#who am i kidding this entire film is a whole vibe
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JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS as Brian Slade & EWAN MCGREGOR as Curt Wild in VELVET GOLDMINE (1998)
#velvet goldmine#those silver jeans are a whole vibe#who am i kidding this entire film is a whole vibe#brian slade#curt wild
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Softer Werewolf Headcanons đ
⼠Hey everyone! So I know that I should be working on my Bad Batch one shots for the time being, I promise I am, but recently Iâve hit a bit of a stump? So Iâm trying to get my creativity out with these little posts. I might make another small one about my crossover just to get some ideas too. But all these fall writing prompts are so cool & fun, Iâve been wanting to give it a try for awhile!
⼠Plus werewolves are one of my favorite creatures, I wanted to try writing about them! Itâs also because super gorey or gothic vibes just arenât entirely my thing, no offense do anyone that likes that genre, but I wanted to do something different! Thank you & I hope you enjoy! đđâ¨
They donât fight each other to see whoâs in charge, itâs more like a sense of already knowing. Someone who already âcommandsâ a presence or behaves more responsibly is gonna be the leader. But if thereâs really a big opinion about it, theyâll just arm wrestle.
Make sure you write your name on leftovers!! Or theyâll be gone by morning, even the veggies arenât safeâŚ
The whole shifting during nighttime is more of an urban legend that human folk made up. However, itâs become more of a scary campfire stories werewolves use to get kids to go to bed on time. đ
Kind of as a more spooky âIf you keep making that face itâll get stuck like thatâ vibe?
Werewolves can change form any time they want, but there are rare occasions they get âstuck.â This can last from 15 minutes up to a whole day.
Daily hangouts!! If a werewolf lives near a forest or near vegetation, morning hikes & walks are a must. But if a werewolf happens to live in a city or anything similar, a nice nap in the park or even breakfast on a balcony is just as good!
Dogs LOVE them!! Usually all animals do but itâs mainly dogs, even unruly or grumpy dogs will be on their best behavior! They make for good trainers if you just need a helping hand.
Regardless of appearance, werewolves are definitely stronger than the average human. While itâs not always obvious, even a scrawny guy or gal without any workout experience can lift a 30lb weight easy.
Okay these next couple points I was inspired by Cartoon Saloon animation studio, and their film Wolfwalkers. I love the interpretation Irish folklore has with werewolves!! Itâs not this super eerie or gross transformation or anything, but itâs just beautiful and maybe a bit simple. The characters look completely normal in human form too! Thereâs nothing too odd or bizarre about them either, theyâre just normal people with incredible powers! Plus the aesthetic is so beautiful and woodsy and vibrant, this is what I wanna see in werewolf movies. đâ¨
In all honesty, when I think of werewolf vibes or even just wolves in general, I think of like an earthy colored version of fairycore. đ
Which is also my favorite, but anyways, Wolfwalkers is literally the perfect werewolf movie I honestly canât believe how good it is! Plus wolves are my favorite animal anyways lol so this made me happy to see.
Anywho! This next idea was inspired by the studioâs Song of the Sea and selkie mythology. Iâve always thought the idea of a magical animal cloak in mythology is sooooooo amazing! I know tales about swan maidens and other animals are a thing, but a magic fur coat is most popular with selkies. But it would be cool to have this for werewolves too! Like imagine a fluffy fur coat and when you put it on youâre a wolf!
I do like this idea better than some transformations Iâve seen. đ
Plus, Iâve always found it strange that werewolves are sometimes âsuper hairyâ or theyâre a bit aggressive personality wise? Idk, that just doesnât sound very nice to me. đ
#wolfwalkers#wolves#fall aesthetic#autumn writing prompts#autumn aesthetic#fall writing prompts#halloween aesthetic#halloween writing prompts#spooky season#spooky writes#promptober#cartoon saloon#werewolf aesthetic#werewolf writing prompts#werewolves#fantasy prompts#fantasy headcanons#song of the sea#halloween#halloween 2024
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stops and starts (2 of 2)
Summary: Hotch goes out to the bar to try and have a good time at the end of the week and ends up a very bad situation. He's fortunate that Derek ended up at the same bar.
Notes: BAD SHIT HAPPENS HERE. MIND THE WARNINGS. This is the end of this 2 part story, it's sort of a foundation for the whole series...I won't just drop this, I am all about aftermath situations and that will for sure happen but I want to be able to jump around. Here we're just creating canon for this universe.
Pairing: Hotch/Haley & Hotch/Morgan
Words: 5.2k
*** Warnings: sexual assault/attempted rape, drinking alcohol, violence, vomit ***
**
The bar stool dug into his thighs. It was worn down in all the wrong places and no matter how he turned it to try and make it comfortable, he never achieved more than a backache for his trouble. He pressed his hands to the scrubbed wood of the bar, the slick and sticky film interesting against the warmth of his skin. It was clean for the most part, and then he'd hit a patch of spilled drink and the contrast made him feel odd.
âWhatcha drinking?â
Hotch glanced up from the depths of his glass, the glass he'd barely even touched, and smiled at the man who had silently sidled up next to him and casually placed an elbow on the bar. The man was huge, handsome, wearing a denim jacket and tight jeans, a black t-shirt that was at least three sizes too small for his girth and showed off how often he worked out. Hotch couldn't place him from any of his classes, but he did look vaguely familiar.
âOld fashioned,â Hotch replied quietly, almost too quiet to be heard over the pounding of the jukebox. The last person to feed it some coin had selected an assortment of outlaw country that had the dance floor gyrating in strangely comical ways. The women ground themselves against each other, against the men, against anyone they could find but it was oddly out of sync with the drawling grit of the vocals and the twang of old guitars.
âMind if I sit here?â
Hotch shrugged and scooted his stool over a little to make room for the much larger man, a gesture that he figured said why not. It's a free country, isn't that what the kids said?
âI'm Drake.â
A handshake, firm and strong and Hotch thought it lingered a little long. He was getting a strange vibe. The man was looking at him a little too intently, like he was hungry. He pushed the thought aside as quickly as it appeared.
âAaron,â he replied with a smile, trying to remember how to do this. How to be casual on his own. He hadn't been to a bar without Haley in his entire adult life...college didn't count, and even then, he rarely went to actual bars. It was never his scene. So he was wildly out of place and felt every bit of it. Like there was a sign hanging over his head that said FRESH MEAT.
Or I DON'T BELONG HERE.
âNice to meet you, Aaron. I saw you at the range today...you're a helluva shot. Where'd you learn that?â
Was he blushing? He thought he might be now. It was hot in the bar, though, with as many people as there were packed in there. He shrugged, unsure how to answer that question. Practice? He'd come up through the Academy winning marksmanship awards and he couldn't tell you why he excelled at it...he simply did. There was something that felt incredibly natural about firing his weapon.
âAh, right, you don't wanna share your secrets...I get you. So where are you from?â
âI'm from Virginia,â he began, swirling the cherry around in his drink absentmindedly. âBut right now I'm running the Field Office in Seattle.â
âWoahhhh we got a big shot here huh?â
âHardly,â Hotch replied, a little ashamed that it had come off boastful. He was really off tonight. The phone call with Haley earlier had done a number on him, from his heart to his head. He'd been playing it over and over and over again, verbatim, trying to pick apart each syllable. She didn't sound like she was planning to get back together. Said something about leaving Seattle. He'd sort of blacked out part of it, heard without really listening. âTrent lives in Bellingham,â she'd said. âHe's down here for a few weeks but I'm thinking I might go stay with him. Good thing we don't have any pets huh! I'm so lonely here, Aaron...do you mind? You don't mind do you?â No, he'd replied, he didn't mind. For a moment he wondered if her bags were already packed. If she was ready to leave and never come back.
If he'd fly back to Seattle and find an empty apartment.
âEarth to Aaron,â came a voice and Hotch blinked hard, glancing up at Drake who was leaning closer to him. He could smell the whiskey on the man's breath he was that close. âDid you hear me?â
âNo, I'm sorry, I'm a little distracted tonight.â
âAw, well no problem. I just wanted to know if you liked this music...maybe you'd like to hit the dance floor?â
Hotch couldn't help it, he laughed. âI'm not much of a dancer under the best circumstances, but I don't think I could find the right beat in this song to save my life.â
âI'll show you. It's easy. Come on.â
Against his better judgment, he let Drake convince him with a second drink. By then Willie Nelson's voice was shuddering through his sinew and he thought why the hell not? Gulping down the last of his drink, he followed the other man to the floor. Once he was out there he noticed that everyone seemed to just be a writhing mass, people dancing with people, no rhyme nor reason. No real partners, no real rhythm, just movement and sweat and smiles. So he went along with it, and he tried his best to find a beat while Willie crooned about mamas and babies and cowboys.
âI'm a cowboy,â Drake said in a gravely twang, leaning close to Hotch's ear and swaying with hands on his waist. Hotch let out a chuckle and nodded.
âI guess I'm a lawyer...and such...â He was loosening up, and that was good he thought. Haley told him to have fun and by fucking golly he was going to have some fun. This guy wouldn't have been his first choice but he'd presented himself at the moment Hotch needed someone to the most and so...why not?
That was quickly becoming the theme of the night. Why not? It wasn't a crime to have fun. The problem was that some small part of him was sure he wasn't actually having fun, he was just pretending. Fake it til you make it.
Across the bar, in the darkened corner, Derek was shooting pool with a group of women whose muscles were nearly as pronounced as his. And he was losing, but he was doing so with enough charm and grace that the girls took pity on him and and used all of their winnings to keep the pitchers of beer flowing. They were also drinking him under the table.
He hadn't noticed Hotch on the dance floor, in fact, he really thought Hotch would be back at the dorm doing some studying he really didn't need to do on a Friday night. That's all he'd shown interest in so far.
âHey,â one of the women said, hanging herself around Derek's neck as she perched on the pool table. Her name was Tia and he was fairly sure he wanted to try and bring her back to his place that night, if Hotch wasn't around...he'd have to work on that. She draped her whole upper body there, her black hair pressing soft and pillowy against his cheek. âThat your roomie heading into the bathroom?â
He cocked his head and squinted against his beer soaked vision at the vaguely Hotch shaped person who was ambling across the dance floor toward the bathroom. âYeah. Guess it is.â He didn't really care and wasn't entirely sure why she cared. He wanted her attention on him.
âThat big guy following him in the tight jeans? His name is Drake...he's got a reputation for being...pushy.â
Derek frowned. âPushy? Like how?â
âLike the word no doesn't mean a whole lot to him...he's never been in any real trouble but you know how people talk.â
âI do...â Derek drawled, staring hard as the man walked into the bathroom a careful distance behind Hotch. Like he was timing it just right. And that little glance he did around the bar before he opened the door...it did look a little predatory, but he knew how people talked and he'd been on the wrong end of that more than once. He wasn't looking to accuse anyone of anything. âHotch can take care of himself.â
âYeah. Of course he can. Cos he's a man right?â The way she emphasized man made his skin crawl, and she let it hang there in the air between them for a long moment before changing her demeanor and planting a kiss on his cheek that he knew would leave a deep glossy purple stain. âWanna play again?â
âYeah. Another round. You ain't getting me three times in a row...â
He racked them and let her go first, while he kept an eye on the bathroom with a silent timer ticking away in his mind. Every second Hotch was in that bathroom with that man, every second he didn't come back out. He wasn't exactly watching...but he wasn't not watching either. She'd gotten into his head.
In the bathroom, Hotch had gone right for the urinal. He was eager to get back to the dance floor for the first time in ages, he was having a decent time but he was about to piss his pants and that was no joke so he'd excused himself and said he'd be right back. Halfway through the stream, he heard the door open and did his best not to look up, just continued doing what he needed to do.
The sound of the lock clicking on the main door was jarring in the silence of the tile room and he pushed a little harder to try and finish, shaking it one two three times to finish it up. That was when he saw Drake in the mirror, coming up behind him with that strange hunger in his eyes that he thought he'd detected when they first met. Hotch forced a smile and reached for his pants, but Drake was faster than he was and soon instead of zipping them up he was scrambling to get them before they hit the floor. His belt and gravity made it a little too easy for Drake to win that one, and he stood for a moment with bare legs and boxers, trying to figure out where this was headed. All the fun he thought he'd been having was a distant memory now. How quickly that faded.
âWhat are you doing?â Hotch asked, masking the fear that was bubbling up in his chest with whatever authority he could muster. Drake grinned at him, made eye contact through the mirror. He didn't speak though, just pressed himself up behind Hotch, his chest to Hotch's back, and reached around until his hand was slipping over the peak of Hotch's hip bone and down through his hair to his penis. Like a bolt of lightning, electricity shot through his abdomen at the touch and burned down his thighs. Against his will, he felt himself beginning to grow hard beneath the rough unwanted touch. âDrake, I'm not...â
âShhhh...â Drake hissed, using his free arm to pin Hotch's arms to his sides before he caught his wits and started thrashing to get out of the grip. Drake was bigger than him by a few inches, and a lot stronger. It was no trouble at all for him to subdue Hotch as long as that one hand maintained its too tight grip on his growing erection. Hotch felt his cheeks flush with anger and shame and he twisted, tried to free his arms, to kick backward but Drake had it all down. He'd said he was a wrestler, he knew exactly how to subdue another person, to bend them to his will, to pin them. And with some dim understanding, Hotch knew he'd done this before. âI know you want it. I saw the way you were looking at me.â
A sound at the door distracted Drake for a split second, not long enough for Hotch to do much more than bite down on his hand and let out a shout for help before that huge hand was pressed over his mouth and nose and he was being dragged forcefully back into one of the two empty stalls. Drake threw him against the wall, bent him backward over the exposed plumbing and tore at his clothes while the banging at the door increased. Hotch could feel the frustrating tears of anger burning down his cheeks as he thrashed and kicked, the pipe digging deep into his tailbone painfully until Drake twisted him and turned him over, rammed his diaphragm hard against the pipe. That silenced him. For one terrifying moment everything went completely silent and Hotch thought he was going to pass out, he couldn't breathe and he couldn't move.
Then the door was crashing in on itself and there was a feeling of utter chaos, the sound of frantic shouting. The sound moved closer and closer, one loud furious voice, and then the stall door was being ripped off of its hinges and Drake's weight was gone from him. He sunk there, bent half over the pipe, and gasped for breath while tears burned tracks down his cheeks. He heard the sound of bodies smacking and breaking tile, grunting and shouting, and somewhere deep in his mind he recognized one: Derek.
Derek had watched that door intently, more and more intently with every minute that passed with no movement. And when he saw someone try to get in, rattle the door handle a few times and leave because the door wouldn't open...he knew. Fuck he knew.
He also knew where to plant his foot to kick a fucking door in, and that was exactly what he did. Later, when asked why he didn't ask the bar tender for a key to the bathroom he would only mutter something incomprehensible, a lie disguised in truth. But the kicking in doors part, that was easy. Taking on a man who was a brick shit-house was quite another thing. He tossed Derek around pretty good, but it kept Drake off of Hotch long enough that he could get his pants up and get the hell out of there.
After that it was cops and statements and drunken brawl on both of their records. âWhy?â the officer had asked Derek who only shrugged while the medic closed a cut above his eyebrow with butterfly bandages and told him he'd need stitches.
âFelt like it,â he said. âThe guy looked at my girl funny and I didn't care for it. Right baby?â
Tia played along, and surprisingly so did Drake. The sonofabitch. It got him off easy, but Derek would deal with that later. Right now he just knew that Hotch had gotten out of there quickly and without talking to the cops so it wasn't likely that whatever happened was something he'd be willing to make a statement about. Derek could deal with that too. In private. He knew enough about these situations, the way it feels, to figure it out.
And to know damn well that Hotch wouldn't want to talk about anything that happened...or didn't happen. And Derek really hoped that nothing actually happened, that he got there in time. So he talked to the officer and he told as much of the truth as he could without implicating Hotch and without backing himself into a corner either. âI don't know what he was doing in there, sir,â he'd said quietly. âI was just so angry.â
âHow much have you had to drink?â
After that, Derek and Drake found themselves being escorted down to the police station for more talking. Derek knew whatever came of this wasn't going to be good and he was going to have to do a ton of damage control. He was still relatively certain it had been worth it.
Suspended for two weeks. That meant two more weeks without pay at his job, and they were none to happy, but he was just glad not to be kicked out of the program entirely. Being behind felt better than not being there at all. He knew he couldn't tell Hotch though, it would only add insult to injury and he figured there was plenty of injury to cover it right now.
(x)
Hotch had no idea how he managed to get out, his vision had gone entirely gray and he was crashing through the crowd bumping shoulders and trying desperately to look as collected as he possibly could. Staring at the floor, watching his feet, step by step, one after another until the cold air whipped his cheeks and he turned the corner abruptly. He found himself in an alley and froze, the memory of what had just happened filling him, freezing him in place. An alley was the last place he wanted to be as darkness seeped into the cracks and walls closed in. He pressed his hands to his pants, checked that his zipper was closed, and turned around to get the hell away from the bar completely.
He needed a shower.
The showers were empty, thankfully, when he stepped into the locker room and began stripping his clothes. Tearing at his shirt, at his pants, throwing them into the trash can rather than looking at them again. His pants were ripped, covered in strange rust stains and water from the floor (he refused to believe it was anything but water) and he saw the toilet beneath him as he lunged for it, hands outstretched to steady himself there before losing the entire contents of his stomach in one go. He heaved painfully there, over and over, bending and arching his back, crying desperately for his insides to feel clean. Whiskey scorched his esophagus, burned him and made him gag again and again. âNothing happened,â he whispered through tear slicked lips, the taste of bile in his mouth. âNothing happened.â
It wasn't true and he knew it. Maybe Drake hadn't finished what he'd started, maybe he never entered him, but it wasn't nothing and he knew it. He could feel Drake's rough hands on him as he stepped into the shower and scrubbed himself clean over and over, until his skin was raw and red.
Maybe it was divine intervention, or something else, but no one joined him in the shower. He was alone with his thoughts and his soap the whole time. And when he returned to his room in nothing but a towel, alone again. No one in the hallway, no one in the room. Derek hadn't returned but he looked at Derek's bed and he let out a gasping desperate sob, shaking himself free of whatever last dredges of emotion he'd been choking on.
He got into bed fully clothed and wrapped himself tight inside of the thin blankets, shivering at the way his wet hair made his whole body feel chilled. He closed his eyes but he didn't sleep, he just replayed the night over and over. The dancing, the drinking, the bathroom stall.
It was hours before Derek returned, his face bruised and bloodied, a few stitches above his eyebrow. Hotch tried not to look at him too long, be too obvious, but he couldn't help it. He'd spent the last few hours being angry at Haley for putting ideas into his head, making him think he could go out and date people or whatever he'd even attempted...it had backfired. Spectacularly. But he also knew it wasn't Haley's fault. She didn't do this. She wanted good things for him, he believed that. She genuinely thought he'd have a good time.
He could never tell her, not in a million years. Not just for shame, but for her own sake. She would remain with him out of pity then, like some broken sick puppy to care for. She would think of him as a project, something to save, and forget herself in the process. He would simply tell her he hadn't had any luck. That was, essentially, the truth. The palatable version of it, anyway.
Until Derek's weight was on the bed beside him and his hand was on Hotch's shoulder and his honeyed voice was engulfing all of Hotch's senses. He wanted to sit up, to fall into his arms, he knew Derek would offer. They hadn't been roommates long but there was something about him that just...he couldnt explain how he did but he knew. He knew that he could be held by Derek with no judgment.
Derek had saved him, hadn't he? And the fact that there were no police knocking at his door meant Derek hadn't told them what happened, not really. No one wanted a statement from the victim because probably, the way Derek swung it, there was no victim. Hotch could predict it because he would have done it too.
âCan we talk?â Derek's voice was hopeful and soft, and his hand was so warm and reassuring that Hotch almost said yes but those words weren't going to come out of his mouth, not tonight. None of it was. If he sat up, he'd be sick again and that was really all he knew for certain. Nothing else made sense. The whole world was scrambled and raw.
âIn the morning,â came Hotch's ghostly reply and Derek nodded, fully expecting that response. He would have said the same thing. And if he left, if he wasn't there in the morning, Hotch would skirt around it and never bring it up. He would have one opportunity to talk about this with Hotch, and if he missed it, it would be gone forever.
âOkay. In the morning.â
A small hum came from beneath Hotch's blankets, and Derek shifted but didn't get up. Not yet.
âHotch? Are you okay?â
â...morning...â came the muffled voice from beneath the sheets and Derek nodded. That was the official brush off, he wouldn't get any further and if he tried again he would be in danger of this avenue being closed off entirely.
Derek moved to his own bed with a grunt and a sigh. He sat with his back against the wall, his knees drawn to his chest, and watched Hotch pretend to sleep until it became real. Until Hotch actually fell asleep, and he continued watching until the sun came up. Until the smell of coffee from down the hall swept its way beneath their door and shards of sunlight danced on the floor beneath their drawn shades.
Hotch was surprised to find he had slept and slept hard. He couldn't remember dreaming, just a void. Endless and somehow comforting in its vastness. He'd closed his eyes with the certainty of a man who knew the dreams would be vivid and awful, if he even slept at all, but his body had shut itself down entirely. And for a full minute after he woke, after he opened his eyes and saw Derek sitting upright on his bed sleeping, the night before was gone from him.
Until he moved, and the instant sharp pain in his lower back forced him to surrender to the memory. He slid his hand down to where the swollen, bruised skin was and let out a low whine at the deep ache there, the way it twisted and coiled in his hips, in his belly, in his groin. Breathing became difficult and that whine became a gasp that became something that felt like a sob but he managed to stifle it at the last second and turn it into a mournful groaning sound. It was enough to wake Derek from whatever short and light sleep he'd drifted into sometime around sunrise, and quickly he was sliding over his bed and standing over Hotch, watching.
âLet me help?â Derek asked, crouching now, until he was eye level with the other man, carefully distant. Hotch licked his dry lips and let them part, as if he had something to say, but the anguish in his eyes was about all Derek could make out before Hotch pressed his face into the pillow and shook his head.
âNeed a minute.â
âYeah...â Derek said, racking his brain for something he could do. Something he could say. Some way to help without just reaching up and touching him. He knew that wouldn't go over well. âCoffee? I'm gonna run down and grab some, you want me to get you one too?â
Hotch grunted and Derek took that for a yes, because who would turn down coffee? He was pretty sure this guy lived on the stuff. âCool. You want cream or sugar?â
âBlack. Thanks.â Two words muffled by a pillow. It was a start, Derek figured. While he was gone, Hotch managed to push himself upright and begin to assess the damage. He pulled his sweatshirt up gingerly, tucking it beneath his chin. His chest was a mottled mess of bruises centering just around his sternum, a few small red patches of scraped skin and dried blood indicated exactly where he'd been pressed against that pipe. There were smaller bruises along the bones of his hips, and some part of him was glad he couldn't see his back. It was enough just to know. To feel it. There was a sinister stiffness there, he could scarcely bend at the waist or move his hips, Drake's strength rushed back to him in waves of nausea. He hadn't been overpowered like that in years, not since his father would throw him around like a rag doll with that same sickly scent of whiskey on his breath.
When Derek returned, Hotch was sitting on his bed, feet planted flat against the floor, his eyes dim and staring off into some middle distance that made Derek feel uneasy.
âHere you go.â He stopped just short of making a joke about the coffee being bitter and black, and instead just sat down on his own bed directly across from Hotch. The room was small enough that their knees weren't far from touching. Hotch could feel it, the expectation that he start talking, explaining what it was that Derek had broken in on, yet he still had nothing that would come out as more than just angry, confused sobs. But when he looked up at Derek, he could see that the expectation there wasn't quite what he'd assumed. It had a softness to it. He wasn't expecting Hotch to come clean, he just wanted to help.
âDid you get in trouble?â he asked finally, breathing the steam from his coffee deep into his lungs. Derek smiled.
âNah, it's all good. Slap on the wrist.â He'd already made up his mind that Hotch wouldn't need to know the specifics. It wouldn't make anything better. Lying made him feel like a creep, though.
âThank you,â he finally managed to say, because of every single thing he thought he needed to say, of every part of every second, the only thing he knew for sure was that Derek had saved him and whatever he was feeling right now would have been worse if not for that detail.
âYeah, of course,â Derek replied quietly, a little shaken by the severity of Hotch's voice. It was grim and there was no trace of the man he'd eaten dinner with every night and kissed in a beer-soaked haze outside of that pizza joint the first night. âMy friend Tia is the real hero, though. She's the one who warned me that guy was a real piece of shit. I didn't even know you were there til she said so.â
âGuess I should have seen it coming. Everyone else did.â
âWhat? No, man, no...â Derek took a leap and moved, from his bed to Hotch's, and left just enough of a distance between them that it wasn't pushy. Comfortable distance. âShe's had friends who had run ins with him, it wasn't...I didn't mean to imply that it was common knowledge or anything about you...â
âIt's fine, Derek.â
âNo, it isn't fine dammit. What happened last night was really fucked up and it wasn't your fault.â
âBut you didn't get in trouble?â
Derek sighed wearily. Hotch wasn't going to talk, he was going to keep twisting and turning until every angle pointed back at Derek. He'd have to let it go. âNo. They brought us both down to the station, took our statements, and let me go. I don't know what they did with Drake.â
At that, Hotch looked stricken. âWhat did you tell them?â His voice was haunted and quiet, a little fearful, and Derek shook his head.
âNothing. Your name never came up. I just said he was looking at my girl and I didn't like it. Few too many beers and I get a little antsy I guess, huh?â
Hotch let out a mirthless chuckle and pressed his palm against the pain that erupted in his chest. Laughing hurt. âYour girl huh?â
âYeah. Aaron, look, I'm not gonna tell anyone if you aren't gonna...but if you need to get checked out...if he...â
âHe didn't.â
âOkay. Okay. Are you alright?â
âI'll be fine. I think I just need to have some breakfast and get some fresh air.â
Derek nodded and stood up, knowing a brush off when he heard one. This was Hotch's battle, not his, and he'd already pushed hard enough. From behind him, as he moved away from Hotch's bed, he heard a small gasping sound and knew that he was trying to hide tears. He wouldn't turn around, put him on the spot, so he kept moving toward his dresser. He needed to go take a shower and shave, figure out what the hell he was going to do with two weeks of no classes and how he was going to hide that from his roommate. How he was going to tell his Chief, and his family. He was really in it now. Lying was the worst, but somehow even through all of the agony it was going to cause him...it felt like the right thing to do.
âWill you let me buy you breakfast? As a...thank you?â Hotch's voice was wet and small, but Derek smiled and rifled around in his drawer for clean clothes. Sincerity would only make Hotch cry, he was aware of the brink that man was perched dangerously against, so he settled on some levity instead.
âYeah. You could start with that. Might need a dinner, too...I did end up with stitches...â he paused and hugged his clothes to his chest while he downed the last gulp of his sugary coffee. âI'm gonna go get cleaned up for our date.â
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Another ask is that
How do you think Chase wouldâve reacted to Loganâs anger management message? Given it was all over the web he mustâve found out in some way or form.
Tho to me; this episode is pretty much non canon in my book. Most of s4 is off but this is the episode that doesnât even feel like Zoey 101 the most out of all them: Zoey, Dustin and James are completely terrible people in this episode, Logan even at is worse moments (besides webcam) is nowhere near as bad in this episode (tho what Zoey, Dustin and James did was worse) and Quinn and Lola are idiots. Not to mention the events of this episode are never mentioned again (if it was a show like SpongeBob it would be fine but for a show like this itâs kinda a big deal)
Sorry for rambling about how terrible this episode is, I just wanted to ask you if what think Chase wouldâve thought of all that since no one else did. Hope all is well!
Honestly, I have never thought about it before, but good point.
I am also going to ramble, but please keep in mind that I have barely watched the episode because I hate S4, so my memory is pretty hazy.
Anger Management as a whole is indicative of what's wrong with S4, which is the genre change. It's one thing to no longer dip your toes into full drama because your actual main character is no longer there, but it doesn't even go back to the previous vibe of S1 or S2. Instead it goes full Drake & Josh, which had way more pop culture references from the start like Oprah and the Dr Phil parody, and makes sense because George Doty is running the writing instead of Dan, and George did a lot of D&J writing, especially in S4.
So the whole thing is based on Alec Baldwin's voicemail to his daughter which would have happened only a month or two before filming, but like...why put that into a kids show. Who is the target audience here. There's no commentary on anything anyway, and it feels weird to do an episode about how yelling at children is wrong when you're on a Dan Schneider show and that's his entire thing, so the whole thing is just mean-spirited.
That said, it's still just an exaggerated, worse version of an established plot device, which is to take some sort of 'revenge' on Logan. He was always presented as a kind of antagonist, so the payback was often deserved in some capacity. Chase was also very often the deliverer of it in some capacity; the rat down his pants in Zoey's Tutor is probably not deserved (and is arguably questionable), but I don't mind it, probably because I actually kind of like Chase's meanness in S3. So I would argue that how James behaves is pretty much how Chase would act in the same situation, especially if he'd just started dating Zoey. The issue is that James just comes off as being an arsehole because he has none of the established history with Logan that Chase does, and I'd argue that Austin and Matthew have none of the same chemistry and affection that Sean and Matthew had, which I think helped make some of the revenge plots feel more good-natured.
In terms of how S4 actually happened, I think it's likely that Chase would have reached out - both to provide payback idea to Michael and to be like "dude, what the hell is up with you?" to Logan. That said, he'd likely also just been told that the girl he's in love with started dating his replacement (I know this isn't confirmed by canon, but I maintain one of the boys would have told him), so I think it's understandable he'd keep his distance. Especially if he's clinically depressed.
In conclusion, S4 is bad and this episode is bad and it's a lot easier to ignore than to consider it canon (and it's always right to shit on S4).
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I posted 3,361 times in 2022
351 posts created (10%)
3,010 posts reblogged (90%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@mxcrowe
@cottonskittles
@lunaisace
@derinthescarletpescatarian
@lithi
I tagged 496 of my posts in 2022
#kdrama - 211 posts
#extraordinary attorney woo - 193 posts
#spoilers - 118 posts
#korean drama - 63 posts
#asian drama - 60 posts
#percy jackson - 23 posts
#the umbrella academy - 20 posts
#pjo - 18 posts
#manga - 15 posts
#percy jackson and the olympians - 14 posts
Longest Tag: 137 characters
#like i can handle letting suyeon be with a judgemental bitch bc sheâs iâve known you so long i donât need to be nice to you anymore vibes
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
As someone who has absorbed MLB almost entirely through tumblr and has only watched a few eps here and there but really wants to get into it, I like to visit the tag whenever it trends and was curious about today and what was happening. But as it turns out @buggachat (??) Bakery Enemies AU is straight up just thriving and from what I can tell, is 90% of why MLB is trending atm XD
264 notes - Posted August 21, 2022
#4
The subtlety of Park Eun-binâs acting that you know the difference between Young wooâs natural aversion to eye contact and her actively trying to play coy and avoid Myeong Seokâs gaze when he accurately deduced she definitely jumped in on the arrest on the train bc she couldnât help herself
295 notes - Posted July 29, 2022
#3
When Steven finds himself in Dr Harrowâs office and Harrow letâs slip that his mum had passed away and he explodes at him so Harrow backpedals and actually picks up the phone to âcallâ the mum⌠and just the increasing distress on Stevenâs face as he practically begs him not to bother his mum until Harrow holds out the phone and just the grief on his face as Steven finally admits out loud that his mother is deadâŚ
Give Oscar the Oscar and 15 motion picture deals.
311 notes - Posted April 28, 2022
#2
Fun things after watching The Batman
The movie sets a more crime-thriller, film noir take on Batman that really hones in on Bats as the worldâs greatest detective as opposed to throwing in a bunch of action scenes as has been the norm of late for âsuperheroâ films. The action choreo that is there feels so real and like an actual real person fighting, making Bats feel more grounded as a person, and the action set pieces just compliment all the build up through the quieter moments. Literally 80% of this film is him looking around a room for clues or inferring some sort of deduction from a conversation and Iâm here for itttt
The actor who plays Tim Drake in Titans plays the scared kid who doesnât wanna beat up the random guy. Not the same Batmen but how fun if that was Tim Drakeâs origin story in another timeline
This whole time Bruce is majorly projecting on the Mayorâs son his own trauma as a kid who lost his parents to a brutal murder. In both Bruce and Bats forms, he holds eye contact with the kid. When Bats comes over to help the people trapped under the tower, and the mayor-elect Bella ReĂĄl hesitates to take his hand (bc heâs a vigilante who in many ways represents everything sheâs been campaigning against, also bc heâs masked and dangerous etc) the first one to take his hand and thus demonstrate his trust in Bats is the kid. And the others follow (literally that shot with the flare and everyone following in the dark water was so beautiful I cannot)
The repeated use of Ave Maria whether in full form or hints throughout the score as a signal of impending danger
That opening title screen just stretching all the way across the theatre screen. Magnificent
Despite the âI am Vengeanceâ line being the mic drop-ish line from the trailer, basically everyone makes fun of Bats for using it the whole movie and then it comes back in a sinister way right at the end
People initially laughing at the idea of Robert Pattinson as Bats now saying his is one of the best interpretations of Batman so far, especially in terms of the detective aspect of the character
This version of Bruce reads as much younger than the other interpretations of Bruce Wayne. Like all of them are âwould rather do XX than go to therapyâ to some degree, but this version of Bats leans hard into this and feels really fresh on the scene. Guess it helps that when heâs Bruce he doesnât switch immediately into a three piece suit and actually wears normal clothes. And heâs only 2 years into the game. I think it also adds to this image bc the playboy personality is nonexistent in this version of Bruce. Heâs attracted to Selina (or at least drawn to her and the kiss just pushed it in a more romantic direction), but he also doesnât push it beyond the opportunities she has presented to him. So idk. That seems very young of him?? I guess to be so caught up in the Batman of it all that he doesnât recognise the potential for him and Selina until after she kisses him.
The fact that Selinaâs leather suit actually has some give and slight bagginess to it. Like yes it is form fitting, but thereâs clearly wiggle room and thatâs a small thing but v important I think that it isnât skin tight. Bc all other scenes sheâs dressed in what I would say are very revealing clothing, as part of her job at that club that exploits womenâs bodies and looks for profit. In this outfit, she clearly has so much more control and ownership of her body, and despite the typically slinky and seductive image of Cat woman, her suit feels quite practical and more like a uniform or battle outfit.
Paul Dano was freaking brilliant as The Riddler. But I also kept thinking âyo itâs that guy from Little Miss Sunshineâ XD
1,836 notes - Posted March 6, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Crap
Pads
Sexy
Stripper
Cramps
All words that you donât realise have impact until you suddenly hear them in a pixar movie and you double take way harder than you thought you would bc wow they said that so casually⌠bc yeah a 13yo prolly does say crap and sexy on occasion⌠and hey periods are perfectly natural so duh ofc the mom would bring out a pile of pads for her pubescent daughter, and talk about using herbal tea for crampsâŚ
but also you donât realise that youâve never heard any of these things in a movie geared for children and pixar managed to do it so casually that it made you blink for a hot second before being quite pleased that itâs been included⌠that things like periods are discussed so openly in a film and pads are acknowledged and named and shown on screen rather than acting like itâs taboo or unnatural (not only the mom but also Abby/Priya?? saying she has pads for Mei)⌠to theme a film specifically on the female puberty experience⌠the change in body odour (when Priya whipped out deodorant for Mei??? Love that), the discomfort in your own body, the mood swings, the sweating, in many cases a greater physical and emotional attraction to others⌠an experience which in the past has been so greatly hush hush and treated like a shameful secretâŚ
Then you think to yourself wow imagine if pixar had managed to include the lgbt+ character they had been hoping to insert in what would likely be a very respectful but also casual and natural representation that does not define the character purely by their presence but by what they as a person bring to the story (betting my life on Miriam and the potential for a Mir-Mei ship) had the Mouse not gotten in the way.
And this was meant to be a fun post about how casually Abby said âstripper musicâ and how I actually double-taked at Meilin saying sexy, but then i had other thoughtsâŚ
2,539 notes - Posted March 12, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review â
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ok I'll share. I've been avoiding barbie conversations online (as much as that was even possible to do) bc I didn't want to get spoiled but the vibe I was getting was that it was going to be a film that might have been somewhat fresh in like 2012 but in 2023 it's just a repetition of all the conversations we've been having over and over throughout the fourth wave. and yeah that's exactly what it was.
like first of all I really don't buy this retroactive notion that Barbie was this paragon of feminism for little girls who have all become disillusioned since, like I ALWAYS felt alienated by the barbie brand as a kid, even as a skinny white girl, and every time I was gifted one of those dolls it was a reminder that this is what I as a girl was supposed to like and was supposed to be like, and that nobody seemed to care much if that wasn't me. the fact that they introduced Career Barbies and whatever else in the 2010s in an effort to appeal to modern sensibilities means nothing to me, it's just marketing. if they didn't think it would make profit, make the press, they wouldn't have done it.
so the brand just feels like entirely the wrong vessel for a feminist manifesto, and the manifesto itself is just so stale. like 'imagine if girls had the same jobs as men!'/'who cares if you have cellulite!'/'aren't boys boring sometimes!' like uh huh okay!! you got anything else?? I don't expect barbie to start speaking on abortion rights but from a director like greta gerwig I sure expected something more cutting than what we got, which was almost like an introduction to feminism to those who'd never heard of it
and I know Greta Gerwig is capable of greater subtlety and nuance than this so I assume that at least in part this was down to the fact that the whole film was an aggressive marketing vehicle for Mattel. and also chanel and chevrolet apparently?? like these brands stuck out like a sore thumb in a film that was pretending to be above all that, but the presence of Mattel throughout was just especially uncomfortable, like they joked about it being a male dominated company whilst flogging its wares through a feminist parable, and the 'sell sell sell' messaging just felt weirdly contrary to what the film seemed to claim was its heart, which is 'you can just be you without all the baubles' or whatever
and I think ultimately it didn't have anything to say that hadn't been said more articulately a hundred times over, in films that don't contradict themselves throughout. there was probably a good film in there that could've been made without Mattel glaring over everyone's shoulders, instead critiquing the Barbie brand's hollow pretences at feminism and white girlboss feminism more generally. or they could have just made a fun film about barbie, because the music and dancing was mostly great. but instead we got this which is pretending to be both and achieving neither and I really hate to be a killjoy but I just. really resent films as tawdry as this repeatedly placing at the forefront of the conversation around feminism, we need to stop having the same discussions over and over, and the only reason we are is because these are the easier conversations that are simple to sell. the more complicated shit is harder for brands to grapple with, and I am sick of brands being placed at the centre of debate on pressing social issues!!!
so idk what i was really expecting from a film called Barbie but in short I wish we could stop pretending it's something that it wasn't. everyone suddenly embracing the barbie brand and barbie nostalgia because they've decided it's feminist now just feels Bad
sitting on unpopular opinions about the barbie movie
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On today's episode of: "I got too many asks" the mana immunity!au edition
I got a lot of asks and I am in fact trying to get through them all, so I though I might compile them into a single post cause i got a lot about the mana immunity!au.
First of all all of these messages are hilarious and i am choosing to imcorporate some of these ideas into my belief system. lets go girls:
yes, mana immune asta is the single scariest thing in the world because there is legit no method that can stop him, this is like the vibes form that 'it follows' horror film.
asta can't actually see the sheep or wolf at all, because unlike devils they arent really seperate entities of their own, but rather extentions of charmy's spells, where as devils are seperate individuals, but even then he only sees them as vague ghostly clouds of malice and he cant even hear anything they say. also i do appriciate your love for silv, truly the mvp of this fandom
yes, asta is indeed that old man meme from spiderman, who simply is ignorant of everything around him but that is not going to stop him from fuckin someone up, just because he cant see shit doesnt mean he's not ready to fight. lucifero will truly face next level humiliation when he fights asta
liebe's mood during majority of this au is the "(laughing nervously) what the fuck?" meme. as for astaroth, if were operating under belief that he is asta's father in this au as well (which i am) then this man has made a whole ass kid that isnt even capable of comprehending his existance and man is in trenches over it, as he should.
yes i love that! asta's entire dream of being a wizard king is just 'lol im going to become a fuckin 'wizard' king, whats next? santa king?' people really do be making up job titles left and right as far as he's concerned and when yami gives him a speech about him needing to be stronger than the captains hes jsut looking at yami like he's chronically stupid
#asks answered#black clover#mana immunity!au#i got a lot of asks and i thoguht it would be better to put them together#also i cant believe this au blew up so much#people really do be liking my crack takes#tabata take notes#and start paying me for ideas
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Hello! Did you ever talk about Festa 2016 BTS spanking each other? What do you think about Jungkookâs reactions? Not Jikook, but in general? Because he doesnât give me the straight vibe at all. Not in a creepy way. Itâs just that everyone except Jungkook seems rather chill? And heâs a little bit too much excited? But trying not to let it show? Or I am wrong and his reactions seemed awkward because he was the youngest and shy? The link: https://youtu.be/NGR30ZDzN-w
Your link, anon :)
youtube
And it is cute. But since we watch original content in this house, here is the longer version. And it is long - so by all means enjoy the edit of the spanky spanky part. THIS BEAST IS AN HOUR+ but it's totally worth it BECAUSE We get to see a lot of what went on right at FESTA 2016. This was actually filmed on June 12 that year.
youtube
And there are some amazing moments. At 23:30-25:00 Yoongi starts talking about a guy he knows who was talking to him about Jimin, for example, and we get this.
A bit of a half-pleased, half really shy/ embarrassed JeiKei. And why not when his hyungs are all basically talking about how Jimin is so sexy that guys in other groups canât stop talking about him.
We do get a camera cut-off moment around 44:00 as well:
Personally? I don't think Jungkook is being overly gay about the spanking. First off for most of us spanking games are just super gay in and of themselves, but it is kinda locker room humor and I really think the guys were viewing it that way. Okay maybe not Yoongi. That dude just ⌠hung out there for a minute.
I never paid that much attention to YoonMin but damn, Yoongi. Wanna talk about nothing straight going on here, that boy was a mess for Jimin this whole video. And if you watch thatâs really where you see Jungkookâs shy come out. Heâs a mess, this guy.
Jungkook does seem to be a little shy about the sheer magnificence of Jimin's ass but really? Can't blame him. JeiKei was rather interested in Jimin doing the spanking:
I think there was a combo platter of feelings going on for Jungkook that whole FESTA season. He wanted so much to prove he was an adult. And at 20 Korean age, almost 19 international? He was. But he spent so much of his formative time working that he really didn't get to grow up normally. I mean if you think about it, by 2016 Jungkook had been working and living with all those guys for years. The only person he was still shy around was Jimin. And that, for obvious reasons.
When you've been taught your whole life that your basic attraction to people is built wrong, that makes you doubt your whole self.
Along comes Jimin who upended every idea about traditional beauty, masculinity, and sexuality he'd ever been taught. And the kid fought it, he tried, but by 2016 it was a done deal. He was head over feet, as Alanis would say, and he was DONE. Done and in love and very much NOT heterosexual. That's a lot for any kid to handle. Then you add the need for secrecy while he figured things out, uncertainty about what a relationship would mean for him, for Jimin, for the group, whether there should even be a relationship, what constitutes boyfriends vs just friends, an entire gay and also sexual awakening... that is a LOT a lot.
Queer kids don't get enough credit, IMO. Straight kids are given a lot of romantic leeway while they go through these early stages of crushes and loves and sex - but queer kids are so busy trying NOT TO BE QUEER that they don't get that.
Especially not Korean idols who live with six other guys and only a few of them maybe know who he is. Maybe up until 2015-2016 he wasnât even sure who he was. And I donât think Jimin was experienced enough to be a lot of help. After all, he was going through the same damn thing.
So I vote we give Kookie a bit of a pass on this one. His life was looking very different to him in the summer of 2016.
#jimin#jungkook#OT7#yoongi though omg#early legal jikookery#jikook just jikooking nbd#early jeon parks pre jeon park household status#also a whole park jimin exists#jikook#kookmin#and a jeon jungkook#jmjk#jkjm#anon#2016 festa#must be 2016 at the soon to be jeon park house#festa 2016#in the year of our lord oh shit Iâm gay#park jimin
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recently rediscovered your blog and read the fic from your dad spy au where scout starts out as the "guard" and then becomes scout from there and lemme tell you that shit put me on some s-tier brainrot. like a cranial decay type beat.
i had a concept in my head that instead of being hired as a guard, he could have been hired as a right hand man to the administrator like pauling, because i think hed be awesome in that position. like imagine having a personal merc who can get in fast and out even faster. but maybe he would stay in the base like the rest of them, sort of like a secret on call intel gatherer, who also maybe sometimes has to dig a couple graves. and also like, nobody on the team expects anything from him at first because its this 20 year old newbie kid. hes dressed in his formal clothes and he talks like somebody from relatively around boston but not quite. i can just imagine one day he comes back during a team dinner with his shirt half untucked and stained with blood, hair disheveled as he asks soldier if he can borrow his shovel, or him debriefing them for a mission when miss pauling is busy. same vibe as the fic i mentioned before but scout gets to have a job as cool as miss paulings. honestly id write it myself if i didnt have the attention span of a fly
anyways your scout content gives me life thank you
scout teamfortress but 20% more competent standing next to miss pauling teamfortress while she's doing her job and doing like silly quips and otherwise contributing nothing like it's a buddy cop film is literally my fucking ideal
(warnings for some canon-typical violence)
-
âOh, Pauling, itâs good to see you again,â greeted the chairman, smiling in an imitation of a grandfather and clasping her hands perhaps too-kindly considering she barely knew him. âYoung as ever, and still so stylish, I see. And whoâs the new fellow?â
âHeâs just here to help with transport, Mr. Montgomery, nothing unusual,â Miss Pauling replied, returning his smile and adjusting her glasses. âHeavy cases, you know how it is.â
âOf course, I remember you almost toppling clean over last time we made a trade!â Montgomery agreed, frowning at the memory. âYouâll pull a muscle that way, better to be careful. Itâs a pleasure to meet you, young man. And your name?â
âMr. Normandy, sir,â the new kid replied easily enough despite his slight East Coast accent, giving the man a firm handshake, expression neutral and stony, the picture of professionalism. Internally, Pauling breathed a sigh of relief.
âFirm grip there, young man,â Montgomery praised, nodding approvingly. âTennis player, perhaps? Or golf?â
âBaseball, sir,â he replied, still evenly. âFirst baseman.â
âAh! Of course! Were you any good?â Montgomery joked.
âAt everything but playing in front of the crowds, otherwise Iâd be in the major leagues,â he replied, tilting his head just slightly to imply that he was joking, his sunglasses glinting at the movement, and Montgomery barked a laugh.
âI like this one, Miss Pauling!â Montgomery said, and Pauling just barely caught herself from physically relaxing at it.
âWe do too, Mr. Montgomery,â she agreed. âI was under the impression that youâre very busy today, so we wonât keep you for too long, we just wanted to sort out the final details surrounding the manufacturing rights for theââ
ââPacific Northwest branch, up into British Columbia and Alberta, of course,â Montgomery agreed, nodding faintly. âOf course, of course.â He turned to regard his own man in a dark suit, the one standing to the right, who appeared to be unsuccessfully trying to stare down Normandy, who was completely ignoring him. âMy briefcase, please.â
The man handed over the briefcase, and Montgomery put it on his desk, opening it and pulling out a sheaf of papers. âAll our requests are submitted and approved, at this point we just had a few dustbins to take care of regarding initial percentages and making sure everything is wired to the correct accounts, which names are undisclosed, things like that,â Pauling explained as he glanced through the papers.
âRight, right, everything looks good here,â the man murmured, nodding to himself, sending his long-white hair just ever-so-slightly out of place. âIâm assuming these more sensitive documents should be sent some way besides through the mail?â
âIf you finish them today I can take them with me, otherwise either me or Mr. Normandy can return to pick them up at your convenience,â she replied, to which Normandy gave a singular nod.
âOh, it would only take me a short while,â Montgomery said, waving a hand. âWe have a lovely lounge just down the hall from here if youâd prefer to wait there, it should only take me ten, fifteen minutes at most. In the meantime, I do believe thereâs also the manner of payment for services rendered.â
Miss Pauling tilted her head just slightly to one side, confused.
âI arranged with Helen already,â Montgomery explained, not looking up from where he was initialing a few things. âThe payment, rather than being wired, she asked to be made in material investment. A venture of mine from years ago that sheâs willing to sit on. Rather than gold or bonds, she agreed to take some old currency of mine that my family collected, from early 18th century New Zealand and Australia. Monetarily itâs worth around the same, and Iâm quite a bit attached to it to be entirely frank, but it was at her request to buy the whole collection from me, and after years of the work weâve been doing together, well, Iâd never trust it with anyone else.â
He gestured to the other man, the one on his left, who stepped forward to hand him a manila envelope, which he passed to Pauling.
âInside is both keys, the door alarm codes, and all other security information for the building where the collection is being stored. Theyâll ask for a few codes and confirmation of identity, only because several other art collections and artifacts are being stored there by other affluent individuals such as myself.â
âThank you, Mr. Montgomery,â Pauling said, taking the envelope gratefully.
âThink nothing of it, my dear. Helen talked me into it all her own,â he said easily enough. âNow, gentlemen, if you would let Miss Pauling and Mr. Normandy into our lounge? I should have these wrapped up before any of us can even think about lunch, eh?â
One of the suits showed the two of them through the doors and down the hallway, through two doors bracketed by similar suits who simply nodded politely at Pauling and ticked their chins at Normandy as they passed them.
Normandy posted up beside the door for all of three seconds before they shut and Pauling pulled her glasses up, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and making a vaguely distressed noise. He then promptly relaxed, instead leaning his hip against an armchair probably worth the same amount as a small car. âSo, uh, weâre glad that heâs giving us a bunch of commemorative coins from when dinosaurs still walked the earth?â he asked just below normal speaking volume, eyebrows raised.
âYes. Very glad. Because unlike about six people total on the planet, he hasnât figured out yet how valuable those are.â
âWhat, is a picture of a kangaroo on some copper really gonna make up for a couple hundred thousand American dollars?â Normandy asked, sounding doubtful.
âNot copper. Something else,â she replied. âI canât tell you much more about it other than that, but these coins are made of something priceless to us. And to the Administrator.â
ââŚLove? Memories? The magic of family?â he joked, cracking a smile, and she rolled her eyes, moving to open the envelope and start reading the papers inside. âHey, uh, not to question whether my job should exist, but what the hell am I doing here, exactly? Besides carrying a briefcase. Like, chivalry isnât dead but I really donât think you need me carrying your bags and holding the door for you.â
âYouâre helping with security, basically,â she replied, adjusting her glasses to squint at tiny handwriting about the collection. âMr. Montgomery is trustworthy, but he mostly hires out to⌠well, people like us. His security detail is mostly people weâd rather have screened, freelancers, stuff like that. A lot of people we contract out to are like that. Most of them have heard about me and know better than to try and pull something, since I can hold my own pretty well, but if they havenât, seeing a second person might persuade them to think it over again.â
âOh, so Iâm like, uh, when it says âtow zoneâ next to the no parking signs even though nobody checks, or when theyâve got a camera in the corner of the store that isnât even plugged into anything,â he said, and the looked up at him, confused. âLike, uh, whatâs the word⌠Iâm a casual deterrent.â
âSure,â she said, because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, shuffling the papers back away and closing the envelope again, making a note to ask the Administrator if she should change their current containment procedures to be closer to Mr. Montgomeryâs. âJust⌠if thereâs a fight, you deal with it, otherwise you just stand there and look like youâre paying attention.â
âThatâs what the sunglasses are for,â he agreed. âI was blinking morse code at the guy across from me literally the whole time.â
âYou know morse code?â Pauling asked, surprised.
âJust the alphabet, âS.O.S.â, and âassâ.â
She rolled her eyes again, and thatâs when the door opened.
She expected Mr. Montgomery, not one of the men in suits. âExcuse me, both of you, if you donât mind,âthe man said, accent having the slightest English tilt to it, a Londoner if Pauling had to guess. âYouâre Miss Pauling, the Mann Co. affiliate, yes?â
âThatâs me,â she agreed, hesitant, and glanced at Normandy.
âIâm afraid thereâs been a mistake. Mr. Montgomery have you the wrong envelope on accident,â the man said apologetically, extending a hand forward. âWe apologize for this unfortunate mix-up, itâs really quite embarrassing, but those documents are sensitive and weâll be needing to see them back now.â
Pauling looked at him, and within a moment, shifted her expression. âOh, Iâm so sorry!â she agreed, nodding. âNo, right, of course. These arenât the papers for the currency collection?â
âIâm afraid not,â the Brit agreed, head tilting just slightly, hand still extended, moving a fraction further forward.
âWell, thank goodness we figured out now and not with us halfway back,â she joked, and moved to hold the folder closer to her body. âIâll take this right back to Mr. Montgomery, then.â
âHeâs sent me to correct the error,â the man explained simply.
âRight,â she said, and saw in her periphery that Normandy had already started sneaking a hand in towards his primary, clearly having pieced together something she was only suspecting. âWe can bring this to his office, then, right down the hall.â
âYou misunderstand,â the man said, taking a step forward again. âIâll be taking it to his office myself.â
âThatâs funny,â Pauling said. âI didnât realize you had clearance to be in there. Or to be carrying a semi-automatic instead of a standard handgun.â
The Brit reached for the semi-automatic, and before he could even get it out properly, Normandy hit one clean shot to the side of his head and another to his thigh, sending him crumpling to the ground.
Pauling had only as far as pulling her own handgun free, thumb on the safety, and breathed a sigh of relief, glancing over at Normandy, shifting to more comfortably hold her gun. âQuick reflexes,â she noted.
âJust noticed a lot sooner, maybe,â he shrugged, stepping forward to glance over the body, tucking his gun back away.
âWhat was your hint?â
âHeâs here to give us the right folder, yeah? Well, why were his hands empty, then?â
She was just starting to nod and realize that as well when a second man shouldered through the door, holding a gun at the ready. Normandy scrambled to draw his own, but Pauling fired a shot into his knee, shoulder, and neck to send him dropping before he was even close. âThereâs quick on the draw, and then thereâs prepared,â she said pointedly. âGotta think of if thereâs more than one, new guy.â
He nodded, and drew his gun again, bending to hit the guy on the ground at the temple hard enough to knock him out if he wasnât unconscious already. He then glanced up at the sound of a shout from the other side of the door, two men shouldering through, guns drawn but lowered. It was only the firm eye contact they made with both her and Normandy that made her pause the millisecond it took to realize these ones werenât trying to kill them.
âPauling, what on earth is going on here?!â Montgomery demanded, entering the room and staring with wide eyes at the bodies on the ground. âWhat couldâve possessed you toââ
âHe was trying to run off with these documents,â she explained quickly, gesturing with the envelope. âHe knew whatever was in here was valuable.â
âHe drew his gun, sir,â Normandy added, tipping his head down towards the body, and Pauling glanced down as well and found herself a little surprised. Heâd rearranged the man just slightly, apparently, adjusting the arm to be holding the gun a bit further outward. âOther one was aiming to kill.â
âMy, my,â Montgomery tskâd, shaking his head as he surveyed the scene. âWhat a mess. My apologies, Miss Pauling, Mr. Normandy.â
âItâs alright, but you need to start doing more thorough checks on your staff, Mr. Montgomery,â Pauling stressed.
âHeâs only been here two weeks, sir, he was one of the men we hired in a hurry after the incident last month,â one of the bodyguards said, and Montgomery shook his head.
âThank goodness nobody was hurt,â he sighed. âMutiny, and besides that, theyâre bleeding on my carpet. Here are those papers, Miss Paulingâwhat a day, eh?â
âItâs really alright, we handled it,â Pauling assured him, giving her bravest smile, a little exasperated now.
âRight, right, you and the first baseman,â he agreed, and Normandy fought back an actual smile.
âIf youâd like, we can take care of those for you,â Pauling said, gesturing at the bodies. âTo pay you back for the carpet and the scare.â
âSounds fair to me,â Montgomery agreed, clearly relieved.
-
âMy dadâs gonna be pissed, by the way,â Normandy was so helpful as to say on the way back up the path to the base. âAnd youâre fielding that.â
âAbout the suit, or the fight?â she asked, glancing at his clothes where he was somewhat covered in a fine dusting of mud and grime from the gravedigging, shovel still in his free hand.
âBoth. Mostly the fight. Your fault for saying itâd be an easy one to start with,â he said.
âIf it was going to be that much of a problem, you wouldnât have gotten this job. Iâd just have made you go do dishes all day or something,â Pauling replied.
âPoint taken,â he said, walking ahead to get the door, holding it open for her. âWait, weâre allowed to mention what we do, right? Just not names?â
âOr locations, even with travel distance. Round up to the hour if it comes up,â she replied.
âSure, sure,â he agreed, trailing a step behind her as she led the way through the base.
In the common area, there was a bit of a ruckus happening. Soldier, Heavy, and Demo appeared to be having some kind of arm wrestling competition on a rapidly-toppling table, the Engineer was on a stepstool trying to fix the ceiling fan, and Sniper appeared to be half-watching the beginnings of an argument between Pyro and the Spy regarding use of the oven as Medic patched up a burn on his arm.
âHullo,â Sniper greeted the two of them, sounding a little bored, Medic giving them a brief, polite nod. Normandyâs eyebrows were raised pretty far as he surveyed the room.
âHi, Sniper,â she greeted in return, then cleared her throat, raised her voice. âTeam meeting in five minutes! New mission for next week!â
Groans from the room at large, the eight mercenaries starting to finish up what they were doing and filing out. Spy moved over, glancing over Normandy and starting to talk to him in rapid-fire French, picking smaller bits of gravel off of his suit as they walked.
âAlright,â she addressed the room, Normandy peeling off from getting mother henâd by Spy to stand next to the blackboard with her. âMonday, youâre all going on a transport mission. Getting the truck from point A to point B with everything in the boxes intact. Already weâve had to put up with some people trying to get ahold of these things, so bring your guns.â
âOh, our guns, you said? Lads, this is a serious one, keep your heads on a feckin' swivel, sheâs sayinâ we might even need guns, can you believe it?â Demo faux-gasped, and chuckled when Spy bopped him on the arm, rolling his eyes at the Scot's theatrics.
âYeah, yeah,â she waved off, flipping through the papers a bit. âSo Engie, Iâll need the keys to the truck, me and Normandy are going to be loading those tomorrow, all of you need to be at this drop point bright and early.â
âHow early?â Heavy rumbled.
âSix. Hour and a half of drive from here.â
Some complaints from the room that she sighed at.
âHey, hey, calm the hell down,â Normandy cut in, and she glanced over at him where he had his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. âYou chuckleheads get to have all eight of you to unload the damn thing, me and Miss P gotta do all the rest of this on our own and probably kill twenty guys on the way there and back. She had to be up at 6 AM, workinâ since 7 AM, lunch break at noon and nothinâ else, and we just got back now at, what, fuckinâ, 10, 11 PM? Any of you work her shift and then see if you even got the energy to complain about wakinâ up early, how about that?â
The room went utterly devoid of complaint or backsass. âThank you, Normandy,â she said politely, and he just nodded once, glancing off to the side. âAnyways, anything new on this end? Spy, how are you adjusting?â
âVery well,â he said simply. âI have nothing pressing to say. Once Iâve been updated from the stock weaponry provided here to my requested preferred weaponry, I believe I should do just fine.â
âI see you already have Herr Normandy digging graves,â Medic chimed in. âStraight into the hard labor, ja?â
âEh, hey, yâknow, itâs why they keep us young people around,â he shrugged, grinning, and there was a brief uproar to drown out Medicâs entirely offended scoffing and Spyâs snort-laughing.
âGet âim, lad!â Demo cheered, and Normandy indeed looked fairly proud of himself.
âMonday, transport mission,â Pauling noted over the noise, writing it up on the chalkboard to hide her own smile from the room. âNormandy, you and me are doing the boxes tomorrow. Everyone on the same page? Good. Dismissed. Oh, and Pyroâstop taking the fire alarms down when they beep. Theyâre beeping because you light things on fire in the base. Do that outside.â
âOh, hey, uh, helmet guy, All-American Beef,â Normandy called, and Soldier straightened up. âHereâs your shovel back. Gettinâ my own tomorrow.â
â¨Soldier walked directly over to him, clasping a hand on his shoulder. âThatâs a high honor, Cadet,â he said, tone grave. âDo not take this responsibility lightly.â
âI, uh, I wonât?â he said hesitantly, and blinked a few times as the shovel was carefully taken from him before it was promptly marched from the room in double-time. Only then did Normandy look over at her. âSo heâs always like that?â
âYouâll get used to it,â she assured, dusting chalk from her hands. âYou should get to sleep soon, we have to be up early.â
âSure thing, Miss P.â
#tf2#team fortress 2#my fanfiction#dad!spy#father-son bonding au#shut up me#que?#in this au he picks a fake name like she does. later i think demo starts calling him norman and some of the others do as well as goofs#also apologies for montgomery i couldnt quite get away with not naming random rich guy. just barely scraped by with guards one through four#everybody talks
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like, the trend's opposite counterpart is the pajama theme apparently. which makes more sense bc pajama parties are a Thing, and the same could be said for other common themes like masquerade. even if, say, you ignore the context of a pajama party, a sleepwear theme still seems appropriate bc pajamas are cozy, giving an impression of lightheartedness, of being chill. it isnt an explicitly christmassy theme, but it matches the general "vibe" of the holidays.
a mafia theme, though? not only is a mafia theme far removed from common associations of christmas, you'll essentially be obliging the students to wear dress shirts, trousers, and coats. in a tropical country. in their hotboxes of the typical filo public school classrooms. the only source of cooling being three geriatric wall fans, the string to turn them on long gone and you'd have to ask the tallest guy in your class to even reach the damn things. if the dingy old things still even worked at all.
what's even more interesting to me is that for some reason almost every high school kid's interpretation of a mafia fit is extremely monochrome. all-black ensembles, no other color in sight except for maybe their white dress shirts. this sensibility also applies to the girls for some reason, forgoing flowy silk dresses (or at least, giving an impression of silk) in bolder colors like red (to drive in the "mafia boss's trophy wife" trope) for short all-black dresses, sometimes a crop top and pants combo, in boring matte fabric or even yet,,, pu leather. i think leather clothing is hot in an appearance sense, but it's also very hot in a temperature sense. pleather dresses are also um. an entirely different aesthetic than "mafia" imo
somehow the fashion in the mafia theme has diverted into some sort of predominantly black formal/semi-formal wear. there's not even a pinstripe anything to be seen. this is why some internet people have jokingly called the mafia christmas party theme as "thesis defense theme" or "funeral theme". personally, i'd call it "british-panel-show-hostcore"
the flimsiness of the dress code aside, there still is the looming question of "why the hell are mafia-themed christmas parties a thing??" i mean, i dont really care about the sanctity of christmas tradition. but i am so confused as to why people decided to celebrate something that's meant to be all "jolly" and an excuse to give gifts or whateverâbirth of christ and all that jazzâwith groups of people who are historically violent. not even historically, in fact, but a genuine issue in some countries today. is there something about the mafia that compels people to lazily slump a black blazer over their shoulders for their year-end parties?
here is my hypothesis:
...
it's tiktok's fucking fault again.
something something the aestheticization of literally anything on earth. if the platform has managed to reduce the entire farming lifestyle into cutesy plaid dresses while you happily frolic in the grass, then yeah sure let's do the same thing with the mafia or something. insert all your criticisms about tiktok trend cycles here.
i think the reason why many mafia theme outfits are so off-base (aside from the ph's dwindling economy) is bc the mafia theme trend essentially exploded overnight. and now everyone has to have a mafia themed christmas party or else youre not hip and cool, resulting in rushed outfits that will essentially be worn once. want to have a christmas party with a simple color dress code where u have the choice to either be as fashionable as you want or as comfortable as you want? well fuck you, we need to socially compete with the other class! they got a pajama theme! also, our teachers will film us catwalking into the classroom! so you have to be Presentable, or else. again, insert all your criticisms about tiktok trend cycles here.
this christmas party trend is just so absurd to me. according to my sense of humor, this whole thing is absolutely fucking hilarious. if my hypothesis is correct, it's funny how much a single social media platform has a chokehold on culture that it has combined two things that are so contradictory of each other. (yes, christmas is a product of religious colonization akin to the mafia overtaking cities by making the people choose between paying them or getting murked, but i doubt the people who are doing mafia themed christmas parties are doing so as a parody of christianity. actually, maybe this unintentional similarity makes it funnier) i wonder what other contradictory stuff there is that tiktok can do? (subtle political jab to make this rant that has taken me until 3 am to write a little bit worthwhile)
i have now found myself,,, deeply fascinated about the origins of this new filipino trend of having mafia-themed high school christmas parties
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Top Forty Thor-Being-Thor Moments from Thor 1
just absolute dumb*ssery that this 7yr old kidâs life goal is to âhunt down the monsters and slay them allâ. Iâll go easy on him here and let the Thor/Loki expressions do the talking because of â...just like you did Fatherâ but seriously can his hands even fit around a sword handle??? this kid isnât even punching the air right??? if there was a sword in his hand he wouldâve cut his head with the way heâs moving???? pure tiny-himbo energy here just look at that >:o face heâs making. contrasts very nicely with Lokiâs â,:|. 10/10. such a baby idiot.
âthe jotuns must pay for what they have done! they broke into the weapons vault! if the frost giants had stolen even one of these relics!â thor. thor please. can you even name one of these relics. thor. hey thor. thor. shut up. âwell, what would you do about this?â odin asks him. âmarch into jotunheim! like you once did! break their spirits! so theyâll never try anything like this again!â wow okay so weâve fast-forwarded by like a thousand years and thor is still going on about genocide. huh. thatâs funny, i thought loki was the genocidal one. hmm. i also just realized that the loki exclusive clip gives loki the same hairstyle thor has here so do what you will with that information.
0/10. horrible. terrible. i dont care how angy thor is about not getting to kill some jotuns or become king today this very instant, that is a tremendous waste of food. an absolute fool. how can he just remorselessly throw the bread to the floor. if loki stabbed him when he was 7 he would deserve it for this table flip alone. what a privileged white *ssh*le.
loki came skulking around a corner and suggested not to go to jotunheim and not only did thor not suspect anything but he also then went on to decide to go to jotunheim. 10/10 himbo material.Â
if tumblr didnât have a picture limit i would put every instance of thor smiling in this list because look at that stupid smile. heâs such an idiot. 11/10. this is the thor content iâm here for.
âI have no plans to die todayâ thor says with the stupidest open-mouthed smirking smile ever captured on film. right after he also told heimdall not to tell anyone theyâre gone. heâs literally planned to strand them on jotunheim. thorâs grand plan was to strange themselves on jotunheim and also start a fight. i repeat: thorâs plan was to successfully slay all the frost giants and not need to return until theyâre all gone. what an absolute d*mb*ss. this is getting ridiculous. this was originally a top-ten-thor moments list but iâm not even twenty minutes in so iâll have to extend the list. thor. thor are you listening? thor, youâre such an idiot.
âHOW DID YOUR PEOPLE GET INTO ASGARD?!â thor you sweet sweet summer idiot, please, i am beggin,g you,, learn to rea,d , a room,, literally everyone else who came with you is regretting it, there is complete silence and only the rumble of the opposing king is meeting your âI AM THOR, SON OF ODINâs, please, please take some notes from Loki, or, you know, literally anyone else in the room, since everyone is asking you to get out of this realm while you still can,
thorâs stupid smile makes an appearance after he gets called a princess and decides to fight a whole realm over it. you know what? thor is a princess. heâs the prettiest princess in all the lands. whatâs thor gonna do about it? is he going to fight me too? I hope he does the stupid grin first. minus 15 points for the sexism. thor is a complete and utter sadistic fool who needs to get a hobby. seriously, heâs 1500 years old and still going on and on about slaying all the frost giants. boi, i hate to break it to you, but your dad is not the best or only example of greatness out there. i donât think your dad even qualifies as an example of that.Â
âTHEN. GO!â 𼰠ahh yes, just thor thingz đĽ°đĽ° like when one friend has had his arm burnt 𼰠and another friend has been impaled and needs medical attention, đĽ°đĽ° and all the rest of your friends are yelling for you, 𼰠and your brother is telling you they must go, 𼰠and you decide to buy everyone time by laughing maniacally and killing more frosties because you care for them and dont find joy in destruction like a loon đĽ°đĽ°đĽ°Â
THIS is the iconic Thor moment that makes my day whenever I think about it. Just Thor, an absolute bumbering 6â˛6â˛â giant boodlusting dummy sees Odin and just decides to yell âFATHAA!! WEâLL FINISH THEM TOGETHAAA!â as if the last thing Odin told him wasnât âno, thor, weâre not going to do anything to the frost giants, do not go after them and try to kill them all.â 11/10 d*mb*assery right here folks, I couldnât ask for Thor to be more of a fool. This is PEAK Thor energy. Look at that face. I feel like Thor spends half this movie with his nostrils flared. I love it.
okay i gotta give thor credit for rightfully calling odin âan old man and a foolâ but also there was not even 1 frame of the scene where Thor had a decent face so now all i see is >:O >:| >:o >:[ when i watch that scene. yelling at odin was great, not yelling at odin after he HUAERGHed at loki was less great, but to be fair itâs thor and he is the definition of Peak D*mb*ss.Â
thor literally GROWLS and starts yelling âHAMMAA?? HAMMER??â over and over. He was hit by a van, he fainted, he woke up and started growling. I donât know what else there is to say about this.
âyou dare threaten me? puny human?â. so. uhh. basically. Thor knew she was threatening him? He KNEW she had a weapon? instead he made a face and started yelling as he tried to walk his way closer????? thor you complete and utter dum dum. you frickin hairball-for-brains. im not even surprised darcy tasered him. with that kind of face, iâd taser him too.
when you wake up in an unknown place to a person smiling at you without a stupid smile, the first step is always to attack first and ask questions later đđđ (but seriously thor you imbecile why didnât you ask where you were instead of throwing multiple people around the room and getting your butt needled. you clueless buffoon. youâll remain a clueless buffoon if you donât listen to anyone.)
just a quick recap but thor was knocked unconscious by a van and these people kidnapped him aboard and the next scene we see him in heâs checking himself out in mirror after presumably changing right there in the open?????? these are the things that make thor thor. any other character and iâd question it so much, but this is thor, and i truly believe this is in-character for him. just change in the open because why not? thor is a beefcake and thatâs his only redeeming quality and he knows it. 10/10 thor moment.Â
I am now convinced that Thor saw Jane and â5k van-hitter to lover slow-burn height-difference himbo-scientist tropeâ flashed through his mind.
âbut no more smashing!â Jane says, and then Thor proceeds to check her out and smile unlike an idiot and like a douche. was this his version of flirting???? iâm not one to decide, but yes, yes it was. He threw a cup to the ground and broke it, and sheâs getting mad at him and berating him about it, and heâs liking it. yâall iâm sorry to break it to you like this, but thor has a canon fetish. i am so, so sorry.
im DYING. THAT ISNâT EVEN A KISS, HIS MOUTH IS OPEN. he SMUSHES his mouth around her knuckle???? WHY. I canât keep noticing things like this. send help. please. Janeâs response makes so much more sense now; sheâs laughs for a solid 3 seconds and shakes her head and is like âuhh, thank you? ahaha,â and then she keeps looking back longingly when walking away. they are doing this in PLAIN sight of EVERYONE. Darcy and Erik are standing RIGHT THERE, and Thor is doing weird things to her with his mouth. Iâm out. I am done here. goodbye.Â
return of the stupid smile AND the douche smile in quick succession through the entire trip. their entire dialogue is peppered with innuendo. âIâve never done anything like this before. have you ever done anything like this before?â âmany times, but you are brave to do it.â âI have nothing else to lose.â âah but you are clever, far more clever than anyone else on this realm.â ârealm? rEaLm?â âyou think me strange?â âyesâ âgood strange or bad strange?â âI havenât decided yet.â I AM DYING OVER THIS. plus, we get Return Of The Himbo with Jane asking after Einstein Rosen bridges and Thor is like âuh, actually, more like a rainbow bridge đđ¤Şâ i feel so sorry for jane here, didnât know how much of a d*mb*ss Thor was when signing up for this van-trip and knuckle-sucking đđđ i also no longer have questions about how the trip that SHOULD HAVE BEEN A HALF-HOUR ONE turned into one that LASTED TILL THE SUN WENT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE SKY TO SETTING by the time they arrived. I have no questions. please. I donât want to know what they were doing in that van. please no. donât make me think about it.
thorâs plan had 3 steps and they were 1. give jane his jacket 2. walk in and get his hammer 3. fly out. that was literally his plan. he had the first âI have a plan. attack.â moment in the MCU. pure concentrated 0-brain-cells energy right here. how can you not stan this king of d*mb*ssery. look at him, flaunting his big boy muscles. heâs about get his hammer and fly out, like he just told jane with a trademark stupid-smile.
crop-top hair-mop thor is my favourite thor. the way the entire fight scene parallels a hamster in a maze only exemplifies the thor vibes for some inexplicable reason.
âyouâre big. fought bigger.â + Thor douche-smile + subtext from earlier + rolling around passionately in the mud = not a happy me.Â
I swear iâm not making up this romantic subtext but itâs barely even subtext. the entire scene leading up to Thorâs attempt at lifting the hammer is actually filmed erotically. Iâm not kidding. First thereâs a shot where Thor pulls aside a hamster-cage-wall blind which mirrors a shower-curtain, and THEN he walks around the hammer while smiling douche-ly at it, we get a few close-ups to his face which are shot from angles slightly lower than himself, giving him an aire of superiority, plus the music adds to this, he reaches out for the hammerâs handle with a mud-covered arm in the rain, in non-slow-motion slow-motion, and he wraps his arm around it, like, he fully twists his arm, unecessarily sexually, around it as he grabs the hammer. This is not okay. On the plus side, it makes the movie much more entertaining,, on the down side,,.
im not going to call Thor dumb for not knowing heâs not worthy. im not going to. because odin literally whispered the enchantment to mjolnir after heâd thrown thor to midgard. it is very funny watching thor grunt in frustration though. he starts yelling because he couldnât lift the hammer and just lets himself get caught. like, dude, get a life, go buy a new weapon from the store, seriously. he mourns for the hammer on-screen longer than he does for loki. he also looks like heâs in far more pain here. he becomes catatonic and unresponsive after this, but when loki dies heâs already feasting the same afternoon. 10/10 dum dum thor material. never change thor, never change. (thatâs code for please change, thor, please,)
thor trying to establish dominance wherever he goes is the funniest thing because at this point heâs being a complete asgardian *ss about it and itâs reaching points of pettiness never seen before. side note: he is possibly flirting with selvig too. maybe. iâm not saying anything happened, but Thorâs openning lines when bringing him home carried over his shoulder are âheâs fine, not injured at all,â followed with an apology to selvig, and an explanation to jane which consisted only of âwe drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud,â and then he puts the man to bed and before he falls asleep erik says âi still donât believe youâre the g*d of th*nder, but you ought to be,â so... your choice, i guess...
thorâs got his trademark stupid smile and stupidly takes janeâs lifeâs work notebook and starts doodling in it about trees. the last time his father told him this story about Yggdrasil was when he was 5 and he clearly hasnât payed attention to any lesson about anything since and it shows so so much. thank you thor. very insightful knowledge youâre passing on hear. âi come from a world where [science and magic] are one and the same,â ok great, now elaborate on that please. oh, right, you canât because youâre thor, my bad, 20/10 thor behaviour. he couldnât even doodle nicely. all his lines are wobbly. epic art fail. i wouldnât trust him near my sketchbook with a 2B pencil.
THIS is thorâs realization face. in case anyone was interested in what âdawning truthâ looked like on him. đ°ďż˝ďż˝ďż˝ďż˝ THIS is the face of a thinker, of a man betrayed by his own beloved brother for unprecedented reasons. look at the nuance in his expression. đŠđŠđŠ so many emotions, I canât even count them all đŠđŻđŞ
stupid smile and âdo not worry my friends, i have a plan,â he says, âiâll just try and abuse the fact that Lokiâs super selfless and kind and has no self worth to my benefit as i have countless times before which is exactly what heâs rightfully angry about this time,â he doesnât think to himself because that is NOT the smile of someone who is thinking... like, at all. +10000 points to gryffinthor. the d*mb*ssery really jumps out.
âim sorry bro for whatever i did and whatever youâre blaming me for as an excuse to do this, im sorry bro, but youâre disturbing innocents that i donât really care about but youâre the one making a scene in front of them so why donât you admit you wonât kill me and are just having a temper tantrum and we move on? hmm?â and then he proceeds to get slam dunked in the face with a metal arm like yEAAAA BOI thatâs what you GET for going up against the SENTIENT LAVA-SPEWING metal-man ya absolute dunderhead clod. thunderhead clod? yeah, that. heâs just so dumb, your honour, please, you must understand, the victim pleads guilty on all charges of d*mb*ss and d*mb*ss alone.
I can NOT describe the emotions I feel knowing that Thor is suck-kissing Janeâs knuckles. Like, his mouth is literally jelly-ing it up against her hand. There is suction there and it shows when he is placing and removing his mouth. I promise thatâs what is happening. Iâm not any happier than you about this. I regret everything. This is why Loki should be what is focused on and not Thor; Thorâs going around trying to frick frack everything in sight even if itâs just Janeâs hand. Heâs maintaining eye contact with Jane while he licks her fingers. Why did I decide to rewatch this movie.Â
iâm only adding this in as a thor moment because of how desperately and badly they kiss. seriously. 2/10 kiss. im not surprised jane broke up with him. they look like two actual seals fighting over an actual grape. while iâm here iâm going to criticize every fic ever that decided thor is an experienced gentle lover. what were yâall on when watching this movie. thor can and will f*ck literally everything in sight and he wonât even do it well because he is the peakest of peak d*m d*m. look at this man. look at his face. that is the face of an absolute himbo idiot, and itâs the face of an absolute himbo idiot who knows it. heâs been stranded on earth for 2 days, max, and his flirt-count is at 69 people because his name is one letter away from thot. i bet his terrible use of a pen from early means he writes his ârâs like âtâs and he doesnât even care. 1000/10 thor moment. doesnât get much more romance-thor than two individuals smooshing their faces together after some finger sucking. that finger sucking is gonna leave jane simping for years. and thatâs true love babey. <3
âIâll handle my Brother!â Thor says, as if Loki didnât send a metal-murder-bot that quite virtually killed him less than ten minutes ago asdfhkhsdgsdjf Thor, you horrific himbo you, Lokiâs weapon of choice is literally throwing knives he will literally kill you before you enter the room if heâs on his game and wants you dead which he just proved he would do and youâre just gonna???????????? jog on over to him????? Thor??????????? bruH???????????? buddy??????? pal???????? you really wanna go 1v1 the brother you very clearly underestimate and know nothing about????????????????? im loving the confidence, but, no.
Loki: âyou literally canât stop this from here.â Thor, immediately: âiâm going to hit it with the hammer and see if that worksâ and then it does in fact work later... technically speaking, even if it ends up causing chaos destruction and death and loki falling off the bifrost đđđ but Big Brain Thor is the Biggest Brained Thor!!! The plan worked!! in a messy-Thor-ish way, but it did!!!
âyou canât kill an entire race!!!!â Thor yells, teeth gritted, as he faces his brother, his coward pacifist brother, who has suddenly decided he wants to join the age-old family tradition of realm-destroying, when this is supposed to be Thorâs dream, Thorâs, not Lokiâs. How dare he, Thor thinks to himself, fist clenched around Mjolnir in anger, the pain of the handle pressing against his palm perhaps the only thing preventing him from lashing out at this thought, thatâs my planet of monsters to slay, he should go get his own! Loki hits Thor across the face with the back-end of his spear. âNow fight me,â Loki says, but Thor, well, Thor cannot fight, as he remains stunned that of all things Loki would dare steal his lifeâs ambition, and he is sent sprawling backwards across the observatory, slowly but surely sliding to a stop despite his catatonic, very symbolic silence.
the elegance, the poise, i see your time on earth has made you no less graceful, Thor. the simple magnitude of this sprawl. the spread of the arms. the turn of the feet. this is not a dude, this is a man.
sometimes your brother starts vehemently talking about heâs gonna kill the race of monsters and about how heâs only ever wanted to be your equal and about how heâs not your brother and never was and sometimes you just have to say âthis is madnessâ instead of addressing the issues or asking for any of the deets đĽ đđŻđŠ
Loki is whipping Thorâs butt. Both literally, and metaphorically, Loki is whooping Thorâs d*mb*ss. Earlier he knicked Thorâs face, now heâs just pushing Thor around, he uses the spear as a pole and later kicks Thorâs face by kicking vertically up, and Thor, bless him in all his blond golden muscled glory, doesnât think anything is up with this, gosh heâs such an absolute utter idiot
sometimes your brother laughs way too much and also cries too much in a fight and there are also too many of him so you just need to blast lightning so you get a shot at all of them đđđ and then put your magical infinitely-heavy hammer on his chest đđđ but itâs okay because Thor left holes in Lokiâs container đđđ
now THIS is the meat to Thorâs funny bone, just the pure unadulterated humour that is Thor saying that there will never be a âwiser kingâ or a âbetter fatherâ than Odin, it cracks me up every single time without fail, just the way he says it with a straight face andâ what do you mean he wasnât joking
look at Thorâs stupid smile as he asks Heimdall to spy on jane every single day while conveniently never asking after Loki ever. This is Thorâs face in mourning after he attended a feast after everyone was celebrating after Lokiâs death. Look at his stupid smile. I love him your honour. Heâs just,, heâs just so frickin stewpeed, just Thor being Thor, just the purest of d*mbest of *sses.Â
#listen#if people can interpret loki and the grandmaster as a thing when loki spends the entire time looking uncomfortable about every situation#then i can interpret thor as flirting with people when there are actual canon questions which get solved when other explanations dont work#so#dont mind me here#in conclusion: thor is a dum dum idiot and it's *chef's kiss*#thank you for coming to my ted talk#ThisPostIsLongerThanMyLifeSpan#TPILTMLS#Language!#language#im one of those people who comments on things through movies but you can't be mad because it's worth it and i've got points#obviously writing means i can get the full gist of the comments out without summarizing#but#like#my family is simply underappreciative and i'm a genius
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Art of Aardman
I found myself a cheap copy of the Shaun the Sheep movie, so I was rewatching a bunch of Aardman films earlier this month and decided to hunt down some books too. For anyone that doesnât know, Aardman is a British stop-motion studio that does fantastic work like Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, Early Man⌠tons of cool stuff. Theyâre always quirky and funny and warm-hearted. This was just a very nice art book for anyone thatâs a fan of Aardman stop motion and wants to see a bit extra; it shows some cool concept art and blows up the neat details in Aardman work, especially in their intricate stuff like The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
Asterix and the Picts (Asterix and the Chariot Race, and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion)
I decided to try a couple of the new Asterix comics that were done by the new team, just to see if they stand up to the old ones (that and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion cause Iâd never read that one before). They were pretty decent! Asterix and the Picts was my favourite of the two though I wouldnât say either are going to contest for my favourite Asterix comic... but still! The art looks good and the stories felt like what I would expect, they made for a pleasant couple evenings of reading especially since itâs been so long since Iâve read a new Asterix comic. If youâve never read Asterix itâs one of the biggest name French comic series in North America, as far as I know and very worth the read. Itâs about a single Gaulish village thatâs holding out against the invading Romans through sheer force of will, slapstick hijinks, and a magical super-strength potion brewed by their druid. Lots of fantastic visuals and cute wordplay, even in the English translations.
Bear
I found out about this bastion of Canadian literature via tumblr post that was losing its collective mind over the fact that some bizarre bear-based erotica novella somehow won the most prestigious literary prize available in Canada. Since I too found this hilarious and unspeakably bizarre I had to give it a read, obviously. And yes, the flat surface level summary is... a librarian moves out into rural Ontario and falls in love with a literal for-real not-supernatural-not-a-joke bear. And I have to say⌠it is actually worthy of an award, which I was not expecting given that I was there for a laugh. It has beautiful writing, and the subtextual story is pretty interesting⌠it kind of makes me think of The Haunting of Hill House actually in terms of themes. (Womanhood, personhood, independence, autonomy partially achieved through escaping the male gaze by claiming non-human lovers... listen if I were still in university I would right a paper comparing the two novels).
I dunno man, itâs fucking weird. Actually a well-written book, but sure is about a woman falling in love with a literal bear. Give it a read if you want something bonkers but like⌠high-brow bonkers.
Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites
Best book I have read in like⌠a while. A long while. I am not a fast reader, and I consumed 90% of this book over a weekend. Itâs not at all like Terry Pratchett, but at the same time it scratched an itch for me that I havenât had satisfied since Pratchettâs death. A very clever, hilariously funny poly romance between a disabled werewolf, an anxious vampire lord, and an incredibly powerful woman, with heaps of social satire, political commentary, and sinister undertones. The whole thing reads a bit like fanfiction and I say that in the most flattering way possible -- it is so easy to jump right in and be immediately taken over by the characters and the world and the plot, you never feel like youâre fighting to engage even though the world-building is fascinating and expansive. It welcomes you in right away, it was the book equivalent of a quilt and a hug which is something I sorely needed with all this pandemic bullshit. If you read any of the books on this list, go read that one while I sit here in pain waiting for the sequel.
Kid Paddle
I watched the cartoon of Kid Paddle as a kid and was thinking about it recently, so I decided to hunt down some of the original comics online. Theyâre fun and weird, with a cute art style and fantastic monsters designs. (My favourites are always about Kid either daydreaming or playing games that involve Midamâs weird warty troll creatures. Itâs like a cross between Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot with the fun sort of quirks that I love in Belgian comics. Unfortunately, unlike Asterix, Iâve only come across these ones in French, but if you can read French itâs totally worth popping over to The Internet Archive and reading the ones they have available.
The Last Firehawk: The Golden Temple
The lastest Firehawk book. Despite being written for quite young readers, I did enjoy the early books in this series quite a bit. Theyâre about a young owl and squirrel who found an egg for a magical species that was believed to be extinct. With the newly hatched firehawk, the three of them head off on a mission to find an ancient firehawk magic that could save the entire forest. Very basic adventure story but a good intro to the tropes for children. Unfortunately the quality really feels like it drops with each subsequent book; this will probably be the last one I bother reading.
Lumberjanes: The Moon Is Up
I honestly think I enjoy these Lumberjanes novels even more than the comics just because it really gives time to delve into each story and examine how the camper are really thinking and feeling about everything. (Also Iâm always weak for novelizations of anything.) The Moon Is Up is a book that focuses more on Jo, and takes place during the campâs much anticipated Galaxy Wars, a competition between cabins that goes over several days. While the campers prepare for these challenges though, they also run into a strange little creature with a penchant for cheese and theft. Roanoke cabin needs to keep ahead in Galaxy Wars and somehow deal with the fearsome Moon Pirates that a closing in...
Lumberjanes v4 (Out Of Time)
One of the Lumberjanes comics, a cool, girl-focused, queer comic series. Honestly, this is just a fun series that I never got as into as I should have. My advice is honestly to skip book one because it gets better as it continues, and Iâve really been enjoying the later books now that Iâve given it another go. It follows five campers at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpetâs Camp for Hardcore Lady Types (Jo, April, Molly, Mal, and Ripley) as they handle all sorts of challenges, from friendship to crushes, camp activities to supernatural horrors, getting badges to not being brutally killed. Great if you liked the vibe of Gravity Falls but want it to be queer-er.
Mooncakes
Another queer graphic novel, but unfortunately not a very good one. It really looked appealing and I had high hopes, but the book itself really didnât hold up⌠I actually couldnât even finish it, the plot was just too⌠non-existent. The art is fairly mediocre once you actually look at it, especially backgrounds, and it feels very⌠placid. Not much conflict or excitement or even a very compelling reason to keep reading. If you just want a soft queer supernatural you may get more mileage out of it than me, but it didnât really do it for me. Thereâs better queer graphic novels out there.
New Boy In Town
One of the worst books I have ever read. My girlfriend had ordered a very different book online but through a frankly stupendous error was sent this 1980s pulp romance instead. Absolutely nauseating on levels I couldnât even begin to enumerate here. Naturally we read the whole thing out loud. Probably took us 10 times longer to finish than it warranted because I had to stop every two sentences to lose my mind. If you like bad decisions, baffling hetero courting rituals, built-in cultural Christianity without actually calling it that, and gold panning then boy howdy is this the book for you.
(seriously, you better have patience for gold-panning if you attempt this one, because I sure learn that I donât)
Piggies
This was a picture book I enjoyed as a kid and had a reason to reread recently. Honestly itâs just very cute and simple, and the art is completely mesmerizing. Wonderful if you know a young child that would enjoy a simple goofy boardbook.
Shaun the Sheep: Tales From Mossy Bottom
Related to my Aardman fascination earlier this month. I tried reading a varieties of Shaun the Sheep books â most of which are mediocre at best â but the Tales From Mossy Bottom Farm series is genuinely good. Just chapter books, of course, but the illustrations match the seriesâ concept art and each story feels like it could have jumped directly out of an episode. Theyâre just cute and feel-good! Kinda like Footrot Flats but more for kids, and from the sheepâs perspective moreso than the dogâs.
#aardman animation#shaun the sheep#lumberjanes#kid paddle#asterix#the last firehawk#hunger pangs: true love bites#marian engel#bear#canadian literature#canlit#queer lit#book review#book reviews#chatter
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âThe Hunchback of Notre Dameâ at 25: An Oral History of Disneyâs Darkest Animated Classic
Posted on Slashfilm on Monday, June 21st, 2021 by Josh Spiegel
âThis Is Going to Change Your Lifeâ
The future directors of The Hunchback of Notre Dame were riding high from the success of Beauty and the Beast. Or, at least, they were happy to be finished.
Gary Trousdale, director: After Beauty and the Beast, I was exhausted. Plus, Kirk and I were not entirely trusted at first, because we were novices. I was looking forward to going back to drawing.
Kirk Wise, director: It was this crazy, wonderful roller-coaster ride. I had all this vacation time and I took a couple months off.
Gary Trousdale: A little later, it was suggested: âIf you want to get back into directing, start looking for a project. You canât sit around doing nothing.â
Kirk Wise: [Songwriters] Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty had a pitch called Song of the Sea, a loose retelling of the Orpheus myth with humpback whales. I thought it was very strong.
Gary Trousdale: We were a few months in, and there was artwork and a rough draft. There were a couple tentative songs, and we were getting a head of steam.
Kirk Wise: The phone rang. It was Jeffrey [Katzenberg, then-chairman of Walt Disney Studios], saying, âDrop everything. I got your next picture: The Hunchback of Notre Dame.â
Gary Trousdale: âIâve already got Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. Youâre going to do this.â It wasnât like we were given a choice. It was, âHereâs the project. Youâre on.â
Kirk Wise: I was pleased that [Jeffrey] was so excited about it. I think the success of Beauty and the Beast had a lot to do with him pushing it our way. It wouldâve been crazy to say no.
Gary Trousdale: What [Kirk and I] didnât know is that Alan and Stephen were being used as bait for us. And Jeffrey was playing us as bait for Alan and Stephen.
Alan Menken, composer: Jeffrey made reference to it being Michael Eisnerâs passion project, which implied he was less enthused about it as a story source for an animated picture.
Stephen Schwartz, lyricist: They had two ideas. One was an adaptation of Hunchback and the other was about whales. We chose Hunchback. Iâd seen the [Charles Laughton] movie. Then I read the novel and really liked it.
Peter Schneider, president of Disney Feature Animation (1985-99): I think what attracted Stephen was the darkness. Oneâs lust for something and oneâs power and vengeance, and this poor, helpless fellow, Quasimodo.
Roy Conli, co-producer: I was working at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, doing new play development. I was asked if Iâd thought about producing animation. I said, âYeah, sure.â
Don Hahn, producer: The goose had laid lots of golden eggs. The studio was trying to create two units so they could have multiple films come out. Roy was tasked with something hard, to build a crew out of whole cloth.
Kirk Wise: The idea appealed to me because [of] the setting and main character. I worked with an elder story man, Joe Grant, [who] goes back to Snow White. He said, âSome of the best animation ideas are about a little guy with a big problem.â Hunchback fit that bill.
Gary Trousdale: Itâs a story I always liked. When Jeffrey said, âThis is going to change your life,â Kirk and I said, âCool.â When I was a kid, I [had an] Aurora Monster Model of Quasimodo lashed to the wheel. I thought, âHeâs not a monster.â
Don Hahn: Itâs a great piece of literature and it had a lot of elements I liked. The underdog hero. [He] was not a handsome prince. I loved the potential.
Gary Trousdale: We thought, âWhat are we going to do to make this dark piece of literature into a Disney cartoon without screwing it up?â
Peter Schneider: The subject matter is very difficult. The conflict was how far to go with it or not go with it. This is basically [about] a pederast who says âFuck me or youâll die.â Right?
âWe Were Able to Take More Chancesâ
Wise and Trousdale recruited a group of disparate artists from the States and beyond to bring the story of Quasimodo the bell-ringer to animated life.
Paul Brizzi, sequence director: We were freshly arrived from Paris.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi, sequence director: [The filmmakers] were looking for a great dramatic prologue, and they couldnât figure [it] out. Paul and I spent the better part of the night conceiving this prologue. They said, âYou have to storyboard it. We love it.â
Roy Conli: We had two amazing artists in Paul and GaĂŤtan Brizzi who became spiritual leaders in the production. They were so incredible.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: [âThe Bells of Notre Dameâ] was not supposed to be a song first.
Paul Brizzi: The prologue was traditional in the Disney way. GaĂŤtan and I were thinking of German expressionism to emphasize the drama. Iâm not sure we could do that today.
Paul Kandel, voice of Clopin: They were toying with Clopin being the narrator. So they wrote âThe Bells of Notre Dameâ to open the movie.
Stephen Schwartz: [Alan and I] got called into a presentation, and on all these boards [was] laid out âThe Bells of Notre Dame.â We musicalized the story they put up there. We used the pieces of dialogue they invented for Frollo and the other characters. I wrote lyrics that described the narrative. It was very exciting. I had never written a song like that.
Kirk Wise: Early on, we [took] a research trip with the core creative team to Paris. We spent two weeks all over Notre Dame. They gave us unrestricted access, going down into the catacombs. That was a huge inspiration.
Don Hahn: To crawl up in the bell towers and imagine Quasimodo there, to see the bells and the timbers, the scale of it all is unbelievable.
Kirk Wise: One morning, I was listening to this pipe organ in this shadowy cathedral, with light filtering through the stained-glass windows. The sound was so powerful, I could feel it thudding in my chest. I thought, âThis is what the movie needs to feel like.â
Brenda Chapman, story: It was fun to sit in a room and draw and think up stuff. I liked the idea of this lonely character up in a bell tower and how we could portray his imagination.
Kathy Zielinski, supervising animator, Frollo: It was the earliest Iâve ever started on a production. I was doing character designs for months. I did a lot of design work for the gargoyles, as a springboard for the other supervisors.
James Baxter, supervising animator, Quasimodo: Kirk and Gary said, âWeâd like you to do Quasimodo.â [I thought] that would be such a cool, amazing thing to do. They wanted this innocent vibe to him. Part of the design process was getting that part of his character to read.
Will Finn, head of story/supervising animator, Laverne: Kirk and Gary wanted me on the project. Kirk, Gary, and Don Hahn gave me opportunities no one else would have, and I am forever grateful.
Kathy Zielinski: I spent several months doing 50 or 60 designs [for Frollo]. I looked at villainous actors. Actually, one was Peter Schneider. [laughing] Not to say heâs a villain, but a lot of the mannerisms and poses. âOh, that looks a little like Peter.â
James Baxter: I was doing design work on the characters with Tony Fucile, the animator on Esmerelda. I think Kirk and Gary felt Beauty and the Beast had been disparate and the characters werenât as unified as they wanted.
Kathy Zielinski: Frollo stemmed from Hans Conried [the voice of Disneyâs Captain Hook]. He had a longish nose and a very stern-looking face. Frollo was modeled a little bit after him.
Will Finn: The team they put together was a powerhouse group â Brenda Chapman, Kevin Harkey, Ed Gombert, and veterans like Burny Mattinson and Vance Gerry. I felt funny being their âsupervisor.â
Kathy Zielinski: Half my crew was in France, eight hours ahead. We were able to do phone calls. But because of the time difference, our end of the day was their beginning of the morning. I was working a lot of late hours, because [Frollo] was challenging to draw.
Kirk Wise: Our secret weapon was James Baxter, who animated the ballroom sequence [in Beauty and the Beast] on his own. He had a unique gift of rotating characters in three-dimensional space perfectly.
Gary Trousdale: James Baxter is, to my mind, one of the greatest living animators in the world.
James Baxter: Iâve always enjoyed doing things that were quite elaborate in terms of camera movement and three-dimensional space. Iâm a glutton for punishment, because those shots are very hard to do.
Gary Trousdale: In the scene with Quasimodo carrying Esmeralda over his shoulder, climbing up the cathedral, he looks back under his arms, snarling at the crowd below. James called that his King Kong moment.
As production continued, Roy Conliâs position shifted, as Don Hahn joined the project, and Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney in heated fashion in 1994.
Roy Conli: Jeffrey was going to create his own animation studio. Peter Schneider was interested in maintaining a relationship with Don Hahn. We were into animation, ahead of schedule. They asked Don if he would produce and if I would run the studio in Paris.
Don Hahn: Roy hadnât done an animated film before. I was able to be a more senior presence. Iâd worked with Kirk and Gary before, which I enjoy. Theyâre unsung heroes of these movies.
Kirk Wise: The [production] pace was more leisurely. As leisurely as these things can be. We had more breathing room to develop the storyboards and the script and the songs.
Gary Trousdale: Jeffrey never liked characters to have facial hair. No beards, no mustaches, nothing. Thereâs original designs of Gaston [with] a little Errol Flynn mustache. Jeffrey hated it. âI donât want any facial hair.â Once he left, we were like, âWe could give [Phoebus] a beard now.â
Kirk Wise: The ballroom sequence [in Beauty] gave us confidence to incorporate more computer graphics into Hunchback. We [had] to create the illusion of a throng of thousands of cheering people. To do it by hand would have been prohibitive, and look cheap.
Stephen Schwartz: Michael Eisner started being more hands-on. Michael was annoyed at me for a while, because when Jeffrey left, I accepted the job of doing the score for Prince of Egypt. I got fired from Mulan because of it. But once he fired me, Michael couldnât have been a more supportive, positive colleague on Hunchback.
Kirk Wise: [The executives] were distracted. We were able to take more chances than we would have under the circumstances that we made Beauty and the Beast.
Don Hahn: Hunchback was in a league of its own, feeling like we [could] step out and take some creative risks. We could have done princess movies forever, and been reasonably successful. Our long-term survival relied on trying those risks.
One sticking point revolved around Notre Dameâs gargoyles, three of whom interact with Quasimodo, but feel more lighthearted than the rest of the dark story.
Gary Trousdale: In the book and several of the movies, Quasimodo talks to the gargoyles. We thought, âThis is Disney, weâre doing a cartoon. The gargoyles can talk back.â One thing led to another and weâve got âA Guy Like You.â
Kirk Wise: âA Guy Like Youâ was literally created so we could lighten the mood so the audience wasnât sitting in this trough of despair for so long.
Stephen Schwartz: Out of context, the number is pretty good. I think I wrote some funny lyrics. But ultimately it was a step too far tonally for the movie and it has been dropped from the stage version.
Gary Trousdale: People have been asking for a long time: are they real? Are they part of Quasimodoâs personality? There were discussions that maybe Quasimodo is schizophrenic. We never definitively answered it, and can argue convincingly both ways.
Jason Alexander, voice of Hugo: I wouldnât dream of interfering with anyoneâs choice on that. Itâs ambiguous for a reason and part of that reason is the viewersâ participation in the answer. Whatever you believe about it, Iâm going to say youâre right.
Brenda Chapman: I left before they landed on how [to play] the gargoyles. My concern was, what are the rules? Are they real? Are they in his imagination? What can they do? Can they do stuff or is it all Quasi? I looked at it a little askance in the finished film. I wasnât sure if I liked how it ended upâŚ[Laverne] with the boa on the piano.
Kirk Wise: There was a component of the audience that felt the gargoyles were incompatible with Hunchback. But all of Disneyâs movies, including the darkest ones, have comic-relief characters. And Disney was the last person to treat the written word as gospel.
âA Fantastic Opportunityâ
After a successful collaboration on Pocahontas, Menken and Schwartz worked on turning Victor Hugoâs tragic story into a musical.
Alan Menken: The world of the story was very appealing, and it had so much social relevance and cultural nuance.
Stephen Schwartz: The story lent itself quite well to musicalization because of the extremity of the characters and the emotions. There was a lot to sing about. There was a great milieu.
Alan Menken: To embed the liturgy of the Catholic Church into a piece of music thatâs operatic and also classical and pop-oriented enriches it in a very original way. Stephen was amazing. He would take the theme from the story and specifically set it in Latin to that music.
Stephen Schwartz: The fact that we were doing a piece set in a church allowed us to use all those elements of the Catholic mass, and for Alan to do all that wonderful choral music.
Alan Menken: The first creative impulse was âOut There.â Iâm a craftsman. Iâm working towards a specific assignment, but that was a rare instance where that piece of music existed.
Stephen Schwartz: I would come in with a title, maybe a couple of lines for Alan to be inspired by. We would talk about the whole unit, its job from a storytelling point of view. He would write some music. I could say, âI liked that. Letâs follow that.â Heâd push a button and there would be a sloppy printout, enough that I could play it as I was starting the lyrics.
Roy Conli: Stephenâs lyrics are absolutely phenomenal. With that as a guiding light, we were in really good shape.
Stephen Schwartz: Alan played [the âOut Thereâ theme] for me, and I really liked it. I asked for one change in the original chorus. Other than that, the music was exactly as he gave it to me.
Gary Trousdale: Talking with these guys about music is always intimidating. There was one [lyric] Don and I both questioned in âOut There,â when Frollo is singing, âWhy invite their calumny and consternation?â Don and I went, âCalumny?â Kirk said, âNope, itâs OK, I saw it in an X-Men comic book.â I went, âAll right! Itâs in a comic book! Itâs good.â
Stephen Schwartz: Disney made it possible for me to get into Notre Dame before it opened to the public. Iâd climb up the steps to the bell tower. Iâd sit there with my yellow pad and pencil. Iâd have the tune for âOut Thereâ in my head, and I would look out at Paris, and be Quasimodo. By the time we left Paris, the song was written.
Kirk Wise: Stephenâs lyrics are really smart and literate. I donât think the comical stuff was necessarily [his] strongest area. But this movie was a perfect fit, because the power of the emotions were so strong. Stephen just has a natural ability to connect with that.
Will Finn: The directors wanted a funny song for the gargoyles and Stephen was not eager to write it. He came to me and Irene Mecchi and asked us to help him think of comedy ideas for âA Guy Like You,â and we pitched a bunch of gags.
Jason Alexander: Singing with an orchestra the likes of which Alan and Stephen and Disney can assemble is nirvana. Itâs electrifying and gives you the boost to sing over and over. Fortunately, everyone was open to discovery. I love nuance and intention in interpretation. I was given wonderful freedom to find both.
Stephen Schwartz: âTopsy Turvy,â itâs one of those numbers of musical theater where you can accomplish an enormous amount of storytelling. If you didnât have that, youâd feel you were drowning in exposition. When you put it in the context of the celebration of the Feast of Fools, you could get a lot of work done.
Paul Kandel: The first time I sang [âTopsy Turvyâ] through, I got a little applause from the orchestra. That was a very nice thing to happen and calm me down a little bit.
Brenda Chapman: Poor Kevin Harkey mustâve worked on âTopsy Turvyâ for over a year. Just hearing [singing] âTopsy turvy!â I thought, âI would shoot myself.â Itâs a fun song, but to listen to that, that many times. I donât know if he ever got to work on anything else.
Paul Kandel: There were places where I thought the music was squarer than it needed to be. I wanted to round it out because Clopin is unpredictable. Is he good? Is he bad? Thatâs what I was trying to edge in there.
Kirk Wise: âGod Help the Outcastsâ made Jeffrey restless. I think he wanted âMemoryâ from Cats. Alan and Stephen wrote âSomeday.â Jeffrey said, âThis is good, but it needs to be bigger!â Alan was sitting at his piano bench, and Jeffrey was next to him. Jeffrey said, âWhen I want it bigger, Iâll nudge you.â Alan started playing and Jeffrey was jabbing him in the ribs. âBigger, bigger!â
Don Hahn: In terms of what told the story better, one song was poetic, but the other was specific. âOutcastsâ was very specific about Quasimodo. âSomedayâ was âSomewhere Over the Rainbow.â
Kirk Wise: When Don watched the movie, he said, âItâs working pretty well. But âSomeday,â I donât know. It feels like sheâs yelling at God.â We played âGod Help the Outcastsâ for him and Don said, âOh, this is perfect.â That song is the signature of the entire movie.
Don Hahn: âSomedayâ was lovely. But I had come off of working with Howard Ashman, and I felt, âThis doesnât move the plot forward much, does it?â We ended up with âSomedayâ as an end-credits song, which was fortunate. âCause theyâre both good songs.
Kirk Wise: It was all about what conveys the emotion of the scene and the central theme of the movie best. âGod Help the Outcastsâ did that.
Everyone agrees on one point.
Stephen Schwartz: Hunchback is Alanâs best score. And thatâs saying a lot, because heâs written a whole bunch of really good ones.
Gary Trousdale: With Hunchback, there were a couple of people that said, âThis is why I chose music as a career.â Alan and Stephenâs songs are so amazing, so thatâs really something.
Paul Kandel: It has a beautiful score.
Jason Alexander: It has the singularly most sophisticated score of most of the animated films of that era.
Roy Conli: The score of Hunchback is one of the greatest weâve done.
Don Hahn: This is Alanâs most brilliant score. The amount of gravitas Alan put in the score is amazing.
Alan Menken: Itâs the most ambitious score Iâve ever written. It has emotional depth. Itâs a different assignment. And it was the project where awards stopped happening. Itâs almost like, âOK, now youâve gone too far.â
Stephen Schwartz: Itâs astonishing that Alan has won about 173 Academy Awards, and the one score he did not win for is his best score.
The film featured marquee performers singing covers of âGod Help the Outcastsâ and âSomedayâ. But one of the most famous performers ever nearly brought those songs to life.
Alan Menken: I met Michael Jackson when we were looking for someone to sing âA Whole New Worldâ for Aladdin. Michael wanted to co-write the song. I could get a sense of who Michael was. He was a very unique, interesting individualâŚin his own world.
I get a call out of nowhere from Michaelâs assistant, when Michael was at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York. He had to [deal with] allegations about inappropriate behavior with underage kids, and the breakup with Lisa Marie Presley. Heâs looking to change the subject. And he obviously loves Disney so much. So I mentioned Hunchback. He said heâd love to come to my studio, watch the movie and talk about it. So we got in touch with Disney Animation. They said, âMeet with him! If he likes itâŚwell, see what he says.â [laughing]
Thereâs three songs. One was âOut There,â one was âGod Help the Outcasts,â one was âSomeday.â Michael said, âI would like to produce the songs and record some of them.â Wow. Okay. What do we do now? Michael left. We got in touch with Disney. It was like somebody dropped a hot poker into a fragile bowl with explosives. âUh, weâll get back to you about that.â
Finally, predictably, the word came back, âDisney doesnât want to do this with Michael Jackson.â I go, âOK, could someone tell him this?â You can hear a pin drop, no response, and nobody did [tell him]. It fell to my late manager, Scott Shukat, to tell Michael or Michaelâs attorney.
In retrospect, it was the right decision. [But] Quasimodo is a characterâŚif you look at his relationships with his family and his father, I would think thereâs a lot of identification there.
âTheyâre Never Going to Do This Kind of Character Againâ
The film is known for the way it grapples with the hypocrisy and lust typified by the villainous Judge Frollo, whose terrifying song âHellfireâ remains a high point of Disney animation.
Gary Trousdale: Somebody asked me recently: âHow the hell did you get âHellfireâ past Disney?â Itâs a good question.
Alan Menken: When Stephen and I wrote âHellfire,â I was so excited by what we accomplished. It really raised the bar for Disney animation. It raised the bar for Stephenâs and my collaboration.
Stephen Schwartz: I thought the would never let me get away with [âHellfireâ]. And they never asked for a single change.
Alan Menken: Lust and religious conflict. Now more than ever, these are very thorny issues to put in front of the Disney audience. We wanted to go at it as truthfully as possible.
Stephen Schwartz: When Alan and I tackled âHellfire,â I did what I usually did: write what I thought it should be and assume that [Disney would] tell me what I couldnât get away with. But they accepted exactly what we wrote.
Don Hahn: Every good song score needs a villainâs moment. Stephen and Alan approached it with âHellfire.â
Alan Menken: It was very clear, weâd thrown the gauntlet pretty far. It was also clear within our creative team that everybody was excited about going there.
Don Hahn: You use all the tools in your toolkit, and one of the most powerful ones was Alan and Stephen. Stephen can be dark, but heâs also very funny. Heâs brilliant.
Gary Trousdale: The [MPAA] said, âWhen Frollo says âThis burning desire is turning me to sin,â we donât like the word âsin.ââ We canât change the lyrics now. Itâs all recorded. Kinda tough. âWhat if we just dip the volume of the word âsinâ and increase the sound effects?â They said, âGood.â
Stephen Schwartz: Itâs one of the most admirable things [laughs] I have ever seen Disney Animation do. It was very supportive and adventurous, which is a spirit thatâŚletâs just say, I donât think [the company would] make this movie today.
Don Hahn: Itâs funny. Violence is far more accepted than sex in a family movie. You can go see a Star Wars movie and the body countâs pretty huge, but thereâs rarely any sexual innuendo.
Kathy Zielinski: I got to watch [Tony Jay] record âHellfireâ with another actor. I was sweating watching him record, because it was unbelievably intense. Afterwards, he asked me, âDid you learn anything from my performance?â I said, âYeah, I never want to be a singer.â [laughing]
Paul Kandel: Tony Jay knocked that out of the park. He [was] an incredible guy. Very sweet. He was terrified to record âHellfire.â He was at a couple of my sessions. He went, âOh my God, whatâs going to happen when itâs my turn? I donât sing. Iâm not a singer. I never pretended to be a singer.â I said, âLook, Iâm not a singer. Iâm an actor who figured out that they could hold a tune.â
Kathy Zielinski: I listened to Tony sing âHellfireâ tons. I knew I had gone too far when, one morning, we were sitting at the breakfast table and my daughter, who was two or three at the time, started singing the song and doing the mannerisms. [laughs]
Don Hahn: We didnât literally want to show [Frolloâs lust]. It turns into a Fantasia sequence, almost. A lot of the imagery is something you could see coming out of Frolloâs imagination. Itâs very impressionistic. It does stretch the boundaries of what had been done before at Disney.
Kirk Wise: We stylized it like âNight on Bald Mountain.â The best of Waltâs films balanced very dark and light elements. Instead of making it explicit, we tried to make it more visual and use symbolic imagery.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: We were totally free. We could show symbolically how sick Frollo is between his hate and his carnal desire.
Kathy Zielinski: The storyboards had a tremendous influence. Everybody was incredibly admiring of the work that [Paul and GaĂŤtan] had done.
Don Hahn: They brought the storyboarded sequence to life in a way that is exactly what the movie looks like. The strength of it is that we didnât have to show anything as much as we did suggest things to the audience. Give the audience credit for filling in the blanks.
Gary Trousdale: It was absolutely gorgeous. Their draftsmanship and their cinematography. They are the top. They pitched it with a cassette recording of Stephen singing âHellfireâ, and we were all in the story room watching it, going âOh shit!â
Paul Brizzi: When Frollo is at the fireplace with Esmeraldaâs scarf, his face is hypnotized. From the smoke, thereâs the silhouette of Esmeralda coming to him. Sheâs naked in our drawings.
Gary Trousdale: We joked, maybe because theyâre French, Esmeralda was in the nude when she was in the fire. Roy Disney put his foot down and said, âThatâs not going to happen.â Chris Jenkins, the head of effects, and I went over every drawing to make sure she was appropriately attired. That was the one concession we made to the studio.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: Itâs the role of storyboard artists to go far, and then you scale it down. Her body was meant to be suggestive. It was more poetic than provocative.
Brenda Chapman: I thought what the Brizzis did with âHellfireâ was just stunning.
Roy Conli: We make films for people from four to 104, and weâre trying to ensure that the thematic material engages adults and engages children. We had a lot of conversations on âHellfire,â [which] was groundbreaking. You saw the torment, but you didnât necessarily, if you were a kid, read it as sexual. And if you were an adult, you picked it up pretty well.
Will Finn: âHellfireâ was uncomfortable to watch with a family audience. Iâm not a prude, but what are small kids to make of such a scene?
Kathy Zielinski: When I was working on âHellfire,â I thought, âWow. Theyâre never going to do this kind of character again.â And Iâm pretty much right.
âStraight for the Heartâ
âHellfireâ may be the apex of the maturity of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but the entire film is the most complex and adult Disney animated feature of the modern era.
Gary Trousdale: We went straight for the heart and then pulled back.
Kirk Wise: I was comfortable with moments of broad comedy contrasted with moments that were dark or scary or violent. All of the Disney movies did that, particularly in Waltâs time.
Don Hahn: A lot of it is gut level, where [the story group would] sit around and talk to ourselves and pitch it to executives. But Walt Disneyâs original animated films were really dark. We wanted to create something that had the impact of what animation can do.
Will Finn: Eisner insisted we follow the book to the letter, but he said the villain could not be a priest, and we had to have a happy ending. The book is an epic tragedy â everybody dies!
Kathy Zielinski: Itâs a little scary that I felt comfortable with [Frollo]. [laughing] I donât know what that means. Maybe I need to go to therapy. Iâve always had a desire to do villains. I just love evil.
Don Hahn: Kathy Zielinski is brilliant. She works on The Simpsons now, which is hilarious. Sheâs very intense, very aware of what [Frollo] had to do.
One specific choice in the relationship between Frollo and Esmeralda caused problems.
Stephen Schwartz: I remember there was great controversy over Frollo sniffing Esmeraldaâs hair.
Kirk Wise: The scene that caused the most consternation was in the cathedral where Frollo grabs Esmeralda, whispers in her ear and sniffs her hair. The sniffing made people ask, âIs this too far?â We got a lot of support from Peter Schneider, Tom Schumacher, and Michael Eisner.
Kathy Zielinski: Brenda Chapman came up with that idea and the storyboard. I animated it. Itâs interesting, because two females were responsible for that. That scene was problematic, so they had to cut it down. It used to be a lot longer.
Brenda Chapman: I know Iâm probably pushing it too far, but letâs give it a go, you know?
Kirk Wise: We agreed it was going to be a matter of execution and our collective gut would tell us whether we were crossing the line. We learned that the difference between a G and PG is the loudness of a sniff. Ultimately, thatâs what it came down to.
Brenda Chapman: I never knew that! [laughing]
Don Hahn: Is it rated G? Thatâs surprising.
Gary Trousdale: Iâm sure there was backroom bargaining done that Kirk and I didnât know about.
Don Hahn: Itâs negotiation. The same was true of The Lion King. We had intensity notes on the fight at the end. You either say, weâre going to live with that and itâs PG, or weâre not and itâs G.
Brenda Chapman: I heard stories of little kids going, âEwww, heâs rubbing his boogers in her hair!â [laughing] If thatâs what they want to think, thatâs fine. But there are plenty of adults that went, âWhoa!â
Don Hahn: You make the movies for yourselves, [but] we all have families, and you try to make something thatâs appropriate for that audience. So we made some changes. Frollo isnât a member of the clergy to take out any politicizing.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: We developed the idea of Frolloâs racism against the gypsies. To feel that he desires Esmeralda and he wants to kill her. It was ambiguity that was interesting to develop. In the storyboards, Paul made [Frollo] handsome with a big jaw, a guy with class. They said he was too handsome. We had to break that formula.
Stephen Schwartz: I [and others] said, âIt doesnât make any sense for him to not be the Archdeacon, because whatâs he doing with Quasimodo? What possible relationship could they have?â Which is what led to the backstory that became âThe Bells of Notre Dame.â
Don Hahn: The things Frollo represents are alive and well in the world. Bigotry and prejudice are human traits and always have been. One of his traits was lust. How do you portray that in a Disney movie? We tried to portray that in a way that might be over kidsâ heads and may not give them nightmares necessarily, but itâs not going to pull its punches. So it was a fine line.
Stephen Schwartz: Hugoâs novel is not critical of the church the way a lot of French literature is. It creates this character of Frollo, whoâs a deeply hypocritical person and tormented by his hypocrisy.
Peter Schneider: I am going to be controversial. I think it failed. The fundamental basis is problematic, if youâre going to try and do a Disney movie. In [light of] the #MeToo movement, you couldnât still do the movie and try what we tried to do. As much as we tried to soften it, you couldnât get away from the fundamental darkness.
Don Hahn: Yeah, that sounds like Peter. Heâs always the contrarian.
Peter Schneider: Iâm not sure we should have made the movie, in retrospect. I mean, it did well, Kirk and Gary did a beautiful job. The voices are beautiful. The songs are lovely, but Iâm not sure we should have made the movie.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: The hardest part was to stick to the commercial side of the movieâŚto make sure we were still addressing kids.
Kirk Wise: We knew it was going to be a challenge to honor the source material while delivering a movie that would fit comfortably on the shelf with the other Disney musicals. We embraced it.
Roy Conli: I donât think it was too mature. I do find it at times slightly provocative, but not in a judgmental or negative way. I stand by the film 100 percent in sending a message of hope.
Peter Schneider: It never settled its tone. If you look at the gargoyles and bringing in Jason Alexander to try and give comedy to this rather bleak story of a judge keeping a deformed young man in the towerâŚthereâs so many icky factors for a Disney movie.
Jason Alexander: Some children might be frightened by Quasiâs look or not be able to understand the complexity. But what we see is an honest, innocent and capable underdog confront his obstacles and naysayers and emerge triumphant, seen and accepted. I think young people rally to those stories. They can handle the fearsome and celebrate the good.
Brenda Chapman: There was a scene where Frollo was locking Quasimodo in the tower, and Quasi was quite upset. I had to pull back from how cruel Frollo was in that moment, if Iâm remembering correctly. I wanted to make him a very human monster, which can be scarier than a real monster.
Roy Conli: We walked such a tight line and we were on the edge and the fact that Disney allowed us to be on the edge was a huge tribute to them.
âHear the Voiceâ
The story was set, the songs were ready. All that was left was getting a cast together to bring the charactersâ voices to life.
Jason Alexander: Disney, Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz, Victor Hugo â you had me at hello.
Paul Kandel: I was in Tommy, on Broadway. I was also a Tony nominee. So I had those prerequisites. Then I got a call from my agent that Jeffrey Katzenberg decided he wanted a star. I was out of a job I already had. I said, âI want to go back in and audition again.â I wanted to let them choose between me and whoever had a name that would help sell the film. So that series of auditions went on and I got the job back.
Kirk Wise: Everybody auditioned, with the exception of Kevin Kline and Demi Moore. We went to them with an offer. But we had a few people come in for Quasimodo, including Meat Loaf.
Will Finn: Katzenberg saw Meat Loaf and Cher playing Quasimodo and Esmeralda â more of a rock opera. He also wanted Leno, Letterman, and Arsenio as the gargoyles at one point.
Kirk Wise: Meat Loaf sat with Alan and rehearsed the song. It was very different than what we ended up with, because Meat Loaf has a very distinct sound. Ultimately, I think his record company and Disney couldnât play nice together, and the deal fell apart.
Gary Trousdale: We all had the drawings of the characters we were currently casting for in front of us. Instead of watching the actor, weâd be looking down at the piece of paper, trying to hear that voice come out of the drawing. And it was, we learned, a little disconcerting for some of the actors and actresses, who would put on hair and makeup and clothes and theyâve got their body language and expressions. We just want to hear the voice.
Kirk Wise: We cast Cyndi Lauper as one of the gargoyles. We thought she was hilarious and sweet. The little fat obnoxious gargoyle had a different name, and was going to be played by Sam McMurray. We had Cyndi and Sam record, and Roy Disney hated it. The quality of Cyndiâs voice and Samâs voice were extremely grating to his ear. This is no disrespect to them â Cyndi Lauper is amazing. And Sam McMurray is very funny. But it was not working for the people in the room on that day.
Jason Alexander: The authors cast you for a reason â they think theyâve heard a voice in you that fits their character. I always try to look at the image of the character â his shape, his size, his energy and start to allow sounds, pitches, vocal tics to emerge. Then everyone kicks that around, nudging here, tweaking there and within a few minutes you have the approach to the vocalization. Itâs not usually a long process, but it is fun.
Kirk Wise: We decided to reconceive the gargoyles. We always knew we wanted three of them. We wanted a Laurel and Hardy pair. The third gargoyle, the female gargoyle, was up in the air. I think it was Will Finn who said, âWhy donât we make her older?â As the wisdom-keeper. That led us to Mary Wickes, who was absolutely terrific. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Mary, and 98% of the dialogue is her. But she sadly passed away before we were finished.
Will Finn: We brought in a ton of voice-over actresses and none sounded like Mary. One night, I woke up thinking about Jane Withers, who had been a character actress in the golden age of Hollywood. She had a similar twang in her voice, and very luckily, she was alive and well.
Kirk Wise: Our first session with Kevin Kline went OK, but something was missing. It just didnât feel like there was enough of a twinkle in his voice. Roy Conli said, âGuys, heâs an actor. Give him a prop.â For the next session, the supervising animator for Phoebus brought in a medieval broadsword. Before the session started, we said âKevin, weâve got a present for you.â We brought out this sword, and he lit up like a kid at Christmas. He would gesture with it and lean on it. Roy found the key there.
Gary Trousdale: Kevin Kline is naturally funny, so we may have [written] some funnier lines for him. When heâs sparring with Esmeralda in the cathedral and he gets hit by the goat. âI didnât know you had a kid,â which is the worst line ever. But he pulls it off. He had good comic timing.
Kirk Wise: Tom Hulce had a terrific body of work, including Amadeus. But the performance that stuck with me was in Dominic and Eugene. There was a sensitivity and emotional reality to that performance that made us lean in and think he might make a good Quasimodo.
Gary Trousdale: [His voice] had a nice mix of youthful and adult. He had a maturity, but he had an innocence as well. Weâre picturing Quasimodo as a guy whoâs basically an innocent. It was a quality of his voice that we could hear.
Don Hahn: Heâs one of those actors who could perform and act while he sang. Solo songs, especially for Quasimodo, are monologues set to music. So youâre looking for someone who can portray all the emotion of the scene. Itâs about performance and storytelling, and creating a character while youâre singing. Thatâs why Tom rose to the top.
Stephen Schwartz: I thought Tom did great. I had known Tom a little bit beforehand, as an actor in New York. Iâd seen him do Equus and I was sort of surprised. I just knew him as an actor in straight plays. I didnât know that he sang at all, and then it turned out that he really sang.
Paul Kandel: [Tom] didnât think of himself as a singer. Heâs an actor who can sing. âOut There,â his big number â whether heâs going to admit it to you or not â that was scary for him. But a beautiful job.
Brenda Chapman: Quasimodo was the key to make it family-friendly. Tom Hulce did such a great job making him appealing.
Kirk Wise: Gary came back with the audiotape of Tomâs first session. And his first appearance with the little bird, where he asks if the bird is ready to flyâŚthat whole scene was his rehearsal tape. His instincts were so good. He just nailed it. I think he was surprised that we went with that take. It was the least overworked and the most spontaneous, and felt emotionally real to us.
Kathy Zielinski: Early on, they wanted Anthony Hopkins to do the voice [of Frollo]. [We] did an animation test with a line of his from Silence of the Lambs.
Kirk Wise: We were thinking of Hannibal Lecter in the earliest iterations of Frollo. They made an offer, but Hopkins passed. We came full circle to Tony, because it had been such a good experience working with him on Beauty and the Beast. It was the combination of the quality of his voice, the familiarity of working with him, and knowing how professional and sharp he was.
Though the role of Quasimodo went to Tom Hulce (who did not respond to multiple requests for comment), there was one audition those involved havenât forgotten.
Kirk Wise: We had a few people come in for Quasimodo, including Mandy Patinkin.
Stephen Schwartz: That was a difficult day. [laughing]
Kirk Wise: Mandy informed Alan and Stephen that he brought his own accompanist, which was unexpected because we had one in the room. He had taken a few liberties with [âOut Thereâ]. He had done a little rearranging. You could see Alanâs and Stephenâs spines stiffen. It was not the feel that Alan and Stephen were going for. Stephen pretty much said so in the room. I think his words were a little sharper and more pointed than mine.
Stephen Schwartz: Iâve never worked with Mandy Patinkin. But I admired Evita and Sunday in the Park with George. He came in to audition for Quasimodo. When I came in, Ben Vereen was sitting in the hallway. Ben is a friend of mine and kind of a giant star. I felt we should be polite in terms of bringing him in relatively close to the time for which he was called.
Mandy took a long time with his audition, and asked to do it over and over again. If youâre Mandy Patinkin, you should have enough time scheduled to feel you were able to show what you wanted to show. However, that amount of time was not scheduled. At a certain point, I became a bit agitated because I knew Ben was sitting there, cooling his heels. I remember asking [to] move along or something. That created a huge contretemps.
Kirk Wise: Gary and I stepped outside to work on a dialogue scene with Mandy. As we were explaining the scene and our take on the character, Mandy threw up his hands and said, âGuys, Iâm really sorry. I canât do this.â He turned on his heel and went into the rehearsal hall and shut the door. We started hearing an intense argument. He basically went in and read Alan and Stephen the riot act. The door opens, smoke issuing from the crater that he left inside. Mandy storms out, and heâs gone. We step back in the room, asking, âWhat the hell happened?â
Gary Trousdale: I did a drawing of it afterwards. The Patinkin Incident.
Stephen Schwartz: Battleship Patinkin!
âJoin the Partyâ
The darkness in the film made it difficult to market. Even some involved acknowledged the issue. In the run-up to release, Jason Alexander said to Entertainment Weekly, âDisney would have us believe this movieâs like the Ringling Bros., for children of all ages. But I wonât be taking my 4-year old. I wouldnât expose him to it, not for another year.â
Alan Menken: There was all the outrage about Jason Alexander referring to it as a dark story thatâs not for kids. Probably Disney wasnât happy he said that.
Jason Alexander: Most Disney animated films are entertaining and engaging for any child with an attention span. All of them have elements that are frightening. But people are abused in Hunchback. These are people, not cute animals. Some children could be overwhelmed by some of it at a very young age. My son at the time could not tolerate any sense of dread in movies so it would have been hard for him. However, that is certainly not all children.
Don Hahn: I donât think Jason was wrong. People have to decide for themselves. It probably wasnât a movie for four-year olds. You as a parent know your kid better than I do.
If everyone agrees the score is excellent, they also agree on something that was not.
Alan Menken: God knows we couldnât control how Disney marketing dealt with the movie, which was a parade with Quasimodo on everybodyâs shoulders going, âJoin the party.â [laughing]
Roy Conli: I always thought âAnimation comes of ageâ would be a great [tagline]. I think the marketing ended up, âJoin the party.â
Brenda Chapman: Marketing had it as this big party. And then you get into the story and thereâs all this darkness. I think audiences were not expecting that, if they didnât know the original story.
Kathy Zielinski: It was a hard movie for Disney to merchandise and sell to the public.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: People must have been totally surprised by the dramatic sequences. The advertising was not reflecting what the movie was about.
Stephen Schwartz: To this day, they just donât know how to market âDisneyâs Hunchback of Notre Dame.â I understand what their quandary is. They have developed a brand that says, âIf you see the word Disney on something, it means you can take your 6-year old.â You probably shouldnât even take your 8-year old, unless he or she is very mature, to Hunchback.
Alan Menken: We [Disney] had such a run of successful projects. It was inevitable there was going to be a time where people said, âIâve seen all those, but what else is out there?â I had that experience sitting at a diner with my family, overhearing a family talk about Hunchback and say, âOh yeah, we saw Beauty and Aladdin, but this oneâŚletâs see something else.â
Stephen Schwartz: I did have a sense that some in the critical community didnât know how to reconcile animation and an adult approach. They have the same attitude some critics have about musicals. âItâs fine if itâs tap-dancing and about silly subjects. But if itâs something that has intellectual import, you canât do that.â Obviously we have Hamilton and Sweeney Todd and Wicked. Over the years, thatâs changed to some extent, but not for everybody.
Roy Conli: Every film is not a Lion King. [But] if that story has legs and will touch people, then youâve succeeded.
Kirk Wise: We were a little disappointed in its initial weekend. It didnât do as well as we hoped. We were also disappointed in the critical reaction. It was well-reviewed, but more mixed. Roger Ebert loved us. The New York Times hated us! I felt whipsawed. It was the same critic [Janet Maslin] who praised Beauty and the Beast to the high heavens. She utterly shat on Hunchback.
Don Hahn: We had really good previews, but we also knew it was out of the box creatively. We were also worried about the French and we were worried about the handicapped community and those were the two communities that supported the movie the most.
Will Finn: I knew we were in trouble when the first trailers played and audiences laughed at Quasimodo singing âOut Thereâ on the roof.
Kirk Wise: All of us were proud of the movie on an artistic level. In terms of animation and backgrounds and music and the use of the camera and the performances. Itâs the entire studio operating at its peak level of performance, as far as Iâm concerned.
Gary Trousdale: I didnât think people were going to have such a negative reaction to the gargoyles. Theyâre a little silly. And they do undercut the gravity. But speaking with friends who were kids at the time, they have nothing but fond memories. There were adults, high school age and older when they saw it, they were turned off. We thought it was going to do really great. We thought, âWeâre topping ourselves.â Itâs a sophisticated story and the music is amazing.
Kirk Wise: The 2D animated movies used to be released before Christmas [or] Thanksgiving. The Lion King changed that. Now everything was a summer release. I always questioned the wisdom of releasing Hunchback in the summertime, in competition with other blockbusters.
Paul Kandel: It made $300 million and it cost $80 million to make. So they were not hurting as far as profits were concerned. But I thought it was groundbreaking in so many ways that I was surprised at the mixed reviews.
Kirk Wise: By most measures, it was a hit. I think The Lion King spoiled everybody, because [it] was such a phenomenon, a bolt from the blue, not-to-be-repeated kind of event.
Gary Trousdale: We were getting mixed reviews. Some of them were really good. âThis is a stunning masterpiece.â And other people were saying, âThis is a travesty.â And the box office was coming in, not as well as hoped.
Don Hahn: I was in Argentina doing South American press. I got a call from Peter Schneider, who said, âItâs performing OK, but itâs probably going to hit 100 million.â Which, for any other moviemaker, would be a goldmine. But weâd been used to huge successes. I was disappointed.
Peter Schneider: I think it was a hit, right? It just wasnât the same. As they say in the theater, you donât set out to make a failure.
Don Hahn: If youâre the New York Yankees, and youâve had a winning season where you could not lose, and then people hit standup singles instead of home runsâŚthatâs OK. But it has this aura of disappointment. Thatâs the feeling thatâs awful to have, because itâs selfish. Animation is an art, and the arts are meant to be without a price tag hanging off of them all the time.
Paul Brizzi: We are still grateful to Kirk and Gary and Don. We worked on [Hunchback] for maybe a year or a year and a half. Every sequence, we did with passion.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: Our work on Hunchback was a triumph of our career.
Kathy Zielinski: There are certainly a whole crowd of people who wish we had not [done] the comedy, because that wasnât faithful. Thatâs the main complaint I heard â we shouldâve gone for this total dramatic piece and not worried about the kiddies.
Gaetan Brizzi: The only concern we had was the lack of homogeneity. The drama was really strong, and the [comedy] was sometimes a little bit goofy. It was a paradox. When you go from âHellfireâ to a big joke, the transition was not working well. Otherwise, we were very proud.
James Baxter: We were happy with what we did, but we understood it was going to be a slightly harder sell. The Hunchback of Notre Dame usually doesnât engender connotations like, âOh, thatâs going to be a Disney classic.â I was very happy that it did as well as it did.
Jason Alexander: I thought it was even more mature and emotional on screen. It was an exciting maturation of what a Disney animated feature could be. I was impressed and touched.
âAn Undersung Heroâ
25 years later, The Hunchback of Notre Dame endures. The animated film inspired an even darker stage show that played both domestically and overseas, and in recent years, there have been rumors that Josh Gad would star as Quasimodo in a live-action remake.
Alan Menken: I think itâs a project that with every passing year will more and more become recognized as a really important part of my career.
Stephen Schwartz: This will be immodest, but I think itâs a really fine adaptation. I think itâs the best musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel, and there have been a lot. I think the music is just unbelievably good. I think, as a lyricist, I was working at pretty much the top of my form. I have so many people telling me itâs their favorite Disney film.
Alan Menken: During the pandemic, there was this hundred-piece choir doing âThe Bells of Notre Dame.â People are picking up on it. Itâs the combination of the storytelling and how well the score is constructed that gets it to longevity. If something is good enough, it gets found.
Paul Kandel: I think people were more sensitive. There was an expectation that a new Disney animated film would not push boundaries at all, which it did. For critics, it pushed a little too hard and I donât think they would think that now. Itâs a work of art.
GaĂŤtan Brizzi: Hunchback is poetic, because of its dark romanticism. We have tons of animated movies, but I think they all look alike because of the computer technique. This movie is very important in making people understand that hate has no place in our society, between a culture or people or a country. Thatâs the message of the movie, and of Victor Hugo himself.
Jason Alexander: I think itâs an undersung hero. Itâs one of the most beautiful and moving animated films. But it is not the title that lives on everyoneâs tongue. I think more people havenât seen this one than any of the others. I adore it.
Peter Schneider: What Disney did around this period [is] we stopped making musicals. I think that was probably a mistake on some level, but the animators were bored with it.
Don Hahn: You know people reacted to Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King. They were successful movies in their day. You donât know the reaction to anything else. So when [I] go to Comic-Con or do press on other movies, people started talking about Hunchback. âMy favorite Alan Menken score is Hunchback.â Itâs always surprising and delightful.
Kirk Wise: Iâve had so many people come up to me and say, âThis is my absolute favorite movie. I adored this movie as a kid. I wore out my VHS.â That makes all the difference in the world.
Paul Kandel: Sitting on my desk right now are four long letters and requests for autographs. I get 20 of those a week. People are still seeing that film and being moved by it.
Alan Menken: Now thereâs a discussion about a live-action film with Hunchback. And thatâs [sighs] exciting and problematic. We have to, once again, wade into the troubled waters of âWhat is Disneyâs movie version of Hunchback?â Especially now.
Jason Alexander: Live action could work because the vast majority of characters are human. The story of an actual human who is in some ways less abled and who is defined by how he looks, rather than his heart and character, is timely and important, to say the least.
Kirk Wise: I imagine if there were a live-action adaptation, it would skew more towards the stage version. Thatâs just my guess.
Stephen Schwartz: I think it would lend itself extremely well to a live-action movie, particularly if they use the stage show as the basis. I think the stage show is fantastic.
Kirk Wise: Itâs gratifying to be involved in movies like Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback that have created so much affection. But animation is as legitimate a form of storytelling as live-action is. It might be different, but I donât think itâs better. I feel like [saying], âJust put on the old one. Itâs still good!â
Gary Trousdale: There were enough versions before. Somebody wants to make another version? Okay. Most people can tell the difference between the animated version and a live-action reboot. Mostly Iâm not a fan of those. But if thatâs what Disney wants to do, great.
Don Hahn: Itâs very visual. Itâs got huge potential because of its setting and the drama, and the music. Itâs pretty powerful, so it makes sense to remake that movie. I think we will someday.
Brenda Chapman: Itâs a history lesson. Now that Notre Dame is in such dire straits, after having burned so badly, hopefully [this] will increase interest in all that history.
James Baxter: It meant two children. I met my wife on that movie. [laughs] In a wider sense, the legacy is another step of broadening the scope of what Disney feature animation could be.
Kirk Wise: Hunchback is the movie where the final product turned out closest to the original vision. There was such terrific passion by the crew that carried throughout the process.
Roy Conli: Itâs one of the most beautiful films weâve made. 25 years later, Iâd say âJoin the party.â [laughs]
#long post behind read more#the hunchback of notre dame#hunchback of notre dame#notre dame de paris#victor hugo#interviews#disney#alan menken#stephen schwartz#quasimodo#esmeralda#frollo#phoebus#movies#movie history
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Waves: Quarantine
A/N: It's been way too long since I've done something for the Wavesverse, and I apologize deeply. I have a few requests related to this series to complete, but I couldn't knock this idea.
Words: 4K
Warnings: None
Tags: @babe-im-bi @notacamelthatsmywife @missyperle @queenoftheworldisdead @tashawar @valkryienymph @letsshamelessqueen-m @hello-therree @mani-lifes @liquorlaughslove @toni9 @koko-michelle @theequeenofcurses @taylortheeshowpony
Waves
Summer placed her phone inside of the mount and made sure that it was secured before she sat back in her bed, getting comfortable with the mass of pillows supporting her back, and smiling tentatively. âHi, guys.â
Summer!
Someone tell me this isnât a joke???? Please???
She lives!
Sis, blink twice if you need help.
Summer rolled her eyes. âYaâll better stop. I know itâs been a minute since Iâve hopped on live, but it hasnât been that damn long.â
Summer continued to read the comments where more than a few people pointed out she hadnât gone live on Instagram in over three months. Her mouth dropped. âYaâll lying. It has not been almost six months, has it?â She placed her hand over her mouth when people started dropping dates in the comments. âOkay, I stand corrected. Damn, Iâm sorry, guys.â
Donât be sorry, bestie. Do better!
Damn, yaâll are so entitled. Celebrities have lives too.
What life? We all been in quarantine.
Rich people quarantine be different from us poor folks, I guess.
âSo thatâs actually one of the things I wanted to talk about.â Summer cleared her throat. âAnd Iâm going to try really hard to make sure I word what I want to say as clear and as effective as I can, but I know this is still going to end up as a salacious headline. So, it is what it is.â
Oooh, Summer about to drop some tea.
I donât see her wedding ring, yaâllâŚ..
Iâm scared omg.
Watch this be nothing but a role announcement.
She shrugged and took a deep breath. âOkay, so a few days ago, I did the Buss It challenge, after being harassed by Sanda. And can I just say that filming was a challenge in and of itself? Not necessarily the movements but preparing? Iâve got two kids, twins, who are like the Tasmanian devil. I was literally up at 3 something in the morning trying to record it because my wild children wonât let me be great.â She chuckled. âKids are something else.â
Summer truly jumped through hoops and was a damn near acrobat trying to figure out when she could not only get herself done up but actually record the challenge. Being the perfectionist that she was didnât help, but the fact that she couldnât recall the last time sheâd put on makeup and dressed up was a whole other fiasco.
Quarantine definitely brought out her bum side.
âAll of that aside, I truly was satisfied and happy with the final product when I posted it. In hindsight, I should have just left it that, but I wake up every day and choose chaos, so I decided to read the comments.â She blew out a breath. âOne of the most frequent comments and really, insults, Iâve received my whole career. Primarily, since I was cast as Storm, revolves around how I look. I.e., my weight. Iâve been called fat, obese, out of shape, and so many other things.â
It was 100% true. The minute Marvel announced that sheâd been chosen to play Storm, the racists came all out of the woodworks. She was too short, too chubby, too dark, too black. And Summer didnât care, not a bit.
âEven,âand Iâll tell you guys this, when I first started my SS training, thatâs what I call it, SS for Storm Shape, there was aâperson who worked for Marvel at the time who came to visit me while I was training.â She smiled thinking back on that day. She could still recall it so clearly. âHe basically was pissed because to him, I still looked the same, fat and out of shape.â She adjusted her top and shifted in her bed. âThat same day, I deadlifted and bench-pressed over 200lbsâ She paused for effect. âWhat I need for people to stop doing is stop fucking projectingâand Iâm going to cuss in this, so if you donât like it, oh well. I work for Disney, but Iâm a grown ass woman, and Iâm going to say what I want.â
I am screaming. Summer said we getting alll the tea today!
So, itâs wrong to point out that someone is physically unhealthy now, cool?
The problem is that no one wants to see a fat superhero. Itâs not realistic.
^^^^ Tell me you have a small dick without actually telling me you have a small dick.
âI saw Lizzo, whom I adore, post a Tik Tok where she basically said that she workouts to have the body she wants not what yaâll want, and honestly? Same. She said that her body type is no oneâs fucking business, and thatâs so true. Yaâll love to hop on this internet and pick apart people you donât even know and criticize bodies you donât even have to live in and move around with. And for what?â She shook her head, slamming her fist into her open palm as she spoke. She was fully invested now. âI know we in quarantine, but damn, pick another hobby cause being a bully is not it, sweetie.â
I really needed to hear this today.
Using Lizzo as a point of reference makes everything youâre saying null and void. Lizzo is clearly overweight and at risk for diabetes, heart disease, just to name a fewâŚ..
I been saying this! You canât look at a person and say theyâre unhealthy.
Bodies come in so many forms, and all are beautiful.
âNow, I bring all this up because a lot of people were commenting on my Buss It challenge and pointing out the fact that Iâve gained weight, and guess fucking what? I have, and you know what else?â She leaned over to whisper while covering her mouth with her hands for focused effect. âI donât care.â
Summer laughed and shook her head. âAs others have pointed out as well, yes, we have a gym in our house. I 1000% acknowledge the fact that having the resources that I do as a celebrity and someone who has money puts me in a different category. Hell, my husband has a whole fitness app. I recognize that. If I wanted to keep up with my workouts, emphasis on wanted, I could have. I own up to that, but I just didnât feel like it, and thatâs okay. Whatâs not okay is to send and leave mean messages calling me all kinds of names.â
Summer had thick skin. She always had. Growing up with her family, who always ensured to feed her self esteem and make sure she knew that she was beautiful, definitely paid off. It was just a combination of quarantine and not having a lot of opportunities to keep herself busy with work that had her feeling some type of way.
âAnd thatâs something else I wanted to bring up.â She blew out another breath and tried to gather her emotions. This was the subject she was almost certain sheâd grow teary eyed discussing. âI love my husband to death. My children are everything. Christopherâs family is like my own, butâ I havenât seen my family, like my mom, grandma, brothers, etc in almost a year.â She paused, dwelling on that. Almost an entire year since sheâd been able to physically hug and interact with the people who made her who she was. âAnd Iâve always made it clear how much I fucking love my family. I live in Australia. I canât do a drive by with grandma so I and my kids can at least see her on the doorstep.â She quieted again, eyes darting off as she quietly cursed. âIâm trying really hard not to cry right now.â
Please donât cry, bestie.
This is the side of quarantine that people donât talk about enough.
Has this woman never heard of FaceTime????
I feel her pain. I live in Europe, and my family is in the states. This quarantine has been brutal.
My grandma died from COVID, and I couldnât even go to the funeral. Summer is bringing up a good point.
âDamn,â Summer chuckled bitterly and wiped at the tears that fell. âIâm okay, I promise. I just bring this up because quarantine has also been very hard for me in that aspect. At certain points, Iâve been down, Iâve been in my head a lot, and I just was not, for the most part, in a space where I felt like I had to keep up my fitness regimen. And thatâs okay. I put my mental wellbeing ahead of making sure my body is socially acceptable. Sue me.â
I really appreciate her honesty.
Summer never goes beyond surface level in interviews, so seeing her this vulnerable is really surprising.
Are we supposed to feel bad for her? Sheâs rich. She can afford whatever help she needed.
These comments are not passing the vibe check.
Yaâll are all mental health advocates, but when a black woman is opening up about her struggle, itâs discarded?
âAnd let me make this clear too, I have an amazing husband who is so patient and so kind. Heâs one of the best people I can go to when my anxiety hits, so I donât want this to come across as me complaining that Iâve been alone. I have him and our children. I just miss the rest of my family. Thatâs all.â She dried her eyes and started to read the comments, unsurprised by the mixed reaction. She expected as such and was unaffected. At least until she saw one comment.
@ChrisEvans: â¤ď¸â¤ď¸â¤ď¸
âEvans!â Summer wasnât expecting to see his name pop up. Itâd been such a task convincing him to join IG, let alone teaching him how to operate it. âLetâs go live.â
Not my husband and wife in my head about to go live!!!!
Imagine being able to call Chris Evans your best friend
I still say they smashed idc
Itâs Christopher Jamal Evans hopping on this live for me.
^^^ Iâm so sick of yâall with that shit.
âLet me try to add him,â Summer spoke to herself, scrolling through the comments to find his so she could request him. âAlright, I requested him. Letâs see if he answers.â
She wondered if she should have sent him a text asking if he was available when he appeared on her screen, effectively splitting it with her on the top and him on the bottom.
âPunk.â
âKid.â
Summer smiled and greeted, âHi, best friend.â
He chuckled. âHow you doing, Summer?â
âClearly not as good as the people watching,â she chimed. Summer saw nothing but heart eyes and hearts in the comments. âThese people really love you. You truly are a manipulative bastard. Heâs an asshole, guys.â
âDonât be jealous, Summer. Itâs so unbecoming of you.â
âYou can go to hell.â
âLanguage,â he playfully reprimanded. âWhere are the kids?â
âAt preschool. Things are finally starting to open back up over here. Thank God.â She clasped her hands together. âYâall, please wear masks. Donât be Karenâs.â
Chris laughed, grabbing his chest. âWeâre getting there, Summer.â
âThe lies you tell,â she countered. âDonât A Starting Point, me. Yaâll are far from getting there, and Iâm tired of it. I wanna see my family.â
He sighed. âI know, but how are you feeling today?â
âI got rid of the kids, so thatâs definitely a weight lifted,â she answered honestly, laughing when she saw judgmental comments in the chat. âListen, if youâre a parent, you know where Iâm coming from. You love your kids, but my god, sometimes you just need some space.â
âAs soon as this all blows over, I told you to send emâ by me for a couple of weeks.â
âBest friend, I already purchased their tickets.â He laughed. âAs soon as I get the green light, they are all yours. Feel free to keep them.â
âYou guys see how she is?â He pointed to Summer, leaning and squinting to read what was being said. âI do love kids, especially the twins, theyâre amazing.â
âHe is really really great with them, guys,â Summer added. âOne thing about Evans, heâs patient as hell and really, just a big kid. Why do you think him and Christopher get along so well? 40 going on 4.â
âI resent that.â
âIs it a lie though?â
He hesitated. âNo.â They both laughed.
Iâm loving the dynamic between these two so much.
Is it just me or are they flirting with each otherâŚ..
Ainât nothing inappropriate about this conversation. Yaâll are reachingâŚ
Yaâll remember that blind item that came out years ago alleging Chris (Evans) was the biological father of the twins? HmmâŚ..
^^^^^This kind of bullshit is the reason weâre in a global pandemic.
As always, Summer and Evans ignored any foolery that was being dropped in the comments when she caught a comment that didnât contain some ridiculous rumor.
âYes, it is true that Evans and Christopher werenât allowed to do press together anymore. Yaâll, they literally could not stay serious for more than a minute. I felt so bad for the poor interviewers.â
âHey, we were not that bad,â Evans protested, his Boston accent more prominent.
She gasped. âYou guys were terrible, Evans, and you know it. I was so mad when they put me with yaâll those few times. I could barely hear the interviewers over your laughing and stupid commentary that literally no one asked for.â
âWe did not.â
âThereâs deadass video proof, Evans.â
âFake news.â
She opened her mouth but caught herself. âI was about to say something.â
He laughed and asked, âDo you remember how we all got drunk before the Infinity War premiere?â
âNo, yaâll got drunk. I was big and pregnant, remember?â
âNo,â he dismissed. âYou were drinking with us.â
âEvans, how was I drinking when I was pregnant?â She challenged and reminded. âI got drunk with yaâll for the Endgame premiere, not Infinity War.â
âThatâs right,â he remembered and chuckled. âYou think weâll get in trouble for saying this?â
She shrugged with one shoulder. âYouâre dead, Christopher never gets in trouble for anything, and I do what I want. I think weâre good.â
Kevin Feige watching this live right now like đĽ´đĽ´đĽ´đĽ´
I never realized how arrogant she isâŚâŚ
LMAO. Not the whole cast showing up drunk to the biggest premiere of their lives.
Chris Evans is too damn fine to be approaching 40 and still single.
Their friendship is so goals omg
@ChrisHemsworth: Snitches
Summerâs jaw dropped as she caught the last comment, swiping up to click the name and make sure that she was reading correctly. âChristopher, what the hell are you doing on my live?â
Evans brows furrowed. âHemmy is here? Shouldnât he be working?â
âThatâs what I want to know,â Summer supplied. âAnd how long have you been watching?â
@ChrisHemsworth: Long enough.
She smiled nervously and looked off to the side. âI feel weird now. I donât like when he watches my lives.â
âArenât you guys married?â
âArenât you supposed to be shutting the fuck up?â
Evans lifted his hands in a defensive manner. âTouchy subject, I see.â They shared another laugh as he cleared his throat. âWhy donât you add him now? Iâm supposed to be helping Scott cook.â
âMy favorite Evans,â she gushed and furrowed her brows. âYou, cooking? Since when?â
âGet out of here.â He waved her off and reminded. âIâm not the one who constantly causes near fires when in the kitchen.â
âSo, you really just putting all my business out there like that?â
âSummer, itâs not secret to anyone that you canât cook for shit.â
âWow, it really be your own best friends.â
He chuckled. âLove you, kid.â
âLove you too, punk,â she blew a kiss. âIâll text yaâ later.â
âAlright.â He smiled for the camera. âThanks for having me everyone.â
âYeah, yeah, yeah,â she said jokingly. Evans and Summer said goodbye one last time before he left the live. She blew out a breath and ran her hand through her hair. âBaby, comment something so I can add you. Itâs too many comments to wade through.â
Summer adjusted her phone and checked the time on the clock on the wall. Itâd been a while since the kids were away at school, and she didnât want to get so caught up that she was late picking them up.
@ChrisHemsworth: I canât. Iâm too drunk.
Summer released a mixture of a laugh and a snort reading his comment. âYou are so damn petty.â She clicked his name and adjusted her outfit while waiting for him to answer. She almost cursed when it seemed like he wasnât going to join, only for her to smile when his face appeared on her screen.
âHi,â she greeted in a soft voice with a small smile.
âHello, Sandcastle.â
âDid you justâI swear to god, itâs always something with you.â Summer rubbed her temples and shook her head. Christopher smiled in response. âWhy arenât you working?â
âI am.â
âYou are?â
âYes.â
âIf youâre working, how are you talking to me?â She asked, sassily.
âUmm, a little thing called multitasking, ever heard of it?â
âWow. You are an asshole.â
âThatâs mean.â
âYouâre mean.â
âChristopher, you are literally a child.â
âDoes a child have muscles like this?â He flexed, and Summer stilled. Christopher stayed in ridiculous shape, but this was another level. Heâd never been this massive, and she wasnât too proud to admit that. Just not aloud.
She faked a yawn. âAm I supposed to be impressed?â
They really just be roasting each other all the time, and Iâm here for it.
Summer must be legally blind because this man is stupid fine tf
Itâs gotta be steroids. Thatâs not natural.
^^^^^Heâs the god of thunder.
Summer rolled her eyes at the typical nature of the comments. These were the reasons she limited her time on social media and especially stayed away from reading the comments. Her attention was redirected to the top of her phone. It was a text from Christopher asking her to call him.
âBut weâreâoh, I get it.â She realized he wanted to talk to her, not her and her tens of millions of followers. âAlright, guys, Iâm gonna get off here so I can talk to my husband, alone.â
âShe just doesnât want to share me with you all, thatâs all.â
âDonât even start, Christopher,â she lectured while he laughed and got serious, for a minute tops.
âHope you all are taking care and staying safe,â he spoke honestly. âAnd weâll talk to you soon.â
Summer waved and smile. âBye, guys. Remember to be kind.â Summer offered a final smile before ending the live. Closing up the app, she moved to open FaceTime and called up Christopher. He answered almost immediately. âYou know I hate when you watch my Lives. Now, how much did you see?â
âEnough to know youâre coming to see me tonight.â
She laughed aloud. âFunny.â
âIâm serious, Summer.â Focusing on him, she realized that there was no humor in his voice nor his expression. Summer also noticed that he didnât have the Thor wig on yet, which was probably why he was able to go live with her. He was waiting to get into hair and makeup. âLeave the kids with Liam. Itâs not like heâs doing anything.â
âChristopher!â
âWhat? Is he not a professional unemployed bastard.â
Summerâs smile remained as she shook her head. âYou are so mean.â
âIâll handle the flight arrangements. You, my beautiful wife, just make sure you get on the jet so I can handle you.â
âChristopher, youâre working. People with everyday jobs donât just up and show up to their spouses workplace because they miss them or need a break from the kids. Thatâs how folks get fired.â
Christopher started to move around, walking somewhere, she realized. âWhat are you doing?â
âHey, Tike.â
Summerâs eyes widened slightly. âChristoper!â
âSup, man?â Taika asked casually, as Summer laughed again. Taika Waititi was such a character.
âYou mind if Summer comes up for a few days?â
âSure, man,â he replied almost right away. âBring the kids and chickens too.â
âI am not bringing those damn chickens,â she immediately protested.
Christopher made a sound. âHa, so you are coming!â
âI didnât say that.â
Taika joined Christopher so that he was in camera. âHey, Summer, why donât you come on join? You can have a cameo. Chickens, too.â
She rubbed her temples. Taikaâs and Chrisâs friendship would never not make sense to her. They were cut from the same cloth. âOne, hey. Two, I was already in Ragnarok. Iâm good on the cameos. Three, what is with yaâll and those creepy looking chickens?â
âWhoa, creepy? What did the chickens ever do?â
âExist,â Summer answered dryly. She still hadnât forgiven Evans and Christopher for convincing her to let the kids keep those damn things. Her home was becoming more and more of a farm with each animal that joined the household.
âTough crowd, that one, ehh?â
âAlways,â Christopher agreed.
âI can hear you both,â she reminded and groaned loudly. Summer would love to spend a few days away from the kids. Chris would be working, yes, but sheâd at least get some time for herself. Even better, alone adult time with her husband. That had also been a bit tricky during quarantine because of her rambunctious twins. Still, she disliked using her status as a celebrity to gain things, and this would definitely be a case of using status for pull. âI donât knowâŚ.â
Deep in her thoughts, she hadnât realized that Chris had walked away and returned to wherever he was prior to finding Taika, most likely his trailer.
âWhat if you only stayed a night?â Chris tried to bargain. âThe flight is only an hour and a half. That will give you more than enough time to come here, let me fix you dinner, run you a nice bath, maybe get in the good oleâ horizontal tangoââ
âYou know I hate when you call it that,â she reminded quietly, admitting. âThat does sound nice, though.â
âOr, I can come to youââ
âAbsolutely not. Christopher, youâre already doing so much back and forth as it is.â One of the good things to come out of quarantine, to Summer at least, was that it forced many people to take a much needed break. Her husband was one of those people. Christopher had been working nonstop since she met him. Project after project, film after film, many of them Marvel films, which put a whole other layer of difficulty what with the strenuous physical requirements. Even now as he shot Thor 4, he was in the best shape heâd ever been, muscles nearly tearing the cotton of his clothes. He looked amazing, but it was what they couldnât see that she was starting to grow a little concerned over. Christopher wasnât as young as he once was. He had to slow down, eventually.
Summer realized this would be a perfect chance to have a conversation about just that with him, which all but led her to her final decision.
âAlright,â she conceded, finger up as she made her demands. âThree days, and I stay at the house while you shoot. We may be returning to normal, but weâre still in a pandemic. I wonât go around anyone except you.â
âSo I get you all to myself? Hardly consider that a stipulation.â
âAndâŚwe talk.â
âAfter the horizontal tangoââ
âI swear to God, if you donât stop calling it thatââ
âWhat was that, sweetheart? I wasnât listening.â She saw that he had paused the screen, causing Summer to remember that she hadnât even consulted with the babysitter. âMaking flight arrangements for you.â
âShit, let me text Liam and make sure heâs available.â
âHe gets reception in the box?â
âChristopher! For the last time, your brother is not living in a box.â
âDo you know that for certain?â
âGoodbye, Christopher,â she prepared to end the call before smiling softly. âI love you, Christopher, and thank you.â
He winked. âIâll always do anything for you, Summer. Anything.â A beat. âDonât forget to leave the clothes. You wonât need them.â
âChristopher!â
#chris hemsworth x black!oc#chris hemsworth x black!reader#chris hemsworth fanfic#chris hemsworth fandom#chris hemsworth fanfiction#fic: waves
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Stuff I read (and liked) this year
As promised, hereâs a list of the novels, comics, manga, etc... I read this year, focusing on the ones I enjoyed and would recommend to people. Under a cut, this is going to be a little long.
-------- Books --------
Favorite book of the year: Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel
Non-fiction. Based on the interviews of the man himself by the author, it is about a man who felt so unfit for society he decided one day to leave it, and spent the next 28 years as a hidden hermit in forest in Maine. The book details how he survived there, how he was eventually found, and some of his reasons for doing so. Itâs a great reflection on the nature of loneliness.
Indian creek, by Pete Fromm
...Yet another detailed tale of living alone in the woods. This time, the diary of a student who spent a winter in the mountains to help tend for salmon hatchlings, and how he spent the rest of his days hiking, hunting, meeting the locals. Itâs a fun little book who, being set almost the whole world away from where I live, was a nice way to travel.
Howlâs Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
I donât feel the need to explain this one since everyone and their mom has seen the movie adapted from it. The book, that I first read a decade ago before I actually watched the film, is a less romantized, more spirited telling of the same story. The writing is absolutely delightful and so is the world it paints, and itâs the first time in ages a book had me laughing out loud during my entire read.
-------- Comics (BD) --------
Favorite comic of the year: Monsieur DĂŠsire?, by Hubert and Virginie Augustin
A discreet young woman becomes a maid for a decadent, unbearable, byronesque young lord. Caked in the rigid and oppressive social hierarchy of the victorian era, you follow a mental and verbal joust between the two, as the lord tries his best to offend and corrupt his new unrelenting servant, to little success. The writing and especially the dialogues were stellar, drawing me into the tense atmosphere, watching this trainwreck of a character flamboyantly destroy himself. While thereâs no precise content warnings that I can give, this is a mature and heavy story.
World of Edena, by Moebius
Anyone whoâs followed this blog for over a month knows how much of a Moebius fan I am. Edena combines the vague, dreamlike, wordless storytelling from stuff like Arzach or The catâs eyes with an actual plot. While I havenât completly finished the story, the evolution of the main characters and how the story is told have been great to read through, and as always the art is beyond gorgeous. Unfortunately suffers from some good old sexism in the writing that even if minimal, tasted sour
Le roman de Renart, by Joan Sfar (book 1)
Sfarâs work always has a signature vibe of being dreamy and light without being light hearted, of being down to earth but drifting in the fantastical, and this one is no exception. Itâs an adaption of a series of medieval folk tales I grew up with, who uses the same characters to tell an original story. If youâre familiar with icons like Renart as well as other mythological big boys like Merlin youâll fit right in. There is something special in how the dialogues are written, who feel natural in a way that youâd overhear in a street corner and is very special to me.
The mercenary, by VIncente Segrelles
Another one I post about a lot on this blog. The mercenary is a king on the throne of fantasy cheese. The worldbuilding is interesting at times but the writing is a pretty pathetic display of glorious old time sword and sorcery sci-fantasy 10 years too late for itâs prime (warning for ye old sexism and orientalism that plagues the genre, cranked very high...) but you come and stay for the art. The entire thing is drawn in a series of hyper detailed oil paintings with an insane eye for technical detail, from the engineering of the weaponry, to the architecture and weather, to the anatomy of the fantasy creatures... Each panel stands out as itâs own painting which makes even flipping through it without reading the scenario a treat. Click here to see more of the art, in my Segrelles tag.
The ice maurauder, by Jacques Tardi
A short story about mad scientists entirely drawn like a 19th century engraving. In great Tardi tradition everyone is ugly and mean, it ends terribly, itâs both a hommage to the genre of late 19th cent. to early 1900s dramatic adventure novels and a critical eye on it, and itâs morbidly funny. Most people I saw online hated the way this was written but Iâm not them and I really recommend this book. Die mad
-------- Manga --------
Favorite manga of the year: itâs a tie between the following two.
Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto
Most wonderful comic I have read in ages. The story follows a bunch of semi-feral cats secretly living in the Louvre museumâs attic, and the small group of humans who share their life, walking through the museum as the night watch. When the cats are together, they are represented in a humanoid way, but still act like animals, and âbecomeâ cats again when a human is nearby. The plot is a sort of supernatural mystery centered around a kitten who walks around paintings. Itâs a love letter to art, sincere and beautiful, with a unique art style and great characters.
Memoirs of amorous Gentlemen, by Moyoco Anno
A sex worker in early 20th century paris starts writing down a diary of the clients she meets, in a quest to cope with the troubles of her life. You follow her, her colleagues, and her bittersweet relationship with an abusive lover. I donât have much words about this comic, but the art and writing both are amazing, itâs the perfect length and drew me in like little series had before. Obvious content warnings as this is an adult story that talks about sexuality, but also depicts both mental and physical abuse.
Hana, also by Taiyo MatsumotoÂ
A very short story, this was not made to be read as a comic originally, but served as storyboarding and visual development for a play, and the way it is written follows that. Hana is a slice of life story set in a fantasy world, of a young boy, his family, his village. Despite the setting being an original one, the character interactions are refreshingly... normal, and there is no huge plot to speak of, just a bit of the life of these characters. The art is beautiful, entirely black and white, with a scratchy style and an emphasis on contrast. Matsumoto is on a speedy road to becoming my favorite manga artist haha
Delicious in Dungeon, by Ryoko Kui
While not marked as my yearâs favorite, I still consider this series among my favorite manga ever. The art and writing are amazing, and itâs both heartfelt, well concieved and plain hilarious. The story follows several parties of dungeon diving adventurers each on their little quests with a premise of our protagonists, on a panic rescue mission, surviving in the dungeon by cooking and eating the monsters they come across. From a DnD party turned cooking manual dinner of the week beginning, the plot creeps up on you and slowly thickens. I donât want to spoil anything about the overarching story of this because it was a delight to discover for myself. While everything about DinD rules, I am especially fond of the design philosophy of the author, who puts great detail in the practicality and biology of what she draws, as well as the character writing. Everyone even side characters has so much charm and depth to them, the cast is so diverse and entertaining...! Each character is just a bit lame enough but endearing, and has their own little backstory that shows in the way they exist. Itâs a delight
Chainsaw man, by Tatsuki Fujimoto
I went into CSM expecting a borderline campy hyperviolent dumb fun thing to read and was very surprised to find an uncomfortably well written story about a teenager being groomed. The hyperviolent dumb fun fights are here nonetheless and the series still qualifies as shonen for some reason, but the more mature character writing as well as some truly outlandish visuals make it something very special. If you canât stand shonen, not sure you will like it, but if you donât mind it, worth trying.
Witch hat atelier, by Kamome Shirahama
The oh so elegant fantasy seinen every cool kid started posting about this year, who I also succumbed to and fast. Witch hat is hard to explain, as most of itâs plot revolves around the rules of the world itâs set in, specifically the regulations around itâs magic and the social and historical reasons for them. Itâs about growing up, learning, disability, making art. You follow a little girl taken in by a witch as an apprentice, her magical education, and learn little by little why her lovely teacher is so willing to break a lot of rules... While a bit too gentle and pretty for my taste at times, Witch hat has great worldbuilding and explores sensitive themes I rarely see in manga, much less in fantasy. And Berserk wishes it had art this good
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Kid Congo Powers Interview
Kid Congo Powers was a founding member of the Gun Club. He also played with The Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Powers currently fronts Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds and recently completed a memoir, Some New Kind of Kick.
      The following interview focuses on Some New Kind of Kick. In the book Powers recounts growing up in La Puenteâa working-class, largely Latino city in Los Angeles Countyâin the 1960s, as well as his familial, professional and personal relationships. He describes the LA glam-rock scene (Powers was a frequenter of Rodney Bingenheimerâs English Disco), the interim period between glam and punk embodied by the Capitol Records swap meet, as well as LAâs first-wave, late-1970s punk scene.
      Well written, edited and awash with amazing photos, Some New Kind of Kick will appeal to fans of underground music as well as those interested in 1960-1980s Los Angeles (think Claude Bessy and Mike Davis). The book will be available from In the Red Records, their first venture into book publishing, soon.
Interview by Ryan Leach  Â
Kid Congo with the Pink Monkey Birds.
Ryan: Some New Kind of Kick reminded me of the New York Night Train oral histories you had compiled about 15 years ago. Was that the genesis of your book?
Kid: That was the genesis. You pinpointed it. Those pieces were done with Jonathan Toubin. It was a very early podcast. Jonathan wanted to do an audio version of my story for his website, New York Night Train. We did that back in the early 2000s. After we had completed those I left New York and moved to Washington D.C. I thought, âI have the outline for a book here.â Jonathan had created a discography and a timeline. I figured, âItâll be great and really easy. Weâll just fill in some of the blanks and itâll be done.â Here we are 15 years later.
Ryan: It was well worth it. It reads well. And I love the photographs. The photo of you as a kid with Frankenstein is amazing.
Kid: Iâm glad you liked it. Youâre the first person not involved in it that Iâve spoken with. Â
Ryan: As someone from Los Angeles I enjoyed reading about your fatherâs life and work as a union welder in the 1960s. My grandfather was a union truck driver and my father is a cabinetmaker. My dadâs cousins worked at the General Motors Van Nuys Assembly plant. In a way you captured an old industrial blue-collar working class thatâs nowhere near as robust as it once was in Los Angeles. It reminded of Mike Davisâ writings on the subject.
Kid: I havenât lived in LA for so long that I didnât realize it doesnât exist anymore. I felt the times. It was a reflection on my experiences and my familyâs experiences. It was very working class. My dad was proud to be a union member. It served him very well. He and my mother were set up for the rest of their lives. I grew up with a sense that he earned an honest living. My parents always told me not to be embarrassed by what you did for work. People would ask me, âWhatâs your book about? Whatâs the thrust of it?â As I was writing it, I was like, âI donât know. Iâll find out when itâs done.â What you mentioned was an aspect of that.
      When I started the book and all throughout the writing I had gone to different writersâ workshops. Weâd review each otherâs work. It was a bunch of people who didnât know me, didnât know about musicâat least the music I make. I just wanted to see if there was a story there. People were relating to what I was writing, which gave me the confidence to keep going.
Ryan: Some New Kind of Kick is different from Jeffrey Lee Pierceâs autobiography, Go Tell the Mountain. Nevertheless, I couldnât help but think of Pierceâs work as I read yours. Was Go Tell the Mountain on your mind as you were writing?
Kid: When I was writing about Jeffreyâit was my version of the story. It was about my relationship with him. I wasnât thinking about his autobiography much at all. His autobiography is very different than mine. Nevertheless, there are some similarities. But his book flew off into flights of prose and fantasy. I tried to stay away from the stories that were already out there. The thing thatâs interesting about Jeffrey is that everyone has a completely different story to tell about him. Everyoneâs relationship with him was different.
Ryan: Itâs a spectrum thatâs completely filled in.
Kid: Exactly. One of the most significant relationships Iâve had in my life was with Jeffrey. Meeting him changed my life. It was an enduring relationship. It was important for me to tell my story of Jeffrey.
Ryan: The early part of your book covers growing up in La Puente and having older sisters who caught the El Monte Legion Stadium sceneâgroups like Thee Midniters. You told me years ago that you and Jeffrey were thinking about those days during the writing and recording of Mother Juno (1987).
Kid: Thatâs definitely true. Growing up in that area is another thing Jeffrey and I bonded over. We were music hounds at a young age. We talked a lot about La Puente, El Monte and San Gabriel Valleyâs culture. We were able to pinpoint sounds we heard growing up thereâmusic playing out of cars and oldies mixed in with Jimi Hendrix and Santana. That was the sound of San Gabriel Valley. It wasnât all lowrider music. We were drawn to that mix of things. I remember âYellow Eyesâ off Mother Juno was our tribute to the San Gabriel Valley sound.
Ryan: You describe the Capitol Records Swap Meet in Some New Kind of Kick. In the pre-punk/Back Door Man days that was an important meet-up spot whose significance remains underappreciated.
Kid: The Capitol Records Swap Meet was a once-a-month event and hangout. It was a congregation of record collectors and music fans. Youâd see the same people there over and over again. It was a community. Somehow everyone who was a diehard music fan knew about it. You could find bootlegs there. It went from glam to more of a Back Door Man-influenced vibe which was the harder-edged Detroit stuffâThe Stooges and the MC5. You went there looking for oddities and rare records. I was barely a record collector back then. Itâs where I discovered a lot of music. You had to be a pretty dedicated music fan to get up at 6 AM to go there, especially if you were a teenager.
Ryan: I enjoyed reading about your experiences as a young gay man in the 1970s. Youâd frequent Rodneyâs English Disco; I didnât know you were so close to The Screamers. While not downplaying the prejudices gay men faced in the 1970s, it seemed fortuitous that these places and people existed for you in that post-Stonewall period.
Kid: Yeah. I was obviously drawn to The Screamers for a variety of reasons. It was a funny time. People didnât really discuss being gay. People knew we were gay. I knew you were gay; you knew I was gay. But the fact that we never openly discussed it was very strange. Part of that was protection. It also had to do with the punk ethos of labels being taboo. I donât think that The Screamers were very politicized back then and neither was I. We were just going wild. I was super young and still discovering things. I had that glam-rock door to go through. It was much more of a fantasy world than anything based in reality. But it allowed queerness. It struck a chord with me and it was a tribe. However, I did discover later on that glam rock was more of a pose than a sexual revolution.
      With some people in the punk scene like The Screamers and Gorilla Roseâthey came from a background in drag and cabaret. I didnât even know that when I met them. I found it out later on. They were already very experienced. They had an amazing camp aesthetic. I learned a lot about films and music through them. They were so advanced. It was all very serendipitous. I think my whole life has been serendipitous, floating from one thing to another. Â
Ryan: You were in West Berlin when the Berlin Wall was breached in November 1989. âHereâs another historical event. Iâm sure Kid Congo is on the scene.â
Kid: I know! The FBI must have a dossier on me. I was in New York on 9/11 too.
Ryan: A person who appears frequently in your book is your cousin Theresa who was tragically murdered. I take it her death remains a cold case.
Kid: Cold case. Her death changed my entire life. It was all very innocent before she died. That stopped everything. It was a real source of trauma. All progress up until that point went on hold until I got jolted out of it. I eventually decided to experience everything I could because life is short. That trauma fueled a lot of bad things, a lot of self-destructive impulses. It was my main demon that chased me throughout my early adult life. It was good to write about it. Itâs still there and thatâs probably because her murder remains unsolved. I have no resolution with it. I was hoping the book would give me some closure. Weâll see if it does.
Ryan: Theresa was an important person in your life that you wanted people to know about. You champion her.
Kid: I wanted to pay tribute to her. She changed my life. I had her confidence. I was at a crossroads at that point in my life, dealing with my sexuality. I wanted people to know about Theresa beyond my family. My editor Chris Campion really pulled that one out of me. It was a story that I told, but he said, âThereâs so much more to this.â I replied, âNo! Donât make me do it.â I had a lot of stories, but it was great having Chris there to pull them together to create one big story. My original concept for the book was a coming-of-age story. Although it still is, I was originally going to stop before I even joined the Gun Club (in 1979). It was probably because I didnât want to look at some of the things that happened afterwards. It was very good for my music. Every time I got uncomfortable, Iâd go, âOh, Iâve got to make a record and go on tour for a year and not think about this.â A lot of it was too scary to even think about. But the more I did it, the less scary it became and the more a story emerged. I had a very different book in mind than the one I completed. Iâm glad I was pushed in that direction and that I was willing to be pushed. I wanted to tell these stories, but it was difficult.
Ryan: Of course, there are lighter parts in your book. There are wonderful, infamous characters like Bradly Field who make appearances.
Kid: Bradly Field was also a queer punker. He was the partner of Kristian Hoffman of The Mumps. I met Kristian in Los Angeles. We all knew Lance Loud of The Mumps because he had starred in An American Life (1973) which was the first reality TV show. It aired on PBS. I was a fan of The Mumps. Bradly came out to LA with Kristian for an elongated stay during a Mumps recording session. Of course, Bradly and I hit it off when we met. Bradly was a drummerâhe played a single drum and a cracked symbolâin Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Bradly was a real character. He was kind of a Peter Lorre, misanthropic miscreant. Bradly was charming while abrasively horrible at the same time. We were friends and I always remained on Bradlyâs good side so there was never a problem.
      Bradly had invited me and some punkers to New York. He said that if we ever made it out there that we could stay with him. He probably had no idea weâd show up a month later. Bradly Field was an important person for me to knowâan unashamedly gay, crazy person. He was a madman. I had very little interest in living a typical life. That includes a typical gay life. Bradly was just a great gay artist I met in New York when I was super young. He was also the tour manager of The Cramps at one point. You can imagine what that was like. Out of Lux and Ivyâs perverse nature they unleashed him on people.
Ryan: He was the right guy to have in your corner if the club didnât pay you. Â
Kid: Exactly. Who was going to say ânoâ to Bradly?
Ryan: You mention an early Gun Club track called âBody and Soulâ that Iâm unfamiliar with. I know you have a rehearsal tape of the original Creeping Ritual/Gun Club lineup (Kid Congo Powers, Don Snowden, Brad Dunning and Jeffrey Lee Pierce). Are any of these unreleased tracks on that tape?
Kid: No. Although I do have tapes, thereâs no Creeping Ritual material on them. I spoke with Brad (Dunning) and he has tapes too. We both agreed that theyâre unlistenable. Theyâre so terrible. Nevertheless, Iâm going to have them digitized and Iâll take another listen to them. âBody and Soulâ is an early Creeping Ritual song. At the time we thought, âOh, this sounds like a Mink DeVille song.â At least in our minds it did. To the best of my ability I did record an approximation of âBody and Soulâ on the Congo Norvell record Abnormals Anonymous (1997). I sort of reimagined it. That song was the beginning of things for me with Jeffrey. It wasnât a clear path when we started The Gun Club. We didnât say, âOh, weâre going to be a blues-mixed-with-punk band.â It was a lot of toying around. It had to do with finding a style. Jeffrey had a lot of ideas. We also had musical limitations to consider. We were trying to turn it into something cohesive. There was a lot of reggae influence at the beginning. Jeffrey was a visionary who wanted to make the Gun Club work. Of course, to us he was a really advanced musician. We thought (bassist) Don Snowden was the greatest too. Whatâs funny is that I saw Don in Valencia, Spain, where he lives now. He came to one of our (Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds) shows a few years ago. He said, âOh, I didnât know how to play!â
Ryan: âI knew scales.â
Kid: Exactly. It was all perception. But we were ambitious and tenacious. We were certain we could make something really good out of what we had. That was it. We knew we had good taste in music. That was enough for us to continue on.
Ryan: I knew about The Crampsâ struggles with IRS Records and Miles Copeland. However, it took on a new meaning reading your book. Joining The Cramps started with a real high for you, recording Psychedelic Jungle (1981), and then stagnation occurred due to contractual conflicts.
Kid: There was excitement, success and activity for about a year or two. And then absolutely nothing. As I discuss in my bookâand you can ask anyone who was in The Crampsâcommunication was not a big priority for Lux and Ivy. I was left to my own devices for a while. We were building, building, building and then it stopped. I wasnât privy to what was going on. I knew they were depressed about it. The mood shifted. It was great recording Psychedelic Jungle and touring the world. The crowds were great everywhere we went. It was at that point that I started getting heavy into drugs. The time off left me with a lot of time to get into trouble. It was my first taste of any kind of success or notoriety. Iâm not embarrassed to say that I fell into that trip: âOh, you know who I am and I have all these musician friends now.â It was the gilded â80s. Things were quite decadent then. There was a lot of hard drug use. It wasnât highly frowned upon to abuse those types of drugs in our circle. What was the reputation of The Gun Club? The drunkest, drug-addled band around. So there was a lot of support to go in that direction. Who knew it was going to go so downhill? We werenât paying attention to consequences. Consequences be damned. So the drugs sapped a lot of energy out of it too.
      I recorded the one studio album (Psychedelic Jungle) with The Cramps and a live album (Smell of Female). The live record was good and fun, but it was a means to an end. It was recorded to get out of a contract. The Cramps were always going to do it their way. Lux and Ivy werenât going to follow anyoneâs rules. I donât know why people expected them to. To this day, I wonder why people want more. I mean, they gave you everything. People ask me, âWhen is Ivy going to play again?â I tell them, âSheâs done enough. She paid her dues. The music was great.â
Ryan: I think after 30-something years of touring, sheâs earned her union card.
Kid: Exactly. Sheâs done her union work.
Ryan: In your book you discuss West Berlin in the late 1980s. That was a strange period of extreme highs and lows. During that time you were playing with the Bad Seeds, working with people like Wim Wenders (in Wings of Desire) and witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the GDR. Nevertheless, it was a very dark period marred by substance abuse. Luckily, you came out of it unscathed. As you recount, some people didnât.
Kid: It was a period of extremes. In my mind, for years, I rewrote that scene. I would say, âBerlin was greatââand it was, that part was trueâand then Iâd read interviews with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey and theyâd say, âOh, the Tender Prey (1988) period was just the worst. Itâs hard to even talk about it.â And I was like, âIt was great! What are you talking about?â Then when I started writing about it, I was like, âOh, fuck! It really wasnât the best time.â I had been so focused on the good things and not the bad things. Prior to writing my book, I really hadnât thought about how incredibly dark it was. That was a good thing for me to work out. Some very bad things happened to people around me. But while that was happening, it was a real peak for me as a musician. Some of the greatest work I was involved with was being done then. And yet I still chose to self-destruct. It was a case of right place, right time. But it was not necessarily what I thought it was. Â
Ryan: Digressing back a bit, when we would chat years back I would ask you where you were at with this project. You seemed to be warming up to it as time went on. And I finally found a copy of the groupâs album in Sydney, Australia, a year ago. Iâm talking about Fur Bible (1985).
Kid: Oh, you got it?
Ryan: I did.
Kid: In Australia?
Ryan: Yes. It was part of my carry-on luggage.
Kid: Iâm sure I can pinpoint the person who sold it to you.
Ryan: Are you coming around to that material now? I like the record.
Kid: Oh, yeah. I hated it for so long. People would say to me, âOh, the Fur Bible record is great.â Iâd respond, âNo. It canât possibly be great. Iâm not going to listen to it again, so donât even try me.â Eventually, I did listen to it and I thought, âOh, this is pretty good.â I came around to it. I like it.
Ryan: Youâve made the transition!
Kid: I feel warmly about it. I like all of the people involved with it. That was kind of a bad time too. It was that post-Gun Club period. I felt like I had tried something unsuccessful with Fur Bible. I had a little bit of shame about that. Everything else I had been involved with had been successful, in my eyes. People liked everything else and people didnât really like Fur Bible. It was a sleeper.
Ryan: It is. Â
Kid: Thereâs nothing wrong with it. It was the first time I had put my voice on a record and it just irritated the hell out of me. It was a first step for me.
Ryan: You close your book with a heartfelt tribute to Jeffrey Lee Pierce. You wonder how your life wouldâve turned out had you not met Jeffrey outside of that Pere Ubu show in 1979. Excluding family, I donât know if Iâve ever met anyone whoâs had that sort of impact on my life.
Kid: As I was getting near the end of the book I was trying to figure out what it was about. A lot of it was about Jeffrey. Everything that moved me into becoming a musician and the life I lived after that was because of him. It was all because he said, âHereâs a guitar. Youâre going to learn how to play it.â He had that confidence that I could do it. It was a mentorship. He would say, âYouâre going to do this and youâre going to be great at it.â I was like, âOkay.â Jeffrey was the closest thing I had to a brother. We could have our arguments and disagreements, but in the end it didnât matter. What mattered was our bond. Writing it down made it all clearer to me. His death sent me into a tailspin. I was entering the unknown. Jeffrey was like a cord that I had been hanging onto for so long and it was gone. I was more interested in writing about my relationship with him than about the music of the Gun Club. A lot of people loved Jeffrey. But there were others who said they loved him with disclaimers. I wanted to write something about Jeffrey without the disclaimers. That seemed like an important taskâto honor him in a truthful manner.
Ryan: Iâm glad that you did that. Jeffrey has his detractors, but they all seem to say something along the lines of âthe guy still had the most indefatigable spirit and drive of any person Iâve ever known.â
Kid: Thatâs what drove everyone crazy!
Ryan: This book took you 15 years to finish. Completing it has to feel cathartic. Â
Kid: I donât know. Maybe it will when I see the printed book. When I was living in New York there was no time for reflection. I started it after I left New York, but it was at such a slow pace. It was done piecemeal. I wanted to give up at times. I had a lot of self-doubt. And like I said, Iâd just go on tour for a year and take a long break. The pandemic made me finally put it to bed. I couldnât jump up and go away on tour anymore. It feels great to have it done. When I read it through after the final edit I was actually shocked. I was moved by it. It was a feeling of accomplishment. Itâs a different feeling than what you get with music. Looking at it as one story has been an eye-opener for me. I thought to myself, âHow did I do all of that?â
      I see the book as the story of a music fan. I think most musicians start out as fans. Why would you do it otherwise? I never stopped being a fan. All of the opportunities that came my way were because I was a fan.
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