#the man was literally raised in a troupe of actors

[neversetyoufree]

Looking back through the first couple volumes of VnC, it's wild how much of what Vanitas does in early chapters is nothing but a series of transparent attempts to put himself in control when he feels uncomfortable. You don't notice the first time you read it, or at least I didn't, but he's really quite obvious once you have the knowledge of what subjects he's sensitive about.

I've touched on this before, but I think Vanitas's biggest defense mechanism is theater, specifically playing up his own power/unpredictability in order to make everyone around him uncomfortable. "Vanitas" is a character that he plays, and he weaponizes that character against others when the man behind the act feels threatened.

(Now that we're under the readmore, here's your warning for a VnC-standard amount of discussion of sexual assault).

Even starting in his very first scene in chapter 1, when we've yet to see Vanitas get anywhere close to vulnerable or upset, we get a hint of how he operates. His first attempt to get Noé away from Amelia isn't to physically fight him—it's to play sinister and deliver a vague threat.

He could have gone straight for the knives, or he could have told Noé the truth that Amelia herself was dangerous and urged him to get away. But that's not the person Vanitas is. He doesn't talk things out with honesty, and he doesn't resort straight to violence unless he's really over the edge. He threatens and plays up his dangerous persona to get what he wants.

He even uses the very same line with the security guards later in the chapter, playing sinister again to escape arrest because he might be screwed otherwise.

He's pretty much never authentic pre-catacombs, but moments like this where he dials up the act to achieve something show how in control he is of his own inauthenticity. And he never takes advantage of that control more than when he feels threatened, be that threat physical (like the security guards) or emotional.

When Noé asks him about how he inherited the book of Vanitas in chapter 2, something we now know is a sensitive secret, Vanitas immediately changes the subject. He gets in Noé's space, acting borderline flirtatious (and he often does get flirty as part of his persona), then returns to the topic of Noé being his shield (which is an act in itself, given how he really reacts to being protected).

It takes one poke to the chest and a couple of sentences to switch the conversation from "Noé insists on knowing Vanitas's sensitive past" to "Noé has to deal with the mysterious, overbearing Vanitas's whims," which is just how Vanitas wants it. Playing up his demanding, in your face side buries the threat of an uncomfortable topic.

Then, when Dominique suggests that he worships the blue moon during the bal masqué, we get a much more extreme incarnation of this same behavior. Domi's words threaten to undermine a huge part of the narrative he's built for himself as Vanitas, and they do so by dredging up a truth that he wants desperately to keep buried. He might not worship the blue moon, but he really did love Luna, and being reminded of that throws a big wrench in the narrative of his revenge against them.

He cannot handle having his narrative undermined at this point, and especially not by a reminder of Luna, who is arguably the most sensitive part of his whole tragic backstory. So he freaks out, and freaking out for Vanitas means throwing himself into his false persona as hard as he possibly can. He grows sinister, speaking darkly before breaking into maniacal laughter that startles Dominique and her attendants. Then he hurls his constructed narrative into public view, revealing himself and ensuring that every vampire knows his claim of "wanting revenge."

Nobody's going to forget the human that leapt onto a chandelier in the middle of a ball, revealed himself to be the kin of the blue moon, then swore his vengeance against that very kin, and that means nobody else is going to misunderstand him like Domi and dredge up the truth: that he never really hated Luna.

Going manic and theatrical like this is a defense mechanism, and it's one that ensures not only that Domi stops hassling him, but that, hopefully, he'll never even have to consider worshiping the blue moon ever again. It's a total rejection of an idea that made him uncomfortable, achieved through theater. It also takes a situation that was quite out of his control, his being chained up by Domi, and turns it into a scenario that he engineered, where he is in absolute control of the crowd for at least a few moments.

The best example of all this though, the time when Vanitas combines every form of weaponized persona I've talked about into one awful act, is the scene in which he forces a kiss on Jeanne.

As I mentioned before, Vanitas often plays up his flirtatiousness as part of his persona. He does it with Jeanne quite often, and he does a (usually) subtler version of it with Noé a few times as well. It's a great way to change the subject and make throw people off their game without resorting to threats, and his treatment of Jeanne in chapter 4 is an extreme, but not too surprising incarnation of this same flirty habit.

He might be attracted to Jeanne, but attraction alone is not a reason to force a kiss on an unwilling stranger while ending a fight. Vanitas kissing her was, as much as any other moment I've referenced here, an instinct to protect himself and gain control of a situation that otherwise threatened him.

Winning the fight or not, Vanitas is in a tenuous position in terms of control when dealing with Jeanne. Jeanne is an incredibly strong opponent, and she managed to withstand both a bite from a curse-bearer and a direct stunning hit from the Book. Vanitas has played all of his cards, and his only insurance that she won't murder him immediately is Noé, a man he barely knows, successfully keeping Luca hostage without realizing that's what he's doing. These are not great odds. He's also extremely attracted to Jeanne, and though his initial attraction to her isn't nearly as distressing as his full-on infatuation in mal d'amour, being weak to the sight of her represents yet another loss of control.

Then Jeanne tries to sacrifice herself. She tells Vanitas he can do anything to her he pleases, so long she can protect the child she's devoted herself to watching over, and there is no way on Earth that this moment isn't a trigger for Vanitas, because he once did the exact same thing. He's already in an unsteady situation, and then she reminds him of Misha and his own darkest moments, which means that conversation has to end immediately.

"Please don't hurt him," is the last thing Jeanne says before Vanitas flips suddenly from threats to advances, and his face when he gets close to her is manic.

So when Vanitas gets uncomfortable, what does he do? He changes the subject wildly, suddenly making the whole situation about him and his fickle, unpredictable moods and unreasonable demands. He cranks up the character of the wild, demanding, show-stealing Vanitas to eleven. He kisses Jeanne. And even though it's a cliche line, the fact remains that sexual assault is never really about the sex. It's about power and control. Vanitas does wild things and plays up his persona as a clutch for control when he's uncomfortable, and this is that to an extreme degree. This kiss gives him the power in their interaction.

Plus, the specific bad memories that Jeanne unintentionally triggers for Vanitas are all about bodily autonomy. His own "do what you want to me, just don't hurt the kid" moment was protecting Misha in Moreau's lab, which led to physical violation after violation. It was a complete loss of his agency and autonomy. And his memory of Misha is also deeply tied to whatever happened with Luna's death, and given the possibility of his being made their kin without consent, that memory may also be one of the loss of autonomy.

This scene is Vanitas not just getting triggered, but being reminded of his loss of control and ownership of his body. It makes a twisted kind of sense that the resultant clutch for power and control comes via him forcing his body onto somebody else. He manufactures a situation that is all about bodily autonomy, but he has all of it and the source of danger has none. And he does it all while stealing the show and rerouting the topic as he always does.

Just like so many other actions he takes early in the series, his most reprehensible moment is just another desperate grasp at control. He has to be threatening and showy and unreasonable. He has to be the kind of man that announces himself as savior to a room full of powerful enemies. The kind of man can force himself on a powerful woman like Jeanne. Because if he doesn't drive home the act well enough, somebody might gain access to the horribly vulnerable person underneath.

[imagine-a-dream]

Hardest of hearts

Ollie Plimsolls x female reader

summary: You are the new member of Legz Akimbo and Ollie is rude to you at first, but warms up to you with time. warnings: swearings, mention of sex. requested by: @sandwichthatcomesinahotdogboxword count: 532 A/N: I hope you'll like it!

When you joined Legz Akimbo, you didn’t think it would be a literal hell on earth. Some days you wish you’d never stumbled upon this flyer with what seemed to be quite an exciting job opportunity. The main and only reason for your bad mood and sour thoughts was the head of the troupe, Ollie Plimsolls.

The man seemed to hate you from the first moment of your audition. Even though you’ve got the job, not thanks to him, you assumed. Constant nagging and scolding, questioning your place in the theater and ridiculing became part of the work. You tried to be "the adult one", tried to reason with him, but no success.

One day you were rehearsing scenes four from your new play "Genie and a bottle" about the destructive influence of alcoholism. You played little boy Jerry who got beaten by his father, so you were lying on the floor, Dave, who played the father, was looming over you with his right hand raised for a punch.

"No!" Ollie cried all of a sudden. You turned to see him better from your position. "No! No, no, no! Y/n, you don’t feel your character at all! You don’t understand what he’s going through. Honestly, have you even read the script? If you were a real actor, you’d see that…"

It was the last straw. Fuck him! Not remembering yourself out of rage, you all but jumped to your feet from your position, and stood before him face to face.

"Have I read the script?" You hissed in his face, so infuriated you practically could feel how the blood was boiling in your veins. "I wrote this character, you fucking twat! Honestly, fuck off, Ollie!"

You stormed off the room, not giving another look at his slightly shocked and angry face, and didn’t want to ever go back there. But when you were about to open the exit door, someone’s hand yanked your shoulder painfully, slamming your back into the nearest wall.

It was the very man who insulted you just moments ago.

"What the fuck did you just say to me?" He asked in a dangerously low murmur, capturing you between him and the wall, red face, and angry. "Oh, you think you’re so perfect, don’t ya? You, bloody little perfection, you don’t know a shit!"

As his little speech progressed, his face’s coming closer and closer, so much that you could feel his hot ridgid breaths on your skin. It burned your lips, as you stood silently, body shaking, and then his mouth pressed down on yours in an angry kiss. It was frantic, all teeth and bites. He dragged you to the empty van and took you right there, on the dirty floor, hard and fast.

After this day, strangely, Ollie seemed to tone down his "I’m an actual actor" behavior and finally you were able to have a decent conversation. You talked about various subjects, from Stanislavski’s acting technique to your favorite books. Turned out he was not so bad to be around when he was not being a cunt.

Better late than never, right? If you only knew it was that easy to shut him up...

masterlist | request rules

[baeddel]

re: this post (we won’t bother the OP with our little grumbles as they’ve already deleted the post, probably because of jerks like me) [the post goes like this: the origins of science-fiction are anti-capitalist, for example, take this Czech play...]

The Czech play alluded to is R.U.R, standing for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots), by Karel Čapek. The name Russom is play on words with the Czech word Rozum, Reason. So the title includes two ideologies: Reason and Universalism. In the play, the robots (a play on robota, which means slavery or serfdom) are synthetic humans, who are indistinguishable from real humans, produced in an enormous factory with “kneading-troughs for robot skin, great vats for liver and brains”, “a factory for producing bones“, and “factory bobbins” which spin “nerve fibers, arteries, and intestines” (wiki). The wiki quotes John Rieder in saying that the play is about “the traumatic transformation of modern society by the First World War and the Fordist assembly line.” At the end of the play the robots overthrow humanity and slaughter them, sparing only an engineer who worked at the factory because they recognized that “he works with his hands like the Robots.”

Is this an anti-capitalist play? The argument that progressive ideologies like reason and universalism were reducing humanity to automata was made explicitly by reactionaries like Wagner (who, if you’re one of the few fortunate souls who remain ignorant of him, wrote operas). In 1905 the modernist playwright E. G. Craig wrote a little manifesto on this theme which he called the Actor and the Ubermarionette, where the Ubermarionette (perhaps a perversion of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch) was the condition of man in modernity, an impotent puppet of industrial production, “reduced to [a] helpless marionette in the hands of some unintelligible forces” (the Silver Mask, Olga Yu. Soboleva, 2008). He wanted the actor in a play to become a double of man in modernity, impotently reflecting the designs of the impresario. The Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold applied this approach in his troupe where he would take the name Doctor Dapertutto, 'Doctor Everywhere' (“an evil wizard and manipulator, taken from Hoffmann’s tale Die Abenteuer der Sylvesternacht”, ibid.), and intrude on stage during the performance to menace the actors or correct the script.

That this was a playwright’s ideology which blossomed in Germany, England and Russia throughout the first quarter of the 20th century, we might assume that a Czech playwright was at least familiar with it. It seems clear to me that R.U.R. is a contribution. But what is the contribution? While it begins with a gory demonstration of modernity (blamed on progress via reason and universalism), placing us in Wagner’s reactionary anti-modernism, it ends with a proletarian revolution. When the play was written the Russian revolution was ongoing, a revolution which was both a proletarian revolution and an industrial revolution, and was on everyone’s mind. It is easy to read the robot revolution as a tragic reactionary nightmare, where the road to serfdom is walked to the end and all free men are executed, in a mechanized regurgitation of the reign of terror. But there is an alternative reading available. The Russian symbolist reading of Ubermarionette carried out by Meyerhold and Sologub differed substantially from Wagner’s antimodernism; for them, the condition of the industrial puppet appeared like a quasi-religious liberation [it’s complicated...], and they all joined the Russian revolution and embraced Bolshevism (except for Sologub who joined the February revolution but opposed the October revolution). It’s very easy to read the robot revolution as a progressive revolution, and the robot the realization of the New Socialist Man; their execution of the humans who don’t work with their hands then reminds us of the execution of intellectuals in Cambodia. Was it really a 'workerist’ reaction to a parasitic, layabout bourgeoisie, the Ubermarionette played as an allegory for the vicissitudes of alienated labour, as the OP supposed all along?

Čapek died heroically; he was an “outspoken anti-fascist” and refused to cooperate with the Nazis during their occupation of Czechslovakia, where the Gestapo named him “public enemy number two”, while he also refused an offer to escape to England. He died of pneumonia while the Gestapo were still hunting him, while his brother Josef died in a concentration camp (wiki). But this was decades later; who knows what he had in mind in 1920? Very similar themes would be taken up by Fritz Lang in Metropolis, which has a more explicitly pro-revolutionary perspective; and by the fascist Wehrmacht torturer Ernst Junger in his work of speculative nonfiction, the Worker. Maybe really watching the play would clear up the ambiguity, but I might suggest that the work is successful because the two readings - reactionary anti-modernism, revolutionary futurism - play on the mind. Whether the play says one or the other is undecidable, and “it is this very undecidability which makes a good narrative” (Barthes). What a remarkable gesture it must be to experience, where what had been objects of horror, a combination of Croenbergian body horror and Invasion of the Body Snatchers paranoia, become the protagonists and slaughter the cast! Who's to say if this moment is Carnival or Ash Wednesday?

But what’s at stake in the OP is more than the statement of R.U.R., but the origins of sci-fi as a whole. At first blush we might think the relevance is fairly mere; while the robot genre got it’s name from R.U.R., it didn’t get its start there; by 1920 stories about automatons were already typical. But surprisingly if you look at some of the classics of ‘good old’ science fiction, they do seem to be responding to the issues raised by the play. Isaac Aasimov addressed it explicitly, calling it “a terribly bad [play]”, and in his own Robot series, added in some programming that would make the situation in R.U.R. impossible - the ‘three laws of robotics’ (wiki). Aasimov’s robot stories, when read alongisde R.U.R., become a little ridiculous - as though he missed the metaphor and could only understand the play in extremely literal terms. He realized that the robot revolution was easy to avoid, see here, if you just do it this way... While Bradbury seems to apply the same combination of sci-fi and horror in the Veldt, taking a straightforwardly antimodernist position where automated convenience alienates humans from eachother; but the interpersonal alienation isn’t tied to alienated production and the fate of the characters isn’t relevant to the fate of society. The story unfolds like a didactic play from which the moral has been subtracted.

[lemystical-puffle]

My A3 Sexuality Headcanons that no one asked for!

[These won’t include Gender, only sexual orientation or lack thereof(is that a phrase?)]

Color coordination

Gay

Bi

Pan

Aro

Hetero

Sakuya Sakuma: Pansexual! He doesn’t have any preferences, honestly after his childhood he just wants someone who will love and accept him!

Masumi: Bisexual. I feel like he would love the director whether they be boy, girl, other, all, he just wants someone to give him attention, and that person just happened to be out beloved Izumi Tachibana.

Tsuzuru: okay this ones me projecting but whatever Aro/Ace Tsuzuru. He doesn’t feel romantic attraction, and instead just feels a family-brotherly kind of love towards his friends and fellow actors. He doesn’t really want to romantically be with someone, and yet instead just wants to be there for them when they need it and love them the same way he loves his family at home

Citron: Also pan!! But Pan-Romantic specifically. Citron literally just wants to love everyone ever because he’s just awesome like that, but won’t go pass kissing someone. It just makes him uncomfortable which is perfectly fine because he is Citron Lastname! But yeah, also no gender prefermance

Itaru: Bi with a male preference. I can’t really explain why I think this, I just do. Maybe because most of the woman he has ever shown interest in are his 2D anime waifus. Also I mean come on he totally had a whole thing for Lancelot he thinks knights are hot and that is so valid.

Chikage: he is a gay cabbage. Listen the only time he has said he liked a woman it was because he said they weren’t like his mom and I am just- I’m sorry I don’t trust that. This man is a gay, he is never had a boyfriend but he has definitely thought of hooking up with his boss for a raise, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

Tenma: Also bi! Bi-Ace specifically. I wasn’t really sure where to put him because on one hand I feel like he has a lot of MLM energy but on the other hand his solo song so I just, bi. I feel like his gay awakening came when he played the token gay best friend in a romcom because gay actor erasure but Tenma didn’t really understand, but later he was in a scene where he was with his boyfriend who shows up for one second to remind the audience he’s a homosexual and Tenma was just: crap he’s not

Yuki: okay at first I didn’t know what to put for Yuki cause on one hand sexuality erasure Yuki has specifically said he likes girl and he defies stereotypes and stuff but on the other hand he never said he didn’t like boys so he’s bi with a female preference. I feel like Yuki is the kind of guy to just happen to fall in love with whoever and just go “oh crap did I just fall in love?” And while he likes girls more sometimes it just. Happens.

Muku: Surprise surprise he’s Pan! Muku totally reads shoujo manga with all sexualities and is very livid about good representation, will write a “negative review” (and in Muku terms that’s him being very polite, 4.5/5 stars and linking research resources) about how inaccurate a sexuality was portrayed. I feel like at first he just thought he was a very active ally and now he is just: “oh crap boys. And girls. And enbys. And genderfluids. And everyone.”

Misumi: Misumi is very homosexual, which at first he was sad about because homosexual has 2 o’s which are circles but then he realized he can just say gay but spell it like: G🔺Y so he got happy again. I feel like it was one of the reasons he was kicked out of his home, he just likes boys Jeez Ikaruga parents no rights. (I also Headcanon him as autistic but that’s not what this post is about).

Kazunari: In Kazunari Miyoshi’s world he never has to make a decision in his life and that includes sexuality. Show him a guy and a girl and tell him to pick one and he will simply overload until he picks the person who knows the most trivia on classical art or smthing. Kazunari just: adores everyone ever, and that’s okay! After a lot of internalized homophobia and fear, he was able to come out to first a small group of college friends and eventually felt comfortable with the label and was able to express it openly, now he wears it with pride!

Kumon: I really don’t have any explaining to go here, Kumon just feels gay to me. My head can’t wrap around him wanting to be intimate with a girl. I do think there was this big moment of him coming out to Juza and Juza just going “s’okay.” Then they hug and get ice cream

Banri: Banri is bisexual with a straight pride flag and a Juza Preference. Catch him at the straight pride parade telling “those Homo’s that they’re going to burn.” While making out with Juza against a wall. That’s canon I don’t take criticism

Juza: Also Gay, I feel like Kumon came out first and Juza did research and was like “oh me too.” And just thought about how he’s never actually liked a girl and thought boys were kinda pretty and oh crap Settsu slicked his hair back oh crap oh crap pretty men.

Taichi: Taichi is bisexual, with his preferences being as random as his hair. Except no weird 1/4 quarters going on. Idk where I was going with that analogy I’m sorry. Taichi just likes the humans and wants to go kiss kiss with them all, and then bring them along on his journey for fame and popularity!

Omi: Listen, Omi is the mother of Mankai, and as the mother he loves everyone unconditionally. He also totally wanted to kiss Nachi I’m sorry. I feel like Omi has a male preference, but only by a bit as he loves everyone! He is a good boy and brings all the snacks and water to the pride parades so his friends stay healthy :)

Sakyo: Sakyo is the straight~ supportive dad who doesn’t care if you’re gay straight bi pan anything as long as you pay your taxes. Was probably a little confused at first just because. Probably said “LGBT? Isn’t that a sandwich.” But he got informed did research and is now a huge ally! After more research he identifies specifically as graysexual/romantic as he feels rarely any romantic attraction at all unless under certain circumstances aka Izumi Tachibana. I akso think he suspected that Azami was LGBT for a bit before he came out so he wanted to do research so that Azami would feel comfortable coming out when he was ready. Also he can’t like, not support Sakoda (who I Headcanon as gay :) )

Azami: Azami is bi-aro. Sex? Nah he won’t even hold your hand before marriage, however he will love you no matter your gender. I also see him with a female preference just from his straight upbringing and it’s the title he feels most comfortable with after some internalized homophobia, especially with how his dad shamed him for liking makeup. He is still getting used to the LGBT community and I feel like he is still taking baby steps, learning about different identities and wanting to do all he can to support both himself and his fellow actors due to simply not knowing where to start. Don’t worry Azami take you’re time! There is no rush, you are trying to figure yourself out and we all love you so much for it, there is no shame in changing your mind later. We adore you all the same. (If you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t only talking to Azami. If you are still questioning yourself it is 100% okay, because honestly I am too. There is no rush to figure yourself out, and I hope you know that we are all here for you!)

Tsumugi: Tsumugi is gay, but I feel like he also had a lot of internalized homophobia. I feel like when he was younger he really liked Tasuku but didn’t really understand the difference between platonic and romantic, and it took some time before he was able to really discover himself and come to the identity he has currently.

Tasuku: Tasuku is gay and homophobic.

Hisoka: Hisoka is homo-demi-romantic asexual. I feel like it won’t want to date anyone without really earning their trust and feeling safe around them, and after that point he still will be pretty shy romantically, but it is very much understandable and we all still love Hisoka

Homare: Homare is pan. He doesn’t really care about gender, he just wants someone who will love him and his poetry without seeing him as broken. I feel like after his last relationship he was hesitant to date again, but after some time and help from the rest of winter troupe he was able to rediscover himself. (Also autistic Homare go brrrr)

Azuma: Azuma is an old gay man who just thinks boobs are neat. That’s it that’s the post sent tweet turn off replies.

Guy: New color who this? This is because I didn’t know what to put for Guy, so he simply doesn’t identify as anything. I don’t know a lot about Guy but I know enough to feel like relationships would be very awkward and touchy for him due to his problems with emotions and expression. He isn’t straight, but he doesn’t really identify as anything either. He’s just: Guy. Which is more than valid

[oh also all of winter is Poly and they’re boyfriends thanks for coming to my Ted talk]

Hope you all liked these! Of course they are all my own opinion and you don’t have to agree with all, they’re just how I feel!! Feel free to reply or reblog with your own opinions or Headcanons!!

[famedroleplayarchive]

BAEK JAEYOON is the MAIN DANCER AND LEAD VOCAL of QUICKSILVER under GOLD STAR MEDIA. He was born on OCTOBER 30, 1997. He looks a little like LEE MINHO (LEE KNOW) OF STRAY KIDS.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

faceclaim: lee minho (lee know), stray kids

legal name: baek jaeyoon

stage name: -

pronouns: he/him

birth date: october 30, 1997

hometown: seoul, south korea

position: main dancer & lead vocal of quicksilver

claims: n/a

BIOGRAPHY

triggers: depression, self harm, self image struggles.

baek seulki found out she was pregnant a week before she turned twenty-three. with no actual relationship to support her – the father of her child being a casual hook up she’d been with once or twice – and her parents quick to disown her for getting a baby before she got a husband, the woman had no other option but to do it all on her own. it was difficult at first having to coincide being very pregnant with her job as a seamstress for a theatre company, but she pulled through, being seen around the theatre using her belly as support for her sewing kit. what was originally just an extended part of her became a baby boy who she carried around with her, being fed while the woman attempted to fix someone’s costume.

jaeyoon was raised around actors. most of them were good people, always willing to take the burden of looking after him off his mother’s shoulders whenever she was busier with something else. tiny toddler feet hitting the stage excitedly would echo around the theatre together with the laughter of the troupe that found oh so much amusement at the sight of the child who seemed to be interested in everything he could look at and touch. wherever his mother went, the boy was literally carried on her back – be that the fabric store or the house of the few ladies around the neighborhood who hired his mother to do minor fixes in their clothes, providing her with the extra money she needed in order to take care of herself and her baby.

one thing about being around the theatre most of the time was that it made one fall in love with it. it couldn’t have been different for jaeyoon. from the moment he could recall, he had been enchanted by what the theatre could offer. he would watch plays and musicals that happened at the place his mother worked for – as well as a couple of ballets through the years – and even as young as he was, the boy had known he belonged on stage. he felt the pull from an early age, that desperate need to be up there, entertaining an audience, playing the part of someone else and being able to create and offer people a reality they could fall into for a couple of hours.

while seulki could not afford to put jaeyoon in drama classes, when she expressed his interest, the people she worked with insisted on financing them for him. that was, until his mother remarried, and his step-father had a job that made it possible for them to afford things they couldn’t in the past, such as living in an apartment with more than a single bedroom, or buying new clothes instead of seulki having to sew them ones from scratch with leftover fabric from work.

but jaeyoon found, from the start, that he didn’t like his step-father much. not that he was a bad guy, for jaeyoon, even as young as aged ten, could tell that the man treated his mother well and tried to do his best to care for jaeyoon too. yet, he couldn’t do it. his moods swung hard and often whenever he was around the older man, and their relationship wasn’t made better when jaeyoon was punished for his behavior by being forbidden to attend classes.

as a teenager, jaeyoon found that his mood changes grew increasingly harder to deal with. seulki wrote it off as teenage angst and, with a younger child to look after, she didn’t have the time nor the patience to deal with jaeyoon’s struggles. meanwhile, jaeyoon and his step-father started butting heads even more, to the point where jaeyoon would leave the house and not go back for days, camping at a different friend’s place each time, until he felt the anger leave him. each time he’d get back to a worried mother and even more worried step-father, who would just tell jaeyoon not to do it again.

but it was just rinse and repeat. the more the time passed, jaeyoon’s temper only got worse. he tried, very desperately, not to have such intense reactions each time, and the only way jaeyoon found to control it was to turn all the hatred he carried around inward. for the entirety of high school, jaeyoon went from a visible extrovert to a massive introvert. wallowing in thoughts of self-hatred, each time he minimally had an argument with someone, jaeyoon was convinced that the person would hate him, and he found no other way to deal with that other than punishing himself.

yet jaeyoon found himself further pushed into the arts than away from them. with a better source of income, he was able to start taking both dance and singing lessons, which were always the highlight of his days. everything was set up for him to go to university for drama as soon as he finished high school yet, in the very last months of school, jaeyoon’s step-father lost his job. the economic situation made it so that it was almost impossible for him to find a new job in a timely fashion, and that sent the man into a spiralling depression that his family couldn’t drag him out of.

with no practical skills and no degree, the only thing jaeyoon could think of to do to help his parents was to enlist. through the one year and a half he was in the army, most of the meager salary he got was sent home to his parents. being in the military only further pushed jaeyoon into intense self-hatred, especially being forced to deal with authorities that wouldn’t hesitate to punish him whenever he wasn’t able to control his temper.

by the time his service ended, jaeyoon’s step-father had been able to find a job working as a stagehand. while their lives weren’t as comfortable as before, things were much steadier and when seulki saw a pamphlet announcing auditions for gold star’s acting division, she insisted on jaeyoon auditioning. he wasn’t expecting to pass, but they were fairly impressed with his skills and when they found out about his background with dancing and singing, they asked him why he had never auditioned for a company before.

jaeyoon never thought about going down the idol route. yet, after assessing his skills, he was offered the opportunity of singing a contract as an idol trainee. his parents encouraged him, reminding jaeyoon that he was already at an age limit for this sort of thing, and might as well take this chance.

if jaeyoon struggled with his perception of self, it was nothing compared to what happened to him as a trainee. after the military, it was harder for him to lash out, with jaeyoon growing used to internalizing every single bad feeling he would have instead. but the trainers were demanding and sometimes even stricter than his superiors in the army, to the point where jaeyoon considered quitting entirely at least once a week for the better part of the four years he spent as a trainee.

it was only seulki’s encouragement that kept him going, and now the hunger he had deep down for the life on stage. the stubborn part of him pushed jaeyoon towards sticking around even after gold star announced the debut of vive, a boy group that jaeyoon wasn’t even given a chance to compete to be a part of. as long as i’m not kicked out, jaeyoon thought, it means they still have some interest. not long after, jaeyoon was told about him making the cut for quicksilver. the conditions of debut were not as he was expecting, what with quicksilver being an attempt at saving half of a dead group, but jaeyoon was glad to finally have an opportunity at all.

jaeyoon was not unaware that if life as a trainee was hard, life as an idol would be harder, especially for someone like him, but now he was unwilling to give up.

[365days365movies]

April 1, 2021: The Gold Rush (1925)

If I’m going to start anywhere, it’s right at the beginning.

There’s absolutely no way I can start this month off without jumping headlong into the slapstick-filled era of the 1920s-1930s, and that begins (and arguably ends) with the man, the myth, the legend: Charlie Chaplin. And Chaplin’s got an interesting and tragic backstory, that it’s worth looking into. And he won’t be the first film star I get into, but we’ll get there.

Born in London in 1889, Chaplin was essentially raised in the world of the theatre, as both of his parents were entertainers. Raised in immense hardship and poverty, Chaplin’s early life wasn’t easy. His father left the family, and his mother struggled to provide. Eventually, she ended up becoming committed to an asylum, which led Charlie and his brother to live with their alcoholic father, which didn’t last long. Yikes.

Eventually, both parents were out of the picture by the time that Charlie was 14, with his father head, and his mother generally unwell, physically and mentally. Additionally, his brother enrolled in the military, leaving him completely alone. He left school and went to work, eventually becoming embroiled in the theatre and stage, and in 1908, the 19-year old Charlie joined a major theatre troupe, alongside another young actor named Stan Laurel. And in 1912, the group toured in the United States, where he was found by the head of the now defunct Keystone Studios, who were looking for a new star.

The first movie, Making a Living, didn’t go great for Chaplin or critics. But they didn’t give up, and put Chaplin in a second film: Mabel’s Strange Predicament. Here, Chaplin decided on a new costume. He wanted baggy pants, a tight coat, small hat, large shoes, and a little moustache. And with that outfit came the birth Chaplin’s most iconic character: The Tramp.

And BAM: history’s made. Because this film is RIDICULOUSLY successful, and very popular. A hell of a lot of films come from this, and by 1915, Chaplin was the biggest star in Hollywood history at the time. By 30 years old, he had founded his own studio, was funding his own pictures, and was the most well-known man in the United States outside of the President. And this was before he made his first feature film, The Kid.

1921 was the year that film came out, and I was originally going for that one as my first review...but I decided against it, in favor of another of his most famous films, The Gold Rush, which came out in 1925. By this point, Chaplin had also become a director, alongside actor and producer. He also...had done some not amazing things by this point. Yeah, Chaplin wasn’t the best dude, but that’s another story. I’m here to talk about this film, not about his real shitty track record with women and abandoning his children. Chaplin is a dark man with a dark history, I’ll just say that much.

But enough of that (for now)! Let’s get into the man and his works! After all, Chaplain also pioneered visual comedy in film, so this is going to be an interesting film! Let’s get into The Gold Rush! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

First things first, I’d like to make something clear: I’m watching the 1925 version, reconstructed using some footage from the 1942 re-release, which added narration to it. Because I’m interested in seeing the original, as meant to be seen by Chaplin back in the day, I’m not looking at the re-release at all. But if you’re interested (and have the subscription), BOTH are available on HBO Max!

We begin at the top of Chilkoot Pass in Alaska, a difficult terrain and a challenge to anyone looking to make it rich in the Klondike. Men are hiking up the mountain in hardship, to try get their riches. This takes place at some point between 1898 and 1899, by the way. One of these men is a Lone Prospector, AKA The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin), who walks along the narrow path while being pursued by a bear, but eventually escapes said bear, finding himself on the snowy mountainside.

Also here is fellow prospector Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain), who’s just struck it rich. But then, as both men are on the mountainside, a snowstorm hits. The Lone Prospector finds his way to a small cabin, in which the wanted criminal Black Larsen resides.

The Lone Prospector makes his way inside, where he finds and eats a partially eaten rack of meat. However, Larsen tells him to get out, opening the door, causing the wind to get in. In a humorous sequence, the wind is so strong that it prevents the Prospector from leaving, an blows Jim McKay literally though the building. But soon, all three are in the cabin.

Larsen now tries to get both of them out with the threat of violence. He fires a warning shot with a shotgun, leading to struggle between Jim and Larsen for the gun, with Jim gaining the upper hand and allowing the Prospector and Larsen to stay. The storm persists for three days, and the men grow hungrier and hungrier in the process. All the while, the shack becomes ever closer to just toppling over from the storm winds.

The Prospector ends up eating a candle with sat, he’s so desperate, and the men use a pack of cards to decide who’s going out into the storm to look for food. Larsen loses, and he heads out with his dog (who CLEARLY isn’t into this whole thing, by the way). But Larsen’s still running from the police, who are hunkered down in the storm. They find him, and another struggle ensues, leading to Larsen killing them both in the snow, and stealing their supplies. Meanwhile, in the cabin, then men are so hungry that they prepare one of the Prospector’s shoes. Delicious.

As these two dine on this Thanksgiving meal (which is shown in very funny detail, including eating the laces as spaghetti), Larsen actually stumbles upon Jim’s gold, and he hunkers down there through the storm. This leaves the men to starve in the cabin, and also leads to...a very ironic sequence, now that I think about it.

See, this film was mostly made in Truckee, California. And the most iconic thing about Truckee is that it’s the resting place of a group of travelers on the Oregon Trail. See, in 1846, a group of settlers took the wrong pathway on some bad advice, and wound up stranded in the snow as a result of one of the worst blizzards in California history. This party of travelers, known as the Donner Party (YUP), starved for WEEKS, trapped in essentially a snow pit. 87 settlers went in, and 48 came out. Most died of the cold or starvation. And some survived by, well...eating the dead. Yup. Cannibalism. Which is why this is so ironic.

For a hot second, Jim sees the Prospector as a delicious chicken, and ties to eat him, firing at him with a shot gun and driving him outside. Realizing his delirium, he quickly apologizes, and the two make tentative amends. However, in self-defense, the Prospector takes to sleeping with the shotgun. The next morning, the two struggle for the gun, and Big Jim nearly kills the Prospector, but is interrupted by the return of the bear!

The Prospector shoots the bear, and the two finally have food to eat. Soon after, the storm subsides, and the two head their separate ways, with Jim going back to claim his gold fortune, and the Prospector left in the snowy wilderness. By the way, EVERY SINGLE TIME I type “the Prospector”, I start typing “the Tramp” first, then correct myself. Despite this being the first Chaplin movie I’ve ever seen, it’s such an iconic character that I can’t help but think of him as the Tramp. I’ll probably slip up at some point later without catching it.

Big Jim returns to his camp, where Larsen ambushes him, knocking him out and stealing some of his gold. However, he’s pretty quickly killed by an avalanche, while Jim has completely lost his memory from the low of a shovel. The Prospector, meanwhile, makes his way to a nearby boomtown, built with the profits from the rush in the Gold Rush.

In this boomtown, we meet Georgia (Georgia Hale), a popular dancer that works in a local dance hall. One of Georgia’s fellow dancers has gone off with a wealthy benefactor, leaving her behind. At the hall, she’s being pursued by Jack Cameron (Malcolm Waite), an aggressive lout who’s pestering her for a dance. And just then, who should walk in?

Georgia pretty clearly wants out of the dance hall life, and is also looking for somebody to take her away from this place. However, that somebody is CLEARLY not the Prospector, whom she completely ignores. But when Jack comes back around to force her into a dance, she decides to dance with the most undesirable person in the place instead: the Prospector.

So, while this act is borne of pure spite for Jack, it’s still a dance. It’s interrupted by a nearby dog, but Georgia enjoys the dance quite a bit, to her surprise. Jack is still after her, and the Prospector actually comes to defend her, standing in his way when he tries to pursue her. This, predictably, leads to a fight between the two, during which Jack accidentally gets knocked out by a clock, which the Prospector takes as his own actions, strolling off in pride.

The next morning, the Prospector essentially tricks a man into bringing him inside his cabin to get a free breakfast. This is Hank Curtis (Henry Bergman), who welcomes him into his home for food, and to take care of the cabin in his stead. Curtis owns a mine with his partner, and they head there, leaving the Prospector in his home. All the while, Big Jim is wandering through the wilderness, trying to remember where his gold is.

Georgia is out and about as well, having some fun with friends away from the dance hall. They run around in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other. And as this is right outside of the cabin, of course the Prospector gets hit by one of them. Feeling penitent, Georgia goes into his cabin, after he invites the girls in for a warm fire. She finds a picture of her from the dance hall underneath the Prospector’s pillow, which the other girls mock. But Georgia is at least a little sympathetic.

This pleasant moment is interrupted by one of the girls’ cigarettes lighting the Prospector’s shoes on fire, causing all of them to rush out of the cabin. However, before they leave, the Prospector asks if Georgia would like to come to dinner, which she assumes refers to all of the girls. Still, she accepts, which overjoys the lovelorn Prospector.

But the Prospector, of course, doesn’t exactly have a lot of money; that’s why he’s out here in the first place. So, he goes around town and does some work for money, such as snow-shoveling. He also blocks the jail door with a giant pile of snow in the process, which doesn’t make them very happy. BUT STILL, he gets anough money, and by the time New Years’ comes around, he’s got enough money for a nice meal and a well-made dinner for him and Georgia, with whom he’s head-over-heels in love.

Shame that Georgia doesn’t share that feeling, and has COMPLETELY forgotten about the entire occasion. And so, the Prospector waits for her to arrive, while she’s at a party at the dance hall. He imagines that the dance hall girls, Georgia included, have arrived and are having dinner with him. In the process of this imaginary dinner, he puts two forks in rolls of bread...and creates one of the most iconic scenes of the Silent Era of film.

But alas, this is all in a dream. The Prospector wakes up, and midnight’s passed. At the dance hall, the revelers celebrate, with Georgia standing on the bar and firing guns into the air in the process. The Prospector is saddened, now wondering where Georgia’s been, and realizing that he’s been stood up. Auld Lang Syne plays in the score, and the partiers sing it together at the dance hall.

And it’s FINALLY AT THIS POINT that Georgia remembers that she and the girls were supposed to meet the Prospector. They head there, with Jack in tow. But the Tramp (told you I’d slip eventually) has headed to the party at the dance hall, looking for the girls that stood him up, and he sadly gazes through the window.

Meanwhile, at the Prospector’s cabin, Georgia discovers the loving meal and decorations put out, and realizes that the Prospector actually took this far more seriously than she’d thought. She realizes his feelings, and what she’s done, and feels sorrow about it. Jack tries to get her to forget it and kiss him, but she angrily rebukes him for it, slapping him in the face. They leave the cabin, with Georgia reflecting on the scene.

The next day, Big Jim McKay is trying to recall the location of his gold reserve. He goes to town, and resolves that he must find the cabin in the wilderness, and he should be able to find his way back from there. The Prospector walks right past him, still mourning his spurned love from the previous night. But said spurned love is writing him a letter, noting that she is sorry for what she did last night, and asks someone to give it...to Jack. Oh. What the fuck, Georgia? But Jack, being the dick that he is, sees the Prospector in the dance hall, and gives him the note instead, which leads him to try and find Georgia.

In the process, though, he runs into Big Jim, who needs the Prospector to lead him back to the cabin. He promises to make him a millionaire if he does, and the Prospector agrees, going up to Georgia on the balcony and kissing her, promising to make good and come back rich! The two head back to the cabin, where they stay for the night.

But that night, a vicious blizzard once again rears its ugly head as the two sleep, and literally blows the cabin to...well, to a rather precarious spot.

So, in blissful ignorance, the Prospector gets up first, and walks around the cabin, causing it to rock back and forth as the weight shifts. Big Jim also wakes up, and together, the two realize that the house is balanced on the cliff’s edge, and shifts position as the weight shifts within. That leads to a humorous sequence with a tilting set, and the Prospector looks outside a door on the side of the cliff, dangling off of it for a moment before coming back in.

Now realizing the situation, the two manage to secure a guy rope that ties the house to rocks on the cliff. However, the cabin is now tilted, making their escape even more difficult.

However, Big Jim manages to get out with some teamwork, overlaid by The Flight of the Bumblebee in the score, and he also helps the Prospector escape, just before the whole house falls off the cliff.

But lucky day! The cabin blew RIGHT to the spot where Big Jim found the gold, and the two are now multi-millionaires! The film cuts to one year later, with the two very wealthy men, and the Prospector’s been able to afford everything he’s ever wanted...except for Georgia, whom he never found. Yeah, she definitely wasn’t looking to be with him. Geez.

The Prospector gets in his old Tramp getup for a photograph taken by the Press, while on the ship heading back to the lower 48. But then...who should also be on that ship but Georgia. The two unite once again, but Georgia’s overheard that there was a stowaway on board the ship, and assumes that it’s the Prospector. She tries to defend him, but quickly learns that he’s become a multi-millionaire. With that, the two are reunited, and the photographer brings both of them up for a picture. He poses them in a way that brings them quite close...and the two kiss.

The end! That’s The Gold Rush, and I thought it was a surprisingly heartfelt film! Really, it was funny in some spots, but was a bit more sweet to me than funny. And I really liked it, in truth. I get why it’s considered one of his best! I’ll elaborate on my thoughts more thoroughly in the review, though. See you there!

[act-addict-actors-matchups]

@cinnamon-bunni said,

Hi, can I get a matchup please? I'm an ambiverted infp-t leo. I'm extremely quiet at first, out of shyness and that I don't really know how to talk to people. I can come across as passive or indifferent too, but really I'm not good at expressing myself. I try to make up for it by being extra polite but I tend to zone out a lot. Once I'm out of my shell I become really hyper and talkative depending on the other's energy level. I'm told I have a sense of humour and a little snark too. (1/2)

I love physical affection but I'm not good at initiating things; I prefer to make stuff for friends to show I care. For interests, I love drawing, needlefelting and animals. I like to try and befriend cats when I'm out and share random animal facts;; There aren't many things I don't like but I'm camera shy and have super bad stage fright, ironically;; tysm in advance 💞 (2/2)

✧ Thank you so much for requesting a matchup, love. As an Aries, I really love Leo’s lol. I hope the matchup is to your liking and am sorry it took me so long to get it down. 💓

I’d match you with: . . .

➜ HOW YOU TWO FIRST MET ; Cats. That’s it. That’s the post. That’s how you two first met each other. Jokes aside, you were on your way to meet up with your friends. That is until you got distracted by bunch of kitty cats. Just as you were about to reach your hand to pet one of them, it started to run towards the opposite direction. The action made you pause because normally you’d be able to befriend any cat without a problem. That talent was something you had pride in and you always made sure to rub it on your friend’s faces. Out of curiosity, and for the sake of your pride, you followed the cat until your eyes caught a glimpse of light purple locks. In the middle of bunch of stray cats were a young man dressed very casually, petting and playing with the cats, an energetic smile present on his face. He was wearing a dark green hoodie with a yellow triangle pattern at the front and a pair of blue jeans rolled up above his ankles. He also tied a yellow lumberjack shirt around his waist and wore a pair of white Vans with a camouflage pattern. If you weren’t irritated by how many cats were around him, you would have thought he was attractive. Very, very attractive. With a huff, you were about to turn back and continue walking until you felt something soft rubbing against your legs. Glancing down, you were surprised to find an Abyssinian cat rubbing its head and softly purring. The irritation you were feeling was thrown out of the window as you bent down to pet it. You were happily petting the cat until an amazed shout pulled you away from your trance. “Woaah, a cat with triangular face! I wanna pet it too!” Before you knew it, the man who was surrounded by kitties were right beside you, his orange eyes sparkling with excitement as your hand made contact with the cat’s head once more. “Go ahead. It’s not like I own it anyways.” You mumbled with a shrug of your shoulders. He thanked you and called you a nice stranger girl before starting to pet the cat as well. Everything was normal until he started to meow. It got even weirder when the cat meowed back at the male. You raised an eyebrow at the male’s action as you slowly started to back away. But what the male said stopped you in your tracks. “Waaa, he says he likes you! I’m so jealous.” With a glance at the boy, you asked how did he know what the cat was saying and as a response, he said he could talk to cats. Of course, like every sensible and rational person you didn’t believe him. Before you knew it, you were giving him a bunch of reasons how it was impossible to talk to animals. What you didn’t expect was for him to not hear a single thing you’ve said and talk about something entirely else. With his friendly but really eccentric personality, you couldn’t help but talk back to him. After spending some time together surrounded by cats, you learned that his name was Misumi Ikaruga and he was an actor at Mankai Company. You had to admit, he was an oddball but in a good way. Without you noticing he even convinced you to go and watch him act at the theater. After checking the time, you realized that you were going to be late to meeting with your friends, you quickly stood up. Giving him a one last wave, you turned ahead and started to walk towards your destination after making a mental note to buy a ticket for Summer Troupe’s next play.

➜ PERSONALITY COMPATIBILITY ; Misumi is probably one of the most friendly guy you can come across and he doesn’t really mind if you’re quiet at first because he can literally talk for hours about anything and everything. He doesn’t judge people or anything for that matter so it’s impossible for him to find you indifferent. He’s like the sun honestly, so I bet before you know it, you’d be comfortable enough to be your true self around him. He’s extremely energetic so good luck matching his energy level. Don’t worry about not initiating physical affection because Misumi is able to initiate it enough for the two of you. Sometimes, when he's passing you by he will kiss your cheek, then run out the door. Other times he'll surprise you and give you a kiss in the weirdest places. Your back is turned towards him, he will hug you and rest his chin on your shoulder or head, depending on your height. You prefer to make stuff for people you care about? Please, please, PLEASE make him a triangle. He will keep it by his side and treasure it until his last breath. It might even have equal value with his triangle ruler that his grandfather gave him.

➜ SHARED ACTIVITIES ; Well aside from your regular triangle hunting, befriending every single animal you’ve come across has became your ritual at this point since your boyfriend is basically an animal magnet. Like, you’d be walking together and cats, dogs or even birds would follow you two. You’re extremely lucky in that department since you love animals very much. If the weather is bad, two of you would do triangle crafts together. He absolutely loves your artistic abilities and how you can make the best triangles. Yes, you’ve even superpassed Kazunari in his eyes. A big accomplishment if you ask me. Onigiri making is also something you regularly do together. Not gonna lie, he makes the best onigiris in the entire world. He might even superpass Omi when it comes to onigiri making. Well, aside from typical Misumi activities, he’d also take you on normal dates like park & beach walks, moon gazing at night, cat cafes and so on. Honestly, everything you do together is fun. You make him feel loved and wanted, something only his grandfather did. Having someone like you there for him made him realize how lonely he had felt, please just protect this precious boy.

➜ ZODIAC COMPATIBILITY ; Misumi’s birthday is on June 6 which makes him a Gemini. Leo x Gemini love match is an equation that hits off right from the very first time these two individuals converse with each other. The charm and intelligence of the Gemini attracts the Leo like a moth to a flame. At the same time, the confidence and conspicuousness of the Lion is enough to blow the the Twins away. Both Gemini and Leo signs know how to flirt and are extremely compatible with each other from the word go. They love to talk about all the topics in the world and their communication is free-flowing, intellectual, fun and without any barriers. The immense loyalty of the Leo makes the Gemini feel comfortable in their own skin. On the other hand, the Twins has no problem in catering to the Lion's need for flattery and admiration. Leo gets a lot of attention from Gemini, and thus gives everything to their relationship in turn, which makes their equation tick from the very beginning. This is one of the most compatible pairings in the zodiac chart and if the minor friction is handled with maturity by both the parties, the Leo and Gemini compatibility relationship can last a lifetime. A lifetime, which will be filled with love, happiness, and success.

[shinahbee]

The untamed is my new obsession Part 2

So in my last blog post, I painted a canvas picture of wei ying and wrote a little about why I thought that this drama is something I’m very much drawn to. I mentioned that I was never able to connect to my culture due to being raised as a Canadian and even with Chinese school on the weekends, it was still nothing that encouraged me to explore more of my culture. Being Asian american/Canadian there was a time I was teased a lot in my younger days literally experiencing the early stages of racism made me reject my culture, of course in retrospect i didn’t experience anything too extreme compare to others, so i should be grateful.

I should also clarify that I am Chinese but I just speak Cantonese, I do not speak mandarin which is the language spoken in this drama so even I had trouble understanding without subtitles. I did say that hearing my language made me cringe a little and that is only because I’m not used to hearing it since I do not watch Chinese dramas. 

so opinions on the untamed overall, where to begin?

so before watching the live action adaptation, I watched mo dao zu shi the animated series, and really like it, although it was listed as yoai, there was nothing really about it that followed the troupes of that genre. So I really enjoyed it and i’ll talk about the characters briefly, first off is wei ying, I really thought he was just a mischievous child like character, he didn’t seem like he cared about anything sort of air head-ish...that’s not a real word but excuse me, I understand now that its like a defense mechanism  to act courageous when inside you feel like less than nothing. Not going to lie after he died and came back, I thought he looked really bad ass.lol. Now Lan zhan...omg where to begin, I didn’t like his character at first, let’s just say there’s so many stoic anime character types that really piss me off, the usual would be aggressive, abusive, possessive and cold towards the other characters and although some women find that attractive, I do not..lol. this is a beginning of a toxic relationship that i would not want any part of.

all that is to say lan zhan changed my mind, at first I thought he was aloof, which means he just seems a little distant and dis- interested in most things, he was just raised in a certain way that encouraged this behavior to unfold and its not something that can be changed very easily. But after meeting wei ying I think it encouraged him to be a little more understanding and he starts to open up to him through a gain of trust. In 13 years later he became a good role model to the new lan sect kids. 

but for me personally, when his character started showing emotion and how he really cared about wei ying, I started to understand who he is, and get to know his actual character.

now that was all mo dao zushis’ version,what about the untameds’ adaptation? The general consensus of their characters remained the same but of course I did see a change in wei ying’s character, not sure if that is due to a directors view or the actor xiao zhan’s view on the character, but I feel like this change made him into more of a likable person and made him really relatable. I still see the childish nature come out in scenes with his family members , but he never felt like an “ air head” so to speak, he was intelligent and courteous, it made me as a viewer understand that he is this way because he feels less than...he never felt like he deserved what he had so to hide all that he had to over compensate, if you know what I mean, but it made him my favorite character due to the complexity.

and of course last but not least the relationship between lan zhan and wei ying, now I know that the drama made it in a way that is left to the viewers interpretation, but like i said in my last post how american television portrays a relationship is that they kiss or have a sex scene in order to let the viewer know that they are in a relationship...and that to me sends the wrong message to people. There was very little physical contact, but they both show their affection through gestures, for example that piggy back scene was one of the most romantic things I have seen in a drama and I watch a crap ton of Korean dramas...so i know.

and also the small things like getting angry on ones be half, catching the other person as they fall and small hand holding gestures, they seem so minuscule but speak very loudly on their relationship, also all those long gazes...you do not look at a person who is just “ a friend” in that way.

one of the most iconic scenes is the forest scene, originally I believe that lan zhan kissed wei ying in the forest in the novel, some people didn’t like that fact that they took that out due to censorship. In this scene the exchange between them when wei ying asked “ what am i to you?”

and lan zhan asks the same thing “ well, what am i to you?” this goes beyond words in saying why do you care so much? when in fact wei ying from the very first episode was all up in his bubble, he’s like why is this guy here? why is he in my personal space? he was always trying to get his attention and getting him involved in a lot of things that are outside his comfort zone. Then it follows with “ I once thought of you as a soul mate”  and lan zhan answers with “ I still am” to me this is like the answer to the “ why do you care?” question with “ i don’t know..I just do!” there is confusion written on their faces so i believe they are really considering what it is that they could be at this point. It’s like a coming of age story.

I can delve deep into their relationship form the scenes in the drama but I think this scene was enough for me. I also really liked the back to lotus cove scene with jiang chang and the both of them...that scene broke me heart.

which leads to my picture up above, when they ended up at lotus lake after running away from lotus cove and wei ying mentioned that he really liked to play a lot here when he was little, but there was also a scene of him early on with his sister and a bunch of others playing around the lake splashing water at each other...cause that’s fun..it made me think that this place is like a safe space for him, and i kid you not I wanted them to jump off the boat and play in the water, it adds to romanticism of the scene and also for wei ying to let down his walls and just have a good cry cause man...i would be doing the same in his position. 

any ways, that’s basically what my art inspiration was about, I just drew them in their first meeting outfits because we all want to go back the that time before stuff went down.

hope you all enjoyed reading, please check out my other art as well on tumblr.

Deviantart: she-be.deviantart.com

Instagram: shinb_art

thanks!

sheena

[chapitre7]

The heart at the tip of a brush

The Untamed [陈情令] | Mo Dao Zu Shi [魔道祖师] fanfiction

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian (Wangxian)

College / Drama Club AU

Read on AO3

Mo Xuanyu had always been their make-up artist. Lan Zhan had always been in charge of the costumes, ever since Wei Ying found the sketchbook where he kept the designs he came up with in the hours between sleep and homework, when he allowed himself to flounder the wings of his imagination. Embarrassed as he was of his hobby, he didn’t even know why he had carried the sketchbook with him that day (maybe confused it with his regular notebooks?), but after the initial shock of being discovered, he had relented to Wei Ying’s cries and pleadings and had agreed to be the last member in his brand new drama club. What set them apart, Wei Ying had told him with exaggerated gallantry, was that they’d write their own plays and enact them, instead of somebody else’s. Pretty big talk for someone who wouldn’t actually do the writing, Jiang Cheng barked, but he still joined the club anyway, the flair for the dramatic flowing in his veins as much as it did in Wei Ying’s; truly brothers, no matter the blood ties and several other differences between them.

 So the club started then, each one of them being responsible for too many things and also not much at all, in those early days of chaotic planning, until they gathered more members and set a clear goal in mind: the school festival. It was an embarrassment, as school projects often were, but Wei Ying’s joy at seeing all of their work fulfilled in an hour of glory (“What glory? MianMian forgot her lines and ruined my impeccable script, Brother Wei! It won’t do, it really won’t do!”) somehow emboldened them to try harder and strive higher. So, at Wen Ning’s suggestion, on their second year, they started enacting plays at the local orphanage. The reward of the kids’ starstruck faces fed them better than any feast, and so they continued, every year, sometimes twice a year, all the way till college.

 With such responsibility on their shoulders, it was natural for everyone to get pumped up, even going so far as to enlist some of their family members to lend their hands. Such as Lan Zhan sewing all of their costumes with his brother’s help, who had an eye for subtle details that Lan Zhan treasured, as he always did with all of his brother’s inputs throughout his life. Along with elder brother Lan came Meng Yao, who enriched Nie Huaisang’s scripts with twists and turns that made the fan-wielding boy think up even wilder twists and turns that Wei Ying’s creative mind ate up like his favorite spicy pumpkin-flavored cookies from the local coffee shop (that literally nobody but him liked). Jiang Cheng was their lead actor, Luo Qingyang, stage name MianMian, their lead actress, and everybody did a little bit of acting, even if they had no lines, as was often the case with Lan Zhan (at Wei Ying’s request).

 And Mo Xuanyu was in charge of their make-up.

 Not Lan Zhan.

 Never Lan Zhan.

 Yet there he is, covering for the sick man, standing in front of a smiling Wei Ying, who looks every bit like the evil sorcerer that they had perfected through the years, while Nie Huaisang, the second-best make-up artist of their little rogue troupe, frenzies over MianMian.

 “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, the gentle tone of his voice coloring his name, holding the familiar hint of apology that he often uses when he drags Lan Zhan to adventures his friend doesn’t appreciate as much as Wei Ying had anticipated. “It’s really not that difficult. It’s not too different from coloring your designs, and you’ve seen the end results. This is nothing your brilliant, talented hands can’t handle!”

 Flattery could get him anywhere as long as Lan Zhan was involved, but the young man still swallows down around the anxiety that has installed itself at his stomach like acid, not having much to do with being able to pull off a decent make-up job and everything to do with leaning over Wei Ying and painting on him like a canvas.

 Unaware of the not-so-honorable battle that Lan Zhan fights against himself, Wei Ying places the eyeshadow palette in Lan Zhan’s palm and leans against the back of the chair, tilting his face up. It’s so innocent, so trusting and professional, and Lan Zhan leans over him for a brief second before remembering he’s not holding any brushes. How surprised would everyone be if Lan Zhan simply bolted out of the modest, well-lit bedroom that they used as a dressing room and screamed in the backyard full of children waiting for the play to begin? He can’t even process the mental image, but knowing that it’s impossible seems to ground him.

 Firmly holding a brush in his hand, Lan Zhan swallows again — doesn’t scream —, inhales, and sets himself to work.

 It really isn’t so difficult once he begins. He knows exactly what color Mo Xuanyu uses on Wei Ying, so accustomed he is to seeing his friend play the fearsome Yiling Patriarch. It’s a highlight of red on the crease of his eyes, to give him a sharper look, scheming and compelling at the same time. Lan Zhan uses his own thumb to smudge the same red on his eyelids, just a tiny bit, just a brush of color, a gradient of red that matches up with the color scheme that Lan Zhan set up for his character a long time ago, which was really just a fantasy take on Wei Ying’s own style.

 With a thin brush, he sets to draw a perfect black contour on Wei Ying’s lash line, for when he opens his eyes, he needs him to look as if he could transmutate into a cat at any given moment, so round and marble-like those brown eyes look then, mesmerizing the audience.

 Satisfied with his job on his eyes, Lan Zhan sparkles a peach color on his cheeks so he looks healthy and ready to gobble up misbehaving children. And then his lips...

 He curses Mo Xuanyu and his food poisoning, and then he mentally apologizes. All those years in high school trying to ignore just how pretty Wei Ying is as he tried to get Lan Zhan’s attention, how pretty he even was when he was asleep and drooling on Lan Zhan’s dinner table where they were supposed to brainstorm the theme of their next play. Years of trying not to betray the honesty of their friendship, because he could spend forever watching the endless capability Wei Ying’s ideas, and he liked being included in his group, doing something that he had been curious about but ignoring for the sake of his academic success, until Wei Ying taught him that he could have both the success and the fun of doing something you like. All of it, and also the dreams where Wei Ying kissed him (because he was never the one to initiate it), touched him, pinned him to the floor from where he fell in endless loops — all of his inappropriate desire falls upon a single, tiny brush of red.

 Holding Wei Ying’s chin, he glides the brush, shiny and glossy, over the center of Wei Ying’s lower lip and then out to the sides. Then he draws the heart shape of his upper lip, careful not to color outside the natural lines of Wei Ying’s mouth, slowly, slowly covering every corner with calculated precision. He’s mindful not to use too much product, knowing by its consistence that it can smear unsightly, but it still accumulates in the corners, and he wipes it away with his digit, using the tip of his nail to draw the proper line again.

 His gaze moves up and the eyes he framed are looking straight at him. How long had he been staring at him? How long had Lan Zhan even been working? And why can’t he hear the others getting ready around them?

 His breathing, that had been steady — and he had, by all accounts, been touching Wei Ying’s face as he hovered over him, trying to make him even more beautiful than the memory of their past plays — fails him as the tip of Wei Ying’s tongue peaks through, just the tip, before he touches his lips together. His teeth look whiter with that red framing them, and Lan Zhan can’t look away, he’s mesmerized by that mouth that loves to talk to him, pouring out considerations from topics Lan Zhan had never even considered but that he understands when Wei Ying talks about them. But now he’s not talking, his lips are just perfect and unmoving and parted, and Wei Ying still has his chin tilted up at him, and he’s so near. Why isn’t Wei Ying saying anything? Where is everyone? Why is he gripping the arms of Wei Ying’s chair—

 “Are you done there yet?!”

 Jiang Cheng’s call is very clear and very near, and Lan Zhan is aware that he has made an undignified jump away from his position in 0.1 seconds flat. He expects Wei Ying to laugh at him, as he does in almost every situation, but when Lan Zhan dares to raise his eyes back at his friend, he’s also standing and adjusting his cuffs before checking his reflection on a nearby mirror.

 “Wow,” is all that he says about Lan Zhan’s work, and Lan Zhan is surprised that, despite the panicked drumming of his heart against his chest that spells out all of his secret infatuation, he’s still glad that Wei Ying seems pleased about the results.

 “I... I kept it simple,” he says, and it’s true. Xuanyu uses a plethora of products that Lan Zhan doesn’t quite begin to understand the purpose of, and he still wouldn’t have taken as long as Lan Zhan did given his expertise.

 Wei Ying, however, just shakes his head and gives him an honest (and painfully distracting) smile.

 “These kids are in for an especially striking Yiling Patriarch today,” he says and smirks, and Lan Zhan wants to kiss him and die, and those ideas don’t feel as isolated as he originally thought they’d be. “Let’s go, Lan Zhan.”

 Lan Zhan is terribly relieved that they had decided to write him out for today, because he’s not confident he’d remember to say any of his lines, even if they were just mostly hums, with Wei Ying playing his flute in a particularly intense tempo, eyes glued on him, as if he was the one he wanted to enchant.

 ***

 “Lan Zhan, create my new character with me.”

 That is the sole reason why Wei Ying arrives early to one of the few classes they have together, the very next week after their performance. Their professor is never late, but that doesn’t keep Wei Ying from throwing his notebook at him, an old thing, full of scribbles that date to a place in time when they didn’t even know each other. Wei Ying makes a list of attributes, sitting in his own space but leaning over Lan Zhan’s desk with inspiration at the tip of his tongue. He looks up at Lan Zhan with eyes that might as well sparkle like in the comics he once convinced Lan Zhan to read.

 “I want to be a hero,” Wei Ying says, voice brimming with an emotion Lan Zhan can’t quite place, and they’re only forced out of their own world when the professor clears his throat loudly, quite pointedly looking in their direction.

 Although he takes his notes dutifully, Wei Ying keeps throwing him glances with barely contained excitement, and in the back of Lan Zhan’s mind, in-between the professor’s pauses, he’s already working on the design.

 ***

 The troupe doesn’t have to meet for some time, given they all also have to focus on their own assignments and upcoming exams. When they do, after New Year celebrations, it’ll be time to brainstorm, and Wei Ying, diligent for all the wrong things at the wrong times, plans to pitch his brand new concept.

 “He’s going to be one of two prides,” he says, sprawled on Lan Zhan’s couch, his hands raised high, as far as he can reach, palms splayed, as if he can already see the scenes playing out on the ceiling.

 “Prideful?” Lan Zhan questions from his place on the floor, leaning against the couch and looking at Wei Ying, his sketchbook on the low table before him, waiting.

 “Hmm, not his definitive trait. His brother is though — that’s Jiang Cheng, of course —, as the rightful heir to the kingdom. I’ll be...”

 “A general?”

 “A loyal servant and prized adviser? You know, sort of like Merlin. But I don’t wanna be a sorcerer this time, I wanna wield a sword. I love brother Mingjue’s props.”

 Lan Zhan huffs, and whether it’s about Nie Mingjue’s props or the idea of Wei Ying being an adviser, he doesn’t say.

 “Lan Zhan, close your eyes and imagine it.”

 He leans his head back, more against Wei Ying than the couch, and does so. One of Wei Ying’s hands sets over his eyes, for unnecessary effect, and Lan Zhan can’t help but allow himself to smile.

 “A prince and his right hand, the twin prides. One is the rightful heir, the other is... adopted, yes. Together they defend Lotus Pier against invaders, and their rising success brings them notoriety among the other kingdoms. What do you think?”

 “Purple.”

 “Hmm?”

 “The royal color of Lotus Pier should be purple. Pink is too light, purple is better. Like Yunmeng’s sky in the summer.”

 “You still remember that?”

 Wei Ying lifts his hand from his eyes, resting it on his hair as Lan Zhan turns his head around to look at Wei Ying, acquiescing with a hum. The last time he went to Yunmeng for the summer, he sent Lan Zhan dozens of pictures, including one from the beach at sunset, when the sky was a gradient of orange and purple, like a painting. Wei Ying thought Lan Zhan would love that one, and he did, making sure he told Wei Ying that instead of keeping it to himself.

 (Although he loved and saved all of them to his phone anyway, but he kept that to himself.)

 “Isn’t that what you were thinking about? Lotus. Yunmeng.”

 Wei Ying smiles and hums an agreement of his own, his fingers brushing Lan Zhan’s bangs away from his face. And because they’re both so easy to read to each other, and Wei Ying’s gaze is so unmistakably fond, and because he feels himself too open, Lan Zhan lifts his head from the couch and leans forward, fingers hurriedly taking up his mechanic pencil to scribble down a few keywords. Purple. Twins. Adopted. Adviser.

 “I haven’t figured out how to go about it yet,” Wei Ying says as he moves from the couch to sit beside Lan Zhan on the floor, “but I wanted to create a different kind of hero than we’ve worked with before.”

 “The adoption part will be important for the children,” Lan Zhan points out with a nod. “It’s good, Wei Ying.”

 Wei Ying lets out a strangled noise and takes hold of Lan Zhan’s left arm, rubbing his face on his upper arm before looking back at Lan Zhan. His cheeks and nose are red, but he has the same excited glint in his eyes that he had when he approached Lan Zhan in class the day before, and Lan Zhan thinks it simply belongs there. This is his favorite Wei Ying, creative and free, and though he’s bound by his academic responsibilities, as long as Lan Zhan is with him, he’ll make sure he succeeds in everything he does. Everything for that crescent moon smile, full of stars.

 “So, what else?”

 Lan Zhan’s mechanic pencil hovers over the paper as they think, scribbling down more keywords, until it becomes so late in the evening that Wei Ying misses his dormitory’s curfew and has to sleep at Lan Zhan’s flat, in a guest bedroom that holds more of Wei Ying’s forgotten possessions than those of Lan Zhan’s brother, who was supposedly the person he kept the room for.

 ***

 “Why did you keep the red ribbon?”

 Lan Zhan sets his red pencil down, lifting his sketchbook so both of them can think about it together.

 “Both Wanyin and Wuxian use the same clothes and hairstyle, as twins and members of the royal family. Wanyin, as the heir, wears the crown’s jewelry in his hair. Wuxian is a main character too, so he can’t look any less striking, so, the red ribbon.”

 It’s your color goes unsaid. His hair is long, past his shoulders, though Jiang Cheng keeps telling him to get it cut like a normal person, and he always ties it with a red velvet scrunchie. As the Yiling Patriarch, he wore a red ribbon in his hair, and when he played the dizi and a gust of wind blew by him, he was mesmerizing, the red unforgettable against Wen Ning’s hand-drawn background. There was always something red about Wei Ying; a red backpack, red converse, and that red lipstick... Lan Zhan still dreams about it.

 It should be there. Yet Wei Ying keeps his brows furrowed at the drawing.

 “But isn’t it too striking? I don’t think Jiang Cheng is going to like it.”

 “Wei Ying.”

 He takes Wei Ying’s wrist, bringing it away from his face, where he was chewing on his nailbeds. Sitting side by side without a space between them, he lowered their hands to their laps and his hold moved to keep his palm against Wei Ying’s. It’s a lax hold, unambitious, just sharing warmth.

 “You can be a hero too.”

 His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything. He holds Lan Zhan’s gaze for long seconds (maybe two) before he bites his lip, huffs a repressed laughter, and lets his head fall on Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

 “Lan Zhan,” he says it like a whine, like a plea, and he feels his fingers intertwine with his, the connection still comfortable, still known, still familiar.

 “This whole project is yours,” Lan Zhan speaks into his hair. “You should be able to do what you want.”

 Wei Ying snorts.

 “Isn’t that vain?”

 “...You’re not exactly humble.”

 He lifts his head from his shoulder and bumps into him with a pointed, “Hey.” Lan Zhan chuckles, almost without sound, and pats the hand that’s still holding his.

 They look back at the design. Lan Zhan can already envision the fabrics he’s going to use, the details that he wants to add, and he already regrets saying that both Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng’s characters are going to dress the same.

 Wei Ying sighs. “You spoil me with your designs, Lan Zhan.”

 And he can’t really deny that.

 ***

 It’s as difficult to keep Wei Ying focused on his studies as it is for Lan Zhan to not drop his books and go to his workshop to sew Wei Ying’s costume. Even though exams are merely weeks away, Lan Zhan still finds some time to secretly buy all of the material he needs while Wei Ying tries to keep up with his own study group. And it proves to be a wise decision because Wei Ying doesn’t last two days with his classmates before he shows up at Lan Zhan’s flat with thick books recently checked out from the library and teary eyes.

 “I hate studying,” he dramatically announces as he flops down face-first on the couch. Lan Zhan knows it’s true as much as he knows that Wei Ying actually really enjoys being practical.

 He opens Wei Ying’s bag and puts his books on the low table. “Why are you even taking classic literature?”

 “It’s inspiring,” Wei Ying says, eyes closed and voice muffled by the leather of the couch. “It’s food for the soul. It’s pretty like you.”

 Lan Zhan halts his movements, not daring to turn or do anything else; one hand lies atop Wei Ying’s bag and another on the advanced physics book he last set down.

 Wei Ying is by his side before he blinks twice, putting his bag away and apparently trying to choose which of the books he wants to open, but too rushed and flushed to be doing much thinking at all.

 “You,” Lan Zhan begins, swallows, inhales and tries again. “Do you want me to help?”

 Wei Ying’s head snaps in his direction. With big eyes and his lower lip hidden under his upper lip, he just nods, and Lan Zhan either saves or dooms them both as he sets all books aside and puts the Advanced Physics book in front of them.

 “Explain.”

 Flipping the pages to the subject that would be covered in his exams, Wei Ying takes out his notebook, and he explains.

 ***

 The end of the year is marked by heavy snowfall, the kind that has Wei Ying’s teeth clattering together outside, even if he’s covered in layers that are short from hindering his mobility and wearing a scarf so wound around his head that only his eyes peak out between the wool. It’s the only time of the year that Lan Zhan feels bad for his staying in Gusu, as if the city is like a stern parent testing the object of his affections and Wei Ying barely passes, or maybe bypasses it, by sticking close to Lan Zhan even when they’re indoors. He indulges in their practiced proximity, and if his body yearns for more, he sternly shuts it down, unable to sacrifice all the years of accumulated mutual trust for the gamble of a confession.

 As always, however, he’s saved from the trap of his feelings by Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng’s end of the year trip to Yunmeng. And on cue, he leaves his own flat to spend the turn of the year with his uncle and brother at the Lan estate, set in the part of the city where the hills are high enough to almost sit among the clouds.

 Between hot tea brewed to perfection by his brother, television cooking programs that his uncle has become oddly fond of in the past year, and the occasional reading (both required and unrequired for his studies), Lan Zhans works on Wei Ying’s costume in the studio his brother arranged for him when he first enrolled in Wei Ying’s drama club.

 “Did you make this jinbu, A-Zhan?” Brother Huan asks when he brings him tea and biscuits, picking up the accessory with a purple tassel, light and dark purple beads and a white lotus that could pass as jade. At his younger brother’s nod, Lan Huan’s smile is so delighted that Lan Zhan has to look away. “It’s beautiful work, A-Zhan. You could really make a profession out of it.”

 “Brother, it’s just...”

 He trails off as his brother chuckles and gently places the jinbu back down.

 “I know. It’s just for Wei Ying, isn’t it?”

 Lan Zhan leans even further down into the fabric he’s working on, pretending to check something in the sewing machine.

 “It’s just a hobby,” he admits instead. Lan Huan doesn’t discredit him, patting his head like he’s still a child, and Lan Zhan doesn’t have it in him to dislike the touch.

 “Just remember that if you ever question the serious profession you’re seeking, A-Zhan, the answer always lies closer than you think.”

 The older Lan Sibling tilts his head, taking in all of his little brother’s work laid out in the space of his studio. He looks at the design Lan Zhan is trying to bring to life and then at all the materials on the station, and an imperceptible frown touches his face, like a ripple on calm waters.

 “This fabric...”

 Lan Zhan sighs, knowing exactly what fabric he’s questioning, without even having to try and see it in his brother’s hands.

 “I know. I couldn’t find the one I wanted in time.”

 He works the machine to keep the frustration away, so he doesn’t notice his brother leaving with the offending fabric, only to return, hours later, with such a fine material that Lan Zhan breaks into a bright, grateful smile. During dinner, even uncle, so often taciturn, makes the table inviting with an amicable mood, the three of them enjoying a meal that their caretaker made with his own hands, the elder rambling on and on about every detail of the cooking process while his nephews pay dutiful attention and encourage the little passion that seemed to burn quietly in the heart of every Lan.

 ***

 Wei Ying’s praise for Lan Zhan’s work was ever grandiose, and any other man could let it get to his head like an invincibility potion. Lan Zhan, however, is a simple man, and only his heart swells with contentment at every exaggerated compliment that falls out of that beloved mouth.

 When Lan Zhan shows him the finished the prototype costume for his twin pride character, however, Wei Ying seems to be, maybe for the first time since they started collaborating, at a loss for words.

 “It’s so...” He starts, touching the rich purple fabric with hesitant fingertips. Lan Zhan knows it’s more than their budget, and that they don’t even have a proper story yet, just the core concepts that they came up with together. But Wei Ying had been so engaged, so inspired, and though he’s usually that way when he’s working with Nie Huaisang, it’s the first time he asks Lan Zhan to create a character with him. So he was impulsive. It’s not a crime. “Lan Zhan, it’s...”

 Wei Ying brings the costume to his face, rubbing it against his cheek, and the pleased hum he lets out makes Lan Zhan’s breath cease for a couple of seconds.

 “Make-up test?” Lan Zhan offers, a little weakly, a little shy, but Wei Ying practically jumps in place at the thought, electrified with excitement.

 “Make-up test!” He announces before he runs to the guest bedroom in wide steps and Lan Zhan, left with unwelcome nerves, nervously puts Wei Ying’s backpack away on the couch from where he had unceremoniously dropped it on the floor.

 When Wei Ying comes out of the bedroom, Lan Zhan was thinking about making tea after he had paced from the living room to his own bedroom, then to the kitchen to drink some water, to the window to check the weather, until he finally stopped to sit on the couch, where Wei Ying finds him. His best friend comes out of the bedroom in the costume Lan Zhan designed for him (just for him, he decides right there, he’ll simply have to rethink how to proceed with Jiang Cheng), sets a hairbrush, a red ribbon, and a big pouch on the low table, before twirling around himself.

 “So? What do you think?”

 Wei Ying had always favored black and red. They weren’t the sole colors he used, and Lan Zhan particularly liked when he wore white, the color brightening up his features like a beacon, but Lan Zhan is sure he had never worn something like the bright purple of the robes Lan Zhan made for him. When he twirls, the light plays tricks on the fabric, like a multi-colored bouquet of hydrangeas glistening after a rainshower. The inner robes are a simple black, but the outer jacket is more fascinating still, of a dark purple, almost black, iridescent, see-through fabric that he knows his brother bought from someplace outside of Gusu. Lanling, he believes. On the back, he embroidered a lotus motif with nine petals, the symbol of Wei Ying’s royalty.

 “I love it so much,” Wei Ying says, without waiting for his response, unknowingly almost sending Lan Zhan into cardiac arrest. His hands keep petting down on the costume, and he giggles when he touches the jinbu that jingles with a small bell that Lan Zhan added as a last-minute detail. “Lan Zhan, I can’t believe you made this. We haven’t even finished creating Wuxian, and it’s really...” He laughs, somewhat strained, covering his face with his hands, before dropping on the couch beside Lan Zhan. “How am I supposed to kill him now?”

 Lan Zhan immediately snaps out of his reverie, blinking rapidly.

 “Kill?”

 Wei Ying sighs, letting his hands drop and leaning his head against the couch backrest.

 “Yeah. I was thinking that Wuxian would sacrifice himself to save Jiang Cheng and the kingdom. Like, he runs out of good ideas in a crisis but the kingdom and his family are bigger than he is, so he makes his decision. The kingdom sings songs about him after he dies, and he’s widely recognized as an important member of the royal family.”

 Lan Zhan can read too much between the lines of that script, and the fact that Wei Ying has come to the conclusion that his death, however metaphorical, is the answer, sits heavy on his stomach.

 “Wei Ying,” he calls, a bit too sternly, perhaps, as Wei Ying looks up from fiddling with his jinbu like a child ready to be scolded. “Wei Ying, you can’t kill him,” he says, more softly. “You can’t kill the adopted son in front of an audience of foster kids. What kind of message would we be sending them?”

 “I know,” he whines. “But isn’t it heroic?”

 “Death is just death.” He takes Wei Ying’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “Even in fiction. The ones that stay behind are never happy to part with a loved one.” Wei Ying turns his hand in Lan Zhan’s grasp so they’re palm to palm again, puzzle pieces fitting together. Lan Zhan inches closer, brings their clasped hands to his chest, and firmly says, “We’re not killing Wuxian.”

 Wei Ying’s laugh is just a huff of air, and he can’t hide his tears when he wipes them away from the corners of his eyes.

 “Okay. Wuxian lives in the end.”

 Lan Zhan nods, letting their hands fall between them, but not letting go. The silence that follows Wei Ying’s sniffles is not uncomfortable, but there’s something in the space between them, in the way Wei Ying is wearing that beautiful purple that Lan Zhan made for him, in the way Wei Ying keeps looking at his face, that Lan Zhan feels is both thick and fragile like glass. Or maybe he’s a coward, just a coward in the end, consumed by his desire to hold that man and touch him and kiss him, but ultimately defeated by the overbearing affection that wants him to make sure he never leaves Wei Ying, never lets him think he has to sacrifice himself for anyone, when he’s the brightest star in everyone’s lives.

 “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying calls, and he seems to be closer than he was just a moment ago, the tears gone, leaving only a shine in his eyes in their wake. “Aren’t you going to finish our make-up test?”

 At Lan Zhan’s nod, Wei Ying smiles his wide, crescent moon smile and hops to the floor, handing Lan Zhan the hairbrush from over his shoulder. Lan Zhan, who has experience at both being a younger brother who played with his elder brother and a long-time drama club member, brushes Wei Ying’s hair without hesitation or clumsiness. Given the sheer volume of hair that Wei Ying possesses, there’s no way that the bun can be secured for long with just the ribbon, but Lan Zhan doesn’t want to get up to get any pins, so he just works with what he’s given, tying a pretty bow near Wei Ying’s nape, the ends of the ribbon still falling long, down his back. He had been right. The red looks almost mystical against the purple.

 “So, since the royal color is purple, should my make-up be purple too?”

 Lan Zhan climbs down from the couch, kneeling beside the other, and shakes his head. He takes the pouch from Wei Ying (that he’s sure is Mo Xuanyu’s, when did Wei Ying even take it?) and pulls a neutral-colored palette and a brush.

 “The clothes are already flashy enough, so we’re only framing your face,” Lan Zhan explains, although he’s more versed in colors than in make-up specifically, but it’s a test. If Mo Xuanyu has any better ideas once the story is pitched to the group, then he’s free to use them. Right then, Lan Zhan stands on his knees for a better angle to paint Wei Ying’s eyeshadow an earthy, reddish brown. With a thin, black pencil, he traces the line along his lashes in a much finer touch than the one he used for the Yiling Patriarch, just so the audience knows that his eyes are just as important as his clothes, that his person is just as big as his position.

 For his lips, he chooses a similarly neutral, peachy shade, just so he doesn’t look pale under the stage light, so his smiles can reach even the chairs in the furthest rows. The traditional lipstick makes less of a mess than the glossy, liquid red one he used before, but still the corners... No matter how careful Lan Zhan is, he still misses his mark when he gets to the corners. So he reaches out, just as he did then, to wipe the excess at the corner of Wei Ying’s lips with his thumb, and it’s so much easier this time.

 So much easier, and still... He runs his thumb along the lines of Wei Ying’s lower lip, as if there’s something there to correct, but there’s nothing, just his lips, parted and colored and waiting. Just his lips and that birthmark underneath, distracting, beckoning, a natural wonder that Lan Zhan can’t ignore, he looks, and he touches, and he’s lost, dazed again.

 Those lips open, form the syllables of his name.

 He looks up, wide-eyed, at a Wei Ying that is closely watching him. Eyes as round and attentive as they always were.

 “Lan Zhan. Do you want to kiss me?”

 He swallows and tries to look down, but Wei Ying takes his face between both of his hands and doesn’t let him.

 “Do you?” He repeats, and because he cannot lie, because he especially cannot lie to Wei Ying, he nods, and he closes his eyes, and he waits for his best friend’s judgment.

 “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying calls again, and Lan Zhan can hear him shift his position. “Lan Zhan, look at me.”

 He opens his eyes and he does. Wei Ying is at his eye level, standing on his knees as well. Wei Ying, always so expressive, doesn’t look anything like Lan Zhan had feared; he looks kind and patient and good. Lan Zhan’s hands, without him even noticing it, have moved to hold Wei Ying’s wrists.

 “Lan Zhan,” he calls, and in Lan Zhan’s mind, it could be the last time. But it sounds just as melodious, just as full of Wei Ying’s sincerity as it always did. “Can I kiss you?”

 All of his thought processes, all of his observations trail off then. Wei Ying looks a little flushed, though Lan Zhan didn’t apply any make-up to his cheeks. And his mouth, his beautiful, glistening mouth, displays a half-smile. Expectant. A little scared.

 Once Lan Zhan nods, everything seems to resume at a much faster pace, as if they stepped too hard on the gas pedal and their car flew off the road with a loud screech. Wei Ying exhales before their lips meet, as if meeting two necessities at once. He throws his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck and pulls, his lips opening and closing around the other’s as many times as he can before he needs to breathe again. And then breaks away just to catch his breath before he’s lounging forward again, forcing Lan Zhan into a sitting position so he can climb on his lap and rob him of all coherent thought. Lan Zhan circles his arms around his middle, underneath the outer jacket, securing Wei Ying flush against him. The kiss is messy, wet, open-mouthed and inexperienced, Lan Zhan just following Wei Ying’s lead, which isn’t much of a lead, as Wei Ying whimpers between touches. The sound is enough to make Lan Zhan lose the last grasp he had on control, and that sends him to fall backwards, all the way back where he has no support, and they only have a second to disconnect their mouths before Lan Zhan’s head hits the hard floor.

 “Oh my God, are you okay?!”

 Lan Zhan winces, seeing stars in front of his eyes, and Wei Ying is quick to pull him back to an upright position, helping him lean his back against the couch before climbing back on his lap.

 “Lan Zhan, does it hurt too bad? Is it bleeding? Do you have a concussion? We should go to the—”

 “I’m all right,” he says, his voice a little hoarse. Wei Ying touches the back of his head and he winces, but he reassures him again. “It’s okay. It’s just a bump.”

 Wei Ying pats his hair into place after the mess that his hands made.

 “I’m sorry.”

 “Don’t be.”

 Wei Ying’s lipstick is smeared all around his plump mouth (from kissing; from kissing him), and Lan Zhan be damned, he didn’t think Wei Ying could look more attractive and then he looks like that. It’d be unfair if Wei Ying wasn’t following a similar train of thought, thumbs touching around Lan Zhan’s mouth in a weak effort to wipe away the lipstick there. And because he wasn’t really trying, he just kisses him again, slow, unhurried, almost chaste, a kiss that lasts long, a whole time unit in its own.

 His hair is down, red ribbon lying somewhere on the floor. Lan Zhan pushes it away from his face so he can take a good look at him, his best friend, brilliant and full of life and beautiful around him, in his embrace, his cheeks flushing darker the longer he observes him, until Wei Ying throws his arms around him again and hides his face on his neck.

 “I have a confession to make.”

 Lan Zhan hums, his hand moving up and down Wei Ying’s back.

 “I didn’t really plan on writing a play with Wuxian... I created him as a way to spend time with you.”

 When Wei Ying takes a deep breath, Lan Zhan can feel it, against his chest, on his neck, the exhale making him shiver.

 “After our last performance, I— well, we never really...”

 Wei Ying sighs, and Lan Zhan’s hand moves to his hair, petting, fond. He barely ever allowed himself to think of touching Wei Ying, yet it feels like the right thing to do, a natural step from all the hand holding and working in each other’s personal spaces. And it’s just what he can do to tell Wei Ying to go on, that he’s there, listening, although he’s not done collecting all of the fragments of his own confession, shattered in the car crash of a kiss long suffered.

 “I’ve always really admired you, Lan Zhan. Your talent, your imagination, everything you do is so good. I wanted to make something with you, to spend all of my time with you, to create something out of nothing that was ours.”

 Lan Zhan can feel Wei Ying raising his head, his chin resting on Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

 “You see, Lan Zhan, I’m really selfish. I’ve had a crush on you since I first laid eyes on you when we were fifteen but now I really wanted all of your attention. The way you looked at me that day, I... You don’t have any idea what you do to me.”

 Wei Ying tries to hide again, but Lan Zhan holds his shoulders, pulls him back to look at him. His mouth is still a mess of lipstick, but his eyes are wide, exposed. Lan Zhan tries to wipe the lipstick away, just to save Wei Ying some grace, because the weight of his their attraction pulling them together was nothing compared to the weight of the heart against one’s palms.

 “I’ve always admired you.” Lan Zhan echoes, eyes still focused on those lips, still trying to clean up their mess.  “Your talent, your imagination, and everything you do. I want to spend all my time with you, and create things with you, things that everybody will look and know it’s ours.”

 His hand, on Wei Ying’s face, moves to cup his cheek; his gaze moves up, without hesitation, because being there with Wei Ying when he falls is all he’s ever done, when people laughed at their plays, when their plans were foiled, when their ideas went nowhere. They’d come together, the two of them, and rise the whole group back up, one more time.

 “I really like you, Wei Ying. I’ve liked you for a long time now.”

 How could he be pretty even when he cries?

 “Why didn’t you say anything?”

 “You’re my best friend. The only one in this lifetime.”

 It’s only when Wei Ying touches his cheeks that he realizes he’s crying too.

 “You’re my best friend too, Lan Zhan. And I really, really like you back.”

 The kiss they share then is somewhere in-between the other two. It’s tender like a first kiss between their teenage selves, pecks that follow one after the other and another again, followed by kisses on each other’s cheeks, on noses and foreheads, marked with promise and lipstick. And when they finally regain their breath from their confessions, from their laughter, it’s open-mouthed and eager, ready to discover each other’s taste, and the best angles for their tongues to come together, to elicit delicious sounds from their throats.

 Wei Ying finds as much delight in delicately peeling the clothes Lan Zhan made for him open as he did in putting them on. And the view is almost too much for the designer, who both marvels and suffers at all the layers of his creation, sprawled underneath Wei Ying, still so beautiful against his skin, but ultimately forgotten.

 ***

 “Lan Zhan.”

 It’s a snowy night. Cold and white and long, sure to trap them inside when the morning comes.

 The answer to Wei Ying’s sensibilities, in the end, turned out to be simple; cuddle up as close as he can to his boyfriend, underneath thick and fluffy blankets.

 “Mn?”

 “I thought up a nicer end for Wuxian.”

 Lan Zhan doesn’t bother to open his eyes in the dark. He just turns his head to touch Wei Ying’s, his nose cold on the other’s forehead.

 “In the end he sacrifices himself for the kingdom but he doesn’t die. He ends up powerless but he meets someone who takes care of him regardless of the fact that he’s a royal.”

 Wei Ying plays with the collar of his pajamas and Lan Zhan could burst with contentment, but he only smiles against Wei Ying’s skin.

 “So when Wanyin finally finds Wuxian again, a long time later, Wuxian has become wiser because he realizes true strength doesn’t come from battles or sacrifices, but human connection. So he promises to be Wanyin’s adviser because he loves and supports him, but he’s not going back to the palace, he’s staying with Wangji.”

 “Wangji?”

 Wei Ying hums. Lan Zhan likes that ending. It’s a good message for the kids, to follow your heart rather than a life mission.

 It takes his sleepy mind a few seconds to remember his brother’s words. He’s going to like Wei Ying’s play, very much so.

 “Lan Zhan?”

 “Mn?”

 “Will you be my Wangji?”

 He kisses Wei Ying’s forehead and places his hand against the hand that lies on his chest, next to his heart.

 “Mn. I will be Wei Ying’s commoner wife.”

 Wei Ying snorts before nuzzling his shoulder.

 “I haven’t decided if he’s going to be a commoner yet. But you’re going to wear blue. Blue and white, like Gusu’s clear skies.”

 Lan Zhan doesn’t comment on how Wei Ying didn’t deny being his partner in the play, even if they had just confessed to liking each other. There’s still so much more to be said, and Lan Zhan loves the anticipation, will dream about them with Wei Ying in his arms all night, and all of the next day, too.

 “I thought you didn’t like Gusu that much.”

 “Of course I like Gusu. All of my memories with you are here.”

 Lan Zhan turns to his side, hugs Wei Ying tight against his chest, making him laugh. He kisses him all over his face before meeting his lips, then covers him up to his chin to protect him from the cold, and together, they fall asleep, the future holding a different shape in their creative, clasped hands.

[jadelotusflower]

Jesus Christ Superstar, aka purgatory is white jumpsuits and fringe

As it’s Good Friday (for some) this is the obvious choice, because I really, really love this movie. Yes, it was one of those musicals we had on tape and I watched over and over as a kid, and yes it is so overwhelmingly 70′s and a bit camp, but it’s also really good okay? Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one (and please note discussion is directed to the characters as they appear in the film, it’s not a comment on the religious figures on which they are based).

Norman Jewison, 1973

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber/Lyrics by Tim Rice

Jesus Christ Superstar is one of those musicals that needs to be redone every generation, because it is can act as a mirror to society of the time. Now, this version plays it straighter than later productions, in that while it retains some modern clothing and sensibilities, it’s played as actors putting on a performance rather than literally setting the story in the modern day and making relevant alterations as latter productions do. But it was still a gutsy move to make it at all.

Okay, so imagine you’re pitching the film to the executives, a successful musical that’s already had its share of controversy as an interpretation of the last days of Christ through the eyes of Judas, that ends with the crucifixion and no resurrection. Then you tell them you want to film on location in Israel and you want to open the movie with the actors literally arriving on set, unpacking the props and getting into costume. 

There must have been a few nervous nellys in that broadroom.

But it works! Now, personally I rather like an overture and I think JCS has one of the best. It is the right choice to have action on screen at the time rather than just a traditional title card or credits.

Just watch it!:

i really can’t express how beautiful those ruins are and how much the scenery and cinematography just makes this film. Then those opening strums on the electric guitar, the bus arriving, this young troupe of friends so excited as they prepare, talking and laughing and dancing together.

Then bam - they walk to their starting positions, with that haunting vocal over the top.

So we start with Judas and the utterly great Heaven on their Minds. Carl Anderson is so good in this role and what a voice; ultimately this is Judas’ story, from his perspective (a technique that inspired Lin Manuel-Miranda when writing Hamilton), and there can be no doubt that he is sympathetic. I really think Anderson captures that fully, whereas some later productions tend to give Judas a bit of a leer (let’s not talk about the 1999 version, okay?)

But you can understand where Judas is coming from! We are occupied/Are you forgotten how put down we are?/I am frightened by the crowd/For we are getting much too loud/And they’ll crush us if we go too far.

He’s raising legitimate points, but he’s too far away, he’s no longer in the inner circle. I just really love the way it’s staged with Judas on the dunes and cliffs desperately trying to reach out, but remaining unheard.

I also love the way the presence of the Romans (homogeneous in purple tank tops and silver helmets) loom over that of Jesus’ followers; the former march above ground on patrol, the latter underground, unnoticed for now.

Ted Neeley as Jesus - what a voice again! Yes he is the traditional western “look” of Jesus and the film wasn’t brave enough to stray from that,  reserving the diversity in casting for Mary Magdalene (Yvonne Elliman), Judas, and the followers.

70′s Alert! At exactly 13 minutes, “Hey, cool it man” from Simon that makes me laugh every time.

“It’s not that I object to her profession” Judas is sex worker positive! Just not near Jesus, because it would ruin his image. Okay, maybe that that positive.

Peter’s hair has entered the chat.

Look, I know people get dragged for shoehorning in a new song to an adapted musical in order to qualify for the Best Original Song, but I personally don’t mind it (yes I even liked Beautiful Ghosts in isolation) and I actually think JCS benefits from Then We Are Decided in giving a bit more depth to Caiaphas and Annas, their dynamic, and scope to their motivation:

The difference is they call him King/The difference frightens me/What about the Romans/When they see King Jesus crowned?/Do you think they’ll stand around?/Cheering and applauding?

It breaks up the momentum of What’s the Buzz?/Everything’s Alright, but I think it works. I also just want to flag the latter for Judas Making Good Points (People who are Hungry/People who are starving/They matter more/Than you feet and hair) since it’s hard to be on Jesus’ side in that one.

I just really think this version is the best as expressing the growing alienation that Judas feels and his mounting concern - it happens in this very song, he and Jesus have their hands on each others shoulders, they are having a discussion, but the apostles have their hands on Judas too, and as Mary sings again, they gently pull him back, and there’s this lovely shot of their hands slipping away, then clasping, then releasing. The human connection is broken as Mary puts a robe over Jesus’ head and he becomes the object of worship, still in the centre of raised arms and chanting, a long fade out with Judas leaving the gathering. It’s great visual storytelling.

I really dig these costumes:

The Palm Sunday crowd is a bit anemic, but taking into account the framing device of this being an actor’s troupe it’s forgivable. Although children appear in this one and only scene, and didn’t get off the bus! Some local urchins, perhaps, wanting to join in the fun?

The Roman soldiers gathering in the far background is a nice touch, as is Pilate’s wife, who has a silent role but I appreciate the attention to detail.

Simon Zealotes is another great song that makes fantastic use of visual storytelling. The dancing acolytes appearing one by one and then massing in a group. Judas looks on with concern at the increasing frenzy as the acolytes roll around in the sand and the soldiers get closer to surround the gathering. The acolytes, now including the apostles and Mary, are circled round Jesus ever closer, flailing their arms and prostrating. He and Judas share a look, but Judas leaves before hearing Jesus chastise the crowd in Poor Jerusalem:

There are some fantastic dancers in this group (include Neeley’s wife who I believe is the woman with long dark hair in the bikini top - they met on set!) and there are some actors...struggling with the choreography. Go back and watch the clip again from 3:20 and keep and eye on poor Peter in the background. Bless him, he did his best.

There’s a nod to modernity in The Temple, with drugs, machine guns, and paper money. Neeley’s Get Ouuuuuuuuuuuuut is at a non-human level.

I Don’t Know How to Love Him is a nice song; Elliman is a very subdued Mary.

Tanks! Tanks! And nothing but Tanks! It’s an interesting catalyst to Damned for All Time/Blood Money. Anderson really sells the anguish of a man out of options.

Surprise warplanes!

This is a very nice touch.

A jaded mandarin/a jaded mandarin/like a jaded faded a faded jaded jaded mandarin 

Look, I think the most of the lyricism in JCS is really great, but I can’t defend this line.

Gethsemane, however, is so, so good and Neeley knocks it out of the park. But it’s the instrumental bridge where we’re suddenly taken out of the reality of the fim, a series of close-ups of religious paintings of the crucifixion - nails, the crown of thorns, the pain, followers crying, how non-followers will be depicted. Chills, every time. 

Then we cross-fade from the sunrise to Judas: the answer to all that questioning.

However, the moment is somewhat undercut by the apostles all Hang on Lord/We’re gonna fight for you, while standing PERFECTLY STILL.

The Arrest is a number that works better in a purely modern setting, as it’s meant to be the press hounding Jesus on his way to Caiaphas, which is great if they have cameras and modern technology, not so much the actors just holding up their fist as if its a microphone.

They really use the natural landscape to their advantage - Pilate’s house is a cliff with the gold eagle the only adornment, yet his status is clear. Also note Pilate’s wife looking rather upset - a nod to the gospel of Matthew where she intercedes with Pilate on Jesus’s behalf (the prophetic dream was actually hers).

I don’t think you’d get away with the way they do Herod’s Song these days. It’s...yeah. It’s delightful camp, but with a pejorative edge.

I love a reprise, and nothing hits harder the Judas’ callback to I Don’t Know How to Love Him. The hanging is always hard to watch.

Well this is new/Respect for Caesar?/Until now this has been noticeably lacking

I feel like I’m getting repetitive but staging! It’s so good. Watch again for Pilate’s wife silently pleading with him not to do this - that actress really did well with a background role with no lines. And the growing regret of Caiaphas and Annas.

Mary’s visceral scream at the 39 Lashes - this is another hard scene to watch.

The 70′s!

But once again Anderson brings it, and it’s campy fun combined with genuine anguish of the unknown; the juxtaposition with the nighttime slick musical number with backup singers and dangers in their bright costumes, with the daytime Jesus carrying the cross to his death.

Then the music cuts unexpectedly, and then there’s only a background hum and the sound of hammer hitting nail. Mary collapses, people laugh and jeer. There’s a frenzied, discordant piano piece out of sync with the choral voices, and an otherwise traditional depiction of Jesus’ final moments.

Then there’s no music at all.

The performers get back on the bus one by one. They’re not so exuberant now - Pilate, in sunglasses and carrying his costume, looks back at something we can’t see. Others don’t look back at all, quietly talking or smiling at each others; they’re friends again, the play has ended.

Mary looks back for a long moment, but Judas is behind her, and she tenses before moving on. He looks back too, and keeps looking as the bus drives away.

It’s sunset. The cross is still there, but barely visible. In silhouette is a shepherd leading his sheep in the foreground.   

Which would be a lovely touch, but it was unintentional! Apparently it was an actual shepherd leading their flock, not realising someone was filming, and Jewison didn’t realise until he watched the dailies. But it worked, so they kept it in.

So yeah, I love this movie a lot.

I think the reason why this musical is so resonant and will continue to be revived is that it remains so prescient. It has so much to say about the superstars we build, worship, and then tear down, and can be re-imagined in different settings and times with different implications, but the core is universal. 

Favourite Song: Gethsemane 

Second Favourite Song: Heaven on their Minds

Favourite Lyric: Buddha was he where it’s at/Is he where you are/Could Mohammed move a mountain/Or was that just PR?

Fun Fact: Josh Mostel who plays Herod, is the son of Zero Mostel, Broadway’s original Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Barry Dennen, who plays Pilate, also played Mendel in the Fiddler film (aka ”Moses said that!”). And of course Norman Jewison directed both.

[mobage-ramen]

Of Meetings and Flowers

fandom: A3! rating: G words: 1722 characters: Izumi Tachibana x reader summary:  A series of encounters with your favorite director.

[reader is gender-neutral & in college]

also posted on AO3

It started off as nothing, actually.

You had planned to meet your friends at a cafe near Veludo Way to catch up before watching one of the countless shows playing. As you were about to leave the station, your phone vibrated in your hand and you checked the time before reading the LIME notification; while you would arrive fairly on time (What difference is 5 minutes going to make, really? you think), one of your friends has just informed the group chat that they will be running late. Not a minute later, you received another message from your always-early friend, who was already seated and wondering if anyone wanted to order in advance.

You quickly type out two messages in succession: a short one saying you were nearby, and your order with a cheeky wink emoji just for kicks. Picking up your pace slightly, you peek into the windows of the shops you pass and quickly glance at the street acts, not stopping or slowing down. 

That was, until you encountered a sight that seemed out of place, even in a street as dramatic and detached from reality as Veludo.

Is that… an excavator? Your thought process switched quickly from confusion to distress as you realize that there was a woman  standing in its way, arguing with a blonde man in a trench coat who just looked like trouble. Next to the woman was a scruffy-looking guy who seemed to be shaking in his boots.

Your feet stop moving, but your thoughts are running even faster now.

Is this just a street act? Those GOD-za people were just acting like they escaped a hospital, after all, you attempted to reason.

No way, you chided yourself, shaking your head, Why on earth would they bring construction equipment for a street act? That doesn’t make sense. Also, that argument looks totally real! Should I record this in case something bad happens?  

The grip around your phone tightens, and you begin to raise it. However, by the time you press record, the excavator’s engine stops running, another blonde man (in a flashy purple jacket this time) jumps out, and the other three make their way inside the theater that, in your panic, you did not even realize was there.

Relieved that nothing serious happened, your phone lights up again with a LIME saying, <<your order is here boss>> and you take it as your cue to leave the place as fast as possible.

Nothing else makes you stop on the way to the cafe.

--

By your next encounter a few months later, you had forgotten about the excavator incident, and were once again on Veludo Way. This time, you were going to help out at one of the theaters as an assignment for one of your classes. It was a weekend, but you didn’t mind; you loved to see the hidden efforts behind producing a play.

At the entrance, you bumped into a woman also heading in.

“Oh, sorry!” She apologized before you could, bowing slightly as she did so. 

You quickly respond with an apology of your own. As you both straighten up again, you faintly hear a voice in your head saying, She’s cute.

She really was, dressed simply in a tracksuit and sneakers, brown hair tied in a low ponytail and pink eyes crinkling as she mirrored the polite smile you had on your face. The moment (if you could even call it that) was over once she scampered into the theater. You gave her a few seconds of leeway before making your way in as well.

When you both got assigned to move some props, you learned her name is Tachibana from Mankai Company.

When you left the theater with your classmate and they accused you of looking weirdly happy, you could not even deny it.

--

As you completed your assigned hours, you ran into her a few more times (not literally; once was enough, thanks). She began recognizing you by face, always greeting you with your last name and a smile, even having little chats at times.

Each time she did, you would hear the voice again:  She’s so cute. 

Along the way, you learned several things: she was the director at Mankai; she lived in the dorms with the Company’s actors; she loved curry and theater with her whole heart; she used to act; she was hardworking, determined, overwhelmingly positive, had the brightest smile, and she was so, so cute—

When was the last time I felt like this? You asked yourself one day once you were back in your apartment, accompanied by the background noise of your roommate typing away at some paper that you should probably be doing as well.

“Hey.” You looked up at said roommate, who was looking at you across the table you were sharing. They give you a look that was partly sleep-deprived, partly concerned, and mostly annoyed. “Can you stop fidgeting so much over there? People are trying to work here.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you replied with a sheepish smile. “Just trying to figure out this paragraph.”

Apparently, they took this as a signal for a break, stretching their arms upwards. You refused to comment on the sound of their joints cracking. They hummed and leaned back in their chair, commenting, “Sure you are. Didn’t you see that Mankai girl today?”

You knew telling them about your tiny crush was a mistake. You sighed, resigning yourself to being their distraction from work. 

“Yeah, I did, actually.”

“And? Did you get her number?” They raised their eyebrows conspiratorially.

Another sigh left your lips as you slump down in defeat. “No! I just can’t do it…” Your roommate laughed lightly, and you glared at them, which only makes them laugh more.

“Don’t blame me for you being a coward. Which attempt is this already?” 

“Attempt #4.” 

A pause.

“That’s rough, buddy,” they comforted you mockingly, voice in a monotone. “You can do it. I believe in you~”

“Shut up. Honestly, can’t you be more supportive here? Your beloved roommate is clearly suffering at the hands of romance—!”

“You shut your dramatic ass up. If Tachibana-san makes you talk like that, I don’t want to encourage it. Never see her again, please.” They snickered as you kicked their leg under the table, before getting up to get a snack.

--

You saw her again when you  infiltrated the headquarters (your roommate’s words, not yours) and helped out at Mankai Company’s dress rehearsal for their first Autumn Troupe play.

You were making your way to Tachibana, but paused before greeting her as she was busy talking to—

That scary guy looks familiar, you thought, as Tachibana called your name and walked towards you, not before saying goodbye to this “Sakyo-san.” After giving your own greetings, she explains what you have to do. 

“By the way, Tachibana-san, I think that guy you were talking to might be dangerous,” you whispered once she finished her explanation of your tasks. She looked confused, so you continued. “I think I remember seeing him fighting some lady with an excavator.”

She lets out a puff of laughter (Cute!!), and then it was your turn to look confused. She explained, “That was me he was arguing with.” She then gave you a short version of the events that day; how she had basically saved this old theater troupe from ruin.

The story ended and your admiration for her increased even more (it was still possible, apparently). You took a moment to look around, and noticed—

“Tachibana-san, why are there so many delinquents in here?” In one sweep, you could count four; your second question would have been “why is a child associating with these sketchy people?”

She actually laughed fully this time, catching the attention of others in the vicinity, and your heart soared. Truly, this woman would be the death of you.

Then Sakyo-san the Debt Collector was calling her attention (much to your dismay), and you both got to work.

At the end of the day, you approached the director to report that you had finished your tasks. 

“Thank you for your hard work!”

Ah, there’s that smile again. Your heart let out a sharp thud as you replied the same, turning around with the intent to leave.

“Oh, wait a second!” You turned back to the director, whose damned smile was still just as bright, tilting your head out of curiosity.

“What is it?”

“Omi-kun prepared some cookies to give out as thanks.” She brought out a tupperware from god-knows-where (if someone told you she had magic powers, you could really believe it), offering you tasty-looking cookies.

“Which one was Omi-san again? I should thank him properly...”

“He’s backstage! I’ll take you to him,” she said, and began to walk with you in that direction. You continued to chat about insignificant things, suddenly remembering your quest to ask for her number.

It was a short walk, but your mind felt like it went on a triathlon of What if she thinks I’m creepy; No, she at least knows you; and What if she says no. Next thing you knew, you were standing by the door of the dressing room. You hesitated for a short moment, taking time to shut off your brain.

“By the way, Tachibana-san—” Your voice cracked a little (wasn’t your puberty supposed to be over? How embarrassing), and you cleared your throat before attempting again. “Tachibana-san, if it wouldn’t be a bother, could I get your number?” She just stared at you, so you hastily tacked on an explanation, “I’d like to help out here some other time.” If the smile you gave her was as shaky as you thought it was, she didn’t say a word, but returned one of her own.

“Of course! I’ll be sure to work you like a mule, since you’re offering.” You share a laugh.

“It would be my pleasure, Director.” 

The two of you exchange numbers, then head into the dressing room to say your thanks for the cookies.

--

Back at your apartment, you found it was a futile effort to hold back your wide grin as you lay on the couch, looking at one Tachibana Izumi🌸 saved on your phone. Even your roommate couldn’t find the heart to tease you when you looked that happy.

“Congrats on winning.”

[sparklyjojos]

THE SAIMON FAMILY CASE recaps [2/13]

In which the family’s splendid magic show begins.

PART 2

--

SOGA TENSUI TROUPE's

CIRCUS OF MAGIC

19th Programme

1. Fantastic Umbrellas and Water Magic 2. Warrior and Bell 3. Mirror Double 4. Dancing Butterfly & Dancing Demon 5. Origami Doll Box 6. Stroll in the Air 7. Marvelous Origami Doves* 8. How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors* 9. Guillotine Trick 10. Magic Hands 11. Linking Hula Hoops 12. Ball of Fire and Circle of Red 13. Five-Ball Cascade 14. Miser’s Drinks & Drops* 15. Rising Flag Card* 16. Watch & Sketch Control* 17. Carp Scaling the Waterfall 18. Swing with no String 19. Nostalgic Illusion

(Audience participation welcome in parts marked with *)

--

The magic show we’re about to see today—November 23rd 1977—takes place in a giant white circus tent in a park in Yamaguchi City. The tent is filled with dim light and smell of fresh water; a small moat surrounds the half-circular stage, tiny spouts emerging here and there like in a fountain. Strong rope is holding something giant just above the stage: a menacing bell large enough that a grown adult could hide inside. Right next to it hangs horizontally a two-meter-long temple bell hammer made out of wood, the kind that's suspended with ropes on both ends so it looks like a simple swing.

Once everyone finds their seat, two stagehands use the temple hammer to strike the bell and the show begins.

--

1. FANTASTIC UMBRELLAS AND WATER MAGIC

We see a group of traditionally dressed actors take the stage. Here comes a high-class Courtisane, the two Novices she is teaching, the two Servants at their disposal. Then two other, identical-looking Courtisanes stroll in, each with her own ensemble of four. The three Courtisanes stand by the giant bell—one in front, two at the sides—and with a flick of their long sleeves each one produces a smoking pipe out of thin air. They throw the pipes high above their heads, and before they can fall back down, giant flowers have already bloomed on the stage—no, not flowers, but colorful umbrellas held by each Courtisane, each with kanji spelling out what seems to be their names: Yume Dayuu, Hana Dayuu, Nami Dayuu. The Courtisanes pass the umbrellas to their servants, but quickly produce more out of thin air, until all twelve companions have their hands busy. Then the three women pull out five more umbrellas out of nowhere, and from behind them a giant one. As they raise the umbrellas above their heads forming a three-tiered tower, white confetti starts falling down from them like sakura petals.

The umbrella tower then reveals a new trick: from the umbrella tips rise thin streams of water, like from fountain spouts, falling droplets imitating rain. Wonderful rainbows show inside the water. Once the magical rain stops, the characters stand in a line behind the bell, as if to give their bows.

The bell is lowered down until it touches the stage. When it is pulled up once more, a man in a Sengoku period armor appears from underneath it, and everyone except him shouts at once:

“Welcome to Soga Tensui’s Circus of Magic!”

--

2. WARRIOR AND BELL

The newly arrived warrior is a middle-aged man with elegantly swept back jet black hair reaching his shoulders, a characteristic thin Kaiser moustache adorning his face. His visible grace and refinement rival those of any emperor. Everyone knows his face well from the show's posters;  this is the great magician Soga Tensui.

After the characters give a quick bow, the stage falls completely dark.

Then, a spot of light: a tiny flame is hovering in the air, growing bigger and brighter, until the audience can see that Tensui is now alone on stage, and the source of light is his left gloved hand, engulfed in dancing flames. Tensui’s helmet is now covering his eyes. The ghastly lighting makes him look like a lost soul of a warrior long gone. He produces a tall rod—a sort of a long three-armed light stand—that he lights using his burning fist, then shakes his hand like a match, and just like a match it goes out. He sets the light stand on the floor, approaches the giant bell and strikes it with the temple hammer. Its overwhelming sound resonates through the tent, and its weight can almost be felt.

A giant projection screen is lowered near the back of the stage, stopping about a meter above the floor. The audience can easily see through that gap and confirm that nothing is on the other side. The warrior takes the light stand with him and walks behind the screen, his feet visible through the gap, the closely held light making his giant shadow be projected on the screen. The warrior stops, and suddenly—his feet disappear, but the shadow stays put.

The screen is pulled up. There’s no sight of Tensui behind it…  but there is a second giant bell hanging there, identical to the first one.

The first bell is once again lowered to the floor and pulled back up, and surely enough—armored Tensui once again emerges from within it.

Tensui strikes both bells one time each for good measure. Their loud, undeniably real ringing echoes through the tent. Then the hammer is pulled up towards the ceiling for now, and both bells are brought down to rest on the stage next to each other, with just a few meters separating them.

Six stagehands dressed completely in black clothes and masks enter the scene, bringing in a giant piece of black cloth and two more burning light stands for better visibility. Both bells are lowered and their ropes untied, the stagehands carefully cover both with the same single black cloth, then take their hurried exit.

Tensui approaches the covered bells, spreads his arms—and the bells start noisily moving on their own. Slowly, centimeter after centimeter, they seem to close the distance separating them. Tensui quickly brings his arms together, and the bells now move so fast they are sure to slam into each other, but instead—they seem to merge into one. The now singular shape is magically lifted above the scene as Tensui raises his right hand. Finally, he pulls off the cloth with one swift move, revealing—nothing but thin air!

Tensui turns towards the audience with his arms spread wide, and after thunderous applause all the light stands go out at once, once again leaving the stage dark.

--

3. MIRROR DOUBLE

Lights turn back on, showing still armored Tensui and what looks like a large frame covered with yet another piece of black cloth. Tensui uncovers it and reveals a giant mirror, three meters tall and five meters wide. Tensui faces it, unsheathes the sword by his side and swishes it around experimentally. The armored warrior in the reflection naturally mirrors all his movements. Suddenly, both perform a thrust, causing Tensui’s sword to go through the mirror—now very clearly an empty frame—and stab through the other warrior’s body.

Tensui moves back and around the stage, forcing the stabbed warrior to follow him, step out of the frame, and then show himself to the audience from all angles, so they can see that the sword indeed went right through his body, the blade sticking out of his back.

Finally, Tensui removes his sword. The other warrior looks surprised at his perfectly intact abdomen, then glances towards his own discarded sword on the other side of the frame, makes a dash for it, and—smashes against a pane of glass in the frame with a resounding clang. He bangs his fists against the glass in confusion, then steals a glance at Tensui (who waits in an imposing pose with his arms crossed), meekly walks around the frame instead and picks up his sword. Tensui approaches the frame, and he and the warrior try to strike each other once more… but the swords only hit the glass pane between them.

Eventually the mirror warrior stops and points up. Tensui understands this gesture and starts throwing him pieces of his own armor over the mirror, quickly stripping down to an elegant tailcoat and white gloves. Finally, Tensui makes a complicated magical gesture, points at the mirror, and the armored warrior on the other side instantly disappears, replaced by Tensui’s reflection.

The back of the stage goes dark (though one may notice the black-wearing stagehands hurriedly moving the mirror out), and Tensui once again faces the audience with his arms spread and is met with applause.

--

4. DANCING BUTTERFLY & DANCING DEMON

Tensui points to his bowtie several times, bringing attention to it. He starts gesturing with both hands, and the bowtie suddenly takes off in flight between them, as if it was a butterfly answering to his lead. [In Japanese, the bowtie is known as literally a “butterfly tie”.] He puts his hands in a ring shape and the bowtie easily flies through it a few times, showing the audience that it can’t possibly be hanging on a string from somewhere. Finally, he points to his neck and the bowtie obediently settles back in place.

Tensui accepts another round of applause, then crosses his arms and still standing like that, without moving any of his limbs, slides all the way to the back of the stage and disappears behind the black curtain.

The stagehands use a cart to wheel in what looks like a truly giant wooden pestle, the widest part at the end about as big as the bell from earlier, letters spelling out PRESS HAMMER stamped down its length. The menacing Press Hammer is then tied to a rope and lifted up, where it will stay for now like a deadly promise.

Once that is done, four other stagehands bring in a giant wooden cross, each holding one arm of it parallel to the ground at waist height. On the cross rests a large balled piece of black cloth. They carefully spin around, as if to show the audience it’s just a normal wooden cross, then stop and stare at the cloth—which starts to move, as if there’s a living creature hidden inside. The writhing cloth progressively unveils as the thing inside seems to grow, two horn-like peaks protrude under the material, making it look like a captured two-meter-tall demon. Whatever great evil hides underneath finally rips off the cloth and reveals itself as... a man with jet-black hair and a thin Kaiser moustache, wearing a tailcoat.

Tensui proudly spreads his arms wide towards the audience, stepping off the cross as the stagehands lower it to the ground.

--

5. ORIGAMI DOLL BOX

The stagehands demonstrate that the arms of the wooden cross can unfold and be assembled into a tall box that a standing adult could just about fit into. The front wall has two holes that one could poke their hands through.

The large black cloth from earlier is spread over the box so it covers most of it, leaving just a few centimeters at the bottom visible. Tensui makes a few magic gestures towards it, dramatically tugs the cloth off, and the previously plain front wall now bears a portrait of a beautiful smiling woman, wearing a sequin-studded leotard, a cape, black net tights, and a flashy top hat designed after the US flag. The two holes are now located where the woman’s hands should be, and indeed a pair of living human hands in white gloves is sticking out.

Tensui opens the box by setting the front wall on the ground, then gentlemanly holding one of those real hands helps a woman out. It’s his stunning assistant, who looks exactly like the portrait — though when she lifts the front wall and shows it to the audience, it now portrays Tensui instead.

Tensui has the assistant close him in the box, tightly bind his sticking out hands with rope, and once more cover the entire construction with the black cloth so only the very bottom is visible. The audience can still see where Tensui’s hands must be under the cloth, moving lively as if he is attempting to free himself.

Something moves far above the stage. The giant, deadly Press Hammer that bid its time until now starts falling lower and lower, straight towards the box. Five meters left, four meters left, three meters left. Tensui’s hands move desperately under the cloth. Two meters left. One meter left. The Press Hammer already touches the lid of the box. Tensui’s hands suddenly go still, so maybe he finally untied the rope and is about to get out, just in the nick of time… but his hands quickly go back to panicked flailing, and the Press Hammer falls down a full seventy centimeters, reducing the box to nearly half its height, horrible crack of crushed wood reverberating through the tent.

The Press Hammer is instantly lifted all the way up in deafening silence. The assistant rips off the black cloth to reveal the box...

...which doesn’t seem crushed at all. It looks like a perfectly intact, although significantly shorter box, and while the two gloved hands bound with rope are still sticking out like earlier, the holes themselves are now located much lower in the wooden wall…

...which no longer shows the portrait of Tensui, but one of a small boy.

The assistant unties the rope and the hands resume their movement, but unlike Tensui’s panicked flailing, these seem to be expressing innocent cheerfulness.

The wall is opened from the inside and out steps the small boy from the portrait, dressed in a tiny version of Tensui’s tailcoat, with an okappa haircut, as if Tensui somehow got squished into his small child version… but no, a closer look reveals it can’t be a real child; it looks to be a marionette, probably controlled from above. It walks closer to the audience in that strange marionette-like manner, and as its blocky puppet mouth starts moving up and down—

“Hello, everyone!” comes a cheerful young voice from the speakers and the puppet gives a stiff bow.

The assistant looks as surprised as the audience and slowly approaches the puppet from behind... only for it to turn its head at an impossible angle to look back at her. The puppet is barely over a meter tall, so the assistant has to bend forward to speak with it.

“Where did you come from, little boy?” she asks.

“From there!” The puppet points to the box, as if it’s obvious.

“Yes, from there, but—where from exactly?”

“There! From the box.”

“Wasn’t there an adult man inside?”

“Nope! Just me.”

The confused assistant investigates the box from all angles, collapsing the back wall in the process, so the box now looks like a frame or a tunnel. She turns the entire construction so its side faces the audience, falls to her knees and crawls through the tunnel in search for Tensui. The audience can clearly see her entering the tunnel and emerging on the other side; she’s wearing the same top hat, the same cape, leotard, tights…

...except she is now a little girl.

--

6. STROLL IN THE AIR

The girl notices Kotensui and they say hello to each other. Notably, while the girl’s voice comes both from the stage and amplified through the speakers, the puppet has its happy energetic lines come solely through the speakers.

“Nice to meet you!” the girl says. “My name’s Koyomi. What’s yours?”

“I’m Kotensui. Nice to meet you! You have a strange name, Koyomi!”

“Kotensui is even stranger!

“It is?”

“It is!”

The joke is now obvious: the puppet is named Ko-tensui, “small Tensui”. The girl’s name, Ko-yomi, seems to suggest that the adult assistant was named Yomi. Two child versions of the magical pair. Both seem to be about the same age and height.

“Where did you come from, Koyomi?”

“From there!” she says pointing to the box.

“From there?!” repeats Kotensui, his jerky movements full of shock. “But where’s the adult lady?”

“The adult lady?”

“She went inside the box… and changed into you!”

“But there wasn’t any adult lady inside! Just me.”

Surprised Kotensui looks at the box, then spreads his arms to the sides and start walking towards it—through the air, climbing an invisible staircase up to the box’s roof, from which he hangs his head down to look inside and states that the lady really has disappeared. Then he jumps off, landing as light as a feather on the other side. None of this is particularly strange, considering he’s probably suspended on strings… which doesn’t explain how he then casually walks back through the tunnel. Any string should get caught on its ceiling.

“How’d you do that?” Koyomi seems as perplexed as the audience.

“Did what?”

“You were flying!”

“Oh, you mean strolling in the air! You do it like this!” He spreads his arms wide.

“Like this?” Koyomi also spreads her arms.

“Let’s go!” Kotensui climbs the invisible staircase again and this time jumps clear over the box. Koyomi runs along, but as a human girl obviously can’t do the same no matter how hard she tries.

“No fair! I want to fly too!” Koyomi thinks for a moment. “Oh, but maybe there is a way…!” She grabs the ends of her long cape. As she gently moves her arms like they’re wings, she lifts herself up, hovering between one and two meters above the ground. She sits on top of the box for a second, then takes off in flight again.

“How are you doing that?” Kotensui asks in amazement.

“You really wanna know?”

“Wanna know! Wanna know!”

“Then look closely!” And as she makes another turn, this time flying much closer to the audience, it is now obvious that a strong stagehand is holding her legs and lifting her up and down. This third person just couldn’t be seen due to their black clothes and mask being a perfect camouflage in front of the black curtain. Koyomi’s cape hid the points of contact from view. No real magic involved, but it’s still incredible how a girl this young can hold her balance this well and keep on smiling. Finally the stagehand gently sets her down.

“Who is that?” Kotensui asks, pointing at the stagehand... or at least holding his round wooden hand in that direction. It doesn't look like his puppet fists can open.

“What do you mean?” Koyomi sounds puzzled. “There’s obviously no one here.”

“But he’s right there!”

“Who? I don’t see anyone.”

“That man in black hiding his face!”

Suddenly, the stagehand angrily removes the mask and shows their face. It’s Tensui’s beautiful assistant herself!

“Who are you calling a man?” she asks with a glare.

“H-huh? The lady?!” Kotensui is in shock. “Where were you?”

The assistant and Koyomi catch each other’s eye and exchange a long awkward look, until finally the assistant puts her mask back on.

“I’m not here, okay?” she says and walks away towards the box.

“You got it now? That person is not visible!” Koyomi states pointedly.

“Gotcha! If you look at that person in black, that’s bad!” Kotensui recites, and when the assistant stops in her tracks and quickly turns her head towards him, he hurries, “I mean, nothing! I see no one!” The assistant nods in approval and starts quietly deconstructing the box just like a normal stagehand would.

“It’s not that it’s bad, Kotensui,” Koyomi lectures. “It’s that they are invisible to us. Got it?”

“Yep! Yep. And it was just you in that box.”

“Uh-huh.”

All throughout this exchange both children are looking straight at the very troubled stagehand, who folds the wooden frame into a tiny box, takes it and heads towards the curtain… but suddenly stops, looks back at them, and the kids quickly pretend they definitely haven’t been looking at her, not at all. The stagehand moves again, the kids look at her, she stops and almost catches them in the act, and the entire red-light-green-light act repeats a few times, until the stagehand finally disappears behind the black curtain.

--

7. MARVELOUS ORIGAMI DOVES

“That box got really small, huh,” Koyomi notices. “Like origami. Hey, let’s do some origami!”

“Origami? But I don’t have any paper!”

“I do!” Koyomi pulls out four sheets of glossy paper out of her pocket, two silver and two gold, but hesitates before passing them to Kotensui. “Wait, can you even do origami?”

“I won’t know until I'll try!”

“What I meant is, can you even do origami with those hands?” She tries giving him one sheet, but he can’t even grasp it well between his wooden fists.

“I... don’t think I can handle origami.”

“Then you can hold this instead.” Koyomi gives him a scarlet rose that until now has been a part of her costume. There’s just enough space between Kotensui’s tightly balled wooden fingers that the stem can fit through. “Since Kotensui can’t do origami, everyone else can join me instead! Everyone, please get your paper!”

The audience retrieves the origami sheets given to everyone earlier at the entrance (and those that misplaced theirs are quickly handed new ones by the staff).

“I think I’ll get three people from the audience to help me demonstrate! Kotensui will now throw the rose into the auditorium. Whoever catches it, please throw it to someone else and join us on stage!” As Kotensui throws the rose, she adds, “but watch out for the thorns!... Just kidding, it doesn’t have any!”

The spectators chosen this way are a woman in her late twenties, a middle-aged man and a young boy. Koyomi asks them to leave their own sheets behind and instead take bigger ones from her for better visibility. The three people arrive on stage, shake Kotensui’s little hand in turn and prompted by Koyomi introduce themselves. They each choose one of the origami sheets she’s holding (they really do appear to be a bit larger than the ones the audience has), leaving her with one.

Koyomi then instructs everyone step-by-step how to fold a paper dove that flaps its wings when you grab it by the tail and shake it. Once everyone is more or less done, Koyomi holds her dove close to her face, blows on it gently as if to make it fly, and not only does the bird suddenly become twice as big as before, it even sprouts little triangular “legs” underneath. The audience (including the three chosen members) tries to do the same, but no one can achieve a similar feat, despite everyone having closely followed Koyomi’s folding instructions. The three chosen spectators are given Koyomi’s dove to inspect and confirm there doesn’t seem to be anything fishy with it, magically bigger size aside. One may think that Koyomi just stealthily folded her origami in a different way, but then she takes the doves made by two of the spectators, blows air at them in turn, and sure enough, they all grow twice in size and sprout legs.

Afterwards, Koyomi takes off her top hat, shows everyone that it’s empty, and holding it upside down asks the last audience member, the boy, to put his small paper dove inside. Once he complies, Koyomi quickly turns the hat right side up, and out comes flying a white dove—a real, living bird. It takes a short flight and lands on Koyomi’s shoulder. The boy’s paper dove is nowhere to be found. Koyomi thanks the three audience members and sends them back to their seats.

“That was so interesting, Koyomi!” Kotensui exclaims, clapping in awe.

“Kotensui? Where on earth were you all this time?”

“I've been standing right here!”

“Oh! I must’ve been so focused on the origami that I didn’t see you!”

A few perceptive audience members may have noticed that while Koyomi was busy teaching origami, Kotensui kept wandering near the back of the stage, seemingly bored. But he wasn’t just walking around at random; he always hid himself in the exact place Koyomi had her back turned towards, moving from one blindspot to another as she looked in different directions. This background joke went mostly unnoticed, considering the audience was too focused on following Koyomi’s instructions.

--

8. HOW TO WIN AT ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS

“Wait, Kotensui, did you just clap?” Koyomi asks in a suspicious voice.

“Uh-huh. Why are you asking?”

“Your hands shouldn’t be able to make that sound.”

“But they do!” Kotensui bangs his wooden fists together, but what comes from the speakers are sounds of real human hands clapping, matching his movements. He follows a set pattern, and before long the audience catches on to the suggestion and starts clapping in the same rhythm. The entire audience comes united in thunderous harmony under Kotensui’s lead, until—

“Stoooop!” yells Koyomi, and everyone stops clapping… except for Kotensui, and she has to repeat herself to make him stop in mid-clap. “Kotensui, you’re not the one making that sound at all, you’re just putting your hands together!”

“That’s not true!” Kotensui claps again, and the matching sound of real hands comes through the speakers. “See? I’m the one clapping! Right, everyone?”

A part of the audience cheers, making Koyomi visibly give up.

“Well, it seems the audience agrees with you on that one… You know what, I just thought of something fun!”

“Fun? What is it, what is it?!”

“It is... a method on how to win at rock-paper-scissors with guaranteed success!” she says with a devious smile. “You’re going to assist me this time, Kotensui! Does everyone know how to play?” She gives quick instructions just in case someone doesn’t. “Now play with me, Kotensui! Rock, paper, scissors...!”

Koyomi shows paper, while Kotensui shows rock.

“Oh no, I lost…!” Kotensui looks sadly at his wooden fist.

“Everyone, I want to make sure you all understand the rules, so let’s try together with me now! I want you all to show rock, okay? Ready? Rock, paper, scissors…!”

The entire audience—one thousand and five hundred people—listens to her and shows rock, even the few rebels quickly conforming to the herd… and Koyomi chooses paper.

“Sorry!” she apologizes with a mischievous smile. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t the winning method I’m talking about. I’m going to teach it to you know.” She turns to Kotensui. “But first, please play with me a few times, Kotensui! Rock, paper, scissors...!”

Once again Koyomi throws paper, while Kotensui throws rock. A few more matches, and every time it’s Koyomi’s paper against Kotensui’s rock… which is the only thing he can choose, considering his gloved hands are stuck in that shape.

“Huh? I lost five times in a row!” he exclaims sadly while the audience laughs. “Koyomi, am I really that bad at this?”

“Oh, of course you’re not! You’re just having really bad luck. It happens.” She turns to the audience. “Have you guessed what my method is now, everyone? Hope you did, because you’re going to have a match against Kotensui now, all against one. It may be a game of luck, but if everyone puts their hearts into it, I’m sure a true miracle may occur!” She all but winks at them conspicuously. “Everyone ready? Rock... paper... scissors!”

All one thousand and five hundred people in the audience show paper, and standing against them alone is poor little Kotensui, his outstretched wooden arm showing—scissors!

Just for a moment, there are undeniably two little gloved fingers sticking out towards them in the sign of victory.

Before the audience can wrap their heads around what just happened, Kotensui’s hand transforms back into his normal fist and he shouts happily.

“I won! Koyomi, I really won!”

“Congratulations!” Koyomi then turns to the audience. “And that’s how you win at rock-paper-scissors!” She shakes Kotensui’s hand and they both bow to the audience.

The stage goes dark and a staff member’s voice from the speakers announces a ten-minute break.

--

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

[transfemininomenon]

g*od i have way too many character ideas and so little time to play them all

here’s a brief list of Potential D&D Characters Alice Has:

- a circle of moon high elf druid raised in a shut up druidic circle who is a “moon child” aka was born under a full moon and thus all her wild shape forms are flavored around being more lycanthropic in appearance. she’s very awkward and shy and does not understand standard cultural expectations AT all, which is contrasted by her being very vicious and monstrous in combat while transformed

- a college of lore half-elf bard from a traveling troupe of actors/story tellers who has set off on her own to write her own stories, who attaches herself to the party believing they will go on grand adventures, all of which she documents. very charismatic and friendly, but secretly is very insecure in herself and desperately wants to make lasting connections with people after a lifetime of travel. has the goal that she has stories of all kinds, one for any situation, but she’s never had someone who will listen to her and care about HER story and that’s what she’s striving for

- not sure on class yet (probably some kind of rogue), but a genderfluid drow revolutionary who as a woman is a high ranking noble of drow society using her connections on the inside to dig up dirt on opponents and expose corruption, and as a man leads a group of rebels seeking to take down the corrupt society he lives in and have the drow rejoin the world in peace

- a fallen aasimar way of shadow monk who was trained in a monastery dedicated to finding balance between light and dark, training both way of shadow and sun soul monks. was initially training to be a sun soul monk with her natural abilities as an aasimar helping her manifest this power, but some tragedy befalls the monastery leaving her as the sole survivor and in the aftermath the light both metaphorically and literally died in her and she dedicates herself now to the shadows, remembering how the dark kept her safe as she made her escape from the monastery

- what i’ve been talking about today, a dragonborn fighter who is either an eldritch knight or champion fighter w/ the magic initiate fight based around using the jump spell and a lance to dive people. her draconic nature makes her long to return to the skies and feel the wind beneath her wings, but lacking both wings and the ability to fly she instead perfected the art of jumping Very High

- a work in progress personality wise, but i’ve had the idea for a good while now of doing a linked character with someone where im a cavalier fighter who is partnered up with a moon druid who i ride into combat while they’re transformed into a bear or something and i am Dying to make that happen

not sure on any real details yet but i’d also love to try out hexblade warlock sometime, and i also just have like. a million different ideas for various bards/rogues/clerics because i adore those classes

[bat-besties]

On Impossibility - 6

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

A popular!Logan and loser!Roman high school AU based on @2pointomg’s idea with eventual Prinxiety. 

impossible 

ɪmˈpɒsɪb(ə)l

adjective

·       not able to occur, exist, or be done.

Eg. It is impossible to fund both the sports and drama programmes with the school’s limited budget.

·       very difficult to deal with.

Eg. The situation which Logan Sanders, Student Body President, is in after he convinced the school board to cut the unsuccessful drama programmes is impossible.

·       (of a person) very unreasonable.

Eg. Roman Prince.

To Roman, nothing is impossible. Not following his older brother Patton to acting college, not being a loser taking on the school’s popular Student Body President and definitely not writing and performing an epic school play with no money and six cast and crew members.

Edited by @alpacasarethegreenestanimal, who has an amazing fanfiction on AO3! If you like superheroes, sarcasm and Virgil angst then you’ll love this

@toolazytothinkofcreativename

@entitydark

@romanasanders

@barclays-sides

@cashmeredragon

@jughead-is-canonically-aroace

@immacrazyfangirl

@narniasfinestavengingsociopath

@featuredfander

@what-a-catch-joe

@mightaswellenthuseaboutbooks

@candiukas​

@whatamessofwords 

@zoalis

So close. They were so close.

‘Then this I say, oh noble knight, if you let go of your anger then you could be great. Give up the light – it is so comfortable here in the dark. Vines to hold you close, the canopy to shade you, thorns to protect you. Does the light not burn you?’

Kyle had a blanket cape round his shoulders and was jutting his chin confrontationally towards Roman. His pose was perfect, he knew his lines inside out, and his emphasis was just as Roman had imagined it when writing the speech late at night in his bedroom.

Roman suddenly broke out of character, running his hand through his hair. ‘That was great – really, really. Could we run it again? There’s just – you’ve just got to really feel it.’ Roman hated to be that guy – Kyle had been great, and their priority was to get a feel for the new set and adjust their blocking for the stage. But he had to be perfect. Roman would make him perfect no matter what it took, for although he knew the role was one which stretched his friend he had faith in him to get it right. All through workshopping a boy called Raphael had dominated Ombretto, throwing him into dramatic confrontation with Rosso and drawing him back into introspective monologues. To be honest, it had hurt Roman greatly when Raphael left ‘due to creative differences’ and Kyle had to be pulled from the role of Giallo, but he much preferred his friend’s delivery because he had learnt from Patton the importance of an actor subordinating themselves to the character.  

It was six o’clock on a Saturday night and they had been there all day assembling the set, but Kyle ran the lines again - with more feeling. It wasn’t good enough for Roman, but then again hardly anything was. They moved on and he saw Talyn give Kyle encouraging finger guns from the wings. Kyle returned a small smile. Everyone was tired, but Roman had asked them to run through the whole thing again, so they had. While Patton’s entire year would go to the moon and back for him, Roman’s few friends would paint the Kuiper belt rainbow if he asked them to.

They should have gone home and caught up on homework after putting up the set, but the beauty of the set had transported Roman into ecstasies of inspiration, and he doubted Virgil would leave until the building was shut. The boy for once in his life was not scrolling through Tumblr, listening to music or fiddling with his sweater paws. He just sat starry-eyed in the front row of the seating, hunched forward in his over-sized hoody as he tried to hide a grin behind his hands.

The set Virgil had built was amazing. Fate had finally given the theatre troupe a helping hand as Dahlia’s neighbours had spare planks of wood from a loft extension they had not technically forbidden her from taking. Virgil had understood the aesthetic of Talyn’s designs and had decided to play around with the handmade nature of the set. Basically, it looked like the child of a Victorian toy theatre and the illustrations in a book of fairy tales raised by a goth/steampunk in the hedge of thorns from Sleeping Beauty. Or that’s how Virgil had pitched it. Originally there had been a scaffolding tower, but they had to improvise with the tall metal balcony from West Side Story Patton had once sung on so happily.

Virgil was weirdly proud of himself. He tried to be self-deprecating about his set, however he couldn’t help but be happy with it. Logan had always been complimentary about his work, but he did not have a great understanding of art, and Virgil had suspected the positive feedback was a key bullet point in the Word document ‘How to Get Self-doubting Friend to Apply for College.’ In contrast his new friends had very high standards, so a single nice word from Talyn would go around his head for days and days. Roman had been extremely exacting – a picture of the cliff from the Nightmare before Christmas had literally been ripped off Virgil’s mood board because the smoothness of it ‘didn’t fit the vibe, the emotion’ of the play – and now he was playing in the set like a kid in a candy store. Virgil understood it now, Logan and Roman’s drive for perfection. Oh sure, Logan was a textbook perfectionist and Roman was slapdash and confident in his own abilities, but in his own way the actor was just as meticulous about his work. The play – not yet named because there was not something which fit it well enough – was his baby. And while the set was a part of that brainchild it was Virgil’s own – baby was a weird comparison, it was just…he just had lots of feelings about it he hadn’t had for anything else before, OK? The exercise in 3D space was interesting.  

At 22:00, a janitor finally came around. He peeked his head into the auditorium, then walked into it fully. Kyle was perched on the balcony, which was festooned with sequinned purple fabric vines, and Roman was kneeling in centre stage entreating him to come down, framed by chaotic brambles the size of tree trunks and twisted metal spider webs throwing bizarre shadows onto the wall behind him, covered with sheer green fabric donated by Mrs Damon. He looked at Virgil, who was entranced by the scene.

‘Hey kid, you part of this?’ he spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb the actors. Virgil looked up at him and nodded with a grin.

‘Good on you, kid. I told you that you shouldn’t use your drawing skills for rude caricatures. And now look at you!’

Virgil was rapidly beginning to lose his sense of mystery and magic. ‘That…that was not me. I told you, and I told the principal that that drawing wasn’t by me.’

The janitor took off his hat and sat next to Virgil in a fatherly manner. ‘If you didn’t draw that cartoon, then why was it on your locker, heh?’

Trying to be absorbed into the tear in the seat covering, Virgil gave the man an exasperated look.

‘Well, I’m here to ask you guys to leave. You need to sleep!’ replied the janitor brightly, completely unfazed by Virgil’s silence. He leaned in even closer to him. ‘How long is there left?’

‘Fif-een min’tes.’ was mumbled from behind a wall of purple hair.

‘Fine. You guys promise to look up, then you can have the time.’

‘Thks.’

‘Careful of that balcony. Bit rickety.’ With that Malcom headed into the hallway again, marvelling at the impact that simple sentence of his had made on that punk kid. Permanent sharpie and Tipp-ex on that locker as well. Sometimes kids just need a bit of self-belief.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Roman bounded off the stage and thundered up to Virgil. Ignoring the fact that Virgil was putting into practice everything he’d learnt trying to disengage Malcom, he grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet. ‘A cheer for Virgil!’ he yelled to the others.

There were scattered cheers from the cast and crew as they cleared up. ‘Visionary, visionary!’ shouted Roman, throwing his hands in the air.

Virgil blushed. ‘What does that even mean?’

Roman threw himself down on the gangway, pulling the emo down beside him. ‘One who has unique visions!’

Virgil looked at him sceptically. ‘I’m sure that’s not the exact definition.’

‘We can’t all be the calculator watch, can we?’ The annoyance entering Roman’s voice was jarring.

There was a beat of awkward silence as Virgil refused to forgive Roman or defend Logan.

Brightly, Roman grabbed Virgil’s hand and admired his nail polish. He looked up at Virgil and whispered, ‘Visionary, visionary.’ Over his knuckles.

Virgil recoiled and stood up. ‘What the ever-loving fuck was that?!’

Roman face-palmed. ‘It was meant to be…friendly.’

‘It was really weird! And not friendly! That was not in the realm of friendly!’

Roman rocketed to his feet, ‘Sorry to break it to you Virgil, but just because I’m gay, it doesn’t mean that I’m flirting with every straight guy I talk to!’

‘How is that-? It wasn’t- I didn’t even know that! Anyway, I’m not straight either.’

‘Well, fine. I’m not.’ Roman put his hands on his hips.

‘Fine!’

‘Fine!’

The two stood angrily staring at each other before dissolving into laughter.

‘How could you think I was straight?’ howled Roman, ‘And you’re not either? Yes!’ he punched the air.

Virgil was bent over, clutching his stomach. ‘I…I didn’t want to assume…’

Dahlia came up the gangway halfway, since the rest of it was blocked by two dorks rolling around on the floor. ‘We’re going to head, if you guys could lock up.’ Breathlessly, Roman waved her on.

Once the two came to they sat up, lounging against the seating.

Roman studiously didn’t look at Virgil as he spoke to him. ‘Your set – I love it.’

‘I know.’ The emo smirked at him, ‘you spent all evening playing in it.’

Roman’s hand shot to his chest as he gasped, ‘PLAYING! How dare you? I was acting!’ he made a point to gesture dramatically to signal his thespian talent. He put his hand down and turned to Virgil. ‘I do, though,’ he said earnestly, ‘it’s beautiful, and dark, and creepy, and fantastical, and better than I could ever have hoped for. We can do this – we can put on this play.’

Virgil’s insides twisted as he looked at the boy across from him, his face desaturated and pupils dilated by the dark. He wasn’t so sure of success. The costumes needed to be big and bold, and that meant lots of fabric and shiny things in elaborate designs. They had asked to use the black fabric which backed the curtain but had unsurprisingly been turned down, and money from rainbow T-shirt sales had covered enough for a dirndl for Margherita bought online and a shimmery brown and green leotard for the malevolent fairy (nicknamed Bob) after the set had been built, but for now the magnificent hoop skirts of the Evil Queen and flowing robe of Ombretto were impossible to realise.

‘Virgil?’

The emo snapped his eyes from Roman’s face. ‘Yeah. Let’s not count on…let’s not give on up this.’ He made eye contact again. ‘I believe in you. Or whatever. Dork.’

Roman smiled to himself a little. ‘And here I was thinking you were some massive edgelord.’

Virgil raised his eyebrows. ‘You saw my Nightmare before Christmas poster.’

‘True.’ Roman grinned, ‘But you were too cool for my Randy Newman impression.’

Virgil giggled. ‘You had a cowboy hat. And a pink plastic radio. And you were fifteen.’

‘I took it seriously! I wanted to be your friend.’ Roman emphasised each word.

‘Well, I wanted you to stop singing before I cringed myself a six-pack.’

They sat in silence for a while, neither wanting to suggest leaving.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with my future.’ Virgil’s head was flung back to look at the set, and his voice was soft.

Roman rolled onto his stomach, supporting his head on his hands. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘This.’

Roman put his hand on Virgil’s and smiled at him reassuringly, ‘Then do it. This is good.’

‘I…’ Virgil took a shaky breath. ‘I can’t. I’m not good enough.’

‘Virgil. I have been to four Broadway shows and twenty-three shows in other towns. I watch bootlegs like other kids watch let’s plays. I read about this stuff. I think you could easily design for a smaller show, and once you go to college…Broadway, baby.’

Virgil felt something suspiciously like hope rise to fill his chest. ‘Why would they take someone like me? From a school like this, which isn’t particularly keen on the arts, if you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Virgil – you have Mrs Damon who would write a book about you, let alone a recommendation letter. You’ve got this production, which will make one hell of an essay. The school is academic, and your grades are good. Besides, Patton did it – my older brother.’

‘I guess. But wasn’t he like some genius or something?’

It was Roman’s turn to break eye contact. ‘Yeah, he is. But we don’t need to be scholarship holders like him or anything. Just good enough.’

Virgil sat up, ‘You’re worried about acting school, princey? Big brother in New York and half-a-billion extracurriculars. Please.’

‘No extracurriculars now. But yes, of course I’m worried. I want to go to the same place as Patton, when we went to check it out with him it was…magical. These past few years it’s like he’s living every single dream I have. And I’m happy for him! I am! I’m super proud, but I don’t want to apply and be rejected, and he’ll be super nice about it…you know.’

‘Do your parents compare you a lot?’

‘No, god no.’ Roman shook his head emphatically. ‘They’re incredibly proud of both of us. It’s me. I do. And I know I shouldn’t…’

He broke off and tried to hide the fact that he was crying. The emo scooted closer and awkwardly pulled him into a loose hug, at which point Roman attached himself to Virgil’s hoodie like a baby koala.

‘Aw, jeez. Come on, dude. Don’t make me give a heartfelt speech. Just like, know, that I think you’re - good.’

‘Huh! Yeah, I am pretty good! Thanks for reminding me, J-Delightful.’ Roman pulled himself up and punched Virgil in the shoulder.

‘Alright, dudebro.’

The boy slumped again. ‘Arggggg. Now you think everything is fine!’

‘You do not look like everything is fine.’

‘Well, yeah, no.’

Virgil just wanted to paint and listen to emo music and be left alone. Why the hell was he landed with looking after overachievers?

‘Wanna come to my house tonight? We could watch Disney, or whatever. My parents would be happy I have someone to invite over.’

‘I would love that! I’ll text the old parents…Odin’s eyepatch! It’s eleven already! We’d better hurry!’

That night as Roman was spread-eagled on his bedroom floor, Virgil tried not to think of the lack of money for costumes, but they joined the usual procession of Logan’s eye bags, situations in which his set would collapse and his plan for the future which marched round his head whenever he tried to sleep.

Increasingly old-school Disney songs sung in bass, a voice passionately and loudly delivering lines or unaffectedly and quietly trying to explain ideas had echoed around his darkened bedroom too, but he preferred to not think about that.

[trademarknickersoncharm]

THESPIANS GUEST STARS FOR SEASON 3 AND 4 WITH DESCRIPTIONS

SEASON THREE (this is a heavy one):

Tim Hoarder (Chris Parnell)- One of two gay playbill hoarders who are discovered to have stolen the leftover “Mamma Mia” playbills and who have hoarded playbill’s galore in their messy house- from WICKED to THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and even to 1970′s CAMELOT. Appears in 3x03 “Hoarders”.

Harold Hoarder (Will Arnett)- The other playbill hoarder who is dating Tim and who is discovered to have stolen the leftover “Mamma Mia” playbills and who have hoarded playbill’s galore in their messy house- from WICKED to THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and even to 1970′s CAMELOT. Appears in 3x03 “Hoarders”.

Velma Hart (Jane Kaczmarek)- Moxie Hart’s sarcastic, witty, and delusional mother. Despises Sledge and comes to WayBroad to show rage at Sledge and Moxie’s engagement that occurs at the end of Season 2. Is not afraid to give you endless snappy remarks and sarcasm. Appears in 3x01 “PPD”, in the Christmas episode, and again in the series finale which is Moxie and Sledge’s wedding. 

Taylor Louderman, Barrett Wilbert Weed, Alex Brightman, and Aaron Tveit all play themselves when Curtis takes the newly formed “Youth Board” to NYC to attend BroadwayCon. All 4 are actors at BroadwayCon and all 4 get entangled with the 4 leads in different ways. (Barrett thinks Brad is Grey, Taylor crushes on Curtis... etc). The 4 appear in 3x04, “The Convention”.

Tina Fey (Tina Fey)- Brad (through Grey Henson) gets Art in touch with famed screenwriter Tina Fey as Art gets the idea to write a show for WayBroad Community Theatre instead of licensing one. Tina Fey decides to fly into WayBroad and meet Art for dinner, where Tina turns out to be nothing like what Art expected. (If you have seen the 30 Rock episode with Carrie Fisher, this is who Tina is). TIna appears in the only episode that is an hour long. 3x07, “Liz Lemon”. 

Rachel Dratch (Roxie Hart, Waiter, Rachel Dratch)- Lillian hires Rachel Dratch to come to WayBroad and be a mole during Art’s meeting with Tina Fey. The beginning of the episode is her pretending to be Moxie, and the second half is her being a male french waiter at the restaurant that Tina and Art attend. She reports all information to Lillian. She appears in 3x07 with Tina.

Chip Havemeyer (Christian Borle)- Chip Havemeyer is a prestigious Broadway actor who comes to Georgia to give a concert, but winds up in WayBroad by accident. Brad is no match for his snotty and prestigious ways and everyone makes “Chip on My Shoulder” jokes around and about him. Chip appears in 3x16, “Chip on My Shoulder”. 

Ted Jacobs (Kyle Selig)- When Curtis puts together a set workday for “Legally Blonde” for the cast, he is angry to discover no one in the cast shows. Desperate for help, he goes to Lowe’s and tries to find someone who can help. There, he finds Ted Jacobs, who comes and assists int he building of Legally Blonde’s set. Ted appears in 3x17, “Set Workday”.

Winifred Kaminski (Bette Midler)- Curtis’ loving southern mother who lives in WayBroad but is way too overprotective of Curtis. He often does not mention her due to her overbearing and protective ways. She emerges in the 3x21 episode “Blood in The Water” at the worst time. Curtis is filling in for the ASM while Art is away, and is putting himself in harms way.

Laura Bell Bundy (Laura Bell Bundy)- Laura Bell Bundy attends the closing show of “Legally Blonde”, after she tells the troupe that ever since she originated the role of Elle, she tries to make it a point to come and attend every production of the show she can. Everyone fangirls over her and they are distracted during the show. Laura appears in the season 3 finale, 3x22, “Positive”

SEASON FOUR (FINAL):

Robert (Michael C. Hall)- Robert is a drifter who travels from state to state whenever someone does a production of “The Bridges of Madison County” and auditions for Robert Kincaid. He has changed his name legally to Robert. He has played Robert 6 times in 5 different states. He is cast as Robert again in WayBroad and has a surprising reason for being there. He first appears in 4x09, “Francesca” but is in the entirety of the final season after that point. 

Arkin Sallow (James Roday)- A man that the troupe encounters at the Georgia state fair as they are going in an attempt to promote “Bridges”. As it turns out, Arkin is Robert’s ex-lover briefly and played Bud in a production opposite of him in Ohio. Arkin attempts to take Robert out of spite. Appears in 4x11, “State Fair”.

Props Mistress (Patti LuPone)- The evil and controlling Props Mistress that Curtis hires after someone has been stealing props from “Bridges”. She will raise her voice in a heartbeat for the sake of protecting props. She has a fondness for Art, however and is like a mother to him. First appears in 4x13 “Propsmistress” but is in the rest of the season after.

Kelli O’Hara (Kelli O’Hara)- Curtis knows Kelli O’Hara from a workshop she gave in college and so he calls her in order to help him get more people to come to “Bridges”, since she played the lead on Broadway. Kelli O’Hara donates money to Curtis and is the literal savior of WCT (WayBroad Community Theatre). Kelli appears in 4x20 “To Build A Home”.

Philipa Soo (Phillipa Soo)- Phillipa plays herself and she sings at the wedding of Moxie and Sledge. Sledge, (being now a changed man in terms of theatre), knew how much Phillipa means to Moxie and so he paid her way and at the wedding she sings “Marry The Man Today”. Phillipa appears in Part One of the Two Part Finale- 4x22, “Curtain Call: Part 1″.

Sutton Foster (Sutton Foster)- Sutton Foster officiates the wedding and marries Moxie and Sledge. This is another way in which Sledge and the group try to make Moxie’s dream wedding come true. Sutton marries Moxie and Sledge and attends, along with Phillipa, the reception. Appears with Phillipa Soo in 4x22, “Curtain Call: Part 1″

Sierra Boggess (Sierra Boggess)- Sierra is invited by Brad to present, with Art, the Theatre Management scholarship in WayBroad that is now in Art’s name in the series finale. Sierra Boggess tells Art that she has never met someone as dedicated to the front of house work as he. Sierra is in Part 2 of the season finale: “Curtain Call: Part 2″

Bernadette Peters (Bernadette Peters)- Curtis, in the finale, has finally scored a leading role on Broadway and it is alongside Bernadette Peters. They are doing a revival production of “Into The Woods”, where Bernadette is of course, the witch, and Curtis is the baker. Bernadette is in Part 2 of the season finale: “Curtain Call: Part 2″

[whimsicmimic]

marbleverse sounds really cool! would you mind telling me about some of the characters? i'm very curious!

ABSOLUTELY!!!!!

im not gonna lie; there’s a looooooootta characters in marbleverse, just because of how big a project it is. so ill just?? talk about some of the ones in family portrait because those are the ones im working with the most right now!! and also because this particular cast includes some of the oldest characters ive ever made??? (like, I’ve been working with the founders for 8 years!!!! thats a long time to work with a character yall!!! i love them dearly!!!)

SO. there’s 47 members of the cirque du lune. i’m not gonna talk about all 47 of them. im gonna talk about a handful of the ones that might come up more frequently.

the cirque du lune was founded by the sun elf illusionist Felix Pathic and the aquatic elf contortionist Holly Darling. Both of em are trans, Holly’s the World’s Biggest Lesbian, Felix is pan. they have a looooong history together. if you were to ask Felix, Holly is more his family than either of his half siblings are. If you were to ask Holly, Felix is the only family she ever had. You’re gonna see a loooooooooootta them.

They met when they were both kids - Felix was a bit of a pickpocket when his dad Javier Pathic died and he ended up on the streets of New Haven. His dad was a fairly well known toxicologist and much much less known for dabbling in more illegal businesses. Felix says he accidentally poisoned himself. Whether or not that’s the truth is another matter, but that’s the story he gives and that’s the story he’s sticking with. Holly didn’t have a name at the time, but she ran away from home. Felix and the nameless elf got into a scuffle in the middle of a marketplace and she lost her temper, causing a bit of a magic flare up and causing her to literally begin to melt into a puddle of water, which ended up with both of them getting chased out of the marketplace by shop vendors and patrons who didn’t take too kindly to a pair of Waste-touched kids causing a ruckus and called the militia.

Felix helped the nameless elf get away (partially because he felt bad, but mostly because they both dont wanna get caught so why not truce to have that Not Happen so that it Does Not Happen) and the two ended up becoming friends through hiding in a dumpster in an alleyway. They start to talk a little bit. Felix has a flare for dramatics and had been trying to make money through using his illusion magic in a street performing routine. She has no plan, no idea how to move forward. Her main focus was cutting all ties from her family and the community she was raised in, and now? she has no fuckin clue my guy! So they just. Stuck together. Everything’s easier when you’ve got someone to watch your back, right?

anyways, they’ve been running the circus for over 150 years together. Felix technically has the title of ringleader because hes a sucker for The Drama and Holly would Really Rather Not, but without either of em? things would fall apart.

Dapple won’t come up too often in Family Portrait since a lot of the drabbles take place around the time that Naomh joined, and Daps left the circus a few years before then. She and her half-sibling Nico were two of the earliest members of the circus and really really good friends of Felix and Holly! Daps was only convinced to join when she found out that Benzene (a sport fighter) was Felix’s half sister. She’s a half elf and was a swordsman, cellist, and conductor with the circus. She ended up leaving when she was offered a position as a guardsman when the circus traveled to her hometown, which had been a dream of hers when she was a kid. There was a point in time when things between Felix and Daps got real awkward and everyone thought it was because they were fucking. Felix will neither confirm nor deny this, but Holly will if you ask her when she’s drunk enough. Holly will tell many stories about Dapple if you ask her under the right circumstances. Holly’s got dirt on everyone but she’s too nice to use it against folks.

Nico is Dap’s half sibling and they’re a biiiiiiiiiiig half orc. They’re a strongman and fire dancer and they’re just about the jolliest motherfucker you’ll ever meet. They say that they broke someone’s hand during a handshake once, but Nico will neither confirm nor deny. They’re really good with their hands! They helped design Felix’s prosthetic arm once he could afford one and are pretty crafty. They fucking adore knitting, man. They’re very enthusiastic about many things, and knitting is very much on that list. They plan on leaving the circus eventually to become a metalworker, but for now the circus is their home and family and they don’t wanna leave em behind!

Chervil is Felix’s little half sister. She’s a sun elf, she’s kinda sneaky, kinda suspicious. She’s a schemer, that one. She’s fond of pranks, but holds one hell of a grudge when she’s been caught in one. She’s the hypnotist and occasionally works with illusion magic! She grew up in the foster system after Javier died and Felix decided “fuck that noise”. As soon as Felix knew he was able to support her, Felix came back for her. Things haven’t been quite the same between them since; Chervil’s been a bit more distant, a bit more prickly. She instigates and he nitpicks and they argue. Kinda often. But everything works out alright in the end and maybe this is just how things are between them?

Kaitlyn is a jester-sort of actor who has a knack for juggling! She was brought in by her adopted older brother Vincent (a lycanthrope who works on set design and maintenance - he’s the son of a very very very good friend of Kaitlyn’s aunt Cassidy, who raised her alongside Vinny) after she was evicted from her home and had nowhere else to turn. She auditioned as a fortune teller and Felix nearly turned her away, but Holly was enamored by her performance and ended up persuading Felix to let her stay. He warmed up to her after after it turned out she had a thing for juggling and filled the role of a jester instead. She’s a satyr with a jackalope motif. ANYWAYS Kaitlyn’s a giant lesbian and she’s dating Holly. Things’re great with them.

Saru is one of the dancers. He’s a moon elf and kinda a distant cousin of Felix? It’s. It’s complicated. He was a pretty well known prostitute at one point and joined the circus mostly because Felix asked him to and because he thought it sounded fun. He’s kinda like everyone’s weird uncle. He’s delightful to write.

Tante Amaryllis is one of the acrobats, although sometimes she joins in with the dance troupe! She’s an elegant lady. Joined the circus shortly after escaping a reaaaaal bad relationship while pregnant. Ended up with identical twins, named Jasmine and Jasper. She’s been with the circus for like. Thiiiirty years, though? Don’t swear around her. She’ll have words to say if you do. 

Naomh is the circus’s youngest member! They’re a dancing violinist and joined when they were seven years old. They were taken into the circus after they were caught breaking into a tavern owned by a good friend of Felix who thought the circus would take better care of them than the foster care system would, as it isn’t very kind to most Waste-touched folk. They don’t talk much about their life before the circus, but they’ve mentioned having a twin brother who got separated from them.They haven’t had much luck finding him. The entire troupe has played a hand in raising them and the kid sees them as family. Felix fucking adores the kid. Everyone adores the kid. They’re a good kid.

There’s a bunch bunch bunch bunch more but. this is getting long. Saru will come up pretty often because he’s a delight to write for? And Tante Amaryllis and the twins Jasper and Jasmine, ESPECIALLY when Naomh is around but like. Yea. I could yell about a bunch more characters but. this is a lot. there’s technically 47, but only about a fourth of em will show up very often.

Felix, Holly, and Naomh will likely show up the most??? but who knows!! The first drabble for Family Portrait is about Felix and Naomh, though.