#something that truly gets me about robby's story is how deeply loved he is by those around him

[olisgifs]

If you could just come back, you could really help bring everybody together. Please.

[stxleslyds]

MY TOUGHTS ON PART TWO OF RED HOOD BY CHIP ZDARSKY :)

A DC BOOK THAT TASTES LIKE MARVEL.

You know when you are reading a book and you feel like the story you are reading seems familiar but not really within the context you are reading it at the moment? If you can’t shake the wrong sense of familiarity you search for what it probably the biggest give away, the author.

Here it’s something like that; I have read other pieces of Chip Zdarsky’s work, namely Daredevil. While I could tell you the familiarity is there, in the subject of guilt after taking the life of another person, the reality is that this book doesn’t taste like Daredevil, it tastes like Marvel.

That can be either an excellent thing (because Marvel has amazing books) or something terrible (because DC isn’t Marvel and they don’t work the same way).

As of now I can’t really tell if this Red Hood story is going to be one or the other, but I can tell you that it feels out of place in the DC universe, or at least that’s how I see it. I will explore this particular thought later, I just thought this was a nice way to open this post.

If you would like to read the first post I made about this book I will leave the link here!

Now…let’s begin.

Part two picks up exactly where part one left off, we see Jason calling Oracle so she can bring the police to the place where Jason killed Andy a.ka. that gigantic piece of shit.

Jason is having some thoughts, ones that I think are important.

“I have taken lives before, a lot of them. I have killed guys knowing nothing about them except that they had guns and murder in their hearts. Those ones are easy; I don’t have to think of their mothers getting the news or of kids being...”

Jason is troubled. He is now in front of a reality that he never truly thought about but to be honest with you I strongly believe that nobody in the DC universe thinks beyond what happens in front of them, that’s just how fictional comic worlds are designed.

Anyway, there is a little something that bothers me in this inner monologue of his, like since when have “murderers” been Jason’s actual target? Like Joker was his target but he didn’t kill him, the base of Jason’s morals when it comes to killing has always been drugs, most importantly if you sell drugs to kids. So unless he is saying “murderers” because they were selling drugs that caused people (especially kids) to overdose then I don’t really get what is going on.

Another thing that I also talked about in the first post is that Jason hasn’t killed in a very long time, this man has been sticking to the Bats rule for so long that it’s actually unreal. Even when he shot the penguin and Batman proceeded to almost beat Jason to death the penguin hadn’t died. So once again I am thinking that Zdarsky has some info that he is not sharing right now or maybe he just didn’t read Lobdell's run (in which case, can you really blame him?)

Now let me talk about the other part of his monologue “…I don’t have to think of their mothers getting the news or of kids being...” This is something that I haven’t seen in DC, direct consequences after a hero/vigilante does something, and let me tell you it feels out of place. Is it a good or bad thing? I don’t really know but I have some thoughts on the subject.

I think it's unfair to put a comic character in that situation or dilemma. Jason has basically three reactions to the same situation and they are all valid, but can this situation be handled by a fictional person in a fictional world? Because to be fair I could also ask about the criminals that are put in hospitals after they are beat up by heroes, what if they die in the hospital? Is the hero a killer or does it fall on the hospital? If a criminal cannot pay for the attention given to them in hospitals and they immediately go back to criminal activity to pay for those things, are heroes a good thing? If the Joker bombs a hospital for the third time in four months and Batman does the same thing (take joker to Arkham) only for Joker to escape and do it again, is Batman as guilty as the Joker for the deaths of innocent people or not?

As I wrote it and as I read it again I see that it is a crazy thought because you can simply add more depth to the characters decisions and the consequences that would ensue because of them, but Gotham is a fictional city created to establish that crime is off the charts and that they need Batman because no amount of resources will be able to fix this city’s problems. So putting Jason in this position is new to me…but only in DC (more of this particular thought below).

Going back to the comic in question, I feel like Jason had the answers and the ideas all in his head. In this issue alone he basically says that if the mother does not pull through the boy will be alone, but alone means going into the system (a horrible system that Jason does not trust and needs improvement), but also, Jason recognizes that if the mother died and the father was left alive then that man would have done horrendous stuff. I just simply wouldn't believe that a man that gave drugs to both his wife and son so they wouldn't bother him is just going to change after realizing that his wife died because of him. Even less believable is him becoming an amazing father.

In the big scheme of things, Jason has killed people who fitted very certain characteristics, never innocents (bye, Morrison). What happens after the killing is done? We don’t know because past stories have never focused on that (criminals in comics are by default one dimensional, villains are not)

But here is the thing, Zdarsky is a Marvel writer and Marvel has gone in depth within those situations (like what happens after heroes commit mistakes or kill someone) mostly with Civil War by Mark Millar and more recently in Daredevil written by Chip Zdarsky, but DC hasn't and DC has been plain for a long time, DC doesn't really explain how batman hurts people severely and nothing happens beyond that.

What I am trying to say is that Zdarsky is going for a different and unique route for Jason here but I think the story is out of place in the DC universe.

I promise I am done with those thoughts, they were really difficult to put on paper and to make them make sense, so I apologize if I only confused you, sorry!

Anyway! After the monologue is done we have a flashback where little Jason is being told by his mother to go buy bread (the only thing they can afford) but she is also making him leave so he doesn’t have to be present when Robby (a friend if you ask Jason’s mom, a drug dealer if you ask Jason) comes to the apartment to help her.

Sadly as Jason is leaving Robby is walking up the stairs, now not to copy little Jason but fuck Robby. Jason’s issues with drugs, drug dealing and overdosing is once again shown here but what is also shown is the violence that comes with it. Jason being terrified for himself (and his mother) as Robby pulls a knife on him broke my heart and as he is left there in the corridor to his apartment all we can see is a defeated little boy and that shit hurts a lot.

After that we jump back to the future with none other than Batgod…I mean Batman. Batman is following a man called Sydney and apparently he disappointed Batman because B told him to stop being a criminal, like come on man if I ask nicely or if I break both of your arms you will surely stop, right? Yeah, no.

I feel like I mentioned something about this while my brain decided that DC never usually explains what happens with criminals after they get caught or killed and now here we are. Consequences. Batman scares a man off of working for Scarecrow but the man still needs to work (does he have a family to provide for? We don’t know. Does he do it because it’s the only job he can get? We don’t know.)

This Batman intermission ends up with Oracle telling him that Jason might be in trouble.

So we find ourselves back with Jason and Tyler in his safe house, Zdarsky does not hesitate and first thing he does is give us a couple of very angsty panels.

I love the way it hurts.

Jason honey, my sweet chonky boy…what are you doing?

Well at least I am not the only one asking that because Jason is having a moment to reflect about what has happened, what is happening and what could happen in the future. In this monologue he says the following:

“Dammit, Jason, what the hell are you doing? You can’t take care of this kid! But you can’t put him in the system either! Just waiting for some obsessed militaristic billionaire to adopt him? Dammit. His dad was scum, he hurt Tyler, he hurt his mom. But if Tyler’s mom doesn’t pull through…I just made this kid an orphan. He is my responsibility, he is too young to really see what he’s gone through, he can still be saved…unlike…”

Yeah that’s some really angsty thoughts, he is really going through it and I understand it. He lost his cool after what that horrible human being said he did and killed him and now he has to face the consequences of his actions, he recognizes that if the boy is left truly alone he will have to step up…but here is the thing, does Jason really want that? It seems to me like Jason is deeply against the idea of children working as heroes, and here he is as an adult that is a vigilante with an impressionable child that sees the Red Hood as his hero, I don’t know, it looks like the perfect recipe for a disaster.

But we don’t get to see what Jason does right away because its flashback time.

Jason only moved from his spot in the corridor of his apartment door to get the bread but as Robby comes out of said door Jason is there waiting. Robby teases that he and Jason’s mom ended up sharing the “medicine” and that she will be sleeping for a long time, and that seems to be it for Jason because next thing you know Robby is falling down the stairs.

Aw, shit.

Jason from the future continues his monologue while he remembers what happened on those stairs.

“I never had a chance, not for one second. But he does, Tyler has a chance. I can help him, help him be okay. This doesn’t…what I did…what his parents did, it doesn’t have to define him.”

So Jason wants to make things right for Tyler so he doesn’t become like Jason. Now I don’t truly know what Zdarsky is going for but I will go for the unconscious route, little Jason pushed Robby (that fucker) down the stairs and he was left unconscious there.

In Jason’s eyes Tyler is still a good kid that deserves only the best (like you Jason, please don’t think so low about yourself) and that can be saved from a life of vengeance, justice and trauma. But whatever Jason was going to actually say to Tyler we don’t know because Tyler informs Jason that through the Red Hood mask there is someone telling him that Batman is coming.

Batman appears out of nowhere as he does and starts talking shit.

Honestly Batman what is with that “not my town” bullshit? Baby this isn’t the medieval times, you are not a king and as far as I know not only is Lucius Fox richer than you but so is Dick so sit your ass down and shut the fuck up.

Luckily Jason is giving the outstanding amount of zero fucks and tells Batman exactly what he needs to be told, sadly Jason’s big brain time doesn’t last long because he absolutely loses his cool and starts a fight. So you know what that means, monologue time!

“This was a mistake, but I can’t help myself, he gets under my skin. His sanctimony, he acts like he’s God, all knowing, all seeing when really…he’s just another failed parent.”

Amen. Jason knows many languages but he chose to speak facts.

As the monologue ends Batman is standing over Jason like he is about to murder him but no such thing happens because Tyler, who was quietly watching them fight, jumps in to protect Jason. Yep, there goes my heart, goodbye.

And this is it. The issue ends with Tyler putting an end to the fight and telling batman that he has to leave the Red Hood alone because he is a good guy. Jason of course is thankful and promises that everything is fine.

 I don’t know about you guys but so far I can’t say if I like the book or not. Both parts left me with mixed feelings. I obviously want to see how it ends but I honestly think that there is only one way this story can end with a happy ending, which I think it would be Tyler going back to his mom and Jason somehow working to help her with her drug addiction, maybe even have Dick involved so he can help them economically.

Things that I surely do not want to see are Jason backing down again and limiting himself to the Bats rules. I also absolutely don’t want Zdarsky to go all Geoff Johns on us and make Jason think that he should give up the Red Hood mantle.

Jason really needs to gain his confidence back, he was smart, calculated and strategic and now they have taken those things away to accentuate his “daddy issues” and “inferiority complex”. Why the quotation marks you ask? Oh, because those things are bullshit and there is no room for those things in Jason’s characterization other than to add more angst to the plot.

Let me know how you felt about the issue and my review! Are you excited about what the four next issues are going to bring to the story?

Also if you read Marvel, did this issue taste like Marvel to you too or am I going crazy?

[fandomtransmandom]

2020 Wrapped:

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5-8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

Okay, so as you know, ya boi is verbose af, so apologies, but I could only whittle it down to a top 10 (and one honorable mention.) I like to think my work has improved with time, so the older ones may be a bit rough, but here are my favs from 2020 and why (from most recent to oldest.)  

1.) Southern Comfort-Bill Hader, Teddy Redbones (Doc Now)/OFC

Synopsis: Teddy Redbones viciously despises his political opponent Savannah Harrison...by day. At night, the two tear into each other madly, hiding their secret affair from the world and their feelings from one another.

Why I Love: Honestly when @martymcdie88mph sent me a request that just asked for ‘Teddy Redbones laying down pipe’ I never expected the first fic about him to get the response it did, much less for it to lead to two more requests. It’s provided me with immeasurable laughter and I’m so glad there are others out there down to bone this angry southern dom.

2.) Frozen Dreams-Conan O’Brien/OFC

Synopsis: Receiving bad news while on their Christmas vacation at the height of ‘The Tonight Show’ upset, Conan deals with his grief, assisted by his partner, Molly.

Why I Love: Writing some Conan super angst was so cathartic and beautiful. Thank you @stunninconan for making this request and giving me the opportunity to do so. Just want to cherish our ginger smokeshow and let him know how deeply he’s loved.

3.) Flickering Beauty-Bill Hader, Little Vivvy (Doc Now)/Partners of Multiple Genders

Synopsis: Little Vivvy is away from her family, and her wealth, for the first time in 1970’s New York. As she tries to make it as a dancer, Vivvy undergoes the early stages of her transition and stumbles upon the accepting Ball scene, as well as some struggles of being a trans woman trying to live an authentic life.

Why I Love: I wrote this piece for NaNoWriMo 2020 and I knew going into it I would largely be composing it for myself. Beforehand I considered doing something that might draw in more readers, Reddie perhaps, but I'm so glad I went with my heart because this story is incredibly meaningful to me and I will love Vivvy until the end of my days.

4.) Breathe Me-Bill Hader, Barry/OFC

Synopsis: Barry is back in Cleveland after his discharge, working for Fuches, deeply depressed and feeling hopeless. After running into his childhood friend Annie, he discovers she’s doing sex work and offers to help her financially. But Annie refuses, saying there’s only one way she’ll accept payment from Barry.

Why I Love: One of many ideas I’ve worked on this year with @martymcdie88mph, though arguably our best. I received a lot of positive feedback on this piece that made me feel good about myself, and I simply love the dynamic between these two hurting characters.

5.) Lost and Found-Bill Hader, Reddie

Synopsis: When Richie loses the engagement ring he bought for Eddie, he panics, searching everywhere but finding nothing. Coming across the ring while cleaning, Eddie devises a plan to surprise Richie.

Why I Love: This one was based on a prompt from @halefirewarrior and I just think it’s cute and sweet. And it’s resulted in a dozen or so strangers on the internet telling me to ‘shut the fuck up,’ which is always amusing.

6.) Harmonious Monsters-Bill Hader, Vince Blight/OFC

Synopsis: Sociopathic power couple Vince and Stacy Blight live a hedonistic, extravagant existence based on kinky sex and a mutual disregard for humanity. As their ten year anniversary approaches, Vince reflects on the saga of their relationship.

Why I Love: Pretty sure this one appeals just to me, ha. I had a ball writing it. Getting into the heads of these characters was ridiculously fun and smut-wise it includes some of my favorite things.

7.) In The Midnight Hour-Bill Hader RPF, Priest AU

Synopsis: When Father Bill Hader sees a struggling trans man named Troy attending the weekly free meal offered by the church, he discovers Troy is homeless, offering him a place to stay in the basement. As they get to know one another, Troy tempts Bill and tests his faith in ways he never thought possible.

Why I Love: Writing this one for @phantomofthegallifreyanopera was cathartic for me. As a queer trans man who was trapped in a fundamental Christian community for a time, it felt like sweet vengeance to be able to flex my Biblical Studies degree for the sake of gay p*rn (trust me, it’s completely useless otherwise) and it was fun to see Father Bill teased into sin 😈

8.) Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger-Bill Hader, The Alan (SNL)/OFC

Synopsis: When Lily comes home to find The Alan on her doorstep, she can’t imagine why her friend got her such a silly, extravagant gift. That is, until she discovers the Adult Expansion Pack.

Why I Love: I was nervous about publishing this one and almost didn’t. I truly didn’t think y’all would be on board. But thank fuck everyone in this fandom is kinky as shit and this became one of the fics for which I get praised the most. I loved writing it and I’m so here for cranking out more weird shit all day every day.

9.) If The World Was Ending-Bill Hader, Barry/OFC

Synopsis: Barry knows that tomorrow he is likely to die, the Chechens seeking vengeance for the massacre at the monastery. For his last night, he wants nothing more than to spend it with Valerie. The problem: Valerie and Barry broke up months before when she discovered his true profession. Barry begs Valerie to see him, and for one final time, he finds solace in her arms.

Why I Love: When @erdankely gave me their concept for this request, I was unreasonably excited. So damn cool. And I just sobbed while I wrote it. Such a sl*t for Barry super angst any day of the week. Love this one and I’m pretty proud of how it turned out, actually.

10.) Miles Apart Inside-Bill Hader, Robbie Wheadlan (Doc Now)/OFC

Synopsis: While he’s awaiting trial for murder, Robbie Wheadlan and his lover Abbi reflect on the saga of their relationship.

Why I Love: Not only was this a piece that made me fall hardcore in love with a murderer who was on screen for maybe 15 minutes and has no redeemable attributes, but it strengthened my friendship with @stunninconan and for that I am grateful.

Honorable Mention: Later That Night- Conan O’Brien/OFC

Synopsis: Conan meets author Gwendolyn who comes on his show to promote her book.

Why I Love: This is the first fic I published back in July. I’m sure I would cringe like crazy if I tried to read it now at all the edits it needs, but I’m so, so happy I decided to post it and kept writing and sharing. Without this almost 48k monster about my orange pompadoured beloved and all the kind feedback from everyone, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Thank you all!

And I spend my days doing nothing other than hammering out alphabet p*rn of my own, so I apologize that I don't know who to tag to keep this going because I shamefully never take time to read. But feel free to do your own if you have creations you would like to share!i

[theexecutionerssong]

I want to ask you as spn expert hdbfbdj i heard that destiel made creators/actors uncomfortable and they banned mention of it at the cons? And made anlotbof writing decision to keep dean and cas characters from each other in the show? So how do you think what changed and why the decided to make deancas canon (bad as it is but canon) in almost last episode when they could just not do it jrbfkf

Hi! Oh damn I hope you’re ready for a long ass answer because I have 13 years worth of memories to answer this question dfghjklm

So, your first question, when you say creators, you have to keep in mind that the original showrunner stepped down years ago and since then, there’s been several showrunners who each had a different view on where they wanted to take the story, which explains the disparities in writing quality from one season to another, in my opinion. Of course the orginal showrunner is still around and would chime in from time to time but he went on on working on other shows (which flopped, besides The Boys, tbh), and we definitely didn’t see it that way in 2005.

Then comes the writers team, that has also seen many changes over the years. I truly believe some left because they wouldn’t make Destiel happen, among other things like the treatment/lack of representation of female and POC characters. Robbie Thompson definitely left because they killed Charlie in the most horrifying way, and Charlie was his baby, and he got better opportunities elsewhere. I remember over 7 years ago when Bo Berens (the writer of last night episode) joined the team, my whole dash was full of people screaming because holy shit the new SPN writer is gay!!! and wouldn’t that change things??? Well it did. He wrote, along with Robbie Thompson, some of the most explicit Destiel episodes that they could get away with. I don’t believe this was ever queerbaiting, not from them, and I think they took advatange of the other writers just not seeing it, or not wanting to see it.

For a very long time, the showrunners and writers were kind of oblivious to the shipping, they didn’t take it seriously because it wasn’t how they had thought it could be interpreted. As time went on and the shipping only grew and as the cast and crew actually started to see what we were seeing in their own damn writing and acting, they started to be more aware and careful around it. Some were downward enjoying putting down fans, like fucking Guy Norman Bee gloating on Twitter and engaging with fans over it. A mess. He left 5 years ago that one, good riddance. It was also the time when actual canon queer ships would appear on TV - keep in mind that in 2010-12, Destiel was as explicit as it could get. We had nothing else, so of course we would latch onto that. But we started getting more and more actual explicit representation with Shameless, Shadowhunters, Eyewitness, Skam, HTGAWM, Orphan Black, etc around 2013, and shipping Destiel got very frustrating. 

The actors have always been another story, and I saw a lot of comments being made today towards Jensen so I’m gonna copy paste my answer to an ask I got last year : “I think he was just extremely “protective” of Dean and would get actually mad and shut down every conversation about Destiel because that’s not how he sees his character. Like, proper pissed off. He would get uncomfortable about pride flags during photo ops. It came to the point where people would walk on eggshells at cons. 2012-13 was hard on the fandom on this point. He would never speak up about lgbtq related topics in politics either. Liking a tweet like Chris’s 10 or even 5 years ago? Never. He used to say that people in highschool would bully him for “looking too gay” because of his pouty lips and big eyes. I think he didn’t want to care about it but bullying leaves scars. Getting married to Danneel, meeting Misha, who are both very outspoken about lgbtq matters, opened him up, and he’s said himself that having his first daughter changed him deeply. He had a whole new perspective on unconditional love. Now, he’s enthusiastic about posing with pride flags, to sign fanart, he’s always so supportive of lgbtq fans at cons, hugs them, gives them words of encouragement, etc. Years ago he said “my father told me that there’s no manly way to drink out of a straw” and now he’s out there being crowned King at the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, posting rainbows on his social media, having makeup sessions wit his daughter, etc. He was very outspoken about his support for Beto in Texas last year, he goes to rallies, posts about it on social media, etc. And yeah maybe that’s the bare minimum but he wouldn’t have done it years ago but now he does and that’s worth something. He’s not a Destiel supporter but now the topic isn’t banned at cons anymore. He jokes about it, he understands better where people who see Dean as bi are coming from, even if it’s not his take on the character. He’s much more comfortable with himself and has come a long way. I’m happy for him.” That was my reply last year to somebody asking if Jensen was homophobic and while I obviously don’t know him, it’s what I gathered over the past 17 years or so. I was already a fan of him beofre Supernatural soooo, I’ve been around a while. Yes there was this moment, over 7 years ago at a con, where he let fans boo other fans for asking a question about Destiel, and he shut down the question, then the questions about Destiel were banned. That’s not the case anymore and it hasn’t been that way for years. Misha on the other hand as always been supportive of the ship, his “You’re not crazy” tweet from 2013 fueled us for years, and the fact that he went back to like it and bring attention to it today is the biggest I Told You So he could have given us.

About your question, making decision to keep them away from each other, yes, that has been a pattern for years, something would go in the script, and then they would change their minds - “the only thing we have left, Dean and I, is each other” in 5x04, the “A part of me always believed you would come back” in 7x17, the “I love you” in 8x17, Castiel’s heaven being just pictures of Dean everywhere, etc. The decision would come from either the actors or the writers and they gave tons of reasons but I won’t get into that. And every time we would have a Destiel heavy episode, it would be no Cas for weeks. Their reason for that is that if Cas was always around, what with how powerful he is, then there would be no plot for monster-of-the-week episodes, because he’d be able to fix the situation with a snap of his fingers. So they gave him storylines that would weaken him and/or keep him away from the Winchesters. But I also think they would give us crumbs to keep us hooked and then backtrack because it wasn’t the end yet.

Destiel is the only ship I’ve really invested in that wasn’t canon. Yet. Because, to me, it’s been canon for years. And I am absolutely convinced that had Supernatural ended with season 10 as planned, it would have been canon then. There were tropes and parallels that nobody could ignore. The whole of season 10, with the Cain/Dean and Colette/Castiel thing was so obvious even my Dad picked up on it. But the series got renewed again and again and they pushed it back, because The Powers That Be at the CW didn’t want to lose their homophobic fanbase, I guess. Isn’t that great :)))) Now that it’s ending for real, who cares? They don’t have anything to lose anymore. It must be quite an unpopular opinion but I think making Deancas canon at the end of the series has been the plan for a while, but it got pushed back with every renewal. 

To me they have been canon since season 8 thanks to a few selected writers, and as infuriating and sometimes hurtful as it was to keep watching for all these years when it could have been so much better, I’m still ecstatic they finally did it. Maybe for the wrong reasons, definitely not in the right way, but 1. the show isn’t over, and 2. this was my first real big ship when I had nothing else, and to be able, after over a decade, to hear that I love you, with no room for doubt that it was meant romantically, is making me happy., 

[vanchlo]

The Partner / Chapter Twelve, "The Resolute"

Word Count: 8.4k /  Story Masterlist /  Read The Assistant /  Read on Wattpad / Song: Hold Me While You Wait by Lewis Capaldi (click to listen) / Warning: Sensitive and upsetting topics, such as death, grief, and miscarriage

"I never know when I will miss you. I can't ever predict just what will grip my heart with the reminder that you are gone. It could be anything. Anytime. Anywhere. You are everywhere and nowhere all at once. When the days are bright, I am blinded by your presence and even when the world is dark I still manage to find you. In laughter, I hear the echo of losing you. Your presence is overflowing in the tears that fall. Now that your body is gone, everything holds your being. I miss you in the cold depths of winter and I long for you in the thick summer breeze. You are my first rising thought in the morning and my last notion as I sink into the heaviness of the night. I thought we ran out of moments together, but every moment seems to belong to you. How can you be everywhere when you are nowhere to be seen? I used to worry about facing the world because I didn't know what would trigger my heartache. I used to be afraid of every feeling, every memory, every moment because I didn't know which ones held you. Now I know you are everywhere and I think that I know why. You're everywhere because you're somewhere inside of who I am. I am the bearer of your life and your memory. I am the keeper of your existence. Even though you're gone, I never really have to search for you. I never know where I'll find you but you are always there. I never know when I will miss you and it happens all the time"

- Rachel Whalen

I had lost count of how many times I had fallen back asleep since he had left for another day of work, the second time in the last few days. I’d be telling a lie if I said that I didn’t miss him, because like he’d confessed when he thought I was sleeping, I missed him all of the time too. The difference was that I felt it now when he was gone. I wasn’t sure why I’d bitten his head off that night about going back to work. I did but couldn’t think about it after the way he broke down in front of me and I just stood there. I didn’t do a thing. Instead, I shook my head and pushed him away. God, how could I do that to him? I thought he’d moved on . . . That’s how it went. I’d wake up to an empty, cold bed and the guilt would come in crashing waves. The hot tears would follow and eventually, I’d fall back into another fitful sleep. Nightmares were almost always guaranteed, but for the first time in our relationship, I comforted myself back to sleep. Somehow, they didn’t wake him like before, but last night when he woke with a gasp that melted into tears, I think I knew because he was busy with his own.

At first, I thought I’d been imagining it, or maybe that was just my coping mechanism by now. Denial and pretending. No, it really was and it went around like a circle. Denying the denial. But when the knocking on the door turned into the dinging of the doorbell, I knew that it was real. It didn’t stop after a few times, like the mailman would. No, this person was persistent, and I definitely was not. I couldn’t even find the strength to move to look at the alarm clock to see the time. By then, it had stopped. He’d only been gone an hour now and I missed him deeply, finding it hard to not pick up the phone to ask him to come home. I did but in my own way, and not one he’d understand, despite how he knew every page of my book.

I hope work is going well

Only a few minutes passed before a reply came in with a silent vibration.

thanks it is, just meetings again and an interview

Sounds boring. I know how you hate both. New hire?

possibly. i forgot to tell u gwen left. i hope ur getting some rest

No, you hadn’t but that’s ok. I think I only talked to her like 5 times. I’m trying.

ya she was good, just kept 2 herself. want me 2 pick up anything for lunch? anything soundin good? Starbucks? pizza? u can have whatever u want

You can pick

At that, I heard my phone lock before placing it face down onto the bedside table, not able to continue a conversation about food any longer. Another wave of irrational tears came at missing him and wanting normalcy back, but the fitful sleep didn’t follow. I wasn’t sure if I was regretful or not when I peeled back the covers, shocked by the sudden cold.

The chilling silence filling the house hit me in the face when I stepped out into the hallway. It had been choking at times, mostly at night when things were at their worst. During the day, like now, it was never this quiet. Something on the tv was always playing, and I soon found myself in front of it, watching the end of a Marvel movie Harry and I once watched.

Its sequel was nearing the halfway point by the time the doorbell rang again. It was on its fourth time now and the person still hadn’t stopped. The surprise on their face was just as strong as that of mine when I found myself at the door, in front of Harry’s grandmother.

“Hi, Becky,” she said softly, a warm cadence to her words like always. I may have been biased towards grandmas, but Harry’s checked all of the points and more. I couldn’t help the squeeze of my heart at the mere sight of her, a melancholy smile spreading on her lips.

“Claire. Um, hi. Harry isn’t here right now, he had to go into work this morning,” I rush, unsure of why I’m telling her this, except for I know why. I hadn’t spoken to another human being that wasn’t Harry or my doctor since . . since it had happened. Sure, texts to Skye, my dad, and Robbie. It was the only way to placate them from telling them I didn’t want to see them. Can I blame them, though?

“Oh, that’s okay. I was uh, hoping I could come in,” she suggests. I stand there, taken aback by her request. I had come to love this woman like she was my own grandmother, and yet here I am, not opening the door for her. “Maybe we could wait for him together with some brookies.”

Dropping my eyes, I watch as she lifts a saran wrapped plate of chocolatey looking cookies. I didn’t need to look any longer to know what they were. Her famous brownie cookies that Harry had compared any cookie or brownie of mine to over the years, and I eventually had found out why.

“You know I can’t turn those down,” I mumble, feeling the first hints of a smile. She grins for me instead, following me into the house that somehow feels even emptier when we step inside. Awkwardly, I closed the door behind her, pulling my hands back into the oversized King’s College crewneck of Harry’s I’d stolen long ago. “Can I . . Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water? Tea?” I stumble, watching as she takes a seat at the island, setting down one of those cloth bags beside her.

“Coffee would be fine, honey,” she says, and always with a smile. I welcome the distraction, feeling as if I’d forgotten how to talk to another person. No, I know that I have. I hadn’t even been able to carry on a conversation with Harry, nonetheless his grandmother.

At times, I still felt uncomfortable around his parents, especially his dad. If there was one of them that I felt the easiest around, it was Claire. I’m reminded of the bouquet of black eyed susans probably now wilting on the table when she notes the array of flowers taking up space over there. I nod at her words while closing the lid of the instant coffee machine, placing a tall mug underneath the spout. The compassionate words scribbled in her cursive with its accompanying card come back to me, and suddenly, the steaming coffee grows blurry before my eyes. Sometimes, I wondered if she had a feeling about things like me, because as the first tear fell, she speaks an apology.

“I’m sorry for coming unannounced. I had let Harry know I was in town and would stop by today, but he must have forgotten to mention it to you,” she begins in a low volume, a Harry-like molasses shining in her voice. I mumble an ‘it’s okay’ while watching the coffee continue to fill the mug. It’s almost done, but then what will I do to distract myself? “Harry had said your fridge was quite full, but I couldn’t help but make a few of your favorites to bring you both. Times like these, cooking feels like the last thing you want to do.”

“A lot of things do,” I find myself saying, surprising her I’m sure and especially myself. I hadn’t even been able to find it in myself to put that feeling into words and say them to Harry. It was a blessing and a curse how we could read each other so well, but I know I’d closed myself off from him a long time ago. On accident and then, on purpose.

Ripples form across the surface of the liquid as the last few drops plummet into the dark abyss. I wait, staring at the steam rising from the mug, unsure as to why. A silence had embedded itself into these walls so long ago I couldn’t remember, and it sat between us now too. I still didn’t know how to broach it, and there was no nudging the switch that would let me talk about her. I truly didn’t know how to, not even to her father. Sometimes, I wanted to forget her so I’d stop hurting, but that felt like an impossibility and then a crime. Gulping, I wipe at my cheeks and thread my fingers through the ceramic handle.

“Those are a beautiful assortment of flowers,” she comments again when I set the drink down in front of her. A forced ‘thank you’ leaves my lips when I turn around and walk towards the fridge. “You and Harry are so loved, and so was your baby.”

I’d opened this fridge how many times over the years, and now as the handle sits in my palm, I can’t find it in myself to do it. The forgotten coupons, lists, photographs, drawings from Harper and Ollie, and magnets grew hazy before my eyes. The hum of the coffee machine cooling down wasn’t enough to mask the whimper that escaped my lips, no matter how desperately I tried to shove it down. After breathing in and out a few times, it still didn’t help, but I was able to open the door and grab what I’d needed.

Keeping my head down, I set the coffee creamer in front of her, not spending a second more facing her with the damage on my cheeks. As the spoon clinks against the sides of her mug, I distract myself by finding room in the fridge for the filled tupperware containers she’d taken from the bag. Scribbled labels adorn the top of each one, but I look past them as I stack them on a shelf. From the corner of my eye, I saw her stand from her seat to look at the flowers, thumbing at the typed messages. It’s not until the last one is snug against a container of yogurt and strawberries that somebody says something.

“They always say the same things, don’t they?” she murmurs with an out of place scoff, sounding like a hum from her lips. The tears had dried up as I thought about how to fit a container of beef stroganoff amongst tater tot casserole, but when I turned around, her face still falls. “It was the same with Steven too. They all say that they understand, but there’s no way that they can. They hadn’t lost their spouse, or . . their baby.” This roots me to the spot and we spend the next few moments looking at each other as her Soft Rose lipsticked lips fall.

“I didn’t want to come, Becky, because I know that when I lost my loves, I wanted to be alone. But that was where my demons lied in wait, and I don’t want you to go through the same thing I did when I lost my baby,” she continues. I couldn’t tell if it was the light or the way my eyes deceive me with a returning wetness, but a similar glint appears in hers. It holds my attention for a mere moment until my heart starts to pound against my ribs. “Steven and I were a little younger than you and Harry when we lost our baby at four months.”

There could be no saving my throat nor my eyes as I gulp against the dryness, feeling all of the wetness detour down my face. Her words ricochet inside of me, bouncing off walls. For the first time in too long, they sink in and make me feel something. I resist at first, not wanting to let my chest shake or my heart race, but there’s no stopping it. Staring back at her, she quietly sits back down and takes a sip from her coffee. Looking back to me, a corner of her mouth twitches as a gleaming droplet beads at her chin.

“What has it been now? Fifty five years and I still miss them . . my little baby,” the blood pounds in my ears as I stare at her in what, amazement? Horror? Complete and utter surprise? Probably, all of them.

“Gran, I-I never knew,” a voice says from behind me. Turning, another wave of shock courses through me at the sight of Harry with his hand on the door to the garage.

“I never told anybody, except for my immediate family when it had happened . . The thing was, the taboo around miscarriages and infertility hasn’t changed a whole lot since then. It disappoints me really . . Back then, you didn’t talk about it. Now, sometimes you talk about it, but it’s just the same. It’s near to impossible to speak about. Friends and family want to say something, but they don’t know how to without hurting you. So, instead of mentioning the loved one you lost, people don’t when they think of them, and they’re forgotten. That’s always been my worst fear, and I don’t want either of you to go through that- I cried when your mother told me what had happened, Harry. My heart breaks for the both of you, knowing that you’re going through the same nightmare that my Steven and I did.”

A puff leaves his lips and I can almost hear him gulp as sound evades us. Words haven’t been a friend to my lips in what feels like months, and right now isn’t an exception.

“I’m so sorry, Gran.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Harry. I’m so sorry that you lost your baby . . I heard it was a girl, your daughter,” her words are ginger and slow. Somehow, another piece joins the puzzle, but it still leaves me staring at the floor as tidal waves crash inside of me. “It was a long time ago, but I still miss them and wonder who they’d be. I’m sorry to say that never goes away, and that the whole b-s of ‘time heals all wounds’ isn’t entirely true. You just build up scar tissue to it, but some days are worse than others. I miss Steven terribly some days, like the day you announced your engagement, and your pregnancy. When your mother told me over the phone three weeks ago, I wished he could’ve been there too, for you to talk to about fathers losing a child. Men are still pressured to not show emotions but it was just as hard on him to lose our baby, and sometimes fathers are forgotten.”

A mess of emotions roils inside of me, flipping my stomach upside down. My heart too, arguably. The last sound that I make out is a sniffle of his before I’m bringing my hands to my eyes, and sobbing against them. It felt like I stood there for minutes before escaping down the hall, when it was only a few seconds in reality.

I wasn’t certain if they knew what I did. That I could hear them from the bedroom down the hall, the place I’d come to retreat to instead of Harry’s arms. I felt him coming towards me just moments ago, but I couldn’t do it. I think I’d almost forgotten what his touch felt like. If they thought I could hear them, they probably had mistaken me for being asleep or for not listening. I think they tried to keep their voices down, but despite Harry being a closet musician, there wasn’t much for treatment to these walls. He’d joked before about having sex one night his mom stayed here but I pushed him away, chalking it up to thin walls.

Now, the memory wasn’t that funny to me as I heard their conversation. I almost felt guilty, as if I was cheating by hearing them, but this was the only way I could take part in a conversation I know I should be part of. I didn’t think that I could even speak if I had wanted to, because of the hiccuped sobs that filled my chest, making it hard to speak. I know that I made the right decision when my head rests against the door upon hearing about what they say next, about me.

“I can hardly get her to have a conversation with me, Gran. Let alone about . . about the baby.”

“Oh, Harry. You just have to give her time.”

“I know and I have, but it’s becoming all the harder to feel as time passes. She’s getting worse and I’m barely staying put together. It scares me so much, because I don’t want to lose her too. If I did, I’d lose everything I have to live for.”

At last, the sound of my choked sobs drowned out that of their voices. By the time my lungs calmed down and my heart hardened once more, it was quiet. I missed his voice despite how it had almost betrayed me to another, and made me hurt. My rumbling stomach ultimately won the race and it was what led me down the hall, and without knowing, back to her. I blamed it on the appetizing smell wafting from the kitchen.

I’d already seen her and had decided to keep going, but upon passing the island where she sat again, I heard her intake of breath. Harry wasn’t anywhere to be seen, despite the wiped clean plate in the sink with the large fork and an empty can. He was the only one who used them and who drank the sparkling waters that I thought tasted like bug spray.

“I’m so sorry, Becky. The last thing I wanted was to upset you, honey.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Frankly, I’m rather tired of people saying those two words, but thank you,” I return, a steadiness arriving in my voice that I didn’t know I’d missed. “Can I-?”

“Of course, it’s all yours,” she insists with a smile. Nodding, I pick up the serving spoon and a plate, feeling my stomach grow happy at the sight and smell of her famous homemade lasagna. “There’s garlic bread in the oven and salad in the fridge. I’m just going to use the little girl’s room.”

I almost smile, realizing that I’ve missed her and just maybe, I feel okay enough to talk about it. I’d found a seat at the island beside her empty cup of coffee, already digging into the lasagna. An almost embarrassing moan left my lips at the taste of the layers of cheese, pasta, and bolognese sauce.

“Leave it to Claire to find the way to your heart,” somebody comments. Turning, I find Harry walking towards me with a tilt to his lips. He unrolls the hem of a Queen Bohemian Rhapsody shirt, looking more like himself now that he’s out of a suit. Sometimes, I still catch myself thinking that it was always the opposite, seeing how I’d know him to always be in suits for so long.

To my surprise, I don’t flinch or pull back when his hand arrives on my shoulder as I wipe my mouth with a napkin.

“You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you eating, and enjoying it . . I’m surprised you haven’t broken into that plate of brookies yet,” he comments. Something happy buds on my lips when his lips sponge a kiss to my temple.

“So am I,” I reply, cutting myself another bite of the food. To my happiness, his arm comes around my shoulder and stays there. I welcome it and feel a warmth grow in my gut upon finding the courage to meet his eyes. They hold something that I learn to be mischief when he plucks one of the cookies off the plate. “Hey, save some for me.”

“Don’t worry, they’re all yours. Well, except a few for me. Maybe we could split them down the middle. Half for me and half for you,” he suggests with a cocky shrug to his broad shoulders. It surprises us both when my lips spill a few second giggle. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed that sound.”

“I’ve missed you,” it’s but a squeak and still, I know he hears it by the sad curl of his lips. “I’m going to try.”

“Thank you, my lovebug. That’s all I can ask for,” he smiles, stealing a quick peck from my lips. It catches me off guard and I find myself staring at him while he manages to take a bite that’s half of the cookie. He winks at me and I turn away, shoveling a large bite of cheesy pasta past my lips.

Another bite had donned my fork by the time Claire found her seat beside us. I’d made a dent in my garlic bread by now as Harry worked on his second cookie.

Swallowing, I loaded my fork with a scrap of melted cheese and bolognese sauce. “Claire. How . . How did you do it? Be okay again after losing your baby? It . . It feels impossible,” the words seem to come from nowhere at first.

After a few moments, I know where they stem from, and just how much importance they hold. It looks back at me in Harry’s eyes when I peer up at him, smiling back when he thumbs away a tear below my eye. As her response hits our ears, I reach my arm out and across his back, holding tightly onto his side. I didn’t let go once as we cried together with his grandma about our lost babies, and neither did he.

I went to bed with a hope in my heart, thinking that tomorrow would be different. Alas, I woke up to an empty bed and it wasn’t. I wasn’t surprised but sure, I was let down. I knew that somebody else would be much more disappointed than I was, if that were possible.

It wasn’t long after my waking realization that there was a knock on the door anda creak, “Hey, buggie. I’m making french toast. How many pieces do you want?” The rest of the night had been uneventful, for once. His grandma stayed for another hour or two as we ate cookies and I finally talked about it. Her. Now, lying with my back to Harry, I didn’t know how to do that again. To talk. “Wakey wakey, it’s nearly noon.”

His voice was closer now as his hands settled on my shoulders from behind. The feeling of his thumbs kneading the tissue made me want to let him drive away the intrusive thoughts. To let him win, but I didn’t know how. Yesterday had seemed like a fluke, as I looked back on it. Even if he was her father, how could I explain to him the hollowness that had filled me when I remembered that my child had died inside of me? No, that wasn’t something he could understand, nor could he hear how much I wished he had been there that morning. That the fact he wasn’t there had changed everything. I couldn’t tell him that and I never wanted to, but I’d gotten close. At the times his nagging and hovering drove me up the wall, my tongue itched to deal the worst blows just to get him off my back. I knew it was wrong, so much of it was but I didn’t know how to stop. All I knew how to do was to drown myself in my regret afterwards. Sometimes, I was mad that we couldn’t keep alcohol around, but at others, I was glad for it.

His molasses voice murmurs my name once more, another time that I ignore, until I can’t. “No thanks.”

“I can bring it in here for you. There’s bacon and strawberries too. Orange juice, as well.”

Shaking my head, I bury my face deeper into the pillow, finding that it has his smell. At one time, he had been my safety blanket, but now it was his smell that could calm me down. I wanted to feel guilty about it but I didn’t have the energy to feel guilt because of anything else as it was all focused on one thing.

“I’ll have a little bit,” I surrender, listening to his hopeful response before leaving. For once, he let me eat alone in the bedroom. But he still inspected my plate, and I could tell that he was biting back a remark as he read the paper at the island.

“Can we talk?”

“What about?” I replied, bending over to place my dishes in the dishwasher. Standing back up, I fail at readying myself for his next onslaught of questions. The ones that I can’t answer.

“You know . . About Phoebe,” he answers. I hear it, the way he has to shove the words past his lips in order to get them out. I only know because I’ve done it a thousand times, and often with him. You do it when it’s too hard to say, but you know that it has to be done regardless.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Becks,” he sighs, annoyance clear in his voice. “I thought you said that you were going to try. Last night went so well and you did great, I-.”

“I just can’t do it today. Okay, Harry?” I retort tearfully, catching the sagging of his features when I lock eyes with him. Sighing, I forget the cookie I’d picked up, placing the saran wrap back over it.

“So what, we need to schedule a fricken time to talk about it?”

I’d begun my retreat, but I wasn’t far enough yet. No, if I was in earshot of Harry, it wasn’t over yet. It had always been that way, ever since the beginning.

“Harry, please,” my words start, decorated with tears that drag my words underwater.

“We got pregnant and we . . we had a miscarriage, Becks. It’s nearly been a month now, but what comes next? When do we get back to normal?”

I hadn’t even been facing him and the words felt like a slap in the face. The look on mine must have felt similar to him, because when I turn around to look at him through blurry eyes, he melts into a puddle of regret.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Becks. Not-.”

“Not what way, Harry? That we should just forget about it and move on with our lives? God, you’re sounding like the doctor the other day who said that we can start trying again whenever we want. But I don’t want to try again yet, Harry, because I’m too scared that we’d lose another one- I mean, what if I can’t have kids? And- I don’t want to forget her or replace her,” but he didn’t hear the last part and I hadn’t decided if I’d wanted him to.

“You don’t know that, Becks, and that’s not what I meant at all. I promise,” he interrupts. The legs of his oversized sweatpants sag down to his ankles when he stands. “I didn’t say we had to get pregnant again right away. I’m fucking scared too. I just mean that I want us to get better. Collectively and on our own. I hate seeing you so upset all of the time, and just want you to be happy. We’re supposed to get married sometime this year and I still don’t know when that’s going to happen. The house is going to be ready in a few months, and I wanted to bring you there one day to look at the progress.”

I had begun to shake my head long before he’d stopped talking. It brought an edge to his words and an annoyance that I didn’t like, despite inciting it. A loud puff passes his lips and he returns to the chair, raking a hand through his hair. That either meant annoyance or boredom, or both. Like I tend to do, I take it personally and figure he’s both annoyed and bored of me, not that it was anything new lately.

“I can’t do that, Harry. I-I can’t,” fumbling with my words, my hand gets caught in my hair as I avoid his eyes. It doesn’t stop him from retorting an inquisitive ‘why not?’ “How am I supposed to go and see the house we’re building that has five extra bedrooms, Harry? How do you expect me to look at the rooms we planned out for o-our kids, and one for . . for Phoebe’s nursery when she’s not coming anymore?”

“Becks,” the nickname leaves his lips like that one breath that’s knocked out of you when you fall. The wrinkles that are rarely there above his eyes return as his eyebrows fall deeply. “I didn’t . . I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry.”

“And so am I, but . . I just can’t do that right now, o-or talk about her. I’m sorry,” I say with haste to my words and in my actions. The sad sound from his lips follows me to the couch where I perch, pretending to watch the tv. He doesn’t join me and after a while of pretending, my eyes start to droop.

The image of Shrek and Fiona making animal balloons falls away until a sound wakes me. Time had passed because now Fiona stands in front of Lord Farquad and Shrek is nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to run an errand. Is there um, anything you need, bug?” he murmurs, the jangling of keys adorning his words.

“No thanks.”

“Okay, I won’t be long- Becks?” he speaks up, clearing his throat at last. I call back a question and wait as he idles. “I really am sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean anything insensitively or to upset you. I’d never want to do that.”

“I know, Harry. It’s okay,” are the last words that pass between us before he bids me a goodbye. I welcome the lack of silence but curl into the couch more, pulling the blanket around me as the movie continues.

My head throbbed when I stood up, but it had been happening a lot lately. I knew it was because I hadn’t been eating much, and as I think about that, my feet lead me to the fridge.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt full after eating, and still wanting a cookie afterwards. Like I do now. Licking the crumbs from my fingers after the last bite, the wooden floor is cold against my bare feet. For a reason I don’t know, I soon am staring up the staircase, and in that direction. It pulls at me to climb the stairs, but something deep down throbs in denial.

Instead, my attention is stolen when my ringtone blares from the couch. I lose my phone half of the time these days and so calls went unanswered. Assuming it was Harry with a grocery question, I picked it up without looking at who it was.

“Hi, Boops.”

“Dad,” I almost sigh, but I was unsure as to why. Was it the bombardment of talking to my dad on the phone for the first time in almost a month? Most likely. Or was it the homesickness that grew in my gut at the sound of his voice. “Daddy.”

“Hi, honey. I was hoping you’d answer. I’ve missed your voice.”

Sinking onto the couch, my bottom lip quivers as I try to breathe in slowly, but my heart won’t listen. It hasn’t for a while now.

“I’ve missed yours, Daddy.”

“Oh, baby girl,” he says in an exhale. Already, I know that he hears what my voice is dipped in, but I don’t hide it. It was too late for that. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“I’m getting really sick of that word, but thanks, Dad.”

His classical chuckle begins its opening but it falters there, and so did any chance at mine. Silence had rarely been uncomfortable with my Dad. That was only when I’d gotten into trouble or when I was trying to tell him about something that had happened with my Mom, which usually went hand in hand. Over the years, I could hardly count the times silence had grown awkward between us, until it did now.

“What are you doing?” he decides to say, lifting my eyes to the tv screen where it appears Fiona and Farquaad will get their Happily Ever After. I knew without needing to think what would happen next. They wouldn’t, because it never really happens that way. No, it’s not that easy or immediate.

“Watching Shrek on the couch.”

“Is Harry there?” he murmurs a question.

“No, he went to do something not long ago. I don’t know what,” I answer, wrapping the tassels of the blanket around my finger until it hurts. “I think he’s mad at me. I can’t tell anymore, it seems like he always is.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, honey.”

Shaking my head for nobody to see, I taste blood when pressing my lips together to hold back the whimpering. Sniffling, I breathe in raggedly before speaking, “I think it is . . I can’t blame him, because I’ve been so horrible to him, Dad. H-He was supposed to be a Daddy and I’ve forgotten that he’s g-going through all of this too. I’ve been in my own little world being sad a-about the baby, and I forgot about him, Dad. I’m supposed to marry him soon, and I don’t even wear my ring anymore, and I can’t go upstairs, and-,” he doesn’t cut me off. I leave that honor for myself as I watch the color drain from my finger when I unwrap the tassel. I’d slowly come to hate the color red, even refusing to eat strawberries at first. It’d become the color I’d hated most after . . after that morning.

“I’m sure that he understands, Ree, or he’s at least trying to. I’ve spoken to him a few times now, and he’s not mad at you. He’s just frustrated and overwhelmed. Harry hates to see you unhappy, it’s always been that way with you too, and vice versa. He wants to fix everything, but I told him that’s not always possible. You can’t fix another person . . . and neither can you, Boops. You’re doing your best and so is he, and after a while-.”

“But I’m not, Dad. I’m hardly trying, only when I feel like it. I . . I don’t know how to do any of this and I don’t want to. I don’t want her to be gone. I was supposed to be a Mom. Her Mom,” I weep, pressing the handful of blanket against my eyes, catching my tears.

“I wish I could make it all better for you too, honey. Ever since you were little, I wanted to kiss the owies better and tell off the kids who were mean to you, but . . . you have to do it yourself and when you can, Becky. You can’t rush this. Grief, it doesn’t have a timetable or a road map- and, honey, you are a Mom. You’re Phoebe’s Mom. Nothing will ever change that,” somehow, I cry harder at his last words, melting into the couch.

“Thank you, Daddy,” I cry into the phone, wishing it was his shoulder, instead. It’s a few moments filled with the sound of my tears and his own sniffles, before I speak again. “But how do I . . how do I let Harry back in? I pushed him away without meaning to and now we’re so far apart, Dad.”

“I think that you need to remember that he’s grieving the loss of a child too. Your child together, Ree, and that he’s feeling the exact same feelings that you are. He’s devastated at not getting to be a father to Phoebe, to meet her, watch her grow up into a person, and do all of the things that you’re grieving the loss of too. You’re a team, honey, and you need to give each other some grace too. There aren’t any rules to this and maybe I shouldn’t talk because I’m divorced, but the first reason you’re there with each other is because you love each other. You have to remember that too, honey. Hey, I’m sorry, I think I’m burning my dinner in the oven. Can I call you back later, sweetie?”

“Yeah, Dad. Of course. Um, thank you. That really helped me,” I reply, swiping at my tears with the dry side of the blanket.

“I’m glad to hear it. I love you, Boops.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” and he’s gone. All I hear is the silence of the dead call and Shrek’s voice on the tv as he yells at Lord Farquaad. It’s what fills my ears and distracts my mind when I lay my head on the pillow, resting my hand on my belly without thinking. But unlike every other time I’d found myself doing it since . . since I was actually holding my baby, I let it stay there, wildly wishing she could be here watching Shrek with me.

I heard him come in when the credits of the movie are switching to the opening of its sequel. It was arguably the best, in my opinion, but it was something Harry and I had always disagreed upon. The memory sparks an invitation for him on my tongue, but upon raising my head, I watch him disappear down the hallway.

My ears aren’t sure what to focus on, the sound of his parting footsteps, the racing of my heart, or guitar strings soon being plucked from down the hall. It wasn’t much of a choice, because my feet were already leading me towards his study. A place where he had been spending a lot of time recently. I find myself gravitating towards the sound and wanting to hear more, but I stop outside the door nervously. My heart pulls me forward, despite the way it gallops, making me feel sick to my stomach. Standing there, I wonder why this is something I’m nervous about, but nothing is the same anymore. I hadn’t felt this way for what had it been now, years? There hadn’t been a time since the beginning that I was nervous to talk to Harry, and yet, here I stood doing just that.

His playing stopped and I perked up, making out the scribbling of pen on paper. Was he writing a song, I wondered quietly and wished I could ask. I didn’t know how to, and that was something I’d thought too many times lately. How to get out of bed. To eat a whole plate of food. Talk to my family and friends. I hardly even knew how to talk to Harry anymore. That’s what was holding me back, wasn’t it? Sure, if you wanted to sum it up.

“I know you’re standing outside the door . . Did you need something?” Harry murmurs, an edge to his voice. It was one that had appeared out of the blue and refused to leave. I only knew because I’d felt my voice change like that too.

There’s the creaking of the floor before I press the ajar door open enough for me to fit through. I find him sitting back down on his office chair, but he faces away from me, a guitar propped on his lap.

“How’d you know?” I ask softly, still awkwardly standing in the doorway. His eyes flit to mine and I’m unsure of why I look away, except that I can’t face him. No, not when mine are still wet and I’m sure they aren't going to dry up anytime soon. Not after what I’m about to say.

“You forget how long I’ve known you,” he mumbles, peering down at the moleskin journal he scribbles in. “Four years, give or take. You learn their cues and the sounds they make when you come to know somebody for that long. That’s how I heard you at the door, it was your footsteps.”

“Oh,” I respond flatly, feeling dumb. His tone doesn’t imply it and nor do his words, but the embarrassment has run rampant already.

Watching him write and escape to his own little world had always been one of my favorite things to observe. Even his handwriting was something that brought me . . comfort. I blamed it on the familiarity, but as it pours from his pen, it makes my heart slow down a few ticks.

“My Dad called and we talked for a little bit.”

Harry hums a reply, crossing something out on the piece of paper. Scratching his head, he sighs whilst staring at the writing. I can’t make it out from here, but once again, the silence finds its old spot. Remembering his initial question when he heard me at the door, I worry that I’m bothering him. Gulping past the nervousness and doubt, I pedal forward.

“Was that yours?” I ask warily, noting his head rising so he can meet my eyes for a split second. They hold a question in them, perhaps dozens. “The song. It . . It was really pretty.”

“Yeah . . It’s just something I’ve been playing around with,” his answer comes out in a pillowy tone. It has changed ever since . . since I’d run away from him, and I hear it now as he speaks his reply.

“I really . . really like it,” I comment, looking towards the ceiling when his grandfather’s Gibson acoustic grows hazy in my eyes.

“Thank . . you. Hey, what is it? Did your dad say something that upset you?” it had been so long since I’d heard that steely edge absent from his voice. I don’t know why I mourned it, because it was my fault it had ever arrived in the first place. Wasn’t it? “Becks.”

“Yeah, he said a lot of things th-that made sense, actually,” I confess, dropping my head to stare at my fingers that I wring. I’m unable to ignore the feeling of my lips trembling against each other, despite busying myself with adjusting my rings. They stop when I arrive at the one that speaks volumes, and how deeply I’d ignored it.

Braving the storm, I finally look at him. His greens are patient and soft, something neither of our eyes have been for the other for awhile now. Without breaking eye contact, he settles his guitar onto its stand and discards the pad of paper.

“Harry, c-can I have a hug?” slowly, the overdue question comes.

“Of course,” he responds, a corner of his mouth quirking up. Already, he’s holding his arms out towards me. “You’ve never needed to ask, buggie.”

“Thank you,” I murmur, feeling the air whoosh out of me when my body touches his. Somehow, my chest shakes harder with a new sob. It only worsens when his hands come under my thighs, lifting me up to sit on his lap.

“It’s been so long since we’ve hugged,” I know he doesn’t mean to, but it feels like a chasm through my chest when he says that. The guilt that had arrived at my dad’s words increases by tenfold.

“I’m sorry,” it’s but a whisper against his neck, my favorite place for hide and seek. But it was always him seeking me, it had been for months now, and I hadn’t let him win. Not once.

“What?”

“I’m so sorry for everything, Harry,” I repeat, pulling back to find his greens swarmed by tears. Swiping my thumb under them, I catch the way that they leak with sadness. “For how horribly I’ve treated you this last month, and how . . how I forgot that you- you lost our baby too.”

“Oh, honey. You don’t have to-,” he begins, adamant in his apology. One that I won’t accept.

“No, but I do have to apologize,” I sob, surprised at the way I’m shocked by the rough feeling of his cheeks. It had been so long since I’d touched him like this, despite watching him grow his beard out. “My dad, he . . he put it into perspective for me. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, I hate myself for that, for-.”

“Hey, don’t hate yourself for anything. This last month has been a Hell we never thought we’d have to endure. Something we shouldn’t have to deal with, and one that isn’t our fault,” he insists, thumbing at the place where a dimple would usually fall in my left cheek. I’d forgotten it was there, just like I’d done the same to him.

“But all you’ve been doing is trying to take care of me, and I made that so hard for you,” comes my cry against his palm, feeling the way he holds me together from breaking for the thousandth time. No, that would imply I’d have been put back together, but that wasn’t something I’d done. “You tried to make me eat and I fought you on it until you stopped talking about it. I argued with you and ignored you when you were just trying to keep the world going, but you never stopped, even though I did. You didn’t stop living and loving me when I stopped.”

“Becks, it’s okay,” he repeats, the words sliding into my ears as my hand wanders to his neck. A hoodie with cartoons from our childhoods dons his upper half, tattoos peeking out from the color. I found the charm of his necklace instantaneously, something I could do in the dark.

“But it’s not, Harry. It’s not okay how I treated you. I forgot you and that you’ve been mourning the loss of your child too. Our b-baby,” I whimper, sniffling when I inhale uneasily. My fingers shake before me until he takes hold of my hand, surrounding it with his own before pressing it to his lips. “I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you, Becks. I always will,” Harry says, tucking his chin over my head when I melt against him. “I meant it that first night after we came home and you disappeared on me . . We lost our baby, our child, and I can’t . . I can’t lose you too, Rebecca. I have, time and time again, and I can’t do it again. I’ve hardly stayed pieced together lately being so far away from each other like we have . . God, the only thing that kept me going was just thinking, ‘one more day’ for so many days.”

Hiccuping, my hands brace themselves against his taut back, feeling his own drift along my spine. Shaking my head against the crook of his neck, I struggle to breathe, let alone speak, “I’m so sorry, Harry. I can’t believe how awful I was to you. We’re supposed to get married soon, and I can’t even live up to that in sickness and health part of the vows.”

He continued to murmur assurances that everything was okay, and for the first time in a long while, I found myself believing him. Crying against his neck, I heard his own shed tears onto mine as my hands rubbed circles into his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I got mad at you that day for going to work, even though you asked me and I said it was okay . . And-.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that, Becks,” he assures me, pressing a kiss to my head. Again, I believe him, and it feels easier to breathe. Just in the slightest.

“I was such a bitch to you.”

Something sparks inside of my chest at the sound I hear next, one that had been lost along the way. His laugh. His song.

“I’ve been known to be quite the dick on one or two occasions, as well,” I savor the glint that appears in his eyes upon pulling away. It had been one of the first times I was able to lift my head since before all of this had happened, because it had been better just to hide. No, not now.

The quirk to his lips is a full on tilt now, and through them, I’m reminded of what drew me to this man in the first place. It was those eyes and that smile that made me melt upon impact. Well, then there’s the sunshine they share, and how I taste it when his lips meet mine for really the first time in what, a month. Emotion pulls at me from somewhere underneath at the thought, but he makes me forget rather quickly. He’s always been good at that.

His peppermint chapstick sticks to my lips after he’s pulled away several seconds later, trying to catch his breath. The cobwebs have been dusted away in more ways than one, and it feels weird at first, wrong almost, but I laugh. It catches him by surprise too and his eyes focus on me, and only grow brighter.

“I’ve missed kissing you, and laughing with you,” Harry grins, pressing one more to my lips before brushing his nose against mine.

“So have I. I’m s-.”

“I swear, if you say that word one more time,” he tuts, shaking his head with his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to figure out something,” he says, sighing for the dramatic effect. I giggle along with him a moment later, remembering the flecks of gold hidden in his eyes. I remember a lot, too much almost, and the gold is gone as my eyes flood once more. “I know it’s hard, Becks. Something has never been this difficult for me . . for you either. But we have to talk, and I’ve been aching for ages now to talk to you . . I don’t want to ignore it, because they shouldn’t be forgotten. Our daughter. We need to talk about them, about her,” I’m nodding before he can finish, feeling his warm lips against my forehead as I focus on my breaths. “In and out, bug. In and out. We can do this. We’ll start slow.”

I haven’t stopped nodding, but once my lungs start to work again, I pull away and find his eyes once more. It comes to me and I can’t hold it back in anymore, knowing I need to say it first. To tell him.

“Okay, let’s talk about o-our daughter,” I begin, cringing at the sound of my voice breaking already. He nods, cupping my face in his palm, the sweetest of looks on his face.

[mattbrothersscriptwriter]

My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part One

I’m back and prising open this tomb of a blog like I’m Lara bloody Croft, let’s do this thing.

2019 was a huge year for movies and thanks in part to my ever obsessive Letterboxd account, i chalked up 150 total 2019 movies seen, which is... too many. Thanks again in part to the rise of Netflix originals, broader theatrical releases and a handful of festival showings (Sundance London, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Frightfest etc), I saw as much as I could. STILL some I didn’t catch (Rocketman, Shazam... Cats...) but as always, for my full breakdown, jump over to my Letterboxd ranking here - https://letterboxd.com/matt_bro/list/films-of-the-year-2019/

20. The Death of Dick Long

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this, partly because it’s from one half of the ‘Daniels’ duo, who made the equally expectation-defying Swiss Army Man and also because I saw it at Sundance London back when there was no poster, trailer and barely a logline. Some vague word of mouth from Sundance proper was about it. And that’s how I’d recommend seeing it - as blind as you can - as it’s many surprises are unlike anything I’ve really seen before.

It’s a triumph of carefully balanced tone and pitch perfect black humour. Essentially a Fargo-esque tale of two idiot hillbillys who get involved in the mysterious, titular death of their friend Dick Long (played in a cameo by director Daniel Scheinert), things slowly unravel as they realise that in reality, covering your tracks and getting away with a crime is, actually, pretty damn unlikely. The tension that mounts as hidden truths inevitably begin to come to light can rival any straight thriller and the humour always comes from a place of character. But the genius comes in the film’s ability to maintain said tone with a straight face once a very specific spoiler comes to light. It’s deliberately absurdist but you still find yourself swerving from laughing at it to being wholly invested at the sincere pathos and tragi-comedy on display. The film, for all it’s surreal trappings, never punches down at it’s characters, treating them as flawed and vulnerable as any of us, and the leads Michael Abbott Jr and Andre Hyland remain a wholly tragic and relatable pair - against all odds.

19. The Farewell

Lulu Wang’s immensely crowd pleasing indie sensation manages to be many things - a witty comedy, an ode to family, an examination of another culture’s traditions and a character study of the American-Asian experience. Like most really great movies, it’s universal appeal comes from it’s specificity - telling a unique story based in a human truth that taps into themes we can all relate to: alienation from one’s own family, feeling like you don’t belong, truth and honesty within our closest relationships and our own mortality. Or more specifically still; how we would want to face death should we be fortunate/unfortunate enough to know that is is coming.

Awkwafina really is a revelation here, showing off her dramatic chops with a heartfelt performance that utilises her strengths as a funny everywoman and as a tortured individual trying to understand not only her own relatives but herself as well. The whole cast are equally impressive, especially Chen Han and Aoi Mizuhara as the clueless couple getting married and of course, Zhao Shuzhen as Nai Nai - delivering a touching portrayal of a grandmotherly figure we can all recognise. Definitely one of the most moving films of the year for me, it’s a marvel that never succumbs to easy schmaltz or signposted resolutions.

18. Pain and Glory

I’m a big admirer of Pedro Almodovar’s body of work, having studied him since college but I’d be hard pressed to say I was a proper fan. I went into this off the back of it’s buzz and came out more profoundly moved than I first predicted. This very self reflective piece tackles a lot of Almodovar staples - Spain throughout the decades, the pain of love, film-making, mothers! - but is so strongly rooted in a career best Antonion Banderas, here playing a thinly veiled and somewhat fictionalised version of Almodovar himself.

Like The Farewell, it is deeply personal but incredibly universal, dealing with life long regrets and suppressed trauma and memory. Cruz the Muse is back in magnetic form and the tenderness in both the flashbacks and present day make for a surprisingly comforting watch about an awful lot of self-examination. It also cannot be understated how strong Banderas is here, possibly the most human I’ve ever seen the man known for playing gun toting mariachis, sword wielding masked heroes and... sword wielding, um... cats. It’s possibly his most mature and unflashy role in years but he reminds us why he’s such a consistent and evergreen movie star ten times over here.

17. Dolemite Is My Name

Eddie Murphy is back baby! This was hands down one of the most joyful and life affirming films this year, so much so that I’m gutted I didn’t see it in a packed cinema instead of on Netflix. Still, it’s a huge win for the streamer. Before now, it’s been easy enough to write off a ‘Netflix’ movie as one of three things - the modern equivalent of going ‘straight to video’, a blank check passion project for a headline grabbing filmmaker (Noah Baumbach, the Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese) or a big blatant push for awards glory (Roma). But this breaks through and hits the sweet spot, being the sort of mid-budget biopic the studios used to put out, a comeback vehicle for one of our most missed stars and as a straight up killer piece of film making all round.

From the writers of Ed Wood and the director of Hustle and Flow, Murphy stars as Rudy Ray Moore, a true over-the-hill underdog who stubbornly chases his dreams of reaching stardom as a middle aged man, who refuses to be put down in the face of mass criticism and overwhelming odds. It’s an empowerment story about pursuing what you believe in and saying fuck you to the haters. It understands that the only judge you need to answer to is yourself. It’s a testament to the power of a minority voice, in finding the unstoppable force who will fight to be seen - not just by his peers but by society at large. 

I’m a sucker for films about a group of people stretched outside of their natural talents who strive to create something that wasn’t there before. Whether it’s Ed Wood or The Disaster Artist, Brigbsy Bear or Bowfinger - these movies never fail to strike a chord with me. I think championing a belief in yourself, often in the face of huge pessimism or swarms of naysayers, is so incredibly important and seeing these central figures who probably shouldn’t have succeeded, manage to do so, is so touching. The scene in the limo when they read the shitty reviews of their movie and all take a moment to arrive at the conclusion of ‘fuck them, we made a movie, it’s ours’ is an antidote to everybad review any creative endeavour may end up receiving. If it’s important to you, that’s all that matters but like all art, even if you reach one person and affect their life for the better, then it’s all been worth it.

Shining a light on the rise of Blaxploitation also helps to champion an era of outsider art that reflected the lives of millions and gave many more than chance to see themselves represented on screen as their OWN heroes and not just reductive stereotypes. Plus... Snipes is also back baby! Cripes it’s Snipes!

16. Monos

What a gargantuan feat this film is. Shooting in some of the most inhospitable locations ever seen, this tense, survivalist story of a band of young soldiers slowly imploding whilst they guard an American hostage is elemental and animalistic - a 21st century Lord of the Flies for sure.

Moises Arias is unrecognisable here as the eventual alpha Bigfoot. A former Disney star, he is most fondly remembered by me as the polar opposite Biaggio in one of my other favourite films of the decade, The Kings of Summer. The rest of the cast are fantastic too, from the captured Dr Watson (Julianne Nicholson) to the morally torn Rambo (Sofia Buenaventura). With some of the most breathtaking cinematography of the year to yet another stunning Mica Levi score, this feels like a lost Herzog masterpiece from the 70s. In other words, the kind of impossible thriller that you see all too rarely these days.

15. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Any new Tarantino is a cause for celebration, especially as he approaches his long-threatened ‘final’ 10th movie. I’m a massive western guy so I’d been loving his detour into the genre through both Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight but was definitely looking forward to his depiction of 1960s Hollywood. And Tarantino being Tarantino, the western influences manage to find their way into most, if not all, of his filmography.

OUATIH certainly ended up a divisive piece. Too much of an aimless character hangout for some, not enough dramatic bite for others. I was initially left a bit cold myself, knowing I’d enjoyed what I’d seen but wondering if it would go up or down in my estimations upon a second viewing. While that second viewing still hasn’t taken place yet, I tend to believe it will be even more favourable knowing where it’s all heading. I’m in the camp that loved where this film ended up and thought it stuck the landing wonderfully and in DiCaprio and Pitt, the film found a truly dynamic and compelling central friendship fuelled by two A-listers back on A-list form. The two veterans instantly deliver some of their best work in years (DiCaprio is 10x more alive here than he was in his Oscar winning turn in The Revenant) and 2019 would go on to be Pitt’s year, alongside Ad Astra. Margot Robbie is luminous in her limited screentime and while some were disappointed she wasn’t more of a major player, he Tate is arguably the lynchpin of the whole piece. Perhaps more as a symbol than a person, sure, but the scene where she gets to witness the joy her big screen clowning brings others (complete with tactfully judged real life Tate footage) is magic.

At first glance, this could seem like QT regressing somewhat but there are moments in here that stand out as some of his best work, from DiCaprio’s stroppy meltdown to Pitt’s visit to Spahn Ranch to the whole bloody climax. If it ends up being the odd duck of his filmography (Four Rooms aside) then it will end up all the more interesting and I am already captivated.

14. Stan & Ollie

Easily the most underrated film of the year in my eyes, I sort of understand most people’s dismissal of this charming biopic as grey pound fodder and even I admit that it falls into a sub-genre quickly approaching cliche: ageing Golden Age Hollywood movie stars have one last stab at fame and redemption by reviving a stage act in the UK - see also Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool and Judy. But this is so sweetly put together in every sense and manages to transcend the biopic trappings to create a more loving portrait of two old friends accepting that they love each other. It’s about male, platonic love and that in itself is rare enough.

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are incredible as Laurel and Hardy respectively, both disappearing into the roles completely. Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda provide brilliant comic support as their two very mismatched wives. The decision to focus on the duo’s later years, rather than to speed chronologically through their early days and movie making prime (glimpsed in the opening flashback) means that the film is free to draw pathos from a life long lived. There are mere hints at the history between them; chasms of time that hold so much importance yet are left to us (and to the actors) to speculate about, to draw from and to imagine. The performances are so strong that you can feel the weight of their professional careers in a sideways glance or a barbed retort or an exasperated sigh. It’s so much more interesting and allows practically the whole film to feed off this feeling that their entire lives are about to reach an impasse that we’re about to witness. This is the emotional resolution to the story of Laurel and Hardy and it’s wonderful to know that this is how it went down in real life too - that two lifelong colleagues couldn’t see how much they meant to each other until it was all about to come to an end. 

Ultimately, it’s a story of loyalty and friendship in the face of a fast approaching curtain call. It’s bittersweet and truly sad, watching these two iconic titans perform to tiny crowds and hopelessly chase the dream of a comeback they both know, deep down, is long dead. It also contains two of the most tear-jerking scenes of the year: the very public bust up after one of their shows (”You loved Laurel and Hardy... but you never loved me”) and the ‘turn’ in the climax that wrong footed me so suddenly, despite it’s arguable foreshadowing, that I was almost immediately weeping. A truly touching British film of the highest calibre, it’s much more affecting that you might believe.

13. The Favourite

How does it feel like a million years since I saw this? Man, 2019 was long! Yorgos Lanthimos’ biggest hit yet, this is full of wild, punk energy and gives the period piece a real anarchic streak. Easily the best three hander in years, the ever evolving dynamic between Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone (hot off an Oscar win) and QUEEN Olivia Coleman (heading directly into an Oscar win) is a joy to watch. The dialogue is biting, the visuals sumptuous and the debauched attitude running through it makes it a wicked fun time. It’s influence is already being felt too - just check out that teaser trailer for the new Emma!

12. The Art of Self Defense

Unfairly shafted to VOD, I caught Riley Stern’s follow up to the ace Faults on the big screen whilst in Edinburgh, along with a fellow filmmaker and we had an absolute blast. Playing like a capital D dark comedy mash up of Fight Club and The Foot Fist Way if directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Jesse Eisenberg utilises his weedy, beta male persona into an effective portrayal of a guy sick of being shit on in life, who takes up karate lessons after a traumatic mugging and slowly descends into a cult-like world of aggressive toxic masculinity. 

It’s a fantastic satire of perceived manliness, with some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen all year instantly flipping into something completely shocking. It’s another great showcase for Imogen Poots, who seems to be most often caught playing students despite being in her 30s (looking at you, Black Christmas) but it’s Alessandro Nivola who utterly owns this movie as the intimidating dojo leader; a truly twisted creation that, in a just world, would be generating some serious awards buzz. Mark my words now that by the time the Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark lands later in 2020, we’ll suddenly all be talking about him.

11. Us

Another one that feels about three years old already, Jordan Peele’s Get Out follow up finds him with free reign to really get crazy (”you wanna get crazy?”) as he uses his blank check on another bitingly original horror social satire. Leaning a bit more heavily into both the straight up genre elements AND the often-times confusing social allegories, Us is a cabin in the woods slasher that evolves into a Twilight Zone ‘what-if’ scenario before going all out with it’s underlying metaphor.

The results can occasionally be mixed but the sheer ambition on display here is invigorating and it’s captivating to sit back and let a writer/director present something to you as unique and multifaceted as this. His love for horror fuels a tense plot that constantly looks to re-shuffle the stakes every twenty minutes, Lupita Nyong’o is mindbogglingly good as two very different versions of ‘one’ character and Elisabeth Moss is the supporting standout of choice, making 2019 her year with this alongside the brilliant Her Smell... (let’s not mention The Kitchen).

COMING UP - a Canadian stuntman, a wheel of knives, space baboons and every superhero ever

[clarionglass]

so i went and saw matilda yesterday and i am full of Emotion it was so good????? like, i expected great things, but this was absolutely incredible in all respects. the cast was superb, the music was fantastic, the choreography was brilliant; i cannot think of a single flaw in the whole thing.  and each of the characters was so on point? matilda was absolutely fantastic, her parents were so beautifully seedy and self-obsessed, miss honey was a gem, and the trunchbull was the perfect panto villain, who you just love to hate. tim minchin is a first-class wordsmith and an actual genius, i’m pretty sure - if i hadn’t known he’d done the music and lyrics before i’d seen it, and someone told me it was him afterwards, i wouldn’t have been surprised? it just had that sheer delight in the use of language (e.g. in the school song, go look it up if you haven’t already - the choreo adds an extra layer of brilliance but you can hear it just in the audio if you listen closely, it’s so so so so clever and i adore it). matilda was one of my fave stories growing up, and the musical did it justice. more than, imo - it was a joy to watch. if any of y’all haven’t seen it yet, let me say in the politest possible terms that You Gotta, it’s so so good. i think it has 2 weeks left to run here? and i’m pretty sure there are still good seats available. pls pls pls do it, for your own good

i’m gonna get rambly and annoyed here so i’ve put it under the cut

bc watching that fantastic piece of theatre reminded me how good tim minchin is at this kind of thing. like, i miss the semiregular musical comedy, but things like this are a truly worthy use of his prodigious talent, so i don’t really care. and it makes me so pissed that larrikins got cancelled. i’m really bitter about this, it had already been cast (with some incredible people! margot robbie! hugh jackman! ben mendelsohn! rose byrne!), there was a planned release date, it was being spoken about in interviews, and it looked like it was going to be fantastic, and then it just got shot down by dreamworks. it would have been so aussie and so great, because there’s a beautiful landscape and culture here that would have been so refreshing in the line of constantly us-set films, both live-action and animated. watching matilda, i could see so much wasted potential because this goddamn film isn’t actually coming to fruition, and the brilliant man behind it all isn’t going to get the worldwide recognition he deserves. dreamworks has really fucked up here imo.  ofc i’m also angry for another reason, namely that i won’t get to play the game of spot-the-[scci] (who was going to be doing the background music), bc his compositional style is so distinctive i was hoping to see if i could pick it out. but i mean, that’s not why i’m angry really, that’s just me being selfish. i’m also pissed on his behalf bc i know this was something he was so excited about, and so proud to be a part of. according to our conductor, he thought about a certain piece we were playing of his as his “audition for hollywood”, and hearing about this film made me so proud for him that it had all paid off, he was achieving his dream. and now that’s been stomped on by the stupid fucking dreamworks takeover? he wasn’t even a major part of this film and i’m so angry on his behalf. i can’t even imagine what it would be like for tim minchin, who has spent literal years of his life working on and fighting for this thing, only to have dreamworks shit all over it and cast it to the bottom of the deep dark hole of cancelled films. *breathes deeply* i need to stop ventblogging, i was hoping it would be cathartic and it’s actually just making me even more angry than i was before. i still have the faintest sliver of hope that maybe, maybe some exec will pick it up again. but let’s be honest, we all know that’s not actually gonna happen. fuck the lot of ‘em, tbh.

[asgardian-light]

Random HC #34 (Continuation of #4 - #33)

Relax?!

It feels…strange. Not bad! Just…really strange and foreign… Robbie furrows his brows, focusing and trying to pinpoint the feeling that is coming up while he’s sitting on the bed, on the great, thick, fluffy towel, that keeps the bed from getting wet, when Sportacus now very gently wipes with the damp, warm, slightly soapy washrag over his bare back, cleaning him from sweat. But then the movement slows down and finally stops completely and the hero’s audibly worried voice sounds up “…I’m not…hurting you, am I?…” The hand on Robbie’s shoulder, keeping him steady, loosens its grip a little, as well. The villain blinks in confusion and turns his head to look into Sportacus’ concern reflecting eyes “…Hm?… No… Of course not… How would you?!…” “Good. It’s just… You’re frowning and the muscles in your back are all tensed up…” Sportacus eyes him carefully “…Does anything else hurt you?” “No…” “Or do you feel worse?” “No,” Robbie can’t help a weak smile now “It’s really fine, Sportacus. I just… This still is so…new to me… I don’t really know…how to feel about all this… It’s really not your fault!…” “…I see… But neither is it yours!” reminds the other firmly, then he thinks about it for a second, before jumping from the place next to the bed, where he’s been standing until now, onto the bed, in a kneeling position, right behind Robbie’s back. He can still reach the bowl with the water from here. “…Let me try something…” he now places both hands on the other’s back. One of them still inside the washrag, still cleaning away the sweat, leaving behind a mild smell of flowers and a pleasant warm feeling on Robbie’s back, while the other hand now starts a careful massage, rubbing and pressing gentle, but not TOO gentle circles in the tense muscles, trying to relax them a little. “…Tell me if it hurts too much…” murmurs Sportacus lowly, noticing Robbie’s light wince when he presses his thumb onto a very hard spot between his shoulder blades. “…Okay…” mumbles Robbie lowly while breathing through the slight sting at the hero’s careful touch. It does hurt a little, but he knows that Sportacus wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t convinced that he’d feel better afterwards. So he focuses on the warm, wet rag instead and after a few minutes, barely registers the slight pain anymore and his head slowly sinks on his chest. His eyes flutter shut and he starts to take deep, slow breaths. For a moment, he thinks that he’s about to fall asleep again like this, but slowly, he starts to realize that this is no tiredness this time, but deep relaxation. Something, he can’t remember ever feeling before. And something else…to let the hero proceed like this, despite the slight pain, he experienced when he started, and give away the last bit of control…he REALLY has to trust him limitless… A low, long sigh escapes his slightly parted lips. “…Good?…” asks the hero very lowly without interrupting his work. “…Hmm…” Robbie breathes out. Yes. It is good. That’s what it feels like now. Not bad. Not strange anymore. Just…good… Sportacus smiles happily. He can feel and see the tension leaving Robbie’s body. Finally. His massage turns softer now that the villain’s muscles are relaxed completely and is more an instrument of showing his presence and reassurance now. At regular intervals, he dunks the washrag into the bowl again, cleaning it and soaking up new, warm water. He’s long finished with washing Robbie’s back, of course, but though doesn’t stop before the water in the bowl gets too cold to use. “…Robbie…” “…Hm?…” “I have to stand up and change the water. Okay?” he gently runs his hands over his shoulder blades again. “…Hm… As long as you come back…” the weak smile in his voice is audible. Sportacus chuckles softly “Of course, I will! …Okay, careful now, don’t lean back…” Robbie nods weakly and the hero carefully jumps out of the bed, checks on Robbie’s relaxed expression, with his still closed eyes and grabs the bowl with the washrag in it to take it back to the bathroom. Just two minutes later, he returns with a second, still dry rag and the bowl, filled with pure, lukewarm water now. This time, he keeps standing next to the bed and gently runs the wet rag over the other’s back again, to remove possible rests of soap. Once, he’s finished with this, he takes a soft, dry towel and carefully starts rubbing him dry. Robbie lets go of a sigh, that sounds almost like a purr again and Sportacus chuckles silently and places a soft kiss on the villain’s hair. For a moment, both of them forget about the serious, not to say critical situation, the villain is currently in. They just enjoy each other’s company and light touches. It’s peaceful and relaxing. And, especially for Robbie, that’s such a rare or even new experience… “…Are you…done already?…” the sad tone in the villain’s low voice is obvious, when Sportacus finally, after over ten minutes of gentle rubbing, puts the towel away again. He doesn’t want him to stop. Ever… The hero smiles softly and replies reassuring “Only with one half. Your chest is next… Lay down, I’ll get new water,” he puts a steadying arm around Robbie’s shoulders and the other reflexively leans back and lets himself be eased to lie flat on his back. The hero gently lifts his head again, to prop it up on a small pillow, then he turns around. “…Sportacus…” He turns back at the soft call, at once and looks down into Robbie’s grey, now open eyes “Yes, Robbie?” “…My body…feels completely…slack…” he blinks slowly “…Is that…normal?…” “Does it feel good?” “…Yeah… I’d say so…” “Then it is perfect. And something, you definitely needed. And…yes, also normal,” he smiles soothingly and gently, shortly squeezes the villain’s hand “Don’t worry. You’re finally relaxed. And that is very good!” “…Okay…” Robbie returns the smile feebly and his eyes slowly fall shut again. “…I’ll be right back…” whispers Sportacus lowly and leaves once more to change the water. Robbie nods lightly. For the first time now, the fear that Sportacus might leave him for good when he walks away, keeps quiet. He knows that he’s coming back. Sportacus would never leave him alone for more than a few minutes without telling him before… His thoughts are calm and he’s breathing deeply…

“…We had to leave Iceland to protect you…” The words startle him to the core. And his eyes grow wide with confusion. His voice breaks “W-What do you mean? Protect me? From what? And why just ME? What about yourself?” “…It’s…complicated, Robbie…” his mother sighs lowly and looks at the fourteen-year old “…We had to…protect you from…some people, who were after you…” “After ME?! But… But I was only four years old when we left Iceland! What could I have possibly done to upset anybody enough to chase me at this age?! Just me? None of you??” Robbie’s head is swirling. This doesn’t make any sense… “…It’s not what you…did… You’re right, at this age, you couldn’t do anything…” the woman gently strokes through his black hair, a sad smile on her lips. Robbie nearly winces again. He can’t remember that she has ever done something like this before… “…Then what WAS the reason, Mum?…” the boy’s voice breaks even more now and he can’t help but to feel scared of the answer. “…These people…were afraid of what you COULD do, once you’ve grown up…” “…Mum…” “…Yes… All right… I know, you want answers…” she takes a deep breath in “…You… Do you remember all the stories, Dad and I told you and Ray about Iceland and about the…different…people living there?…” “…Of course, I do… But what…” “These weren’t just stories. These things…really happened…” Robbie stares at her, not sure whether to laugh or cry “…But…not the parts with the…elves and…fairies…and stuff!?” “Especially those parts.” Now the boy starts feeling really dizzy and his voice doesn’t raise above a whisper “…Now you’re starting to make fun of me, too?!…” “I don’t!” she grabs his shoulders, her gaze is serious “I mean it, Robbie. Elves and fairies exist!” “…Whatever… What…” he swallows hard “…What does that have to do with me now?…” “…More than you realize now… Do you remember that one story about…love between different species and…the children they have?…” The boy nods weakly. “…That…was the only story that was…made up… If a fae…and an…elf have a child…it’s no werewolf or kobold…” her voice trails off and her eyes roam Robbie’s face and body, before she fixes them on the wall behind him. “…Then…what IS it?…” a low voice in Robbie’s mind tells him that he knows the answer already, but he refuses to listen, instead, his own voice becomes truly desperate now “Mum?!?” “…You…” her eyes move back to meet his gaze “…It’s you, Robbie…”

[notashadowbutawave]

I re-watched Trouble in the Heights and took a bunch of caps because I needed to revisit the American Dream on this dark day in American history.  (The American Dream is to escape a drug lord and move to Philadelphia.  This is the only dream.)

Commentary within.

This is a Trouble in the Heights live blog.  My second viewing of this film.  Start time 8:30PM Eastern, January 30, 2017

I remember being utterly shocked the first time I watched this movie at how chill it begins.  Needing and wanting are two different things, you guys.  It seems like it is going to be a sobering look at childhood discoveries.

The cheesy cinematography probably could have been done without?  You know??

French toast in Washington Heights.  there are RARE circumstances under which I would put myself through living in New York City, but I rather like Washington Heights.

Javi is literally the cutest fucking kid.  I would protect him with my life.

Ana is pregnant and defying her mother.  This is Trouble waiting to happen.

LMAO NEVADA APPEARS SUDDENLY AND OMINOUSLY; SEEMS FINE; NOTHING OUT OF PLACE ABOUT THIS GUY AT ALL

Javi just wants to be left alone with his book because he is a good boy but Ana is ranting at him while eating pudding.  He can't stand it.

I frankly did not follow the plot of this movie at all the first time I watched it.  I appreciate that Diego is a chef.  All heroes should be chefs.

Javi with dogs montage is the PUREST thing in the world.  Like literally the purest thing.

Here comes Nevada again basically having oral sex with an apple.  Who will think of the children???

This movie doesn't do a terribly good job of establishing the fact that Javi and his friend stole money from that burned out building or whatever.  I mean.  It's subtle which is good storytelling and all, but maybe a little too subtle.  I feel like they maybe should have shown them finding the money or something?  But I mean.  Okay.

JAVI AND HIS TURTLE!!!!!! #BLESSED

Ana told her mom about her pregnancy which was probably the responsible thing to do.

The diner lady in this movie is fantastic.  An absolute gift.

Javi's friend Robbie is pure sass.  Their machinations about what to do with the money they stole are super realistic and good.

DIEGO PRACTICES GOOD FOOD SAFETY: A SCENE WE NEEDED TO SEE TO ESTABLISH HOW DEEPLY RESPONSIBLE HE IS. he then gets called into his boss's. . .area?  Are we to understand that Diego got a raise or something?

And then the immortal scene where Nevada threatens Javi's uncle and then licks cheese of of his fingers.  I can't explain why this is so meaningful to me, and yet.  I apparently didn’t cap the cheese licking part but someone else on Tumblr already did that.  I did get this smile, though.  Which I appreciate.

Neighborhood gossip that trujillo's warehouse burned down so his supply is gone and so is ALL HIS MONEY.  KIDS STOLE THE MONEY.  Okay, I guess the film does effectively establish what happened.

Cheesy cinematography returns to show how lost and sad Diego is.  Which is perfectly reasonable.

Javi's friend is so perfect.  "Always wanted some interest."  Seriously let's take a moment to appreciate these two, who are the pure and good reason for this movie, and all us, the Raúl Esparza fangirls, have sullied it with our impure thoughts.

Javi with dogs.  See.  More pure things.

Javi is a horrible liar.  But he jumps into action in an attempt to save his friend which is a pretty big deal.  Javi is a very good boy.

Can we talk about how Nevada doesn't run?  Like running is beneath him?  And how his non-running must be accompanied by ominous music.

This scene is truly chilling, primarily because of how good that kid is at crying and how Raúl really committed to stroking his face affectionately.  Like.  I kind of want to throw up a little bit.

TFW you just got your cronies to throw a child off a bridge and you haven't even finished your workday.

Nevada did NOT like having his shoes urinated on.  You could probably frighten him if you cornered him alone by urinating on him.

Also; did Javi see his friend get run over by a train?  Is that what we're supposed to understand?  Because that seems like. a pretty horrible thing to witness.

I appreciate that everyone in the neighborhood is looking out for Javi.This random dude with the van is so good to Javi.

Diego really doesn't have time for this pregnancy stuff tbh.  I like how he's unquestioningly going to go after drug dealers to protect Javi.  I appreciate Diego.  

Javi's understanding of money as a puppy is, again, too good and too pure.  Bless this child.  He also hates drug gangs.  Poor baby.

Smoking hookah in plastic chairs on the street is very Washington Heights based on my limited experience.

There's some class commentary going on about how Diego is ~*upwardly mobile and his childhood friend, who is now a gangster, is more in touch with his roots.  Or something.  Diego is excluded from certain narratives because of his professional status.

Javi and Ana's mom are a power couple.  Someone should get them a podcast.

Slow Jams with Ana and Diego.  Ana is literally wearing what looks like a members only jacket.

I don't fully understand what's going on in this apartment building scene or who is looking out for who.  I guess they broke into some Area and now they've brought a bunch of old guys to round up THE ENTIRE DRUG GANG.

Cheesy cinematography indicates Diego's moral conflict.  José is also willing to start shit for Javi.  This child is so beloved.

Diego's got like everyone kidnapped and now he has to go to a secret midnight meeting with Nevada.  Seems fine.

"Do you love me?" / "right now or in general?" Ana is my queen.

Personal note; Have I told you about the time I died a violent death?  See:

"Do you like grouper?"

"Depends on how it's prepared."

BOUILLABAISSE

"I hear you're not so good with kids"

My son is contemplating the use of reclaimed racial slurs in social settings.  His midterm essay received a B+.

There was a time in my life I thought I'd be able to live in peace before this film.

I don't even know anymore

Diego's threat after being told that he and his brother will be working for a Dominican drug lord to save their lives is to menacingly drink water.  Like?  This kid.  I swear.  What a charmer.

you got my guy???

you got my guy.

I like how Diego is like a believable human being in this scene and Nevada is just like a fucking caricature of himself.

Don't you just love when you remember where you buried your garbage bag full of drug money?

"you wanna know why she hates him?  he cooks better than she does!"  

I love the old dude army they recruited to help with their kidnapping of drug dealers.

I also love Diego's moral crisis while drinking a beer and eating cheese puffs.

Did anyone else get a vaguely romantic vibe from the cigar scene between Nevada and his um, dude? henchman?

Everyone loves Diego and Javi because they are perfect angels.

“How did a trash can get into my bodega?” - José, probably

I like how they go to Philly because I live in Philly and maybe Nevada would chase them to Philly and end up stomping around my hood smoking cigars at strange girls.

the moral of the story is that Javi is a very good boy.

there are no other morals to this story

Fin

eta: this is literally my unedited stream of consciousness while watching this movie, capping, and drinking rye whiskey, i apologize for nothing

[camillelim88-blog]

An evening as an adult cannabis consumer

#makingcannabismainstream

Reflecting on vulnerability, living and loving.

I got home from work, put my stuff down, and went straight to my cabinet. I packed my new favorite "piecemaker" pipe with Legalized OG, and went to my garage. I took a hit from the pipe, opened my garage and brought in my garbage and recycle bin, adulting... Then I finished my pipe and went back inside the house. I was feeling good.... I went to change and got comfortable. Then I was planning to do some work but instead I was inspired to document this very story and my thoughts. I put on some music. DunDunDunDunDun.....I was home alone, which is somewhat rare, and I soaked it all in. I don't really like being alone but it was nice to just be with my thoughts, yes my elevated thoughts... #elevatingtheconversation I reflected on my current struggles with love and being happy. And I thought about the messages that my amazing friends have shared with me; appreciation, being a go giver instead of a go getter, patience, self-love, God's timing. And I recalled my phone conversation with my mom on the bus home earlier, and I don't usually bring up deep issues with her but today I threw it out there, vulnerable, and she told me exactly what I needed to hear, the best advice a mom could give her child; to know my priorities. She reminded me of what’s really important. And we talked about her and my dad. It was nice. It was a short conversation, but enough to remind me of the best example of what love is and how I had been blessed to be around that my entire life. So I reminisced to my childhood, remembering how my dad put my mom first and how my mom put my dad first, in everything. How they were silly together. How they communicated. They were a team. We had sit-down meals together as a family everyday as much as possible, usually home-cooked! And I think I have gained the wisdom now to know I need to hold on to those loving family moments, and I'll continue to appreciate and cherish the new ones even more. Thanks mom and dad for being a perfect example of love not just to me but more importantly to each other.

Then I had another epiphany. I should cook for Robbie before he gets home from work! So I texted him about dinner but this text was extra special because I called him honey bear, which is rare and random. Honey bear just came to me but I think it really fits. And I realized, we don’t call each other by any cute nicknames, not even babe, which has always been a weird concept for me to accept, not a positive or negative feeling just weird, unsure. So I really thought about that, and I think its because we are just not used to it and both unwilling to be vulnerable saying something new, foreign, and uncomfortable. But then he responded with sugar dumpling, haha and that just made my heart smile and that felt and sounded right too. I think that’s the first step in both of us growing, being vulnerable, challenging each other. Seems silly and trivial but I think if we can both start using nicknames COMFORTABLY, it shows that we can grow together by just being vulnerable...

So today's takeaways, life lessons, keys & points to the game, ticket to heaven:

Put God and love first. I need to give and put Robbies happiness before mine. Love like Jesus. Corinthians 13: 4-8

Think about your priorities and what's important. I wrote this note for myself instead of working, and later, I'll spend time with Robbie. Work can wait.

Be vulnerable. Be open. Be deeply seen. For this is when we are most alive. One of my best friends said I should share and show the real me with more people. So here I am sharing and communicating my story, being vulnerable. 

We are a reflection of our surroundings and upbringing. Cherish your friends and family and reflect on the kind of love you receive or maybe don't receive but grow from those lessons learned 

Life and everything about it is truly a blessing. Practice gratitude. Happiness is a choice. Don't let those moments go by.

Shoot, I should start cooking!!

Thanks cannabis, for the moment of clarity...

#cannabisclarity #epiphanies #levelup #teamrobbieandcamille

[topbeautifulwomens]

#Darren #Hayes #Biography #Photos #Wallpapers #aichannel #fashionmodels #friends #girls #happyquote #ig #rapper #song #wedding #womensfashion

There are a few basic facts that you probably ought to know about Darren Hayes.

Darren was the singer in Australian pop duo Savage Garden. He was the writer and singer of the kind of evergreen worldwide smash hits that will be played as long as AC has a spot on the radioâ€s dial. They were neither fashionable nor critically feted, but Savage Garden was an enormously popular operation. From the four albums that he has crafted so far – two with Savage Garden, two solo – Darren Hayes has sold more than 25 million lists. He broke the record he himself set with Truly, Madly Deeply as most played record on adult contemporary US radio with the further release of 1999â€s ‘I knew I loved youâ€. There is not a country in the world that enjoys English speaking pop music that he has not had a hit in. Darren Hayes has dined with Madonna and duetted with Pavarotti. He is the third most popular Australian musical export of all time. Only INXS and Kylie trump the pop Midas touch that few give him proper credit for.

These are just a few of the basic facts you probably ought to know about Darren Hayes. The basic fact that may surprise you in all this is the motivational key that unlocks his astronomical, globe-straddling success. Before his last set, 2004â€s The Tension and The Spark, Darren had a major life realisation.

“My whole career as a big commercial pop artist was fed through self-hatred, basically. It was all about escapism in a fraudulent way. I became a pop star because I knew I had to become something extraordinary to escape”.

If you trace a line through the work of both Savage Garden and Darren Hayes solo, there is a recurring theme of being unloved and unlovable. It is part of what connects him at his most popular to a mass audience. If Darren is a master at articulating the basic sentiment of what it feels like to be rejected, it does not come without its own poignant back-story.

Darren grew up in the working class suburbs of Australiaâ€s Brisbane. In the early 80s, on the run from his Fatherâ€s violence and alcoholism he was just 10 when his Mother took him and his siblings to live in a caravan to escape regular scenes of violence. His relationship with his father has been both the making and undoing of Darren Hayes. His father having long since recpreviously mentioneded and redeemed himself (sober for 25 years) – the childhood clearly left an indelible mark on Hayes. It was his need to please that propelled him to invent a life as a pop star. The fame came but could not fill an emotional hole

This particular pop cloud has a silver lining, though. It arrives neatly at a point when he is ready for success on his own terms and in his own time. He is also, handily, at complete creative throttle. Darren has just completed his third solo record, This Delicate Thing Weâ€ve Made. This daring, theatrical, wise, wounded and incredible epiphany represents his true maturation as an artist. At 35 years old, Darren Hayes has turned into just the pop star he always wanted to be. Himself. Who knew that that would sound like the lost younger brother of Kate Bush, the one who eschewed his sisterâ€s whimsical folksiness in favour of a chrome-plated, 80s driven pop edge? Who further knew heâ€d start to look like the hottest gay in the village?

A little pop cultural context prior to the making of This Delicate Thing Weâ€ve Made.

Every proper pop artist has a period that you might like to now call ‘doing a Rudeboxâ€. It is the moment a pop star sheds their generic skin and develops some idiosyncratic corners of their own. Kylie did it on her Impossible Princess years back in the mid 90s. U2 did it with Pop. Robbie is the new president of it. Generally, ‘doing a Rudebox†will go down like a commercial lead balloon.

Darrenâ€s Rudebox was The Tension and The Spark. In the advent of it being his first record not to reap multiple commercial rewards, it was suggested at record company boardroom level that he should be farmed out to hit-makers to collaborate on the follow-up. He worked with The ‘Complicated†Matrix and Rob ‘Canâ€t Get You Out Of My Head†Davis. “All the usual suspects,” he says now, wryly, “and they were fantastic!”

The sessions were swiftly abandoned. Darrenâ€s own inner journey was taking him in a less corporate direction. This was all part of another big life decision. “Iâ€m not Justin Timberlake. I think there was a part of me that thought three years ago that I was a contender for that role, whatever it is. Maybe Enrique is about to become it again. Whatever that machine is that conspires to make a big, mainstream, male superstar, I thought I wanted it. Letting go of that was essential to this record. What I realised with this record was that I didnâ€t really want it at all.”

As an alternative course of action, Darren went through a sanguine split from his record label, Sony. “This record was born from a stand off with my record company. They didnâ€t understand me? Thatâ€s OK.” He began hatching plans for This Delicate Thing Weâ€ve Made by himself, with the aid only of a programmer, in Phoenix, Arizona. It will be released on Darrenâ€s own record label, Powdered Sugar, and will come as a double set, defying all pop logic and reason. The funny thing is? Itâ€s worth it.

This Delicate Thing Weâ€ve Made sits at the very precipices of a pop culture that has taught itself to embrace genre over any sense of personal artistry. Yet while its brace of potential hit singles will sit perfectly happily next to Natasha Beddingfield and Maroon 5 on the radio, they come replete with their own dangerous factor for a genre-led pop field. They are built from truthful sentiment and a sense of their own individuality.

Darren Hayes got married last year, for the second time in his life. The only difference this time round was the gender of his partner. It is no coincidence that This Delicate Thing Weâ€ve Made is the first record that Darren has made as an openly gay man, enjoying his first stabilising partnership. He came out to a quiet fanfare on his website last year, again coinciding with no commercial decisions. It is furthermore no accident that the record is his first to embrace the redemptive power of love and comes with such a real upbeat edge. He has never sounded as on fighting form as he does on the I Feel Love indebted Step Into The Light, the brilliant, cerebral white funk strut Me Myself and I and particularly first single, On The Verge Of Something Wonderful (it should come as no surprise that all three double up as accidental yet potential ecstasy anthems).

Elsewhere the kaleidoscopic pop triumph ventures into more abstract arenas, whilst still retaining the pure, joyous release of what a great pop hook can and should do. The central crux of the record – How To Build a Time Machine, A Hundred Challenging Things A Boy Could Do, The Future Holds A Lionâ€s Heart and Waking The Monster – were first fashioned at the Phoenix sessions. Darren didnâ€t know that what he was going was lunacy or bravery.

“I phoned [his partner] Richard up and said ‘Iâ€ve either completely lost my mind or Iâ€ve made possibly the most exciting thing that Iâ€ve ever been involved in.â€â€ť

The rest was completed at his new home in Notting Hill, West London. It was made utilizing a temperamental Fairlight synthesiser that the singer had acquired off eBay. Unsurprisingly, the standout tracks, Time Machine, Verge, Casey, Me, Myself and I, The Only One, have a warmth and beauty to their pre-digital age sonic construction. There is meaning to the loosely conceptual time travel theme at the heart of the record, as the hero travels back to the 80s with respectful, modern sincerity.

“My attachment to the 80s and its music has got a lot to do with my life and childhood at that time being quite horrific and so my imagination was automatically vibrant. Music and fashion all chimed together for me to become this release. Sociologically, 80s pop stars were so ideas driven. The 90s was cold and beige and white and minimalist. It was the last time that pop music was synonymous with escape. The truth is that until Richard, and it makes me sad to admit this, honestly the 80s were the last time I was really happy.”

If you can listen to this audacious and brilliant, epic and widescreen album without feeling a wealth of pathos towards its protagonist, youâ€re made of sterner stuff than I.

Written by Paul Flynn “This Delicate Thing We’ve Made”

Darren Hayes could never be accused of doing anything by convention. In a music industry terrified by ever decreasing sales, where budgets are being slashed and the dumbing down of artistry is commonplace – Hayes has pulled out all the stops and recorded an epic and theatrical double album.

He has defiantly said no to the seductive invitation of the majors and is instead gearing up to release his latest album on his very own independent label ‘Powdered Sugar’. Darren Hayes is doing things his own way. And he wants everyone to know about it.

His upcoming album ‘This Delicate Thing We’ve Made’ is an ambitious and cinematic opus. Featuring 25 bold and wildly extravagant pop songs that are already being compared in scope to the work of heroes Kate Bush and David Bowie. And perhaps most fascinatingly, was recorded with a strict commitment to a particular piece of technology as muse and inspiration ñ a vintage 1983 Fairlight CMI Synthesizer, a clunky synth relic that he scored off EBay. The same model that was at the heart of Kate Bush’s pivotal recording ‘The Hounds of Love’

It’s been 5 years of changes for Australian born and London based Hayes. His independent streak has been ramping up for some years now ñ but reached the pinnacle last year when he simultaneously announced the parting of ways with Columbia records and his marriage to British boyfriend Richard Cullen in a Civil Partnership ceremony at their home in London.

Out. Personally, professionally and creatively.

And for the first time in 10 years, in control of his publishing and recording future.

Most know the bullet points of Hayes’ pop career. They begin with two words: Savage Garden. As the voice and co-songwriter of those two enormous Billboard Number One singles ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ and ‘I Knew I Loved You’ he enjoyed global sales of over 25 million records.

After just two multi platinum hit albums, his band Savage Garden parted ways and Darren decided to do his own thing. This included two solo albums, the first being 2002’s poptastic 2 million selling UK and Australian top 5 album ‘Spin’. His 2nd solo album, a deep, dark and broodingly electronic confessional ‘The Tension and the Spark’ featured collaborations with experimental programmers Robert Conley, the renowned Marius De Vries (Rufus Wainwright, Bjork) and mixes by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Madonna, Mirwais, Massive Attack). This record seemed to signal a turning point in Hayes’ artistry. It brought forth stunning reviews from the likes of the UK’s prestigious NME (describing Hayes as a ‘genius’). The irony of releasing the best reviewed album of his career was that in the US it was in the hands of a record company who, in Hayes’ words, “Just didn’t get it”. Rather than lose sleep over it, Hayes decided to focus on what he does best: performance.

He spent 2 years touring the U.K, Australia and Asia with variations of a stage show produced with long time U2 show designer Willie Williams (U2, Rolling Stones, We Will Rock You). In fact last summer he played to over 30 thousand Brits and triumphantly filmed two sold out and stunningly reviewed shows at Australia’s prestigious Sydney Opera House.

Building up an arsenal of songs over what Hayes now describes as his ‘gap years’ he entered London’s Mayfair Studios in October 2006 with producer Justin Shave to record his double album ‘This Delicate Thing We’ve Made’. Like his mentors Peter Gabriel and Annie Lennox, Hayes had been driven by his demons as much as his ambitions. The effect of those teenage years of burying the shameful secrets of both his violent upbringing and emerging homosexuality would fuel a sadness and a sense of longing that would continue to inform his songwriting.

Some of the songs on the record would not sound out of place in a musical about Jules Verne or H.G Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’. But they’re just a metaphor says Hayes of his ‘Victorian Science Fiction’ dress code. “With this record I was fascinated with the idea of Time Travel as storytelling device to address regret and the possibility for change. I kept obsessing over the notion that if I could travel back in time to the source of my sadness as a child, I would not decide on to bring back the violence or the tears. Instead I’d drag some joy back”. In doing so Hayes has managed to craft an album of complex narratives and personal confessions that simultaneously document his arrival at peace within himself and the question that we could all ask ourselves. What would you change, if you could?

“It’s not a concept record, but there is definitely the idea that it begins with a loss of consciousness and a giving over to the notion that we are going to go deep into the psyche,” he explains. Songs like ‘Neverland’ are as dark as any Tim Burton fairytale or Del Toro’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’. In stark contrast ‘Who Would Have Thought’ is a gorgeous soaring and moody pop vehicle for tenor Hayes to exclaim “Who would have thought the tiny courageous? Who would have thought that love so belated could save me?” As if to say that all the pain and suffering was worth it in the end.

Name Darren Hayes Height 5' 10 Naionality Australia Date of Birth 8 May 1972 Place of Birth Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Famous for

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[demitgibbs]

Margot Robbie Talks Queen Elizabeth Drag, Gay Brother’s Popularity

After a fierce, Oscar-nominated turn as scandalous skater Tonya Harding in 2017’s I, Tonya, Margot Robbie is off the ice and holding royal court as Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots. Exercising a power over Europe so great during the 16th century’s latter half, nothing could stop Her Majesty – not even her cousin, Mary Stuart (portrayed by Saoirse Ronan).

Their vicious and ultimately deadly contention, the result of Mary’s request to be Elizabeth’s heir, is chronicled with delicious matriarchal bite for the #MeToo era, glamorous period-film beauty (those gowns!) and one very infamous beheading in director Josie Rourke’s diverse doozy of a historical drama. Beau Willimon’s screenplay also turns a tender, heartbreaking eye to Elizabethan Era queerness via Italian courtier and Mary’s friend and private secretary, David Rizzio, known in the film simply as Rizzio and portrayed by Ismael Cruz Cordova.

Ruler of the box-office in films such as 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street and 2016’s Suicide Squad, as hammer-wielding warrior Harley Quinn, a role she will reprise in 2020 for a Harley-centered spin-off, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the 28-year-old Australian actress is a queen in her own right.

Read on for Robbie’s essential tips for drag queens looking to perfect their Elizabeth look (hint: no arsenic) – plus, talk about her “too gay to function” brother Cameron Robbie, whom she considers her best friend, and a career highlight: watching Martin Scorsese direct a gay orgy.

What tips do you have for drag queens looking to transform themselves into Queen Elizabeth I?

(Laughs) Well, you definitely want to avoid getting smallpox – you have to really layer on the makeup to hide those pox-mark scars! So avoid that at all costs. For a drag makeover, I could give you a list of what not to do: number one, don’t put lead and arsenic in your makeup the way Queen Elizabeth did because, uh, it really could shorten your life. And I love that she stuck to the red hair and went with the even more vibrant color red and the more elaborate hairstyles as the years progressed.

The contrast with the white makeup, it really worked on her.

Mmhmm! Serious contrasting. I mean, she had very thin eyebrows – I don’t think that’s really the style these days. Not really in vogue right now.

But if you really set yourself apart…

Exactly. If you wanna make it clear that you’re really heading toward Queen Elizabeth, yeah, the thin eyebrows are a definite giveaway. White makeup. Fiery red wigs. And just bedazzle yourself. Jewels everywhere!

They wore their jewelry in a different way. Instead of wearing necklaces and bracelets and earrings, which they did do, jewels and diamonds and rubies were sewn into their outfits, which I thought was really amazing. Then when they would get undressed – at the end of it their ladies in waiting would undress them – the jewels would just scatter to the floor and someone would have a dustpan and sweep them up for the next outfit.

When you read the script, were you surprised by the film’s queerness? And were you disappointed that Mary got a gay “sister” friend in Rizzio and you didn’t? 

Yes! I was very jealous of Mary’s plot in general. I think it was actually a big part of it, that Elizabeth was more isolated. I think that was kind of self-inflicted; she had such a mistrust in almost everyone around her and had a very cynical nature out of self-preservation, therefore she isolated herself. Even with the gowns, you see over the years, as they get bigger and bigger, she’s literally keeping people at arm’s length at all times. So, I was very jealous that I didn’t have the same (relationship) as Mary and Rizzio. So very unfair. (Laughs)

What about this time period were you most surprised by?

I was interested to kind of discover that the Renaissance period was much more liberal in terms of sexuality than it is today. It’s interesting to kind of consider that, or to recognize how we just put labels on everything today. We label everything, and in doing so we often simplify often-complicated things. We’re so quick to say, “This person’s straight, this person’s bisexual, this person’s gay, this person’s Republican, this person’s whatever,” and we label everything.

But in terms of sexuality, the Renaissance period, they were far more fluid about sexuality, and bisexual wasn’t really a term that had to be placed on someone – it was very common for men to be married and also sleep with other men. That wasn’t something that people felt the need to label.

So that was really interesting, and then on the flip side the women at the time, particularly female monarchs, literally were a body. That was their commodity. Producing a male heir was kind of their purpose and once they had done that and achieved their purpose they were kind of swept aside. So, it was interesting to see, on one side, how liberal and open sexuality could be at the time – but, on the other side, how women were seen as a commodity, and not more than a conduit for their male successor.

Shifting to your portrayal of Tonya Harding, did you know that you were playing someone who many in the LGBTQ community consider a queer icon?

I did not realize that at the time. I did hear that, and I thought, “Oh, she’s got some pretty fun skate costumes!” But tell me more about that.

It’s her underdog status.

Underdog status – I love that, yes. Well, as an Aussie, we always gravitate toward underdog stories, anyway, so yeah, that’s one of the reasons I played her.

Is being an underdog an Aussie thing?

Yeah, yeah. Always. The country identifies itself as an underdog itself and has that mentality of fighting for your place, so I love underdog stories.

You’ve long fought for LGBTQ underdogs. You were a staunch supporter of marriage equality before Australia finally legalized same-sex marriages. You even wore a “Say I Do Down Under” shirt when you hosted Saturday Night Live in 2016. December marks the one-year anniversary of that landmark ruling. How did you celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia last year?

Honestly, I almost didn’t feel like celebrating because I was so upset that it took them that long to legalize it. I feel like when it was legalized across America that’s when I really wanted to celebrate. I thought, “Wow, this is a long way for America to come.” America, to me, holds such conservative Christian values, generally speaking, so for that to happen in America was like, “Wow, this is really a time to celebrate.”

Australia is awesome and can be so progressive, but the fact that we were so late in doing that upset me so deeply that I truly almost didn’t want to celebrate because I thought they didn’t deserve celebration.

Too little, too late, Australia?

(Laughs) Yes, too late, Australia! No, no; it was bittersweet. Of course I was happy and proud that we finally joined the 21st century in that regard, but at the same time, it was bittersweet. I really felt it should’ve been done a lot sooner.

You have a brother, Cameron, who has described himself on Instagram as “too gay to function.” Are you aware of the gay community’s interest in your brother?

No! But I’m sure he would love to hear that. He’s awesome. I have two brothers and a sister, but Cameron and I were particularly close growing up. He’s always been my best friend – since he was born, really. So, he would be thrilled to hear that. He would really appreciate that.

How did he come out to you?

Well, I guess that’s kind of his story to tell. I wouldn’t feel right to speak on his behalf. But like I said, he’s my best friend, as are all my siblings. I love them endlessly and always will.

Does he take you to gay bars?

I’ve been going to gay bars and clubs since I got my ID – and probably long before that! There was this fantastic gay club in Melbourne, so when I turned 18 – 18 is the legal drinking age in Australia – and while I was living in Melbourne we used to always go, because on a Saturday night they would do a musical drag performance. It was always incredible. I don’t know how they would get it together every week. I don’t know where they found the time or the costumes; they had the costumes put together, the musical art, the choreography. But every Saturday night we would go to this club and just have the best time ever. And I remember they did this one musical performance about Wicked and it was just the best thing you’ve ever seen. So, I’ve been going to gay clubs ever since I’ve legally been able to go to clubs. I always have more fun.

Those queens are gonna be very proud to see you as an actual queen.

Yes, I hope so!

Iconically, you walked in on a gay orgy dressed in Versace in The Wolf of Wall Street. Was that a first for you?

That was a first for me. I can’t say that I’ve walked in on any gay orgies in the past.

RELATED:

In a Versace outfit, no less.

In the most fabulous Versace outfit you’ve ever seen! I really wish that they got more screen time – I don’t think you ever get to see them – but they were incredible vintage Versace boots buckled all the way up to mid-calf.

Hate to break it to you, Margot, but I don’t think that scene was about your boots.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t think anyone was looking at the boots. But to watch Martin Scorsese choreograph a gay orgy was truly a highlight of my career. He really approached it with as much professionalism and dedication as any other scene in the movie. I mean, a lot of the scenes are absolutely crazy with so much happening, but to see him sort of choreograph the gay orgy was truly a wonderful experience.

I had read that Scorsese even brought in another choreographer, Michael Arnold, to help organize the shoot.

Oh yeah! It was intricate. There was a lot going on. It was wonderful to be a part of it, though.

In August, DC Comics confirmed that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are married, and in 2020, you will play Harley in her own movie. For Birds of Prey, are you mindful of the way Harley is portrayed when it comes to her sexuality?

Yeah. If you read the comics you know that Poison Ivy and Harley have an intimate relationship. In some comics they convey it as a friendship; in other comics you can see that they’re actually sexually involved as a couple. I’ve been trying to – I would love to have Poison Ivy thrown into the universe, because the Harley and Poison Ivy relationship is one of my favorite aspects of the comics, so I’m looking to explore that on screen.

Have you considered who you’d want as Poison Ivy?

You know what? I’ve thought about it a lot and there’s no one person who springs to mind. I’m pretty open-minded.

You have your own production company, Lucky Chap, which is committed to producing female-led films. How conscious are you of LGBTQ inclusion in the films and TV shows your company produces?

Our goal for the company has always been to tell female-driven content with as many female filmmakers as possible. As far as including content for the LGBTQ community, that’s a huge aspect. We make movies for audiences to love. A huge portion of the audience is a part of the LGBTQ community, so we obviously wanna make content for everyone. I don’t know if anyone could say that they don’t have someone close to them who isn’t a part of that community, so of course it’s important. It’s a part of everyone’s life; everyone’s gonna relate to those stories. We have a lot happening, actually, at the company, especially on the TV side. I’m not sure when they would actually be released – nothing’s been announced yet – but what I can say is, absolutely. We always wanna make stories for everyone.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/12/20/margot-robbie-talks-queen-elizabeth-drag-gay-brothers-popularity/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/181271531145

[hotspotsmagazine]

Margot Robbie Talks Queen Elizabeth Drag, Gay Brother’s Popularity

After a fierce, Oscar-nominated turn as scandalous skater Tonya Harding in 2017’s I, Tonya, Margot Robbie is off the ice and holding royal court as Queen Elizabeth I in Mary Queen of Scots. Exercising a power over Europe so great during the 16th century’s latter half, nothing could stop Her Majesty – not even her cousin, Mary Stuart (portrayed by Saoirse Ronan).

Their vicious and ultimately deadly contention, the result of Mary’s request to be Elizabeth’s heir, is chronicled with delicious matriarchal bite for the #MeToo era, glamorous period-film beauty (those gowns!) and one very infamous beheading in director Josie Rourke’s diverse doozy of a historical drama. Beau Willimon’s screenplay also turns a tender, heartbreaking eye to Elizabethan Era queerness via Italian courtier and Mary’s friend and private secretary, David Rizzio, known in the film simply as Rizzio and portrayed by Ismael Cruz Cordova.

Ruler of the box-office in films such as 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street and 2016’s Suicide Squad, as hammer-wielding warrior Harley Quinn, a role she will reprise in 2020 for a Harley-centered spin-off, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the 28-year-old Australian actress is a queen in her own right.

Read on for Robbie’s essential tips for drag queens looking to perfect their Elizabeth look (hint: no arsenic) – plus, talk about her “too gay to function” brother Cameron Robbie, whom she considers her best friend, and a career highlight: watching Martin Scorsese direct a gay orgy.

What tips do you have for drag queens looking to transform themselves into Queen Elizabeth I?

(Laughs) Well, you definitely want to avoid getting smallpox – you have to really layer on the makeup to hide those pox-mark scars! So avoid that at all costs. For a drag makeover, I could give you a list of what not to do: number one, don’t put lead and arsenic in your makeup the way Queen Elizabeth did because, uh, it really could shorten your life. And I love that she stuck to the red hair and went with the even more vibrant color red and the more elaborate hairstyles as the years progressed.

The contrast with the white makeup, it really worked on her.

Mmhmm! Serious contrasting. I mean, she had very thin eyebrows – I don’t think that’s really the style these days. Not really in vogue right now.

But if you really set yourself apart…

Exactly. If you wanna make it clear that you’re really heading toward Queen Elizabeth, yeah, the thin eyebrows are a definite giveaway. White makeup. Fiery red wigs. And just bedazzle yourself. Jewels everywhere!

They wore their jewelry in a different way. Instead of wearing necklaces and bracelets and earrings, which they did do, jewels and diamonds and rubies were sewn into their outfits, which I thought was really amazing. Then when they would get undressed – at the end of it their ladies in waiting would undress them – the jewels would just scatter to the floor and someone would have a dustpan and sweep them up for the next outfit.

When you read the script, were you surprised by the film’s queerness? And were you disappointed that Mary got a gay “sister” friend in Rizzio and you didn’t? 

Yes! I was very jealous of Mary’s plot in general. I think it was actually a big part of it, that Elizabeth was more isolated. I think that was kind of self-inflicted; she had such a mistrust in almost everyone around her and had a very cynical nature out of self-preservation, therefore she isolated herself. Even with the gowns, you see over the years, as they get bigger and bigger, she’s literally keeping people at arm’s length at all times. So, I was very jealous that I didn’t have the same (relationship) as Mary and Rizzio. So very unfair. (Laughs)

What about this time period were you most surprised by?

I was interested to kind of discover that the Renaissance period was much more liberal in terms of sexuality than it is today. It’s interesting to kind of consider that, or to recognize how we just put labels on everything today. We label everything, and in doing so we often simplify often-complicated things. We’re so quick to say, “This person’s straight, this person’s bisexual, this person’s gay, this person’s Republican, this person’s whatever,” and we label everything.

But in terms of sexuality, the Renaissance period, they were far more fluid about sexuality, and bisexual wasn’t really a term that had to be placed on someone – it was very common for men to be married and also sleep with other men. That wasn’t something that people felt the need to label.

So that was really interesting, and then on the flip side the women at the time, particularly female monarchs, literally were a body. That was their commodity. Producing a male heir was kind of their purpose and once they had done that and achieved their purpose they were kind of swept aside. So, it was interesting to see, on one side, how liberal and open sexuality could be at the time – but, on the other side, how women were seen as a commodity, and not more than a conduit for their male successor.

Shifting to your portrayal of Tonya Harding, did you know that you were playing someone who many in the LGBTQ community consider a queer icon?

I did not realize that at the time. I did hear that, and I thought, “Oh, she’s got some pretty fun skate costumes!” But tell me more about that.

It’s her underdog status.

Underdog status – I love that, yes. Well, as an Aussie, we always gravitate toward underdog stories, anyway, so yeah, that’s one of the reasons I played her.

Is being an underdog an Aussie thing?

Yeah, yeah. Always. The country identifies itself as an underdog itself and has that mentality of fighting for your place, so I love underdog stories.

You’ve long fought for LGBTQ underdogs. You were a staunch supporter of marriage equality before Australia finally legalized same-sex marriages. You even wore a “Say I Do Down Under” shirt when you hosted Saturday Night Live in 2016. December marks the one-year anniversary of that landmark ruling. How did you celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia last year?

Honestly, I almost didn’t feel like celebrating because I was so upset that it took them that long to legalize it. I feel like when it was legalized across America that’s when I really wanted to celebrate. I thought, “Wow, this is a long way for America to come.” America, to me, holds such conservative Christian values, generally speaking, so for that to happen in America was like, “Wow, this is really a time to celebrate.”

Australia is awesome and can be so progressive, but the fact that we were so late in doing that upset me so deeply that I truly almost didn’t want to celebrate because I thought they didn’t deserve celebration.

Too little, too late, Australia?

(Laughs) Yes, too late, Australia! No, no; it was bittersweet. Of course I was happy and proud that we finally joined the 21st century in that regard, but at the same time, it was bittersweet. I really felt it should’ve been done a lot sooner.

You have a brother, Cameron, who has described himself on Instagram as “too gay to function.” Are you aware of the gay community’s interest in your brother?

No! But I’m sure he would love to hear that. He’s awesome. I have two brothers and a sister, but Cameron and I were particularly close growing up. He’s always been my best friend – since he was born, really. So, he would be thrilled to hear that. He would really appreciate that.

How did he come out to you?

Well, I guess that’s kind of his story to tell. I wouldn’t feel right to speak on his behalf. But like I said, he’s my best friend, as are all my siblings. I love them endlessly and always will.

Does he take you to gay bars?

I’ve been going to gay bars and clubs since I got my ID – and probably long before that! There was this fantastic gay club in Melbourne, so when I turned 18 – 18 is the legal drinking age in Australia – and while I was living in Melbourne we used to always go, because on a Saturday night they would do a musical drag performance. It was always incredible. I don’t know how they would get it together every week. I don’t know where they found the time or the costumes; they had the costumes put together, the musical art, the choreography. But every Saturday night we would go to this club and just have the best time ever. And I remember they did this one musical performance about Wicked and it was just the best thing you’ve ever seen. So, I’ve been going to gay clubs ever since I’ve legally been able to go to clubs. I always have more fun.

Those queens are gonna be very proud to see you as an actual queen.

Yes, I hope so!

Iconically, you walked in on a gay orgy dressed in Versace in The Wolf of Wall Street. Was that a first for you?

That was a first for me. I can’t say that I’ve walked in on any gay orgies in the past.

RELATED:

In a Versace outfit, no less.

In the most fabulous Versace outfit you’ve ever seen! I really wish that they got more screen time – I don’t think you ever get to see them – but they were incredible vintage Versace boots buckled all the way up to mid-calf.

Hate to break it to you, Margot, but I don’t think that scene was about your boots.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t think anyone was looking at the boots. But to watch Martin Scorsese choreograph a gay orgy was truly a highlight of my career. He really approached it with as much professionalism and dedication as any other scene in the movie. I mean, a lot of the scenes are absolutely crazy with so much happening, but to see him sort of choreograph the gay orgy was truly a wonderful experience.

I had read that Scorsese even brought in another choreographer, Michael Arnold, to help organize the shoot.

Oh yeah! It was intricate. There was a lot going on. It was wonderful to be a part of it, though.

In August, DC Comics confirmed that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are married, and in 2020, you will play Harley in her own movie. For Birds of Prey, are you mindful of the way Harley is portrayed when it comes to her sexuality?

Yeah. If you read the comics you know that Poison Ivy and Harley have an intimate relationship. In some comics they convey it as a friendship; in other comics you can see that they’re actually sexually involved as a couple. I’ve been trying to – I would love to have Poison Ivy thrown into the universe, because the Harley and Poison Ivy relationship is one of my favorite aspects of the comics, so I’m looking to explore that on screen.

Have you considered who you’d want as Poison Ivy?

You know what? I’ve thought about it a lot and there’s no one person who springs to mind. I’m pretty open-minded.

You have your own production company, Lucky Chap, which is committed to producing female-led films. How conscious are you of LGBTQ inclusion in the films and TV shows your company produces?

Our goal for the company has always been to tell female-driven content with as many female filmmakers as possible. As far as including content for the LGBTQ community, that’s a huge aspect. We make movies for audiences to love. A huge portion of the audience is a part of the LGBTQ community, so we obviously wanna make content for everyone. I don’t know if anyone could say that they don’t have someone close to them who isn’t a part of that community, so of course it’s important. It’s a part of everyone’s life; everyone’s gonna relate to those stories. We have a lot happening, actually, at the company, especially on the TV side. I’m not sure when they would actually be released – nothing’s been announced yet – but what I can say is, absolutely. We always wanna make stories for everyone.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/12/20/margot-robbie-talks-queen-elizabeth-drag-gay-brothers-popularity/

[catboyfeli]

COPY PASTING SOME YOUTUBE COMMENTS BC ALL THIS MABEL HATE MAKES ME MAD

ShadowRevya91 week ago "He wasn't lying in that regard as to just casually mocking her." Bill wasn't just casually mocking her. In context, he was trying to create a rift between the twins because at the time Dipper wasn't yet willing to make a deal with him for so much of a stitch of one of Mabel's puppets.

"Makes Mabel seem like a Mary Sue." I don't follow, what is it that makes Mabel seem like a Mary Sue? I thought a Mary Sue was a character without flaws, but your issue here seems to be based in Mabel being deeply, brokenly flawed.

"Dipper is shown to constantly give something up for Mabel" Dipper willingly giving things up for Mabel—in circumstances where it is clearly established as the decent course of action, with Dipper learning a lesson in doing so—does not mean Mabel is selfish. Ex. Dipper learning that it's creepy to be so controlling over another person's life choices and choosing to give up his hard work for his sister the moment he sees for himself that losing her pig would genuinely hurt her means that Dipper grew as a person and cares about his twin respectively, not that Mabel somehow got away with something to his detriment. For comparison, in Carpet Diem, the moment Dipper explains to Mabel why it is he wants his own room, she gives up the key and tells him she won't fight him for it. This obviously isn't an example of Dipper being selfish, it's just that Mabel understands and cares about her twin. And as you say, the lessons Dipper learned in his eps and his ultimately being able to forge a genuine friendship with Wendy are positives, not losses, and certainly not losses "because of Mabel's selfishness".

"Everything (in her mind) has to be about her." Mabel is portrayed as constantly trying to help other people. As shown in The Last Mabelcorn, other peoples' happiness is what she stakes her own happiness on. She says as much in The Love God when Dipper and the teens ditch a suffering Robbie: "How can I be happy if I know someone else is sad?" In contrast, Dipper holds grudges; he isn't invested in the well-being of people he doesn't know or people who have crossed him/his sister in the past (Robbie, Pacifica, the gnomes, etc.). Mabel's so concerned about Gideon's happiness in The Hand that Rocks the Mabel that she can't bring herself to turn him down even when it distresses her. She tries to help Dipper along in his crush on Wendy and in building confidence, and when it doesn't work out offers to make him a list of rebound crushes. She tries to play matchmaker between Lazy Susan and Stan when she finds out he wants her to like him. When she finds out Stan has a fear of heights, she spends the episode trying to help him move past it. I could go on, but seriously she does these things for the entire length of the show; it's her 'thing'. Ford, Dipper, and Wendy agree in Mabelcorn that Mabel's the most pure-of-heart, well-meaning person they know.

"she is shown to constantly take advantage of his dedication and/or belittle his ambitions" When is she ever shown to consciously take advantage of Dipper or hurt his feelings? She makes fun of his voice, lack of manliness, and love of nerd things, but only playfully and she's definitely not the sole character to do so (see Stan, Wendy, and Soos) (Stan is so hard on Dipper that it becomes a major plot point near the end of season one). In Bottomless Pit, Mabel, Soos, and Wendy all express how much they think Dipper's voice is perfect at the end of their mixtape. Mabel realizes in DD & More D that Dipper's actually been taking a lot of their teasing to heart and feels bad about this because it was not her intention. This isn't a realization specific to Mabel either. In Little Dipper, Dipper realizes that he's unintentionally been rubbing his success in Mabel's face, that she feels inferior to him because "you're better than me at like everything", and that her teasing is her attempt to feel better about what few victories over him she has.

"And she never really "pays" for it" Mabel is punished while learning lessons, same as Dipper. As I said before, it's just easier for the audience to brush off. Ex. Mabel gets multiple attempts to kickstart the summer romance that is her central desire for the summer; every single one goes down in flames (literally, in Sock Opera) and we see in Society of the Blind Eye how much those failures weigh on her and how difficult it can be for her to remain confident in the face of them. Like Dipper, we see throughout season 2 that Mabel makes an effort to move past this and comes out better for it.

"Is she at least sorry for nearly getting her brother and close friend killed simply to teach them a lesson? It was an accident, yeah, but it was a result of how short-sighted she is." Maybe it's just me, but Mabel... pushing Wendy and Dipper into a closet together... falls a bit short of consideration as a heinous crime. Besides, Mabel 1) was trying to be helpful, 2) was also in danger, 3) didn't know there was a monster in the bunker. Pinning Into the Bunker on Mabel is like pinning Sock Opera on Dipper for not realizing he was about to be screwed over or pinning The Inconveniencing on Dipper for going along with the teens in an attempt to fit in or pinning Weirdmageddon on Dipper for not telling Mabel about the rift in the first place. You could pin Into the Bunker on Dipper as well while we're at it; he led the mission, the purpose of which was to benefit his summer priority, and the gang almost were crushed in the security room. Point being: The kids not being able to see the future isn't a character flaw and the others don't typically expect apologies from them in such instances. This is different from, say, when Dipper intentionally raises the dead in Scary-oke or Stan leaves Waddles outside in Land Before Swine.

"Unlike in season one where it's pretty obvious that the story is about Dipper" How is season one about Dipper? I didn't get that impression personally.

"I can only think of two episodes where she actually learns a lesson (Boy Crazy and Sock Opera)" Here's what I can remember off the top of my head: Tourist Trapped, Irrational Treasure, The Legend of the Gobblewonker, The Hand That Rocks the Mabel, Boss Mabel, The Last Mabelcorn, The Golf War, Society of the Blind Eye, Northwest Mansion Mystery, and The Love God. Not that number remotely matters (as you say, Ford's arc wrapped up neatly despite his only being present for the final 7 episodes), but hope that helps.

"She KNOWS this isn't real that Bill is gonna destroy everyone she cares about in the REAL world... but CHOOSES to stay put." This... ignores a couple things. 1) So did Wendy and Soos and nearly Dipper, only he remembered that what the bubble was showing him wasn't actually what he truly wanted, only what he thought he did (i.e. being Wendy's age). Which ties into his speech to Mabel later. 2) It's a magic prison bubble; Mabel's under a spell. She doesn't snap out of it until the sincere sibling hug. 3) This incident is parallel to the first season's penultimate episode, wherein Dipper initially decides not to save Stan and the shack because he feels Stan doesn't care enough about him to merit rescuing. Mabel is similarly hurting because she believes Dipper has decided to ditch her. This is part of the reason she creates a false Dipper; she thought the real Dipper meant to abandon her and couldn't accept a reality where that could be true. Because when it comes down to it, and Dipper spells this out himself, Mabel isn't stuck in her fantasyland because she's selfish and it's giving her everything she thinks she wants; she's stuck because she's afraid of losing Dipper and "of growing up".

Throughout the series, Dipper and Mabel are both portrayed as childish. Dipper has a childish idea of what it means to be grown up and can't wait to leave his childhood behind and become the great person he imagines he will be as an adult. Mabel is a tad more mature in that she understands being afraid of being perceived as childish is itself childish and that the twins have to cherish their childhood and their time together while they have it because it won't last forever. However, faced with both the thought of her childhood ending and Dipper leaving, she can't handle both at once and instead seeks solace from reality, refusing to move forward in the process. Dipper developed as a character over the series, but like Mabel those lessons don't fully sink in until the events of Weirdmageddon, where he becomes a realist who understands he can't deal with reality by constantly living in the future. He sees Mabel struggling with the unrealistic desire to remain stuck in time as similar to his unrealistic desire to have already grown up and explains to her they can kill two birds with one stone and face reality together; the spell breaks here because Mabel no longer needs the fantasy world to deal with losing Dipper and that subsequent panic of having to grow up alone. "Man, I went nuts back there. The real world can't be that bad, right?" Show less Reply 3     ShadowRevya9 ShadowRevya91 week ago (edited) "It's sad to see that ONCE AGAIN, Dipper sacrifices his ambitions for her" "All she really learned that is if she guilt trips Dipper enough times, he'll always turn around for her." I think you're missing a critical component of Dipper's character arc here. Dipper's 'ambitions', to essentially begin a career path at friggin' 12 and skip/squander the remainder of his childhood and teenage years, are explicitly portrayed as being as delusional as Mabel's fantasyland. Dipper isn't giving up anything of value here and he isn't giving it up for Mabel's sake; it's a personal decision he's made and he's using this decision to show Mabel that he's chosen to face the music and implore her to join him in doing so. This is why when Mabel tells Dipper—immediately after they've escaped the prison bubble—that while she appreciates his speech he's free to take the apprenticeship if he wants to and she doesn't want to be responsible for holding him back, Dipper simply reiterates that he doesn't want it.

Again, Dipper letting things go of his own volition (not due to supposed emotional abuse on Mabel's part) is not somehow synonymous with him getting the short end of the stick. The only ones who try to frame it that way in-universe are Bill "literal monster" Cipher and Stanford "isn't having siblings suffocating?" Pines.

"with her... not really giving up much this time" This is what I meant when I said it's easier for the audience to value what Dipper sacrifices more. Mabel gave up the prison bubble, a world where she gets everything she wants (except Dipper, which makes the whole thing worthless). The bubble was her dream the way Ford's apprenticeship was Dipper's: unrealistic and unfulfilling. It would have been awful of her to choose to stay, the same way it would have been awful of her to give Bill the journal to keep her play; the same way it would have been awful of Dipper to keep the megaphone, the same way it would have been awful of Dipper to deny Wendy's freedom to make her own choices. These are all sacrifices, but only seem to be viewed as such when they are Dipper's, despite the fact that in each instance, 1) giving up the thing was hard for them, 2) unambiguously the right thing to do, and 3) they realize the thing being given up wasn't actually worth much at all. Show less Reply 2     jenny xu jenny xu6 days ago I'm feeling bad for jumping into this argument but at the same time...

Alright, I see a lot of what you're saying here, but my first impression agreed with Edward Gil and my reason for 'why' stands thus. Dipper, as far as I've perceived him in both season one and season two, drops everything (except for Wendy, I suppose) the moment Mable needs his help. When Waddles was taken by a pterodactyl in the Land Before Swine, Dipper dropped his attempt to photograph the pterodactyl the moment he learned that Mabel's pig was taken. Of course, he would help, but as far as I remember, it never occurred to Dipper to bring a camera 'just in case.' That's him caring for Mable and putting her above his priorities.

Later on, in the Golf War, Mable may have been the bigger person and stated that cheating was wrong while Dipper was perfectly fine with it, we have to remember that Pacifica is Mable's nemesis. Not Dipper's. The only reason Dipper would have any issue with Pacifica would be because of the way she treats Mable.

Even earlier, in the Deep End, when Mermando couldn't breathe and Mable told Dipper (as the assistant lifeguard) to give him reverse CPR, Dipper didn't hesitate. The obvious solution would have been to roll Mermando into the lake, yes, but I thought it was heartwarming that Dipper /didn't hesitate/ to give reverse mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a merman he met literally seconds earlier. He probably would have done it, Mable or no Mable, but I think the fact that his twin went through all that trouble before hand to get Mermando to the lake played a role in how quickly he conceded to the demand.

In dangerous situations, Dipper's first words are always 'let her go!' and 'her' always being Mable. Despite not being the bravest or strongest person (don't we know it), Dipper always, always, stands in front of Mable against monsters and threats to shield and protect her. Obviously, this isn't to say that Mable is less capable than anyway. If it comes down to it, I'm willing to bet that she's the more athletic one, but the fact of the matter is, Dipper is constantly proving how much he cares for his twin.

Now Mable on the other hand? Aside from how she always supports Dipper fully in his investigation of the supernatural (Mystery Twins!), it's hard to think of an example where she dropped her own priorities in order to help Dipper.

Now, in terms of 'being a good person,' I think Mable probably has Dipper beat. She goes out of her way to help others, she has a stronger sense of morals and in the Last Mablecorn, Mable outright stated that she had the purest heart and Dipper just went, 'no arguments there.' I just think, when it comes down to paying attention to each other's needs and such, Dipper is just more aware than Mable, you know? He's the analytical one, the one who's always winning at chess. So he's the one who takes more care to see things from Mable's perspective.

Meanwhile, Mable is playfully ribbing Dipper about an assortment of shortcomings, from lack of manliness to his voice to being slightly shorter to his crush on Wendy to a miscellaneous collection of other small, harmless comments that... frankly add up. It's not much of an issue considering. as you've pointed out, Wendy, Soos and Grunkle Stan do virtually the same but considering how Dipper is towards Mable, it's worse coming from her.

When things get serious, Mable is there for Dipper, but not the same drop-everything way he is for her. When it comes down to it, I think that's what rubs people the wrong way.

This is all open to discussion, of course. Show less

[mysteryshelf]

AUTHOR INTERVIEW - Brooks Arthur Wachtel

  DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by the author. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

About the Book:

Lady Sherlock: Circle of the Smiling Dead, chronicles the adventures of Lady Natasha “Tasha” Dorrington,  a fast-thinking, hard-fighting and very sensual leading lady.  The story takes the reader from fog-bound Edwardian London to a remote island in Scotland, where a terrified man is taunted by the power of a thousand year curse closing upon him.

Tasha finds herself embroiled in a much larger game.  She has been lured to the island to play a life and death contest with Deirdre, the brilliant leader of an ancient and sinister cult who plots to plunge the world into war.    The prize  between these powerful adversaries is no less than civilization itself – and the life of Tasha’s daughter, held hostage by the cult.

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  Interview with the Author:

What initially got you interested in writing?

  I have always been a story-teller. It is simply part of me and always has been.  In elementary school I wrote and performed in backyard plays.  In Jr. High School I was put, without requesting it, into a typing class… let’s just say, it turned out to be exceedingly useful in my future career.  When I was a student at Hollywood High School, I wrote a 45 minute Sherlock Holmes spoof which my student film group shot that summer at world famous The Magic Castle.

  The Magic Castle would become a very important part of my life.  As I wasn’t yet driving when I did my high-school film there (the first film ever shot at the Castle), my parents would be my transportation.  My folks fell in love with the place and became non-magician members.   I would gain entrance – what a thrill, attending this usually over-21 club and soon fell in love with magic.  And after much study,  became a magician member.  I have met so many wonderful people there both personally and professionally.   My life would not have been the same without my connection to this wonderful place. When I started working in television, writing became how I made a living.  While there are certainly stresses and frustrations, what a ​fun ride it has been.  However, after three decades of writing television scripts,  I wanted to try something new.

  I decided to try my hand at writing a novel.  It was a new challenge and exciting… and, unlike every one of my work-for-hire television assignments – this was mine!

  What genres do you write in?

  It might be easier to decide which ones I don’t.   In television,  I was lucky not to get pigeon-holed.   In fiction-television I wrote adventure, historical adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, comedy-adventure, comedy and pre-school.… I wrote them all.

​

And then there was non-fiction.   That was like an entire second career.  After getting my feet wet writing and producing episodes of documentaries for various History Channel series, my oft-times co-writer and producing partner, Cynthia Harrison and animator Jason McKinley were able to launch our own series,  DogFights.   It was a ground-breaking series about air-combat that put the viewer right in the cockpit as we recreated some of history’s most exciting air combats.  The premier episode – really a two-hour special that served as a back-door pilot – was the highest rated military themed show the network had ever had up to that point.   When they re-ran it a few days later, it did even better.  We were on our way to a series.

  I’ve always had a love of history (and have incorporated that into my non-fiction work as well) so it was a thrill putting that knowledge and interest to work in these documentary shows.  Perhaps I got that fascination as a child.  My father was a career Naval aviator, so that kind of upbringing is deeply associated with the past and left its mark on me.

  Most recently, I worked with Cynthia Harrison again on Silver Tsunami,  an award-winning ​documentary about the upcoming demographic challenge of the aging Baby Boom generation. The film is just finishing up its festival circuit and it will be available for download and streaming shortly.

​

My premier novel, Lady Sherlock: Circle of the Smiling Dead combines many of my favorite interests; strong female characters, my love of history, especially the late-Victorian-Edwardian era, Sherlock Holmes, and – growing up a military-brat (or more properly, Naval Dependent) – gave me an appreciation of ships, sea-power and its place in history.

  I decided to combine these interests; history, naval, the supernatural, Holmes, powerful female characters, into one story.

  Reaching back into history (yes, that love of history again), I found the perfect time, place and circumstances to use as a jumping off place.  I started with the revolutionary battleship,  H.M.S. Dreadnought and the  naval race and political collision between Britain and Germany which that ship help set in motion.  But, as I said, that was just the launch point for a tale that weaves between the actual past and the fantastic. I thought that, making my main character a very capable, confident woman – in a  particularly chauvinistic era would be fun and offer story and character opportunities that a male lead would not.  There would be so many circumstances and attitudes which would simply not exist for a man of that era that she would have to overcome.  She’s a character equally skilled with women’s rights – and lefts.  There’s a lot of humor in the book and much of it is the collision between a witty, smart woman who will not easily tolerate chauvinistic attitudes.

  What drew you to writing these specific genres?

  I have had a love of history and the fantastic as long as I can remember.  I was also a big comic-book reader.  That paid off when I started writing animation series for both the Marvel and DC franchises.   But as to what drew me… in the beginning of my career what motivated me was getting the job on any show I was able to pitch.  Successful television writers have to be chameleons.   But I had an affinity for both hard action and comedy so I was able to slide from one genre to another.

  Getting into novels was a very different direction.   Before Lady Sherlock was a novel, it was a screenplay  that never sold—alas—but  landed me many television (and screenplay) assignments. When I reread it several years later, I felt it was too good a story to languish in a drawer and only be seen by a few producers and story-editors. As I reacquainted myself with the script, I felt it had the makings of a novel. I’ve been writing scripts for decades and was looking for something new. Little did I know what vast changes lay ahead…

  How did you break into the field?

  I had been shooting student-films ever since my teens.  I also had the good fortune to attend Hollywood High School which ran a university style theatre-arts department.  The training would serve me well for years to come.  Shortly after college I wrote and directed a feature; sort of a period gothic-ghost story.  And then I made a career transition from feature-film, writer-director, to part-time, all-night, answering service operator (the pre-voice mail, human job of answering people’s phones and writing down a message for them).

  Not wanting this to be the apex of my career, I started writing spec-scripts (a writing sample which may never be bought or produced, but gives those who can hire you an idea of your talent).   One of them got me a life-changing interview which plunged me into the world of animation.

  My first writing job in the field was an animated script I co-wrote for Filmation’s Ghostbusters.   I had interviewed with an executive at Filmation to write an animated feature.  The exec, Robby London, sent my material to Arthur Nadel who was the executive handling the writing on the studio’s television series.  He invited me to pitch for Ghostbusters which I did with Tom Bagen, my co-writer at the time.

  I did more shows for Filmation.  Then Robby London moved over to Dic Studios and called me, letting me know they had a slate of shows looking for writers.  I pitched to Dinosaucers and made several sales.   Suddenly I was a working animation scribe…  and still am.

  I eventually moved into some live-action and, thanks to my friend Richard Mueller who recommended me to a company he was writing for, into documentaries.  ​The film and television industry is very much a relationship business and I am very grateful for the people who have extended a helping hand.  I try to do the same whenever I can.

  How I broke into novels – or, more specifically, got a publisher, was one of those “being in the right place at the right time” moments.  Another amazing writer and good friend of mine,  Steven L. Sears, introduced me to Peter Wacks, who was working with WordFire Press, over lunch at the Magic Castle (obviously a very important meeting spot in my life and world).  I was asking Peter about self-publishing and he offered to take a look at my manuscript.  A few months later, at another Magic Castle lunch, he offered to publish the book.  I was stunned.  Had I not been sitting down I would have ended up on the floor.  Working with Kevin J. Anderson and the crew at WordFire Press, Lady Sherlock – with a wonderful layout that harkens back to its Edwardian setting – was released November 1, 2016.

  I was also exceedingly fortunate to work with a very astute, understanding and talented editor, Shari Goodhartz, who guided, prodded and encouraged me tremendously.

  What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

  Well, I hope readers enjoy my writing, have fun, suspense, laughs, fear and, of course, that my writing for the screen or print, inspires some thoughts and questions about “the human condition.

  What do you find most rewarding about writing?

  A good review and a check that clears…  Just kidding.  Really, having someone truly appreciate the world I created in the rare leisure moments we all seem to have these days.

  What do you find most challenging about writing?

  The challenge is the same for any kind of writing; sitting down to write.   Then, as the saying goes; Write.  Re-write.  Right.

  What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

  Since most of my career has been in television, let me comment on that.  Passion for writing and knowing your craft is a given.   That’s the art side of your craft, getting the early jobs and maintaining a career is the business side.   It’s tougher.  After all, it is called show-BUSINESS.

  To have a career in film and television, you have to be in a location where you can meet the people who can hire or recommend you.   For me that means Los Angeles.

  Once here, attend film-festivals, join organizations, do anything you can that allows you to meet the people higher up on the ladder.  Once you meet them,  find the fine line between being assertive and entering stalker territory.  Have good samples to present, as perfect as you can make them.  You only have one chance to make a first impression.

When you land the gig, take it seriously.  Remember your job is to make life easier for the person who hired you.   That means get your script in on time, with the right page count and on model for the show you are writing.  If you are slipping between different genres or types of shows, knowing what works in that universe is vital.  As a TV writer you have to be a chameleon.  In animation I would go from a angst-ridden, non-stop action show like X-Men one week to a pre-school and very gentle Clifford the Big Red Dog the next.  You have to be flexible and fit the show you are working on.   If the story-editor or producer doesn’t have to do much work on your script, they will look very pleasantly at giving you another assignment or recommending you.   If your script is late, needs vast re-writes and causes your boss to pull an all-nighter fixing it, then your phone is not going to ring with another assignment.

Be prepared for “notes.”   In TV and film you get notes – LOTS of notes from lots of people.  They are sometimes pointless, occasionally story-shredding and, as they come from different sources, disturbingly contradictory.

And they cannot be ignored.

You have to pick your battles.  Make the simple changes work.  Save the conferences for notes that would unravel the entire story.   Fortunately, those are rare.  There’s a saying that the first draft belongs to the writer and after that your job is to save the script.

All that drama was refreshingly absent from the novel process.  My editor and I discussed the story, WordFire Press gave notes (and good ones), but it was vastly different from television.  I could use the ones I felt useful to improve the story and not go through convulsions trying to twist the story to fit bad notes – of which there were none – into the final piece.   It is ​ wonderfully liberating. Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

  Writing is how I make my living, however I teach a screenwriting course at the UCLA Extension School (having just finished my eleventh year).  Or as I explain, I try to discourage eager young minds from becoming my competition (or if they get ahead in the business, they better pay back that “A” and hire me!  😉

Seriously, I love teaching and have been blessed with some wonderful students.  Teaching writing gets me back in touch with the fundamentals of the craft.   I sometimes feel I am learning as much as my students.

I am also on the Steering Committee of the Animation Writer’s Caucus of the Writer’s Guild of America, the Hollywood High School Alumni board and the membership committee of the Magic Castle. On a less frequent basis, I also utilize my skill set as a photographer and graphic artist. Years ago I did story-boards, mostly for commercials and live-action films (my first paid job in entertainment was right out of high school when I did story-boards for the Star Trek animated series).  I love performing magic and, while I have done stage-shows, my main arena is close-up magic with a deck of cards.

​

What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

I have a FaceBook page and there is also a page for “Lady Sherlock.”

Keep an eye out for my Twitter account, coming soon to a computer or mobile device near you.

Lady Sherlock Blog:  

http://ladysherlocknovel.blogspot.com/

Lady Sherlock FaceBook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/TheLadySherlock/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Lady Sherlock FaceBook Fan created page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/321693048210287/

Lady Sherlock Youtube promotional video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o39owXZHrRs

    About the Author:

Lady Sherlock: Circle of the Smiling Dead may be Brooks Wachtel’s first novel, but he is no stranger to crafting compelling stories, he is an Emmy Award-winning writer with a long resume in television and film.

  Mr. Wachtel spent his youth as a “Navy Brat” traveling the world. While attending Hollywood High and in college he produced several student films. One, a forty-five minute Sherlock Holmes spoof was the first film ever shot at Hollywood’s famed “Magic Castle.” Wachtel has written and produced many documentaries for the History Channel, including co-creating , executive producing  and co-writing many episodes of the hit series DogFights. Wachtel also wrote and co-produced an independent documentary feature illustrating the history of his famous alma-mater, Hollywood High School All rights and royalties were donated to Hollywood High to help fill the school’s scholarship.

In addition, Wachtel has written more than 100 produced episodes of television fiction- with shows as diverse as Fox’s live-action Young Hercules (starring Ryan Gosling), to animated hits like PBS’ Liberty’s Kids, Tutenstein, Heavy Gear, Spider-Man, X-Men, Robo-Cop and Beast Machines: Transformers. For younger viewers, he has penned episodes of the pre-school hit, Clifford the Big Red Dog.  Wachtel’s episode, “I Did it My Way,” for Tutenstein won an Emmy Award.

Wachtel serves on the Steering Committee of the Animation Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild, as well as teaching screenwriting at UCLA Extension. He is a long-time magician member of Hollywood’s Magic Caste.

He has combined his love of strong-female characters, magic, history, the fantastic and high-adventure in his first novel, Lady Sherlock: Circle of the Smiling Dead, published in November 2016.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW – Brooks Arthur Wachtel was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf