surejudith

[surejudith]

TASK 001: MUTANT FUCKERY !

what is your ability? illusion manipulation

what is your government-assigned classification level? level three

what can you do? judith can do a whole lotta things. doesn’t mean she knows how to do them all yet, but there’s just... there’s a lot, so i’ll just leave the page descriptor: “Users can manipulate illusions, causing targets to see, hear, touch, smell or taste things differently from what they truly are. At its base, users can distort the shape and size of an object or area. More complex applications include causing targets to misinterpret the distance or number of an object, causing objects or entire landscapes to appear or disappear, distorting the sensory experiences of targets etc. With its near-limitless potential, the user can achieve a plethora of effects, like being extremely stealthy, discombobulating and confusing targets, hiding and masking objects or places, causing targets to unknowingly hurt each other, and so on. Though most illusions only affect sight, more powerful users can manipulate illusions that affect any and every other sense, thus making it no different from reality to the target.“

what can’t you do?  some of the more advanced techniques are currently totally off her radar.

what are your weaknesses?  none of her illusions are real -- she can’t make anything real, which is why she’s level three and not level four. further proof of this would be something like: she made her mother believe she had multiple awards, but if her mother went back and watched those award shows, they would still show who actually won.

how did you first come to the realization that you were a mutant?  after the birth of her first-born, tabloids were surfacing about her upcoming film. only there was no upcoming film. subconsciously, she had tricked the world into believing she had given multiple interviews regarding a non-existent project. abnormalities continued occurring in her everyday life. however, she didn’t fully process it until she was already in her thirties.

if given the choice, would you remain a mutant? why or why not? being a mutant has caused judith great strife -- literally cost her her career. but she can’t immediately say she wouldn’t remain a mutant. her ability is interesting, she looks normal, and what the hell else is there to ruin ? what’s done is done.

what do you hope to see change in the future, with respect to the current strife over mutant acceptance? short-term? long-term? more acceptance in general. after being blacklisted, movies taken off shelves, scrubbed out of tv shows, etc. just because she turned out to be a mutant... something big needs to happen. it’s the 21st century, y’all !

[surejudith]

( JAMIE LEE CURTIS, CIS WOMAN, SHE/HER ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that JUDITH MILLER is a sixty-three year old “RETIRED” ACTRESS that’s been in Chicago for TWENTY YEARS. According to the file, they’re a mutant on LEVEL THREE with the power of ILLUSION MANIPULATION. That must be why they’re GREGARIOUS and HEDONISTIC. If you ask me, they remind me of watching old vhs tapes on loop, a new ninety-day chip, a name removed from a legacy. They are affiliated with NOBODY.

QUICK FACTS:

full name: judith miller (i forgot the middle-name i gave her so this will be updated...)

date of birth: november 22, 1958

zodiac big three: sagittarius sun, scorpio moon, libra rising

gender & pronouns: cis woman & she/her

sexual orientation: bisexual

ethnicity: white, half- ashkenazi jewish

nationality: american

languages spoken: english

enneagram: 7w8

mbti: esfp

temperament: sanguine-melancholic

alignment: true neutral

ability: illusion manipulation

affiliation: n/a

alias: n/a

BACKSTORY:

triggers: verbal abuse, drug addiction/alcoholism, neglect

judith’s family was cursed from the start. when your depressed mother and father marry out of obligation? hm... 

her father was constantly compared to her mother’s brother -- a man who had been worth his salt. a man who had died fighting in wwii. and these constant comparisons, constant critiques while he tried to write the next great american novel (and failed desperately), caused him to join the vietnam war... just to get dishonorably discharged.

through it all, judith was reminded of why they were like this in the first place: because she existed. she had to be worth it. she would have to do something great, or what was it all for? this cursed life that her parents had subjected themselves to...

this was drilled perfectly into her. throughout her teen years, she tried to get roles over and over, landing a few commercials... until she finally got her big break in a 1970s horror flick.

but, as she was just beginning to take off (still criticized by her mother, however -- it wasn’t high art, now was it?), she found a hookup had led to a positive pregnancy test. she and her agent strategized on what the best move was... thus, judith fell out of the limelight for eight months and gave birth to a premature child. but she couldn’t take care of them... their father, who had adamantly wished for this birth, was given full custody. and judith wrote every now and again.

it must have been late onset, her ability. it wasn’t until after she gave birth to her first child that something caused magazines and papers to begin prints about her non-existent upcoming movie. rumors, right? -- no, it was genuine belief. without saying a word, she had managed to make the public think she was active during her disappearing act.

this made her first interview in nine months a bit awkward, pretending she had met the interviewer before and saying that this non-existent film had simply gotten scrapped... but, whatever this was, it worked to her advantage.

think of it like the mandela effect! only judith knows what actually happened.

soon after, she fell into the hollywood lifestyle. sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, alcohol... trying to ignore these abnormalities that were appearing in her day-to-day life.

however, she learned how to utilize the visual aspect to her advantage. a few horror flicks later, she used this to make it appear as though she had won oscars when her mother next visited. in reality? you couldn’t pick them up. you couldn’t watch the oscars and see her accept the speech. but were they there? oh, it sure seemed that way... not that it impressed her much.

when she fell pregnant again, she considered making use of this abnormality thing again... but what if she could be better to her child than her mother had been to her? a challenge, one she accepted. after some grueling weeks, she completely detoxed and carried the baby to term. a beautiful baby girl.

for the first five years of her daughter’s life, she was perfectly present. she was clean, she was there... but she finally understood that there was an inexplicable disconnect. it could no longer just be postpartum depression. 

she fell back into her old ways, though she would enter spells of sobriety to try to connect with her daughter again. never would she tell the little girl that she had to make something of herself, lest she become like judith, but the curse was placed on her the second she was born. had there ever been a happy miller woman?

in her late thirties, she was cast in a show similar to full house, changing her image to horror icon and family friendly. however, at forty, she appeared drunk on set... which wasn’t the problem. the problem was that it had caused her to lose her inhibitions enough to slip up and reveal that she was a mutant. she turned into something... impossible. two-dimensional and a biological abnormality, something that should not be able to live -- and she didn’t even notice until the screams and pictures!

it was this that caused her to become blacklisted from hollywood. her movies were largely pulled from the shelves, her shows scrubbed her face out. she was just a ghost. 

nonetheless, she still legally had royalties to live off of, not to mention the savings. and it all hit the ‘i can survive’ when her mother died and she received her inheritance. she offered a eulogy -- an awful one, one that was more like a stand-up comedy routine than heartfelt -- then fucking folded. 

she moved around small towns, places with folks who didn’t know her name. but, three years later, she found herself in chicago with an idea from her ex-agent as mutants were beginning to become a bit more normalized: meet a memoirist, clear her name.

she moved to chicago to do just that and wound up staying, living off split royalties from said memoir.

notice that i never mentioned her children again !

TIMELINE:

BORN -- san diego, ca. her parents’ honeymoon phase turned into an unhappy marriage the second judith was born. 

GENERAL CHILDHOOD -- her father would lock himself in his study to ‘work.’ her mother would emphasize that she needs to be worth it all.  her father enlisted in the vietnam war after one too many comparisons to her mother’s brother who fought and died for their country in wwii. alas, he was dishonorably discharged. he further spiraled. things just generally got worse.

GENERAL TEENAGE YEARS -- she began taking her mother’s words to heart. from commercials to bit roles to big roles, she auditioned for everything she could. she landed multiple commercial roles.

AGE 23 -- she lands her breakout role in a horror flick. praised for her performance, she goes on to make two other horror movies within the next two years.

AGE 25 -- she learns she’s pregnant after a brief hookup. the father is, unfortunately, brought in on this. she and her agent strategize the best means, and the father is adamant about her keeping the baby. so she falls off the grid for nine months. as she’s at the beginning of her career, she gives the child to the father to take care of. she writes to them. during this time, newspapers and magazines have been raving about her upcoming movie... which doesn’t exist. she believed they were simply spreading rumors at first, but... no, they really thought she was doing something. interviews proved difficult as she had to pretend she knew the interviewer and claimed the movie had been scrapped.

GENERAL YOUNG ADULTHOOD -- things keep changing in her day-to-day life, however minuscule, and she turns to all the great hollywood vices to cope. she gets more jobs, primarily in horror films, and continues this lifestyle. she learns how to manipulate visuals. she uses this to her advantage when her mother pays her visits and the rooms suddenly look like there are far more awards than there really are. but it’s all just an illusion... and it doesn’t matter, anyhow. it isn’t high art.

AGE 30 -- she finds out that she is, once again, pregnant from a one-night-stand. this time, she’s determined to prove that she can break the cycle of miserable miller mothers. she sobers up. she’s well and present for the first five years of her daughter’s life, but feels a horrible disconnect. will this be how all miller women are?

GENERAL MID-THIRTIES -- cycles through hollywood parties and sobriety, trying to see if she can become closer to her daughter. she loves her... but she just... isn’t connected. which makes her spiral again. so on and so forth.

AGE 40 -- she is, ironically, cast in a family sitcom. she’s gotta show she has the range! however, she completely ruins her own life by showing up drunk one day... not because she’s drunk, but because her inhibitions were down and she became a walking illusion. she is all but blacklisted. her movies are taken off shelves. she’s scrubbed from shows. her mother dies. she gives a stand-up comedy eulogy, then takes her leave from hollywood.

AGES 40 - 42 -- if hollywood doesn’t want her, she doesn’t want them. she wanders around to towns where no one would know her name until she got a call from her ex-agent with a very agent idea: a memoirist in chicago can clear her name as mutants are slowly becoming more accepted.

AGE 43 -- she moves to chicago and works with the memoirist over a period of a few years, waiting for the right moment to release the book. she reconnects with her daughter who, in her blind ire, she had left with the nannies... who had always been more of a mother to the girl than judith.

AGE 63 -- she’s living off royalties from her movies, shows, book, and the inheritance from her mother. she has cut off all other ties to hollywood, ashamed of who she was then. yet, living a normal life is still out of the question.

HEADCANONS:

her daughter’s godfather is danny devito.

she remains in contact with her memoirist, taking them as the first person who saw all sides of her and stayed.

her career is basically a mix of horror flicks and full house -esque shows... versatile! 

um um um

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

her daughter ! the only reason her gender was specified was because of the whole ‘exploring the faults of a mother/daughter relationship built on trauma’ which is... a long way to say whatever i’m thinking of but i’m so tired i can’t think of the phrase! anyway, a lot about her is in the intro. her fc would have to be at least 1/4 ashkenazi jewish, age range 30-35 (judith’s timeline marks her as 33, but that’s loose!)

her eldest child ! the one she largely abandoned and only kept in contact with via letters. probably very cold on their side. age range 37-42 (again with the loose timeline thing), at least 1/4 ashkenazi jewish. 

her memoirist ! honestly? think of a less toxic bojack/diane.

fans ! i mean... ya.

um um um

@forwardintros​

[surejudith]

JAMIE LEE CURTIS for The New York Times photographed by Ryan Pfluger (2022)

[surejudith]

Trauma is bigger than expertise of any sort—it's in our midst, in our language, our wars, even the ways we try to love, repeating, repeating. No one is an expert on trauma.

Annie G. Rogers, Ph.D., The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma

[surejudith]

[surejudith]

Letter to My Rage: An Evolution - Lidia Yuknavitch / Lady Snowblood / The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera / On Earth We're Breifly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong / Milk and Honey - Rupi Kaur / Autumn Sonata / Enough - Suzanne Buffam / x