#you could easily frame it as Kate telling a story about her old friends and shes like ‘oh yeah they where kinda like you guys’

[dr-meowmers]

Have i ever mentioned how much i want them to make a pirate themed crash zoom episode.

Because i want it so so much.

[eddie-gluskin-and-i]

"My name? It's Kate." She chuckles, her real name was Kathrine, but she wasn't about to give him her full name. Her lustful feelings towards Eddie eventually did die down when she saw that... Sinister look in his eyes

The cashier secretly made a plan, when she goes to the bathroom she'll text her friend to just go to the same restaurant and pretend to be a classy man looking for some dinner by himself. And if Eddie does anything bad she'll run to her friends car and dip. She was not letting go of her purse. Looks like her bike will just spend the night in the stores break room.

Kate looked at Eddie, yes, he was old, but very charming... but she's seen enough true crime to know that you can't always trust old charming looking men... but.. maybe this man was sweet. Walking down the dim street she stared at the side walk flowers of the apartment, looking away from her apartment so Eddie wouldn't know where to find her she just stared straight, seeing the restaurants glowing pin up girl sign in the distance. It wasn't some playboy restaurant, but it had Hawaiian and mermaid pin up art, it was very pretty. Yet a little lewd in a way.

Eddie paused as Kate came to a stop in front of the restaurant. He looked to her, then up to the bright flashy lit up sign, then back to you again. He furrowed his brows slightly, and his lips quirked in disbelief.

"Surely you don't mean to take us here..." He curiously scanned her face.

For a moment she worried she'd blown it, that he'd laugh at her or up and leave her here in disgust, but then his features softened as he broke into a laugh. It was a warm, deep sound that instantly made her feel at ease.

"I would never have pegged you as one to frequent such a place. You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

He opened the door for her, flashing a smile as she passed. Maybe he's alright after all, Kate thought. Maybe.

----------

"You're joking! You must be."

He shook his head, letting his eyes linger on the woman looking incredulously at him, before taking another sip of his beer.

"I swear it on my darling grandmother's grave. In suit and tie, in front of my most important client - I finally glance down and see the stain in a very questionable spot on my trousers."

Kate dropped her fork to cover her face in a fit of laughter. The man had hardly given her a moment's rest with his barrage of outrageous stories. She was so completely enthralled she didn't even notice when the waiter placed yet another drink in front of her.

"Not one person in the room could look me in the eye after that."

Eddie's eyes flickered down to the glass in front of her. He had ordered her last three drinks: the first he insisted was on him; the last two were ordered when she was too preoccupied with his story or her laughter to notice.

"But enough of me. I hardly know anything about you, except your name and occupation."

He leaned in and placed his hand over hers on the table. His easily covered hers. He stroked the soft skin of her hand with his thumb.

Kate's breath hitched when she felt him touch her. She could feel herself flush, and the alcohol was making her vision blur slightly. She'd promised herself she wouldn't have more than one drink, but he'd insisted on buying her another and figured she'd let him to be polite. Besides, she was safe here.

She looked back up at him. All she could see was him, his face striking against the colourful fluorescent lights. It was dark enough to block out everything else, but bright enough to make out his beautiful features. He looked like a dark angel, framed against a halo of the deep purple lights from above.

"Do you want to tell me on the way back to your apartment? You look like you can barely stand." He said as he leaned in closer.

He was so close. Almost too close. But she wanted him to get closer... didn't she? She wasn't sure. Kate inhaled deeply before answering.

[odanurr87]

My thoughts on... Mirror’s Edge

Released by EA in 2008 for PS3 and Xbox 360, and 2009 for PC, Mirror's Edge tells the story of Faith, a Runner who relies on her honed parkour skills to run errands for her clients, people who'd rather keep their deals hidden from the preying eyes of the ruling elite of this totalitarian world. The City Protection Force (CPF), the city’s equivalent to a police force, tends to ignore these Runners as the two parties have an unspoken agreement to stay out of each other's way, but everything changes when Faith's sister and one of CPF’s own, Kate, is framed for the murder of Robert Pope, a friend of their father's and running candidate against the current Mayor Callaghan. So starts an adrenaline-packed ride to find out who framed Kate and why, with CPF and other private security firms hot on Faith's tail.

While a fairly standard setup, so much so you’ve probably already figured out all the twists and turns of the plot from my short description, it could’ve been executed better, or tighter, than it was. By the time you finish playing and look back on it, the plot's many inconsistencies become apparent, in particular its single-minded obsession with framing Kate, going so far as to keep her alive throughout the entire game. I get it, Faith needs a motivation, you need a motivation, and a dead sister is probably not a very good one, but it makes little sense that the bad guys wouldn't have gotten rid of her as soon as she served her purpose. The first thing that occurred to me the moment Faith met up with her sister at the beginning was, "This is an ideal situation to set up Faith as the fall gal and accuse Kate of trying to help Faith through her connections in the CPF." Indeed, given the "evil master plan" revealed later in the game, it would've been the better plan. Alas, the bad guys are not as good as Faith at improvising, nor are the writers apparently. The introduction of the Pursuit Cops later in the game also doesn't add up plot-wise, to my mind, for unless they trained in the field, and by field I mean on the city's rooftops, like Faith and the other Runners (and if they had I'm certain the Runner community would've known about it), there's no way in hell they'd be nearly as good as Faith, yet they are, what leads me to gameplay.

This is what Mirror’s Edge is really all about.

You could easily make the case that I suck at melee combat, in this game anyway, because Faith was made out of glass (ironically) every time I encountered an enemy. I remember having an easier time of it in Catalyst; Faith was certainly not a tank but she could pull more moves to neutralize her opponents and far more smoothly. Maybe it helped that you didn't have people wearing full body armor firing machine guns at you. I never used a gun in Catalyst, but I practically turned this game into Battlefield: Faith, what's not easy seeing as shooting, while functional, is as bare-bones as can be. This at least makes sense from a narrative standpoint, as Faith is a Runner, not a soldier, but what a fine soldier did I turn her into! Perhaps combat's worst sin for me was how it interrupted the flow.

As in Catalyst, the sensation you get from running and jumping and parkouring is the franchise's strongest selling point, especially when you nail every jump, roll smoothly every time, and find the fastest route to your destination. The usual appearance of enemies coupled with the linearity of the levels hindered the flow more often than not. Catalyst fixed this, in my opinion, by making the world larger and Faith a better fighter. However, its open-world nature ironically amplified the "beautiful emptiness" of the original, highlighting the absence of people, both Runners and others, in their day to day life. While I noticed this during my playthrough, the levels are usually short enough that you don't give it a lot of thought. Indeed, it took me around 8 hours to complete, though I'm missing around half the Runners’ bags.

Another strength of the franchise that I have failed to mention is how damned gorgeous the game looks, and it's more than a decade old! You could argue it looks as good or even better than Catalyst at times, and Catalyst looks fantastic! Everything from the architecture, through the colours and textures, to the lighting, feels real, hyper-real perhaps, according to the above video that explains how and why Mirror's Edge is able to retain its good looks, comparing it to similar games released in that year, as well as Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. I thoroughly recommend you give it a watch. Some character models, like Faith and Kate, could've been better, while others, like Celeste, actually look pretty great. In this context, the choice to complement the game's hyper-realistic visuals with animated cutscenes may seem odd or even wrong for some, but I think it was the right one given the limitations at the time and I enjoyed the animation style. It’s a shame they didn't follow it up with a short animated movie.

If I didn't mention at this point the franchise's great soundtrack by Solar Fields, I'd be doing them a disservice, as it complements the game's aesthetic to great effect, and these guys doubled down with Catalyst, releasing a soundtrack that's over 5 hours long! "Still Alive," the game's main theme, sang by Lisa Miskovsky, is just perfect, and it's still number one in my heart above CHVRCHES' "Warning Call." I mean, just listen to the bloody thing...

I tend to favour story over gameplay in most of my games, meaning I can get through some bad or just plain gameplay loop if the story's captivating enough. However, Mirror's Edge is one of those rare games where I appreciated the core gameplay loop in spite of a rather lackluster story. When you're running and jumping through the city's rooftops, pushing the boundaries of your freedom, becoming one with the flow and the music, that's when Mirror's Edge truly shines. But those moments exist, as Faith puts it, "on the edge between the gloss and the reality - The Mirror's Edge." Maybe that's the way it should be.

[runathepianist]

A Quick Checklist on Self Exploration

Hello everyone! Today I’m going to write down some of a quick checklist of my own self exploration based on question provided by ELE on this twitter link! (https://twitter.com/xlittle_ele/status/1275847156629475328) 

I will write things here in order not to spam your Twitter Timeline too much.

1. First of all, introduce yourself! What’s your name? My name is Runa. People usually call me by that name, but some others call me Ruru, Na-chan, some call me by the name of Xiao Wei and some other more.

2. Where are you from? From this universe; specifically, my mother’s womb. 

3. Do you have any hobbies? If so, which one? I have plenty of things that I could call as my hobbies.  I do music, specifically piano, but lately I’m trying out some other instrument as well, like kalimba/ ukulele. I like to write stories/ letters to friends/ daily journal, I like to re-arranged my room when I got the mood and time to do it, I love to watch some movies/ series and read stories/ manga as well. 

4. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where will you go? Hhm...Lemme see...I think I would love to go to Tasmania.  I personally loves to go to those minor places that people are not really put an eye to. Rather than going to those mainstream places. Partially, I want to go to Tasmania ever since I watch a Singapore drama series [Sudden] and part of the scenery in that series was taken at Tasmania. It makes me want to go there and visit the real place someday.

5. Do you believe in love at the first sight? Hmm...Not really, actually. Maybe because I’m a person who usually fall in love after I have interacted with the person for quite some time. Maybe because I rarely deeply attracted with how someone’s physical looks, but more into the personality they have within them.

6. What’s your favourite song at the moment? If you don’t have one, what’s the last song you listened to? I’m listening to quite a lot of Hiroyuki Sawano’s composed OST songs these days lately and also currently re-listen to Rachmaninoff piano concerto in C minor. 

7. What’s your favourite food? A lot (?) But mostly I love those salty food rather than sweet stuffs.  

8. What’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? It is either I’m trying to remember about the dream I dream of last night, or I feel grateful that I’m still be able to stay alive today. Sometimes, I could think of some random stuffs that suddenly struck me when I’m awake in the morning.

9. Do you believe in soulmates? Not really, but I believe that people are attracting people with the same/ similar frequencies with them, so if I want to see how my future soulmates is, I just need to mirror on myself and see how I’m living my life so far and how’s my true personality is. 

10. What do you want to become in the future? A wonderful lady artist (musician) for myself, wife for my husband and an awesome mother of two or three. 

11. What’s your favorite book? Kate DiCamillo’s The miraculous journey of Edward Tulane All poetry books by Lang Leav Le petite prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery Steal like an artist  - Austin Kleon 

12. Favorite Season? Hmm...Spring time?

13. What’s the best memory you have with your friends? Hmm..Actually I couldn’t really recall any. Maybe there was, but I’m a forgetful person, really. 

14. What’s your biggest dream? To have a peaceful and healthy (both physically and mentally) life with my beloved family and dearest people. 15. If you could change one thing about yourself, what it’ll be? I wonder...Maybe my cowardness? 

16. What’s your favorite movie? Hmm...There are a lot too, but lemme spell out some that I could still remember the title. It’s kinda hard to name, since I’m usually more into series than movie. The Devil wears prada, Up in the air, Habibie & Ainun, Yes Man, How to train your dragon 1 & 2,  Finding Mr. Right.

17. Do you have a crush on someone? Hmm...I currently have a fiance. Does this count as one?

18. If you knew you were gonna die tomorrow, what will you do? Write a letter and prepare parting gift for everyone. Have a good talk and convey everything that I would love to tell to my beloved dearest people surround me. 

19. Do you feel proud of yourself? Yes I do

20. What do you think is your safe place? Y’know, that place/ thing that helps you feel better when you need it the most? Bathroom, because it gives you privacy though you are surrounded by people. I mean, it’s rare to see other people following you into bathroom right? So the sense of personal space is there in the bathroom. At least, for me personally. 

21. Do you believe in ghosts? I believe it exist in terms of frequencies. This universe is filled by various frequencies and they are unseen, but you could sometimes feel it. That’s how I define feelings, and ghosts. 

22. Do you miss someone? I miss myself, sometimes, and some people that have passed away, sometimes.

23. Do you have any pets? What are their names? I used to have hedgehogs, but I don’t have any with me now after their death.

24. Are you a night person or a morning one? I could say I’m a night owl. Morning doesn’t really work well for me. 

25. Are you part of the LGBT community? Nope, but I’m okay with being friend with people who are part of the LGBT community.

26. What’s your favorite video game? Hmm...Those old games, like Fatal Frame series, La pucelle, phantom brave, disgaea, some otome games like amnesia series/ hakuoki. 

27. What’s the reason you wake up every morning? Life goes on, so yeah.

28. Do you look up to someone? Hmm...it’s a yes and a no. 

29. What’s something you’ve wanted to try for a while, but haven’t done it yet? Go somewhere far away, enjoy tranquility and the nature, alone. 

30. What’s the meaning of life for you? It’s an endless journey of finding oneself and spreading positivity and love to people surround us. 

31. Do you play any instruments?  I play mostly piano and those instruments within the same family like keyboard, electone, pianika, etc. Side: I tried ukulele, kalimba, recorder, etc.

32. What’s the most annoying thing you had to deal with? The battle within myself,  How to deal with the society surrounds me. 

33. How would you define “art”? Wabisabi - the beauty in imperfection.

34. Do you think you’re a different person now because of quarantine and everything that happened in the world? Not really, but I do find out how lazy I actually am after this quarantine.  How I am really a jak-of-all-trades; well, it just some self-exploration,  but to say that I’m a different person now? Nah, no! I’m still me. 

35. Name one thing you hate that others love? Those material related stuffs.

36. What do you think that happens after we die? My soul with emerge with this universe and my physical body will blend into one to the soil. I will become frequencies and when the right moment comes, I will be born again in this universe in a different form.

37. Do you have any regrets? I do, but I don’t want to dwell into things in the past too much as there is no way we could change the past, but I’m striving to change now to change the future instead.

38. Love or being loved? Being loved is awesome. 

39. What’s the best advice someone has ever given to you? Marriage is not about love, because love won’t last for years,  but please keep enhancing yourself to be the best version of yourself and never forget to build consciousness within yourself. Based on that, you support each other, appreciate each other and trust each other as couple.  (Advice given by Nichiren Daishonin Buddha to his disciple, Shijo Kingo)

I really like this a lot when I stumble on this, and apparently it’s one of advice that I took dearly within my heart until now as a guidance.

40. What are you afraid of? When I make my family upset/ something bad happen to them

41. Describe yourself in 5 words Simplicated Jack of all trades

42. How’s your relationship with your parents/ siblings? Very good. We never really have any toxic relationship with each other though of course we are all not perfect and there are things that we should work on for each of us. 

43. Would you rather live in a big city or in a small town? Hmm...A small town that is able to travel to a big city for a travel distance less than an hour by train. I miss my time spent when I was in Diemen. It was a nice small city near Amsterdam. 

44. Have you ever been on a relationship? Yes

45. What’s the happiest memory that comes to your mind right now? I’m actually pretty sleepy and zombie mode right now, so I couldn’t think off any specific moment, but I think most of moments in my life is a bit bitter with lots of sweetness on it, so yeah! Those moments spent with my family are the best.

46. Do you easily trust others? Nope. I usually have minus trust with other people other than my own core family. Even I couldn’t trust my extended family too much. 

47. Have you ever dyed your hair? Nope, but I usually try some wigs instead. 

48. What’s the first thing you notice when you meet someone new? Of course, it’s physical appearance (though I should say I don’t put much attention on physical thing) since it’s the first thing that we could see with bare eyes.

49. If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, which one it’ll be?  I’ll just pick one from KOKIA album. I love her so much. Any album could do, but maybe I’ll choose the best collection album since it contains more songs there LMAO

50. Tag someone to remind them how much you love and care about them... Hmm..I will tag my sister perhaps XD The other family members of mine don’t have twitter.

51. What was your favourite toy when you were a kid? Dolls? I forgot. ahahaha. 

52. What’s your biggest pet peeve? When people in society only judge people based on material possession they have rather than by their hearts. It annoys me so much when I encounter one.

53. If you could change one thing in the world to make it a better place, what will you do? I don’t have any idea right now. Writer’s block.

54. Have you ever got involved with drugs/ alcohol? Nope. Never.

55. What do you think is your aesthetic? Hmm... All of me?

56. Do you enjoy traveling? Yes, but sometimes not really since traveling is tiring, but it’s good to see a different scenery once in a while. 

57. What’s your favorite show? Hmm...I don’t really have one maybe? Is anime consider as show? I don’t think so huh.

58. Are you into witchcraft? Nope.

59. What would be your ideal gift? Hmm...I never really have any specific desire in life, but usually I love letterset/ notebook/ fluffy stuffs/ tea/ coffee/ any aesthetic/ vintage stuffs around. I usually treasure more intangible things than tangible one, so yea. 

60. Do you think you’re a good person? It depends on how you define a good person is.

61. Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? I’m introvert.

62. Have you ever gone to a concert? Yes, I did. Some classical concert and Kingdom Heart orchestra tour concert. 

63. How will your ideal first date be? When there is no drama occurs and compatibility is there, ah, with good food and tea as well.

64. Do you think there’s life in others planets? Mayhap. Why not? I’m open to any possibilities.

65. What do you do when you feel sad? I play/ listen to music, watch something, write something, take a good shower with favorite scented soap.

66. If you could travel back in time to another century, which one will you pick? Hmm....The year where I’m born. 

67. Do you often remember your dreams? Yes, I do!

68. Name one thing you hate about your country I don’t really have one.

69. If you won the lottery, what will you do with all the money? I’ll buy a house for myself (and my future family) and another one to build a public library/ an orphanage. 

70. Any guilty pleasure? Quite a lot, actually. 

[fyeahjofro]

Nearly two years after Downton Abbey finally heaved itself to a climax, I find Joanne Froggatt sitting in a hotel lobby bar in London ordering a dirty martini with two olives in it and extra brine. It’s 5.20pm, but she’s “had a bit of a week”, so I order one as well and begin sizing up television’s most clandestine superstar. Let’s not forget Downton was a hit in 220 territories worldwide, with episodes regularly pulling in 120m viewers. Froggatt was the only non-Maggie Smith cast member to pick up a Golden Globe, for her extraordinary work in series 4, when her character, Anna Bates, a lady’s maid, was raped by a visiting valet. The storyline so shocked the doilies-and-teapot brigade who made up the show’s core fans that it became front-page news. Now she is set to fire up the national debate all over again.

Tomorrow, Froggatt, 37, will reclaim her crown as queen of ITV drama with Liar. The six-part series is a thorny, modern he said/she said mystery, in which Froggatt plays a woman who claims she was date-raped after a nice first-date meal that ended up with a second glass of wine at her house.

Froggatt is in fantastic everywoman mode — her character, a teacher with a history of light mental illness. Meanwhile, in a shrewd bit of casting, Ioan Gruffudd (Prince Charming incarnate) plays the seemingly lovely surgeon she accuses. By the end of episode 1, I had both shed a tear watching her endure the brutal formalities of the rape kit (they used a real nurse instead of an actor for the scene), yet couldn’t shake the feeling she had made the whole thing up.

So, stand by your water coolers — buzz is through the roof, not least because it’s been written by the brothers Harry and Jack Williams (The Missing) and promises a big reveal. Froggatt is giving nothing away. She has another sip of her cocktail and wryly points out that, either way, it’s “another victim” for her CV. Fair point. Alongside Suranne Jones and Vicky McClure, she makes up a holy trinity of British actresses who have mastered small-screen misery. But while her peers look as though they can give as good as they get, there is something disconcertingly fragile about Froggatt. Partly, it’s her size — 5ft 2in and sparrow thin. Partly, it’s how normal she seems. The daughter of northern shopkeepers, there’s no Rada-induced sense of entitlement, and certainly no luvvie waffle with her. She lives in a small town in the home counties with a husband she met at the pub.

I wonder if the fact she has both feet squarely in reality is what makes her performances so devastating? She causes not one flicker of recognition in the bar. I could barely pick her out myself, even though we’ve met a couple of times before. I last saw her in LA, a few weeks after the final Downton Abbey aired, when she was full of trepidation. Was it hard watching the others — Dan Stevens, Jessica Brown Findlay — leave the show early and get big film careers? “You always wonder, don’t you, but I think I made the right decision for me. We were contracted for three series to start with, then they asked for four and five ...” She hadn’t felt series 3 had been particularly great for Anna, so she stuck it out and the following year Anna’s rape story became worldwide news.

Despite 244 complaints to Ofcom (and 200 more to ITV), she is very proud that the world’s favourite chocolate-box period drama dared to tackle the subject. Far from being sensationalist, sexual assault was rife for women in service, she points out. But with Liar, we are firmly in the now — where modern gender politics, social media and untraceable date-rape drugs can put a question mark over who the victim even is. “It brings home the point of how difficult it is to prove any given situation when it’s one person’s word against another,” she says. “Or the way my character just posts everything online and you go, ‘Oh God, no, don’t do that!” When I read the first script, I really didn’t know who was telling the truth.”

Did she bring her personal feminist take to the issues? “Absolutely. Of course I have strong opinions about it, although I’m not sure I can voice them right now,” she says, keen to leave jeopardy there for viewers. “One thing I will say is that, with any sensitive issue, it’s all about education. I can’t imagine anyone, having watched the first episode, not having a discussion about it.”

It can’t have been easy filming the post-assault examination. “Yeah,” she says, and takes another sip. “That day, James [Strong, the director] did shoot it in a documentary-style way. I was kept away from everybody else and we didn’t rehearse it.” The real-life nurse went about it as she would any other case, telling her to put her underwear in a plastic bag, swabbing her mouth and nails. “She had never met me before and I had never met her. I just came in and she had to react to me like she would on a normal day at work, while I just got followed by the camera. It was brilliant.”

Growing up, she was “quite determined — though I wasn’t always the most confident child”. Her father had a confectionery warehouse and a mini supermarket in Scarborough, but when that proved slim pickings the family moved to a farm outside Whitby, although he later retrained as a local civil servant with the police while her mother became a government trainer. “My brother and I have both learnt a very strong work ethic from our parents.” Her ambition — and make no mistake, Froggatt is madly ambitious — is all her own, however. Weaned on old films in the front room, she was adamant she was going to become a star from the age of five. “I’d heard about The Stage newspaper, so used to get my local newsagent to order it in for me especially. That’s where I got the idea for stage school. I think my parents were hoping I’d be a vet.”

She sent off for all the prospectuses and settled on Redroofs, all the way in Berkshire (and where a young Kate Winslet was then a pupil). On the open day, her mother’s “heart sank” when she saw how happy Jo was running around with all the other girls. It sank further when she got in. “I remember opening the letter with my parents. Mum and Dad were still in bed, and I could see their faces go, ‘Oh God.’ ”

“They couldn’t afford to pay for the school fees and the boarding fees, so it was a matter of contacting the council.” There were no grants for kids her age, but they asked her to go in for an audition and amazingly gave her a grant to cover the school fees. “The whole process took about 2½ years” — which tells you everything you need to know about her tenacity. “I was 13, nearly 14, so I spent my last two years of school there.”

She hated it at first. “I hadn’t realised how strong my accent was,” she says of her (still) long vowel sounds. “Like, ‘Nooo’ and ‘Jooo’.” She felt incredibly homesick. But half a term in she was settled, and still counts her best friends as the girls from her year. “I’m back living in the same sort of area that I was at school, we all see each other all of the time. I’m godmother to their children, and that’s how I met my husband. I was out with friends from school and met him in a bar.” Someone took a photo of them the night they met, which is now in a frame at home. He’s in IT and often works remotely, so he can follow her about. I suppose they might like children of their own at some point, but for now the vodka martini speaks for itself.

Anyway, she left school at 16 and ended up working in WHSmiths back up north. But she still had plenty of hustle and got auditions for The Bill and Coronation Street in quick succession. She starred in the latter as the teenage mum Zoe Tattersall until 1998. She became an industry darling, wowing at the Old Vic and playing Myra Hindley’s sister in the 2006 TV drama See No Evil — but it took 12 years after leaving Corrie for her to become a household name, thanks to the double whammy of In Our Name (a brilliant low-budget film about a female soldier with PTSD, which won her a British Independent Film award) and, of course, Downton Abbey.

There’s still endless talk of a Downton film. “We all want to do it, it’s just getting our schedules together,” she says. But it’s hard not to imagine how a career must always feel a little on the slide after such a big hit. Never count Froggatt out, though. She’s still as determined as ever. “Yeah, I’m quite impatient. I loved Anna Bates, loved her, but I didn’t want to play another nice housemaid after that. I get bored really easily,” she says, picking up her glass and looking me straight in the eye. A second later, the cocktail is gone.

Liar begins on ITV tomorrow at 9pm

[iraniq]

The Story

Chapter 2

After this little accident I excuse myself, saying I feel sick and I drove straight home. I really ditched my boyfriend for Hannibal. The only thing my ex knew is that one of the patients I drove in wheelchair around the asylum park was telling everyone he is Hannibal Lecter. However, the crazy cannibal had nothing to do with the boy who I shared my bed with; he was rude and mostly needed me to maintain his existence. Hannibal was kind, sweet, gentle, he spoke for me, knowing what I would say. Although we were mainly talking about him. I could not bear living with someone who is blinder about my soul than a person whose brain is half melted by drugs.

As I entered my apartment I instantly took a cold shower, crying, and proceed by eating all of the sweets I had in my apartment. It was scary how he had red me, better then I red him the opened book in my hands. On the top of this my mother called.

-     Hello sweetie.

-     Hi mom!

-     How are you? Have you called your friend?

-     If you mean my ex, NO! I haven’t called him, I told you I won’t call him! Never again.

-     Don’t talk to me like this young lady …

-     I told you million times, we split up, it’s over!

-     You don’t even told me why? Whose fault it was, he is trying darling …

-     I dumped him because he is idiot, not because I am seeing someone … - “I wish I would” - … it’s his fault, and he knows it, that’s why he is so … slick!

-     Give him a call, you are single for a year …

-     And?

-     I doubt someone would want you.

-     What?

-     You don’t wanna end up alone, don’t you!

-     We are not it 18-th century … I’d rather end up alone, instead being with an idiot!

-     You don’t know what are you talking about …

She continued lecture me, but I simply hung up the phone. Instead, I opened my laptop to check on my online friends. They went wild sharing crazy stuff again, after I finished answering and commentiong on ther posts, the message box popped:

“hey girlfriend, how are you”

“aww, hi, I am fine, just got home, you?”

“fine too, now as you are free, tell me all about this boy! Now Girl!”

“he said he loved me”

“OMG girl! I am very excited! I am squealing like a little bitch.”

“yeah”

“and what did you said”

“I ran away”

“seriously, why, you love him too!”

“I am not sure”

“what do you mean you are not sure, don’t make me come and kick your little ass, what about all the things you shared with me last month?”

“my as is not little ... well, it’s true, but … dunno”

“bullshit! you go there tomorrow and tell him you feel the same, or I’ll never speak to you again, you listen to me girl, I’ll come to kick your little ass.”

“you are very sweet”

“sweet my ass, you are making an old lady too much excited, I need rest already”

“oh come on, you are not that old, stop pretending”

I didn’t get any answer, maybe her lunch break is over. We met in the park, we bong over our Wednesday-Shake-Fruit juice tradition, as we were both very busy, we continued online, but kept out traditional Wednesday’s meetings.

I opened my phone, I had a picture of Hannibal there. Damn this boy will be the death of me. How did this happened to me. Well when a while ago I joked I will end up like Harley Quinn, I had no idea I would be telling the truth. Eventually he still have his long looks, after he bit off some other people, they couldn’t hurt him either, it turned out there is something in his blood that makes him immune to most of the diseases … maybe that’s why they had him at first place, and let me talk to him so freely and so easily … no, this isn’t possible, the Owner is a nice guy, the nurses there aren’t even rude to the patients it’s like heaven … but an asylum. Although it’s the perfect place for a plot like this ... 

I lied back on the couch, I was wondering what to do. I was almost asleep when I remembered I had this tape of a conversation of ours from the first year. It was in my work desk. I found it, put the little tape in the Dictation machine, I had a big old one with little tapes, they were so cute, I had to buy it, I put the headphones and hit play:

Have you watched Kate and Leopold?

Yes – “my voice sounds shit on tape”

So you know who I am!

Am … who are you?

It is no more crazy than a dog finding a rainbow. Dogs are colourblind, Gretchen. They don't see colour. Just like we don't see time. We can feel it, we can feel it passing, but we can't see it. It's just like a blur. It's like we're riding in a supersonic train and the world is just blowing by, but imagine if we could stop that train, eh, Gretchen? Imagine if we could stop that train, get out, look around, and see time for what it really is? A universe, a world, a thing as unimaginable as colour to a dog, and as real, as tangible as that chair you're sitting in. Now if we could see it like that, really look at it, then maybe we could see the flaws as well as the form. And that's it; it's that simple. That's all I discovered. I'm just a... a guy who saw a crack in a chair that no one else could see. I'm that dog who saw a rainbow, only none of the other dogs believed me.

I believe you!

Bravo! This was the right line … but do you know what you said, what you agreed with?

You … ?

It's ... thin line between madness and seeing thing in their true way ... not how the society make you look at them, the way they told you to understand stuff. Crazy people are scary because they are totally unpredictable. But in a bad way. They can just snap toward you. And You can't reason with them ...

Because they are crazy

No! Crazy is different way to see things. Yes, it's not logical. It's like a dog seeing colors. It doesn't always means it's wrong. Normal people assume crazy people are bad for themselves. Like, they can't decide what's best for them, it's sometimes true, but not always. Like, when you don't fit in the society frame they kick you out, not even bothering to understand. They forbid you the right to think for yourself! And this is wrong! At least that's how I see it.... can you follow me?

Yes!

The outcasts that don't fit with the rest of the world can't be consider crazy. We are the ones who see something beautiful and free that in our society boundaries we are forbidden to. We are the magical creatures who see the colors. True dreamers, just like all your inventors ... but you keep braking us, to keep your inner lie you are in control of the world, the bit of “inner piece” that keeps your society whole!

Well ... we are kinda closed in our understandings coming from society, that’s why I think you are free, like you say, the dog seeing colors.

I am also talking about the inner peace! So ... what makes you sure you can think straight, and this life isn't fake projection, and you are imagining things ... like ... is this inner peace even possible … what's the proof you are thinking rational way? At some point we all live in our own delusions! What if you all are the crazy ones, and we, the "crazy" are the one who truly see, trying to show you, but we are way too blind to see?

And after that kind of conversation normal people turn crazy! I was wondering, should I go back? Should I go tomorrow? Maybe I should call? No, they won’t let him speak on the phone. No, one of the boys likes me, I’ll call him!

-          Hi … no I am fine … yeah, yes! Listen, I am kinda worried about Hannibal, would it … yeah, if … ok, I’ll wait … Oh .. hello? Hello, Hannibal!

-          Hello.

-          How are you? I hope everything is ok.

-          I am fine, how are you? I didn’t meant to make you sad, although you made yourself sad with the book; why you read it to me at first place, as you knew it will make you sad?

-          Well … it’s my …

-          … favourite and you wanted to share the experience with me, I get it. Can you please next time pick something … more funny.

-          I have another book, but don’t worry I’ll write on a paper the funny part.

-          Can’t you read it to me now?

-          You know I can’t. And you are not supposed to tell that we talked.

-          I know. Bye!

-          Till tomorrow!

I hung up. “I am officially screwed now!”

_________________________________

@diyunho @rhina988 @nikkitasevoli @auntiemama1 @wolfgirl1074 @sookieblack12 @spillinginkwithlove littlefearsdoodles  lady-grinning-soul-k @jayded-reality 

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-funny-thing-about-rachel-brosnahan/

The Funny Thing About Rachel Brosnahan

There’s a moment in the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel when the title character, a 1950s housewife turned up-and-coming stand-up comic, has to work a new type of room. Until now, she’s peddled her jokes mostly to pals at parties and small crowds at the cramped Gaslight Cafe—manageable groups, filled with friendly and slightly drunk faces. This time, though, she’s up against her biggest audience yet—an awareness that hit Rachel Brosnahan, who embodies Miriam “Midge” Maisel with an almost eerie precision, like a particularly sharp punch line. “As I got up onstage to perform that scene,” she says, “I realized that it was also bigger than anything that I was used to. And then I had the realization that it’s only going to get bigger and bigger—and more and more horrifying.”

Brosnahan is laughing when she tells this story, but she’s at least slightly serious about how scary it is for her to do comedy—even now. That’s because, as she’ll tell you herself, Brosnahan is emphatically not a comedian. She is, however, an actress—old-school, Method-trained, perhaps just the teensiest bit Type A. As a kid, she spent hours crafting a PowerPoint presentation in hopes of persuading her parents to let her get a dog. And as a 28-year-old, she channels that same energy into research. While preparing to play the title character in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s criminally charming comedy, Brosnahan didn’t just immerse herself in the work of Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller and Jean Carroll and Carol Burnett. She also made a habit of attending open mikes, so-called “bringer” shows, where wannabe comics must deliver a certain number of spectators if they want to secure a spot onstage.

Brosnahan didn’t get that dog until right before she went to college, but the care she took for Mrs. Maisel paid off immediately. The series, which Amazon has already renewed through its third season, is delightful, a candy-colored screwball throwback that easily stands out among television’s dour biggest hits (Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, HBO’s Westworld, FX’s dearly departed The Americans). Season One debuted last November 29; less than two weeks later, the series earned two Golden Globe nominations, for best comedy and for Brosnahan’s performance. It won both. At the Emmys, it will compete with 14 nominations, including outstanding comedy series and Brosnahan for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck. For additional information, visit vf.com/credits.

All that, and Brosnahan still hasn’t performed stand-up outside the confines of a soundstage. “I think that would prevent me from ever being able to do this job,” she says. “I’d be so traumatized.” Instead, when she goes to comedy shows, she dedicates herself to being the world’s most supportive spectator. “Having even had a taste of what it’s like,” says Brosnahan, “I am the one laughing the loudest at everybody’s jokes in the back, because I want them to feel seen and heard and encouraged.”

That’s true even when the comedians are practiced and the environs are significantly slicker. Case in point: this breezy June night, when she’s taking a break from Mrs. Maisel’s corsets and tongue-tripping monologues to catch a show at Caveat, a surprisingly roomy basement venue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Once, Midge Maisel may have visited this neighborhood to hunt for Judaica and discounted leather goods; now it’s a yuppie paradise where Russ & Daughters will add a schmear of goat’s-milk cream cheese to your everything bagel for just $4. In her jeans, leather jacket, and subtly chic gold-framed glasses—a far cry from Midge’s nipped waists and full, rustling skirts—Brosnahan fits right in.

“I’m late to every party. But when I arrive, I arrive.”

When comedians Dave Mizzoni and Matt Rogers take the stage, Brosnahan is the first person in the crowd to jump to her feet. (She’s not just being nice; the three of them went to N.Y.U. together, and other friends are in the audience tonight as well.) She laughs gamely and generously as the evening unfolds, even on the occasions when Mizzoni’s and Rogers’s very targeted references—the name of this program is “The Gayme Show,” and its tagline is “Exactly what you think”—whiz right past her.

Spending 16 hours a day surrounded by Eisenhower-era culture doesn’t leave a person much time to study the complete works of Frankie Grande (Ariana’s brother) or prolific YouTuber and Taylor Swift bestie Todrick Hall—or even to keep up with old co-workers. At one point, an extended riff on the new Ryan Murphy drama, Pose, ends with a pointed crack about series regular Kate Mara. Until she hears the joke, Brosnahan has no idea that Mara—who, like her, was a regular on House of Cards—is appearing on Pose or that Pose has already premiered.

“I don’t have a TV,” she says with a sigh. “I am living in 1957.”

If she woke up one morning and decided to become an expert on the life and times of pop-star-adjacent Instagram stars, though, there’s no question Brosnahan would excel. She may not be as brash as Midge Maisel, who memorably finishes her first impromptu stand-up performance by exposing herself to a crowd of roaring Beatniks, but she’s nearly as self-assured, and every bit as capable. She’s subverted expectations on bigger stages than this one, after all.

“I’m late to every party,” Brosnahan says by way of apology to Mara. “But when I arrive, I arrive.”

Before she read the Mrs. Maisel script, Brosnahan was planning to turn away from TV and toward theater and film. After, there was no question that Midge had to be hers.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck.

Objectively speaking, Brosnahan is being modest. She certainly didn’t arrive late to Hollywood: even before graduating from N.Y.U., in 2012, she was steadily booking bit parts on Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, and In Treatment. The roles were small but professional all the same, as essential to a budding acting career as a one a.m. open-mike slot is to a would-be Sarah Silverman.

“I’ve played Eating Disorder Girl, Girl, Call Girl—many types of girl,” she says, laughing. “That’s my type, all types of girl.” It’s a few hours before “The Gayme Show,” and Brosnahan is picking at a giant slice of carrot cake. Crowds of pastrami-seeking tourists have foiled our original plan to visit Katz’s Delicatessen; instead, we’ve settled into a squishy booth at the self-consciously retro Remedy Diner, a dead ringer for the vintage greasy spoons where Midge Maisel and her curmudgeonly manager, Susie (Alex Borstein), talk set lists over coffee and French fries.

Simple as these starter characters were, Brosnahan was savvy enough to see their value. Being last on the call sheet allowed her to listen, and observe, and take risks in a low-stakes environment before returning to the safe space of N.Y.U.’s Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute—where she could “ask questions, and study, and try to get better. And then try it again.”

As her undergraduate career wound to a close, Brosnahan’s persistence led her to the ultimate “girl” role: a throwaway part in the first two episodes of a new political drama called House of Cards, that of a nameless prostitute. Her handful of lines included uninspiring utterances like “Excuse me” and “I mean, I’m kinky, but I don’t know if I’m the girl you’re looking for.”

Former show-runner Beau Willimon saw potential in Brosnahan’s raw, arresting performance and her immediate chemistry with actor Michael Kelly, who plays pathologically loyal future White House chief of staff Doug Stamper. Soon, he expanded Call Girl into a proper part, one that had an arc and a backstory and a name. One that would, a few years later, earn Brosnahan an Emmy nomination for outstanding guest actress in a drama. Kelly, who received his first Emmy nomination the same year, credits her work with elevating his own.

“I was sitting at the lunch table when Beau said, ‘I think we got to give you a name,’” Kelly recalls.

The one Willimon settled on, funny enough, was “Rachel,” which inspired some mild protest from Brosnahan: “I was like, What?! Why?! That’s so fucked up!”

“Rachel was not afraid to not fall apart. She was not afraid to be angry and to stay tough.”

It was, as was Rachel the character’s sorry existence, which began when she was caught beside a drunk-driving congressman and ended, two seasons later, in a shallow grave somewhere in the New Mexico desert. (No wonder Amy Sherman-Palladino likes to classify Brosnahan’s pre–Mrs. Maisel parts as “the girl that someone’s tied up and thrown in the back of a van.”)

But House of Cards also offered another education for Brosnahan—taught her the ins and outs of having a significant part on a prestige series at the dawn of the peak-TV era—and gave her an outlet to display the dark side of her sense of humor, if only among her peers when the cameras weren’t rolling. She and Kelly, her most frequent scene partner, grew close enough that even filming her final moments ended up being a blast; scroll back far enough on her Instagram, and you’ll find a sweet snapshot of the two of them contentedly spooning in the dusty hole that will eventually house Call Girl Rachel’s lifeless body.

Then there’s the matter of Fake Rachel’s dead-eyed head, a silicone model designed solely to be buried. “On my phone somewhere, there are some pictures of Michael and Beau and I making out with Rachel’s head,” Brosnahan says, sounding simultaneously sheepish and proud. “It’s really—it’s dark.”

Though she couldn’t have known it at the time, this was also decent practice for Mrs. Maisel—whose surface whimsy conceals more than a hint of bleakness. The series begins at the end of an era for Midge Maisel—née Weissman—who has spent the entirety of her young life meticulously ticking every box on a very strict, self-imposed rubric for feminine success. She’s a Bryn Mawr graduate with an alabaster complexion and a 25-inch waist; she’s given her husband, the feckless but amiable Joel (Michael Zegen), two children, a boy and a girl. She’s secured the community’s most prominent rabbi as a guest for her upcoming Yom Kippur break-fast. If there were any justice, Midge would spend the rest of her days tending to her picture-perfect family, indulgently accompanying Joel on his jaunts to Greenwich Village comedy clubs until the two of them got old and gray and ditched Manhattan for Longboat Key.

And then Joel delivers his sucker punch. “I just don’t want this life, this whole Upper West Side, classic six, best seats in temple,” he tells Midge, after an embarrassing attempt at delivering his own jokes at the Gaslight. Oh, and he’s also been sleeping with his secretary, a skinny shiksa named Penny Pann. Sherman-Palladino and her husband and collaborator, Dan Palladino, asked every actress they considered for Midge to read three scenes in their audition, including the big breakup.

“Most of the actresses, great actresses, came in and broke down—fell apart, as sometimes you will when somebody walks out on your life,” Sherman-Palladino says. “And Rachel was not afraid to not fall apart. She was not afraid to be angry and to stay tough. Because the thing about that scene is it was not there to show her vulnerability. That scene was there to show that pain brought out the comic’s voice.”

Brosnahan in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Photograph by Nicole Rivelli/©Amazon/Courtesy of Everett Collection.

Photograph by Sarah Shatz/©Amazon/Courtesy of Everett Collection.

Sure enough, shortly after Joel up and leaves—packing his things in Midge’s suitcase, a final insult to injury—Midge ends up back at the Gaslight, sloshed on kosher wine, and wanders onto the stage. Before she knows it, she’s telling a roomful of strangers every sordid detail of her wrecked marriage, but sculpting the story so it sounds amusing rather than pathetic. She heckles one dim-witted audience member; she interrupts her stream of consciousness to talk real estate with another. In the midst of explaining why she made a perfect wife, she announces that there’s no truth to “all that shit they say about Jewish girls in the bedroom᠁ There are French whores standing around the Marais district saying, ‘Did you hear what Midge did to Joel’s balls the other night?’ ” She doesn’t stop until the police show up to book her for public indecency and performing without a cabaret license, and even they can’t keep her from landing one last zinger as she gestures toward her exposed breasts: “You think Bob Newhart’s got a set of these at home? Rickles, maybe!”

The performance is spontaneous and exhilarating and very, very funny, everything that Joel isn’t—and from the moment she grabs the mike, it’s clear that both Midge and the actress playing her are going to be big, bright shining stars.

Sherman-Palladino, still best known as the creator of the fast-talking, culturally omnivorous Gilmore Girls, has no shortage of colorful descriptors for her newest muse. In her eyes, Brosnahan is simply not human: “She’s a space alien, or she’s some sort of magical creature, or—I believe I’ve described her before as a Tolkien character. She’s just, she’s just kind of not of this earth.” Then again, Brosnahan’s appeal as a performer may be even more elemental. “She’s a very smart girl, and she understands things—which is 90 percent of the job.”

Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Brosnahan was a shy and serious kid who spent much of her time immersed in fantasy—Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, the kiddie adventure novels of Enid Blyton. During the summers, which she spent with her mother’s family in England, she’d work her way through an entire carry-on bag filled with books before replacing them all with new volumes for the trip home.

Her family, she says, tends more toward the athletic than the arty. (They obviously have a creative side as well; one of her father’s sisters was the designer Kate Spade, who died in June.) Brosnahan herself is a snowboarder as well as a former high-school wrestler—a fact that greatly amused Sherman-Palladino—but also fell for acting at an early age: “Something about the transformational process just felt magical, like a lot of those books.”

It’s easy to picture Brosnahan as a thoughtful little bookworm, a Hermione Granger type with a slightly morbid edge. Even now, she speaks with the careful deliberation of someone who values and understands the weight of words; her diction is flawless, with crisply pronounced consonants and no trace of a midwestern twang. “You work with her on set, and then off set you’ll kind of chat with her—and then you’re occasionally reminded that she’s 28 years old,” says Dan Palladino. Sherman-Palladino had a rude awakening along those lines when she told Brosnahan that she resembled a more smiley Tracy Flick: “She’s like, ‘Who’s that?’ I’m like, ‘Election?’ She goes, ‘What?’ And I’m 100. I’ve officially—I just turned 100.”

“I’ve played Eating Disorder Girl, Girl, Call Girl—many types of girl,” Brosnahan says of her early roles.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck.

So perhaps it comes as no surprise that Brosnahan wasn’t the most obvious choice to play Midge, a gregarious macher who speaks as quickly as, well, a woman dreamed up by Amy Sherman-Palladino. David Oyelowo, who played Othello to Brosnahan’s Desdemona in New York Theatre Workshop’s 2016 production, said in an e-mail that his co-star was worried about Mrs. Maisel initially because she didn’t consider herself to be funny. (“She is of course saying this while we’re taking silly selfies backstage just before I had to go onstage and murder her,” he added.) Brosnahan isn’t even Jewish—though Highland Park itself was Jewish enough, she says, that she’s been to “hundreds of Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs. I could maybe Bat Mitzvah you.”

Going into her Mrs. Maisel audition, though, Brosnahan had two things working in her favor. The first was that she’d recently finished playing a Jewish wife and mother with a well-to-do background and an enviable wardrobe on the little-watched but very good WGN America drama Manhattan, set within the desert compound where American scientists raced to design and build the first atomic bomb. Sam Shaw, that show’s creator, remembers that Brosnahan originally wanted to play the role of physicist Helen Prins. She worried that Abby Isaacs, the part she ended up getting, “would become Wife No. 3, like signing on for seven years of making crudités or something,” he says. But while Abby was not the show’s lead, she wasn’t a background character, either. The part gave Brosnahan an opportunity to imbue a woman of a bygone era with real depth, and to learn how to navigate restrictive, period-appropriate shapewear. (“I have learned so much about undergarments,” she says, deadpan. “And I truly don’t understand how anybody survived the 50s.”)

The second thing working in Brosnahan’s favor was that she wanted the part of Midge Maisel. Like, really wanted it, maybe more than anything since her parents got her that dog. Before she read the Mrs. Maisel script, Brosnahan was planning to turn away from TV and toward theater and film. After, there was no question that Midge had to be hers. She’s the kind of character, Brosnahan says, that “I often don’t see represented on television—somebody who is unapologetically confident, who has an innate sense of self-empowerment, who isn’t afraid to pat herself on the back for accomplishing goals. And who’s unapologetically ambitious.” While Midge is charming and lovable, she’s also superficial and flighty and a breathtakingly terrible mother who measures her baby’s forehead when she’s worried it’s getting too big; a flawed, recognizably human person, rather than a plucky proto-feminist who conforms precisely to 21st-century ideals.

That’s catnip for a determined young actress—and for a viewing audience beaten down by a news cycle of ever mounting tragedy and violence, not to mention a TV landscape dominated by dreariness. Even the comedies sharing Emmy space with Mrs. Maisel (Atlanta, Barry) are as likely to punch viewers in the gut as they are to make them laugh. “It’s a pretty shit time to be alive, and this show’s like a little ant moving a rubber-tree plant,” says Alex Borstein, who plays Susie, the wannabe agent who persuades Midge to pursue showbiz in a serious way. “You want to see these two people succeed. It’s a breath of fresh air.”

That was especially true in November, when the series debuted its full first season just as the #MeToo movement was reaching its zenith. It was a moment when every Twitter refresh seemed to expose a new, horrifying story of sexual misconduct. And then came Mrs. Maisel, a burst of cleansing light—colorful, fast-paced, sunny as an old-fashioned musical, but without anyone breaking into song. Ironically, it’s one of the only female-oriented shows that was green-lighted by former Amazon Studios head Roy Price before he resigned last October, after being accused of sexual harassment himself. (Price has not commented on the allegations.) Though there’s some darkness at its core, Mrs. Maisel is, above all, the jubilant story of a talented woman who works hard, triumphing over the odds and her mediocre loser of a husband. It is, as Brosnahan points out, partly a fantasy. But what a fantasy.

Though there’s some darkness at its core, Mrs. Maisel is, above all, the jubilant story of a talented woman who works hard, triumphing over the odds.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck.

It’s impossible to know to what extent Mrs. Maisel’s exultant reception has been affected by fortuitous timing. Brosnahan grows more thoughtful than usual when asked whether she believes it was, noting that the show’s story would be inspiring no matter the surrounding context. But possibly, she continues, Mrs. Maisel had an even greater impact because it debuted at a time when “we’re talking about women finding voices they didn’t know they had,” and—her words coming faster now, and more emphatically—“young people finding voices they didn’t know they had. This is a theme of the moment.”

Brosnahan has given a lot of thought to The Moment and, more specifically, to its momentum—how her industry, and all industries, can parlay this surge of righteous anger into lasting change. Though she’s never been a particularly active social-media user, she’s backed away from Twitter, she says, “because it just feels like we’re all shouting into a vacuum, and I’m trying to focus more on taking those active statements out of Twitter and into the real world.”

As her star rises, Brosnahan has also found herself being more careful about the things she posts online—for practical reasons, as well as the understandable desire to keep her private life private. “As somebody who’s always felt like a pretty open book, I find myself being very protective of whatever the elusive real me is,” she says. Famous performers sometimes become celebrities first and actors second, a fate that would have robbed Brosnahan of her prized ability to disappear fully into a role. (That said, she does have a very cute Instagram largely devoted to her dogs: a Shiba Inu named Winston and a pit bull named Nikki.)

Brosnahan doesn’t just hope to keep her on-screen options open. She’d love to do another play in the near-ish future, to produce, to direct. She wants to see and make more stories that focus on the nuances of female friendship, like one of her current favorite shows, Issa Rae’s Insecure. She’s already developing a pilot with a couple of friends, one that focuses on young people in politics. Brosnahan doesn’t plan to star in the show, but perhaps it’ll be a stepping-stone to the next phase in her career—just as those “girl” parts led to House of Cards led to Manhattan led to Mrs. Maisel.

As of now, Brosnahan’s success hasn’t had a hugely measurable impact on her day-to-day life. She can walk her dogs in broad daylight without being swarmed; she can laugh at a comedian’s joke about Oprah without anyone around her recognizing that she actually knows Oprah. (Or at least said hello to Oprah from the stage after winning a Golden Globe.) The biggest shift, she says, is that people finally know how to pronounce “Brosnahan.” But if she keeps climbing the way Mrs. Maisel’s heroine certainly will, all this could change as well.

Remember, she admires Midge for being unapologetically ambitious. And when asked if she’d describe herself the same way, Brosnahan doesn’t hesitate: “Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah!” Then, after a brief, perfectly timed beat, the TV comedian turns to the magazine reporter and nails another punch line: “How about you?”

Clothing by Valentino; boots by Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. Throughout: hair products by Bumble and Bumble; makeup by Chanel; nail enamel by Zoya.

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Full ScreenPhotos: Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and Her Many Hats

January 7, 2018

Hats off to the Sherman-Palladinos, husband-and-wife writing team.

Photo: By Kevork Djansezian/NBC/Getty Images.

January 10, 2013

A top hat in her Bunheads days.

Photo: By Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

March 19, 2012

With Sutton Foster on the red carpet for Bunheads (hence the angelic blue bow, we assume).

Photo: By Heidi Gutman/Getty Images.

November 13, 2017

The higher the top hat, the closer to god.

Photo: By Steve Zak Photography/Getty Images.

November 09, 2017

And still squarely in Dickens’s world.

Photo: By John Stillwell/PA Images/Getty Images.

April 21, 2003

A rare sun hat in her Gilmore Girls days.

Photo: By Mathew Imaging/Getty Images.

May 24, 2017

And an even more rare tan hat on the set of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Photo: By Bobby Bank/Getty Images.

PreviousNext

January 7, 2018

Hats off to the Sherman-Palladinos, husband-and-wife writing team.

By Kevork Djansezian/NBC/Getty Images.

January 10, 2013

A top hat in her Bunheads days.

By Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

March 19, 2012

With Sutton Foster on the red carpet for Bunheads (hence the angelic blue bow, we assume).

By Heidi Gutman/Getty Images.

November 13, 2017

The higher the top hat, the closer to god.

By Steve Zak Photography/Getty Images.

November 18, 2016

On the Netflix red carpet for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Recall the fantastical dance number in the last episode of that season, where top hats had an important role.

By Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images.

October 29, 2016

Moving into Dickens territory here.

By Emma McIntyre/Getty Images.

November 09, 2017

And still squarely in Dickens’s world.

By John Stillwell/PA Images/Getty Images.

April 21, 2003

A rare sun hat in her Gilmore Girls days.

By Mathew Imaging/Getty Images.

May 24, 2017

And an even more rare tan hat on the set of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

By Bobby Bank/Getty Images.

Source: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/rachel-brosnahan-cover-story

[theunabridgedgamer]

Shutter (Vol 1 - 3) Review

Talking psychotic robot clocks, grand old school adventure, and cyber roman lion bounty hunters. This one has it all, and is one hell of a journey.

Also, bear in mind, minor spoilers.There is also one specific quotation from the end of Volume 2, but it is block quoted so it can be easily skipped. I try to avoid the majority of the story’s twists and turns, but some examples and key points needed to brought up. I apologize for the inconvenience.

So, without further adieu, this is…

Shutter (Volumes 1 - 3)

Writer: Joe Keatinge Artist: Leila Del Duca Letterer: John Workman Colors: Owen Gieni Cover Artist: Leila Del Duca Format Read: Collected Trade Publisher: Image

You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this one!

Shutter is a prime example of what makes comics so different from other media. It is as heavily reliant on its vivid visuals as it is its razor sharp writing, and it blends the two (along with twists on several comics conventions) into a riveting tale of famed explorer and photographer Kate Kristopher dealing with the sins of her father while trying to figure out her own identity. Also, things like this happen:

Yes, that is an assassination hit being ordered in Sunday newspaper comic strip paneling. The story uses this sort of framing device at several points, actually, and while you’d think it might clash with an otherwise more “Gabriel Ba but somehow more intensely on acid than usual” aesthetic, it works remarkably well. In fact, the story seems to pride itself on continually breaking traditional barriers without even a hint of smugness or pretension. It knows the story it wants to tell, it wants to tell it as well as it can and it does not give a shit how crazy the means to tell that story may become.

It uses flashbacks sparingly yet has an incredibly complicated history for all its characters. It changes narrative framing to seemingly minor characters, building them up only to kill them off or shift course entirely until far later down the line, like something out of Urasawa’s Monster. The world is too complex to be fully explained in one series, let alone a single book. The sheer density of it all hits you like a freight train, and you just cling on for dear life as it rushes along.

And when I say it rushes along, I mean it flows fast as all hell. The sense of momentum to Del Duca’s art is amazing, and makes me hope that some day this comic will get turned into something animated. Each panel looks like a frame of animation given an extra polish of detail. You have to linger on each page and just soak in all the details. The earthy tones of the world give Shutter a rather grounded feel, and are contrasted by the bright hues whenever conversations get intense or bullets start flying. The layers Gieni adds punctuate the world when other colorists might have simply given the line work all the emotional reigns.

Owen Gieli’s coloring, lighting and shading, on top of Del Duca’s expressive line work and use of perspective; just absolutely astounding work all around.Credit must also be given to the lettering by John Workman. The lettering is not only varied and impactful, but the bubble placement is always directing your eye to the next critical moment.

The story itself is also quite endearing, despite the larger than life setting and progressively large cast of characters. At the heart of all things is Kate, daughter to the famous (and now deceased) explorer Chris Kristopher, and current travel photographer. She’s got a flat with her transwoman friend Alain and a talking robot cat clock. Life was always an adventure for Kate, but after her father’s passing, she’s tried to put those times behind her.

However, when a gang of rabbits, ninja spirits, and a robot start fighting over Kate against a lion mafia hit squad (yes I just wrote that sentence with a straight face), things quickly begin to unravel as all of Chris’ past choices all start to come crashing down on Kate. A quick visit to the old family home leaves Kate with more questions than a struggling 20-something ex-adventurer can handle, leading to a struggle to regain control in the face of a world determined to force her down a path she refuses to go down.

Among the early revelations for Kate is that her father sired several children, some of which would very much like for Kate to be dead, and others just as innocent as Kate in the ongoing schemes for power and revenge. Along the way, cyber-foxes, secret societies, and even inter-dimensional entities come to blows with Kate and her ever shifting group of allies.

If there’s one thing you are probably noticing at this point, it’s that a core focus of the entire series is on defying expectations and cutting your own path, even if you struggle for it. From the way the story is told to the actions of our protagonist, the traditional Campbellian hero’s journey gets tossed out the window in favor of a protagonist who actively says things along the lines of “no, f**k that noise, we’re doing this my way” and grapples with the consequences; which is part of what makes Shutter so interesting.

In improv, you’re taught to always say “yes”, no matter what, but Shutter makes a compelling argument for how much more interesting things can become in a story when you dare to say “no”. Volume 2 encapsulates this beautifully with Kate’s rant when she stands before a coallition of her enemies who have been pulling the strings and causing suffering for all those she cares about:

I’ve been trying to deal with it all. Sometimes very poorly and definitely too reactionary because I hoped it’d go away on its own. Sometimes I caved in and ended up doing some really stupid shit, like running off with a minor and possibly killing a fox or jackal or whatever she was, instead of using my brain. And the whole time you all keep relentlessly coming at me with this issue or that whatever, and I kept trying. And I kept messing up. Because everything you all want out of me isn’t who I am.

Everybody feels like I have to deal with their crap or alter my life to suit their needs and do things their way. But guess what? FUCK EVERYBODY! You all want me? You all got me! But on MY terms. Kate Kristopher is back. By popular demand. And she’s going to fight every one of you morons until your collective bullshit is straight up non-existent. Any questions?

So long, Hollywood bog-standard “the chosen one” narrative storytelling! While some stories have taken this concept and rolled with it, like Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Shutter does all it can to flip that notion the hell off and tells it to go jump in a lake.

It’s a sentiment that appeals to us all, dealing with a world that always demands more of us than what we’re often prepared to give, and is a universal story as a result. The at times absurd scenarios Kate and company find themselves in work because the unusual is normal in the world of Shutter. You can’t get lost in the grass critiquing a particular political angle or detail because the world is intentionally built to shut up that noise and get everyone to sit down and focus on what it’s actually trying to tell. It’s kind of a reverse mute-button, going full blast to keep your attention.

For example Chris Jr., Kate’s secret little brother, has to use a shotgun on someone at some point in self-defense. They address it and talk briefly about it, but in the context of survival and making snap decisions, not the gun itself. Alain being trans is a part of her character development, they even devote a flashback to it, but that’s not even a tenth of Alain’s character as Kate’s best friend and an awesome ass-kicker coming in to save the day. The existence of deities is known and some pay reverance to arcane aspects of the world but others don’t and no one blinks an eye either way. Ghost ninjas aren’t terrifying so much as a nuisance, with people dismissing their ancient moans as a running gag for the first volume.

it’s not that the story doesn’t obviously have a liberal slant, and it’s far from pro-spirituality, but also isn’t taking potshots at anyone (unless you’re part of an ultra-secretive Illuminati-esque organization, in which case, um, hi!). And in our current online and political landscape, that is a refreshing change of pace.

As if I haven’t gushed enough, it must also be said that good gravy are the amount of cogs in motion in this story just utterly insane. I wasn’t kidding when I said the story could pull Monster levels of bouncing about, with character development for the whole cast and a litany of sub-plots playing out. Also, unlike certain video games, these sub-plots do get properly fleshed out over time, even if the narrative can ignore certain plot beats for a time before bringing them back into focus.

There’s also a sequence in chapter 3 that goes so meta that you almost double-take at the sequence on display. It’s pretty typical for such a surreal universe to have a crazy drug-induced dream sequence, but Shutter goes out of its way to really knock your socks off, and that’s all I’ll say.

Beyond that, I fear I’d spoil too much of the experience for you describing what happens. The series so far has reached Volume 4, and I’ve got my copy patiently sitting on my desk as I write up this review. Each act of the story has taken two volumes, so I’d imagine it will take at least until Volume 6 to wrap everything up.

If you’re interested in catching up before Volume 5 gets collected, you need to decide if you are going physical or digital. Digital copies have been fairly cheap on Comixology recently, but I honestly plan to get the copies I have digital in physical form at some point. The volumes do cost $15 a piece, but the art is just so much more vivid in physical form, with some of the best covers I’ve seen in ages.

                                              In Summary

Shutter is probably one of my new all-time favorite series. It’s fresh, interesting, laser-focused and realistic of its limitations but also ambitious as hell within those very same boundaries. I can’t wait to see how Kate’s quest to solve the conspiracies and save her friends pans out, but odds are good it’s going to be one hell of a final fight. Until then, it’s going to be a very trippy, hilarious, poignant, and beautiful ride. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Shutter-Vol-1-Wanderlost-TP/dp/1632151456/ref=pd_bxgy_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=EYFQSKZBNEHSEWH74TY8 For: $3.99 - 14.99 (Depends on if you get it digital, especially in the case of sales, or physical) Next Time: Giant Days (Volume 1) FOR REAL THIS TIME!