#who needs torture when you have hobbies that you simultaneously love but also hate every single second of...hahaha

[gummieturtle]

finished character sheet of my oc makki!

when I tell you this drawing took me 16 hours to finish- so fun (/s) and totally didn't face plant into my bed when I was finally done😭

[aiyexayen]

The ChengXian/WangXian parallel gifsets about the sad boat rides with Wen Ning made me think, once again, about how Wei Ying was worried about being the Jiang Cheng in his relationship with Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying just had so few models of relationship, and only two real models of a serious relationship involving himself--Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli. He saw himself as a caretaker in each of them.

Even Jiang Yanli, ultimately, though there was certainly more give and take there. He only accepted a very specific kind of caretaking from her, though, and we see how fraught that was in the way Yu-furen shamed Jiang Yanli for it.

But Jiang Cheng was the most complicated. He and Wei Ying were the Yunmeng Shuangjie. Twin Heroes. Both of them strong male cultivators. Their relationship was such a carefully orchestrated imbalance. Wei Ying had to take care of Jiang Cheng even to the point of making sure Jiang Cheng didn’t feel taken care of. He was stronger, but he had to make sure Jiang Cheng didn’t feel weaker.

And at the same time, he had to be able to have his best friend and brother and navigate the lines of teasing and boasting that came with those dynamics and also with his natural brash and outgoing and free-spirited personality. It’s not something that weighed particularly heavy on him until later on, of course; it’s just How Things Were.

But Lan Zhan being Wei Ying's true equal was a heady taste of something new, something he was desperate for.

Someone he didn’t have to take care of in all those tricky, sticky ways. Someone who could understand him from the outside. That equality between them--of swords and strength and wit--formed so much of their early relationship. The ways Wei Ying and Lan Zhan excelled differently weren’t seen as anything but surface-level differences, cultivation styles. They could choose to take care of each other on their own (like in the Xuanwu cave) but there were no expectations except that which they set for themselves.

The best cohesive example I can think of is the situation at Dafan Mountain. Jiang Cheng has taken off after Wei Ying, to come and find his troublemaking brother and bring him home, ostensibly being the one to wrangle and care for his brother and best friend and someday-second. But as soon as he finds them, Wei Ying is clearly the one in charge. Jiang Cheng gets locked into a shield barrier, given a verbal half-teasing pat on the head, and left behind. Wei Ying goes off with Lan Zhan to find the source of the problems and their new level of partnership is beautifully put on display through their fight (other things happen in that fight, too, but that’s another post).

Jiang Cheng was never allowed to truly take care of Wei Ying. His parents never let him. Wei Ying never let him. He tried, all the time, most of all when he gave himself up to the Wen soldiers. But even that was immediately undone, turned back around on him.

Wei Ying never figured out how to attain any semblance of true equilibrium in his relationship with Jiang Cheng, even after everything at Lotus Pier, especially after everything at Lotus Pier, either before or after the core transfer. Maybe if he had, things would have been different. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have sacrificed his core to begin with.

It’s debatable how much Wei Ying expected to keep living after his core was gone. It’s even more debatable how much he really thought about anything past his own desperation in the moment, about all the promises broken with that single act, about how that would affect his relationship with anyone else. That doesn’t seem like a very Wei Ying thing to sit and think about.

Regardless, once the core was gone, he and Lan Zhan weren't equals. It messed up his relationship with Jiang Cheng, too, of course. The resentful energy was its own kind of strength but it couldn’t make up the difference in any way that counted. It just complicated everything by a thousand times and added in all kinds of new problems.

Even though Jiang Cheng had his core and Wei Ying had nothing but the tortured screams of the lost and vengeful echoing in his head, Wei Ying was still the caretaker there.

Don’t let Jiang Cheng find out the secret. Don’t let Lan Zhan become embroiled in it or expose the secret. Make sure Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli and Lotus Pier are okay. Lift Jiang Cheng up as a leader. Win the war. Apparently still be alive welp didn’t see that coming. Protect them all. Even if it means leaving.

But as much as he scrambled for strengths and leaned on his demonic cultivation he was still weak. Able to wipe out entire outposts of Wen agents yet repeatedly brought to a point where Lan Zhan could kill him easily and we know that the only way he could hope to match him would be to use this dangerous thing that's eating his soul, so shit could really get out of hand. Which wasn't really winning in the end. Demonic cultivation for him in general wasn’t strength so much as carefully-applied weakness.

Not to mention his reputation. They got so far off-balance where reputation and social standing was concerned.

Wei Ying’s merits had been contentious throughout his life--on the one hand, they're all he had to elevate himself beyond the need for the Jiangs' charity, or anyone's charity, as his status as family was so fraught and inconsistent. Being the best made all of that a moot point as much as it could be. And it also made him able to take care of said family, fulfilling all manner of "repay debt" vibes and "I'm obsessed with justice and protection" vibes.

On the other hand, they were definitely part of what made things so difficult with Jiang Cheng. Wei Ying’s reputation outclassing Jiang Cheng’s as a prodigy, a swordsman, a hero, even as he balanced it out by getting a simultaneous reputation for goofing off and being irresponsible. He did his best to make them complementary even though they were never really allowed to be.

But Jiang Cheng said it himself when he visited Wei Ying at the Burial Mounds--as soon as he started walking a different path, all of his merits and his skills and his reputation were turned upside down and used to make him a more effective villain.

So suddenly he didn’t even have any good social standing. He was mistrusted and then hated and reviled. On a number of levels, he could handle that, because it was more important to him that everyone who wasn’t him was okay. But it put him at complete odds with the great Hanguang-Jun, which was definitely something he made a point of noting more than once so we know it really, really mattered to him.

And that knowledge crept further and further in, between the war ending, things going back to some semblance of normal when he...couldn’t, and eventually him ending up in the Burial Mounds.

It was inevitable. He was the weaker one between himself and Lan Zhan, in every possible way. He knew of only one way that could go down.

It's a fear that got tangled up along with the rest of his paranoias, insecurities, traumas, resolutions, and twisted certainties pre-timeskip. On top of that, he lost a central piece of his identity and had no idea how to replace it.

If he isn't himself, who else can he be? Who else might he turn into? Someone who needs to be taken care of? Someone who might have his agency circumvented by a stronger person who thinks he knows better?

He sure did that to Jiang Cheng, and he never really had to own up to that piece of it. He never really regretted it either but he also sure didn't want to be on the other end of it.

Aside from that, Wei Ying just didn't know how to not be the strongest person. Being equal is the closest he’d ever come. He's never been allowed to be weak and taken care of unless he's play-acting and isn't that fucking heartbreaking? Fuck.

So who is he without that?

He still fought with the strengths he had and pretended to have the rest of them. And in one last great act of being the protector and caretaker, ran off to the Burial Mounds.

We do get to see Wei Ying and Lan Zhan working in tandem to bring back Wen Ning, and even though Wei Ying stumbles at the end (for the first time ever, I think, into Lan Zhan’s arms?), he does it successfully. They’re still able to work together, in spite of everything that’s happened, especially when Wei Ying is leaning into his actual talents. Even if Wei Ying’s weakness is still looming over his shoulder, as we see later.

Being with the Wens, living a simple life, leaning into his strengths, being part of a community and family, taking time to work on his scholarly/inventor hobbies, all this served to calm a lot of those fears and also conveniently take Wei Ying out of the scenarios and away from the relationships that caused them. It offered him tentative new pieces of identity to grab.

But then, of course, he lost that, too.

Post-timeskip, Wei Ying is thrust right back into a world where he has to finally face those issues. Whether you take it as he still has no core, or he has Mo Xuanyu’s really weak core, he’s not doing so great where that’s concerned.

He still has strengths. We’re not actually shown any indications that this man is weak at any point, not truly. He has a better grasp on the situation at Mo Manor than all of those precious Lan babies put together.

But we are shown that he uses a bunch of hands-on crafty tricks, talismans and spells and such. And, interestingly, in counterpoint we’re shown Lan Zhan descending from the heavens with his qin. Wei Ying doesn’t use a dizi here yet (let alone sword), and Lan Zhan doesn’t use Bichen. I do think that’s lovely.

However, Lan Zhan is still incredibly strong, in more ways than just physically: his reputation is strong, his presence is strong, his confidence is high, his mastery of the qin is unparalleled, he’s had sixteen more years to grow up and develop his golden core.

From the framing, and Wei Ying’s reactions, and the Lan juniors’ reactions, it’s pretty clear that’s the impression Wei Ying has. There’s an imbalance between them (along with alllll the other reasons he might have to want to stay away from/keep Lan Zhan out of things). He doesn’t see them as complementary, just as not-the-same.

He meets Jiang Cheng next and, hey, Jiang Cheng is actually really strong now, too (also he always was but meh). Again, Wei Ying uses his tricks to outwit and outmaneuver the situation at hand. Again, he’s struck by the impressive image of someone entering the scene like a badass.

And what a deliciously awful carousel of conflicting feelings. Pride? Despair? Longing? Love? Annoyance? Delight? Relief? Pain? Fear?

But as far as strength goes, clearly Jiang Cheng has it in buckets, now. Which means even if they still had a relationship, Jiang Cheng surely wouldn't even be the Jiang Cheng in it anymore. What a horrible realisation.

It can’t be helped much by the fact that Wei Ying almost lets himself get run through and Lan Zhan enters the scene to fucking save him. Even if it’s from the kid we know he just bested.

And that’s the back and forth we see at first. Wei Ying proving his strength and his character but the framing and his reactions proving that he’s still caught in the idea that Lan Zhan is stronger and better than him.

Lan Zhan is beloved. Lan Zhan is strong. Lan Zhan would never accidentally murder people he loved more than life itself. (OKay I won’t get into that but tell me he didn’t think that at any point I dare you)

He accepts it and plays it off as not a big deal, but it clearly is. In his rare serious moments, we see that.

So post-timeskip, Wei Ying has to figure out who he is and then how he can be said person. A significant part of the character and relationship development post-timeskip is about that.

He once again finds himself exploring uncharted territory of building relationship dynamics he’s never experienced with Lan Zhan. It started because he realised they were equals. It can’t develop further until he acknowledges that they still are.

He figures out how to be weak with Lan Zhan first, that it's safe and allowed and okay. There’s nothing wrong with being taken care of. It doesn’t have to define him and it doesn’t have to be about agency or about all the twisty psychological junk that was all wrapped up in his familial relationships at all.

Then he figures out that he still has the capacity to take care of someone like Lan Zhan back, that he’s still able to be needed, and not just someone to follow around and protect.

Wei Ying has strengths, strengths that were always there and always part of him as well as new ways he's grown and changed. He’s an inventor, he’s a genius, he’s a prodigy, he has his talismans and his music and his people skills and his teaching ability and his empathy and his heart.

All this definitely comes to a head on the steps of Jinlintai, by which point it feels like one of the only remaining imbalances that Wei Ying feels so keenly is their status, which of course Lan Zhan snuffs out utterly romantically.

It’s even more poignant that that moment comes right after Wei Ying gets Suibian back. And he's not nearly as good with it--Lan Zhan has to protect him multiple times in that fight and then of course he gets stabbed. But the point is still made, that he was still able to fight, and even his failures with the sword just drive home that this isn't who he is now. And that's okay.

By the time they're at the Burial Mounds again, Wei Ying has accepted the way they work as a team and that they can be complementary. And they fight flawlessly.

I love that growth for him.

He absolutely ends up being the Jiang Cheng, in a number of ways. He runs after Lan Zhan when he’s drunk to keep him out of trouble. He ends up left behind to take care of defenseless people while Lan Zhan runs off and has an epic sword fight in an evil fog bank.

He has to be taken from Lotus Pier, unconscious, in a boat, and is held so preciously in Lan Zhan’s arms.

But. Turns out it’s not so bad when the person you’re being Jiang Cheng for isn’t Wei Ying.

I swear this is not throwing shade at Wei Ying.

But he figures out, slowly, how to actually have a relationship built on even ground, as equals, in spite of being unequal in all the ways he used to think mattered. And he only manages it with someone once he’s on the weaker side of it.

I just think that’s super interesting.

And I think it sets a precedent for Wei Ying to understand the flaws in his old dynamic with Jiang Cheng. Especially once there aren’t secrets between them.

Everything has to change, anyway. Everything has already changed, almost two decades ago, and it isn’t going back. It can’t ever go back. Everything they were to each other was bound up in Jiang Yanli’s presence, in promises long broken, in dreams long dead, in a future that has already proved to not be real. In the old Lotus Pier, a lot of it, since they never really moved on from that, either, even back then.

Jiang Cheng has grown up. He’s raised a kid. He’s raised and trained disciples. He’s been a sect leader for over a decade and a half. He’s been to other people what he never could be to Wei Ying.

He’s also proven that he still wants his brother to fix things, still expects him to be able to. Still wants to fight, still knows how to cry. Still acknowledges fragmented pieces of their lost dynamic. Probably more of the healthy ones than Wei Ying ever has, too.

Jiang Cheng still, even in the wake of learning about the golden core, even after everything he’s built and has become, acknowledges Wei Ying as a strong person. As someone as strong as he is, if not stronger in many ways. As having the capacity of an older brother.

But then, Jiang Cheng was always able to conceptualise a world where he and Wei Ying were equals, complementary if not evenly matched, just as much as Lan Zhan was.

It wasn’t a fantasy that Wei Ying indulged him in. It was a reality that Wei Ying himself didn’t know how to accept and kept at a distance, carefully juggling too many separate parts of a whole he couldn’t allow to come together until they all crashed down.

But he’s been on the other side of it now and maybe it’s enough. Maybe he can take what he’s learned in building/rebuilding his relationship with Lan Zhan and apply it to other people. Especially Jiang Cheng.

And maybe Jiang Cheng has been a sect leader and an uncle long enough to not let Wei Ying get away with shit.

[hewittao10-blog]

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[mastcomm]

Best Coast Almost Had No Future. Now Everything Has Changed.

LOS ANGELES — Bethany Cosentino can be eerily good at predicting the future.

She wrote the song “Boyfriend” before the guy in question took on that role. She released a track with the lyric “What a year this day has been” in 2012, well before our 24/7 news hellscape took hold. She spoke out about sexual misconduct in the music industry in 2016, a year before #MeToo took off. And she wrote a new song called “Everything Has Changed” about quitting drinking and finding happiness 14 months before she took action.

“Deep down inside, it was a life that I wanted — it was just not one that I thought I would be able to live,” said Cosentino, the 33-year-old singer, guitarist and songwriter for the indie rock duo Best Coast. She added that in an early version of a mission statement about the group’s fourth studio album, “Always Tomorrow,” due Feb. 21, she explained her seemingly divine powers in the lingo of the feminist internet: “As it turns out, I am indeed a very powerful witch.”

With that said, she paused to dip a thin brush into a small ceramic palette. Cosentino was spending a December afternoon decorating an oversized mug at Color Me Mine, a pottery-painting shop with an outpost minutes from her childhood home, steps from the since-closed record store where she’d first discovered the Blink-182 albums that inspired her to take up the guitar.

“If you had told me at one point in my life my hobbies would have been like, talking about my life over Color Me Mine, I would’ve been like, ew, that’s not true,” she said and laughed. “I’ve never been happier.” She shaped a large “S” for Scorpio in black, a homage to the so-called Stussy doodle.

On the topic of botched prognostications, Cosentino also didn’t foresee that the very qualities that made her such an appealing rock star over the past decade — her openness about her life in lyrics, her availability on social media, her seemingly cavalier attitude about her vices — were simultaneously causing her to unravel. “Always Tomorrow,” a powerhouse rock record with a sharp perspective and loads of hooks, is a document of an artist stitched whole again. It’s also the sound of an invigorated band rejecting the idea that the greatest music comes from tortured roots.

When Best Coast — Cosentino and the guitarist and bassist Bobb Bruno, 46, a friend from the Los Angeles scene — released its first album, “Crazy for You,” in 2010, it arrived with a sonic fingerprint: chiming guitars, gobs of reverb, girl-group grooves, vocals delivered with a casual affect. With the producer Jon Brion, the duo wiped away a layer of haze on its follow-up, the 2012 LP “The Only Place,” and spread its sound out further on “California Nights” in 2015.

Cosentino is what the “Always Tomorrow” producer Carlos de la Garza calls “one of the greatest singers I’ve ever recorded.” He described her “rich tone” in a phone interview as “a classic type of voice, almost like a Patsy Cline” in an indie rock slipcover. But an outspoken mob always seemed to be challenging the band in its early days. Best Coast’s songs weren’t all lyrical love letters to California — or weed, or Cosentino’s beloved ginger cat, Snacks — but the idea that the group was beholden to a guiding aesthetic and a thematic shtick stuck to them like sap.

Female musicians don’t just get asked a lot of questions about being women in bands; they face an outsized amount of verbal abuse. Best Coast’s rise coincided with the growth of social media as a marketing tool and omnipresent force. Cosentino was very online, and very sensitive to the digital daggers piercing her music, her personal life and her looks.

“I was so good at acting like I don’t care what you think of me, but deep down, I read every review, I read every comment, I cared so much,” she said. “And I believed those things. Like if somebody said, ‘This girl’s music is mediocre,’ I was like, oh, I’m a mediocre human. I should lock myself in my room for five days.”

Bruno cited the snarky and now defunct blog Hipster Runoff as emblematic of the era’s freewheeling fire hose of negativity. “There was a lot of misogynistic and really wrong, hateful stuff that site would put out there, and yet it was popular,” he said in a phone interview. “It still upsets me.”

The story Cosentino wanted to tell on “California Nights” five years ago was of maturity and evolution, of demons conquered and ladyboss status achieved. That wasn’t exactly accurate. While contemplating the lettering on her mug, she quoted the lovably loose-moraled “Seinfeld” character George Costanza to explain her personal relationship to the truth at that time: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

She added: “And literally the entirety of my 20s, that was my M.O.”

During the five-year gap between “California Nights” and “Always Tomorrow,” Best Coast toured with Wavves, the band led by Cosentino’s boyfriend at the time, Nathan Williams, as well as with the pop-punk juggernaut Paramore. The duo released a children’s album, and served as the house band on “What Just Happened??! With Fred Savage,” a parody of TV after-show programs.

Cosentino’s very public relationship with Williams, whom she said she has “nothing but respect for,” made her a tabloid figure for the Stereogum set. (They shared a Spin cover in 2012.) She said it was hard to navigate a “relationship that was at times very unhealthy” while “feeling like my identity was so tied into it.”

Outside of it, she remained a public figure in indie rock, rallying behind women who accused the music publicist Heathcliff Berru of sexual misconduct in 2016 (he apologized for “inappropriate” behavior), and appearing on “The Daily Show” to discuss sexism in the music industry: “I literally was sitting there being like, how did I get here and how did I become the spokesperson for this?” (She took Xanax before the show taped, “which wasn’t smart,” she realizes now.) She later wrote an op-ed about misconduct, revealing that a family member assaulted her when she was a child.

When she wasn’t on tour, destructive patterns awaited. “My self-care at the time was like, oh I just get really [expletive] up and watch Bravo,” she said. (She still watches Bravo, sober, for the record.) She was blacking out often, “mixing a lot of things that shouldn’t have been mixed,” she said, “to the point where I’m like, really lucky that I’m still alive.” On the advice of her best friend since childhood, Cosentino returned to therapy, but kept some things secret. She was abusing her prescriptions. She was burying feelings. “I knew if I said certain things out loud, I would have to address them,” she said.

And for the first time, the prolific songwriter was creatively paralyzed: “I would sit and try to write and nothing would come out.” She ultimately broke down and asked Bruno if he would send over tracks for her to write to, something she’d never requested before.

Bruno, a longhaired, chilled-out musician with omnivorous musical tastes — inspirations for “Always Tomorrow” include Avril Lavigne, Kool & the Gang, White Lion and the Spinanes — said he didn’t fear the worst: “I have the utmost faith and belief in Bethany.” Four of the tracks he sent ended up on the album.

The first one became “Graceless Kids,” a song anchored by a chugging riff with glimmers of ’80s pop-metal. Lyrically, it’s a message to Cosentino’s fans, who need “a hero not a wreck,” and it includes a spoken-word section that both thrilled her and thoroughly freaked her out. “My fear was that it was going to sound like when Taylor Swift does it,” she said. “When I recorded it in the studio, I made everyone leave.”

The music was inching along while Cosentino’s Instagram was filling with images of wine glasses and Coronaritas, but she started to crave change. “I had friends that had quit drinking, and I would look at them and be like, how did you do that?” One of them, Jennifer Clavin from the band Bleached, had likewise manifested her sobriety in song before it happened, and became instrumental in Cosentino’s journey.

“It’s almost like we subconsciously know the lifestyle we’re living is really unhealthy and self-harming and we want to get out, but we aren’t ready to fully accept that that’s what we need to do,” Clavin said in a phone interview, noting how easily the music industry facilitates and glorifies drinking and drug use. “Beth is such a huge inspiration to me,” she added. “She knows what she wants and is willing to go for it.”

Playing older songs on the Paramore tour, Cosentino gained an awareness of the pain in her own music. “I remember listening to my lyrics and thinking to myself like, why are you still doing this if you’re so miserable?” Not long after she returned, she woke up after a friend’s birthday party, hung over and bawling, and says she hasn’t had a drink or taken a drug since.

Bruno recalled that their conversation about it was brief. “She was just like, I’m not going to do any of that stuff anymore,” he said. “I was like, O.K., cool. And that was it.” Writing sober didn’t hold Cosentino back; it helped her break out of a creative lull: “Being awake to everything in such a clear way is so [expletive] crazy.”

The producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Paramore, M83), an early “Always Tomorrow” collaborator, described the duo’s unique working relationship as an “easy coexistence.” “It’s almost like Bethany and Bobb are two halves of one person” in the studio, he said in a phone interview. He explained that the pair’s goals for the new album were to avoid rehashing the past, and to “honor their influences without it ever seeming pastiche or too on the nose.”

Part of Cosentino’s enduring charm is her willingness to reveal her inspirations and gab about pop culture. Her current obsession? The anthemic band White Reaper. Lana Del Rey, who invited Cosentino to share the stage last year? “Literally the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

You can hear dashes of everything Cosentino absorbs on “Always Tomorrow,” an album about looking to the future while stealing enough glances at the past to stay on track. There’s crisp pop-punk (“Different Light”), spacey fuzz rock (“Used to Be”), a song about Snacks (“Rollercoaster”). And yes, Fleetwood Mac is still a touchstone.

While the lyrics lean toward the earnest, Cosentino did allow herself a wink on “Everything Has Changed,” rhyming “lazy crazy baby” as a nod to the doubters who have dismissed her writing as repetitive.

Being anything but brutally honest wasn’t an option. “I realized if I didn’t tell this story, I’d be lying to people,” she said. “I would just be doing exactly what I was doing in the past, which was putting on an act and pretending like I didn’t give a [expletive].” Success looks different to Cosentino now, too. When she bought her new house, she downsized to something “super teeny.” She traded in her Mercedes for a Subaru.

Nearly four hours after her mug odyssey began, she carefully applied a series of dots (her signature), then thrust out her hands. “My tattoos are a perfect example of where I used to be and where I am now,” she said. One finger displays “trust no one.” On her other hand, there’s “let it go” and “surrender.”

“So it’s fully like old me, new me,” she said. “But they still both exist.” And she doesn’t plan to remove any of them.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/best-coast-almost-had-no-future-now-everything-has-changed/

[vulkanmag-blog]

ANDREA BARBER

New Post has been published on https://vulkanmagazine.com/content/andrea-barber/

ANDREA BARBER

ANDREA BARBER

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ANDREA BARBER

Interviewed & Edited by: Jaimee Jakobczak IG @ThisIsJaimee

While her first major film role is credited as that of Carrie Brady on Days of Our Lives in ‘82, actress Andrea Barber dazzled audiences as the spunky Kimmy Gibbler in Full House, a role which solidified her as a household name. When Full House returned to Netflix as Fuller House, much to the delight of die-hard fans, Andrea was thrilled to reprise her role. VULKAN caught up with Andrea to talk about returning to the iconic set and what avenues she might want to take going forward.

You’ve said that as a child actor, the audition process was “torturous.” What about it was so grueling for you, and how has your perception changed at all now?

I don’t think there is a single actor out there who enjoys the audition process! HA! But as a child, it was never fun to hop in the car immediately after school to go sit on the freeway for an hour just to read two pages of dialogue from a script, and then sit for another hour on the freeway back home. Nine times out of ten, I wouldn’t get the job anyway, so it all felt like a big waste of time as a kid, especially when most of my other friends were outside playing after school or doing clubs/sports. Auditioning is just a tedious process no matter what your age. I’m not auditioning now, but I’m sure I would hate it just as much as I did as a kid. Hollywood is very much a “drop everything and be ready to audition in two hours” type of business. That doesn’t jive well with my personality. I’m a planner! I thrive on schedules and structure. Unpredictability is not my friend! 🙂

In one word, how did it feel to be back with the Full House cast?

Home.

Has returning to acting ignited any desire to perform in other productions?

I would love to do theatre! The live shows would both terrify and thrill me simultaneously, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I did many plays as a kid (I played Helen Keller twice in A Miracle Worker) and it’s so different from television work. You have so much more time to prepare, rehearse, and create a character. Theatre feels so much more alive; each night is different and can’t be replicated. There’s a bond between the actors and audience that’s unique to the acting world. I have so much respect for stage actors; I think they are the most talented breed of performer.

Can you share with us one of your fondest Full/Fuller House memories?

My fondest Full House memory is the cast dinners before every taping. The cast would go off the lot to have dinner and it was a special time for us to simply be together and laugh and shake off stress before the live taping. My fondest Fuller House memory was our first taping of our first show back after almost 30 years. The audience went crazy; I’ve never heard cheering so loud. People were crying, people were laughing. It was all the emotions mixed into a single night. People even cried and cheered when the living room and kitchen sets were revealed.

What is the most resonating thing one of your fellow cast mates has ever said to you? Who said it, and why do you think it struck such a chord with you?

Several castmates have told me I am the Lucille Ball of our generation, which is a massive compliment that I don’t deserve. But even being mentioned in the same sentence as her means so much to me. She is the ultimate study on how to convey every emotion without uttering a single word, using simply her facial expressions and body language. I feel this is a very intuitive way for me to act too - I have a hard time dialing it down sometimes! So the Lucille Ball comparison resonates with me and reminds me that you just gotta go for it, let it all out and don’t be afraid to look like a fool. The payoff can be huge.

What did you miss most about acting as you pursued education and other avenues?

I actually never missed acting after Full House ended and I left Hollywood. I missed the people I worked with, for sure, but I didn’t miss the grind. It wasn’t until I came back for Fuller House 20 years later that I realized how much I enjoy and need artistic expression in my life. It’s wonderful to get to be someone else, especially someone as outlandish as Kimmy Gibbler, for several hours every week.

What did you miss most about acting as you pursued education and other avenues?

I actually never missed acting after Full House ended and I left Hollywood. I missed the people I worked with, for sure, but I didn’t miss the grind. It wasn’t until I came back for Fuller House 20 years later that I realized how much I enjoy and need artistic expression in my life. It’s wonderful to get to be someone else, especially someone as outlandish as Kimmy Gibbler, for several hours every week.

If your kids expressed an interest in acting, would you encourage them?

If either of my kids ever express an interest in acting (so far they haven’t and I don’t think they will), I would highly encourage them to do local plays and theatre. I would support them in making it their after-school hobby. I wouldn’t encourage them to go the Hollywood route - that is a complete lifestyle change that affects the entire family. But doing local theatre would give them experience and keep the focus on acting, not fame.

What advice might you give them going into their own auditions?

Be yourself, and don’t be afraid to put your own spin on a character.

What is your preferred way to spend a free afternoon when the kids are otherwise occupied?

There is nothing more satisfying than a long run in the sun! It cleanses the soul.

What have you learned about love that you’ll teach your children?

Trust your instincts; they are rarely wrong. Value yourself and look for someone who values you even more.

 If you were to audition for a show currently airing, which one peaks your interest the most?

I love the Big Bang Theory. It’s a show about geeks who don’t take themselves too seriously - I love that! I can relate to that. Nobody is trying to be perfect; they each have their flaws but they are all one big, accepting tribe.

On that note, what type of role would you be interested in experimenting with?

I don’t know that I’d want to experiment! I like comedy! I would love to do a Hallmark show or movie someday, like my co-stars. Hallmark is light-hearted, feel-good TV. I would jive well with that.

Who are some actors that you love to watch these days?

Freddie Highmore (who plays an autistic doctor) on The Good Doctor is so satisfying to watch. I think the best acting is in the smallest details, often in simply reacting, and Freddie nails it. I also love watching Claire Foy in The Crown. She is so controlled and subtle, yet brilliant. I love actors who take big risks.

What’s one country or city on your bucket list?

Iceland! Everyone I know who has been raves about it; it isn’t a typical travel destination. Unfortunately, I think word about Iceland has gotten out and now it’s filling with more tourists. But I still want to go!

How has your previous work for the United Nations shaped your views of the world?

My work with the UN solidified my opinion that travel and learning about other cultures is critical to widening one’s own views and opinions about life. Everyone doesn’t always have to agree with one another, but we must learn to empathize and understand each other. It also made me realize how limited our education is here in America. Our high school graduates know a lot about American history, politics, culture, education, etc., but very little about the rest of the world. When you are suddenly able to see our world through the eyes of a different culture, you realize A.) how utterly privileged we are as a country, and B.) that the American way of doing things isn’t necessarily the “best” way. I don’t mean any disrespect to my wonderful country! I’ve simply learned that in order to really “see” America, you need to leave America. I’ve grown as a human and as a citizen as a result of it.

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Credits

PHOTOGRAPHER: Leo Deveney STYLIST: Sondra Choi MAKEUP ARTIST: Vanessa Venancio HAIR STYLIST: Jennifer Melissa Baker

[haiskulstories-blog]

Hai Skül Story #1; 2 Girls : 1 Boy

PART II: Anastacia Raynolds

My name is Anastacia Raynolds. My friends call me Ana. I’m one of the brightest girls in school, but I hate school. Fuck Wilson High School and all the shitty kids that go there. Except my friends, who are OK. We like to hang out and systematically plan the deaths of all the popular kids while we paint our nails and watch Heathers or Twin Peaks. Sometimes we watch My Sweet Sixteen if we run out of popular kids to fantastically destroy.

I do well in school because I’m bright and I’m nice to the kids who are smart but too socially incompatible to aggregate any sense of a circle of friends. Turns out, they are some of the coolest kids in school because they die to have a class next to me and in exchange, they will do anything for me. Usually it’s like: “Will you please get me a cup of water? I’m still working on this problem,” but they are happy to fulfill a variety of purposes. Needless to say: wrapped around my little stinky pinkie.

Part of the reason I like them is because I have a lot of shit to take care of in my life and I don’t always have time to go to Hot Topic in the mall if, say, my striped leggings get a run. Diane Blair works there. She acts so goth with all of their weird, glittery, off-color makeup, but she honestly just makes herself look like a clown. The popular boys seem to like her though, so whatever.

Now, you get the basic idea of what I do in and out of school, except I have a few hobbies I didn’t mention that I like to keep to myself. I’m actually really tight with my family. I have a little sister who I aspire to mentor as much as possible. She is going to Wilson High next year and I’m almost done with her starter kit. It includes profiles on the ten most popular seniors-to-be, including their favorite brands (in case she decides to fall in with them). She’s awfully pretty and I could see her falling in with one of the jocks. I’ve also included for her where the ten people they live and what kind of cars they drive (for obvious reasons, if she follows in my footsteps).

I’m a little bit torn about what social group she is going to choose, but I’ve made a full proof plan to flat out not care. She may be more popular with boys than me since she flat out likes them more than hitting the books, a divergence of our personalities. She’s had some guys over that, yeah, I can call guys, to the point that sometimes I’m slightly concerned for her since she’s still only 14, but the guys drive awesome cars and buy her clothes and she seems happy enough. She gets them to help her with homework, so I really can’t complain.

When we were younger, we used to be a pair of tomboys and would fight like boys with the neighborhood boys, play in the mud, steal the other kids’ bikes and such. I guess we both have the rebel bred into us, we just have matured into different ways in terms of how we logically put it to use. When I started to see the way she was getting guys to do her bidding, I figured she might have picked up better on our mom’s pretty housewife thing.

All for good reason: our mom is a fox. I guess I got girly when I hit high school and switched up my style, started puting on a little makeup. But I still never dropped my boyish pursuits. Quite the contrary. Neither my sister nor my mom were much thrilled when I started excelling in math and became the president of the motorsports club. They end up opting to spend Saturdays at the mall and for reasons I cannot comprehend, Jaqueline, my little sis, never got over going to church. Personally? I say burn it.

They say having a large network of friends is a guaranteed path to increasing the likelihood of longevity. I care a shit ton about my little sister, so when I saw she wasn’t growing out of her Catholic pursuits, I felt I needed to take action, so we could sit together well after our primes, saggy wrinkles eating up the Carribean sun, sipping piña coladas. I had the realization  just about halfway through sophomore year and up until then, I’d been hitting the books hard, outperforming even the nerds and not thinking too much about a social life to any degree. But I have a decent amount of foresight and I imagined my girly little sister getting to High School, failing at academia and not having any friends, so I figured I should buff up on the real extracurriculars for her sake; I started going to parties.

It was just around that time that I began to gather a following. My grade is a little weird in that most of the alternative girls are of the gothic persuasion and they simultaneously have a lot going for them looks wise. Using my head to grow my popularity but sticking to my cute and nerdy alt guns, I became a pin-up magnet and I soon had every pierced and ungodly chick’s posts rolling out a black carpet for a funeral-themed wedding whenever I scrolled through my Facebook feed. I guess they were excited by my bad-chick sleuthing skills to find the ragers and for good reason: I got them skin with boys they probably would never have seen until finishing their tattoo artist apprenticeships after graduation.

In turn, I was granted a spot in the throne as the prettiest in a flock of birds who would peck to pieces any sausage party. To put it plainly, we get what we wanted by sheer volume of pussy. I don’t even have to make plans on a Friday and by nine, I know where the party’s at and I know my gang will blow it up and turn even the lamest bangers into a roving burlesque.

And that’s exactly what we did over winter break when Stacy Fields, one of my prettier girls, let on that her boy Monty was having a get together with the basketball team. Stacy had visited Diane at Hot Topic earlier that day and snagged a couple bottles of O.P.I Midnight Glitter, so as soon as the bell rang, we all piled over to her house, ate strawberry Poki and watched The Devil’s Rejects while we spread layer after layer of shimmering jet black nitrocellulose over upwards of 100 nails.

We like to be fashionably late, so we rolled up to the party around quarter past eleven, ten girls decked out in torture garb with purses full of candy in a big black Chevrolet Suburban. When I got inside, it was apparent the party had already started because there were quite a lot of empty bottles sitting around, but the music was a little soft, dishearteningly acquiescing to hoots in a smoky family room focused on a plasma TV playing a videogame.

Monty walked up to me out of the smoke and asked me if I’d like a drink, so we headed to the kitchen where a couple other girls from the South Valley were comparing their boyfriends’ dick pics while sitting on the tile countertop, tugging out of a 32 of Miller High Life. Monty mixed me something strong that tasted flowery and vaguely like blue toilet liquid, but it got the job done. Uninterested in the dick pics, I walked back into the smoky living room, took a hit off a blunt that was being passed around and was lit. Then, I spotted him.

Across the room, sitting on an overstuffed brown faux-leather couch, was Erik Crooners, A-team player for the Wilson Wildcats basketball team. He looked uncomfortably out of place, not playing video games and not doing much at all except just kind of waiting for me to pounce on him and eat him up like he were a cup of soft serve.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. If I told you my taste in men, I’d first have to tell you my taste in women, to have a juxtaposition with with which to easily compare. I like Latina girls: tall, thin, but muscular. If she has a tattoo: especially my type. The more, the better. As for men: ditto! And Erik fits the bill to the ‘T,’ his sinewy body was even just ever so slightly caramel color, surely from all that time he spend with his oafish bestie DeShawn. Even made his white ass look a little bit vato: Swoon!

So then I stood there for like a split second, eyeing his most prominent tattoo, a ridiculously vain spidery scrawling of his own name that seemed to bulge out of his tank top on his left pectoral. I didn’t want to be a deer in headlights though. The faux-leather furniture set made the room feel especially ‘den’-like, so I took off my shoes and pranced over, flinging myself onto the big brown cushion next to Erik.

The whole chase was as much like eating soft serve as it had looked from a distance; all I had to do was pull on the little black bow in my hair and kind of tilt my head to show him my neck and he was melting. He tried to make conversation a little like a car trying to start when it’s battery’s dead. After he tried for the third time to say something incomprehensible, then he just kind of pulled his head back a little bit and squinted his eyes all Chinese.

We were up in the master bedroom for probably 20 minutes. He was acting a little like putty, but I’d had only one drink so I decided to take control. I’d had a crush on Erik Crooners ever since the third grade, ever since he gave me a stupid valentine that had a bunch of misspelled words on it about farm animals. I remember when he gave it to me, I took the sweater I had just taken off and threw it in his face.

Ever since then, my feelings of guilt had sort of blossomed into an obsession with his pathetic attempt, his embarrassment, his red little cheeks after I threw the sweater, stuck in my mind as cute but also loving. But when he came, his face got all sort of red and puffy and his eyes bulged. It was a little repulsive and made me question the whole engagement. I didn’t waste time and quickly got up to use the bathroom. On my way down the hall to the bathroom, I got a string of texts from Stacy: 

“Where R U??? // 

We jackt the keg! // 

Alreds in car + keg + we gonna leave yo asssss!!!!”

Even though I felt like I was about to piss myself, I sprinted downstairs and out into the car. As soon as I got in, everybody started asking me where I’d been and then Felicia shouted out that she’d seen me go upstairs with Erik. While my opinion had just been stilted by Erik and the idiosyncrasies fornication will no doubt pull out of a lover every once in awhile, all of the girls started screaming. The keg had already been tapped and we took turns pulling out of it directly, half the girls in the car, including myself, blacking out by the time we reached Stacy’s house.

Looking back, maybe Erik wasn’t all that bad in bed. I remember at one point he started saying something and it pains me to think that I might of heard him confessing, “I love you.” Maybe that’s why he didn’t pull out and maybe that’s why I had to pee so bad after running out of the room, even though I thought he had. All in all, one thing came out of that night: me, pregnant with Erik Crooner’s baby.