out. The point is, it’s one thing to read about the adventures of a superteam, and it implies a totally different level of mental and emotional involvement to read the adventures of your imaginary girlfriend/boyfriend.

Now, I should point out that of all the fandoms I’ve examined here, LSH was maybe the smallest. Legion was never a top seller, but it was a favorite of the most devoted of fans who kept it alive all through the seventies and eighties with an energy and intensity disproportionate to their actual numbers. My gosh, were LSH fans devoted! Interlac and Legion Outpost were two Legion fanzines that are some of the most famous fanzines in comics history.

If nerd culture fandoms were drugs, Star Wars would be alcohol, Doctor Who would be weed, but Legion of Super-Heroes would be injecting heroin directly into your eyeballs. Maybe it is because the Legionnaires were nerdy, too: they played Dungeons and Dragons in their off time (an escape, no doubt, from their humdrum, mundane lives as galaxy-rescuing superheroes). There were sometimes call outs to Monty Python. Basically, the whole thing had a feel like the dorkily earnest skits or filk-singing at a con. Legion felt like it’s own fan series, guest starring Patton Oswalt and Felicia Day.

It helped that the boundary between fandom and professional was incredibly porous. For instance, pro-artist Dave Cockrum did covers for Legion fanzines. Former Legion APA members Todd and Mary Biernbaum got a chance to actually write Legion, where, with the gusto of former slashfic writers given the keys to canon, their major contribution was a subplot that explicitly made Element Lad gay. Mike Grell, a professional artist who got paid to work on the series, did vaguely porno-ish fan art. Again, it’s hard to tell where the pros started and the fandom ended; the inmates were running the asylum.

Mostly, Legion earned this devotion because it could reward it in a way no other comic could. Because Legion was not a wide market comic but was bought by a core audience, after a point, there were no self-contained one-and-done Legion stories. In fact, there weren’t even really arcs as we know it, which is why Legion always has problems getting reprinted in trade form. Legion was plotted like a daytime soap opera: there were always five different stories going on in every issue, and a comic involved cutting between them. Sure, like daytime soap operas, there’s never a beginning, just endless middles, so it was totally impossible for a newbie to jump on board...but soap operas know what they are doing: long term storytelling rewards a long term reader.

This brings me to today, where Legion is no longer being published by DC. There is no discussion about a movie or TV revival. This is amazing. Comics are a world where the tiniest nerd groups get pandered to: Micronauts, Weirdworld, Seeker 3000, and Rom have had revival series, for pete’s sake. It’s incredible there’s no discussion of a film or TV treatment, either; friggin Cyborg from New Teen Titans is getting a solo movie.

Why did Legion stop being such a big deal? Where did the fandom that supported it dissolve to? One word: X-Men. Legion was incredibly ahead of its time. In the 60s and 70s, there were barely any “fan” comics, since superhero comics were like animation is today: mostly aimed at kids, with a minority of discerning adult/teen fans, and it was success among kids, not fans, that led to something being a top seller (hence, “fan favorites” in the 1970s, as surprising as it is to us today, often did not get a lot of work, like Don MacGregor or Barry Smith). But as newsstands started to push comics out, the fan audience started to get bigger and more important…everyone else started to catch up to the things that made Legion unique: most comics started to have attractive people who paired up into couples and/or love triangles, and featured extremely byzantine long term storytelling. If Legion of Super-Heroes is going to be remembered for anything, it’s for being the smaller scale “John the Baptist” to the phenomenon of X-Men, the ultimate “fan” comic.

The other thing that killed Legion, apart from Marvel’s Merry Mutants, that is, was the r-word: reboots. A reboot only works for some properties, but not others. You reboot something when you want to find something for a mass audience to respond to, like with Zorro, Batman, or Godzilla.

Legion, though, was not a comic for everybody, it was a fanboy/girl comic beloved by a niche who read it for continuing stories and minutiae (and to jack off, and in some cases, jill off). Rebooting a comic like that is a bad idea. You do not reboot something where the main way you engage with the property, the greatest strength, is the accumulated lore and history. Rebooting a property like that means losing the reason people like it, and unless it’s something with a wide audience, you only lose fans and won’t get anything in return for it. So for something like Legion (small fandom obsessed with long form plots and details, but unlike Trek, no name recognition) a reboot is the ultimate Achilles heel that shatters everything, a self-destruct button they kept hitting over and over and over until there was nothing at all left.

E. E. Smith’s Lensman Novels

The Lensman series is like Gil Evans’s jazz: it’s your grandparents’ favorite thing that you’ve never heard of.

I mean, have you ever wondered exactly what scifi fandom talked about before the rise of the major core texts and cultural objects (Star Trek, Asimov, etc)? Well, it was this. Lensmen was the subject of fanfiction mailed in manilla envelopes during the 30s, 40s, and 50s (some of which are still around). If you’re from Boston, you might recognize that the two biggest and oldest scifi cons there going back to the 1940s, Boskone (Boscon, get it?) and Arisia, are references to the Lensman series. This series not only created space opera as we know it, but contributed two of the biggest visuals in scifi, the interstellar police drawn from different alien species, and space marines in power armor.

My favorite sign of how big this series was and how fans responded to it, was a great wedding held at Worldcon that duplicated Kimball Kinnison and Clarissa’s wedding on Klovia. This is adorable:

The basic story is pure good vs. evil: galactic civilization faces a crime and piracy wave of unprecedented proportions from technologically advanced pirates (the memory of Prohibition, where criminals had superior firearms and faster cars than the cops, was strong by the mid-1930s). A young officer, Kimball Kinnison (who speaks in a Stan Lee esque style of dialogue known as “mid-century American wiseass”), graduates the academy and is granted a Lens, an object from an ancient mystery civilization, who’s true purpose is unknown.

Lensman Kinnison discovers that the “crime wave” is actually a hostile invasion and assault by a totally alien culture that is based on hierarchy, intolerant of failure, and at the highest level, is ruled by horrifying nightmare things that breathe freezing poison gases. Along the way, he picks up allies, like van Buskirk, a variant human space marine from a heavy gravity planet who can do a standing jump of 20 feet in full space armor, Worsel, a telepathic dragon warrior scientist with the technical improvisation skills of MacGyver (who reads like the most sadistically minmaxed munchkinized RPG character of all time), and Nandreck, a psychologist from a Pluto-like planet of selfish cowards.

The scale of the conflict starts small, just skirmishes with pirates, but explodes to near apocalyptic dimensions. This series has space battles with millions of starships emerging from hyperspacial tubes to attack the ultragood Arisians, homeworld of the first intelligent race in the cosmos. By the end of the fourth book, there are mind battles where the reflected and parried mental beams leave hundreds of innocent bystanders dead. In the meantime we get evil Black Lensmen, the Hell Hole in Space, and superweapons like the Negasphere and the Sunbeam, where an entire solar system was turned into a vacuum tube.

It’s not hard to understand why Lensmen faded in importance. While the alien Lensmen had lively psychologies, Lensman Kimball Kinnison was not an interesting person, and that’s a problem when scifi starts to become more about characterization. The Lensman books, with their love of police and their sexism (it is an explicit plot point that the Lens is incompatible with female minds – in canon there are no female Lensmen) led to it being judged harshly by the New Wave writers of the 1960s, who viewed it all as borderline fascist military-scifi establishment hokum, and the reputation of the series never recovered from the spirit of that decade.

Prisoner of Zenda

Prisoner of Zenda is a novel about a roguish con-man who visits a postage-stamp, charmingly picturesque Central European kingdom with storybook castles, where he finds he looks just like the local king and is forced to pose as him in palace intrigues. It’s a swashbuckling story about mistaken identity, swordfighting, and intrigue, one part swashbuckler and one part dark political thriller.

The popularity of this book predates organized fandom as we know it, so I wonder if “fandom” is even the right word to use. All the same, it inspired fanatical dedication from readers. There was such a popular hunger for it that an entire library could be filled with nothing but rip-offs of Prisoner of Zenda. If you have a favorite writer who was active between 1900-1950, I guarantee he probably wrote at least one Prisoner of Zenda rip-off (which is nearly always the least-read book in his oeuvre). The only novel in the 20th Century that inspired more imitators was Sherlock Holmes. Robert Heinlein and Edmond “Planet Smasher” Hamilton wrote scifi updates of Prisoner of Zenda. Doctor Who lifted the plot wholesale for the Tom Baker era episode, “Androids of Tara,” Futurama did this exact plot too, and even Marvel Comics has its own copy of Ruritania, Doctor Doom’s Kingdom of Latveria. Even as late as the 1980s, every kids’ cartoon did a “Prisoner of Zenda” episode, one of the stock plots alongside “everyone gets hit by a shrink ray” and the Christmas Carol episode.

Prisoner of Zenda imitators were so numerous, that they even have their own Library of Congress sub-heading, of “Ruritanian Romance.”

One major reason that Prisoner of Zenda fandom died off is that, between World War I and World War II, there was a brutal lack of sympathy for anything that seemed slightly German, and it seems the incredibly Central European Prisoner of Zenda was a casualty of this. Far and away, the largest immigrant group in the United States through the entire 19th Century were Germans, who were more numerous than Irish or Italians. There were entire cities in the Midwest that were two-thirds German-born or German-descent, who met in Biergartens and German community centers that now no longer exist.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a lot about how the German-American world he grew up in vanished because of the prejudice of the World Wars, and that disappearance was so extensive that it was retroactive, like someone did a DC comic-style continuity reboot where it all never happened: Germans, despite being the largest immigrant group in US history, are left out of the immigrant story. The “Little Bohemias” and “Little Berlins” that were once everywhere no longer exist. There is no holiday dedicated to people of German ancestry in the US, the way the Irish have St. Patrick’s Day or Italians have Columbus Day (there is Von Steuben’s Day, dedicated to a general who fought with George Washington, but it’s a strictly Midwest thing most people outside the region have never heard of, like Sweetest Day). If you’re reading this and you’re an academic, and you’re not sure what to do your dissertation on, try writing about the German-American immigrant world of the 19th and 20th Centuries, because it’s a criminally under-researched topic.

A. Merritt

Pop quiz: who was the most popular and influential fantasy author during the 1930s and 40s?

If you answered Tolkien or Robert E. Howard, you’re wrong - it was actually Abraham Merritt. He was the most popular writer of his age of the kind of fiction he did, and he’s since been mostly forgotten. Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has said that A. Merritt was his favorite fantasy and horror novelist.

Why did A. Merritt and his fandom go away, when at one point, he was THE fantasy author? Well, obviously one big answer was the 1960s counterculture, which brought different writers like Tolkien and Lovecraft to the forefront (by modern standards Lovecraft isn’t a fantasy author, but he was produced by the same early century genre-fluid effluvium that produced Merritt and the rest). The other answer is that A. Merritt was so totally a product of the weird occult speculation of his age that it’s hard to even imagine him clicking with audiences in other eras. His work is based on fringe weirdness that appealed to early 20th Century spiritualism and made sense at the time: reincarnation, racial memory, an obsession with lost race stories and the stone age, and weirdness like the 1920s belief that the Polar Arctic is the ancestral home of the Caucasian race. In other words, it’s impossible to explain Merritt without a ton of sentences that start with “well, people in the 1920s thought that...” That’s not a good sign when it comes to his universality.

That’s it for now. Do you have any suggestions on a dead fandom, or do you keep one of these “dead” fandoms alive in your heart?

#fandom history #lensman #robotech #prisoner of zenda #mists of avalon

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y00sungshairpin-blog · 7 years ago

Note

RFA + Minor Trio react to MC being cast as Janet Wise in Rocky Horror Picture Show

Before I start, I just want to say I had to watch the musical specifically for this request and I loved it! I mean I’m still very confused but I really really liked it so thank you ^^

I love getting requests like this because they help me discover new things, so feel free to send me some, as long as it’s not about a long show it would take ages to watch. If you wanna check what fandoms I’m in there’s a list on my other blog here. Anyway, enjoy the HCs, I had so much fun writing them (while listening to the soundtrack) and I hope you do too reading them ^^

Yoosung:

when you told him, he immediately did research

and sat down with you to watch the movie

he was smiling at first, but he was already frowning at Dammit, Janet

I mean, he’s a jealous bean

knowing a man was gonna propose to you and act as your fiancè for the entire musical wasn’t exactly appealing to him

you watched his expression the entire time, as he got traumatized by Tim Curry multiple times

then, just as he was done recovering from the scenes in Janet and Brad’s bedrooms

it was time for Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me

wanting to be a supportive boyfriend, he tried not to show his emotions

but his face was red and he looked like he wasn’t breathing

I mean, what boyfriend would not be jealous knowing a stranger was going to be touching you like that

and in front of a lot of people too!

the final section just confused him

and after the movie was over an awkward silence filled the room

he didn’t want to kill your excitement but he was kind of opposed to you taking the role

especially after it sinked in that you were going to be in you underwear for most of the musical

he didn’t say it out loud but you could tell

it was a long night

of you explaining to him that it was all fiction

and that a theatre version is much less realistic than a tv version

hence you weren’t going to actually kiss anyone

the touching was another thing but again, it was all fake

he still wasn’t convinced so you pulled out the guilt card

”Alright, I’m going to turn it down if you really don’t want me to do it.” you pouted

his eyes widened

”N-no! I didn’t mean- It’s just-”

this boy loved you too much to let you give up on your passions

but he asked you to please avoid being too touchy with the guys

reasonable

Zen:

he knew what the musical was about the moment you mentioned the name

he had already watched it, of course

and it wasn’t hard for him to manage to get cast as Rocky

he would have to wear a wig and get a tan but he didn’t care

he’s just too jealous to let anyone else play that role knowing what you two were going to be doing

and he wanted to protect you from potential wolves of course

when rehearsals began, you could see him giving dirty looks to the guys who played Brad and Frank-N-Furter every time they tried to have a conversation with you

“But Zen, getting to know the people you’re gonna be acting with is important, you should know that”

”Yeah, sorry.”

but he kept one arm around your waist while glaring at the guys through the entire conversation

when it was time for the Dammit, Janet part all you could think about was him singing it

since he’d found out you were going to play her he’d been singing it to you non-stop every day

then of course every time you practiced THE scene between your two characters

both at rehearsal and at home in your own time

he got really into it

like REALLY into it

the director had to stop him once because he was about to rip his clothes off

from that point on he tried to act more chill about it

but still didn’t hesitate in touching and kissing you as much as possible even knowing there were a lot of people watching

he loves a good audience

kinky shit

Jaehee:

she loves musicals

so of course she was very happy and excited for you when you gave her the news

even though she knew what the musical was about

and it had always been kinda… weird to her

she’d been an expert in that field for too long though

she knew very well that everything was fake and she had no reason to worry about anything

another thing she knew very well was how gay you actually were

so she didn’t have any problems with that

she’s such a supportive girlfriend

she helped you learn your lines and sang the songs with you whenever she had some spare time

and the night of the show she managed to get a free night from Jumin and came to see you

she had booked a seat in the front row and was there to support you

she clapped and shouted every time you came on stage

and got kind of self conscious during certain parts where your almost naked self was too exposed to the others

but she focused on looking at you and just thought about how proud she was

you had to hit pretty high notes and you nailed all of them

and she had rehearsed with you so many times she knew the script by heart

to the point where her lips were moving according to what was going to be said next

when the show was over a bunch of young boys gathered around you to congratulate you on your performance

and it was clear they were trying to flirt with you

pathetic

she came up to you slightly annoyed

”You were great today, sweetheart.” she smiled and kissed you on the lips as if wanting to claim you

that was a clear message to the boys, who turned on their heels and left

she may be fine with guys acting as your fiancè, sex companion or whatever

but no way she would let anyone actually hit on HER girl

Jumin:

he was so happy for you when you told him

you could have sworn you’d seen a int of a bright, excited smile for a second

he’s so proud of all of your accomplishments and now you were going to star in a musical!! That’s exciting!

right?

well;;;

he asked you to tell him the plot of the musical

how do you even explain it

it took you like an hour

and when you were done you looked at his face and saw a mix of confusion and shock

he decided to come with you at rehearsals to try and understand a little better

he arrived after a meeting and found Frank-N-Furter singing Sweet Transvestite

you saw him come in from the side of the stage and you couldn’t stop laughing

his expression was priceless

but he sat down and patiently waited for you to start singing

you saying you didn’t like muscular men made him pout right at you

you gave him a small smile as a response

he wasn’t an expert in this field

he’d never been interested in it so he didn’t know how kisses and stuff like that worked on stage

and when the scene with Janet and the doctor in the bedroom came up he tensed up

he didn’t think much of it because there was a curtain covering you so it could just be perspective

but when certain more explicit scenes were performed he felt really uncomfortable and jealous

you kept glancing at him and you could tell

although he knew everything was fake it was still hard for him to watch you kiss and touch and most importantly BE TOUCHED by another man

he didn’t completely agree with the idea of you playing the role but you explained to him how fake everything was

after all it wasn’t the original movie, just a theatre adaptation

you showed him every fake move you’d learnt

and then reenacted the scenes WITH the touching

707:

he immediately knew what you were talking about the moment you mentioned it

so after congratulating you on your role he asked you to wait for him and disappeared into his room for an hour

when he came back you almost fell off the couch from laughing

he was wearing a black wig, dark red lipstick and white foundation

and was covered in a cape

you knew what was coming

he grabbed your hand to make you stand and started singing sweet transvestite while dancing around you

when he took off the cape your emotions were mixed

am I surprised? am I shook by how accurate it is? am I turned on by how good he looks?

it was a mess

but the outfit did look extremely good on him

after he was done singing you hugged him and complimented his cosplay

he was very flattered but he had other thoughts on his mind

surprisingly he knew every song by heart

so he asked you to reenact some together

except he wanted to be Janet

his performance of Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me was out of this world

you liked it so much that it became a habit of his to sing it during sexy times just to mock you

and let’s not forget how he would never stop teasing you by singing Planet Schmanet Janet

and how it became an inside joke of yours to start repeating each other’s names multiple time every time you met

he lowkey stanned Columbia

like literally at every performance he would go to he would ask the actress for autographs or pictures while you just stood there

he got so salty whenever the guys got lines wrong

like he would correct them under his breath and you would just laugh like an idiot because you were able to see it from the stage

he’s so supportive though, every time he noticed you were looking at him he would smile and give you a double thumbs up to let you know you were doing great

he was also very loud during live performance, standing up and cheering while shouting your name or Janet’s

when he found out he smiled so wide

he picked you up from the ground and spun you around and hugged you

he was genuinely happy of what you had accomplished and he knew how much you’d worked to get a role

but when you watched the movie together he was kind of uncomfortable and confused

though he wasn’t jealous

like of course the idea of you being with not one, not two but three men didn’t excite him

but the most important thing was that you had a role and he was going to support you no matter what

plus he had worked hard on his confidence and all that so he knew he didn’t have to worry about anything

he was very interested in the story though

he started making theories to try and understand what was going on

and every time he could he would bring it up and ask for your opinion

he got super into it

the fact that he was showing so much interest in something you were also passionate about made you extremely happy

and considering you were actually afraid of his reaction to watching the movie you were also very relieved

he was obsessed with the way you played the character

because of course he would help you with your lines every time you needed it

he was good at playing the other characters to help you visualize the scenes

although he would occasionally stop and stare at you while you were singing or just talking because he found you so outstandingly perfect at everything you did

when it was time for the debut and he came to see you he started tearing up in the middle of There’s A Light because ”look that’s my girlfriend she’s so talented and oMG DID YOU HEAR THAT HIGH NOTE“

any time the public applauded he would stand up and clap his hands frantically

the cutest

Saeran:

for a second he was happy for you

then lil Seven who was spying on you told him about the scenes

he got paler than he already was

who knew that was possible

you cursed at Seven and sat down next to your boyfriend to explain the usual stuff

it’s not like you weren’t expecting this kind of reaction

you even told him you were willing to turn down the role if he really didn’t want you to play Janet

”NONONONONONO WAIT”

he tried not to show his insecurity and dropped it

but he wasn’t good at hiding his feelings

so it was pretty obvious to you that he was keeping himself from saying anything because he loved you and didn’t want you to give up something that made you happy

you wanted him to feel safe and stop worrying so you called the girl who was going to play Columbia to ask her for help

when she came over you asked her to demonstrate what actually happened on stage during particularly intense scenes, which this musical was surely not lacking

when you told Saeran she was going to be demonstrating it on him he was confused

like why couldn’t you demonstrate them instead of her

to which you responded “Because if I did I wouldn’t be able to stop”

you knew exactly how to feed his ego and make him feel more comfortable and confident and that was exactly the effect your words had on him

after the session with Columbia he was much happier and calmer

he didn’t feel like coming to the rehearsals though

so the first time he actually saw the play was on the night of the actual show

saying he was shook would be an understatement

he had so much fun, though, because he really liked the dark side of it all

and dr. Frank-N-Furter, surprisingly

he was vERY surprised by your acting and singing

and any time a particularly steamy scene would come up he would concentrate on remembering how fake it all was

boy is evolving, MC is proud

Vanderwood:

“A musical? You can sing?”

he immediately requested you sing something for him

which you did

when you were done he stood up and applauded you

then surprisingly it turned out he was great at singing, too

you asked him if he wanted to try for a part in your musical

but he refused, he wasn’t really the type to expose himself to an audience

but since you had the privilege of being the exception to the rule

you made him sing The Sword Of Damocles because why not

when rehearsals began he told you he didn’t like being in that environment

but he couldn’t have missed your live performance for the world

so he dressed up with the most elegant suit he had and went to the theatre with you, bringing all his courage along with him

he thought it would be trouble to sit in the middle of that big crowd

they could recognize him or remember his face and that wouldn’t be good

but all that paranoia disappeared as soon as the show started

all he could focus on was you

and, since he had found the time to check out the movie, keep an eye on the guys

he didn’t mind too much but, since you were very attractive to him he was scared they would take advantage of the situation

fortunately for them, they didn’t

when you met up after the show he had so much to say about the performances

not yours, yours was perfect

stuff like “Tim Curry is turning in his grave”

”Babe he’s not dead”

”Yeah but if he was, he would be turning in his grave”

he filled you with compliments though

which was surprising because he didn’t do it a lot

but it never hurt to hear his flattering words every once in a while

MASTERLIST

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