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muzawrites · 4 years ago

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Carrying On (Jay Park Mafia AU)

Summary: Its been said that in times of tragedy new relationships emerge and become stronger, when tragedy strikes we seek connection it is in our nature. How does the loss of their father affect the relationship between Jay and his adopted sister, Amara. Does it strengthen it? Or does it reveal things which were once hidden?

AN: This is the first story I’ve ever posted, constructive criticism is always welcome

Fifty-one.... fifty-two…. fifty-three…. fifty-four…. fifty-five… damn this is really not working. Why do they always make it seem like counting sheep helps you fall asleep? I checked the clock again- 12:05am. Sighing, I rolled over to the cooler side of my bed and let my mind wonder to the last 2 weeks, the worst 2 weeks of my life as far as I can remember. My adopted father and leader of the most powerful mafia clan in South Korea had passed away, leaving his only son Jae-beom (aka Jay) in charge of his empire.

I don’t remember too much from my childhood before I was adopted but from the snippets I do remember and what I’ve been told, it wasn’t good. I was found by Jay’s father going through garbage outside one of the restaurants the family owns at the age of 10, having been abandoned by my mother for being a mixed-race baby, I guess she couldn’t deal with having a half black half Korean child any longer. According Jay’s father I reminded him of the daughter he had lost a couple years prior when she and her mother (his wife/Jay’s mother) had falling ill and both passed away. In the back of my head I always felt like some sort of ‘replacement child’ for the daughter he had lost, even though he never made me feel like it, even Jay made me feel like his little sister even though it took a bit of time for him to get use to me as he was 16years old when I was “brought into the family” but over time we became very close, even naming me his co-right hand along with his best friend Simon. And of course he always took his role as the protective big brother a little too seriously with some of my boyfriends throughout high school and varsity. They would break up with me after a few weeks with either a broken nose or blackened eye.

I sighed and rolled over one more time before giving up and getting out of bed to make a cup of tea or something stronger to help me fall asleep. I threw a long silk robe over my sleep chemise to conserve some decency just in case one of the guards was roaming around. As I walked down the hall, I noticed Jay’s bedroom door slightly open with the light inside shining through. After softly knocked I pushed the door to find him sitting on the couch facing the fireplace with the coffee table filled with presumably work papers, “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” he asked without turning around, his full attention on the fire before him. “Shouldn’t you?” I rebutted as I grabbed the empty whiskey glass in his hand, walked over to the mini bar in his room to get him a refill and me a glass of his strongest whiskey on the rocks. He was still wearing the black slacks and black dress shirt he wore earlier in the day with the tie thrown somewhere in the room and his top two buttons undone.

“Seems we both can’t fall asleep huh” he said, as I handed him his glass. He mumbled a soft thanks as I sat down next to him. “Seems like” I replied leaning into his shoulder and staring into the flames with him. For some time, nothing could be heard but the fire crackling and the occasional clinking of ice against glass as we took sips of our drinks. “So, what happens now?” I asked, finally breaking the silence. He sighed, running his hand over his face. “In a few days, we meet with the heads of the families underneath us to continue business as usual” he answered, gulped down the rest of his drink and placed the glass on the side table as to not jolt me from his shoulder. “Can’t believe he’s gone” I whispered.

“Neither can I” he responded, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the back of the couch. Jay had been prepped to be the leader of the family organisation since he turned 13 and now at the age of 32, he was more than ready to take over and I had no doubt he would do great things in this position but the fact of our father’s passing was still heavy in our hearts. I gulped down the rest of my drink as well and placed my glass on coffee table. I stretched out my back and neck, unconsciously pushing my chest out against the silk of my robe. Long gone were the days of the scrawny little girl who first joined the family; I had grown into a woman with curves in all the right places, soft caramel skin which glowed under the light of the fire. From the corner of my eye, I notice Jay intensely watching me, not being able to decipher the look like I usually would be able to I pushed it aside.

“Can I have a hug?” I asked, giving him my best puppy dog eyes and pout. He chuckled while getting up and opening his arms up for me. I quickly jumped into his arms and wrapped my arms around his neck before he could change his mind. He wrapped his arms around my waist a bit lower than they usually would be. For some reason this hug felt different from every other hug we’ve shared, but still felt warm, safe and like home. “I’ll never let anything or anyone hurt you” he suddenly confessed into my hair as he placed a soft kiss on the crown of my head, I looked up to find his dark brown eyes staring into mine. “And I will never leave your side” I replied, my statement making him smile. I don’t know what took over me but I suddenly found myself leaning up to kiss him. He didn’t respond at first but after a few seconds I felt his lips move against mine. This kiss was so much better than any I had ever experienced before. His lips were soft but firm, he tasted of the whiskey we had been drinking and a hint of something else, something uniquely him, he took full control of the kiss holding onto my waist a little tighter. Suddenly I felt like a bucket of cold water fell on me when I felt his tongue brushing against my lips and I came to my senses. I shouldn’t have kissed Jay… he was practically my older brother. I quickly ended the kiss, pushing myself away from him and loosening his grip on my waist in the process. “I’m sorry” I mumbled, avoiding his eyes, trying to get past him and back to my room and to hide under my covers from the embarrassment. “Amara wait” he said, calling me by my birth name instead of the name I was given when I came into the family. He was the only one who called me Amara as he knew I preferred that name a little bit more than my given name. He quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me back into his embrace before I could even take 5 steps away from him. I couldn’t bare to look into his face because of the embarrassment. “That kiss wasn’t a mistake” he said softly. I looked up at him, surprised. “I’ve always felt more for you than any normal brother would or even should, I guess that’s why I have always been so protective over you. At first I thought it was because you had such a tough time growing up and I wanted to protect you from that and this hectic mafia life you had been brought into, but as we grew older I knew it was much more than that. That’s why I could never stand seeing you with those idiots you used to date, especially that piece of shit Bobby” he said. Bobby was the guy I had dated in my senior year of high school but he had broken up with me right after prom after I had given him my virginity, stating that the only reason he was with me was to sleep with the “Park Princess”. I remember crying for a week but after that he mysteriously went missing and his family left town not long after. I had always assumed he had left with his family.

“You’re mine. You’ve always been mine and I’m never letting you go” he declared, looking deep into my eyes before pulling me back into a slightly rough passionate kiss. Deep down I knew I felt the same way about him. I even had a full blown crush on Jay between the ages of 16-18 but after that I quickly pushed it aside thinking it was not only one sided but wrong as he was supposed to be my brother. I briefly thought back to my past boyfriends and realised they all had either personality or physical similarities to Jay but in my mind and heart they would never amount to him. I felt him walk backwards towards the couch without breaking our passionate embrace. He broke our kiss to sit down and signalled for me to straddle him. Before I did I untied the knot I had done on my robe, letting the soft silk fall off my skin, revealing the deep red chemise I was wearing underneath. “Fuck” I heard him whisper as I straddled his lap and continued kissing him, his hands returned to my waist, pulling me closer into him which cause my barely covered pussy to brush up against the quickly growing bulge in his pants, this action causing us both to groan into each other’s mouths.

His lips left mine and started trailing down my neck, finding that sweet spot that made me grind into him just a little harder. My fingers made quick work unbuttoning his shirt and slowly ran down his strong chest lightly brushing over his nipples, this action causing him to groan and dig his fingers- which had moved from my waist to my ass- deeper into my soft but firm flesh. His lips quickly returned to mine as his hands started trailing up, dragging my chemise with them. We briefly separated so he could pull the material over my head before returning to the kiss. “Hold on tight” he muttered, as he got up without breaking our kiss, my legs wrapped securely around his waist. He softly placed me onto his bed as he broke apart from my lips to remove the rest of his shirt. “Fuck you’re perfect” he groaned, his voice laced with lust. “Those fuckers didn’t deserve you” he muttered as he returned to kissing my neck, this time also grabbing onto my boobs and playing with my nipple with his one hand whilst the other trailed down the side of my body and returned to my legs around his waist, I felt nothing but him at that moment, the soft heated touch of his hands running down my body, the smell of his rich expensive cologne, his soft lips on my nipple driving me crazy. At that moment all my thoughts were consumed by him. “Have you ever wondered what happened to that piece of shit Bobby” he said looking into my eyes with a dark look I had only seen a handful of times. “I killed him” he said, now kissing and sucking my left nipples whilst his right hand continued to play with the other. “What!” pulling his hair causing him to look up at me, “Not only did he have the audacity to touch what’s mine, but he hurt you as well…he had to pay for that” he declared kissing me once again. As dark and twisted as it seems, his confession turned me on even more.

His kisses left my lips once again as he kissed my body further and further down. His fingers made quick work of the cute thong I had been wearing, tearing it off my body “Hey! That was one of my favourites” I complained before moaning as his fingers brushed up against my clit, “I’ll buy you a million more, get you whatever you want and I’ll do whatever you want” he said, looking deep into my eyes. “Well right now, I want you to stop teasing and eat me out” I said grabbing onto his hair, pushing him down towards where I needed him most, “Your wish is my command, my Queen” he said seductively before attaching his lips to my clit. Him calling me his Queen and the feeling of his thick fingers entering me as he sucked my clit made me cum instantly. “Jay!” I screamed his name as I experienced a high like never before. As I came down from it, he pulled his fingers out of me and licked them clean whilst looking me dead in the eye. “You taste so good babygirl I could be down there forever” he said. I quickly sat up and pushed him back and kissed him, tasting myself on his lips sent my body into overdrive as I quickly unbuckled his pants. He chuckled at the rushed movements and pushed me back as he got up to remove his pants.

As he did this, I got a full proper look at his body; firm, muscular, covered in tattoos and all mine. I truly was the luckiest girl in the world at that moment. As he pulled down his briefs, I got my first proper look at him, he was long, thick and veiny. His tip was an angry red colour dripping beads of pre-cum. He’s gorgeous, I thought. I reached out to feel him, barely able to wrap my hand around him. He felt hot and heavy in my hand. I slowly started to stroke him, and he let out the sexiest groan I had ever heard causing me to look up at him. His eyes were dark with lust and passion. “Baby, you better stop if you don’t want this to end too early” he groaned, taking my hand away from him and leaning into another kiss. He laid me down and once again started kissing my neck. At the back of my mind I wondered if it would hurt; Jay was definitely much more blessed than any other man I had been with.

“Don’t worry baby I’ll go slow” he said positioning himself between my legs as if reading my mind.

“At first” I replied with a sexy smirk on my face as I grabbed him and pumped him a few times before lining him up with my entrance. “I love you” he said as he slowly entered me. He felt so big that it kind of hurt but I didn’t want him to stop. The pleasure outweighed the pain. “Fuck baby, I love you too” I moaned as he finally bottomed out. “Shit baby you feel so good” he groaned as he started moving at a slow and steady pace. I grabbed his face and pulled him down into another kiss, missing the feel of his lips on me. In this moment I felt complete I knew that we were meant to be, I knew that he was fully mine and as I his. “Fuck baby harder” I moaned as he moved one of my legs to rest on his shoulder. He granted my wish as he started moving faster and harder, hitting a spot in me that made my brain go all fuzzy. I became a moaning mess underneath him as he did what he pleased with my body. “Shit baby, I’m so close” I groaned against his lips. At that moment he pulled out of me and before I could protest he flipped me over onto my stomach and pulled my hips up into a perfectly arched position, he quickly re-entered me, now feeling even deeper than he was before. The sounds that were coming out my mouth didn’t sound like me but at that moment in time I didn’t care because all my body and mind were focused on Jay and the pleasure he was giving me. My mind briefly drifted, the thought of him impregnating me at the moment and how beautiful our baby would be warming me up even more. This thought quickly got pushed aside as I felt him grab my hair and pull me up till my back met his chest. “Fuck baby you feel so good and so fucken tight” he groaned into my ear as I turned my head to kiss him. “I want to feel you cum on me” he groaned as his fingers attached themselves to my clit sending me into the most mind-blowing orgasm I’ve ever experienced in my life. My walls tightened so much around him that he came not a second later. He continued pumping into me, drawing out our highs as much as possible. “Fuck” he sighed in content. “I’m never going to get enough of you” he said pulling me into another kiss.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing” I said clenching my inner walls around his still hard member. He groaned, flipping us over till I was on top of him with his dick deep inside me.

“No, not a bad thing at all” he smirked as I slowly started moving, “You’re mine forever” he said, sitting up and kissing me once again. We continued to make love until the sun slowly started peaking through the curtains. “I love you” he whispered into my hair as I lay in his arms, “And I love you” I replied as I turned my head to give him one last kiss before we fell asleep.

At the back of our minds, we both knew we would probably face a lot of heat and probably negative attention if our relationship was to be exposed with most saying it’s wrong. However, I knew that no matter what Jay would never leave me nor I him.

The End

#jay park #mafiaau #aomg #aomg jay park #jay park imagine #jay park scenarios #jay park smut #park jaebeom #aomgsmut #jay park fanfiction #kpop #khh #khhsmut

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lochtayboatsong · 4 years ago

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The Jesus Christ Superstar essay absolutely no one asked for.

Last weekend, I watched the pro-shot of the 2012 arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar starring Ben Forster, Tim Minchin, and Melanie C, because it was Easter and it was up on YT for the weekend. I never managed to do my annual listen-through of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass this year, as is my usual Easter tradition, so I figured “Why not watch/listen to this instead?” It was my first time seeing and hearing JCS in full, and Y’ALL, it has been living rent-free in my brain ever since. I have a mighty need to get my thoughts out, so here they are, in chronological order by song.

1) Prologue: I love the way JCS 2012 makes use of the arena video screen. The production design and concept clearly took a lot of inspiration from the “Occupy ______” movement, which makes it feel a bit dated now. But every single production of JCS is a product of its time period, so this is a feature and not a bug.

2) Heaven On Their Minds: This is a straight-up rock song. It wouldn’t be out of place on any rock and roll album released between 1970 and 2021, and it boggles my mind that Webber and Rice were both in their early twenties when they wrote it. Also, the lyric “You’ve begun to matter more than the things you say” hits hard no matter the year.

3) What’s the Buzz: A+ use of the arena screens again, this time bringing in social media to set the tone. Also, this song establishes right from the outset that Jesus is burnt out and T I R E D by this point in the story. Seriously, can we just let this man have a nap?

4) Strange Thing Mystifying: Judas publicly calls out Mary and Jesus claps back. Folx, get you a partner who will defend your honor the way Jesus defends MM in this scene. Also Jesus loses his shoes and is mostly barefoot for the remainder of the show.

5) Everything’s Alright: Okay, this is one of the songs I have A LOT to say about. First, it’s important to know that I was a church musician throughout all of my adolescence and into my early adulthood. The pianist at the services I usually played at was a top-notch jazz pianist, and also my piano teacher for about six years while I as in high school and undergrad. (Incidentally, I had a HUGE crush on his son, who was/is a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist and also played in the church band, but that’s a story for another day.) One of the hymns we played a few times a year was called “Sing of the Lord’s Goodness,” which is notable for being in 5/4 time. Whenever this hymn was on the schedule, it was usually the recessional, or the last song played as the clergy processed out and the congregation got ready to leave, so we were able to have some fun with it. After a couple verses the piano player and his son would usually morph it into “Take Five,” a famous jazz standard by Dave Brubeck which is also in 5/4 time. Anyway, the first time I listened to this song in full, it got to Judas’s line “People who are hungry, people who are starving,” and I sat bolt upright and went “HOLY SHIT THIS IS ‘SING OF THE LORD’S GOODNESS/TAKE FIVE.’” And I was ricocheted back in time to being fourteen and trying to keep up with this father/son duo in a cavernous Catholic church while simultaneously making heart-eyes at the son. Final note: This is the only song in the musical to feature all three leads (Jesus, Judas, and Mary Magdalene) and is mostly Jesus and MM being soft with each other in between bouts of Jesus and Judas snarling at one another.

6) This Jesus Must Die: I LOVE that all the villains in this production are in tailored suits. LOVE IT. Also, Caiaphas and Annas are a comedy duo akin to “the thin guy and the fat guy,” except in this case it’s “the low basso profundo and the high tenor.” Excellent use of the arena video screen again, this time as CCTV.

7) Hosanna: My background as a church musician strikes back again. It honestly took me two or three listens to catch it, but then I had another moment of sitting bolt upright and going “HOLY SHIT THIS IS A PSALM.” Psalms sung in church usually take the form of call-and-response, with a cantor singing the verses and the congregation joining in for the chorus. If I close my eyes during this song, I have no trouble imagining Jesus as a church cantor singing the verses and then bringing the congregation in for the “Ho-sanna, Hey-sanna” chorus.

8) Simon Zealotes: This is part “Gloria In Excelsis” and part over-the-top Gospel song. Honestly it’s not my favorite, but it marks an important mood change in the show. The end of “Hosanna” is probably Jesus at his happiest in the entire show, and then Simon comes in and sours the mood by trying to tip the triumphant moment into a violent one. Jesus is not truly happy again from this moment on.

9) Poor Jerusalem: Also not my fave. It kinda reads like Webber and Rice realized that Jesus didn’t have a solo aria in Act I, so they came up with this. But it has the distinction of containing the lyric, “To conquer death you only have to die,” which is the biggest overarching theme of the story.

10) Pilate’s Dream: Pontius Pilate might be the most underrated role in this entire show, and I love that this production has him singing this song while being dressed in judge’s robes.

11) The Temple: The first half of this is one of the campiest numbers in Act I, at least in this production, and it’s awesome. The second half is one of the saddest, as Jesus tries to heal the sick but finds there are too many of them. Also the whole scene is almost entirely in 7/8 time, which I think is just cool.

12) I Don’t Know How To Love Him: Mary Magdalene’s big aria, and one of the songs I knew prior to seeing the full-length show. This production has MM taking off her heavy lipstick and eye makeup onstage, mid-song, which is kind of cool. Melanie C says in a BTS interview that MM’s makeup is her armor, so this is a Big Symbolic Moment.

13) Damned For All Time: The scene transition into this song is played entirely in pantomime, and I love it. The solo guitarist gets to be onstage for a bit, A+ use of the video screen again to show Judas on CCTV, etc. Love it. And then this song is Judas frantically rationalizing what he’s doing, and what he’s about to do, with Caiphas and Annas just reacting with raised eyebrows and knowing looks.

14) Blood Money: This is where the tone of the show really takes a turn for the dark. I think this might be one of Tim Minchin’s finest moments as Judas, because his facial expressions and microexpressions throughout this scene speak absolute volumes. And the offstage chorus quietly singing “Well done Judas” as he picks up the money is a positively chilling way to end Act I.

15) The Last Supper: Act II begins with major “Drink With Me” vibes. (Except JCS came WAY before Les Miz, so it’s probably more accurate to say that “Drink With Me” has major “The Last Supper” vibes.) Jesus and Judas have their knock-down, drag-out fight, and it’s honestly heartbreaking, thanks again to Tim Minchin’s facial expressions. A well-done production of JCS will really convey that Jesus and Judas were once closer than brothers, even though their relationship is at breaking point when Act I begins.

16) Gethsemane: This is Jesus’s major showpiece and one of my faves. Jesus knows he has less than 24 hours to live, he knows he’s going to suffer, and worst of all, he doesn’t know whether it’s going to be worth it. It’s an emotional rollercoaster to watch and to perform, and it goes on for ages: something like 6 or 7 minutes. Fun fact: the famous G5 is not written in the score. Ian Gillan, who played Jesus on the original concept album, just sang it that way, so most subsequent Jesuses have also done it that way. Lindsay Ellis has a great supercut of this on YT. John Legend notably sang the line as written during the 2018 concert.

17) The Arrest: Judas’s Betrayer’s Kiss is played differently across different productions. The 2012 version is pretty tame - I’ve seen clips and gifs of other productions, including the 2000 direct-to-video version, where they kiss fully on the mouth and have to be dragged apart by the guards and it is THE MOST TENDER THING. Then the 7/8 riff from “The Temple” comes back and the 2012 version lets the video screen do its thing again as Jesus is swarmed by reporters.

18) Peter’s Denial: Not much to say about this one, as it’s basically a scene transition. But it’s a significant moment in the Passion story, so I’m glad they included it.

19) Pilate and Christ: The 2012 production continues with the theme of Caiaphas, Annas, and Pilate all being bougie af, since Pilate intentionally looks like he just came from tennis practice during this scene. Also he does pilates...hehehe.

20) King Herod’s Song: Tim Minchin says in a BTS interview that JCS works best when Jesus and Judas are played seriously and the rest of the production is allowed to be completely camp and wild and bizarre all around them, and he is bloody well CORRECT about that. Case in point: King Herod. There is not a single production of JCS that I know of where Herod is played “straight.” He’s been played by everyone from Alice Cooper to Jack Black, and everyone puts a different zany spin on him. In JCS 2012 he’s a chat show host in a red crushed velvet suit, who is clearly having the time of his LIFE.

21) Could We Start Again Please: This is another of my faves. Just a quiet moment where MM, Peter, and the disciples try to grapple with the fact that Jesus is arrested and things are going very, very badly. This is also my favorite Melanie C moment of the 2012 show. Her grief is very real, and the little moment she has with Peter at the end is very real.

22) Death of Judas: This is basically Tim Minchin screaming for about five minutes, and incredibly harrowing to watch on first viewing.

23) Trial Before Pilate: Possibly my single favorite scene in the entire 2012 production. This is another harrowing watch, but there’s so much to take in. The “set” that the entire show takes place on is essentially just a massive staircase, and the people with power are almost always positioned above the people without power. In this scene, the crowd shouting “Crucify Him!” is positioned above Pilate, which is a very telling clue to Pilate’s psychology during this scene. Jesus is at the very bottom of the stairs, of course. Excellent use of the video screen once again during the 39 Lashes, to show the lash marks building and building until the entire screen is a wash of red. Pilate’s counting also gets more and more frantic, especially starting around “20.” And all the while the guitar riff from “Heaven On Their Minds” is playing. Jesus’s line “Everything is fixed and you can’t change it” is played quite differently in different productions - here it’s defiant, but elsewhere (in JCS 2000 for example) it’s almost tender, like Jesus is absolving Pilate for his part in the trial. But it always ends the same - with Pilate almost screaming as he passes the sentence and “washes his hands” of the whole sorry business.

24) Superstar: The most over-the-top number in the show. Judas, who died two scenes ago, comes back to sing this. There are soul singers. There are girls in skimpy angel costumes. The parkour guys from the prologue are back. Judas pulls a tambourine out of hammerspace midway through the song. And Jesus is silently screaming and crying as he gets hoisted onto a lighting beam while all this is going on.

25) The Crucifixion: More of a spoken-word piece than a song, it’s Jesus’s final words on the cross over eerie piano music, and another harrowing watch.

26) John 19:41: An instrumental piece in which Jesus is taken from the cross and carried, at last, to the top of the stairs, before being lowered out of sight as the video screen turns into a memorial wall and everything fades to black.

So. I know I’m anywhere from three to fifty-one years late to this particular party, but I am on the JCS bandwagon now and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. :)

#jesus christ superstar #jcs 2012 #jcs is all i have been thinking about all week sorry not sorry #ben forster #tim minchin #melanie c #andrew lloyd webber #tim rice

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mountiiny · 3 years ago

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JUJUTSU KAISEN CHARACTERS AS YOUNG ROYALS

I AM MADLY OBSESSED WITH YOUNG ROYALS AT THE MOMENT- LIKE THAT SHOW IS STRAIGHT OUT OF A FANFIC ON WATTPAD OR AO3..

ANYWAY I'M ALSO MADLY OBSESSED WITH JUJUTSU KAISEN SO WHY NOT BRING THESE TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS TOGETHER

YUJI ITADORI AS PRINCE WILHELM

- Yuji just fits this role so much, just like in the jjk world he has this huge burden after eating sukuna's finger and he has no choice but to accept the fate that comes from it.

CHOSO AS PRINCE ERIK

- Choso takes his role as big brother very seriously and if you have read the manga then you know they are basically brothers. He wants to be a good example for his brothers even if he makes mistakes himself, he has the responsibility to lead his little brothers.

And thats litterally what Prince Erin stands for!

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO AS SIMON

- Him and Yuji cares so much for each other its so obvious who Simon should be.

- I can totally see him be a great singer

- And Simons family issues just fits so well! the sister with asbergers is Tsumiki and the mom is Tsumikis mother, and then his alcoholic dad being toji. *chefs kiss*

- and then he sells prescription pills like the closet bad boy he is... HE'S JUST THE PERFECT SIMON

TODOU AS AUGUST

-His obssesion with being yuji's bruza and besto friendo just fits.

NOBARA KUGISAKI AS FELICE

I know Nobara's feelings for Yuji are platonic and vice versa but, her being the only female character that are close to yuji, the role lands on her.

and even tho wilhelm rejected felice they still remained as good friends so its perfect

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #young royals #prince wilhelm #simon young royals #yuji itadori #megumi x yuji #nobarakugisaki #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jjk imagines #jujutsu kaisen choso

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hello-robin-goodfellow · 4 years ago

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TOP 20 DAVID WARNER ROLES (PART II)

10º Ivan Petrovich ‘Vanya’ Voynitsky (Performance: Uncle Vanya, 1991)

Warner leads in this 1991 televised production of one of the most famous Anton Chekhov plays. Ivan Petrovich (Uncle Vanya for his niece Sonya) is a more then sad and angry man, who sacrificed dreams of love and intelectual success to administrate a cottage of wich provide money to his brother in law, an old professor called Serebryakov (Ian Bannen) that does nothing but look down upon him, all the while being favoured by Vanya’s own mother. Making matters worst, Vanya is one of the two man who is in love with the professors wife, Yelena (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Two days of a family reunion mostly consisting of verbal fightings eventually makes all the tension that acumulates in Vanya’s mind eventually explode.

09º Konstantin Treplev (The Seagull, 1968)

The younger spiritual predecessour of Ivan Petrovich. Konstantin Treplev is an aspiring writer, who wishes to find a new style to talk about dreams, receiving praises from his mother (veteran actress Arkadina, played by Simone Signoret) and the love of the beautifull aspiring actress (Vanessa Redgrave). But the popularity of the best-selling writer Boris Trigorin (James Mason) and Konstantin’s problems to directly comunicate his feelings eventually make him fall down a tragic spiral of loneliness.

08º Bob Cratchit (A Christmas Carol, 1984)

Interestingly, when this 1984 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Warner was first invited to play Jacob Marley. But he asked to play Bob Cratchit instead. And we all must be glad that he did, because he gives a very wholesome performance, that makes anyone wish to have him as a father figure.

07º Keith Jennings (The Omen, 1976)

In this aclaimed 1976 horror film, Warner’s character is a photographer, whose only job was to registrate the birthday party of the rich child of the american embassador (Gregory Peck) until a series of strange accidents start to kill people who knew that child or his relatives. Intrigued, Keith Jennings starts to investigate, and decides to form a duo with the american embassador, filling the role of the more proactive lancer to the mostly passive protagonist. One of David Warner’s most iconic good guy roles ever putt on the big screen.

06º Merlin (The Wizard, 2013 and The Once and Future King, 2014)

The two years in a row when David Warner played one of the most iconic wizrd mentor figures in mithology and pop culture. In 2013′s comedic short film The Wizard, Warner plays a Merlin that wakes up in modern times and is starting to adapt in a office work, while his colleagues try to adapt to his magic quirks. And in the BBC Radio 4 six episode drama The Once and Future King (adapted by Brian Sibley, the same guy who adapted the 1981 Lord of the Rings radio drama, from the novel series by T. H. White), where Merlin’s spirit sits alongside Arthur in the final battle for a conversation, we see how his Merlin could have acted in the past alongside King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, providing wise counsels with a bit of a snarky sense of humour and melancholy. Those works are two “must check out” for David Warner fans and for fantasy and arthurian mithology fans.

05º The Evil One (Time Bandits, 1981) and Ed Dilinger/Comander Sark/Master Control Program (Tron, 1982)

Yes, number five is a tye. Those two movies camed in a row, and in both David Warner played technology themed villains. In the first, Time Bandits, he is implied to be the Devil himself, and as such is portrayed as very powerfull and in control during most of the movie. In the second, Tron, Warner gives a triple performance: as the human Ed Dilinger and the program Comander Sark, he believes he is in control, but in reality is not. The real power is hold by Warner’s third character, the Master Control Program of the videogame. This transiction from a more simple one-and-all-powerfull antagonist to a more complex dinamic of a trio of antagonists was, for a lot of people, the introduction to Warner’s acting range, and for this reason it appears as a tye in this ranking.

04º The Doctor (Sympathy for The Devil, 2003 and Masters of War, 2008)

In the late 1970s, the BBC camed to search David Warner with an offer for him to play the Doctor in the main Doctor Who BBC Television series. He was interested, but unfortunally his filming schedule conflicted in working more them one season into a long-running TV Show, so he had to put the offer down. It was only in the 2000s, after the founding of the audio-drama company, that we would get a grasp of his portrayal of the Doctor, in the what-if scenarios provided by two episodes of Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for The Devil and Masters of War. In those audiodramas, he plays a alternate encarnation of the Third Doctor that is sent to Earth in 1997 instead of 1969, and thus could not help U.N.I.T with the Alien Invasions that happen in the 1970s. Thus, he finds a retired and pub-owning version of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, and has to relearn to gain his thrust, until the two become companions of adventures that investigate new alie threads indepedently of U.N.I.T

Warner’s Doctor is a bit less quirky encarnation of the character, having instead a more pratical temperment. He sees the danger, and he goes straight to investigate how to stop it, all the while trying to keep the people around him calm. And later he will make a comment about neading more conforting and fitting shoes.

This is a Doctor that you would surely trust to keep your life safe.

03º Lisander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1968)

A production that made a lot of millenials become Shakespeare fanboys, and they own this in part to David Warner’s performance as Lisander, one of the most romantic (if a bit bumbling) Shakespeare protagonists. Seeing the moments when he conforts and encourages his beloved Hérmia (Helen Mirren) and makes a mess of himself when he is enchanted to fall for Helena (Diana Rigg) is one of the most fun rides that an audience will ever get. Seriously, his Lisander was adorkable before the word ‘adorkable’ even existed.

02º Henry VI (The Wars of The Roses, 1965)

From a fun and very popular Shakespeare protagonist, to a heart-breaking and very underrated protagonist. For years i was one of several people who did not care for the Henry VI plays as it cared for its famous sequel, Richard III.

This all changed when i watched this 1965 televised production of the Wars of the Roses, that condenses the four plays in a way that makes it more accessible for audiences. Once again, this was helped in a big part by the performances of the cast.

David Warner was only 24 years old during this production, and had to cary the role of the vulnerable Henry VI from his youth to his old age and eventual murder by Richard III.

And in my opinion, he carried it brilliantly. This was the sign that a very versatile actor would have a very long career.

And my number one David Warner role is...

01º Morgan Delt (Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, 1966)

Henry VI stablished David Warner as a lead in theater and television. Now it was time to stablish him as the lead in film. And they did exactly that when casting him in the role of Morgan Delt, a painter who grew up mixing a familiar comunist education with an obsession with animals (particularly gorilaz) and is frustratred with his divorce of his socialite wife Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave), who is about to marry Jack Napier (Robert Stephens), art merchant and Morgan’s previous best friend. While trying every crazy squeam to take his wife back, Morgan must take on a journey to mature, so he can his wife go and be happy and he can recouver his career. But until this happens, transitioning from the sweet and romantic to the angry and scary, for Morgan, taking bombs home and wearing ridiculous gorila suits it is.

For showing the range between scary villain and simpathetic hero that would be his trademark on years to come, and providing loud laughs mixed with an interesting commentary on masculine insecurity and entitlement, is that Morgan Delt is my favorite David Warner role.

@amalthea9 @superkingofpriderock

#david warner #actor david warner #rankings

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ponett · 5 years ago

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Three novels down in my journey through Discworld! I’ve now read Equal Rites. As the first book not starring Rincewind, this one shifts its focus from wizards to witches, introducing another series mainstay, Granny Weatherwax

While it’s still obvious from the start that this is set in the same world as Rincewind’s misadventures, Equal Rites immediately feels like a very different book. It still has Pratchett’s comedic flair, but this book is incredibly earnest compared to the farcical tone of the last two books. At first, I was a bit disappointed that this book wasn’t as constantly funny as The Light Fantastic, but by the end I was deeply engaged by its more heartfelt narrative

You see, with this book, Pratchett has started to move from simple genre parody to satire. Equal Rites still pokes fun at fantasy conventions, of course, but at its heart is an examination of sexism and gender roles. It just so happens that this story is told through witches and wizards

The story begins when an elderly wizard travels to the rural town of Bad Ass (the story of how the town got its name is apparently interesting, although it’s never shared in the book). On the Discworld, the eighth son of an eighth son can perform magic and become a wizard, and so this particular wizard plans to pass his staff on to such a child before he dies. Except there’s a problem: after the wizard passes his staff on to the expected newborn, he realizes too late that the baby is, in fact, a girl. And then he dies, and the world is left with is first female wizard

We skip ahead about seven or eight years, and now the young Eskarina Smith wants to learn wizard magic even though she’s a girl. The book feels a bit like a young adult novel at times because its protagonist is a kid, although the narration makes it clear that the book is still written for adults. This is not the world seen through a kid’s eyes, but rather an adult’s commentary on how a kid sees the world. (The need to mark the book as for adults in spite of its young hero is also probably why the opening paragraphs reference sex, and why lots of jokes about adult things that go over Esk’s head are sprinkled throughout.) Esk is joined by Granny Weatherwax, the town witch who isn’t really related to her but is described as basically being everyone’s granny

For the first act of the book, Granny acts sort of as an antagonist (albeit a very mild one), teaching Esk the differences between witch magic and wizard magic and trying to stop her from learning the latter. Wizard magic is portrayed as being bombastic, changing the fabric of reality and shooting lightning bolts out of their hands and that sort of thing. Witch magic, on the other hand, is more in tune with nature. A lot of it could hardly be described as proper “magic” at all, actually--lots of knowing about herbs and home remedies and things. Another witch in the story reads palms and tea leaves, but most of her business seems to be selling some kind of homemade birth control concoction

As Granny puts it, a big part of being a witch is “headology.” Witches have to lean into the theatricality of their profession with the pointy hats and the spookiness and whatnot in order to be treated like witches, and that does half of their job for them. It makes people trust that the home remedies work, or believe that a witch could really curse them, or that sort of thing. Of course, Granny does also know quite a bit of “real” magic as well. The main power she uses is “borrowing,” the act of mentally becoming one with an animal--not quite controlling it, but rather “suggesting” its actions. This leads to some fun sequences throughout the book, including one where she borrows the “mind” of an old building said to have developed something resembling a consciousness over the centuries so that she can locate Esk within it

While there was a good deal of magic in the last two books (even if Rincewind, famously, cannot perform magic), the depiction of wizard magic in these books has already changed. In the first book, Rincewind explained that it took years of studying and a ton of effort to perform any task with magic, making a lot of it seem pointless. But here, with just a staff and no proper training, Esk figures out how to turn one of her brothers into a pig, and teleport her staff to her, and all sorts of other things. Of course, this isn’t some sort of CinemaSins ding or anything. The priorities of the books have simply shifted. In a pure genre parody like The Color of Magic, it made sense to say that magic was actually kind of stupid and pointless. Here, being a wizard needs to be desirable, because Esk’s whole arc is about wanting to become a wizard

While Esk does do well with her witch lessons, eventually it becomes clear that she’s going to start figuring out how to use wizard magic with or without guidance, and Granny accepts that she can’t change Esk. After a bit of a journey in which they get separated and meet several side characters, Esk and Granny make their way to Unseen University. (While Rincewind is nowhere to be seen, the librarian who got turned into an orangutan in the last book is still around. He’s apparently refused to be turned back into a human and is happier this way.) Esk is humiliated by the wizards and turned down, but Granny manages to get Esk a job there as a housekeeper so that she might be able to pick up some magical knowledge while hanging around

In the climax, Esk uses her skills to save a fellow student she befriends named Simon from some eldritch horrors that wanted to take over his mind, and as a reward she’s named the first female wizard. But she realizes that being a wizard is kind of silly, and she and Simon go off to develop their own type of magic (which, if I’m understanding correctly, involves a good deal of Not Doing Magic). In the action of the climax, Granny also manages to show the head of the school that witches know a thing or two about magic as well, and is offered a position at the university (although it’s left unsaid whether or not she took it)

Overall, I really, really enjoyed this one. This was the first book in the series that felt like it took its characters and their problems seriously, writing them as people to empathize with instead of just vehicles for jokes. The gender-based conflict is simple, but effective. I really liked that Pratchett didn’t lean into Esk being Not Like Other Girls. She actually still quite likes the feminine witch magic, and uses those skills to her advantage. It’s just that she also wants to learn wizard magic. It’s not about one being better than the other, it’s about the gender divide being silly. The book shoots down the idea that there must be some fundamental physical or psychological difference between men and women that means they’re destined to excel in different fields, which is honestly a refreshing thing to read in a fantasy novel from over 30 years ago

While it might be a little convenient that the head wizard of the university was swayed to be less sexist so easily, I do think the ending struck a good balance. Sexism is ingrained into wizard culture, so he’s still got some biases against women, and he’s only considering letting a few women into the school to start. He’s taking baby steps. Some might see this as a failure because he only got a little better, but personally, I find this much more believable than if the book had ended with all the wizards deciding that witches were their equals and the school quickly achieving a 50/50 gender split

People don’t quite change like that overnight. But this book does still believe that people can change, challenge their preconceived biases, and become better. And I think that’s what really sets this book apart from the previous two. It’s the first glimmer of those humanist Discworld themes I’ve heard so much about

(Also I laughed every time a wizard said women couldn’t study as wizards because it was “against the lore”)

So yeah, good book. Very good book. Pratchett’s style is already rapidly evolving And next, it’s finally time... for the first Death novel. I couldn’t be more excited

#bobby reads discworld

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myheartissetinmotion · 4 years ago

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hello, internet

I’m really about to expose myself here huh

anyway, this post is the brainchild of my quarantine. Beginning somewhere around April (what even is time) and ongoing to this day, I’ve written screenplays and fics, made pinterest boards and spotify playlists, dreamed up choreography, and plotted storylines, all as a product of both escapism from this insane world and yearning to be part of my favorite tv show in any capacity.

guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, buckle your seatbelts and allow me to introduce you to “Zoey’s Extraordinary Cousin”, Victoria Evelyn Clarke.

(most of this was written before s2 premiered, and I won’t always be changing her whole story as it would be required on this post, but I’ll continue to add fics which modify stuff to fit s2 canon)

general stuff

name: Victoria Evelyn Clarke (named after a song-first-and a friend-middle)

nickname: Tori

age: 23

height: 5′9″ (plenty of opportunity for the brogrammers to joke about how short Zoey is when compared to her younger cousin)

hair: auburn, medium length, wavy

eyes: hazel, she wears glasses

family: her father is Mitch’s brother, so Maggie and Mitch are her aunt and uncle, making Zoey and David her cousins

occupation: just graduated from a BFA musical theatre program; hired to play piano in the SPRQpoint lobby, stays there for most of the time that her story is shown and eventually books a role in the LA area, which causes her departure from the show (if she’s just a recurring character)

a few of her functions as a character

disclaimer: I’m fully aware that a lot of concepts I’ve come up with for her couldn’t actually happen on the show (especially if I played her, which of course is the ultimate dream), but I just wanted to put all of my ideas into one place

because she ends up working at SPRQpoint, Victoria serves as a bridge between Zoey’s work life and family life, making the story more cohesive

due to the blood relation and her empathetic nature, she can tell when people are singing to her. Zoey tells her about the power right away, and she provides insight, taking on a similar role to Mo but with the added bonus of already knowing her family and getting to know her coworkers better. A complication in the powers is always interesting, and it opens the door for many more possibilities

she’ll bring more musical theatre songs to the table and diversify the music genres discussed on the show; it would also be really interesting to have a character that plays an instrument and see how that might factor into heartsongs

she’d strengthen the theme of music bringing empathy through storytelling; through her insight and empathetic nature, she sees qualities in some characters that Zoey and the audience haven’t seen yet

she’s been the “therapist friend” all her life, and a big part of her arc is learning how to take care of herself and realizing that her own emotions are just as valid as those of the people she helps; this gives a contrast to Zoey’s initial awkwardness when it comes to emotions and helping people, and they help each other through everything

the fact that she quickly falls for Leif sends Zoey into a bit of a tailspin; she feels that she has to tell her what else he’s sung, which results in a question about the ethics of the power and privacy. This’ll give more depth to Leif (who we’ve barely heard from emotionally since mid-ep-11; there’s a lot behind “things change, people change” that I’m curious about) along with bringing out a protective side to Zoey and deepening the Clarke family dynamic

personality and characterization tidbits

hufflepuff through and through

sees the best in people

loves music and is really knowledgeable about it (see Zoey and Mo in the relationship section down below for the impact of this) and has escaped into it her whole life; this makes her almost a foil to Zoey as they balance each other out

just as awkward as Zoey; one can absolutely tell that they’re related if only by their speech patterns and appearance

has a playlist for every imaginable human emotion

bi and hopeless romantic, but has never really felt wanted

unashamed theatre kid

quick-thinking and witty, intelligent but idealistic, and sometimes comes across as naïve

passionate about activism and working for change

feels and cares very deeply

see pinterest board and spotify playlist below in the references section for more

relationships with other characters

Zoey Clarke: her cousin. After graduation, Victoria visits her family to be there for them after the funeral, and this begins her storyline. The extended Clarke family is tight-knit, and she and Zoey have been really close friends throughout their entire lives. They can read each other well, and the established relationship is really clear in their dialogue and the way that each is one of the few people that the other feels genuinely comfortable around. Partly because Zoey never had a younger sibling, she was always very protective of her younger cousin. This comes into play in a huge way during Victoria’s storyline, beginning with her second heartsong. One of Zoey’s internal conflicts throughout this situation is the decision of how much to share with Tori of what she knows due to earlier heartsongs; she feels it would be an invasion of privacy to tell too much, but she also feels at the start that Tori is being naïve and a bit too trusting and doesn’t want her to get hurt. This struggle deals with both Zoey’s personal relationships and the ethics of the power.

Leif Donnelly: the reason for the aforementioned internal conflict. Victoria falls hard and fast for him during her first tour of the fourth floor, leading to her second heartsong. When confronted by a dumbfounded Zoey about it, she denies it as nothing more than infatuation at first sight, but this gets harder to believe as time goes on and Zoey has to watch her cousin and sworn rival genuinely becoming friends. After a few weeks, she learns and has to accept that Victoria’s feelings are genuine. Reciprocation, though, is a whole different matter; they find this out by way of another heartsong, which is also how Victoria learns of her own addition to the power. Witnessing that song pushes Zoey over the edge, and similarly to s1e5, she eventually blurts out the truth about Leif’s previous heartsongs and relationship with Joan, which leads to Victoria’s very conflicted heartsong rendition of “Toxic” (because if no one sings it to him at some point in the series, that’s a seriously missed opportunity). We see their later conversation: Victoria isn’t sure how to bring it up, but she doesn’t have to, because the events of the end of s1 obviously did take a big toll on Leif and he wants to be honest with her about it (see chapter 7 of singin’ from a streetlight). It would be interesting if she had something to do with the way he eventually found out about the power; Victoria lives very much by her moral compass, and she would feel awful about knowing things that he doesn’t know that she knows. If I had to sum up the relationship in terms of how it serves the show, Victoria sees the parts of Leif that Zoey and the audience (for most of the season) don’t, and he’s one of the first people who’s ever made her feel wanted.

Mo Montgomery: these two get along splendidly. So splendidly, in fact, that Zoey sometimes even regrets introducing them, especially when she can’t sleep due to their late-night, belt-to-the-rafters karaoke sessions that can be heard through the apartment walls. Mo finally has someone in the building (Victoria is staying with Zoey through the duration of her arc on the show) who properly appreciates music, and the three of them (plus Max and whoever else learns about the power-Simon absolutely has to in season 2, come on) become a sort of ragtag let’s-figure-out-this-crazy-power group of friends.

David Clarke: I’ve always thought that the backstory revealed in ep 5 of David being a former theatre kid was really interesting. He and Victoria have bonded over this for a long time, and she feels betrayed when he leaves it behind due to the toxic masculinity explored in ep 5. I’d love an ep called “Zoey’s Extraordinary Brother” or something that goes deeper into that; Victoria definitely has a hand in helping David embrace that part of himself, and she’s almost as close with him as she is with Zoey.

Max Richman: she’s actually known him for quite a while, having done a bit of community theatre with him before he even met Zoey (because you cannot tell me that this man, who can canonically sing and dance and genuinely enjoys it, wasn’t one of the only boys in his high school theatre program and didn’t ever play Georg Novak at some point). He seemed to have gone through some Good Old Fashioned Character Development in ep 12, what with the “focus on yourself right now” and everything, but there’s still quite a lot to unpack that was revealed between 7 and 11. Honestly, I just want to see someone Talk Some Freakin Sense Into Him, and an old friend who’s been removed from the situation but knows both him and Zoey very well is a pretty good bet.

Simon Haynes: Victoria, along with Mo, acts as Zoey’s confidant for the central love triangle. She’s a bit put off by the idea of Simon’s cheating, but sympathizes with both him and Jessica after learning the whole story; upon meeting him, she thinks he’s wonderful. (he honestly gets some of my favorite dialogue on the show...who else can pull off all of those deep conversations along with “this is a classy affair, of course there’ll be pigs in a blanket”? in this house we appreciate JCS)

Tobin Batra: the first person she meets on her first tour of SPRQpoint, much to Zoey’s dismay. As the audience learns more about him (which I’m so freakin excited for, by the way), he and Victoria share quite a bit of banter while the season goes on. Tobin also thoroughly enjoys trying to push Leif and Victoria together, and there are a lot of fun scenes in which he has a blast acting as a wingman for his oldest and newest friends.

Mitch and Maggie Clarke: they mean absolutely everything to her. Victoria’s parents are usually supportive, but they often consider her career as an entity separate from her as a person and discuss it as if the decisions are up to them; she was always able to come to her aunt and uncle when she needed to, and she’ll always be grateful to them for it. As previously mentioned, the extended Clarkes are really close, and Victoria deeply regrets not being able to make it to Mitch’s funeral. At the start of her arc, she believes that she doesn’t have as much right to grieve and that she has to “stay strong” for her family. Over the course of her storyline, she realizes that there are people that are there for her just as much as she’s there for them. This includes Leif, Zoey, and Mo; Maggie is one of the most important of these for her. Family is at the core of this show, and at the core of Victoria’s being.

Emily Kang: first of all, I’m still hoping she gets “Everything Changes” from Waitress in season 2. Victoria admires her wit and they enjoy each other’s company; when needed, she loves babysitting her second cousin.

Abigail: give her a last name gosh darnit. I hope she comes back as an intern in season 2; she and Tori would be SUCH good friends, and it might be neat if they had a duet of sorts, so that she’d be signing with the strings carrying on her part as Tori sang.

Aiden: okay, I knew from the beginning they’d be best friends oh my god. She’s closer in age to him than she is to Zoey; she was often babysat by her cousins when she was little, and that’s how she got to know the kid next door, the kid who air-guitared along to the radio and made plans with her to travel the world when they got older. Naturally, she had the biggest crush on him, which Zoey thought was hilarious. They still support each other’s music and keep in touch to this day.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen in season 2 with new characters, etc, and whether characters such as Joan, Autumn, Howie, Eddie, Deb, Ava, Jessica, etc are coming back. My ideas for this character and her relationships will obviously change as the show progresses (I say as if anything will happen-it’s one of the only things I have left to hope for, okay, voice in my head, shut up) and I’m looking forward to seeing how the story continues to unfold.

some potential heartsongs

“Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera: the first that the audience sees of her. After an episode of Zoey Going Through Some Stuff, she needs to talk to her dad, and realizes once she reaches the cemetery that she’s not the only one. It’s raining, much as it was when they tried to choose his plot. It’s just the beginning of the song; on “all that you dreamed I could”, Victoria’s voice cracks-she’s crying as she’s singing-and she trails off, then the instrumental continues while they talk. I mean, we’ve already had a song from an ALW musical...IT COULD WORK.

“Absolutely Smitten” by Dodie: after her first tour of the fourth floor, to an oblivious Leif. I’ve always wondered why they haven’t used the swings in the choreography yet, so I just decided to do it because Why Not. The vibes of this song would be perfect for the vibes of SPRQpoint, and it works for the scene as well; it’s vulnerable enough to be the beginning of real feelings, but cutesy enough for her to deny it to Zoey as nothing more than infatuation. If we can put the railing on the staircase back in from the pilot, it fits pretty well as a sliding-down-the-railing song, if that makes sense.

“Human” by Christina Perri: a visit to her parents. enough said. It serves as a major release for Victoria as well as the reveal that she’s far from the put-together person that she tries to be; I also feel like this kind of song would fit well into the show, and it’s more recognizable to the mainstream than most of the other songs on this list. This is also a wake-up call to Zoey that her cousin really is hurting, and the “help” that prevents the song from haunting her comes from the fact that she’s the first person to really understand Victoria’s relationship with her parents and be there for her.

“Strawberry Blond” by Mitski: the epitome of Yearning™. A few weeks have passed since “Absolutely Smitten”, and as much as Zoey would like to stay in denial about her cousin’s feelings, the universe isn’t going to let her; “I love everybody because I love you” is pretty difficult to twist out of context. This one is short and sweet, starting at the second verse and skipping to the repeated chorus. The choreo epitomizes the paradox of combined awkwardness and grace that lies at the heart of Tori’s character. She floats and spins, propelling herself around the office as if lifted from within by the music, never taking her eyes away from Leif. This is when Zoey realizes that she actually has to deal with it, prompting the swear guitar title card; this song and the next two are all part of the same episode.

“Victoria” by Jukebox the Ghost: this song is Leif’s; she accompanies it. Zoey comes downstairs to the lobby a few hours after the workday ends and hears the piano, but there’s no one playing it. It would be really interesting to see the way that instrumentals happen in heartsongs if there are actually instruments in the room; just something fun to play with in regards to the power. (yes, I named her after this song specifically for the purpose of this song, and I’m aware that if the full song is taken into its own context it doesn’t portray a particularly healthy relationship but the piano part is cool and the song just has this electric energy okay?!?!?!) The choreography is very La-La-Land-esque; it’s sweeping and explosive as they make their way across the lobby. At the second verse, she starts actually playing the piano; this cut of the song goes to the last chorus after the second verse. This is also another example of Tori’s being able to tell when she’s being sung to (the way that she finds this out is explained in jumpstarted (see below), but that wouldn’t work in this universe, so this song is how she finds out if she were actually a character). She’s in utterly joyful disbelief, going in between trading incredulous glances with Zoey and allowing herself to fall into the choreography. This song is the turning point for Zoey when it comes to the relationship she’s witnessing; while they’re on the piano bench, Leif smiles at Victoria in a similar way to the end of episode 7, and this sends Zoey’s protective-older-cousin-mode into overdrive. Feelings are one thing, but reciprocation is quite another, and this is when Zoey realizes that she has no choice but to tell Victoria the truth.

“In Case You Don’t Live Forever” by Ben Platt: let’s say that at the beginning of this episode, there was a dream that Zoey had about an old memory with Mitch in which she watches her younger self heartsing this to him, and she’s attempted for all of that time in between to remember the melody. A few days after “Victoria” takes place, Zoey is struggling to figure out how to bring up the needed conversation, and she tries to preface it by explaining how much Victoria means to her. She doesn’t get very far in her speech before she hears the music she heard in her dream; this song is Tori revealing how much she’s always looked up to Zoey, which brings her to tears and causes her to blurt out the last line of the episode: “I need to tell you something.”

“Toxic” by Britney Spears: tbh, this song once came on the radio and I thought “...wait a minute”. It’ll also be more recognizable compared to this list of showtunes and indie pop. This song takes place on the fourth floor during the next episode; Mo has come to pick up the cousins for their weekly lunch, and he and Tori are once again trying to give Zoey a crash course on musical pop culture. Today’s lesson is pop of the early 2000s, and Tori tries to give a demonstration by singing the first verse, almost unable to due to how hard the three of them are laughing. They walk past the conference room where a meeting is taking place, Leif sitting at the head of the table, and Zoey barely notices the instrumentals that have been building in the background until Tori stops short and the all-too-familiar riff (yknow, the daaaaada dadada) comes operatically from her throat rather than the invisible synth. Mo can tell by Zoey’s expression that the demonstration, which has stopped in the real world, has turned into a heartsong. As she sings, she makes her way into and around the conference room, spinning chairs and overdramatically throwing herself against walls, as if magnetically drawn to the subject of the song but trying to pull herself away. It’ll show how conflicted she is, but it’ll also be freakin’ hilarious.

“Unusual Way” from Nine: After the aforementioned much-needed conversation in the episode which “Toxic” appears in, Leiftoria (is that an unintentionally awesome ship name or what) is official. I’m not sure how long her story on the show would last, but this song marks the end of it; she books a role at a fantastic dinner theater in the Los Angeles area. In the scene of her last heartsong, Tori, Zoey, and Leif are sitting in an airport lobby. The ticket machines are down, and dozens of impatient passengers are waiting with them, listening to the drone of announcements and tinny pop music played over the loudspeakers that slowly morph into a melancholy arpeggio. If anyone reading this hasn’t listened to this piece, I highly recommend it, by the way-it’s utterly haunting and you’re definitely gonna cry. The cut starts at the second verse and skips the solo third verse to go right into the duet. There’s nothing extravagant about it; as in the musical itself, this song is carried by the sweeping, raw emotion behind it.

references or something-what do I call this one

spotify playlist: a living document (chronologically) of potential heartsongs, songs that fit her situations, and songs that just have her Vibes.

pinterest board: an ever-growing, ever-changing representation of her character. I’ve pinned everything twice so that there can be sections without disturbing the full aesthetic; each section is named after a lyric from a musical that represents that aspect of her character.

tiktoks: there are a few I’ve made about her, some actually in one or both of the universes I’ve written about (see below) and some just for The Vibes or other potential story ideas. @can.you.hear.it.echoing

jumpstarted: the first fic for anything that I’d written in years; it started out in my mind as three scenes and came out to 29 pages. This is an au in which she works at the karaoke bar; she couldn’t actually be on the show this way, but I just think it would be neat-it would only be canon compliant through the middle of s1e11 (there are a few time shifts), so here we are. (seriously though please read this one I’m very proud of it.) This story does share aspects with what she’d actually be able to become as a character, and these are further explored in my second fic.

singin’ from a streetlight: a collection of oneshots that goes through most of the potential heartsongs listed above, from Zoey’s pov. chapter 7 is an interlude, back in Tori’s pov, because Zoey doesn’t see her and Leif’s much-needed conversation on the evening of “Toxic”.

but i’ve never been quite alright: I thought of “Human” as a potential song for her after the entirety of “singin’ from a streetlight” had been published, so this is a seperate fic to explain that scene; it fits in both of the above universes.

scaffolding and christmas lights: cheesy fluffy office party holiday fic because why not. It’s fun to consider how other glitches in the power might manifest; in this one, anyone that Zoey makes eye contact with sings their heartsong to the world. this doesn’t really go with the timeline of either universe, but it’s an interesting idea that might be worked into either

with a little motivation, i’ll go far: she experiences her first heartsong, “California” by Ricky Montgomery, at the airport as she comes into San Francisco. I just this song fits her well at the beginning of her story-this was a really fun one.

it’s the terror of knowing what this world is about: taking the little bit of David’s canon backstory and RUNNING with it. he and Tori would have bonded so much over musical theatre when they were younger, and she must have felt so betrayed when he tried to abandon that part of himself; this fic explores that

‘cause i see every part of you, and i can tell you see me too: Leif shows Tori his sketchbook and Feelings Ensue. (I want to see more of him as an artist, it’s such a fascinating aspect of his character, please Austin please)

don't look too deep: I watched mamma mia 2 and this is the result. #laurengrahamfortanya2k21

have you been too much on your own: this came out of thinking about les mis too much for the thousandth time; it’s an au of chapter 2 of “singin’ from a streetlight” just because I thought it would be kind of hilarious

suddenly we all got young: the brolympics strike again. this came out a bit angstier than expected but it was so much fun to write; I’m really loving what I get to do with her in s2

just keep losing my beat: written during the midseason hiatus; finally found a way to fit her properly into s2 canon. quite proud of this one

perfection is so quick to bore: I fell so in love with the song “I Hear a Symphony” that I had to write something around it, so here this is. it’s very projection-y and rather cheesy but I tried to capture the emotion

screenplays: there are a few that I’m working on and this post will be updated as I finish and revise them

if you’ve read this far, thank you. I just wanted to get her out in the world before season 2 started so I could be as canon compliant as possible (and it happens to be Dec 21, both my birthday and the day that Planets Are Being Cool on the solstice so it’s a great day for manifesting). I would give anything to be part of this show in literally any capacity; from the beginning I loved the concept and by now, as cheesy as it sounds, it feels as if it’s almost knit to my soul. the entire cast, crew, and creative team are such wonderful people (at least from my limited view, but they seem to be very genuine) that I’d love to work with, and this idea has been a sort of a coping mechanism through everything going on in the world and in my life. This post will probably be updated as I come up with more content and the show develops during s2 and beyond. even if nothing comes of this, I love my Tori dearly, and I hope anyone reading this enjoyed learning about her as much as I’m enjoying creating her story.

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hopesilverheart · 4 years ago

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Title: I loved your colours (before I loved you) Artist: @calliartss Rating: Explicit (Chapter 10 only) Pairings: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Alec Lightwood & Clary Fray, Clary Fray/Isabelle Lightwood Word Count: ~95k Summary: Magnus Bane is a journalist who's always dreamed of modelling for Lightwood Fashions. When the CEO Alec Lightwood starts looking for new models for their spring collection, he jumps on the occasion.

In the meantime, Alec Lightwood is struggling with the idea of finally announcing his role as co-designer. When Magnus Bane strolls into his life, Alec is torn between keeping his secret or throwing all caution to the wind.

This fic was created for the Malec Discord Mini Bang 2020.

Chapter 11: Can you keep a secret?

The Lightwood townhouse was a beautiful home.

Magnus had been expecting a huge mansion filled with meaningless paintings and works of art that the family couldn’t have cared less about. He had expected a demonstration in luxury and had instead been greeted by warm tones and knick-knacks that spoke of a loving family.

Alec had told him, of course, that Maryse was a lot more loving behind closed doors. It was still strange though, to see the dissonance between the woman Magnus had met and the woman greeting her children with wide smiles and lingering embraces. Even Alec, who had once told Magnus he had never been particularly close to his mother, seemed light and happy around his family.

“They’re… Not what I was expecting,” Catarina murmured into his ear, glancing at the group of Lightwoods confusedly. “I always thought rich people would be a little more- Well, I don’t know, I suppose I just assumed they would act like the stereotypical wealthy family that doesn’t like to show affection.”

“I think we all assumed it would be like that,” Raphael snorted from his spot to Magnus’ left. “But now that we’ve concluded that they are not, in fact, an emotionless group of human beings, maybe we should join them? You know, show them that we too know how to function in social situations.”

“I wouldn’t say you and Ragnor know how to function properly around other people, Raph,” Magnus chuckled, reluctantly closing the distance between his little ragtag family and Alec’s perfect siblings. “And I’m not sure their united front is going to stand all night, so stay on your guard.”

“You’re all ridiculous,” Ragnor grumbled, looking down at Madzie seriously. “You shouldn’t listen to anything they have to say, kiddo. The Lightwoods are a perfectly normal family, and so are we. Your mom and uncles are just confused because they thought they knew everything and realised they were wrong.”

“I think the Lightwoods look cool!” Was the only thing Madzie said, breaking free from her mother’s grip and hurtling into Alec’s legs, holding onto him tightly until he picked her up. “Hi Alec! I came here with my family today!”

“I know,” Alec smiled at her softly, effectively turning Magnus into a puddle of goo. “I’m the one who drove Magnus here, but he wanted to make his grand entrance with you, since you’re the prettiest mermaid of all!”

“I don’t think Magnus wants to be here,” Madzie whispered loudly, earning herself horrified glances from the guest-side of the entrance hall and chuckles from the Lightwoods. “Mom said the dinner was going to be a little bit scary. Why’s the dinner going to be scary, Alec?”

“The dinner is absolutely not going to be scary,” Isabelle cut in, sidling up to her brother and holding a hand out for Madzie to shake. “I’m Isabelle Lightwood, Alec’s sister. You can call me Izzy.”

The little girl looked at the offered appendage dubiously for a few seconds but, thanks to a nudge and a nod from Alec, eventually took it and smiled shyly at Isabelle. The young woman grinned widely and ruffled Madzie’s hair before turning to the rest of their party.

“So, scary, huh?” She huffed mock-offendedly, wagging her pointer finger in Magnus’ direction. “And here I thought we were friends and you would feel comfortable enough telling me about these things. What are you so scared of, anyways? I thought you’d already met most of the family.”

“He just doesn’t do families,” Raphael answered for him, shrugging unapologetically when Magnus glared at him. “It’s the truth. He’s terrible at meeting parents and siblings, so he tries to avoid it as much as possible. Why do you think he invited us along?”

“Because Alec asked everyone to come?” Isabelle frowned, looking at Raphael as though he wasn’t making any sense. Which, to her, he probably wasn’t. “He wanted us to have a big family dinner, and that apparently includes inviting all of our partners’ parents and siblings along.”

Catarina opened her mouth, but Magnus elbowed her as hard as possible to cut her off. He didn’t know why Alec hadn’t just told his family that he was too nervous to meet Alec’s family properly without at least some back-up. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth though.

“Are the others already here?” He asked instead, looking around the hallway and trying to figure out where the dining room was. The townhouse may not have been quite as big as what Magnus had been expecting, but it was still a lot fancier than any house Magnus had ever lived in.

“Right through there,” Isabelle chuckled, pointing at an open archway and leading to a beautifully decorated living area, complete with a large dining table and an expensive-looking fireplace. “Simon and Clary have known each other for years, so their families arrived at the same time. Just to avoid any awkwardness I will give you a quick run down. Simon is here with his widowed mom and his sister, and Clary is here with her mom and her step-father, her father isn’t in the picture.”

She gestured at the different groups of people as she spoke, and disappeared before any of them could react, which Magnus took as a sign that they were supposed to mingle by themselves.

“You look lost,” Alec grinned, kissing Magnus’ temple lightly before curling an arm around his waist. “I know this is a lot, especially with the other families here, but I promise none of us are as intimidating as we may seem. Clary’s mom is a super cool artist, and her dad is a badass cop. Simon’s mom works at a school and is one of the nicest people you’ll meet. Everyone here is very normal, I promise.”

“Except you and your ridiculously successful family,” Magnus pointed out, biting back a smile when Alec rolled his eyes at him and pressed another kiss to his cheek before leading him towards Clary, Clary’s mother, Simon and Jace. “And of course you’re leading me straight to the wolves. I appreciate your attempt at getting the worst over with as soon as possible, but I would really rather have alcohol in my system before trying to talk to your brother.”

“Nice try, but no,” Alec smiled sharply, tightening his grip on Magnus as they approached the small group.

As worried as Magnus had been about meeting Jace properly, he had to admit that the rest of the group was a rather pleasant bunch. He already got along splendidly with Clary and Simon, and Jocelyn was just as kind and open as her daughter. Even her husband, who joined them a few minutes later, radiated empathy and good intentions.

The only real problem was Jace. The thing was, Magnus and Jace had talked a few times already. It was inevitable, given the fact that Jace owned the best coffee shop in the neighbourhood they worked in. Magnus didn’t particularly like it, but he wasn’t about to let the strange tension between his boyfriend’s brother and him get in the way of a great cup of coffee. Unlike Isabelle and her mother, who had quickly accepted Magnus’ new position in their lives, Jace seemed to live in constant denial of Alec’s relationship status.

Every time Magnus tried to bring Alec up, Jace would close off or make a comment about the fashion team, and Magnus had eventually just given up on trying to get to know the blond man. A part of him wanted to get along with Jace, no matter how infuriating he was, if only to make Alec happy, but they’d been stuck in the same place for over a month and Magnus honestly couldn’t see things getting any better.

“You’ve talked to everyone but Jace,” Alec whispered as they settled at the dinner table forty-five minutes later, ready to dig into the wonderful meal Maryse and Max had prepared. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you purposefully avoid each other and deflect questions when they could even potentially lead to a conversation between the two of you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Magnus said innocently, smiling politely at Luke as the man offered him some wine. “Jace and I don’t have anything to talk about. We couldn’t be more different if we tried.”

“You should know better than to say things like that to me, Magnus,” Alec smirked, mischief and determination overtaking his features as he stared between Jace – who was sitting across the table from them, completely ruining the idea of a Lightwood side – and Magnus thoughtfully. “I think you just need to give each other a bit more of a chance. I promise you have a lot more in common than you might think.”

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, please don’t,” Magnus pleaded, turning wide eyes on his boyfriend. “Alec, I just want to have a nice dinner with everyone here, and I don’t think a conversation between Jace and I qualifies as something nice. He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Alec rolled his eyes, turning towards his brother and smiling brightly. “Hey, Jace! Would you mind switching seats? I have something I wanted to talk to Clary and Max about, you know the usual art stuff, and I don’t feel like yelling.”

Jace stared at his brother suspiciously for a few seconds, glancing at Magnus and sighing heavily as he realised he wasn’t going to get out of this. Well, that made two of them.

“You owe me for this, Alec,” the blond muttered as they both stood up and walked around the table to take their new seats. “And you owe me too. I’m only doing this because Alec is my brother and I would do anything to keep him happy, alright? So just act like you don’t completely hate me and we’ll be fine. Although please keep your elbows to yourself, it’s a huge pet peeve of mine.”

“Babe, please dial the douche-baggery down a little bit,” Simon tutted at his boyfriend from the other end of the table. “I know it’s hard for you, but we’re all trying to get along and you don’t get to escape this huge orgy of positive feelings.”

“Simon!”

“Don’t talk about orgies at the dinner table!”

“Will someone please pass me the goddamned salad?!”

Magnus’ eyes widened as chaos descended upon the table, dishes getting passed around as five different conversations started up. Alec was busy with Clary and Max, which meant Magnus couldn’t talk to him, and he had been split up from most of his friends. Ragnor, the only one who had remained in his immediate vicinity, was already having a deep discussion with Luke, which left Magnus with no other option than…

“He really planned this, didn’t he?” He sighed, glancing over at Jace who had apparently also accepted their fate. The blond man had angled his chair and body in Magnus’ direction, picking at his pasta salad half-heartedly. “Does he do this often?”

“It’s happened a few times in the past,” Jace shrugged. “Not that I can really complain about it, since one of those times led to me and Simon getting together. I just wish he had given me a little more forewarning. You seem like a cool guy, Bane, but I really don’t know if this is going to work out.”

“What? Our friendship?” Magnus chuckled lowly. “Because believe me, I don’t think it’s going to work out either. Alec’s intentions are pure and I appreciate his efforts, but there’s very little I think the two of us could share. Still, there’s no harm in tryi-”

“I meant you and Alec,” Jace cut him off, looking at Magnus seriously. “I don’t know if you and Alec are going to work out.”

Magnus’ breath caught in his throat at the man’s blunt words. So far, all of their friends had been showering them with support and insisting that they had been all but made for each other, so to hear someone suggest the complete opposite hurt more than Magnus could have anticipated. He knew Alec and he were different in many ways, but they cared about each other.

They cared about each other a lot, and wasn’t that what mattered? More than their appearances or their hobbies or how well their friends got along. The longer they were together, the more hopeful Magnus was for the future, but Jace’s words made him wonder if he had missed something. Had there been a glaring red flag above their heads the entire time? Had everyone else simply been too afraid to tell them how wrong they were for each other?

“God, the two of you sure think as much as each other,” Jace snorted, gazing at Magnus amusedly. “I didn’t say anything about how well suited the two of you are; it’s clear to me that you like each other and share plenty of things. I just mean that relationships are always a little uncertain, especially when there are secrets involved.”

Magnus’ heart froze.

“Secrets?” He croaked, swallowing nervously as Jace nodded, staring at him knowingly. “What secrets are you talking about, exactly?”

“I’m talking about the things Alec has yet to tell you about his life and his job,” Jace sighed. “I’m talking about whatever it is you and Isabelle discuss from time to time that has you looking so worried. I’m talking about how you both know you’re not being completely sincere but have yet to do anything about it.”

Magnus knew he should have been a little more anxious about his secret potentially coming out. He had been trying to keep it hidden for almost two months now, and he was so close to getting his tracks completely – or mostly – covered. Jace saying something to Alec could potentially ruin all of that. He knew that was what he should have been thinking about.

Instead, he was stuck on the first part of Jace’s statement. He had always been aware that he wasn’t being completely truthful with Alec, and a part of him had always felt guilty for being insincere. It had just never occurred to him that the lack of transparency might have been mutual from the get-go.

Alec had always been so honest with him that Magnus had never even thought about the things he didn’t know about Alec yet. He hadn’t even considered that Alec might have secrets just as bad – and maybe even worse – than his.

“I’m not saying this because I want the two of you to break up,” Jace continued, staring at Magnus intensely. “And I’m not saying this because I want you to ask questions about what Alec might be hiding. I actually think he has decent reasons to be holding back. However, I also think he should tell you eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. As for you… Look, I don’t know what you’re hiding or what you’re so ashamed of or whatever, but maybe you should think about telling him?”

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought about doing, yet Magnus still felt frustration bubble inside his chest at Jace’s unnecessary prodding into his life.

“I know what I’m doing,” he muttered, looking towards Alec to avoid Jace’s stare and wondering if the blond man would be able to sense his lie. “As for your concerns about my relationship with Alec… I appreciate them, but I promise you that I’m serious about this and would never do anything to mess it up. I care about Alec, and I just want him to be happy.”

For a second, Magnus thought Jace was going to bring up the lying again, that he was going to accuse Magnus of wanting Alec to be happy living a lie or some other nonsense. Instead, he cocked his head to the side, shrugged nonchalantly, and turned back to his plate as the main dishes were set on the table.

“Well then, no reason for us not to get along,” Jace said after a few minutes of silence during which Magnus had wondered whether or not there was a way to turn back time and take back everything he had ever said and done wrong in his life. “Alec tells me you’re into baseball?”

And just like that, the two of them were engrossed in their own private conversation about sports and teams and who they wanted to see progress in the league. It wasn’t anything serious, and Magnus could still feel the underlying hint of tension in their voices, but at least they were actively trying to talk to each other.

By the time dessert was brought out and everyone was pleasantly tipsy from the wine, Alec and Jace had switched back. Magnus was feeling a lot more comfortable than he had earlier, Madzie was all but dozing off in her seat, the parents had left them alone, and the atmosphere was relaxed.

The siblings spent the entirety of dessert discussing each other’s relationships as well as their overall excitement for the spring collection. The conversation was riddled with inside jokes and hints Magnus didn’t quite understand, but he was too happy to have gotten through the worst of the evening to worry about it too much.

“Are you okay to drive home?” Alec asked him as the Lightwood children escorted their partners back to the door – or in Jace’s case, got ready to be escorted out with their partner. “Or do you want me to call a cab? I know you had a little to drink, and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt just because we weren’t careful.”

“I was actually wondering if Isabelle might want to go out and have drinks with me,” Magnus blurted out, immediately asking himself what was wrong with him. That had not been in his plans at all. He had been dreaming about getting home and passing on his bed for hours, so why on earth would he screw it all up by asking his friend out for drinks?

Sure, he loved Isabelle, but he had had his fair share of Lightwoods for the night, and they saw enough of each other at work. Besides, she was already drunk as-

Suddenly, he knew exactly what his brain was trying to do. It wouldn’t work, though. Just because Isabelle was drunk didn’t mean she would reveal any secrets that weren’t her own. She might not even know about Alec’s secrets, and then their night out would have been for nothing. It was a stupid idea, and the best thing to do would be to take his words back immediately.

“Ooh, I’d love to go for drinks!”

Or not.

***

“Thank god you dragged me out of there,” Isabelle slurred. “Family dinners are always so draining and having Clary around didn’t exactly make things better. We’ve been going through a bit of a tough time and only just figured things out, so this was… Well, it was something.”

The brunette was well past drunk at this point. She had had too many cocktails for Magnus to keep count of, and he knew he wasn’t far behind. Thankfully, his apartment was just around the corner so they would only have to walk down the block to get back to safety and warmth once the bar closed – or once they got kicked out, whichever one came first.

“You know, your family isn’t half as bad as I thought they would be,” Magnus hummed. “I even talked to Jace about baseball for a while.”

“Yeah, Jace is easy enough to get along with as long as you have some basic knowledge of either sports, coffee, or biology,” Isabelle nodded seriously. “I mean, he’s a bit weird and I don’t always understand him, but he’s pretty cool. Except when he was trying to hit on Clary.”

“He tried to hit on Clary?” Magnus snickered quietly, sipping at his drink and raising an expectant eyebrow in Isabelle’s direction. “Well come on, I want the details! I need to have something on him for the next time I see him, you know, and nothing is as embarrassing as hitting on a woman who is infatuated by your sister.”

“Speaking from experience?” Isabelle waggled her eyebrows. “Did you once fall in love with someone who was already trying to woo Raphael?”

“No,” Magnus wrinkled his nose. “Of course not. But Jace seems like the kind of guy to completely ignore the signs of attraction between two people and just- just shoot his shot or whatever. Although, wasn’t he already with Simon when he met Clary? Wouldn’t that have made things even more awkward?”

“Oh god, it would have been awful,” Isabelle giggled. “But no. We all met Simon after we met Clary, since she’s the one who introduced him to us and asked mom to give him a job and all that shebang. Before Jace met Simon and was hit by love at first sight, he thought Clary was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. And fair enough, she is the prettiest girl in the world, but that’s beside the point.”

“Wait, wait, did you and Clary already have all that-” Magnus gestured wildly as he tried to make his point. Unfortunately, he only earned himself a blank look from the brunette. “Sexual tension?”

“I don’t know,” Isabelle shrugged. “I wasn’t even aware we had something until Alec pointed it out and told me to get my shit together. It took me a few years, but I got there! And Jace never tried to flirt with her again. Although maybe that has more to do with the fact that she slapped him hard enough to make him bleed.”

“She made him bleed?!” Magnus exclaimed, slamming his glass back down on the bar and crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for Isabelle to expand on that particular story.

He wasn’t disappointed. It turned out that Jace was terrible at seducing people; he went too heavy too fast and tended to turn into a bit of an arrogant asshole, which Clary had decidedly not appreciated. Jace had ended the night with the promise of a hangover and a mark on his cheek that had apparently stayed there for over a week.

“And then he met Simon and forgot all about my girl,” Isabelle finished her tale, smiling dopily as she thought of Clary. “So now I have her, and he has Simon who’s actually really nice even though he talks a lot and gets on Alec’s nerves with his rambling rants. Everything worked out for the best.” Isabelle said as she ended the story, a fond smile and soft twinkle in her eye.

“Which is all that matters in the end,” Magnus said wisely, thinking back on what Jace had told him earlier that evening.

He had been keeping it locked in his mind for over two hours, not even breathing a word of it to Isabelle, but he was starting to forget why he had been trying to hold back in the first place. It wasn’t like he was going to force Isabelle to tell him Alec’s secret. He just wanted to know if whatever his boyfriend was hiding was as bad as what Magnus had done.

That way, maybe they could be even.

“Jace doesn’t think Alec and I are going to work out,” he sighed, downing the rest of his drink and ordering yet another, completely ignoring the bartender’s judgemental look. “He says we lie to each other too much about the things that matter. Or at least I think that’s what he meant to say. Hey, Iz, do you think Alec and I lie to each other?”

“Well, duh,” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “You still haven’t told him about the little white lie that got you the job as Head Editor, did you? And you haven’t spoken about Fade Media with him yet, so… That’s technically two lies? I think.”

“But what about him?” Magnus insisted. “Does he lie to me too?”

At his words, Isabelle’s face went through a series of complicated emotions that Magnus was far too drunk to analyse. He thought he got the gist of it, which was what mattered most, and the gist was that yes, Alec was lying to him. And if the alarm remaining on Isabelle’s features was anything to go by, he was lying about something big.

“Why hasn’t he told me?” He pouted. “Does he not trust me? Does he not think he can tell me about all his deep, dark secrets that no one else wants to hear about? I thought I was the only one in the wrong, but if he’s also keeping things from me, then that’s alright. Right?”

If he had been even just slightly more sober, he would have known that the answer to his own question was a resonant no. Just because Alec was keeping things from him didn’t mean Magnus had to lie as well. Relationships weren’t about holding petty grudges like that, they were about communication. Sober Magnus would have known that.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Magnus was very much not sober.

“Yeah, it has to be alright,” he repeated, nodding to himself. Isabelle didn’t look convinced, but she was too drunk to get an opinion on the matter at hand. “But Jace thinks we should talk to each other.”

“Talking is always a good idea,” Isabelle tutted, poking Magnus in the chest. “You have to talk to the people you love, otherwise they’ll think you don’t love them. I didn’t talk to Clary this week, you know? I locked myself in my bedroom and only came out for the Vogue shoot. And I don’t know why I didn’t talk to Clary? I missed Clary.” Izzy rambled.

“Alec and I talk a lot!” Magnus protested. “We talk all the time! We talk about the things we love and the things we hate and we- we go on dates and talk about how we feel. Sometimes. We just don’t talk about secrets. What’s the point of having secrets if you give them away?”

“I don’t think we’re s’pposed to keep secrets from the people we love,” Isabelle said sadly. “’Cause secrets hurt people.”

“Will Alec’s secret hurt me?” Magnus asked before he could help himself. He had lost all his filters somewhere after his last glass, and he was far too curious to pretend like he didn’t want to know what Alec was hiding. “Is it going to make me cry, Iz?”

“I don’t know,” the brunette answered. “I think it’s a stupid secret that shouldn’t be a secret at all, so I don’t know. I don’t want you to be mad at Alec though, because Alec really likes you and I really like you too. You should just ask him about his secret. Maybe he’ll tell you if you ask him.”

“Why would he tell me?” Magnus threw his hands in the air. “He won’t even tell me about Clary’s secret partner! He keeps saying it’ll happen when it should happen or whatever bullshit quote he likes to use. I should get to know who the designer is, Iz, I’m wearing his clothes! Well, not right now, but… You know what I mean.”

“Of course he won’t tell you,” Isabelle said sadly. “Because if he tells you about the designer, he has to tell you about himself, and Alec hates talking about himself positively. He thinks he’s not good enough, you know? He thinks people will judge him, even though they really wouldn’t. They would just love him even more than they do now.”

Once again, it felt like Magnus was missing something. It had been happening more and more often over the past two weeks, and he was starting to get annoyed at how vague his friends acted around him. There was something they weren’t telling him, something that had to do with the secret designer and that made Alec uncomfortable.

It made Isabelle a little bit angry, made Clary sad, made Simon bite his lip, and made the fashion team roll their eyes. It made them all shut up faster than anything else, and Magnus didn’t know why. All he knew was that he was sick and tired of being left out of something whilst everyone else laughed behind his back.

“Who’s the designer, Isabelle?” He asked as soberly as he could. “Who is he? I know it’s a man, because Alec let that slip, but who is it? I know it’s someone who works at the office, since there’s no way they could have created such perfect outfits if they hadn’t met all the models. I know Clary is friends with him, close friends even, because she trusts him with a lot of things. Alec trusts him too, even though I’m not sure he likes him. So who is it?”

She was dying to tell him, Magnus could see it clear as day. She was bouncing on her bar stool, swaying lightly as she shook her head and scrunched her eyes shut in a valiant attempt to stay quiet. However, Magnus knew she would cave as soon as he stopped speaking, because Isabelle hated this secret almost as much as Magnus did.

Of all their friends, she was the only one who had ever said she found the secrecy stupid. She was the only one who had almost cracked and given Magnus a name before Clary had stormed in and dragged her girlfriend away from him. She wanted the secret to be out, and Magnus was shamelessly taking advantage of it.

(He would regret it later, once he was sober and understood the consequences of asking such a private question, but for now he felt nothing but eagerness and excitement.)

“You know him too, don’t you?” He continued, urging her to break and slip and just spill the beans already. A part of him knew it was wrong, but he was drunk and slightly annoyed at all the secrets being kept from him, and he just wanted this one little thing. “You’re friends with him, and you want him to get credit for what he does. You don’t think Clary should get all of it, which is why you’re always fighting. Is that why you’re always fighting? Because you think- You think…”

“Because I think Alec should get the credit too!” Isabelle cried out, slapping her hands over her mouth as soon as the words slipped past her lips.

She looked horrified and startlingly sober for someone who had had at least four drinks since leaving the Lightwoods. And Magnus could only stare back at her with an expression of matching horror on his face. Because he hadn’t wanted Alec’s secret, no matter how curious he had been. He had wanted to ask Alec about it when he was sober and actually capable of coherent thought.

Instead, he had found out from Isabelle, her words ringing over and over again in his mind as his mind caught onto their meaning. In hindsight, he should have figured it out long ago, given all the clues he had been handed on a silver platter.

“But…” He started, words evading him as he tried to wrap his head around his boyfriend, Alexander Lightwood, being the secret designer he had been wondering about for years.

He just couldn’t see it. Alexander was wonderful; he was kind and smart and always willing to listen to Magnus no matter how long his stories were. He was a great partner, both in and out of bed, and he was the man Magnus was falling in love with one day at a time.

The secret designer, on the other hand, was a mysterious entity whom Magnus had always imagined as dark and secretive and a little rude, maybe even slightly entitled. The secret designer was great at colours, a colour genius, and would certainly know how to dress a lot better than Alexander did. And more importantly, he was a man Magnus had never imagined dating, let alone loving.

“I think- I think this is why he doesn’t like telling people,” Isabelle interrupted his thoughts, staring at him with a mix of pity and disappointment. “He doesn’t like having to explain why he doesn’t dress colourfully, and why he started designing, and how he got in the business… He doesn’t like answering all the questions. And right now, you have a lot of questions.”

“Of course I do!” Magnus exclaimed. “You just told me my boyfriend is also one of the best designers in the country! I thought he was just a CEO! Not that being a CEO is bad, but I never imagined… I don’t understand how it’s possible, Isabelle. Is that why he’s always busy?”

“Probably,” Isabelle shrugged. “He works a lot, even though he’s been doing it less now that you’re here. He and Clary used to stay at the office all the time, even to sleep and eat and live. It was a bit worrying, but they’re better now. Because of us. I think we bring them joy.”

Maybe they did, except now Magnus had gone and ruined that by making Isabelle reveal something Alec had deliberately kept hidden. Sure, Magnus didn’t quite understand why his boyfriend was ashamed of something so wonderful, but that didn’t give him the right to pry into other people’s business by tricking a drunk Isabelle into telling him things.

Now Magnus had the secret he had so desperately wanted to know, but he had a feeling it would come with far more repercussions than he was ready for.

“I have to tell Alec,” he said, standing up and swaying on his feet from the sudden movement. “I have to tell him that I know, and come clean about everything so he knows my secret too, and I should do it now.”

“No,” Isabelle shook her head. “No, no, you shouldn’t do that. It’s very late and Alec is probably sleeping and you’re very drunk. We’re both very drunk. We should go back to your apartment and sleep it off and think about this tomorrow, when we’re a little less- When we’re a little more focused. Besides, you can’t tell Alec. Not before he tells you himself.”

“What? Why?” Magnus gaped. If there was one thing he knew for sure, it was that hiding this from Alec would only cause more issues.

“Because I told you!” Isabelle cried out, looking desperate and a little bit broken. “Because I promised him I wouldn’t betray him by telling anyone, and I promised Clary I would stay out of it, and now I told you. If they find out, they’re never going to forgive me. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

“Of course they’ll forgive you,” Magnus murmured reassuringly. “You did nothing wrong, Iz, you’re drunk! As long as they know that, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m the one who’s in trouble.”

“Then don’t tell them,” the brunette repeated, turning her pleading eyes on him. “Just wait for them to make a move first, alright? I’m sure you’ll agree with me tomorrow morning.”

Magnus wasn’t half as certain as Isabelle was, but he also knew she had a point. Going to Alec’s whilst drunk and telling him that his sister had told Magnus about his secret sounded like a terrible idea. He didn’t know how he would feel in the morning, but at least he would be sober, which was infinitely better than being drunk.

Sober Magnus would have never pushed Isabelle to tell him something she clearly hadn’t wanted to talk about. Sober Magnus wouldn’t have brought up a topic he knew was one of Alec’s most sensitive spots. Sober Magnus was, as a general rule, infinitely smarter than his drunk counterpart.

God, he was never drinking again.

#malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #fanfic #my writing

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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‘So much living to do’: stories of UK's latest named coronavirus victims

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/not-ready-to-go-tributes-paid-to-uk-first-named-victims-of-coronavirus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Post_to_Tumblr

Though these deaths didn't occur in the United States, it's important to remember our brothers and sisters across the pond! They represent every walk of life, age, race and creed. Covid-19 does not recognize borders, religion, race, occupation or age.

SO MUCH LIVING TO DO’: STORIES OF UK's LATEST NAMED CORONAVIRUS VICTIMS.... Personal details have emerged of more than 50 people who have died in the Covid-19 pandemic

By Matthew Weaver, Helen Pidd and Simon Murphy | Published:12:19 Fri April 3, 2020 | The Guardian | Posted April 05, 2020 |

The oldest is 108, the youngest only 13. These are the faces of some of the country’s coronavirus victims, among them doctors, councillors, a D-day veteran, a diplomat, a comedian and an academic.

By 4pm on Thursday 2 April, 3,605 people admitted to hospital in the UK had died after contracting Covid-19. Many were elderly and had underlying health conditions. Some did not.

In several cases, family members and medical professionals have been keen to emphasise that victims had their lives cut short. Even if they were suffering underlying health conditions, they had been expected to live for many years, they said.

Of the deaths so far in the UK and those connected to the country, details have emerged in more than 50 cases. Here are their stories.

****

Lord Gordon of Strathblane, 83

James “Jimmy” Gordon was formerly political editor of STV and founded Radio Clyde. He is understood to have died of Covid-19 at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on Tuesday 31 March.

Outside the media, Gordon was a member of the Scottish Development Agency and chaired the Scottish Tourist Board – later VisitScotland – and was made a life peer by Labour in 1997. A statement from his family honoured “his generosity, his kindness and his enthusiasm for life”, adding that being “Papa” to his four grandchildren was the role that had brought him most pleasure. The former first minister Jack McConnell said Gordon had had “an outstanding career in business and public service” and had “transformed broadcasting”. The comedian and radio host Andy Cameron, who worked at Clyde for a number of years, said: “Another good guy gone. Jimmy Gordon, Lord Gordon Of Strathblane has passed on. What an absolute gentleman. RIP Jimmy.” He leaves behind his wife Anne, three children and four grandchildren.

****

Aimee O’Rourke, 38

O’Rourke was an NHS nurse and mother of three girls, Megan, Mollie and Maddie. She died on 2 April at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent – the hospital where she worked. She studied at Canterbury Christ Church University before joining the NHS in 2017. She started showing symptoms of the coronavirus about two weeks ago before her condition deteriorated and she was taken into intensive care at the QEQM and put on a ventilator.

Her daughter, Megan Murphy, wrote on Facebook that it had always been “us 4 against the world!”, and said she and her sisters would now look after each other. “Look at all the lives you looked after and all the families you comforted when patients passed away … you are an angel and you will wear your NHS crown forever more because you earned that crown the very first day you started,” she wrote. Now a family friend has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for O’Rourke’s family.

A colleague, Lucy Page, wrote: “Aimee O’Rourke taught me to fight for what I believe in and gave me courage so many times to do it.” Another colleague, Soraya Zanders, said:“Aimee cared for many patients in her time as a nurse. She brought warmth and comfort to many.” On the evening of the day she died family and friends lit candles and clapped in her honour during the weekly Clap for Carers.

****

Areema Nasreen, 36

Nasreen was an NHS nurse who had worked for 16 years at Walsall Manor hospital in the West Midlands, where she died on 3 April after contracting the coronavirus. Nasreen, who had three children and was from Walsall, developed symptoms on 13 March, including aches, a high temperature and then a cough. Her family said she had no underlying health issues. Her sister Kazeema Nasreen, 22, a healthcare assistant at the same hospital, said Nasreen was “an amazing nurse” and urged others to take the virus seriously. In a tribute posted on Facebook, her friend Rubi Aktar said: “She was the most loveliest, genuine person you could ever meet, she went above and beyond for everyone she met. I’m so grateful that I had the honour to call her my best friend, she saw me at my best and my worst and accepted my every flaw. I am so broken that words can’t explain.”

A relative told Birmingham Live: “The immediate family are devastated. Everyone is in shock this morning. She was always so full of life. She was devoted to her job as a nurse, she absolutely loved it. She passed away doing what she loved. I’m really sad for the rest of the family, she was a fantastic person.”

****

Danny Sharma, 38

Sharma was an avid fan of Liverpool Football Club and devoted much of his time to amateur football. The 38-year-old was considered to be high-risk because of his diabetes and other health conditions, and he died on 26 March after battling with coronavirus in intensive care at Hammersmith hospital in London. On 24 March, Sharma posted a picture of himself making the thumbs-up sign, and wrote: “Day Four Update. Looks nice out from the window wish I was participating in the Vitamin D. Finding hard to breathe, still fighting.”

The 38-year-old attended St Paul’s College in Sunbury-on-Thames before studying computer applications at Kingston University. His brother Vinny said he wanted Sharma’s death to make people take the threat of the coronavirus seriously. “He was a fantastic guy with a big heart, and he is someone who we are going to miss a great deal. Hopefully he will find some peace,” he said. Luke Thompson called his friend the “most selfless individual I ever met.” Traditionally the Sharma family, who are of Indian heritage, would hold an open house for 12 days after a death to enable people to pay their respects – but both Sharma’s brother and mother, Parveen, had to self-isolate because of their close contact with the 38-year-old.

****

Danny Cairns, 68

Cairns was one of the first Scots to die after contracting the coronavirus to be named publicly. He had tried to self isolate at his home in Greenock in Renfrewshire but after a few days became so ill he was transferred to hospital, where he died on 26 March. His brother Hugh, who lives in the United States, said the experience was a “nightmare” for the family. “He wasn’t just my brother, he was my best friend,” he said. “From the time of going into hospital within three days he was dead. His last words to me were, ‘I’m on my way out mate’.”

****

Sheila French, 80

French from Broughty Ferry, a suburb of Dundee, died after six days in Ninewells hospital intensive care on 27 March. She had been admitted after becoming ill on a family holiday in Lanzarote to celebrate her 80th birthday. Her family spoke of the pain of not being able to visit her in hospital, but her son Colin said dedicated NHS staff were determined to ensure her “comfort and dignity right to the end”. Originally from Glasgow, she married Eric French in 1962. The couple were well-known figures in the local community and shared a lifelong love of tennis.

The 80-year-old sang in the Barnhill St Margaret’s parish church choir for more than four decades. Her son said she was “interested in so many things”, including music, singing and reciting poetry. “She was also always surrounded by wool for knitting and crochet,” he told the Dundee Courier. “Her main thing in recent years was crocheting blankets to raise money for charities including Chas, and she also collected for Save The Children.”

****

Dr Habib Zaidi, 76

Family GP Dr Zaidi is thought to be the first doctor in the UK to have been killed by the coronavirus. The 76-year-old, from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, died on 25 March in intensive care just 24 hours after being taken ill. He and his wife, Dr Talat Zaidi, 70, were both managing partners of Eastwood group practice and had served three generations of families in the area for nearly 50 years. The couple’s four children all work in the medical profession. Daughter Dr Sarah Zaidi, also a GP, said his death was “reflective of his sacrifice. He had a vocational attitude to service.” She added: “We can’t mourn in the normal way. We can’t have a normal funeral. He left a gaping hole in our hearts, but a loss that is also felt within the community that he devoted almost his entire life to. We are praying for the safety of everyone right now.”

Dr Jose Garcia-Lobera, GP chair at NHS Southend clinical commissioning group, said Zaidi had left behind an “incredible legacy”. He said: “[He] was a “hugely respected, selfless man who dedicated his life to helping others. Dr Zaidi will always be remembered for his significant contribution to local health services through his long career as a GP.”

****

Mark Barnett, late 60s

Barnett was the headteacher at Westfield in Acomb, one of York’s biggest primary schools, for more than 17 years when he stepped down in 2008 aged 55 to work for the City of York council as a consultant headteacher. His family confirmed that he was taken into York hospital with breathing difficulties and died of Covid-19 on 1 April. Praised as a deeply committed teacher, he was a recipient of the Teacher Of The Year title at the Community Pride Awards.

Cllr Andrew Waller, a school governor at Westfield who knew Barnett well, said: “He was an inspirational headteacher and a legend in the community. Everyone knew Mark and he had a huge amount of respect.” Singer and former teacher Ian Donaghy said: “Mark was all about the children and not himself. You see a lot of career teachers out there, but Mark wasn’t one of them. The city has lost a big, big influence on children. His big thing was happy kids learn, it’s not about jumping through hoops or league tables. We could do with a few more like Mark.”

****

Eddie Large, 78

Large, best known as one half of the comedy duo Little and Large, died after contracting the coronavirus in hospital where he was being treated for heart failure, his son said.

The Glaswegian comedian, whose real name was Edward McGinnis, found fame alongside Syd Little in the 1970s and 80s, when their TV performances attracted millions of viewers.

His son, Ryan McGinnis, broke the news in a Facebook post on 2 April, explaining that his father had caught Covid-19 while in hospital. He wrote: “It is with great sadness that Mum and I need to announce that my dad passed away in the early hours of this morning. He had been suffering with heart failure and unfortunately, whilst in hospital, contracted the coronavirus, which his heart was sadly not strong enough to fight. Dad had fought bravely for so long. Due to this horrible disease we had been unable to visit him at the hospital, but all of the family and close friends spoke to him every day.

“We will miss him terribly and we are so proud of everything he achieved in his career with Syd and know that he was much loved by the millions that watched them each week.”

****

Caroline Saunby, 48

Saunby, a mother of two young boys, had no known underlying health conditions and started exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms on Thursday 26 March. By Sunday, she had died.

She collapsed at her home in New Marske, North Yorkshire, where she had begun to struggle for breath after initially having a sore throat, which she thought was tonsillitis. An air ambulance was dispatched and Saunby was put on a ventilator at home before being taken to James Cook University hospital in Middlesbrough, where she died the same day. She leaves behind her husband, Vic, and six-year-old twins, Joseph and Elliot.

Her twin sister, Sarah Jarvis, described her “unbearable heartbreak” as she pleaded with people to take the coronavirus seriously. She told the Northern Echo: “Caroline took every precaution under the sun. She was practising social distancing, she was washing her hands, took hers and everyone’s safety seriously, was healthy, yet she was taken from us in only four days. This virus does not discriminate.”

****

Paul Ramsden, 80

It was only when Ramsden’s wife, Jacky, struggled to wake him that it dawned on her something was seriously wrong. Paul was fit for his age and had no known underlying health conditions.

He fell ill soon after the couple returned from the Canary island of La Gomera. Jacky said Ramsden’s only obvious symptom was tiredness, but when she tried to rouse him from his sleep on 22 March, the penny dropped. He died five days later.

Jacky, from Lytham near Blackpool in Lancashire, told the Blackpool Gazette: “It’s very clear that while the vulnerable are susceptible to this virus, it also strikes down fit and healthy people. I wish people to take the government guidelines seriously and to abide by them so we can avoid further heartbreak. I feel lucky to have enjoyed 40 years of love and adventure with Paul, but I am saddened that our marriage has been cut short in this way.”

****

Linda Tuppen, 66

A former nursery nurse and teacher, Tuppen died from suspected coronavirus after caring for her son, who is also thought to have caught the disease. She was found lifeless by her son, Rob, on 28 March, a day after she had refused to speak to NHS’s 111 service when she fell ill, deciding to sleep instead.

Tuppen – who suffered from asthma – had been looking after Rob after he developed Covid-19 symptoms following his return from Krakow, Poland, earlier last month, but then began to feel unwell herself.

Her other son, 23-year-old James, was admitted to hospital a day later with coronavirus symptoms. In an interview with MEN, Rob recalled the moment he found his mother at her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester. “I was in a panic, she was just lay there, and I shouted ‘Mum, mum,’ but she didn’t answer,” the 28-year-old software engineer said. “I was doing chest compressions until the ambulance came. I was still in the room when he came over and said she was gone. It’s devastating. We lost our father in 2008, so we’re pretty much on our own now.

“She was a kind, loving lady who adored me and James and would have done anything for us. She always used to say that we were her lives. She would do anything for anyone.”

****

Thomas Harvey, 57

The NHS healthcare assistant caught coronavirus and died after treating patients with only gloves for protection, according to his family.

It is claimed Harvey fell ill after helping a patient who later tested positive for Covid-19 and eventually died on 29 March. He had been signed off work more than two weeks earlier when he developed symptoms including a cough, shortness of breath and body aches.

His family said that if he had had the correct personal protective equipment, he might still be alive. Goodmayes hospital in east London claims there were “no symptomatic patients on the ward”. But a former colleague told the BBC that Harvey contracted the virus after treating a patient who later tested positive.

Harvey’s daughter, 19-year-old Tamira, told the BBC: “It’s so sad. I feel like he was let down in so many ways. It’s an absolute tragedy and he didn’t deserve to lose his life in the way he did. If he had just had the right equipment, we wouldn’t be in this predicament and it wouldn’t have escalated in the way it did.”

****

Peter Sinclair, 73

Sinclair was a professor of economics and a former tutor to David Cameron. He taught the future prime minister during his time at Oxford before joining the University of Birmingham in 1994. He later became director of the Bank of England’s Centre for Central Banking Studies. Cameron described him as “one of the cleverest people I ever met” and said he had inspired “generations of students”. He added: “It was a complete privilege to know him.” Sinclair died in intensive care on 31 March after testing positive for coronavirus.

****

Alfa Saadu, 68

Saadu was a distinguished former medical director of Princess Alexandra hospital NHS trust in Harlow, Essex. He grew up in Nigeria and travelled to the UK to train as a doctor at University College London. He retired in 2016 after a 40-year career in the NHS. He was volunteering at his local hospital in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, one of the counties worst hit by coronavirus, when he became infected. He died after a two-week battle with the disease, according to his son Dani. Dani said: “My dad was a living legend, worked for the NHS for nearly 40 years, saving people’s lives here and in Africa. Up until he got sick he was still working part-time saving people.”

****

George Mason, 71

Mason and his twin brother, Malcolm, had been cutting hair in the same barber shop in Gosport, Hampshire, since they trained together as teenagers. In a statement, the Mason’s Barber Shop said he “always brought laughter and happiness and it will be so hard not working alongside him any more”. Speaking to Solent News, Malcolm said: “George was good fun – we had our moments like all brothers do, but got along brilliantly. He was a real family man and cared deeply about those around him.” As he began suffering from the virus, George told his brother he “wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy”. He was placed on a ventilator last weekend and never recovered. He is survived by his wife, Bobbie, his children Joanna and Natalie and grandchildren Hannah and Ben.

****

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, 13

The rare death of someone so young from coronavirus has prompted widespread shock and concern. Ismail, who had no underlying health conditions, died on 30 March at King’s College hospital, London, after testing positive for Covid-19. Ismail, who had six siblings, lived in Brixton, south London. His family said they were “beyond devastated”. In a later statement they said: “Ismail was a loving son, brother, nephew to our family and a friend to many people who knew him. His smile was heartwarming and he was always gentle and kind.”

****

Luca Di Nicola, 19

Di Nicola was a chef from Nereto, near the Adriatic coast of Italy, who was living with his mother and her partner in Enfield, north London. He died on 24 March in North Middlesex hospital. His death was announced on the same day as Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab’s. A postmortem revealed that Luca had Covid-19. His aunt Giada told La Repubblica that a GP had prescribed him paracetamol for a cough and fever. She said the doctor had told him “he was young, strong and [had] nothing to worry about”.

****

Harold Pearsall, 97

Pearsall was a hero of the D-day landings who was awarded the Légion d’honneur for his part in the allied assault on Caen in 1944. He landed on Juno Beach along with the Royal Artillery. “We never fired a round. When that first shell came in, I could have crawled down a worm hole,” he said last year at an event to mark the 75th anniversary of D-day. His unit went on to suffer heavy losses as it was attacked with phosphorous bombs and grenades, he said of the Caen operation. He died in Birmingham’s Good Hope hospital on 27 March after testing positive for Covid-19. Pearsall had two sons and had been an active member of D-day veterans’ groups. “He was very proud and always clean, smart and tidy,” said Peter Lloyd, secretary of the 1944 Alliance Normandy-Market Garden veterans’ association.

****

Andrew Jack, 76

Jack was a dialect coach and actor who appeared in three Star Wars films. He died in hospital in Surrey on 31 March. His wife, Gabrielle Rogers, also a dialect coach, tweeted: “We lost a man today. Andrew Jack was diagnosed with coronavirus two days ago. He was in no pain, and he slipped away peacefully knowing that his family were all ‘with’ him.” Jack lived on one of the oldest working houseboats on the Thames. According to his agent, Jill McCullough, he was fiercely independent but also madly in love with his wife. He appeared in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi as General Ematt, as well as Solo: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. He had been working as dialect coach on a new Batman film. Sam Neill was among many actors to pay tribute. He said Jack was a “lovely man” and “joy to work with”.

****

Maria Lawrence, 48

Lawrence ran a business selling gift bags in Derby. According to her son, Dan Clark, she was also a “community champion” in the city and founded a Secret Santa scheme which she ran for free. Speaking to the Derby Telegraph, he said: “She was like an angel and very well regarded in the community. She was selfless too. Nothing was done for herself. She ran all these things out of charity.” Lawrence was unaware she had any health problem until she was diagnosed with coronavirus. Further tests revealed she also had vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, worsened by Covid-19. She died at Royal Derby hospital on 20 March.

****

Frank Rust, 81

Rust was a Labour councillor for Rushmoor borough council for 28 years, and was due to serve a second stint as mayor next year. A passionate Spurs fan, he was a retired NHS manager and had also held senior posts in education. The former Labour cabinet minister Hazel Blears was among those sending tributes, describing him as a “lovely man”. His son Karl wrote: “Sorry dad you were added to the pandemic stats today but you were not a victim or casualty in these dark days. You lived life to the full never stopping learning new things, keeping active, helping people and the community you represented. You were a good dad. I am pleased you had enough time to enjoy being a grandad to Archie.” Rust died on 30 March at Frimley Park hospital, Camberley, Surrey.

****

Pat Midgley, 82

Midgley was a Labour councillor in Sheffield for 33 years, and was described by her family as a “true woman of steel”. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, was among many figures in the Labour party to praise her years of service. In a message to her son Neil, McDonnell said: “The flood of tributes to your mum shows just how loved she was and how respected for her dedication to her community to the end.” Julie Dore, the leader of Sheffield city council, said: “I am heartbroken. This makes coronavirus all the more real.” Midgley was admitted to Sheffield general hospital on 24 March and was confirmed positive with Covid-19 a day later. She died on 29 March. She is survived by her husband of 60 years, three children and five grandchildren.

****

Frank Hammond, 83

Hammond died in Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport on 26 March. He tested positive for coronavirus despite having no cough and only a mild temperature. His daughter, Trisha Conroy, paid tribute to a “lovely, funny man who always wanted to make people laugh”. He enjoyed art and making scraperboard images and loved walking in the nearby Peak District. A photography enthusiast who worked in a Jessops camera shop for many years, Frank had suffered from chronic lung disease and had reduced mobility but was otherwise in good health before he fell ill, Trisha said: “He used a walking frame in the house and a mobility scooter when he was out after he lost a lot of the strength in his legs but was otherwise in decent shape.” He is survived by his wife, Brenda, daughters Trisha and Claire, and four grandchildren.

****

Christopher Vallely, 79

Vallely died in Belfast’s Mater hospital just hours after his wife, Isobel, passed away in the same hospital room. Earlier this year, he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He was admitted to hospital and placed in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19. Vallely, who was known as Arty, retired to his native Belfast in 2003 after working for decades in England. He lived near the Falls Road in west Belfast. He died on 29 March.

****

Isobel Vallely, 77

Vallely died on 28 March, the day after the couple’s 53rd wedding anniversary. She had had a stroke last year, and was admitted to hospital on 26 March after testing positive for coronavirus. Her daughter Fiona said both Isobel and Christopher were “amazing parents”. She added: “They were fantastic people who did not deserve to go this way.”

****

Amged El-Hawrani, 55

A respected ear, nose and throat consultant who worked at Queen’s hospital Burton in Derbyshire, El-Hawrani was the first confirmed hospital frontline worker to die in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus. His death prompted tributes from ministers and senior health leaders. In a statement, his family said: “His greatest passions were his family and his profession, and he dedicated his life to both. He was the rock of our family, incredibly strong, compassionate, caring and giving. He always put everyone else before himself.” He died on 28 March at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

****

Hilda Churchill, 108

Believed to be oldest coronavirus victim in the UK, Churchill was a survivor of the 1918 Spanish flu. She died in a Salford care home on 28 March, hours after testing positive for Covid-19 and just eight days before what would have been her 109th birthday. Before she died, she had been reminiscing about the Spanish flu, according to her grandson Anthony Churchill. She and most of her family in their home in Crewe had become infected, including her father, who collapsed in the street with the flu, she recalled. They all survived apart from her 12-month-old baby sister. “Grandma said she remembered a small box being put in a carriage,” her grandson said. “She was saying how amazing it is that something you can’t see can be so devastating.” Hilda was a seamstress who moved to Salford during the depression to find work. She was known for her cooking skills, particularly her gravy. She had four children, 11 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

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Adil El Tayar, 63

Tayar was the first working NHS surgeon known to have died from Covid-19 in the UK. He had been volunteering in A&E departments in the Midlands to help the NHS cope with the virus. “He wanted to be deployed where he would be most useful in the crisis,” said his cousin, the broadcaster Zeinab Badawi. “It had taken just 12 days for Adil to go from a seemingly fit and capable doctor working in a busy hospital to lying in a hospital morgue.” His former colleague Abbas Ghaznafar, a renal transplant surgeon at St George’s hospital in Tooting, described Tayar as a “noble human being” who was a “hardworking, dedicated surgeon”. He died on 25 March at West Middlesex University hospital, London.

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Pooja Sharma, 33

Sharma was a hospital pharmacist who died from the virus a day after it claimed the life of her father. She worked at Eastbourne District general hospital in East Sussex. Lara Stacey Young, a nurse in the area, said: “So many people will be devastated. She was such a lovely soul.” Amarjit Aujla, a friend from childhood, said: “Her laughter was contagious and her random calls made my day. From when we were in primary school until we last spoke two weeks ago, you gave me nothing but love, support and a tummy ache with all the laughter.” She died on 26 March.

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Sudhir Sharma, 61

Sharma was an immigration officer at Heathrow Terminal 3. He died on 25 March, a day before his daughter also succumbed to the virus. It is unclear whether the pair had any contact before both contracted the disease. Sharma had health problems and had not been on duty at Heathrow since early January. Nick Jariwalla, director of Border Force at Heathrow, said: “Sudhir was a very well-respected, kind and experienced officer. He will be greatly missed by everyone.”

****

Adam Harkins Sullivan, 28

Harkins Sullivan, from Camden, north London, was a painter and decorator and father to a six-year-old son. He worked with his father who gave him his nickname, Spud. Speaking to the Camden New Journal, his mother, Jackie Harkins, said: “I’ve lost something very precious to me that can never be replaced. We are all just in shock because he was only a young man. He was healthy – you didn’t have to tell him to eat his greens, he was always like that.” An otherwise fit man, he had been taken to hospital with suspected pneumonia. He died on 24 March at University College hospital in London in an isolation ward for coronavirus patients.

****

Doreen Hunt, 72

Hunt was born in 1947 in Canning Town, east London, into “extreme poverty”, said her son Steve Hunt, adding that she was brought up in “one of the poorest families in a poor area”. After leaving London for Dunstable in 1973, Hunt ran an insurance business for many years with her husband, John, in the Bedfordshire town. “She became as successful in business as she was as a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother,” her son said. “She travelled the world and enjoyed a rich and varied life.” Hunt had been on dialysis for kidney problems at Luton and Dunstable hospital but her condition deteriorated rapidly and she was admitted to intensive care last Friday. She died two days later, on Mother’s Day, her family said. After her death, tests results confirmed she had been infected by the coronavirus.

****

Steven Dick, 37

Dick was the UK’s deputy ambassador to Hungary. He had been with the Foreign Office since 2008 and had previously served in Kabul and Riyadh. His parents, Steven and Carol Dick, said: “Steven was a much-loved son, grandson and nephew. He was kind, funny and generous. It was always his dream to work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and he was very happy representing our country overseas.” Shaun Walker, the Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, said: “He was a jovial, intellectually curious and extremely helpful person. He spoke fluent Hungarian, having undergone a year’s training before taking up his position last autumn. Early last week he helped coordinate arrangements for me to get back into the country, and mentioned that he had tested positive for coronavirus, but at that time said he was feeling fine.”

****

Allan Oldcorn, 74

Oldcorn was a retired lorry driver for Bowater-Scott, which manufactured tissues and toilet rolls. Wendy Cavin, one of his three daughters, fondly remembers him leaving sweets for her and her sisters on the family mantelpiece in Flookburgh, Lancashire, when he was doing night shifts. Speaking to the Cumberland News and Star, she said: “He was the go-to man when it came to Flookburgh charter fair day, when everybody needed toilet rolls to make their float flowers.” She added: “He was an amazing husband, dad, grandad and great-grandad – the anchor of our family.” Oldcorn, who had been “fit and healthy”, died on 21 March, a day after being admitted to hospital with shortness of breath and backache. Doctors later confirmed he had tested positive for coronavirus, Cavin said on Facebook.

****

Michael Gerard, 73

Gerard was a teacher, musician, campaigner and lifelong Guardian reader. His daughter, Sushila Moles, described him as “loving, kind and always supportive”. She said he made up daily limericks and entertained her with bizarre conversations. Gerard grew up in Shortlands in Bromley, south-east London. He met his wife, Caroline, at Durham University and the couple both worked as teachers in Leicester. Later Gerard specialised in teaching visually impaired children. Moles said: “He was a hoarder, which worked well for this occupation as he always had a boot full of noisy toys and tinsel that he used to help children.” He played many musical instruments but was most accomplished at the violin and founded several orchestras and bands near his home in Clarendon Park, Leicester. He was a Woodcraft Folk leader for 30 years, a former president of the Leicester Secular Society and a frequent attender of anti-war demonstrations. In later years he had a number of health problems including Crohn’s disease. He was diagnosed with Covid-19 on 18 March and died four days later at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

****

Jon Jacob, 69

Jacob was a successful property lawyer and partner at the London firm Bower Cotton Hamilton, who lived in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. He was a stalwart of quiz leagues in London and the Chilterns, known for his formidable knowledge of classical music. A friend said Jacob “wore his knowledge lightly, and was very modest and self-effacing, always genuinely surprised to be told how good he was. He was also a lovely man: kind, generous and absolutely delightful company. He will be sorely missed by all his friends in the quizzing family.” Paddy Duffy, another fellow quizzer, tweeted: “Just a lovely man, brilliant fun and incredibly erudite. I’ll remember fondly our Sunday matches and our japes on the quiz holiday in Rhodes.” Jacob died on 23 March of complications from Covid-19.

****

Ruth Burke, 82

Burke was the fourth victim of coronavirus in Northern Ireland, according to her daughter Brenda Doherty. She said her mother had “unbelievable strength and suffered many challenges in her life”, adding: “Unfortunately this was one that she was not going to overcome.” In an emotional video on Facebook she said: “We couldn’t be with her when she passed. We’ll not see her coffin, we’ll not get to kiss her.” Doherty urged the public to stop panic-buying and stay indoors. “My mum would not have believed how people are behaving. She would have thought better of society. My mum was a woman who loved life. If you value life, you will stay in and do as you’ve been asked.” Burke’s death was announced by Doherty on 24 March.

****

Marita Edwards, 80

She was a very gentle loving woman and a friend to everybody,” Edwards’s son Stuart Loud said. She grew up in the village of Mangotsfield near Bristol. She worked as a cleaner in a factory in the city and brought up two children with her first husband. She found a new life with her second husband on the other side of the Bristol channel in the village of Bulwark in Monmouthshire. She was a regular at the Conservative Club in Chepstow, where she enjoyed dancing. “She had a very rich social life, much better than mine,” said Loud. Edwards was a former captain of the women’s golf team at St Pierre country club in Chepstow, and continued to play golf until she was admitted to hospital for a routine operation in February. She died three weeks later of hospital-acquired Covid-19 a day after testing positive for the virus. Loud said: “She was a lovely lady and it was just a horrendous way to go. I just want to make people aware of that.”

****

Peter Myles, 77

Myles’s struggles with Covid-19 were documented on social media by his daughter, the actor Sophia Myles. She said she had done it to show the “harsh reality of the coronavirus”. In 2018 she tweeted about her father’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease. Before he retired in 2008, Myles was an Anglican vicar at St John’s church in Isleworth, west London, where he was described as a “liberal soul”. After being ordained in 1971, his first job as curate was in Tideswell in Derbyshire. He spent the rest of his career in west London, including stints as a priest at St Peter’s church in Notting Hill and as chaplain to the bishop of Kensington. In his final years he lived in a care home close to St John’s. He died on 21 March.

****

Wendy Jacobs

Jacobs was the headteacher of Roose primary school in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Her leadership of the school was repeatedly praised by inspectors. “This vibrant school provides a good quality of education with outstanding features,” they said in a recent report. The school’s chair of governors, Fred Chatfield, said her death was devastating for the school and the community. “This is a huge loss,” he said. Jacobs died on 22 March.

****

William Stern, 85

Born Vilmos György Stern in Budapest, Hungary, on 2 July 1935, Stern was imprisoned as a child in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the second world war. He shared his memories of Torah readings in the camp on the Shoah website. After the war he settled in London and went on to build a successful property empire. Stern Holdings collapsed in 1973 and in 1978 Stern was declared bankrupt with debts of £118m, a record that stood for 14 years. He was a member of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community in London.

****

Rina Feldman, 97

Like Stern, Feldman was a member of the ultra-orthodox Haredi community. No other details about her have been reported.

****

Jean Bradford Nutter

Bradford Nutter was the aunt of the former England rugby player Will Greenwood. In an Instagram post he said she “never did anything but bring sunshine into my life”. Greenwood said his aunt lived near his boarding school in Sedbergh, Cumbria. He said she was the eldest of three sisters and was in her 80s “but had so much living to do”. She died on 21 March.

****

Hassan Milani

Councillor Ali Milani, who was Labour’s parliamentary contender against Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip in the 2019 general election, revealed that his father, Hassan, had died after contracting the coronavirus on a trip to Iran. “In the early hours of this morning,” he said on Saturday, “my father tragically passed away after having contracted Covid-19. Please keep him in your prayers. This virus is taking millions all across the world.”

****

Craig Ruston, 45

Ruston, a rugby fan and father of two from Kettering, Northamptonshire, had been a footwear designer, including at Dr Martens, before being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He had been writing about his struggle with the condition before he tested positive for Covid-19. But his posts became less frequent as he began losing the strength in his upper body. In one of his last, he wrote about a dream he had of standing beside his wife and daughters at his own funeral. He wrote: “I don’t fear death, but I can tear myself to pieces if I dwell too long on what happens when I’m gone.” His family said he was “not ready to go”. He died on 16 March.

****

Leonard Gibson, 78

Described by his family as a “typical jolly Irishman”, Gibson died on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March. He was born in County Tyrone and had 12 siblings. After moving to South Yorkshire aged 26, he worked at the coking plant at Orgreave. In retirement he enjoyed gardening, but problems with his lungs forced him to move into a sheltered housing flat in Oughtibridge, near Sheffield. He died in Sheffield Northern general hospital after being diagnosed with Covid-19. His daughters, Lisa, an NHS worker, and Michelle, a teaching assistant, were not allowed to visit him in hospital. Lisa said: “It is sad that we weren’t able to be with Daddy, but the nurses were there for us.”

****

Nick Matthews, 59

Described as a “true legend” of the Avon and Somerset police, Matthews retired as an officer in 2010 after a heart attack. He and his wife, Mary, from Nailsea in Somerset, had a week’s holiday on the Canary island of Fuerteventura at the end of February. Matthews was taken to Bristol Royal Infirmary after complaining of breathing difficulties on 12 March. He died on 14 March after testing positive for Covid-19.

****

Darrell Blakeley, 88

Blakeley was a churchgoer from Middleton in Rochdale and sang in the choir. He had a beautiful voice, according to a spokeswoman for St Michael’s church. He was also regarded as a “gracious gentleman”, she said. He had underlying health conditions and fell ill after coming into contact with someone who had travelled to Italy. Blakeley was admitted to North Manchester general hospital on 3 March with sepsis. He tested positive for Covid-19 on 10 March and died three days later.

****

Kimberley Finlayson, 53

Finlayson was the first British victim of coronavirus to be named after she died on holiday on the island of Bali in Indonesia on 11 March. She was the founder of a dental communication business based in Shenley, Hertfordshire, one of the counties worst hit at the start of the outbreak in the UK. She had four children. Her colleagues paid tribute to her “passion, creativity and determination”. Finlayson had lung disease and diabetes.

🕊️🙏🕊️🙏🕊️🙏🕊️🙏

#u.s. news #politics #politics and government #uknews #uk news #uk #covidー19 #covid 19 #covid19 #covid2019 #covid2020 #corona virüsü #coronavirus #world news #worldpolitics

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stylinsonlibrary · 7 years ago

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JEALOUS HARRY FIC REC

Always make sure to read all tags/warnings/author’s notes before reading!

Now That It’s Over (8k)

“What are the odds we would both be at Mariano’s on a Thursday night?”

Louis’ shoulders tensed. What the hell was he doing here?

“Harry? Hi? The odds are pretty crazy, yeah.”

Harry smiled down at Louis the way he used to, but there was also a glint in his eye that Louis absolutely did not like. Harry was also dressed in his favorite black and white striped women’s jeans and a printed shirt only he would ever be able to pull off. It was quite rude of him to come and interrupt Louis, particularly while looking so good. Louis hadn’t seen him since he’d finished moving his shit out of what was once their shared flat, so this being the first time seeing him wasn’t exactly providence in Louis’ mind.

Or the one where Harry and Louis broke up two months ago, and Harry just might be sabotaging Louis’ dates.

Forever, Uninterrupted (8k)

Harry finds a mysterious picture in Louis’ bag one night and drives himself crazy over it. It’s definitely not what he thinks.

can’t go without you anymore (10k)

Harry Styles was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. This was award season. He wasn’t even nominated for anything, still everyone wanted a piece of him. But Harry was lonely. And a stressed and lonely Harry did no one good. What if one night his friends and his manager just ran into the most fitting boy for their friend? And what if maybe they set him up as Harry Styles personal assistant. It already sounds like the beginning of a disaster.

or Personal Assistant Louis Tomlinson is going to be the end of actor Harry Styles. This was a given.

We Can Be Greater (10k)

Louis, Harry, Zayn, Niall, and Liam, were simply five run away teens, desperately seeking a safe haven from their foster home. When they discovered an abandoned building, they entered it, their lives ceased to remain the same because they entered upon a different realm. A new universe, one in which they were superheroes.

The moment they reached this new world, they were desperately needed to defeat a villain; sounds cool right? Except they had no clue of their powers, this new world, the villain, or how to get back home. This is the story of how five outcasts turned from hooligans into heroes.

See Clearly Now (11k)

“My eyes are up here.”

What? Was— was Louis flirting with him?

Harry looked up — much too slowly, probably — and saw Louis watching him, his mouth quirked up on one side, a grin threatening to steal the pretty curve of his mouth.

“What?” Harry squeaked.

Louis put his hands on his hips, almost challenging Harry to look again, “I said...my eyes are up here.”

Harry felt something electric pass between them. He felt the need to take a step forward, call Louis’ bluff, see if he was more bark than bite.

Biting sounded really fun right about now.

OR a five-times fic where two guys, one college dorm room and a faulty door lead to a few embarrassing situations and finding out more about themselves and each other than they ever bargained for.

No One Else Will Do (13k)

Harry visibly takes a deep breath. “I’ll do it. I’ll…help you through your heat.” He looks more determined now as he stands up straighter and his eyes look at Louis more intensely.

“Yeah?” Louis doesn’t mean to sound so surprised but he’s sort of in a state of shock. He’s never been with an alpha before, and the fact that his first time is going to be with Harry— his best friend— well, he couldn’t really ask for anyone better if he’s honest.

It takes Louis’ early heat for Harry and Louis to figure things out.

End of the World Tonight (12k)

“You remember when you told me that you wanted to live with me for the rest of your life?” Louis asks. His voice trembles a bit, exposing exactly how much he hates what he’s about to do. How much he wishes that he wasn’t about to do it.

“I remember,” Harry says. His expression is a little lost, like he thinks that they’re about to have a fight and he’s not sure what they’re supposed to be fighting about. Louis closes his eyes because he has to, has to take a second to regain his courage. He can’t keep doing this. He can’t keep suffering, can’t keep killing himself trying to hide this. He’s ready. He’s been ready for a long time.

one more for the stars (16k)

It's different, and Louis knows that, because Harry's got so much riding on this - a career and a future and his whole life. There's talk of him going first overall in the draft, of entering the NFL after only two years in college, of going to New York or Seattle or Green Bay, and Louis wants to be there for him, wants to support him and help him make decisions, but he also kind of wants to pin him to the bed and cry and scream, What about me what about me what about me?

(au. Harry's the star quarterback and Louis is about to graduate. It's a heartbreak waiting to happen.)

ain't going backwards, won't ask for space. (17k)

They've been best friends for eight years, but have never acted on the sexual tension that's existed between them. And when they do, it's completely impossible to stop the feelings that arise from denying themselves of what was always meant to be.

or the one where two idiots fall in love after years of being just best friends.

kiwi (24k)

With a stuttered mixture of a laugh and a groan, Harry lets his head droop, pushes his forehead against Louis’ chest and leans into him, fingers curled around the railing.

"You’re driving me crazy,” he breathes.

Louis lets out a puff of laughter, and when Harry lifts his eyes, the look in Louis’ gaze is one he knows too well, so distinctively coy and mischievous and gently charming, his lips quirked up with a smirk. Harry’s heart falls into the palms of his playful hands. “You’re into it.”

AU. Harry plays on Saturday nights at The Motley. Louis bartends on Saturday nights at The Motley.

It’s a thing.

Counting The Steps Between Us (24k)

AU. So, yeah. That year abroad helped Harry establish that he is in love with his best friend. Now, if Louis would stop treating him like a little brother, that would be awesome. (Additional ingredients: a collapsing tree house, a lot of pining, the other three boys as Louis' new best mates from university, and a camping trip. Serve hot.)

everything comes back to you (29k)

Louis lets out a shuddering breath. “I love you,” he says.

“Fuck you,” Harry replies.

“You know that I’ve always loved you,” Louis continues, not stopping to acknowledge what Harry’s said.

Harry shakes his head. “I know, but sometimes I wonder if that ever went past us just growing up together. We were never apart Louis, never for so many years, and the minute we were you just left me. So sometimes, when I let myself think about it, I think maybe that’s why we don’t work. You were just so used to loving me because you didn’t know anything else.”

Louis and Harry, best friends since before either of them can remember, broke up four years ago. Louis has achieved his dreams of becoming the next big thing while Harry has stayed back, dedicating himself to his studies. Both are content to forget what they had together, until a tragedy brings them right back into each other's lives.

Show me wealth, I’ll show your heart (30k)

Harry knows the value of money. He knows how to negotiate numbers, knows its worth in engines, and knows the amount he needs to secure for his business. What he didn’t know was that, if spent wisely, money is the one thing he really doesn’t need.

Or AU where Harry has more money than he can handle, Louis can’t handle not having any, and they both find out the greatest wealth isn’t countable.

the beginning of everything (30k)

“How do you take it?” Harry asked, pouring tea into a cup.

“Just a dash of milk, please,” Louis cast a look over the small table, filled to capacity. “They’re very fond of you.”

Harry ducked his head, grinning. “They’re trying to impress you.”

Louis smiled, shaking his head. “Why would they want to do that?” he asked as he took the cup Harry passed to him, their fingers brushing for an instant.

“Empathy,” Harry said under his breath.

A Belle Époque AU set (mostly) in Paris in which Harry is a struggling artist, in more ways than one, and Louis is a successful theatre critic and a failed writer, more or less.

You’re the Light (31k)

Before beginning a new graduate school in the fall, Louis Tomlinson decides to spend the summer working in Chicago as an editor’s assistant for the Chicago Tribune newspaper and staying with his old college roommate. What he finds on his first day of work is a tall, gorgeous editor named Harry who has the most beautiful green eyes he’s ever seen—and who also happens to be his new boss.

Follow Your Heart (32k)

“What do you mean exactly?” Harry asks. Louis’ heart is threatening to beat out of his chest. His stomach is sinking, and he’s holding his breath waiting for the words he knows are coming.

“We think it would be best to market you guys as a couple,” Simon tells them. The tone in his voice makes Louis think there’s no wiggle room to even try to argue about it.

Louis’ heart stops and his breath hitches. This cannot be happening. This has to be some sort of dream. Actually this has to be some sort of prank, really. He absentmindedly looks around the room for any evidence of hidden cameras or microphones to no avail.

“You’re kidding,” Louis says flatly. Louis is pretty sure a lot of the music industry these days likes to hide the fact that an artist isn’t straight, afraid that it might affect record sales and now he’s sitting in the middle of an executive label meeting being told he had to be in a relationship with his best friend–who’s a boy he’s been secretly in love with for most of his adolescence–in order to sell records? What kind of alternate universe level bullshit is he living in?

(your heartbeat) rang true inside my bones (32k)

Harry goes as Louis’ date for a weekend wedding. He ends up taking the role a bit too seriously.

“Hey,” Harry hears himself say just as Louis climbs back into the car. He ducks down, holding onto the roof to look at Louis who cocks his brow at him and says, “What?”

“I meant it,” Harry starts. “Like, I’d do it. I’d be your date for the wedding. If it’d make you feel less awful about being there and if you want me to, I’ll do it. I promise I’ll be good.”

you burn with the brightest flame (42k)

Harry frowns, thinking that he shouldn’t have to be glad about what gender he is, just like omegas shouldn’t have to be scared and nervous that anyone they meet might want to hurt them. He wonders why none of this occurred to him before, how he possibly could’ve just sailed through life before this without realizing how fortunate he was being born a beta. That seems a bit too serious of a conversation for Simon Cowell’s waiting room, though, so Harry puts an arm around Louis’s shoulders and teases, “You say that like you’re old or something. Two years isn’t that big of a difference!”

“Tell me that when you’re eighteen and looking back on this conversation,” Louis says.

“Well that’s - that’s different, isn’t it? We could be anywhere in two years, we could be famous.”

Louis’s eyes light up, his smile widening. “You think so?”

…or, the X-Factor Era A/B/O fic.

Cupid’s Chokehold (35k)

But - naively, stupidly, blindly - Harry holds out hope for a love that’s written across the stars. He can’t give up the feeling that there’s someone out there, waiting for him.

He’s just going to have to wait for them, too.

Or: Louis is a Cupid who tries to match up Niall and Harry. It doesn’t work out as planned.

Wonderwall (43k)

Taking the sheet cluttered with times available for the next few weeks, Louis notices a pattern in the list. The name of the person Perrie had just mentioned: Harry Styles. It’s written at least seven times, and three of which are during timeframes Louis wants.

“Who the fuck is Harry Styles?”

“You’re about to find out,” she answers, pointing over Louis’ shoulder.

Or a Love/Hate College AU where Louis Tomlinson is the lead singer of The Rogue - the most popular band on campus - and Harry Styles is the talented Freshman unknowingly challenging all that.

Let Me Touch You Where Your Heart Aches (46k)

Alcohol was all he could taste. Alcohol and Harry, and he didn’t mind one bit. Harry kissed him back with just as much fervent heat. He pushed Louis against the taxi door and pulled his head back, breathing hot and heavy against his lips. “Let’s go, yes?”

Or a Friends with Benefits AU, in which Louis falls in love and Harry is jealous. There is some Karaoke singing somewhere in there, because how do you write a romantic comedy without a Karaoke scene?

Some Things Take Root (50k)

AU. Louis’ ex doesn’t get jealous of anyone besides Harry. Harry helps Louis use that to his advantage.

Love's On The Line, Is That Your Final Answer? (53k)

Harry can’t believe it when Louis, the boy he’s always had a tempestuous rivalry with, asks him to be his boyfriend. Well, pose as his boyfriend, that is—for a new television game show in which young couples are quizzed on how well they know each other for a jackpot of thirty grand.

Reluctantly, Harry agrees—because he's got student loans to pay off, hasn't he? What's the harm? And he can totally deal with keeping his secret thing for Louis under wraps too. This is all just to win some money. It's fine. No big deal. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, everything. Obviously.

Amazing Sin (56k)

Gears started turning in Louis’ head. Purely mischievous gears that had Louis formulating a revenge plan against Taylor. He’d had enough of sitting around and taking it. If she was going to call him a whore, then fine, he’ll act like one for real. “I’m going to say something, and as my friends you are obligated to love me anyway.”

“This can’t be good,” Niall said, Zayn just groaned.

“So I know we have this strict ‘no lashing back at Taylor’ rule with me, but what if I can get press revenge a different way?” Louis asked. He wasn’t expecting an answer, because they knew by now to just go with it. “What if I stole her boyfriend?”

Or, the story of Louis ‘Steal Your Man’ Tomlinson.

Strawberries & Cigarettes (71k)

Harry looks up and immediately freezes. Next to Ms. Archie stands the boy from just the other day. The boy with the leather jacket and chipped black nails, that might or might not be sketched in the very book Harry has just placed on the table in front of him. The leather jacket is missing today, probably because they aren’t allowed as part of their required uniform attire, but Harry can still see the fading black nail polish on his nails, and eyeliner around his eyes. Harry’s mouth goes a little dry. This boy is so intriguing to him.

“Ye-yes, Ms. Archie?” Harry tries to play it cool, but he’s almost positive that his cheeks are burning red, and he’s relieved neither of them can tell how fast his heart is beating in his chest.

The boy seems to also recognize Harry, because his lips curve into a knowing smirk.

“Harry is at the top of his class. He’s your best bet at getting familiar with things around here.” She explains.

Louis nods, his smirk still very prominent on his face. “Thank you Ms. Archie. I’ll be sure to take advantage of young Harold here.”

Two stories, eleven years, and the two boys that never stopped loving each other.

Pinkies Never Lie (83k)

“I just think if we’re both into it and neither of us is looking for something serious, why not?” Harry asks, eyes soft and voice sweet. He pauses and gives Louis a moment or two to answer.

There are countless reasons why Louis shouldn’t agree to this, but in the end, none of them really matter. This will end with Louis in pieces, but he’s been in love with Harry for four years. There was only ever one answer.

“Yeah,” Louis answers finally, hoping his voice sounds normal. “Why not?”

AU in which Louis hates his job and loves Harry, Harry just wants a distraction, everyone else wants them to get their shit together, and Louis learns the hard way that new beginnings are only possible when something ends.

You Drive Me Crazy (but it feels alright) (102k)

Bridget Jones’ Diary AU.

“Harry is not short for Harold,” he corrects, his voice as thick as molasses. He lowers his eyes to Louis’ sequined lapels, rubbing one between two fingers. “Is this small or extra small? It looks lovely.”

Louis breaks away from his grip with a petulant huff and pushes him back with two fingers.

“You’re mocking me. Again.”

Harry smiles and it’s a real honest swoop of his lips this time. Louis’ stomach swoops with them.

A Taste of Desire (104k)

“As forward as I have been with you this evening, I am also aware this dinner party isn’t the place to conduct business.” Mr. Tomlinson chuckles quietly to himself, shooting a subtle glance across the table towards their hostess. “And besides, I am sure our hostess would be horribly disappointed to learn that we went away this evening with a business agreement and not a mating one.”

Harry, who had been sipping his wine, coughs harshly at this. He splutters, unaccustomed to such blatant statements about mating.

Mr. Tomlinson continues to laugh quietly, clearly pleased at Harry’s reaction.

“Mrs. Humphreys promised that there was an alpha attending the dinner tonight that I would certainly get on well with,” Mr. Tomlinson continues, voice teasing. “She assured me that we would have much in common since we both work with mills.” Mr. Tomlinson glances at Harry, eyes flashing with mirth. “Little did she know that would be where our mutual interests began and ended.”

Or, a Victorian ABO where Harry is the owner of the most successful cotton mill in Manchester, and Louis is an opinionated social activist about to disrupt Harry’s world.

falling into you (143k)

In the grand scheme of adolescence and boyhood, Harry was still working himself out, so far with little luck. But four things he could say for certain: 1) he'd been at the top of his class all through primary and secondary school, 2) he was the shittiest alpha to ever walk the earth, 3) Liam Payne never let him forget it, and 4) he’d been in love with this boy, Louis Tomlinson, ever since he was fifteen years old.

He kissed my lips, I taste your mouth (290k)

When Louis moves into the flat next to Harry’s, neither of them thinks it will change their lives. Louis is stuck in a relationship with his controlling and overly possessive boyfriend who he loves too much to break up with. Harry is content, seeking refuge from the snobby world he grew up in and forging a new path for himself. He does happen to have a habit of wanting to fix people though and when he meets Louis, the gorgeous man with a prat of a boyfriend, he finds himself trying to do just that. While Harry tries to avoid getting tangled in a messy situation, Louis tries to deny that there’s a niggling voice in the back of his head that prefers Harry to his own boyfriend. While both determinedly refuse to let change come, they fail to notice that exact force wrapping around them and pulling them tighter together until there just might be no escape from the feelings brewing within.

#larry stylinson #larry stylinson fic rec #larry fic rec #jealousy #jealous harry #masterpost

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crashdevlin · 6 years ago

Text

Good Things: Part 2

part one

You were lucky, when the demon started making its way through the wake, to be wearing a silver anti-possession amulet. Elvis, Alicia and Jody weren't so lucky.

At one point, you were searching the manor with Mary, the stunningly beautiful and young mother Winchester. "I saw how Dean was looking at you. His father used to look at me like that." She said, quietly, not looking at you. She concentrated on clearing the room.

"Oh?" You couldn't think of anything better to say.

"I rejected John when he first asked me out. He was a Marine. I didn't want a soldier. Spent my whole life around hunters, didn't need more of the macho BS in my world." Mary finally turned to look at you. "Dean looks at you like he's trying to figure out how to win you over."

You cleared your throat. "I... don't... Dean has a reputation." You weren't sure why that was what came out of your mouth.

"I've heard." She confirmed.

"And I'd've been fine with that rep, but he was talking about some chick he had a connection with and I'm not the kind of chick guys like Dean cheat on their girlfriends with... I mean... I can't... Look at me."

"He doesn't have a girlfriend." Mary put her hand on your shoulder. "You should talk to him when this is over."

You did. After the exorcism, as you were watching Asa, Randy and Elvis being sent home in smoke, you bit your lip and approached him. "Thought I should actually say 'Goodbye' this-"

"You should come to breakfast with us." He interrupted. "We're takin' Mom to get some bacon. What do you say?"

You smiled. "Well, does this look like a body that says 'no' to bacon?"

You sat between Sam and Jody in a diner booth in North Dakota. Dean sat across from you, sharing a large plate of bacon with Mary. "Okay, craziest thing you've ever hunted?" Dean asked.

"Uh, probably the transsexual witch who cursed her community college to wake up in the body of someone of the opposite sex so they'd understand how she felt." You answered, before taking a bite of pancake.

"When you say 'she'..." Sam trailed off. It was a genuinely curious question.

"Born 'Michael', became 'Michelle'."

"What'd you do with her?" Mary asked, drinking down some coffee.

"Well, she hadn't actually hurt anyone, just confused the fuck out of 'em for about 16 hours, and she did it out of an overwhelming desire to be understood, so I put her in contact with a Wiccan priestess I know. Last I heard, she was flourishing in her new coven, really embraced the 'Harm ye none' thing."

"Wicca is new agey white-" Dean started to explain, but Mary shot him a death glare.

"Gardnerian witchcraft has been around since the Fifties, Dean. 'Wicca' replaced 'Witch' because the hippies wanted to beat the negative connotations, wanted everyone to know they weren't wart-covered crones in candy houses trying to curse everyone and eat little children."

"Oh, we met her." Sam spoke up.

"Who?" You and Jody chimed in together.

"The witch from 'Hansel and Gretel'. She was turning crappy adults into shitty kids so that she could eat them. Hansel was in on it."

You looked between the brothers. "You're bullshitting."

"Swear to God. She was one of the last old-timey witches from the Grand Coven. Probably only a small handful of 'em left. Rowena doesn't count." Dean answered Sam's unasked question.

"Who's Rowena?"

"A tiny Scottish ball of fury and dark magic. Not really evil, but definitely not one of the good guys." Dean responded.

"She got kicked out of the Grand Coven for being too ambitious." Sam followed up.

"Not to mention: you know Crowley? That's his mom."

"Crowley, the demon?" You asked.

"Crowley, the douchebag." Jody snorted derisively.

You laughed. "Okay. Somebody else, weirdest hunt you ever been on?"

"There was a Shifter who spent a year following Paul Simon's tour. He was killing people who had tickets to the shows so he could take their spot." Mary said, around a piece of bacon.

"Being the reason Bobby Singer found out Leviathans are allergic to borax was pretty weird." Jody provided.

"What's a Leviathan?"

"They almost ate the world, what, five years ago?" Sam asked Dean, who nodded. "They were seriously low-key about it, though. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of them."

"You sound like a hipster." You laughed. "So, what about you two? The legendary Winchester Brothers must have been on some ridiculous hunts."

"Oh, all kinds. Let's see, top of my head. Bloody Mary, killer clown ghost, haunted movie set where I got really into my role as PA, we killed Santa, the angels once wiped our memories and gave us new identities working office jobs. There was that time with the dragons. Oh, and when we went back in time and met Samuel Colt and killed a phoenix." Dean went through the list alternating between excitement and boredom.

"Not to forget everything Gabriel did to us. That was all ridiculous. Oh, and that alternate universe Balthazar sent us to where our lives were a moderately successful primetime TV show." Sam added.

"And Chuck's books about us."

"And finding out that Chuck was God."

"And not dying in the dust-up between God and his sister." Dean turned to Mary with a smile. "And getting Mom back as reward for mediating a reconciliation between them."

You stared at the table, going through everything you just heard. "Holy shit." You gasped out, finally. "I... I knew you guys started and stopped the apocalypse a few times, but... holy shit. Back and forth through time, alternate realities, you know God and he has a sister?!"

"You should stick around. We're bound to blow your mind some more. Crowley and our angel friend, Cas, are working together to find Lucifer, who was most recently seen in the body of has-been glam rocker, Vince Vincente."

"Oh, holy... Lucifer was in Ladyheart."

"No, Lucifer was in a dude who was in Ladyheart." Dean corrected.

"Wow. Your lives really are legendary."

"Well, you never know. Stick around. It might rub off on you. Then, you could be a legend." Jody nudged you, lightly, as Mary looked down with a smile. The moms were conspiring together.

"Yeah, well... I'm not sure if I could handle that."

"You don't know til you try, do you?" Dean smirked at you from across the table.

You took a deep breath. You had one more tool in your tool-bag to try to fend off whatever the hell was happening here: blunt, honest confrontation. "You are putting in a lot of effort here to get your 'I Fucked A Fatty' badge, aren't'cha?"

Everyone at the table jerked and the mood immediately fell into a limbo of apprehension as Dean blinked at you. "What?" He said after several long seconds.

"Oh, come on. This is obviously some Playboy Scavenger Hunt, right? Your list of conquests, a 'Fuck-it List'?" You took a bite of your pancake and looked pointedly across the table at him. "I'm a novelty, right? Bang a black chick, bang a latina, a milf, a mature... twins?"

Dean nodded, slowly, and licked his lips. "You think I've been flirting with you, trying to get you in bed, so that I can cross 'fat chick' off my list? Just makin' sure I got this right." You took a drink of your coffee and returned his uncomfortable gaze. He nodded again, then leaned forward. "When I was twenty-three, I met a chick named Ursula Green at a bar. She was five-foot-nothing, three hundred pounds, wearing a red halter top and a skirt with a split in the side clean up to her hip. She danced like no one was watching and threw a beer bottle at the redneck who told her to 'take her fat ass home' and I grabbed two nice big handfuls of her ass when I took her back to her home that night."

You swallowed. His green eyes bored into your soul as he continued. "She crossed 'fat chick' off my list." The way he said it was like he couldn't believe he was saying those words. "Now, I don't know what you've heard about me and I'm sure that I've earned a bit of that reputation... but I am not gonna sit here and let you think that I've been talkin' to you just because you're a little on the chunky side and that makes you a novelty. I don't know what kinda men you generally let into your life, y/n, but I don't play games like that."

You opened your mouth but no words came out. The other three occupants of the booth table all looked very uncomfortable, so you cleared your throat and stood. You threw a ten dollar bill on the table and walked out of the diner.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"I'm going home, Dean." You grabbed the handle of your driver's side door and pulled your key.

"Yeah, I got eyes, y/n." He growled, putting a hand on your car door to keep you from opening it. "Why?"

You turned to him, exasperated. "Because I don't know what to do!" You shouted, pulling away from your door and leaned against the backseat window.

"I've never had a man want me for anything more than a single-night novelty fuck, or worse a pity fuck, Dean, and I don't know what to do about a man like you wanting-"

"What do you mean, 'a man like me'?" Dean interrupted.

"A preposterously handsome biblical hero who shouldn't even look at a woman like me."

"What do you mean 'a woman like you'?" Dean shook his head. "Look, y/n, more than what I saw from you last year and-and what I saw from you with Jael last night, I have asked about you. Every hunter I've talked to since Spirit Lake has a story about you, some way that you've helped them in the past." You opened your mouth to argue that you weren't anything special and you'd always just done what any hunter would do, but Dean stepped closer to you and you were suddenly struck with how tall the man was. "You think outside the box, you put others first, you are the epitome of selfless and goddamn it, you're gorgeous."

You looked down. "That's not true..."

"Stop acting like you don't see it." Dean demanded.

For some reason you needed to resist him. "See what? I've got mirrors in my house, Winchester. I see-"

"You obviously don't see. You don't see what I see."

"Are you kidding me?! You really expect me to believe that you met me, spent two days with me, and I-I somehow impressed you enough that you've spent the last year with me on your mind? I'm not an idiot!"

"Yeah, not an idiot but you sure are blind." Dean took another step closer to you, looking down at you with a confused annoyance. "Fuck, y/n. Why the hell won't you-"

"Because it's too good to be true!" You exclaimed, pushing off from the side of your car and standing up to him, ignoring that his height was so intimidating.

"Good things don't happen to me, Dean, they never have. So when I have a stunningly handsome man telling me I'm gorgeous, it sets off my bullshit alarm."

"Good things don't happen to you because you run away as soon as they start!" Dean insisted. "You think those extra pounds around your middle are your defining characteristic, but they aren't. That weight is nothing and you need to stop focusing so much on it. I didn't even clock you as fat until you started that shit inside. This isn't bullshit, y/n. I leave my lies for when I'm on a hunt."

You bit your lip and looked up into his stunning green eyes. "Dean, I-"

His face softened. "I'm not trying to get you to jump in bed with me, y/n." He reached out and brushed a stray hair out of your face. His hand rested against your ear and his fingers twirled your hair. "But don't run. Stay. Let the good things happen... in their own time."

You pulled your phone out of your pocket and presented it to him. "Put your number in. I'll text you."

"You're still gonna leave?" He asked, disappointed, as he took a step back and took the phone out of your hand.

"I've got a hunt in Tennessee. Only reason I'm not on it already was for Asa." You answered. "But... I'm interested in... letting the good thing... this good thing... happen."

"The cautious approach. I'm all right with that." He said, tapping his thumbs against the screen of your cell phone. "I just texted myself so that I have your number, too. A warning: I drunk text." He smiled as he handed your phone back.

"Okay. As long as you don't send pictures I haven't requested... I'm okay with that."

"There gonna be pictures you do request?"

You chuckled, turning your forgotten key in the driver's door. "Maybe, Winchester."

"Can I request pictures?" He asked, as you got into your car.

"Not yet." You smiled as you turned your engine over and headed out.

Part Three

#spn #reader-insert #fanfic #dean/reader #eventual smut #plus size reader #self esteem issues #cassie writes stuff

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possiblyimbiassed · 7 years ago

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Sherlock and the media – ‘the full story’?

I’ve been thinking of writing this meta for a long time, but maybe now is as good a moment as ever? For the umpteenth time in the history of this show, a large part of the audience seems to pay more attention to what’s said in the media about it, than what’s said in the actual show. This show is screaming to us ‘don’t believe everything you hear from the media – it’s fairy tales!’ The show runners have told us repeatedly to not believe everything they say about the show, because they’re ‘lying liars who lie’. And yet… Same thing as always.

So let’s pay attention to the actual show instead. What is it with the media cover of Sherlock and John in this show – what role does it play? An essential role; in fact, I believe it’s one of the most important topics in BBC Sherlock. I’ll go through it episode for episode, so please bear with me.

Ariane De Vere’s transcripts are a veritable gold mine for this kind of research; all the spoken words are transcribed, but also what we see as text in the show, plus descriptions of the scenes. I can’t stress enough how useful this is.

I looked up all the times the words ‘press’, ‘paper’, ‘media’ and ‘journalist’ occurred in the dialogue or the descriptions, and the hits were so many that it almost got a bit worrisome. There are media references in every single episode except TFP – even in MHR - and in some of them media plays a central role.

Observations:

To begin with, John and Sherlock read newspapers a lot. This might give a touch of domesticity to the scenes at 221B, but maybe it could also mean something more deep and symbolic. Media is of course useful for Sherlock’s professional work, and we often see him studying newspaper clips as data collection for the cases. But in general, it’s not exactly a positive picture of the media that this show paints; all the contrary in fact.

Secondly, the whole show begins with a case that alerts the media. Apart from the scenes with John Watson’s solitary bedsit, the first thing we see in ASiP is a supposed suicide followed by the press. It escalates to a bigger police press conference when the number of similar ‘suicides’ grows to three. One of the journalists seems to be a bit sensationalist, since she’s immediately asking about serial killers and the public’s safety. Sherlock appears to have the phone numbers to all the attending journalists, since he repeatedly sends them the same text message, synchronized with Lestrade’s statements: “Wrong!” This indicates, to me, that the media isn’t getting the right picture of the events; thus, it’s not a reliable source.

This is a literal monster-post, so I’ll put most of it below the cut.

The forth victim of ‘suicide’ in ASiP is from the media according to Sherlock, going by the ‘alarming shade of pink’ of her clothing. (And what does he imply by this? Maybe that media people tend to want to draw attention to themselves, when they rather should reflect other people and the events?)

TBB Another media guy is murdered; Brian Lukis, a freelance journalist. This topic sounded promising to me; was this an investigative journalist onto some interesting case-related info? But in the end he turns out to have been a smuggler who was suspected for treason by his own criminal gang and executed. His diary does help Sherlock and John to solve the case though.

TGG Sherlock has collected old newspaper articles from the eighties about Carl Powers, the young swimmer who was killed by a supposed seizure in a pool. This info was wrong, however, as Sherlock could prove in what became his first ‘case’. But no-one listened. In the next case in TGG, media is gossiping about a dead celebrity – Connie Prince - and her family relations, which leads Sherlock on the track of the murderer. John and Sherlock themselves pretend to be from the press when they interview the victim’s brother. The murderer turns out to be the brother’s lover, who is crowded by the press when the police take him away.

ASiB This is where Sherlock and John start being famous; thanks to John describing their cases on his blog they have become an ‘Internet phenomenon’, and even Scotland Yard reads it. The press creates Sherlock’s famous deerstalker style when he grabs a random hat at a theatre crime scene to protect himself from photographers. But the effect is exactly the opposite; now Sherlock and John are suddenly ‘Hat-man and Robin’. The details of a news article (transcribed by someone in Ariane DeVere’s comment section here ) is particularly interesting; this is where media starts to make insinuations about the “confirmed bachelors” at 221B and the “salacious truth about their home life”.

(By the way – this newspaper also claims that John’s blog “has become one of the Internet’s most visited websites”. Yes; it got stuck on 1895 hits in ASiB, but if this newspaper is right (never trust that, though ;) ) the number from T6T – 18 493 – cannot possibly be correct either; the Internet is a vast thing… )

Sherlock doesn’t like his deerstalker image at all, but John publishes it on his blog, claiming some dubious reason for it: “People like the hat”. He thinks the whole hat thing is funny and can’t seem to resist teasing Sherlock about it when the picture shows up in a paper in THoB.

The central case in THoB is about Henry Knight, who believes a gigantic monster hound killed his father 20 years ago, a mythical animal which has eventually become the local tourist attraction of Grimpen village in Dartmoor. Media helps greatly to feed this myth, when TV makes a spooky reportage of it where Henry is interviewed. Sherlock does not approve of this take of the events, however; he stresses that he prefers to do his own editing. (Another little comment on media’s role, on the show’s meta level? Or maybe a hint about his mind palace being active?).

(In this same episode, Sherlock is also suspected of being a journalist when he starts asking questions about the Hound, but he quickly denies this).

TRF This is the point of no return I believe; Sherlock and John start getting literally harassed by the media. In fact the whole episode is a big media circus. Every new case of any public importance that Sherlock solves, the press seems to be present. It annoys Sherlock to receive unwanted gifts of gratitude in public – especially when Scotland Yard (smirkingly) gives him a new deerstalker to fit with his (false) press image. It’s also in this episode that Sherlock finds hidden cameras inside his and John’s flat. We’re never told who put them there, though; it could be Mycroft (who talks about ‘surveillance’ in ASiP), it could be Moriarty (who according to John’s blog breaks into 221B around this time and makes a video of it) or it could be someone from media.

By TRF, the ‘confirmed bachelor’ insinuations are suddenly all over the tabloids, a fact that now seems to worry John to the point of telling Sherlock that they “need to be more careful”.

I find this particularly interesting, because for the first time John is reacting negatively to their fame – which he is personally responsible for, having tried to draw attention to Sherlock’s work with his blog posts for quite some time. And John was never particularly ‘careful’ about the things he wrote about Sherlock. But now the whole thing seems to be descending into the area of homophobia; the papers’ badly hidden speculations about John and Sherlock being a gay couple are done in a sensationalist way, violating their privacy. John doesn’t take this lightly, but actually seems to blame Sherlock for it, who never wanted public attention in the first place (“try to stay out of the news”…) Shouldn’t John have to eat his own words here, having claimed earlier that ‘people want to know about the real you’? Which means they’ll also want to know about the ‘real’ John Watson? John seems to have some negative experience of this, going by how he now describes the media:

I believe this point in the story is crucial; here Sherlock starts to see himself as ‘bad for John’, believing that it’s he, Sherlock, who is drawing unwanted attention to John. If homophobia is personified by Moriarty in this show, this is where it starts to seriously persecute Sherlock, and by proxy John. Maybe this is the real reason why Sherlock faked his death and disappeared from John’s life for two years? John was threatened by media’s homophobia, which made Sherlock believe it was basically his fault, and that he ‘needed to disappear’ so John wouldn’t be associated with him any more, at least until the storm had blown over? Perhaps that’s why Sherlock was looking sad when John couldn’t see him, as Molly suggested? I strongly suspect this is actually the case.

This is also the point in the story where Moriarty appears again, commits crimes to drag Sherlock into his little ‘game’ again and meets him for the first time since the pool scene in TGG. And the media – press and TV - cover it all thoroughly, to the tunes of ‘Sinnerman’ by Nina Simone. It’s all so suggestive that I believe the homophobic implications must be intentional.

There’s also Moriarty’s trial at the Old Bailey and Sherlock put behind bars for contempt, in spite of being summoned there as a mere witness. This is the same court room and very similar procedure as that of famous writer Oscar Wilde in 1895 (same number of hits that John’s blog was stuck on in ASiB, by the way). There’s even a sub-textual pun about it in the press: “Crown Jewel thief is to be tried at the Old Bailey.” The same prison (Pentonville) figures, where Wilde was held in hard labour two years for ‘gross indecency’, which broke down his health and spirit entirely and eventually led to his premature death. But homophobia Moriarty walks free, after having blackmailed the jury.

In another detail beautifully captured by Ariane De Vere, The Guardian writes at the end of their article: “The case is riddled with irony and intrigue but perhaps reflects a deeper malaise that seems to be at the heart of a society.” Is this ‘malaise’ perhaps meant to be homophobia?

(I’m aware many of these things have been pointed out before, by meta writers far more eloquent than me. I just think they deserve to be mentioned again and not be forgotten. Feel free to link to those meta if you have the links at hand).

During Moriarty’s trial, Sherlock meets a particularly nasty tabloid journalist in the men’s rest room: Kitty Riley. Kitty is pretending to be a fan and tries to flirt with him in an over-sexualised way, in order to get some juicy story out of him. Which Sherlock of course immediately sees through. He deduces an ink smudge on her wrist: “Journalist. Unlikely you’d get your hands dirty at the press”. So - what does this tell us about Sherlock’s view of journalists? Not willing to do ‘leg work’? When he refuses to give an interview, Kitty chases after him, starts making insinuations about him and John and offers to help him “set the record straight” for the press. It ends with a furious Sherlock expressing his disgust right into her Dictaphone:

Some time after this, John is summoned to Mycroft’s Diogenes Club to talk about Sherlock. It turns out Kitty Riley has published a defamatory story about him in The Sun - a big tabloid known for its misogyny, homophobia and Thatcherism during the eighties, with some insulting right-wing messages that even its own print workers refused to print. Possibly a hint in Sherlock’s little comment to Kitty about not getting her hands dirty at the press? When John sees the tabloid he asks Mycroft: “You read this stuff?” The article claims that Sherlock is a fraud, supposedly revealed by his ‘close friend’ Richard Brook (Moriarty in disguise).

Interestingly, when the Chief Superintendent of NSY later orders Lestrade to go arrest Sherlock, after Donovan has told him about her (very poorly founded) suspicions regarding Sherlock, he refers to him as “That bloke that’s been in the press” – a direct cause-and-effect scenario regarding media’s influence? Another interesting thing is that Moriarty claims himself (at their later encounter in Kitty’s apartment) to be an actor, a ‘story teller’ – something that he then repeats when he meets Sherlock next time, up at the roof top of Barts hospital: “’Genius detective proved to be a fraud.’ I read it in the paper, so it must be true. I love newspapers. Fairy tales. And pretty Grimm ones, too.”

And consequentially, after Sherlock has jumped, we see Mycroft reading the headlines and straplines of The Sun: “Suicide of fake genius” and “Super-sleuth is dead” and “Fraudulent detective takes his own life”. Indeed; in this show the media is not depicted in anything remotely like a positive light.

MHR In this little interlude in the hiatus between TRF and TEH, we get another noteworthy detail: As Sherlock travels around Eurasia solving crimes in disguise, he manages to get someone called Trepoff sentenced for murder (a reference to ACD canon) in Germany. And the case makes it to the headlines of the British press: CAM Global News writes “Trepoff ‘Guilty’ Sensation!” So this is Charles Augustus Magnussen’s news empire – the media personified. More about that later. And who has the ‘guilty sensation’? Who is feeling guilty? Could it possibly have to do with Sherlock feeling bad for what he did to John?

TEH The episode starts with Anderson trying to make a case for Sherlock still being alive and theorizing about how he made it, while the TV reporters are telling the world that Sherlock has been posthumously freed of all accusations; Moriarty did exist for real (they don’t mention Jim’s supposed suicide though). But the blame is now on the police - never on the media! At the end of the episode, Sherlock seems to have resigned to his media image; now that he has ‘returned from the dead’ and finally meets the press, he puts on his deerstalker and talk to the reporters outside 221B. It’s unclear to me why he actually does this - any suggestions?

TSoT By the time we reach this episode, media attention has turned to other stuff: a series of bank robberies have been committed during the last 1½ years, and according to the papers the police are ‘baffled’. Greg Lestrade thinks that the only way to capture them is ‘in the act’. But when an opportunity eventually comes to him, and they’re waiting for the criminals to fall in their trap, Greg receives an emergency call from Sherlock (or at least that’s what he thinks it is), and has to leave the credits to someone else.

Later in the episode John tells Sherlock about his friend and commanding officer, James Sholto, who lost a battle in Afghanistan and let a group of new soldiers to their death. Sholto is now living isolated because “the press and the families gave him hell”, and consequently he receives death threats. Yet another negative example of media’s influence. And when John and Sherlock later visit the Queen’s Household Guard to speak to private Bainbridge, Major Reed receives John in a rather condescending manner. Reed suspects him of being a journalist, and doesn’t want to let him in. But in spite of this, we are yet again confronted with “I’ve seen you in the papers - hang around with that detective – the one with the silly hat”. No end, apparently, to the negative influence the press has on John’s and Sherlock’s work.

Another case in this episode shows the Mayfly Man, who uses the newspapers’ obituary columns to find empty apartments where he dates certain women for just one night. There’s no sex involved, though; he just does this to get info about Major Sholto, whom he intends to kill. It might be of interest that the criminal in this case is the photographer of John’s wedding. Which could mean, if you want to look at it symbolically, that ‘death in the newspapers’ is connected to taking photos of people, which leads to attempts on their lives.

HLV And here we get to Charles Augustus Magnussen (CAM); a villain whom Sherlock loathes. On John’s and Mary’s wedding in TSoT he sent a card saying: “...Oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM. Wish your family could have seen this.” Which makes ‘Mary’ look worried, as if there is a threat to this.

In HLV we learn that CAM is a petty but very powerful blackmailer who owns a news imperium. Sherlock sees him as a shark with dead eyes and is absolutely disgusted: “I’ve dealt with murderers, psychopaths, terrorists, serial killers. None of them can turn my stomach like Charles Augustus Magnussen”. “He uses his power and wealth to gain information. The more he acquires, the greater his wealth and power. I’m not exaggerating when I say that he knows the critical pressure point on every person of note or influence in the whole of the Western world and probably beyond. He is the Napoleon of blackmail...”

This goes far beyond the evil Charles Augustus Milverton in ACD Canon, and I think this is extremely telling: media is depicted as a villain – by Sherlock as well as by the show itself. It’s not about individual journalists; it’s about the whole concept of persecuting people, finding their pressure points, stalking their private lives and publicly speculating about things like their sexual orientation. It’s a form of blackmail which is mostly legal (in the name of free speech), but which totally has the power to destroy lives. Like Jeff Hope in ASiP, media CAM drives people to suicide whenever they try to resist his blackmail.

Isn’t the fact that CAM personally intrudes into Sherlock’s apartment, uninvited and with armed body guards at his side, quite symbolic as well? They don’t go in with unsecured guns like the CIA agents in ASiB, so why would Sherlock even allow this? Why would he allow them to intimidate Mrs Hudson with their mere appearance (remember what Sherlock did to the CIA guy in ASiB)? Why would he allow CAM to urinate in his fireplace without even a protest? Something is too weird to be true here, but that’s for another meta ;). What I want to point out is the metaphorical similarity between CAM and media’s methods: violating people’s private lives, getting into their homes and doing what he wants with them, because he has a hold on them: anything an individual say can be used against them, to smear their reputation. And there’s no way of stopping him from printing rubbish; “The world is wet to my touch”, indeed.

I believe the symbolism is unmistakable here; media has its grip on the nation as long as people sheepishly lap up whatever ‘warm paste’ they are served; even the authorities are under its thumb. Sherlock believes that he can fool media CAM, by distracting CAM’s attention to something he is prepared of (his drug use). But he learns in HLV that this is delusional, because CAM has his weakest pressure point entirely in his hands: John Watson. And as we perceive in TSoT, CAM clearly has some dirt on ‘Mary’ that can potentially harm John, even if I do think this might be something different from what it seems to be in HLV. Following the logics of TRF, I believe it’s more likely this has something to do with destroying people’s private lives, than with assassins and such.

The interesting thing is that Sherlock doesn’t actually solve this crime; instead he kills CAM in frustration, which temporarily keeps John safe (or at least so Sherlock believes).

But before this, there’s the whole debacle with Sherlock being shot (by ‘Mary’). His fake girlfriend Janine (who is CAM’s PA) comes to visit him at the hospital, but is acting very strangely. Janine has of course all reason to be upset that Sherlock lied to her and used her only to get into her boss’s office. But instead she has taken a supposed revenge on Sherlock by telling the press that he’s some kind of a sex god and have the tabloids print it. Why would this be so detrimental to Sherlock’s reputation, considering the reigning heteronormativity in society? It would rather ‘set the records straight’, as Kitty put it in TRF, so I find this a bit hard to understand as revenge. The weirdest thing of it all, though, is that not a word is printed about the famous detective being shot and almost killed! How is it even possible to keep this secret?? This isn’t really media as we’ve known it from the show; too ‘good’ to be true. I can totally understand that it hurts Sherlock on a personal level to be called straight, though, particularly since he’s in love with John Watson. But that’s not public, is it?

TAB Even in TAB, which partly happens in the Victorian age (where ACD canon took place), media is mentioned repeatedly. The Strand Magazine with the Sherlock Holmes stories (directly from ACD Canon) is sold on a London street, and Watson gets a copy of course. But Holmes doesn’t seem the slightest interested in talking to the news-vendor. In other papers, there are lots of sensational headlines, though, about ‘murder, mystery and mayhem’. The unsolved case of Emilia Ricoletti - the vengeful ‘ghost’ - seems to have particular coverage. Later in the show, Holmes gathers the news clips and tries to solve the Ricoletti case inside 221B, while influenced by drugs. Apparently even here, where the events are confirmed as happening inside Sherlock’s mind, the press is gathered outside his home. And for some reason Mrs Hudson seems to be serving them tea…

T6T The few things I can find in T6T that has to do with media is a) that John (supposedly) says on his blog that “You’ll have seen on the news about how Sherlock recovered the Mona Lisa”and b) that Ajay, ‘Mary’s old AGRA companion whom Sherlock had been fighting with about a Thatcher bust, seems to have a false identity as a journalist; Eshan Mohindra. Strangely, this is the third media person who gets murdered in this show (the first being Jennifer Wilson and the second Brian Lukis).

TLD In this episode, the media is back again as a concept; this time in the form of entourage around Culverton Smith, a philanthropist and TV celebrity who owns a hospital. According to Sherlock, though, Culverton is “the most dangerous and despicable human being”; a monster that “must be ended”. Sherlock is attacking Smith on social media, trying to make him confess to being a serial killer, but he gets caught in Smith’s public shows aimed to gain fame and sell products. There’s the Cereal Killer adverts and then Sherlock’s public chat to the hospitalized kids, together with Smith. But Sherlock seems unable to present any kind of evidence against Smith; at the end of the show we still have no idea who he has killed or where or when. But Sherlock gets his confession while Smith is trying to suffocate him (on his own request!). Hmm.

TFP In the latest episode of BBC Sherlock, media is surprisingly absent; not even 221B being blown up or the capture of Sherlock Holmes’ dangerous, murderous sister seems to have attracted any press attention (and not much of anyone else’s attention either, by the way). I wonder why that might be?

Anyway, this means we’ve now arrived to the end of my little monster-post research - thanks to everyone who has had the patience to read this far! Just for the fun of it, I’ve intentionally tried to write parts of this meta in a speculative way, in some ways resembling media’s methods of asking leading questions, of which there are many examples in the show. But even so, I think there are also plenty of evidence in it that begs the audience to pay attention to the mechanisms of media, and hopefully apply critical thinking to it.

In summary, I think the negative picture of media’s role in BBC Sherlock is blatantly obvious. What this actually means is not entirely clear to me, because in our society I believe media also has a very important positive role of spreading knowledge and important information, providing public insight into things like power abuse, investigating wrongdoings that otherwise never would be exposed, etc. This is not depicted, though. But since I tend to believe that this show is entirely presented from inside Sherlock’s head in one way or another, what we see might actually be Sherlock’s view of media. Which also would be consistent with his personal negative experience of them in TRF.

But in any case, the message I take from all these negative media references, is that we - the audience - should not just lap up whatever is said about this show in real life media. There’s definitely more to it than the ‘face value’.

Tagging some people who might be interested: @ebaeschnbliah @raggedyblue @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy

#media in sherlock

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its8simplejulesblog · 4 years ago

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Ever Since I Can Remember

I have been surrounded by ridiculously independent, confident women. My mother was/is a chemist, my grandmother’s took charge of their households, my aunts are all working jobs that they love while simultaneously raising children. My research bosses are both women, my managers at Disney were often women, my economics professor (and hopefully future mentor) is a woman and so many of my favorite language professors were women. It’s easy to see why I am the way I am haha. I truly believe that these women have shaped me in immeasurable ways across all aspect of life. However, when I found Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir on our bookshelf, I was a little bit intimidated to learn what my fate would be as a woman but let me tell you I was not disappointed.

Second Sex was written in the 1950s by feminist Simone De Beauvoir in France. It was roughly translated into English and is commonly referred to as required reading in both women studies and existentialism courses. The topics discussed follow womanhood through Destiny (biology), History, Myths, The Formative Years, Situation, Justifications, and Liberations.

The Destiny section, in my humble opinion, was the most boring (although still necessary). It essentially delves into the differentiations between the male and female sex biologically as well as how these biological factors are often apparent in animals as well. I was very pleased with her writing because she truly did not sugar coat anything at all and her opinions were very minimal in comparison to fact. In that regard, De Beauvoir compares the obligations of the male and female in terms of perpetuating a species. As i’m sure you’ve all learned in an intro either history or biology class, the intents and purpose of the male are to protect while the purpose of the female is to maintain. The female is the passive vessel and the man is the active instigator. That’s just how it is. I found it interesting that she discusses that it was actually commonly believed that the male had less of an active role in sexual reproduction than we know now, meaning that many people thought the sperm weren’t even necessary for reproduction. Anyyyway,

Historically accepted, these biological responsibilities contributed to what we’ve studied as the hunter-gatherer societies. It’s a biologically known fact that a higher percentage of a man’s body weight is attributed to muscle mass, therefore they were always out hunting. Women, on the other hand were left to their own devices at home. In fact, we know that the sole purpose of the woman at the time was to be a distraction for her husband. Her kids were often encouraged to “grow up” and “help out” but she was often doomed to a sedentary life. Not only that, but the nomads of patriarchal societies very seriously viewed women as sexual objects of pleasure, always giving and never taking. That’s why polyamorous relations were so common. They had no right to argue against at that point. There were some societies however, that had different views. In matriarchal societies the woman’s running of the household was more highly respected. The reasoning for this bleeds into the Myths section of the book.

Since ancient civilizations and the creation of the domestic community, both myth and religion have attributed the characteristics of the woman to that of nature. A theme commonly referred back to in this book is that woman is immanence while man is transcendence. This means that the woman represents “the divine” she is nature and the uncontrollable. This is an interesting view because as a pipeline debate, this has been seen as both a good and bad thing. The woman can represent beauty in the form of mother nature, or inherent evil if she is left to her own devices, and will therefore resort to black magic and witchcraft. It’s kind of like...wait what? But at the time it made sense. Males, on the other-hand transcend the universe. They operate entirely outside of what is natural. If you think about it, in school we always talk about how the creation of the first tools of cavemen were so important because they represented a control over that which was previously unable to be controlled. In essence, that is what the man represents. The ability to lasso and reign the chaos of the universe. Woman, contrastingly, IS that chaos. She is emotional and flighty and confused. She doesn’t know if she should be proud of her womanhood or ashamed and that is all due to the psychology of the formative years.

As a young girl, and I’ll be pretty blunt here, there is psychological debate about the concept of penis envy. What this means is that at a young age a young girl may see her brother..I don’t know...peeing in the woods or something and think “wait, why can’t I do that” and this is often subconscious in the sense that there is known to be internal dread and shame associated with not being able to see and control female genitalia as easily as males can. Along with this, puberty is like a slap in the face. We’re (females) are always encouraged and supported in “becoming a woman” but it’s a horribly inconvenient process. In fact, De Beauvoir even concludes that this stigma in a girl getting her period for the first time often leads to an inferiority complex because for the first time she tangibly recognizes her societal insubordination and passivity. Pessimistically said, she realizes that she will be a prisoner to her body for the rest of her life (yay!) This kind of confusion continues into adolescence where the entirety of a girls life (most of the time, not all of the time..of course there are exceptions) is spent thinking about catching the attention of some guy. This is ingrained in us whether we like it or not and god FORBID you grow too old for a guy to be attracted to you anymore before you get married..it’ll be seen as you abandoning your life’s purpose.

There’s a section about sexual initiation that honestly made me a little bit sad. Mainly because it really drilled home the concept of passivity. There used to be such a huge stigma about sex and what it represents and a lot of that was often biologically incorrect anyway. For example, historically, if you have sex and a woman’s hymen breaks it means she was previously a virgin and there should be blood to prove this case. However, it’s been widely known in recent years that some women don’t even have a hymen or it broke doing some sort of remedial task like riding a bike and they don’t even realize it. In simple terms, it’s really not that deep haha. In some cultures, it can be though. There are cultures that actually PREFER that a woman has had sex multiple times before she gets married because it means that the husband will have a more enjoyable time with someone who is experienced rather than having to carefully operate.

The stigma of the virgin was a big thing too. Naturally, this has a lot to do with religious preferences (but I guess in their eyes it’s obligation) to remain chaste until your wedding night. Personally, (not always) I think this can be a toxic mindset. When sex is viewed on a pedestal, a lot of women are unfamiliar with their bodies and often become frigid and afraid of having sex for the first time. And if I know anything it’s that in life there are so many times where body and mind operate in tandem. If you are afraid of something that you’re naturally created to do then there is a higher chance of your body rebelling against you (I should know lmao).

Simone also talks about sexual preference, because even in the FIFTIES they knew that sex and gender and sexual preferences were all different things *ahem*. Anyway, a man is often viewed as superior due to their virile temperaments, which if you don’t know, means that they naturally are stronger, have more energy, and have a more dominate and regular sex drive. These are all things that very clearly are not biological in my eyes, meaning that women can adopt this temperament as well in the form of being more energetic and a more dominate and strong personality which often leads to becoming a lesbian. I don’t want to be too detailed about this topic because I don’t want to say anything ignorant, but a lot of it is related to how you were reared as a child. Determinants include either having a positive or negative relationships with your mother, having deep relationships with women mentors etc etc. She makes the claim that the opposite is true of homosexual men. There’s a lot going on there. I was pleased to see, however, that again, she was very factual and it was surprising to me that she did not exert as much of an opinion as I would have thought. She did, however, claim that sexual preference was a choice and in that regard I disagree. While temperament is SWAYED by environment, it is not entirely determined by such. In every scientific/psychological etc debate, nature and nurture are coexistent. You can’t pick and choose when that’s true and when it’s not.

I could easily go on and on and on about this book. She talks about the origins of prostitution and what it means to be a mother and what happens to women when they mature etc, BUT, I must narrow the rest down because I’m getting tired :)

A very interesting point to me was the concept of ego and narcissism in terms of romantic relationships. She says that in (heterosexual) relationships, the man is often looking to condition and mirror/ learn more about himself through the woman while the woman was subconsciously looking to validate herself through the affections of the man. Damn, that’s definitely a statement. I’ll be honest I was a little bit pissed because it felt like she was saying we have no coherent thoughts of our own when in reality what she was saying was that this is what the sexes are CONDITIONED for, and in every relationship I’m sure there is an ounce of truth to this. However, she also said that it’s important to adopt both tendencies if you want a functioning relationship. By this she means that the male, while recognizing the femininity of the woman must also allow her to become independent and transcend. She must be able to learn just as much about herself through her relationship with him as he does with her. In the same way, guys want to be validated too. For a lot of them, if they’re sincere and genuine then the validation of their lover or wife or whatever would be enough. That represents a sense of maturity that a lot of guys don’t have (that’s why their relationships don’t work).

A big part of maintaining a relationship, in tandem with maturity levels, seem to be a sense of obligation. It’s likely that sex drive will die down and as the bodies of individuals deteriorate there are other things that keep couples together. Obviously it’s scary thinking about losing the novelty in a relationship and having someone get bored of you, but optimistically every day is a new day and if you’re going through it with someone you truly love then you shouldn’t get bored. In fact, the mundaneness of everyday life often brings people closer in the weirdest ways.

I skipped a lot, but the last section is about a woman’s liberation. It’s about the balance between accepting her femininity and bracing a man’s world. It’s about being prepared to not be taken seriously, to be ignored, to constantly have to prove her worth in the business world. Again, I love how blunt Simone is. She really says that there is cause and reason for societal change, but don’t be naive...and she was so right. Considering the fact that it has been 70 years since this book was written and so many of her points still hold true is proof enough of her pragmatic way of analyzing the world. She said that it would be difficult for the intellectual woman to succeed because she would constantly be at odds between her goals and her womanly obligations.

This sentiment bummed me out a little bit but when I read it again I realized that while she said it would be difficult, she never said it would be impossible ;)

-Julia

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iesorno · 4 years ago

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Anxious Comics – issue 3 page 4

I first saw Daniel Bristow-Bailey’s work when he offered up free copies of his prose zine Dog. I ordered it on the strength of the cover, Dog handwritten above a very detailed drawing of a frog. It made me laugh, there was something oddly significant in that juxtaposition, couldn’t tell you why, but there was. Shortly after that he started his Anxious Comics series, which is a fast paced, underground influenced mash series that has a lot of nonsense and yet some very powerful moments. It’s daft, but also on point and so, exactly what I enjoy.

He’s an eclectic creator and has a set of skills that make his work pop.

You can find him here

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Use the discount code ZINELOVE10 for a 10% discount on anything you buy. Valid until the end of 2020.

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Screaming page 2

Can you tell us a bit about the first creator whose work you recognised?

It would have been someone from 2000AD. I remember being very excited by Kevin O’Neill’s run on Nemesis and Simon Bisley’s painted artwork for Sláine. If I look at Bisley’s stuff now I find it hard to get past the grotesque anatomy, but as with people like Todd MacFarlane in the US he pushed past his technical limitations with a raw energy that appealed to adolescent boys. I don’t mean that as snootily as it sounds! Adolescent boys can be fierce critics.

Kev O’Neill – Nemesis the Warlock

Simon Bisley – Slaine

Which creators do you remember first copying?

My mum, who should get most of the credit for teaching me to draw, always strongly discouraged me from copying directly, but I came pretty close to it with Moebius! He always makes it look so (deceptively) easy that it’s hard not to have a go oneself.

Moebius – Edena

Who was the creator that you first thought ‘I’m going to be as good as you!’?

That’s an interesting question. Probably Gilbert Shelton. I started reading the Freak Brothers when I was far too young (got to thank my mum again for that) and that “underground” style with lots of fine linework and cross-hatching seemed to be achievable with the materials I had at home. I think the Shelton influence still shows in my black-and-white stuff.

Gilbert Shelton – Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

Which creator or creators do you currently find most inspiring?

In terms of comics, I’ve recently discovered Al Columbia. I can’t remember the last time I found an artist who really disturbed me like his stuff does. Even the more restrained stuff has an evil, haunted quality. The book I’ve got (Pim and Francie, Fantagraphics, 2009) feels like a cursed object, like the Necronomicon in Lovecraft’s stories, or the video cassette in the Ring. It’s a great example of text, illustration and book design all working together.

Al Columbia – Pim and Francie

Nabokov – Pale fire – Gingko Press edition

I’ve been reading a lot of Nabokov. He’s one of those writers I keep coming back to. Sometimes I like to think about how you could do a graphic novel of “Pale Fire”. The first half of the book is a very long poem, written by one fictitious character, and the second half is a collection of footnotes to the poem, written by a second fictitious character, who has stolen the manuscript and is preparing an unauthorised edition of the poem. As the notes digress further and further from the text of the poem, another narrative emerges, that may or may not be “true”, so it would probably be impossible to do a graphic novel adaptation, but thinking about how one might do impossible things is often creatively rewarding.

Which creators do you most often think about?

David Lynch – Twin Peaks

Aside from the people I’ve mentioned already, I think a lot about David Lynch. I’ve always liked his stuff but Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) absolutely blew me away. There were points I was watching that when I thought “I didn’t know you could do that with television”. I think whenever a work expands your ideas about what’s possible within a particular medium you know you’re in the presence of real Art with a capital A. I love the sense of mystery in Lynch’s stuff, which I think comes from his letting the subconscious take the lead in the creative process – he talks a lot about using ideas or imagery from dreams, or meditation. It’s a process I’ve consciously been emulating with “Anxious Comics”.

Anxious Comics – issue 3 page 4

Can you name the first three creative peers that come into your head and tell a little bit about why?

Gareth Hopkins, because I’ve just finished doing a page for his “no new ideas” project. It was great fun getting to paint over a copy of one of his pages. Gareth posts a lot of his process online and I’ve found it inspiring how he reworks and recycles stuff. His work has definitely encouraged me to veer more towards abstraction, and not to be afraid, in comics, of decoupling the text from the image – I think he was a big influence on my one-shot “the Screaming”.

Gareth Brookes. I’ve not talked to Gareth much about process but he seems drawn to ridiculously labour-intensive media, like embroidery or linocuts. As if making comics wasn’t hard enough already! But as I said before, there’s nothing like setting yourself an impossible challenge to get the creative juices flowing. Also, when I look at the spread of stuff he’s got for sale at conventions – a mix of self-published zines and two or three big hardback books published more traditionally, I think it’s where I’d like to be myself in a few years’ time, so I guess he’s kind of a role model for me right now.

Hannah Lee Miller

Hannah Lee Miller is producing some lovely stuff. I picked up a copy of her zine about condiments at Catford Zine Fair and it’s one of those things that initially seems rather slight and inconsequential but is actually really, really good, it just doesn’t shout about it. Also, Hannah is, in my limited experience, infallibly enthusiastic about other comic / zine people and always ready to help out or lend support where it’s needed. An asset to the scene.

Finally, can you tell us a bit about your recent work and yourself?

For a long time I tried to be self-disciplined and only work on one thing at once, but recently I’ve come to accept that I’m happier when I have several projects, preferably in different media, on the go at once.

The last thing I self-published was “The Screaming”, an experimental one-shot comic about dreams and mental health. I wrote about it in some detail for Broken Frontier.

Screaming page 8

I’ve got five pages in the upcoming anthology by Obsolete Comics. I’m really excited about this one as it looks like it’s going to be great, and hopefully represents the start of another small comics press. We can never have enough small comics presses.

I’ve also got Anxious Comics, my ongoing series – four issues out to date and the fifth long overdue! My long-term plan with that, if you can call it that, is to keep it going between other projects for as long as it needs to, or until I get bored. At some point it would be nice to do a collected edition.

I’m currently drawing a comic written by Steve Thompson, which he’ll be pitching to publishers soon I think. I like drawing other people’s scripts because it forces me to draw stuff I otherwise wouldn’t think of.

Looking to the longer term, I’m working on a script for a longer-form comic. It’s kind of a superhero thing. But not quite. I’ve got this character who’s kind of my own take on the super-violent costumed vigilantes like the Punisher and Deadpool that were popular when I was a kid, but transplanted to the “real world” of early-noughties London. It’s pretty bleak. I think it’s funny myself but as with some other stuff I’ve self-published in the past it will probably cause people to express concern for my mental health.

Gareth – Hunt Begins – work in progess

Bio: Daniel Bristow-Bailey was born in London in 1978. Growing up during the “dark age” of mainstream comics, he quickly became attracted to the alternative / indie scene and, encouraged by his mum and the bloke in the local comic shop, started drawing his own from an early age. Like many others, he drifted away from comics in his late teens, put off by their uncool image and lack of seriousness compared to grown-up art and literature, but came back to them in recent years as he realised that no-one was going to think he was cool or take him seriously anyway. As well as making his own comics, he draws other people’s scripts and sometimes writes prose fiction. He has a day job working as a mental health person in schools. He lives in Richmond with his wife and two children.

Thank you very much for taking the time to fill this out and let us into your mind.

Gerald – work in progress

all art copyright and trademark it’s respective owners.

Small (press) oaks – Daniel Bristow-Bailey @bristowbailey details who influenced him (tl:dr mostly his mum!) in our latest look creator's influences #smalloaks #comics #zines #inetrviews #zinelove I first saw Daniel Bristow-Bailey's work when he offered up free copies of his prose zine Dog.

#comics #horror #interview #smallpress #zines

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