#yes that's william rufus

[crazycurly-77]

Games

Don't really know what possessed me to write this, but here it is. Have fun! 

After a hard and tiring case Tim, Tony, Abby and you were celebrating the successful completion in a cute little bar. Amazingly even Gibbs joined your round.

You had a lot of fun and at one point during the evening Tony discovered the little stage and the karaoke machine. So he suggested playing a game. You all cheered about this idea. The game you played was truth or dare and everybody agreed to play. 

To decide who's next Tony put an empty bottle in the middle of the table and spinned it around. 

Tim was the first to play and said “truth”. Abby laughed and cheered immediately and asked him “how do you like my new tattoo?” His head became a fiery red and he stuttered “it's hot.”

“Wheeee!!!” She was absolutely excited, which made even Gibbs laugh. He was sitting beside you and was very content about that, because he came to be able to spend a few nice hours with you outside of work. 

But that you didn't know. Sure, the two of you got along very well and in the last couple of months in which you were working with Abby the team became friends to you, but you developed tender feelings for the silver fox as well. 

That he developed deep feelings for you too was a fact and everybody saw his longing looks towards you, except yourself. You were busy with trying to hide your feelings and pining after him yourself. 

You laughed so hard because of Abby's lucky dance, that you nearly missed that the bottle had landed on Tony. With a mischievous grin he chose “dare”. “I see a karaoke machine on the stage. So I dare you to sing “Rock DJ” of Robbie Williams” Tim challenged him. 

Tony laughed and nodded saying “alright!” and walked towards the place of the upcoming desaster. He performed extremely good, but luckily he was good in his job. His singing had your ears nearly bleeding, but it was very funny. 

He came back to the table exhausted, panting heavily and laughing his ass off as you all did. Sitting down he grabbed the bottle and spinned it. 

Again you were lucky. Abby was next. “Truth” she said smiling widely. 

Tony grinned as only he could and then asked “do you and Tim have an affair?” 

She clapped her hands laughing again and yelled a loud “Yes! Sure!” 

Pour Tim became red as a tomato again and tried not to be seen. 

Gibbs only looked at him, but said nothing. In all the happiness the atmosphere was now a little tense, so Abby quickly took the bottle to lighten the mood once more. 

This time you had no such luck as previously. The bottle landed on you. You took a deep breath, closed your eyes and said “Dare”. 

Abby knew that you can sing, because you were sometimes singing when you were waiting for test results and she loved your voice. But she was the only one who knew of your talent. 

Secretly she planned on getting Gibbs and you together because of your feelings for one another and this game was her perfect chance to work on this project. So she dared you “you have to sing “Hallelujah” in the version of Rufus Wainwright.”

All were laughing and you shrugged your shoulders saying simply “okay.”

You entered the stage, went to the machine and put it off with the words “that I don't need” and you winked to the waiting people. 

Then you took a seat on the piano and began to play and to sing. You closed your eyes to feel the music as you sang and the whole room was silent. After the song ended and you stood to walk back to your colleagues your audience gave you standing ovations. 

Abby fell into your arms jumping up and down “I knew you would make it! And it was so wonderful! I love your voice!”

“Y/N! I didn't know you could sing. Why didn't you told me?” Tony pouted. 

You smiled “you didn't asked.”

Sitting beside Gibbs again he layed his hand on your shoulder and said “very good, Y/L/N. Should sing more often.”

He gave you such a warm and tender smile that your mind gone blank and your heart was racing in your chest. Could he hear and feel it beating so fast? 

The two of you were so captured in each other that you didn't noticed that Tony answered another question truthfully and now directed the bottle back to you. 

Nobody complained about that, because all of them wanted to hear more from you. 

“Me once again? You're kidding. But alright. What do you want to hear?” you asked laughing. Immediately Tony demanded triumphantly “Sitting on a dock of a bay” of Otis Redding!”

“Yeah!!!” was heared from all sides. 

“Good. So be it” you nodded and walked back to the stage. 

Again everyone was fascinated and excited. 

“You are a singer!! What are you doing in the lab?” Tim asked in earnest. 

Your cheeks burned “Thank you so much, but it's just a hobby of mine and I love what I'm doing professionally.”

So this was settled. 

Gibbs asked himself the same what Tim had asked you and he feared your answer, but there was nothing to fear. You wouldn't leave him, would you? 

Of course they said that you were the next again and before you could say anything Tim cheered “I love when you sing ballads. So please, I want to hear “Run” of Leona Lewis.”

That was a sad but wonderful song, because it gives courage. 

So you sang it and Gibbs had to swallow hard. You singing this song got absolutely under his skin, no matter what. 

Tim, Tony and Abby saw this and congratulated themselves. Their plan seemed to work. Sure, originally it was Abby's plan, but Tim and Tony decided to help her as they noticed what she tried. 

Tim was next, so you didn't have to spend the whole evening on stage. He had to drink a glass of beer in one go as he chose the dare. Tony came after him, made the same choice and had to drink a glass of rum. He coughed heavily, but finally he made it and cheered at himself and bathed in his triumph. 

“Now it's my turn!” he then yelled and spun the bottle again. And again you had bad luck, because it landed once more on you. 

“Why does it never land on Gibbs?” you murmured a little annoyed. 

“Because it has too much fear of him!” Tony laughed and nearly toppled over because of it. 

While all were laughing, this earned him a glare and a head-slap from the boss. 

But it didn't help, it was your turn, so you said confidentially “I'll stick with dare.”

Surely you had only to sing again…

…but no!!!

Abby sent you a mischievous grin and demanded “you have to kiss Gibbs.”

Your jaw dropped and you blanched of surprise. Then you gulped and kissed him on the cheek. Everyone was disappointed, but most especially him. For a moment he thought his dreams would come true and his heart was trying to jump out of his chest, but no. He only felt your lips that he wanted to taste so much on his cheek.

Your cheeks however burned of embarrassment. Your heart was racing and you feared his reaction, but he simply stared at you with his wonderful ice blue eyes. 

Then you spun the bottle. It landed on Abby. She chose dare and gave a really good performance of AC/DC's “Thunderstruck”. 

Your little break wasn't long before it was your turn again. This time you chose to tell the truth. So Tony took his chance, stared at you and asked “do you have a boyfriend currently?” 

Once again you turned red “actually not. No, I don't have a boyfriend or someone like that at the moment.”

Tony and most of all Gibbs were very pleased with your answer. 

Then you turned the bottle, but Abby manipulated it, so it landed on you once more. You sighed and said “dare”.

Tim spoke up and made a wish “I would like to hear “The Rose” of Bette Midler.”

Abby cried excited “Yes! Such a wonderful song. A really good choice.”

You rolled your eyes, but went smiling to the stage once again. You loved singing, but you were getting slowly tired of the game. And you had a feeling, that maybe the three of Tim, Tony and Abby were up to something. 

But okay, it was your turn. 

You walked to the micro and it was silent again. Everybody held their breath in anticipation of what would happen. 

You breathed deeply to calm yourself, closed your eyes and began to sing. 

You poured all your heart in the song to get the wonderful message to your audience and everyone listened to your voice. 

You were totally oblivious that Gibbs stood up totally mesmerized and slowly walked to you. The team gasped in astonishment, but he couldn't help himself. He felt like he was drawn magically to you and couldn't resist for the life of him. 

As you had finished the song you opened your eyes to find his blue ones directly in front of you. Without a word he cupped your cheek with one hand and your waist with the other and pulled you to him. 

He wanted to taste your lips so badly so he slowly closed the distance between you and kissed you softly and tenderly. Breaking the kiss after a short while he kissed you lovingly on your forehead too, turned and walked back to your table. 

You stood there unable to move, think or do anything. What was that? Out of the blue your boss kissed you! The only thing in your mind was the word “wow!” 

After you collected yourself you went back to your table too, where you were met with three widely grinning faces and ice blue eyes which followed your every move over the edge of a beer glass. 

Sitting again next to Gibbs you took a sip from your own beer and then laughed “now it's MY turn to turn the bottle!” 

You grabbed it and instantly a hand was laid on yours. Holding your hand Gibbs turned the bottle at himself. He locked eyes with you and stated “it's my turn and I'm choosing the dare. But it's actually not a dare, but an honor.”

Everyone wondered and waited for what he was going to do, but he didn't care about the audience. He simply pulled you gently to him and kissed you hard and deeply to get his message to you and to stake his claim. 

Neither of you were able to grab a thought or say a word after this world turning kiss. You two were in your own world and forgot all your surroundings, co-workers inclusively. 

It took Tony to bring you both back to reality. He clapped Gibbs on the shoulder and winked saying “you should go and take a room.”

Instead of glaring at him, Gibbs grinned widely and murmured to you “for once he's right. Come on, Y/N. Let's go!” 

Under the cheering, clapping and laughing of your colleagues the two of you left the bar to celebrate the beginning of your life together.

The End

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Here you will find the other stories I've written to date.

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Tags: @ilovemark1951, @hobby27

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[cmrosens]

Fantasy Castle Thoughts

Wandering around castle ruins on the weekend while thinking about my fantasy WIP had me thinking about more worldbuilding stuff in fantasy (the obvious ones being covered by others, such as, where does the shit go? How do they get water? How do they not poison themselves while answering Qu 1?):

That film where they erased the entire town and the castle was sat there for no reason (meant to be Rochester) - look, even if your castle is a strategic fortress in the back of beyond, it will have some kind of nearby settlement. Because: who is building it and how long does it take and where do they all live while they're constructing it? Where do they go afterwards? How do the garrison get food (easier to grow crops and raise livestock nearby than have vulnerable wagons bringing it in and being ambushed).

A lot of castles were not built by locals, because you can't trust the fucking locals, that's (usually) why the castle is THERE. If you don't need a defensive structure you build a manor or a stately home. If you're building a castle, it's usually to subdue the population or to defend against the neighbours, but either way, what often happens is that the king or whoever will round up people from his patrimony he knows he's already whipped into shape and can trust, then force-marches them across country and re-settles them in the area the castle is meant to be. They are the ones who then farm and raise livestock, and push out the locals to do so. Over time, you get some intermingling and after a few gens it's a very different demographic, but you have a story of settlement going on with tensions bubbling under the surface. See also: William Rufus wanting to subdue the North of England, forcibly uprooting his tenants in the South of England and making them build and settle in Carlisle, where he built his castle (11thC); the Earl of Lincoln dragging a load of Yorkshire and Lancashire and Lincolnshire men to re-settle his newly bestowed North Welsh lordships, pushing the Welsh into the uplands while the settlers took over the lowlands (12th-13thC).

The settlers around castles bring their own forms of folk religion, superstition, folklore, dialect, and naming patterns, which are specific to their original region. These may be very similar to the ones where they've been settled. What does that look like? Is the culture of particular villages and settlements a little bit different or maybe strikingly so the closer you get to the castles in your world because of this? What are the issues faced by settlers and by local people, how do they get resolved (or do they)? You'd imagine settlers are favoured in court disputes, but depending on the politics, they may actually be overlooked in efforts to appease the locals, leading to some lords really upsetting the very people they took for granted that they could trust. What's going on with all this local level stuff? By the way:: 21stC "my religion is better than yours" is so fucking boring and overdone imo from Western fantasy. Not every fantasy people has to have a US Evangelical approach to faith. Maybe they just don't care, or as soon as they hear something new they're like oooh this is interesting let's incorporate that! And they do. And it's fine. And that's a normal attitude to have. That might be a lot more fun, because then you get multiple variations on a theme, which create lots of little layers and nuance to your world, rather than a very one-dimensional impression of "homogeneity" with the danger of slipping into ye olde "X Bad, Y Good" dichotomy.

Technology and adapting tech: building castles requires tech, and once you know how long something took to build, you know what the tech was and can work out how it may have developed since then. Also think about how it can be adapted. If you've got a world where castles are required because fighting happens, you have a world full of disabled people. War causes disability. Even tournaments were EXCEEDINGLY dangerous. Henry VIII got permanent brain damage at one. Other knights were left paralysed, many died, some were amputees as a result. People get their legs hacked off due to gangrene from wounds. People get arrows lodged in their spines. People get sick from malnutrition and develop conditions like osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, etc. Picture this: your lord gets severely injured and may never walk again just by falling from his horse (common). Unfortunately, the castle steps are DESIGNED to be difficult to get up and down, because it's a defensive structure, and you DO NOT want to make it easy for enemies to just stroll up to the upper levels which are the most defensible. Bear in mind that the majority of a castle is empty space: the ward. The domestic quarters are built into the walls, usually the inner walls of a concentric castle. Your lord had an upper floor room. In a castle, space is at a premium. You need all the space on the ground floor and it's already occupied. What do you do? Well - you remember that pulley system for heaving big tons of dressed stone up to the top of the scaffolding when constructing the tower? Yeah. Yeah you're going to use that. And if your lord is now permanently disabled and cannot use the stairs, you can work out how to refine that. But right now, you need to get him into bed so the physician can look him over, because if he dies right now this would be terribly politically inconvenient . Even if this hasn't happened in your current story right now, if this was the case for the lord or two BEFORE, the equipment may all still be there, and still be in place.

Anyway if you like this, you might like my newsletter and podcast, and the books I write.

[thewyrdsidepodcast]

Case Study: Calling on the Red King

The death of the Red King is a mystery that has remained unsolved for over 900 years and shaped both the political and actual British landscape.

King William II, also known as Rufus, was supposedly killed in a hunting accident in the New Forest, at the time a royal hunting ground, by an expert marksman.

That’s how the story goes… But whether or not this was an accident or actually murder is still very much up for debate. For a start, the fated arrow reportedly bounced off an oak tree after missing a stag. Yes you read that right, bounced. Not glanced, or skimmed, bounced.

Semantics and likely story embellishments aside, the marksman Tyrrell, immediately fled the scene, only stopping to shoe his horse backwards to confuse pursuers. Lucky for him, the king really wasn’t popular and no one bothered to chase him.

The death of the Red King, whilst much debated, is quite literally set in stone, on a memorial called the Rufus Stone originally erected in 1746. And it is here that the king supposedly still haunts, somewhere along the liminal path between the Rufus Stone and the city of Winchester, where he was buried.

We set out on a blustery autumn day last year to visit the location of his death and uncover the truth behind these rumours…

The scene was set for a memorable haunting.

Pitch darkness, torrential rain, ears buzzing with a tale of murder, betrayal, and potentially something darker lurking in the forest…

But we were to return home empty handed, soaked to the skin, the only fright a minor panic when we got back and momentarily misplaced the voice recorder… Unlike Kitty and Aiden, we heard no Old French, nor saw any figures in the underbrush (thank goodness).

For now, the Red King remains elusive.

[vanderwoodlings]

i know i once sent you an ask about your thoughts on Serena and motherhood, but what about your thoughts on Eric's relationship to fatherhood/if he'd want to be one, etc

Oooh yes that’s a fun one! Well. Unfun for Eric, but—

So the thing about William VDW is he’s one of the very few people we see Eric straight up write off: “The window for that closed somewhere between my twelfth birthday and, um, my suicide attempt… Going through all that without a father made me realize that I don't need one.”

He takes a lot of abandonment, betrayal, etc through the series, and he rarely holds a grudge. Serena, Lily, Jenny: all of them are still family, still loved ones, even while regularly in conflict with a Jenny he proclaims he’ll still have her back if the problem is real, and all it takes is… being there sometimes. Apologizing sometimes. Trying

Fatherhood, for Eric, has one face in complete and utter absence. Unlike Serena, who uses that openness to hope, Eric replies with the (perhaps more grounded) “well fuck you too.” It is auxiliary to his personhood.

I think it makes sense that Eric is the one of these kids who’s actually had some help processing his trauma.

But he also implies that he didn’t always think that way. (Return to Serena, Lily, Jenny: Eric is not cold by nature. His walls come from repetition. Implicitly, it took his a real long time before he stopped hoping for his dad to give a fuck.)

Now, further, we have the rufly paradox: that they’re better parents to their stepkids than the ones they’ve had the whole time. Eric and Rufus have a good relationship; they’re affectionate and respectful and loving towards each other. When Rufus is thinking about proposing, he talks to Eric, who’s delighted.

(This is despite, one might note, him being Jenny’s confidant throughout the emancipation saga.)

I think Eric manages to come out of his adolescence with a weirdly healthy view of fatherhood. He definitely still has issues, but he also has a pretty good dad.

When it comes to being a father himself, I think Eric is definitely not a “well, if my partner wants” kinda guy. Like stop no do not pass go do not collect two hundred dollars—if he’s having a kid, he wants that kid, and he’s never gonna run the risk of that kid being abandoned. Eric is very aware that his parents had kids because they were supposed to, rather than because they wanted to.

I could see him arranging a childless little family and being very happy that way, but my preference is yeah, he would want and have kids.

He’s really scared, once it starts looking like a legitimate plan rather than a castle in the air, and he stays scared for a while. He’s mean, he’s sad, neither of his parents were ever there what does he do?

He’s also a great dad

[leanstooneside]

A blunder leads someone to say something he or she regrets

• ARE

• RUSTY

• TO

• TRENTINO

• EXITS

• ARIA

• SIR

• HOWEVER

• THEN

• THE

• HAVE

• UNCLE

• MAYBE

• DOCTOR

• COMING

• TEASDALE

• FIREFLY

• NORTH

• ARNO

• RUFUS

• VERA

• WHO

• GROUCHO'S

• OH

• T

• WITH

• READING

• IN

• SECRETARY

• MARK

• ROAD

• CHICO

• RISING

• PSST

• TELL

• TEASDALE'S

• CARRY

• VERA'S

• IF

• MRS

• EXCELLENCY

• APOLOGETICALLY

• WILLIAM

• GLORIA

• CAN'T

• BOB

• IMPATIENTLY

• REMARK

• TRENTINO'S

• YES

• PUTTING

• PETER

• MYRTLE

[booksandwords]

Light Touch by Neve Wilder

Series: Rhythm of Love, #0.5 Read time: 1 Day Rating: 4/5 Stars

The Quote: I wanted to drink him in, spend hours exploring the variant shades of his body. — Quinn Marx

Warnings: None of note.

Light Touch is the story of severely light sensitivity artist Quinn Marx and musician Rufus 'Ru' Merrill. It is told mainly from Ru's perspective, through him we get to know the world and meet Quinn even without knowing his name or story. The story of their meeting is one of my faves. What I do like is the slight flip on the expected dynamic. I didn’t usually bother with musicians. I’d learned my lesson long ago. They were moody egoists, and in my world, there was only room for one moody egoist. Which might have also been the reason I’d been single for months. (Quinn) It isn't the musician with an ego the size of a small planet in this story, it's the artist. No strangers to egos themselves but usually not as frequently in fiction as musos. Quinn is a realist he is the dominating ego and will take no contest, it suits his whole deal really. Ru while having the ego keeps himself grounded, by working a bar and not signing with a label (aka doing it the hard way). This has a really simple flirtation and getting-together plot. It is more of an introduction to the world and some of the characters in it. I do wonder if Neve also wanted to challenge herself by writing a disability with respect.

Some comments and quotes

There are the beginnings of a discussion on bondage. That isn't the direction that Ru and Quinn's sexual relationship goes but I live for discussion of healthy boundaries and knowing your full compatibility. In a way, I think it totally suits Quinn's want or maybe just enjoyment to control.

There were dozens of other attractive people to look at— Nashville was full of them— but like that game I’d played on road trips as a kid where I searched for cars of a certain color, now he was all I could see. Except if he was a car, with that bone structure and sleek build, he’d have been a vintage Oldsmobile F-88, rare and expensive. — Oh... what a pretty analogy. Neve has a way with words. This description in particular just suits Nashville. (Rufus)

For those interested. Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Classical Gas by Mason Williams. I'd heard Classical Gas but I didn't know what it was called.

“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,” he crooned as I approached. His voice wasn’t half-bad. Deep and throaty. No Bob Dylan, but on key and as sexy as the rest of him. — This is the first time Quinn speaks and I think it charmed me more than more first lines. He and Ru have been flirting in their own way for a week by this point (Rufus, spoken words Quinn)

The scene in the Haunted House is fantastic to me. Weakness in a strong man is something that needs to be shown more. Ru and Quinn have cute costumes. I laughed too hard at Quinn's 🤣 (no spoilers). Ru's of course plays on a nickname 🧛🏼‍♂️.

Ru started laughing, and when I looked down at him, he laughed harder, saying, “This is never gonna happen, is it?” Marco blinked, taking a step backward. “I… should probably just go.” “You’re fine.” Ru and I said it in unison, which had us cracking up all over again. “God, that was creepy. Please don’t ever do that again. So…” Marco cleared his throat, and recentered his attention on me. “I’m just going to ignore Rufus Merrill’s dick— which, I must admit looks quite impressive even in its semisoft state— and ask you: Tequila, yes or no?” — I told you I adore Marco. This is just one reason why. He walks in on his best friend and a semi-naked guy Quinn really likes and just rolls with it. Marco has an ability to put people at ease I'm totally jealous of. (Rufus, Marco and Quinn)

Marco is a brilliant best friend. The moment in the living room while Ru and Marco are cleaning up makes me so happy. He is perfectly loyal and does his best to communicate the wish to protect Quinn while supporting his relationship.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Like smoke curling up from a fire.” And inconvenient. And endlessly annoying. But beautiful worked if it meant he kept touching me. My heart swelled and galloped in my chest, and I gave in and closed my eyes. “Photophobia—” — Not the first but the best time we see Quinn with his glasses off. I adore these mixed interpretations of it. Quinn's Photophobia is what gives him his severe light sensitivity. It's not one I'd read before, the closest being probably prosopagnosia in Holding Up the Universe (also a severe case). (Rufus and Quinn)

As promised by Neve we do meet characters from future Rhythm of Love books. We know of Les Graves from Dedicated, Quinn's ex, the one that made him swear off musicians. He is matched with his Porter & Graves bandmate Evan. Resonance. I adore Owen okay. We have only a couple of interactions with him. But he's just a ball of light and energy, fuelled almost entirely by sugar. He's the series twink, according to Quinn at least. He is matched with his boss at Grim's Record Repository, Dan Grim. I like the last lines of the blurb. "It’s a steamy slow burn bisexual age-gap, boss/employee romance with lots of banter and two obstinate heroes who really, really don’t want to want the very thing they both need."

I got this one free in one of the many book giveaways I got books from recently. But unlike some of the novellas, I downloaded this is one I would have been happy to pay for. Ru and Quinn have this brilliant game going on. Their game of cat and mouse that I haven't seen in a while. It uses disability well though I would suspect that Quinn has a severe case of it. As with so many of the novellas I'm ready recently 4⭐ because I wish it was just a little longer. I wanted to spend more time with these two and their chemistry.

[voluptuarian]

“That which walks in the Wood / Knows why it walks or why it cries...”  

01. prelude - patrick wolf 02. the rolling of the stones - the young tradition  03. the abney ritual - bare bones 04. poor murdered woman - martin carthy 05. robin is dead - sharron kraus 06. brambles - the memory band 07. through the wood - arrowwood 08. chimacum rain - linda perhacs 09. kaleidoscope - tiamat 10. within hollows - autumn grieve 11. o deep woods - solanaceae 12. thistles - twelve thousand days 13. under the willow tree - mediaeval baebes 14. watcher pt. 1 - the future kings of england 15. looking for the hermit’s cave - sharron kraus 16. the wind that cracks the leaves - in gowan ring 17. sweet william - tunng 18. funeral lullaby - arrowwood 19. the woody nightshade - sharron kraus 20. the bramble briar - the transmutations 21. who killed cock robin? - jill trinka 22. where the hazel grows - alphane moon 23. the woods - cosmo sheldrake

(Spotify)

[toscrollperchancetomeme]

Lestat de Lioncourt - A playlist

So, guess who made a Lestat Playlist (like there aren't enough already) and decided to sit down for 4-6 hours to find some excerpt corresponding with each song? Featuring 80s and 90s music (clearly showing my age...) as well as many european songs and showtunes. Enjoy!

1. Cathedrals – Ramin Karimloo (Original by Jump, Little Children)

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome There is a feeling that you should just go home And spend the lifetime finding out just where that is

And that was not a good year for me. I was wandering aimlessly. I was sick of things. I was furious with myself that the „beauty“ of life wasn't sustaining me, wasn't making my loneliness bearable.

I wanted to join them. Always do want to join them and never do. „Go home,“ he whispered. - Prince Lestat

(I actually feel like there are quotes that would correspond to this song in every one of the books and indeed have not yet found any other song that captures the general spirit of The Vampire Chronicles as perfectly.)

2. Edge of Seventeen – Stevie Nicks

Well, I went today Maybe I will go again tomorrow Yeah yeah, well, the music there Well, it was hauntingly familiar Well, I see you doing what I try to do for me With the words from a poet and a voice from a choir And a melody, and nothing else mattered

He sat next to me, hugging me and asking me why I was crying, and though I couldn't tell him, I could see that he was overwhelmed that his music had produced this effect. There was no sarcasm or bitterness in him now. I think he carried me home that night. And the next morning I was standing in the crooked stone street in front of his father's shop, tossing pebbles up at his window. When he stuck his head out, I said: „Do you want to come down and go on with our conversation?“ - The Vampire Lestat

3. I ain't scared of lightning – Tom McRae

No I ain't scared of lightning And thunder never killed I was born in a summer storm and I live there still

I wasn't part of the world that cringed at such things. And with a smile, I realized that I was of that dark ilk that makes others cringe. Slowly and with great pleasure, I laughed.

And the labor that brought it forth was rapture such as I have never known. - The Vampire Lestat

4. Junge Roemer – Falco (Young Romans – Full Translation)

Don't ask for new old values See white light, see only feeling The night is ours till morning We play every game Don't ever let this journey end The doing comes only from the being Only from dimensions, that Are worth illusions and sensations Give me more, give me more, give me more...

... and again she laughed. „Ah, but we are splendid devils, aren't we?“ „Hunters of the Savage Garden,“ I said. „Then let's go into Paris,“ she said. - The Vampire Lestat

5. Running up that hill – Candy Says (Original by Kate Bush

If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, And I'd get him to swap our places, Be running up that road, Be running up that hill, Be running up that building,

„Not even with Nicolas?“ „No, god, no!“ I looked at her. She nodded slightly as if she approved of this answer. „Why not with Nicolas?“ she asked. I wanted this to stop. „Because he's young,“ I said, „and he has life before him.“ - The Vampire Lestat

6. Florence – Notre Dame de Paris (Full Translation)

The little things always triumph over the large And literature will kill architecture The school books will kill the cathedrals The Bible will kill the Church, and man will kill God This will kill that

„I never lived in it. I push against the glass. But how do I get in?“ „I can't tell you that,“ I said. „You have to study this age,“ Gabrielle interrupted. Her voice was calm but commanding. He looked towards her as she spoke. „You have to understand the age,“ she continued, „through its literature and its music and its art. You have come up out of the earth, as you yourself put it. Now live in the world.“ No answer from him. Flash of Nicki's ravaged flat with all its books on the floor. Western civilization in heaps. - The Vampire Lestat

7. Go your own way – Fleetwood Mac

Loving you isn't the right thing to do How can I ever change things that I feel

If I could maybe I'd give you my world How can I when you won't take it from me

You can go your own way You can call it another lonely day

„Keep your promise,“ she said. And quite suddenly I knew this was our last moment. I knew it and I could do nothing to change it. „Gabrielle!“ I whispered. But she was already gone. - The Vampire Lestat

8. Désenchantée – Olympe (Original by Myléne Farmer - Full Translation)

If death is a mystery Life isn't exactly tender If heaven has a hell Then heaven can still wait for me Tell me how to handle this headwind Nothing makes sense anymore, nothing's fine

Laughter. That insane music. That din, that dissonance, that never ending shrill articulation of the meaninglessness... Am I awake? Am I asleep? I am sure of one thing. I am a monster. And because I lie in torment in the earth, certain human beings move on through the narrow pass of life unmolested. - The Vampire Lestat

9. A kind of magic – Queen

The bell that rings inside your mind Is challenging the doors of time It's a kind of magic The waiting seems eternity The day will dawn of sanity

And quite completely I understood that it was looking for me, this sound, it was seeking me out.

Blood like light itself, liquid fire.

It seemed beneath the roar of the flow he spoke. He said again: „Drink, my young one, my wounded one.“ I felt his heart swell, his body undulate, and we were sealed against each other. I think I heard myself say: „Marius.“ And he answered: „Yes.“ - The Vampire Lestat

10. La quête – Bruno Pelletier (French version of „The Impossible Dream“ from Man of La Mancha)

To try when your arms are too weary To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest To follow that star Ooh, no matter how hopeless No matter how far

I would remain in New Orleans if New Orleans could only manage to remain. Whatever I suffered should be lessened in this lawless place, whatever I craved should give me more pleasure once I had it in my grasp. And there were moments on that first night in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of all my secret power, I was somehow kin to every mortal man. - The Vampire Lestat

11. Wicked Game – Chris Isaak

What a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you

Yet Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had. Even in his cruelest moments, Louis touched the tenderness in me, seducing me with his staggering dependence, his infatuation with my every gesture and every spoken word. - The Vampire Lestat

12. Do I disappoint you – Rufus Wainwright

Do I disappoint you, in just being human? And not one of the elements that you can light your cigar on Why does it always have to be fire? Why does it always have to be brimstone?

„And suppose the vampire who made you knew nothing, and the vampire before him knew nothing, and so it goes back and back, nothing proceeding from nothing, until there is nothing! And we must live with the knowledge that there is no knowledge!“ „Yes!“ he cried out suddenly, his hands out, his voice tinged with something other than anger.

And then I sensed it. He was afraid. Lestat afraid. - Interview with the Vampire

13. Ordinary World – Duran Duran

What has happened to it all? Crazy, some'd say Where is the life that I recognize? Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday There's an ordinary world Somehow I have to find And as I try to make my way To the ordinary world I will learn to survive

I do not remember when it became the twentieth century, only that everything was uglier and darker, and the beauty I'd known in the old eighteenth-century days seemed more than ever some kind of fanciful idea. - The Vampire Lestat

14. I'm still standing – Taron Egerton (Original by Elton John)

And there's a cold lonely light that shines from you You'll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use And did you think this fool could never win? Well look at me, I'm coming back again

But after the third night up, I was roaring around New Orleans on a big black Harley-Davidson motorcycle making plenty of noise myself. […] I was the vampire Lestat again. I was back in action. New Orleans was once again my hunting ground. - The Vampire Lestat

15. Catch my fall – Billy Idol

I have the time so I will sing, yeah I'm just a boy but I will win, yeah Lost song of lovers, fellow travelers, yeah Leave me sad and hollow out of words

It could happen to you so think for yourself If I should stumble, catch my fall, yeah

I've survived, obviously. I wouldn't be talking to you if I hadn't. And the cosmic dust has finally settled; and the small rift in the world's fabric of rational beliefs has been mended, or at least closed. I'm a little sadder for all of it, and a little meaner and a little more conscientious as well. - The Queen of the Damned

16. I want it all – Queen

I'm a man with a one track mind So much to do in one lifetime (people do you hear me) Not a man for compromise and where's and why's and living lies So I'm living it all, yes I'm living it all And I'm giving it all, and I'm giving it all

It is not enough any longer that my little rock band be successful. We must create a fame that will carry my name and my voice to the remotest parts of the world. - The Vampire Lestat

17. Let me entertain you – Robbie Williams

Hell is gone and heaven's here There's nothing left for you to fear Shake your arse come over here Now scream

I'm a burning effigy Of everything I used to be You're my rock of empathy, my dear

So come on let me entertain you

"I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as I stepped way back from the microphone, and the sound was almost visible as it arched over the length of the oval theater, and the voice of the crowd rose even higher, louder, as if to devour the ringing sound. - The Vampire Lestat

18. La bien qui fait mal – Mozart l'Opera Rock (Full translation)

I can feel a violent urge I feel like I'm sliding towards the ground If I don't find out where this plague is coming from I adore having it under my skin Bewitched by mad ideas Suddenly all my cravings take off The desire becomes my prison Until I loose my mind

Yet I was in her arms in this chilling darkness, in the familiar scent of winter, and her blood was mine again, and it was enslaving me. When she drew away, I felt agony. - The Queen of the Damned

19. Tainted Love – Soft Cell

And you think love is to pray But I'm sorry I don't pray that way Once I ran to you Now I'll run from you This tainted love you've given I give you all a boy could give you Take my tears and that's not living, oh

„What do you think I am that I am so easily swayed? I was born a Queen. I have always ruled; even from the shrine I ruled." Her eyes were glazed suddenly. I heard the voices, a dull hum rising. "I ruled if only in legend; if only in the minds of those who came to me and paid me tribute. Princes who played music for me; who brought me offerings and prayers. What do you want of me now? That for you, I renounce my throne, my destiny!" What answer could I make? - The Queen of the Damned

20. Dancing in the Dark – Ruth Moody (Original by Bruce Springsteen)

They say you gotta stay hungry Hey baby, I'm just about starvin' tonight I'm dyin' for some action I'm sick of sittin' 'round here tryin' to write this book I need a love reaction Come on now, baby, gimme just one look

"I want you to put the book aside and come join us," he said. "You've been locked in here for over a month." "I go out now and then," I said. I liked looking at him, at the neon blue of his eyes.

"Do you love me now?" I asked. He smiled; oh, it was excruciating to see his face soften and brighten simultaneously when he smiled. "Yes," he said. "Want to go on a little adventure?" My heart was thudding suddenly. It would be so grand if- "Want to break the new rules?" "What in the world do you mean?" he whispered. - The Queen of the Damned

21. I want you – Savage Garden

Oh, I want you, I don't know if I need you But oh, I would die to find out

"You don't think you'll be back?" he asked. "I think you will, whether I call or not." Another little surprise. A little stab of humiliation. I smiled at him in spite of myself. He was a very interesting man. "You silver-tongued British bastard," I said. "How dare you say that to me with such condescension? Maybe I should kill you right now."

I thought of David Talbot's face, and that moment when he'd challenged me. Well, maybe he was right. I'd be back. Who said I couldn't come back and talk to him if I wanted to? - The Queen of the Damned

22. Lay your hands on me – Bon Jovi

I'm a fighter, I'm a poet, I'm a preacher I've been to school, oh baby, I've been the teacher If you show me how to get up off the ground I can show you how to fly and never ever come back down

I sat down on the bed beside him. And then I bent down and kissed his face again gently, as I had in New Orleans, liking the feel of his roughly shaven beard, just as I liked that sort of thing when I was really Lestat and I would soon have that strong masculine blood inside. I moved closer to him, when suddenly he grasped my hand, and I felt him gently push me away. „Why, David?“ I asked him. He didn't answer. He lifted his right hand and brushed my hair back out of my eyes. „I don't know,“ he whispered. „I can't. I simply can't.“ - The Tale of the Body Thief

23. 20th Century Boy – Placebo (Original by T-Rex)

I move like a cat, charge like a ram Sting like a bee, babe, I wanna be your man, hey!

He drew back with a speed that astonished me, cleaving to the wall. „Don't do this, Lestat.“ „Don't fight me, old friend. You waste your effort. You have a long night of discovery ahead.“ - The Tale of the Body Thief

24. Way down we go – KALEO

Oh, Father tell me, do we get what we deserve? Whoa, we get what we deserve And way down we go

„In chains, to my friend and my scribe, I dictated these words. Come with me. Just listen to me. Don't leave me alone.“ - Memnoch the Devil

25. Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode

Reach out, touch faith

"Don't tell me," Gabrielle said slurringly, "that it's a matter of faith." She sneered and shook her head. "You come like doubting Thomas to thrust your bloody fangs in the very wound." "Oh, stop, please, I beg you," I whispered. I put up my hands. "Let me try, and let him hurt me, and then be satisfied, and turn away." - The Vampire Armand

26. Papillon – Editors

Darling Just don't put down your guns yet If there really was a God here He'd have raised a hand by now Now darling You're born, get old, then die here Well that's quite enough for me We'll find our own way home somehow

"And if I spill my blood down into this coffin now," Lestat asked her, "what do you think will come back? Do you think it will be our Louis that will rise in these burnt rags? What if it's not, chérie, what if it's some wounded revenant that we must destroy?" "Choose life, Lestat," she said. - Merrick

27. Sunday Light – Choir Boy

Why, why, why, are you silent on the ride home? I'd love to see the temple with you Heavenly and bright, golden angel twisted scathing You were one of us, one of us, one of us, you were one of us

"Then come, Little Brother, take me to where you want to talk," he said, and I felt the soft squeeze of his fingers on my arm. "Why are you so kind to me?" I asked him. "You're used to people being paid to do it, aren't you?" he asked. - Blackwood Farm

28. Für mich solls rote Rosen regnen – Hildegard Knef (It should rain red roses for me - Full translation)

It should rain red roses for me All wonders should encounter me The world should rearrange itself And keep its worries to itself

I want to be a saint. I want to save souls by the millions. I want to do good far and wide. I want to fight evil! I want my life-sized statue in every church. I'm talking six feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes- Wait a second. Do you know who I am? - Blood Canticle

29. Constant Craving – K. D. Lang

Even through the darkest phase Be it thick or thin Always someone marches brave Here beneath my skin And constant craving Has always been

I was hunting, thirsting though I didn't need to drink, at the mercy of the craving, the deep agonizing lust for heated pumping human blood. - Prince Lestat

30. Kalte Sterne – Jan Ammann (Cold Stars from the musical Ludwig² - Full translation)

Get up, ride home, on your horse, through your land Across the morning with your reins trailing behind you Build a castle like a dream, build it with mighty hands And it shall be named „future“

Build a castle like a dream Up from the ashes and close to the heavens Build a castle like a dream And realise the future as king

If we wanted to survive, if we wanted to inherit the millenia […] then we had to meet the future with respect as well as courage and count fear and selfishness to be small things. - Prince Lestat and the realms of Atlantis

31. C'est une belle journée – Mylene Farmer (Full translation)

I'm going to bed To bite eternity With my mouth wide open It's a beautiful day

And I felt the cold numbing shell of alienation and despair which had imprisoned me all of my life among the Undead – I felt that shell cracked, broken, and dissolved utterly into infinitesimal fragments. - Blood Communion

32. Princes of the Universe – Queen

Fly the moon and reach for the stars With my sword and head held high Got to pass the test first time, yeah I know that people talk about me, I hear it every day But I can prove them wrong 'cause I'm right first time

„I know that you meant full well to bring Rhoshamandes down, of course you did. But you had no way of knowing that you could. And no one would have predicted that you could. And with the willingness to die, you gave yourself over into his hands... and you disarmed him and destroyed him.“ – Blood Communion

And finally, because I can, a bonus track:

33. Primadonna – MARINA

And I'm sad to the core, core, core Every day is a chore, chore, chore When you give, I want more, more, more I wanna be adored

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

do you think serena’s waffling between dan and nate throughout S4 came from a place of genuine indecision? or was it more her way of (subconsciously) “testing” dan like she admits she sometimes does in 4x12? idk, because while i dont think she was stringing nate along consciously or willfully, it’s interesting how she seems to “choose” dan at every single opportunity - and very early on- which makes me wonder if deep down she kinda did know who she wanted, even if she was afraid to commit to it.

this is very interesting! i get the denial/unwillingness; dan & serena have broken up so many times by now & there's also the whole thing of rufus & lily being together, so it does make sense that if serena knew she wanted dan from the beginning she'd repress it. but honestly i did not get romantic vibes from them towards the end of s3 at all? dan is serena's comfort person, he's more of a safe space / safety net to her at this point in their arc than he is a dream boyfriend. he is her source of stability when everything else is sort of unstable, so it does make sense that she gravitates towards him (esp given everything happening in her life with william and whatnot.)

but i think the thing with serena & nate - which is why so many serenate fans feel that their story was unfinished, i'd guess- is that they both cared about each other sooooo much. their natural progression from childhood best friends to lovers, and how they managed to keep that platonic intimacy & closeness even when they were romantically involved (they're always laughing during sex and fooling around and they don't take each other too seriously, which i thought was v cute) - all of that was really sweet, and maybe if they'd had a second chance when they were both in a better place, it would've gone better for them.

i think dan is serena's default lifejacket SOS option - part of why she's more afraid, canonically, of losing dan to blair than she is of losing blair to dan (though some people interpret this the other way and ngl, i adore that).

that said, i think serena wanted to want nate? when you're childhood best friends, you kind of know from the very beginning what you're getting into with romance in most cases, because you know this person so well. i think serena KNEW, with all her heart, that nate was a great guy, very sweet, genuinely did love her and care about her and want to be there for her and want what's best for her. (the way he looks is probably just a bonus.) but knowing that someone is a good option & desiring someone are vastly different things and you can't really control who you're into.

i think serena's waffling came about from like - she'd left nate, and their breakup was more "taking a break from each other" than it was "you and i are done for good, sayonara" and while i personally never got the sense that serena was romantically in love w/ nate (platonically: yes, but romantically, idk, i just didn't see it) he IS her best friend after all, and she does care about him deeply. i think serena maybe (subconsciously) felt like she owed it to nate to pick up where they'd left off?

anyway. to go beyond your question, i love derena in a nostalgic way, i am genuinely so fond of dan & serena. but i think serena was sort of, uh, unintentionally using dan & nate as a way to avoid dealing with the stuff she NEEDED to deal with. she was looking for an answer, or a source of comfort, in them (which, understandable, william trauma is not a small trauma). so i actually feel like she didn't really want either of them? or at least, it wasn't stemming from a place of genuine want, it was coming from a place of "oh i'm hurting and i wonder which one of these boys will make me hurt less." and the answer to that, unfortunately for nate, is dan.

[misskremlintsarina5294]

Yeah for the most part Dan treated Blair better but he's generally a jerk and also did bad things to her, like I remember when he let Blair come in his apartment in her lingerie without warning her that Rufus and Lily (I think) were in there. Not to mention all the Gossip Girl stuff he put everyone through

It never made sense that he was Gossip Girl. Dan being Gossip Girl came up from the writers at the last minute, and even then it didn’t make any sense because the Gossip Girl voiceover was a female voice, NOT a male voice. The last 2 episodes of Season 5, and all of the Season 6 was such a trainwreck disaster. Savage and Schwartz had to come up with a plan that would make Dan worse than Chuck because they’ve felt threatened by Safran’s writing because he writes the show better than they do. Dan&Serena addressed in Season 2 that the world doesn’t want them to be a couple since all of the odds were against them being together romantically. They have a sibling they share for crying out loud. Rufus&Lily have a stronger history and bond than Dan&Serena. Plus Dan has better chemistry with Rachel Carr, Olivia Burke, Georgina, and Vanessa than he does with Serena. And I don’t even ship Dan with Georgina or Vanessa. Chuck&Blair have a very problematic relationship since Blair’s the victim most of the time, and he acts like his manpain and ego are much more important than the trauma he put Blair through. He made her feel worse about herself than Dan ever did. Blair has wanted a pure and simple love ever since The Unblairable Lightness of Being. 

As for the lingerie scene, he did warn her about his parents and William being there. You could tell by his expression that he wasn’t expecting her to come to his house in lingerie.

Yes, Dan can be a jerk at times like choosing a skewed forbidden love relationship with Serena over a lifelong friendship with Vanessa, but Chuck is still worse. In reality the Chuck&Blair relationship would be frowned upon like the Dan&Serena relationship. Also that kind of writing wouldn’t fly in this day and age. In reality, a woman like Blair would have dumped Chuck’s ass. In real life a guy like Chuck would be in jail. He had attempted to rape Serena, Jenny, and Blair. He took one of his victim’s virginity on the night he was going to meet Blair on top of  The Empire. I think it is very selfish and disgusting that Chuck expects Blair to forgive him right away. I would have never took him back if he did the shit he did to Blair to me. I wouldn’t allow a man to walk all over me like the way Blair did. I would have never banish one of his victims from the city just because I know he clearly took advantage of her. Blair ends up being on that list of victims in Season 5. I don’t care if he spends money to try to earn her forgiveness because he was being manipulative that way. 

Dan can’t be in multiple places at the same time. He isn’t Superman. Him being Gossip Girl the whole time is the show’s biggest plothole.

[belladonnasmenagerie]

🎃Pumkin’s Rules🎃

!!🔞NO MINORS🔞!!

🥀What will I write??🥀

Headcannons

Prompts

Poly/threesomes

Imagines

Yandere

Smut

Fluff

Angst

NSFW Alphabet

SFW Alphabet

AU’s

My inbox is opened for requests or just to chat 😊 I prefer writing for female readers only I find it easier to write it that way. I am gutter trash so nothing is too filthy for my standers besides the stuff under the smut guidelines. I will write fluff sometimes too but for the most part this is a smut zone so no minors!!

🪓Smut Guidelines🪓

Will pretty much write anything smut related except for these things

Incest

Scat/Pee

Anything homophobic or just anything against the LGBTQ community

Nothing to do with Pedophilia

Anything that includes racism in a positive light

〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️🎃〰️〰️〰️〰️

🔪Slashers🔪

Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th: Will also write for remake Jason !!be specific which one you want when requesting!!)

Michael Myers (Halloween: will also write for 2018 older Michael and RZ Michael !!be specific on who you want when requesting!!)

Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Thomas and Bubba !!be specific on who you want when requesting!!)

Pinhead (Hellraiser)

Brahms Heelshire (The Boy)

Billy Lenz (Black Christmas: !!1974 only!!!)

Ghostface (Scream: Billy, Stu, Danny, Charlie and Mickey)

Harry Warden/Tom Hannigar (My Bloody Valentine)

Hannibal (Hannibal TV show)

Bo Sinclair (House of Wax)

Vincent Sinclair (House of Wax)

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)

Norman Bates (Psycho)

Rusty Nails (JoyRide)

Pennywise (IT: New and old !!be specific on who you want when requesting!!)

Asa Emory (The Collector)

Tex Sawyer (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3)

Leslie Vernon (Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon)

Otis Driftwood (House of 1000 Corpses Trilogy)

Foxy (3 from Hell)

Chromeskull (Laid to Rest)

Mark Hoffman (Saw)

Lawrence Gordon (Saw)

Rufus (House of 1000 Corpses)

Art the clown (Terrifier)

Dominic Craven (the dare)

The masked man (the strangers)

Corey Cunningham (Halloween ends)

Chop top and Nubbins (TCM)

Mick Taylor (Wolf Creek)

🕯Non Slasher Horror Characters🕯

Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)

Ash Williams (Young or old be specific)

Will Graham (Hannibal TV Show)

David (the Lost boys)

Herbert West (Re-Animator)

Lestat De lioncourt (Interview with a Vampire)

Severen (Near Dark)

Randy (Scream)

Peter Strahm (Saw)

Hellboy (Perlman and Harbour be specific!!)

Abe Sapien

Prince Nuada

👾Video Games👾

Pyramid Head (Silent Hill)

🎃Idk where to put them but I will also do the yautja aka the Predator🎃

🎃You can always send an ask to see if I will write a certain character and I will either say yes, no or maybe🎃

🎃I will not write sexually for any and all dolls including but not limited to Chucky, Billy, Blade etc...you may request non sexual requests with them🎃

[filmsociety]

The Father

1h 37m – 2020: Olivia Colman, Anthony Hopkins, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams.

Is The Father sad to watch? Yes.

Anne (Olivia Colman) desperately tries to help her elderly father while his reality changes.

Begins with a presentation of the film's "scene", a wonderful apartment in London.

One day when Anne is going to visit her father, something is wrong when Anne is no longer played by the actor we have seen before.

Characters and environment change multipe times.

Anthony's dementia gets worse.

Apartment becomes a home for the demented.

Anthony is scared.

Crying attack.

The consistent feeling of loss makes the film difficult to finish and the slow scenes make it difficult to start. This is not a movie for you if you are looking for a movie that is action packed, fast cut and has no dialogue.    

[pratchettpatricianpages]

Vimes stared at [William] a little too long. Then, in a slightly different tone of voice, he said:

“Lord Vetinari was seen by three cleaning maids of the household staff, all respectable ladies, after they were alerted by the barking of His Lordship’s dog at about seven o’clock this morning. He said” – here Vimes consulted his own notebook – “‘I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him, I’m sorry.’ They saw what looked very much like a body on the floor. Lord Vetinari was holding a knife. They ran downstairs to fetch someone. On their return, they found His Lordship missing. The body was that of Rufus Drumknott, the Patrician’s personal secretary. He had been stabbed and is seriously ill. A search of the buildings located Lord Vetinari in the stables. He was unconscious on the floor. A horse was saddled. The saddlebags contained… seventy thousand dollars… Captain, this is damn stupid.”

“I know, sir,” said Carrot. “They are the facts, sir.”

“But they’re not the right facts! They’re stupid facts!”

“I know, sir. I can’t imagine His Lordship trying to kill anyone.”

“Are you mad?” said Vimes. “I can’t imagine him saying sorry!”

Vimes turned and glared at William, as if surprised to find him still there.

“Yes?” he demanded.

“Why was His Lordship unconscious, sir?”

Vimes shrugged. “It looks as though he was trying to get on the horse. He’s got a game leg. Maybe he slipped – I can’t believe I’m saying this. Anyway, that’s your lot, understand?”

-The Truth by Terry Pratchett

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: The Father

Antony is a proud man, but who isn’t? He’s in the advanced years of his life---well past the ages AARP likes to depict on their magazine covers, and into the ages where simply continuing to be alive is a struggle. Is it more or less bad for Antony because he does not know how much of a struggle it is? He is suffering from some form of dementia, likely Alzheimer’s but never named as such. He talks of people who have long gone as if they are still there, and himself as if he were still a young father. He has moved into his adult daughter’s flat, but he does not know he has done that, either. She tells him, several times a day. He never remembers.

The Father eschews illness drama cliches in favor of something you don’t see on screen that often, at least not in America: a frank admission that growing old is never glamorous. Yes, it is about the loss of memory first and foremost. Yet in a medium that often depicts people in their 60’s and 70’s acting and looking much like people in their 30’s and 40’s, the aging aspects alone are notable. Antony moves with slow, shuffling steps, looks around a room several times before speaking (or sometimes not speaking), gestures creakily, as though it takes effort, and speaks sometimes without thinking even when his mental faculties are temporarily stronger. In other words, he behaves as if he is very old, not as if he is a young person in the body of a very old one.

It is the mark of a great performance that not once during the movie did I think of Anthony Hopkins’ many other great performances. I briefly thought of how daunting it must have been to portray that illness which is a source of instant terror for 83-year-olds like himself. How did he manage to do so without resulting to dramatics? Surely a lot of credit must be given to Olivia Colman, who plays his middle-aged daughter Anne. She wants to move to Paris to be with a man she met, and must find some more permanent solution for her father---or must she? She says this when we first meet her, but when we next meet her not only is she briefly a different person (Olivia Williams), she is married to Paul (Mark Gatiss) and seems perplexed at the notion of Paris. When we see Colman again, she denies having brought in a chicken that the Williams version of Anne was cooking, but also denies Paris, and Paul is now played by Rufus Sewell. He will switch back to Gatiss again at times, and we quickly realize that we are viewing the world from inside Antony’s own confused head. Also there is a young caretaker (Imogen Poots), who seems to reflect the old man’s need to remain relevant, something we all feel regardless of how long our minds work.

There is one single scene, near the end, in which Antony’s condition has progressed to a point where he cannot recall how old he is, or that he is a father, and not a son of a mother who must have died long ago. When Hopkins is called upon for this scene, the first in which Antony displays tears, the character has traveled there naturally, and Hopkins so successfully portrays him that I found I held my breath involuntarily.

These days, I seem to be doing that less and less for action and thriller movies, and more and more for movies like this. This time, though, I do not think it is all me and my naturally growing concern with aging. The techniques used in this film are the same ones used in many horror and thriller films. They include narrowly-shot hallways full of darkened rooms, a claustrophobic setting where things seem to change of their own accord, a shot in which there is a physical threat the hero can’t escape, and of course that unreliable narrator, making it so that even we do not know which Olivia and Paul are real and which ones are not. Whether these choices were made by cinematographer Ben Smithard, director Florian Zell or in some collaboration, I’m not sure, but to anyone who partakes of cinema meant to scare, it is obvious the choices are deliberate. And no one who has ever given the slightest thought toward the dangers of getting older would deny that the prospect of not remembering your own life is as terrifying, if not more so, as some demon in the dark.

The truth of things that terrify us is we must also laugh at them, and there are moments in here where that is almost inevitable. Zeller and co-writer Christopher Hampton balance genuine levity with shocking turnarounds, as when Antony shows off his tap-dancing skills to the young nurse, only to turn around and verbally ravage his long-suffering daughter. I laughed, and I feel that was intended, only to find the laughter dying on my lips mere seconds later. Zeller has presented us with a stark view of something we’d rather not think about, and therefore don’t really have a mental box for. Often I was not sure what to think. There is a shot near the end of a sculpture that is just a face, no head to back it up, and that image stayed with me, well into the night.

Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[paper-n-ashes]

Sarah my love!!! From the music asks list may I ask 17, 18, 19, and 20? It always seems like our music tastes overlap so I can't wait to hear the answers to these. Hope you're having the loveliest day <3

Issa, my sweetest honey. Took a while with this because I had to do some THINKING. Oh boy. I am so sorry because I can’t talk about music without going into unnecessary detail.

17. What songs remind you of very specific events or people when you listen to them?

See most songs do this for me, but there’s one that sticks out more than most. 

Love Lies by Khalid and Normani. So, a fairly chill song right? Now, I fell in love with this song right when I was detoxing and withdrawals were fucking me up big time. This song, for some reason, I played on repeat while I paced around my house because I couldn’t sleep, and walking helped to settle the restless leg syndrome I was experiencing. I still adore this song because it’s funky as hell, but also reminds me what a fucking SHIT time in my life that was, which helps prevent relapse. 

18. Top 5 favourite songs of all time?

This is the hardest fucking question ever? It honestly depends of the day. And my music taste has a wide spectrum so GOD this is going to be difficult. I’ll try to diversify from my different playlists.

I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You) - John Mayer - A classic favourite of mine. The whole Continuum album is a masterpiece, but this song is so effortlessly smooth and funky. Settles me right down. 

Sudden Desire - Hayley Williams - This song means, just, SO much to me. Has fuelled so much of my writing. It’s definitely off beat and alternative, but I couldn’t love it more.

Rules - Doja Cat - OKAY but this is the song I never tell anyone I love. But it was my most played on Spotify last year HAHAHA. Because it is a fucking banger. And if you don’t feel like a boss ass bitch listening to it, I honestly can’t help you.

MANTRA - Bring Me The Horizon - Literally like nothing else on this list. This tops my emo/heavy music playlist. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve belted this on the way home from a shitty shift. SO cathartic. 

Where Did The Party Go - Fall Out Boy - Yes this one song narrowly edges out the rest, but actually the whole fucking album is my pinnacle. Literally my favourite band and album of all time.

19. Put your library on shuffle and say your favourite lyric from the song that first comes up.

Okay Spotify is dumb and doesn’t let me really shuffle all of my playlists, so I’ll just use my Writing Songs playlist 

Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris - Hayley Williams (I adore ALL the lyrics to this song, one about not comparing yourself to others, but here’s a beautiful verse)

‘I have seen your body And I have seen your beauty They are separate things Pretty, pretty, pretty things But I am in a garden Tending to my own So what do I care And what do you care if I grow?’

20. What songs are your ‘go-to’ songs when recommending new music to people?

I can’t do individual songs, but rather some artists I recommend taking a dive into, and my favourites of theirs

Rufus Du Sol - Hypnotised + Brighter + Like an Animal + Eyes

Hayden James - Better Together + Just Friends + Favours + Hold Me Back

NOTD - So Close + Keep You Mine + I Wanna Know + I Miss Myself + Wanted

PVRIS - Death of Me + Old Wounds + Gimme A Minute + Dead Weight + You and I

Against The Current - weapon + that won’t save us + Voices + The Fuss

Au/Ra - Ghost + Assassin + Panic Room + Ideas + i miss u

JFC. This got long. Sorry again.