#‘it doesn’t really strike me as American... are you originally from Europe?’

[worstloki]

Asking someone if they’re American and when they get all coy like how’d you know was it the accent I say yeah the accent sounds very Paraguayan

[nastybuckybarnes]

Bodyguard  -  Six

Pairing: Bodyguard!Bucky X Politician!Reader

Summary: As a young and controversial politician, you face some opposition. After a death threat is made and your security is at risk, you agree to get a bodyguard. You don’t expect him to be the most irritating and attractive man on the planet. With a history so deep and twisted you never thought you’d figure it out, a terrible corporation is determined to take you out of the political picture; using any means necessary. The only question is, how far is James willing to go to ensure your safety?

Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Injuries, Violence, Language.

Word Count: 1.5K

A/n: Um hi it’s only been like a year or something haha oops. We’re gonna have one more instalment to this series!

INSPIRED BY THE NETFLIX ORIGINAL: BODYGUARD

SERIES MASTERLIST

~*~

You watch as Bucky, Natasha, and Steve argue over what’s best for you to do. Bucky is adamant that you stay in the safe house, away from those trying to kill you, while Natasha argues that putting you in someplace where they can get you could lead them to get answers about who wants you and why they want you dead. Steve, the poor man, is trying to play mediator between the two hotheads.

“What are they expecting me to do?” You ask suddenly, getting the attention of the three.

Bucky looks at you with pursed lips.

“You tried to come clean on national television and they thwarted that. I assume that they think the message got across.” You nod slowly, thinking that over.

“So why don’t I do something that they wouldn’t expect? If they think I’ll lay low, I should do the opposite, right?” 

An idea starts to take shape in your mind.

“I could make a public announcement from the safe house. Take a video and send it to every news station in the country to get my message across. Then, HYDRA will be exposed and I’ll still be safe here.” Natasha cocks her head to the side, eyebrows raised as she ponders it.

“Nat, no,” Bucky says instantly. She holds up a hand to silence him.

“We could have Stark secure the network. Make sure that no one can trace the video back here. She’d be safe and HYDRA would be exposed. It works.” You nod, happy that she’s agreed with you. Bucky sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“There’s no way I’m arguing with you two, is there?” You both shake your heads and he almost cracks a smile. Almost.

“Hello, all. I am coming to you from an undisclosed location to give you an update on the threat to America. It was speculated that the terrorists were from outside of the country, but I can confidently confirm that they are American citizens. They work for a terrorist organization known as HYDRA, and they’ve been operating since the 1930′s. Their goal, as of right now, is to strike fear in the hearts of the citizens and wage a war on the Middle East. We must not give in to them. I have been attacked many times, but I will not give in to fear. HYDRA will be stopped and they will be stopped soon. Do not engage if you see them. This is a message to the citizens of America and the terrorists of HYDRA. HYDRA will be stopped. And justice will be served.”

You rewatch the video one last time before sending it off, a weight lifting off of your shoulders while one settles on Bucky’s.

“It’ll be fine, James,” you whisper, taking his hand in yours. He sighs and shakes his head. “I have a bad feeling about this.” You wave off his concerns and stand up, stretching your legs and pulling him to his feet.

“Well... I think I know how to get your mind off of it.” He’s following you up the stairs to the master bedroom and you can’t help but giggle, all the while Tony Stark and Natasha are taking all preventative measures they can online, not wanting the video to be tracked back to the safe house.

Steve has called back up, to get extra security around the house, and sits in his car outside, watching the surroundings for anything suspicious.

~*~

You climb out of bed, grinning at Bucky’s sleeping figure. Rather than disturb him, you get yourself cleaned and dressed then head downstairs to make yourself some tea. The house, surprisingly, is empty, except for a note on the kitchen table written in Natasha’s neat handwriting.

‘Following up on a lead. Be back soon. Call if anything happens.’ You purse your lips and take a big breath in, hoping that this will all be over soon so that you can come out of hiding.

As you’re pouring the boiled water into your mug, a hand is coming up and covering your mouth. You go to drop the kettle, hoping the loud noise wakes Bucky, but a second set of hands grabs it and places it back on the counter.

You’re silently dragged from the house, tears in your eyes as fear spreads through your veins like wildfire.

Then you’re being shoved roughly into the backseat of a car, hands bound behind your back and a gag in your mouth.

You kick against the windows, hoping to break them and give yourself some way to escape, but one of your captors jumps to the back with you while the other takes off speeding down the road and away from safety.

The drive is long, with too many turns to count, and you feel yourself losing hope.

They finally pull up to a large house in the middle of an upper-class neighbourhood, the car sliding into the garage.

The gag is pulled from your mouth and then you’re being wrestled inside the house.

If you weren’t so focused on fighting the men holding you, you’d take time to notice how beautiful the house is.

Then you’re being pushed to sit down in a chair in the kitchen. You glare at the people holding you captive, angry and slightly terrified.

“You, my dear, are far smarter than you seem. Smarter than your father was.” You recognize that voice, and the fact that you do sends a shiver down your spine.

“President Pierce,” you state, not turning as the man walks into the room. He chuckles and sits down across from you, a smile on his face.

“You know, I thought you were dead for a while. Until that video came out. Stark is fast, but not fast enough. We tracked it down and found you. And look at that, you’re hardly surprised to see me here, are you?” You shake your head. You never had a good feeling about the president.

“Well, I’m not going to argue with you and tell you that I’m a good guy. Women like you can never see the bigger picture.” You roll your eyes at him,

“What bigger picture?! You’re trying to start a war with innocent people!” He chuckles and pats your cheek. “Oil. Oil is money. And money is power. Once we control the Middle East, we can start taking on Africa. And then Asia. Then Europe. Until the whole world belongs to us.” You shake your head, disgusted by his greed.

“You won’t get away with this. Everyone knows it’s HYDRA behind the terrorist attacks.” He clicks his tongue.

“Yes, that’s true. But all I need to do is make a convincing video of you confessing to lying, admit that you’re working for the bad guys, and then kill you. You’re a pawn in a bigger game than you know. And you’ve played your part beautifully. I’ll admit, you’re stronger than I thought, but even you can break.”

You open your mouth to speak when suddenly your phone starts ringing.

One of Pierce’s men hands the phone to him and he shrugs. “It would be suspicious if you left without your phone.” A gun is pressed to your temple and you squeeze your eyes shut.

“You’ll tell them that everything is fine and you just went out to grab a few things from the store,” Pierce instructs, accenting the call and pressing the phone to your ear.

“(Y/n)? Where the hell are you?!” Bucky’s frantic voice asks. You let out a shaky breath before answering.

“I’m fine. I just went to grab a few things from the store. You can chillax. And make sure you tell Sam to chillax too, okay? I know he specifically will worry so make sure you tell him to chillax.” He hesitates for a moment, suspicious and worried.

“I’ll tell him.” You feel your eyes start to sting.

“I’ll be back soon. I love you, James.” This is what really tips him off to something being wrong.

“I love you too.” He doesn’t hang up right away, he waits and listens to see if there’s anything to give away where you are.

One of the goons takes your phone from Pierce as he begins talking, hanging up after he’s spoken a few words.

“Steve!” Bucky shouts, dropping his phone and looking for the blond. Steve, Nat, and Sam hurry into the room, each with matching looks of concern on their faces.

“She’s with Pierce,” He says. The other agents look confused before Bucky turns to Sam.

“She kept telling me to tell you to ‘chillax’. I don’t know what that means but she said it more than once.” Sam’s eyes widen. “I told her that if she’s ever in trouble to say ‘chillax’. As a code word.” Bucky jumps to his feet.

“Fuck! I knew it! I fucking knew Pierce was with them. He’s gotta be.”

“Wait... you think that the President...” Natasha trails off and Bucky nods.

“Pierce is working with HYDRA.”

[cartoonfangirl1218]

If Bombshells ever returned, maybe to explore the aftereffects of the war. Here are some superheroines and supervillainesses that could join the fight into the new era. The Cold War.

Jesse Quick; Jesse would totally join the families providing their homes to the displaced Jews of Europe while at the same time protecting her city from all sorts of crime. But her storyline might come with learning that in her need to help everyone and solving everyone's problems since she has the technology and the privlege, well... kinda appears as a white savior. At least to Lisa Snart which brings me to... 

Golden Glider: Well I think we can all guess that Lisa has a Jewish-like last name and while her big bro, Captain Cold, Leonard was working with the Nazis, I am so arguing that he was just conveinately converting in order to save his skin and his sister's. Anyway with her brother in jail and Europe in shambles after the war, Lisa can travel to America with other displaced Jews. Some families were kind enough to "foster" these peoples which is where Jesse comes in. Well Lisa isn't the type to accept the "pity" and dislikes how priviliged a life, Jesse leads. Then comes a whole new yet classic Flash vs the Rogues rivalry.  

Nyssa ah Gul: How can we forget another misplaced Jew. Well not Jew but Ra ah Gul's other daughter, Nyssa, whose entire adopted family died in the concentration camps while Ra was off whatevering with the Lazerus Pit. But since Ra's long gone from the picture, I suppose Nyssa will have to seek answers from Talia about why she didn't try to help her or contact her after finding out they were sisters. 

Mya: Meanwhile after WWII, India is revving up for a revolution after being used and abused by the British Empire in a war they didn't even want to be in. And after being in the war, STILL treated like second class citizens. That's why Myra, prodigy of Shiva is up to lead a revolution for her people.

Gypsy: Let’s not forget about all the other groups that Nazis were prejudiced against. Cynthia Reynolds or "Gypsy" as the SS slurred against her and her Romanian family. But with Europe's landscape in disarray, Cynthia can use her earth-bending powers to help and educate people that she is more than the fortune telling, pick pocketing stereotype that the world believes.

Volcana: Now I know we didn't really get into Italy's part in WWII, but someone with volcano powers would totally be working in Italy, specifically Pompeii. The one issue is that, like in her origin story, she was working for Mussolini against her will and the Italian still wants their "super weapon" under lock and key in case of WWIII. 

Thorn: Meanwhile the late 40s-early 50s is totally not a time to be woman with a mental illness. Especially when the "understanding" doctors try to lobtomize you. So Roselyn Forrest's double personality disorder is a big problem in her life. Especially since her second personality is a scythe weilding maniac and her uncle wants to put her in an institution. Added to the fact that she is still suffering under Irish discrimination. Hopefully the Batgirls can help, not only change child labor laws, but views on mental illness too.  Giganta: A gorilla turned into a girl. Why shouldn't that be an experiment by the crazy Americans or Russians in a way to beat each other as the world superpower. Well technically the Russians wanted to send a gorilla into space and beat the Americans, but they thought a woman astronaut (or as they called cosmonaut) would make them look better. (All true look up Valentina , first woman in space). But besides being part of the space race, Giganta can bring spotlight to Africa where she was born, and which is being divided by the major world powers for exploitation. 

Crimson Fox: Constance D' Amis, French heiress would be part of the small army of woman workers during the YALTA conferance trying to get their say into how to rebuild Europe for the benefit of all. Who knows, maybe she even talked to Selina Delgatti. Hey French heiresses and Italian heiresses must know each other. Plus she expels hormones that can make anyone under her thrall which leads me to...

Queen Bee: Another pheromone expelling woman. A villainess though. Africa wasn't the only one being exploited and colonized. The former Ottoman Empire was being exploited for its oil and Lebenon is taken over by the French (Basically ample reason for Constance to go to Lebenon and fight Queen Bee). And the former queen is certainly not above going to the Russians to fight the US/Europe to get her country back. Or just team up with Lex Luthor to take down Supergirl and get her country back. I just imagine Lex and --- to be like an evil Mr.Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet okay. All suave, witty banter. It makes sense in my head.

Catherine Colbert: A bit like Lois Lane, Catherine is an everygirl. Well if the everygirl was a daughter of an dimplomat and had her sights on making a name for herself in NASA and trying to avoid the pressures of mysgonistic men that woman aren't fit for government. Being told that she is too emotional and should stay in the kicthen, Catherine rebelled by becoming a stone faced, cutting ice queen in the diplomacy track and also a horrible cook. Artemis and Cheshire: I'm taking a bit from the YJ story in that Artemis and Cheshire are half-french, half-Vietnamese. Since their abusive father was loyal to the Nazis, he disowned them and cast off their Vietnamese mother in Japanese concentration camps. While Artemis made it to America and tried to stay on the good ol American democratic way (while fighting petty looters in the streets of Gotham as one does), Cheshire went to Vietnam where she works as an assasin, for the communists and the non-communists. It doesn't matter to her as long as she gets paid. But times are changing in Vietnam as the fights about communism between the North Vietnamese and South escalate. 

Lady Blackhawk: Zinda Blake, hero of WWII and the Blackhawk brigade comes home to nothing. No money. No pension. No respect. Life as a veteran has no perks since no one has money to pay in Europe. Plus she'd still be trying to adjust to civilian life after nonstop combat and the inevitable PTSD while the Germany she loved is split into two. Hopefully Rudi and Helen will help to keep her in a safe place until she can get back on her feet.  Miss Martian: While I don't know whose in Harley, Ivy and Viktoria's circus, I feel like Miss Martian would find a safe haven there. While she did not experience the WWII, she did experience a similar prejudice and genocide on Mars being a white martian so I bet she can help with reprations. Or just join Starfire on the fire squad...wait nevermind. Fire is Martian weakness. Well at least have her and Starfire being alien girlfriends exploring the strange Earth world together.

Rocket: Again, haven't had the joy of reading the final vol of Bombshells United so I don't know exactly what Bumblebee has been up to nor the racism she had probably experienced. But Raquel would be in a similar boat. An African American teen in an unjust pre-Civil Rights movement society with the added difficulties of teen mom hood. I really want some spotlight on her whether she joins the Batgirls or strike out on her own or helps Icon just like in the comics.

Mercy Graves: Alongside Lex wherever he is, I want a similar debut to what Mercy did in JL. Mercy takes over LexCorps during Luthor's absence, absolutely crushes it and makes it more of a success than Luthor ever did because she is not obsessed with the Kryptonian heroes. Maybe she even teams up with Waller? Who knows? Or even have two heads, Mercy Graves and Lena Luthor, making millions and making plans, evil or no, always ending on top.

Silver Banshee: A woman whose screams causes people to age. How they could NOT use her in a war, I do not know. But I picture Siobhan's arc going something like after her family dies in battle or something or other, she taps into her genetic banshee powers. Fueled with grief/cynicsm/vengeance she travels around the Iron Curtain, causing death since death is a mercy compared to living in destitute misery.

Plastique and Roxy Rocket: One is a Canadian explosives expert, another just really, really loves rockets. Both would be very useful on either side of the Cold War. They're traditionally illanesses so I could see them as double agents like Cheshire, working for whoever pays the most for their time.

Roulette: Roulette’s big thing is gambling on illegal cage fighting activities. Well lets up the ante by having her big gamble being stoking US/Russian tensions. After all the longer the war goes on, the more she gets paid for her information on the other side, her contacts for weapons, her spies etc. She'd be rolling in dough, and loving it even when under threat of nuclear destruction.

Fire and Ice: No idea how the heck they would fit in to a post WWII world. But let's suppose they want to escape Brazil and Antartica respectively to be able to help out in the aftermath after doing nothing during the war. Jessica Cruz and Aresia vs Star Sapphire Meanwhile with Hal Jordan out of the picture, let's have the infamous Green Lantern vs Star Sapphire rivalry again.

Lady Shiva: Street fighter, assassin, mother of the future Batwoman, Cassandra Cain. Lady Shiva must be part of the Cold War. She is bit of a anti-hero so I doubt anyone would know where her loyalties truly lie, but she'd be on the side of whoever her daughter wishes to protect.

Cassandra Cain: The new Black Bat, continue Katy Kane's work, and the Batgirl's work, and all the work that needs to be done after WWII. She's the new heroine.

[duesternis]

@elyksina asked me to answer all the questions in the “hi, I’m not from the US” ask game, and who am I to deny them that pleasure?

find the original post here

1. favourite place in your country? → the north sea coast

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad? → sadly I haven’t travelled much so far, but there are many places I want to see, both abroad and in my country.

3. does your country have access to sea? → YES, god bless. one and a half seas even (the baltic bathtub is barely a sea, fellas, I’m sorry to say)

4. favourite dish specific for your country? → öhmmmmmm.... Mettbrötchen? strikes me as very german (tm)

5. favourite song in your native language? → Ich will brennen - ASP [listen here]

6. most hated song in your native language? → too many to list, but i really don’t like anything by adel tawil and zweiraumwohnung. also like schlager... pls miss me with that. xavier naidoo get wrekt

7. three words from your native language that you like the most? → Sehnsucht, Vorfreude, Traum (these were chosen very randomly off the top of my head, but they are all gorgeous)

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom? → people at work often believe I have a eastern european heritage, and funnily its most often people from eastern europe themselves who believe that. But I’m as kartoffelig as they come.

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best? → France, I think.

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language? → Wixer is one i use very often. Hurensohn also.

11. favourite native writer/poet? → my favourite writers are Juli Zeh and Wolfgang Herrndorf. i can’t say that i have a favourite poet.

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem? → I actually don’t partake in stuff like that, cause I’m afraid of it being bad lol. But when I see sth on my dash by chance (most often rilke, somehow, the americans seem to like him a lot) i’m like :/, cause it doesn’t seem as ~profound~ in english as it does in german. I’m a bit pretentious like that and enjoy things in their original language where i can.

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders? → probably? but nothing specific comes to mind? fellow kartoffelpeople help me out here lol

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV? → No ♥

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get? → Jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische? also like MAHLZEIT!!

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with? → hate it when people say german is an ugly language. it’s a gorgeous piece of work. Have to say I kind of agree with the stereotype that  germans are standoffish. We take some time to warm up to people.

17. are you interested in your country’s history?→ a decent amount i’d say, but I’m no historybuff

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language? → thanks to moving around a lot as a kid, not really? bits and pieces of flavour in my manner of speaking, but all of it is kind of affected.

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem? → they are okay? Bundesgeier my beloved.

20. which sport is The Sport in your country? → fußball

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be? → Nazis? Weizenbier.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed? → I’m german, I’m not proud about my country. I’m german, I’m ashamed about all the shit the people have pulled and still pull.

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?→ BIER ♥ (although wiezenbier can go die in a ditch)

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country? → Poland, I think? But france gets it’s fair share too

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country? → Not really? there are many upsides to being born and raised in germany. (healthcare ftw)

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal? → yes, and I’m not too happy about it mostly. not everyone needs to be an evil scientist (often shown loaded with antisemitic propaganda) or a nazi. Or a Bavarian for that matter. It’s very old stereotypes that Hollywood operates with and there are very seldom portrayals that seem untouched by them. I have my hopes on the future though. Younger and more liberal filmmakers shall do better by all nations, I hope.

27. favourite national celebrity? → I don’t know that many national celebrities, actually? I’m not hip with the kids and all that goes on lol

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites? → all of the above, yup. And I don’t have a favourite, not really. I’m an ocean person through and through.

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country? → I live in a city that’s divided by a river, you can imagine the rest. But since I wasn’t born here I don’t give a shit.

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family? → Not that I know off

[artificialqueens]

Cause Though the Truth May Vary, This Ship Will Carry (Gigi/Nicky) - Campvanjie

AN: Based on the prompt: “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” - “Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.” A slight AU Gigi/Nicky, little bit of unrequited crushing and a lot of fate, originally posted to my old AO3 account on May 24th, 2020. Edited as well to add non-binary pronouns for Gigi out of drag, as the original used male pronouns. Don’t worry, I’m the original author and only want all of my stories collected under one pen name.

Summary: Nicky and Gigi strike up a friendship online, but just can’t meet until the time’s exactly right.

CW: slight mentions of homophobia.

The sun’s almost setting on an August day when Gigi flicks through the games in their library, bored of sniping enemies from rooftops, set on finding something else that has a competitive mode, kicking underneath the bed to find their headset. It would probably be best to at least try to talk to other people, and maybe even count up all the times people call each other gay without even realizing they’re talking to someone, who’s made sixteen dollars an hour dressing up as a girl and working at the rock climbing wall for all of high school.

There’s gay, and then there’s Gigi Goode; with a closet hanging full of custom couture, not that they’d ever admit to their mom that her work isn’t the worst.

There’s only one player in the team’s group chat, as Gigi adjusts their headset so they can talk into the mic.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Hi!”, laughs the voice in his headphones; crackling as Gigi shoots and blows apart a box in the game’s lobby. There’s an accent there he can’t quite place, not that it matters so much, since the guy on the other end easily guides him through the map and even cracks a couple of jokes as one of the other team’s players is booted off a cliff. Maybe he’s Spanish, or Russian, since there are lot of Russian people on the server at this time of almost- night.  

They queue for another round, his player’s character stopping next to a poster of one of the girls in the game.

“I like her, do you?”, he asks, and Gigi cringes a little. Straight guys were fucking exhausting, but this was just embarrassing-

“Like, this coat, with the belt like this, makes her waist look like she is a wasp. The insect, not the white people.”, he keeps talking, and Gigi’s eyes widen a little.

“Yeah, I’d buy those boots.”, they joke, hoping that whoever it is, will take it in stride, and he won’t have to listen to someone who’d been cool for the past half an hour, suddenly start losing their mind over how gay that was to say out loud.

“The boots? I want this hair- I want just Mortal Kombat hair but like this color, and maybe instead of a gun I want the scepter, like Sailor Jupiter. You’ve seen that, yes?”

Gigi blinks a couple of times. He’s serious?

“Like, of course. Yeah.”

“She’s a Mugler bitch. Hm, aren’t you?”, the voice teases on the other end; kicking at one of the boxes in the game.

Gigi is silent, as their queue timer runs out, and their team join another game which is already active when they’re dropped in.

“It’s the Hermes winter collection.”

“What?”

“That jacket is a dupe from the Hermes winter collection. You said Mugler-”, Gigi repeats, blasting through a wall in the game.

“Oh- oh you’re saying- this past winter! Of course! Maybe someone on the design team is also a fan?”

“Maybe.”

The two of them finish the round, and Gigi eagerly hits yes; when a little box pops up to add TheNickyDoll to their friends list.

(Gigi adds him back on Discord, too- because they’re probably not taking the Xbox to college, and then, they can send pictures right away.

He’s not a serial killer, and he’s cute.

Gigi can’t help but wonder if Nicky thinks the same of them.)

They slowly knit together in between Gigi’s first semester, and when Nicky moves into a new apartment in the eleventh arrondissement in Paris, and pops a bottle of champagne against his camera on his phone, propped up in his new kitchen. He plays with the zipper on his hoodie, and Gigi still can’t help but be surprised with how simple his wardrobe is.

Gigi spends hours carefully curating their wardrobe, though they supposed in Europe, there were just better pickings.

“Don’t you have friends?”, Gigi jokes, shirtless against the white brick walls of their dorm.

“Everyone will be over later, but I just wanted to do a toast for your timezone. It will be like three am for you when everyone else gets off work.”

“So this is a private party? Well… okay let me get my card.”

“Seriously? Not that kind of party!”

“Didn’t say it was. Congratulations, by the way. I got you something! Well like, I found it, and it’s so you-“

Gigi flicks the camera to face forwards, swinging to a painting hanging in the closet.

“Aw, well you didn’t have to- what the fuck is that?”

“Putin! I painted him in like the eighth grade. My mom was dropping off some stuff last weekend and I can mail him-“

Nicky’s eyebrows shoot up, pots and pans clattering on the other end of the line.

“Bitch, I am trying to not be the victim of a hate crime.”

Gigi laughs a little bit, flipping the camera back to focus on their face.

“I never asked, what do you even do?”

“What?”

“Like you- you have a job right? What’s your job?”

“Ah, I’m working, well I worked at a makeup store, but now I have some contracts, and maybe, you know- this neighborhood is where all the bars and the clubs are. If there’s no work on the runways maybe some will be looking for new girls.”

Gigi’s cheeks run hot for a moment.

“Wait, you- you’re a girl?”, they ask weakly, hoping it won’t absolutely ruin their entire… whatever it is, when you’d rather have a private housewarming alone in bed, than pretend to enjoy the beers that are flowing through the rest of the hall downstairs.

“Only when I’m being paid. Do you know- well, you have to in America you have RuPaul’s show- it’s like that-“

“You do drag? Wait, really?”

“Shhhh.”, he stops them, pressing a finger between his lips. “It’s like, I haven’t got any bookings yet but some of the clubs are interested- some of the parties, too. I can be a bottle girl.”

Gigi simply blinks repeatedly in the screen.

“What- is that too gay? I thought we were both pretty gay.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Hey-“, Gigi keeps the camera on their face, their eyes flicking up towards the naked mannequin resting against the closet door. Most of Gigi’s things were still at home, but there was a black feathered swimsuit they’d been working on- if they took out the waist just a bit-

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Wow, we are getting deep in, Dr Phil.”

“Seriously, what is it?”

“I’m feeling pink recently. Usually just- something simple. Blue. Black. It’s soothing.”

“Black is not a color.”  

“Then it’s my favorite not-color.” Nicky pours from the bottle into a flute on her counter. “Get something to drink, come on.”

“Uh-“

“Doesn’t matter what. Come on!”

Gigi reaches for Red Bull, yesterday’s alcohol mixed into it, tangy and stale in the metal can.

“Okay.”

“Pace a Salute!”, Nicky cheers, and they clink their drinks against the camera.

-

Two months later, there’s a wrapped package on his stoop, covered in foreign postage, wet at the edges like it’s been through- what Americans would call the ringer, the labels so scratched over he can barely make out the return address, when he cuts the cardboard open on his kitchen counter.

If this was that stupid Putin painting, he was deleting Gigi from his entire life-

Inside, is fabric folded in paper, a little cloth ribbon tied around where a card is tucked in.

“I dont know what your actual skin tone is because you need better lights but merry Christmas if it doesn’t fit or doesn’t match sell it on eBay and get better lights”,

Gigi has written, in neat, large letters.

Nicky carefully unfurls the rest of it, and there’s a blue and pink bodysuit inside, accented with green and yellow panels that glitter like the facets of a diamond, and a yellow jacket, the bottom cut off just below the ribs, hemmed in thick stitches so the fabric won’t roll up.

Had Gigi gone and had this made? Or was it off the rack?, he wondered, digging for price tags and labels in the fabric.

Nothing.

Shit.

He fires off a message to Gigi, who is still showing as offline, given it’s probably six in the morning where he is.

14:17

-

How much is this “gift” you got me? Wtf…

FaceTime me later.

There’s predictably no response, and that night; he paints carefully in the mirror in his bedroom, laying out the little black dress he had chosen for the performance on his bed.

At the very last minute though, it’s that little suit from Gigi that wins out, nude panels sliding over his tights as he shimmies in front of the mirror.

It’s not perfect, but it all looks very nice.

When later comes, Gigi is wearing a red wig with blonde streaks that she runs her long fingers through, winking at the camera.

“My mom’s actually a professional seamstress. It didn’t cost anything, babe.”, she says with a little shrug, a tight yellow dress barely moving around his shoulders. There’s always a party here; and Gigi can’t imagine hating it more, the little college town bigger than he was used to, and yet still- too small for what she really wanted.

“If you want other stuff, I’ll send it. There’s lots of stuff that I don’t really wear anymore and we kind of have the same style. It’s not like anyone can say anything, then they’d have to admit they’ve seen me out in public. Or I could even make you something, I’m bored all the time.”

“Why are you doing this?”, Nicky asks.

“I dunno. It’s not like you’re my competition. You’re my friend.”

19:41

-

Anyway, I’m dropping out of school, getting a nose job and moving out to LA.

Gigi types out on their phone, underneath the table at their family’s annual thanksgiving dinner.

19:41

-

Maybe not all at once.

Nicky’s reply comes lightning fast- making Gigi grin.

“Are you seriously getting nudes right now?”, one of their brothers asks, and their mother glares at the both of them over the table.

“I’m getting some new sketches from my atlier in Paris.”, they seethe, glancing back down at the floor. Nicky’s been trying to teach him French, like it’s something that occupies them so that Gigi doesn’t implode; in between sending him links to his favorite shows to watch, and YouTube links to makeup tutorials.

(He still hasn’t figured out if Nicky means it; or if he’s trying to be shady, and just doesn’t know how.)

“Atlier is where you get the clothes made, dumbass. Mom’s sewing room isn’t Paris.”

“Shut up!”

“All of you just stop-”

19:43

-

It’s a hard time in life in general.

Try not to listen so much to those voices in your head.

Nicky’s text pops up with a loud, mechanical pinging noise, three dots still hovering under the message as Gigi forces looks up from the screen and glowers across the table as they reach for more baby carrots.

19:43

-

Make mistakes, but not too many, haha. You’ll figure it out.

If it makes you feel a little bit better, I’m moving to San Fran

19:43

-

What? For real?

Gigi’s nails frantically tap over the screen.

19:45

-

Yes! I bought a ticket.

And my husband called an immigration lawyer, we’re going to get my green card situation set.

“Lawyer-”, Gigi gasps; and their entire family pauses, glancing over the table at them.

“Jesus Christ. You did it, didn’t you? You got arrested your first semester, and you weren’t even gonna tell us-”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”, they snap, flipping the bird at their oldest brother.

“Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.”

Their whole table erupts in a discussion Gigi can’t pay any attention to.

19:50

-

Cool.

That means I get to see you soon.

It’s gonna be great.

They taps ou, and close the app with a smile.

-

They hadn’t known if Nicky even had a boyfriend, not that it mattered; until it did.

Apparently; he had been married, for almost the whole time they had known each other- a blow Gigi hadn’t quite expected, to leave them as breathless as landing in Los Angeles; the shock not setting in, not in full, anyway- until they are standing in a new apartment, looking down at a menu of instructions on how to set up the wifi in the unit, fingers hovering over everyone in contacts.

They can’t call their mom; not this soon, and their brothers would tell her, and the whole plan would crumble; just like everything had with Nicky; whose calls Gigi had declined for the past solid month; the nights they had spent with their phones propped up behind desks and dressing room mirrors fading into something beyond memory; that they refused to think about any more than they had to, the messages asking if they’re alright answered in curt, short replies.

How could they have been so stupid, thinking that they were talking-talking, teasing that Nicky and they were friends; when Gigi didn’t even know what his real name was.

(Unless it was Nicky?)

Shit.

Gigi waits for their phone to load into the app, and refreshes the friends list a couple of times, until they can see Nicky’s icon at the top, the side of the circle cut through with a little green dot, and taps twice to start a call.

“Hi?”

Nicky’s greeting floats in the air, between a breath and utter silence before Gigi swallows their pride, pressing the phone to the side of their face.

“What do you know about connecting a router to a tower if I live on the…um third floor?”

The line crackles, but soon there’s a tiny, familiar chuckle. “First of all, that is not how you do any of that-”

They talk a little more, every day; in between, Nicky moves to New York and Gigi cuts a tape that they put in the mail with a wink. They’re due for a visit home soon, and carefully proposes- maybe it’s time they meet Nicky. New York isn’t far at all, and a layover would make for a cheaper flight, anyway.

-

Their plans stack up in hours of calls; and Gigi think they’re almost back to normal. Until, three days before the flight is supposed to leave, there’s a call they had forgotten to wait for, and their fingers hover over the message box below Nicky’s name, vibrating with anxiety and excitement all at once.

09:22

-

Hey. I had a family thing come up.

Gigi types, and then erases the text, steeling themselves as they taps out another one that makes a little more sense, and doesn’t seem like such a lie.

09:30

-

I’m so so so so sorry about this

I had some things come up and my trip fell through.

They send this instead, surprised to see Nicky start typing back immediately.

09:35

-

You’re not going to believe this

I have some work things that started recently and so it would have been really shitty to have a guest over now.

09:35

-

No way!

09:37

-

Yeah. :(( But we’re gonna hang out someday, I swear!

09:37

-

Dont worry! You’re definitely gonna see me.

Real real real soon!

-

“-Where do I go?”, Gigi asks, pulling at the bottom hem of the ornate jacket she wore, fiddling with the gold telescope in her hands. The lights behind the set burned brightly, making the thicker bottoms of the outfit feel much warmer than he had remembered them being.

“Go to that green square on the ground, and wait there, when you see the little arrow light up, you can enter the Werk Room and then we’ll have you stop inside, get your opening line, and let you see the other girls.”

“Okay.”

He does as he’s told, prancing in and kicking his boots in front of him as the lights move to capture Gigi’s entrance, his head only snapping to the side when given the signal, so he can see the others who are already crowded around the pink tables he’s only dreamed of seeing for so long.

“Holy Shit…Nicky?!”

In reality; Gigi can see far more of the detail of Nicky’s face; of her eyebrows and carefully painted cheeks and lashes, of all the effort that they had only really talked about, his eternal summer tan and the long fringe of black hair that he’s always nudging across his forehead, or slicked against a beanie, gone behind a platinum blonde veneer that’s so much brighter than Gigi has ever seen. She’s thinner, and taller, careful breaths underneath sequinned shoulder pads, knees knocking together as she gasps.

“Gigi!”

Widow and Crystal glance at each other over the pink table.

“Hold up, you guys know each other?”

In the flesh; Gigi is impossibly small, the sharp angles of her face, and the dark brown hair that sticks up in angles which Nicky traces against the white of his pillows in his bedroom on the screen of his phone in the morning, taped underneath a gold-tipped pirate hat, and lush, wavy curls. She looks like a model on the runways where Nicky used to work; so close to him that he can feel Gigi’s breath on the back of his hand, as he tightens his grip around the epaulets on her shoulder.

“Gigi Goode.”, she repeats, and Gigi giggles a little at that.

“The Nicky Doll.”, she laughs, and her voice sounds so much more solid, than it ever has over every crossed wire.

Gigi’s hand swings, squeezing Nicky’s tightly as they swing around the table; like the others who are there don’t matter at all. She rests her head on Nicky’s padded shoulder, cocking it just slightly, waiting there, as Crystal’s eyes flash at the scene before them.

“…and may the best woman win.”, Gigi whispers, only for Nicky to hear.

[tlbodine]

The Wendigo is Not What You Think

There’s been a recent flurry of discussion surrounding the Wendigo -- what it is, how it appears in fiction, and whether non-Native creators should even be using it in their stories. This post is dedicated to @halfbloodlycan​, who brought the discourse to my attention. 

Once you begin teasing apart the modern depictions of this controversial monster, an interesting pattern emerges -- namely, that what pop culture generally thinks of as the “wendigo” is a figure and aesthetic that has almost nothing in common with its Native American roots...but a whole lot in common with European Folklore. 

What Is A Wendigo? 

The Algonquian Peoples, a cluster of tribes indigenous to the region of the Great Lakes and Eastern Seaboard of Canada and the northern U.S., are the origin of Wendigo mythology. For them, the Wendigo (also "windigo" or "Witigo" and similar variations) is a malevolent spirit. It is connected to winter by way of cold, desolation, and selfishness. It is a spirit of destruction and environmental decay. It is pure evil, and the kind of thing that people in the culture don't like to talk about openly for fear of inviting its attention.

Individual people can turn into the Wendigo (or be possessed by one, depending on the flavor of the story), sometimes through dreams or curses but most commonly through engaging in cannibalism. Considering the long, harsh winters in the region, it makes sense that the cultural mythology would address the cannibalism taboo.

For some, the possession of the Wendigo spirit is a very real thing, not just a story told around the campfire. So-called "wendigo psychosis" has been described as a "culture-bound" mental illness where an individual is overcome with a desire to eat people and the certainty that he or she has been possessed by a Wendigo or is turning into a Wendigo. Obviously, it was white people encountering the phenomenon who thought to call it "psychosis," and there's some debate surrounding the whole concept from a psychological, historical, and anthropological standpoint which I won't get into here -- but the important point here is that the Algonquian people take this very seriously. (1) (2)

(If you're interested in this angle, you might want to read about the history of Zhauwuno-geezhigo-gaubow (or Jack Fiddler), a shaman who was known as something of a Wendigo hunter. I'd also recommend the novel Bone White by Ronald Malfi as a pretty good example of how these themes can be explored without being too culturally appropriative or disrespectful.) 

Wendigo Depictions in Pop Culture

Show of hands: How many of you reading this right now first heard of the Wendigo in the Alvin Schwartz Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book?

That certainly was my first encounter with the tale. It was one of my favorite stories in the book as a little kid. It tells about a rich man who goes hunting deep in the wilderness, where people rarely go. He finds a guide who desperately needs the money and agrees to go, but the guide is nervous throughout the night as the wind howls outside until he at last bursts outside and takes off running. His tracks can be found in the snow, farther and farther apart as though running at great speed before abruptly ending. The idea being that he was being dragged along by a wind-borne spirit that eventually picked him up and swept him away.

Schwartz references the story as a summer camp tale well-known in the Northeastern U.S., collected from a professor who heard it in the 1930s. He also credits Algernon Blackwood with writing a literary treatment of the tale -- and indeed, Blackwood's 1910 novella "The Wendigo" has been highly influential in the modern concept of the story.(3)  His Wendigo would even go on to find a place in Cthulhu Mythos thanks to August Derleth.

Never mind, of course, that no part of Blackwood's story has anything in common with the traditional Wendigo myth. It seems pretty obvious to me that he likely heard reference of a Northern monster called a "windigo," made a mental association with "wind," and came up with the monster for his story.

And so would begin a long history of white people re-imagining the sacred (and deeply frightening) folklore of Native people into...well, something else.

Through the intervening decades, adaptations show up in multiple places. Stephen King's Pet Sematary uses it as a possible explanation for the dark magic of the cemetery's resurrectionist powers. A yeti-like version appears as a monster in Marvel Comics to serve as a villain against the Hulk. Versions show up in popular TV shows like Supernatural and Hannibal. There's even, inexplicably, a Christmas episode of Duck Tales featuring a watered-down Wendigo.

Where Did The Antlered Zombie-Deer-Man Come From? 

In its native mythology, the Wendigo is sometimes described as a giant with a heart of ice. It is sometimes skeletal and emaciated, and sometimes deformed. It may be missing its lips and toes (like frostbite). (4)

So why, when most contemporary (white) people think of Wendigo, is the first image that comes to mind something like this?

Well...perhaps we can thank a filmmaker named Larry Fessenden, who appears to be the first person to popularize an antlered Wendigo monster. (5) His 2001 film (titled, creatively enough, Wendigo) very briefly features a sort of skeletal deer-monster. He’d re-visit the design concept in his 2006 film, The Last Winter. Reportedly, Fessenden was inspired by a story he’d heard in his childhood involving deer-monsters in the frozen north, which he connected in his mind to the Algernon Blackwood story. 

A very similar design would show up in the tabletop game Pathfinder, where the “zombie deer-man” aesthetic was fully developed and would go on to spawn all sorts of fan-art and imitation. (6) The Pathfinder variant does draw on actual Wendigo mythology -- tying it back to themes of privation, greed, and cannibalism -- but the design itself is completely removed from Native folklore. 

Interestingly, there are creatures in Native folklore that take the shape of deer-people -- the  ijiraq or tariaksuq, shape-shifting spirits that sometimes take on the shape of caribou and sometimes appear in Inuit art in the form of man-caribou hybrids (7). Frustratingly, the ijiraq are also part of Pathfinder, which can make it a bit hard to find authentic representations vs pop culture reimaginings. But it’s very possible that someone hearing vague stories of northern Native American tribes encountering evil deer-spirits could get attached to the Wendigo, despite the tribes in question being culturally distinct and living on opposite sides of the continent. 

That “wendigo” is such an easy word to say in English probably has a whole lot to do with why it gets appropriated so much, and why so many unrelated things get smashed in with it. 

I Love the Aesthetic But Don’t Want to Be Disrespectful, What Do I Do? 

Plundering folklore for creature design is a tried-and-true part of how art develops, and mythology has been re-interpreted and adapted countless times into new stories -- that’s how the whole mythology thing works. 

But when it comes to Native American mythology, it’s a good idea to apply a light touch. As I’ve talked about before, Native representation in modern media is severely lacking. Modern Native people are the survivors of centuries of literal and cultural genocide, and a good chunk of their heritage, language, and stories have been lost to history because white people forcibly indoctrinated Native children into assimilating. So when those stories get taken, poorly adapted, and sent back out into the public consciousness as make-believe movie monsters, it really is an act of erasure and violence, no matter the intentions of the person doing it. (8) 

So, like...maybe don’t do that? 

I won’t say that non-Native people can’t be interested in Wendigo stories or tell stories inspired by the myth. But if you’re going to do it, either do it respectfully and with a great deal of research to get it accurate...or use the inspiration to tell a different type of story that doesn’t directly appropriate or over-write the mythology (see above: my recommendation for Bone White). 

But if your real interest is in the “wendigocore” aesthetic -- an ancient and powerful forest protector, malevolent but fiercely protective of nature, imagery of deer and death and decay -- I have some good news: None of those things are really tied uniquely to Native American mythology, nor do they have anything in common with the real Wendigo. 

Where they do have a longstanding mythic framework? Europe.

Europeans have had a long-standing fascination with deer, goats, and horned/antlered forest figures. Mythology of white stags and wild hunts, deer as fairy cattle, Pan, Baphomet, Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, Black Phillip and depictions of Satan -- the imagery shows up again and again throughout Greek, Roman, and British myth. (9)

Of course, some of these images and figures are themselves the product of cultural appropriation, ancient religions and deities stolen, plundered, demonized and erased by Christian influences. But their collective existence has been a part of “white” culture for centuries, and is probably a big part of the reason why the idea of a mysterious antlered forest-god has stuck so swiftly and firmly in our minds, going so far as to latch on to a very different myth. (Something similar has happened to modern Jersey Devil design interpretations. Deer skulls with their tangle of magnificent antlers are just too striking of a visual to resist). 

Seriously. There are so, so many deer-related myths throughout the world’s history -- if aesthetic is what you’re after, why limit yourself to an (inaccurate) Wendigo interpretation? (10) 

So here’s my action plan for you, fellow white person: 

Stop referring to anything with antlers as a Wendigo, especially when it’s very clearly meant to be its own thing (the Beast in Over the Garden Wall, Ainsworth in Magus Bride)

Stop “reimagining” the mythology of people whose culture has already been targeted by a systematic erasure and genocide

Come up with a new, easy-to-say, awesome name for “rotting deer man, spirit of the forest” and develop a mythology for it that doesn’t center on cannibalism 

We can handle that, right? 

This deep dive is supported by Ko-Fi donations. If you’d like to see more content, please drop a tip in my tip jar.  Ko-fi.com/A57355UN

NOTES: 

1 - https://io9.gizmodo.com/wendigo-psychosis-the-probably-fake-disease-that-turns-5946814

2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo#Wendigo_psychosis

3 - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10897/10897-h/10897-h.htm

4 - https://www.legendsofamerica.com/mn-wendigo/

5- https://www.reddit.com/r/Cryptozoology/comments/8wu2nq/wendigo_brief_history_of_the_modern_antlers_and/

6 - https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Wendigo

7 - https://www.mythicalcreaturescatalogue.com/single-post/2017/12/06/Ijiraq

8 - https://www.backstoryradio.org/blog/the-mythology-and-misrepresentation-of-the-windigo/

9 - https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2014/12/the-folklore-of-goats.html

10 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_in_mythology

[papermoonloveslucy]

IT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT: LUCY & THE BOMPS!

by Earl Wilson, August 19, 1950

Lucille Ball wanted to keep Desi home and off the road so she petitioned for him to play her husband on radio’s “My Favorite Husband”.  The network balked and Richard Denning got the role instead. When it came time to transfer the show to television, Lucy made the same demand. Now a radio star in her own right, she was able to convince the network - nervous about America believing an ‘All-American girl’ like Lucy would be married to a Latin bandleader - to give them a chance to prove it!  The Arnazs’ built a comedy and musical act and took it on the road. When the show got to the Roxy in New York City, syndicated columnist Earl Wilson tagged along and wrote the following feature, which appeared on August 19, 1950.  Coincidentally, the Roxy was also the theatre where Desi Arnaz was performing when he wed Lucille Ball in 1940. 

[NOTE: Although the text of Wilson’s article is repeated below verbatim, the photos and footnotes were added for editorial consideration.]

Lucille Ball has been one of our most appreciated movie actresses for quite a while, but it was seeing her do a bump on the stage that made me really come to realize how talented she is.

It was after she’d done her clever act with husband Desi Arnaz at the Roxy that I talked to the flamin’ redhead about it.

“Wasn't that a bump?” I asked her, as we got into a cab and pulled away from the stagedoor. I wanted to be sure, because some snooty actresses wouldn’t want it thought that they ever did a bump.“That was a married woman’s refined version of a bump.”

Lucille was sitting back in the cab, exhausted from several shows that day, and clamoring to be taken somewhere to see a show. She said she had been entertaining all day and now she wanted to be entertained for a change.

“Did you say refined?” Desi looked across the cab at her. I was between them. “Any harder you do it and you will knock my hot off,” he said in his charming accent. (1)

At Desi’s urging, she told me a story showing that doing the bump is for her not new. It seems that once she made a picture for Eric Palmer called Dance, Girl, Dance. (2)

“He was telling me, ‘Those bomps. Don’t do those bomps bad or the sansors will keep the picture.’

“So I was doing a very tame dance, not bumping at all. I had on a 27-pound dress, silver lame, with bugle beads, and it rolled from side to side when I shook.

“Durin’ a scene, Palmer jumped up and said, ‘Oh, oh, that was a bomp. I told you no bomps.’

“I went up to him and I said, ‘Mr. Palmer, that was not a bomp. THIS is a bomp.’  “And I bumped and I wrapped those 27 pounds of beads right around his neck!”

It’s a pleasure to talk to two such honest, earthy people after listening to some others who are always posing. A lot of people are astonished that they are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary because, as Desi points out, “Everyone said it wouldn’t last a month.” “And WE didn’t think it would last a week,” Lucille said. (3)

Being romantically inclined, I asked for the details which most everybody must have forgotten by now but the participants themselves.

“Where did you get married?” I asked Desi.

“The Byram River Beagle Club, at Greenwich, Conn.,” Lucille said. (4)

“Thank you, I can never say that,” said her Cuban husband.

“Yes, you can. Try it,” Lucille said.

“The By-ram River Bee-gul Club,” Desi said dutifully and slowly.

“Faster!” commanded Lucille. (5)

“The Byver Regal Civer Club,” responded Desi.

“Oh, my,” said Lucille, “We were married by Judge John J. O’Brien. He’s the one who married Tommy Manville so many times.” (6)

Although Desi missed a show at the Roxy, where he was then appearing, to get married, he remembers, just as vividly, how on his wedding night he woke up the bride about 5 A.M. and demanded that she get him a glass of water. The funny thing is that she did.

“About 9 o’clock she woke me up,” Desi recalls, “and she said ‘Listen, you—, the next time you want a glass of water you get it yourself!’” (7)

Desi explains that he’s never made such a request since.

Desi and Lucille have formed their own company which they call Desilu Productions, this being a combination, of course of their two first names. “First time I ever got top billing,” Desi says.

They plan to do concerts, radio, television and movies together. Lucille comes from Butte, Mont., and, as everybody knows, has red hair. (8)

Lucille made up a description of herself around which a movie will be made. The title which describes her so accurately is "Blazing Beulah From Butte," and we figure it ought to get the money. (9)

Never underestimate that Desi.

When they were getting married it appeared that she might not be able to because of a commitment to Harold Lloyd.

Desi called Lloyd from New York and defiantly announced to him that Lucille couldn’t be available that week, as he was marrying her. “Y-yes, D-desi, c-can she be back next k-weeek?” stammered Lloyd, who never does. (10)

Desi is pretty masterful; when he speaks, to Lucille he is her master’s voice.

FOOTNOTES

(1) The ‘bomps’ discussed are undoubtedly from the “Cuban Pete / Sally Sweet” number, where Lucy gyrates her hips while singing “Chick-Chicky-Boom Chick-Chicky-Boom.” The routine was repeated (with ‘bomps’ included) on “I Love Lucy” in “The Diet” (ILL S1;E3) in October 1951. 

(2) The article consistently mis-spells Erich Pommer as ‘Eric Palmer.’  Pommer was the producer of Lucille Ball’s 1940 film Dance, Girl, Dance at RKO. 

(3) Lucy and Desi’s marriage lasted twenty years, from 1940 to 1960, although Lucille divorced Desi in the mid-1940s, Lucy never signed the paperwork. After their second divorce was final, Lucy revealed that Desi was unfaithful and a drinker, and that they were no longer compatible. Lucy charged “mental cruelty” and told the court of Desi’s temper tantrums. Some years later, she described the reason for the split as “the same old booze and broads.” Both Ball and Arnaz remarried, although they stayed friends and later admitted that they had always loved one another. 

(4) Lucy and Desi married in Connecticut due to its shorter waiting period on licenses and blood tests. The Byram River Beagle Club in Greenwich was originally a Hunt and Kennel Club that became a speakeasy during Prohibition and after that a supper club. It was a favorite hangout of baseball great Babe Ruth. A single-family home now stands on the property.  In April 1952, “I Love Lucy” aired an episode called “The Marriage License” (ILL S1;E26) that was largely set in Greenwich and mentioned The Byram River Beagle Club, although no scenes were set there because Lucy purposely left Ricky’s wallet at home and they ran out of gas! 

(5) In “The Marriage License” Ricky also had trouble pronouncing the name. On “I Love Lucy” making fun of Ricky’s English was a usual source of comedy - mostly by Lucy - just as it appears to be here - in 1950.  

(6) Thomas Franklyn Manville, Jr., known as Tommy Manville (1894-1967), was a Manhattan socialite and heir to the Johns-Manville asbestos fortune. He was a celebrity in the mid-20th Century due to both his inherited wealth and his record-breaking 13 marriages to 11 women, which won him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. At the time of this interview, however, Manville was only on his 6th wife!  The termination of his marriages usually resulted in gossip, widespread publicity, and huge cash settlements. At the time of his death it was estimated that Manville spent more than $1.25 million on divorce settlements.

(7) This exchange (with slight variation) was later worked into “I Love Lucy”! 

(8) At the start of her career - and apparently well into 1950 - Lucille Ball purported to have been born in Butte, Montana, despite her actual birthplace being Jamestown, in upstate New York.  Ball (who then went by the name Diane Belmont) thought it sounded more interesting and exotic.  

(9) Despite the alliterative title, "Blazing Beulah from Butte” was never made, perhaps because shortly afterwards Ball admitted her true birthplace. “Blazing Beulah from Jamestown” doesn’t have quite the same ring. It’s also likely that this was a clever bon mot on Desi’s part to create a more colorful interview. 

(10) Comic actor and director Harold Lloyd had put Lucille under contract for his film A Girl, A Guy, and A Gob, to be filmed in 1940. There was some speculation that marrying Arnaz would interfere with the shooting schedule. 

TRIVIA

While Lucy and Desi were at the Roxy, the theatre was also showing Night and the City, which had premiered there on June 5, 1950. At this time it was common for a larger entertainment venues like the Roxy to present both a stage show and a first run film. Night and the City starred Richard Widmark, who Lucy and Desi later convinced to guest-star on “I Love Lucy” in “The Tour” (ILL S4;E30) in May 1955. 

In “Return Home From Europe” (ILL S5;E26), Ricky gets a long-distance telephone call from the manager of the Roxy, Mr. Rothafel, offering him a job, if he can get back to New York immediately. In reality, Rothafel was the name of the founder of the Roxy, Mr. Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel. Rothafel died in early 1936, however, so this was probably Desi’s way of honoring him. 

Earl Wilson was mentioned on “I Love Lucy” in “The Fox Hunt” (ILL  S5;E16). While trying to wangle an invitation to Sir Clive’s country manor, Lucy makes up a story about the Mertzes meeting an Earl in the hotel lobby. When Sir Clive rattles off the names of some Earls to jog her memory, she fibs that he was just promoted from Assistant Earl, the Earl of Wilson, who canceled because he’s got the gout! Lucy’s imaginary Earl is actually a reference to Earl Wilson (1907-87), a journalist and television panelist of the time. His nationally syndicated column frequently mentioned Lucy and Desi. 

In 1974, Lucy strikes a pose for Wilson during her promotional tour for Mame.

[wolfhuntsmoon]

Sarah Rogers pt 2: or, how baby!Steve imbibed a fuck-you attitude with his mother’s milk

Okay, so after looking at Sarah’s backstory, how she met Joseph and had Steve and decided to go to America, I couldn’t stop thinking about: what next? The MCU wiki is VERY thin on the ground with detail, and she’s so interesting! Plus, this is, like, one of the most criminally underdeveloped sources for Steve Rogers’ character, as I mentioned in pt 1. So, what can we reasonably source from the time to fill in the gaps?

So: I said in my previous post Sarah likely arrives in January/February of 1918. This is because in those days, travel times were long, conditions were VERY poor and you did not want to be heavily pregnant on a cheap ship to America with the conditions on board. Plus, in those days there was no guarantee a ship company would even sell you a ticket if you were visibly pregnant. It did happen, but was risky for the company, so you could never be sure. Sarah would have left asap once she made a decision. 

The journey itself would have taken about 3-4 weeks. First she would have had to travel to London, because nothing would have been leaving to America from the French or Belgian coastline, as a) most of it was too close to the war and b) the bits that weren’t wouldn’t have been profitable. Travel to London from Passchendaele would have taken a few days to a week, given the mud and absolute priority troops and military materials were given on all journeys. This map here shows it took between 7-10 days to arrive in New York from London (by ship, no flights until the late 1920s/1930s) in 1914 before the outbreak of the war. I mentioned how at this point the German U-boats were basically sinking anything they found not flying a German flag, which made this journey pretty hazardous, even with the newly introduced (and very effective) protection of the convoy system. If Sarah was travelling on a fast convoy (less likely as they were primarily for troop ships) it would have taken about a week. Slower moving convoys carrying mostly cargo might have taken 2 weeks, even 2 and a half weeks if the weather was bad. Convoys, by the way, were where groups of ships were clustered together and escorted across the Atlantic by a combination of naval ships bristling with every explosive known to man, and navy ships disguised to look like harmless merchant cargo ships but ALSO bristling with every explosive known to man, to prevent U-boats sinking them. And also attack U-boats when they turned up. Not if. When. As you may be imagining, these journeys often contained lots of Things Going Boom and people Dying in Unpleasant Ways. Sarah would have been told by literally everyone she knew that this was a stupid, near-lethal decision, and that she should just NOT. But Sarah being Sarah, ignored this in the pursuit of what she felt was right and best for her and her baby... that doesn’t sound familiar at all, does it?

Okay, so she’s made it through the journey to the iconic Ellis Island. The next problem was that Immigration to the USA was incredibly curtailed by 1918, compared to the levels of immigration to the US prior to WWI beginning. In this, Sarah was lucky. Prior to WWI, on average between 1900-1914 about 1 million immigrants arrived into the US each year. In 1918, roughly 110,000 did - Sarah being one of them. I’ve said before that she would have had an easier time getting passage on a ship in the first place because she was comparatively better off on a nurse’s wage and was a middle class professional. More than that, most travel was reserved for the military - and Sarah likely had connections, being the wife of an American soldier, which made it easier for her to gain passage on a ship. (More on this later.)

Her status and profession is also very important for explaining how Sarah gained entry to the US, because by the end of WWI, the open door policy of the 19th and early 20th century had been solidly shut. The open-door policy had essentially allowed anyone who could pass a very basic medical and legal check free entry to reside in the USA, and the Ellis Island museum has a very good description of just how cursory these checks were - they were nicknamed the ‘six second physicals’. 98% of immigrants passed straight away, and a only a very small percentage of the remainder were put on a ship back to their country of origin. But by the outbreak of WWI, politicians and the public had become uneasy about this. Mostly due to racial concerns - Chinese immigration was the first to be restricted in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese immigrants were targeted in 1907 and all Asian immigrants in 1917. (I see a lot of posts on tumblr talking about how immigration restrictions in the US began by denying Jewish refugees entry in the 1930s, which... is wrong. So, so wrong. But anyway.) Here is a contemporary cartoon showing a pretty good summary of attitudes to immigration by the time Sarah would have been travelling:

(The 3% refers to immigration restrictions put in place by Congress AFTER the war, btw.)

But the US wasn’t just worried about one continent’s people! Or even ‘just’ non-whites! Oh no... they were also VERY worried about the ‘wrong sort’ of white immigrant too. Namely, anyone from southern and eastern Europe, and the Irish. 

The discrimination against the Irish is an interesting one, because on the face of it, the Irish were the kind of immigrants the US wanted - north and western Europeans. But here’s where eugenics and pseudoscience come along and fuck things up for a lot of people. Part of the reason why the US was suspicious of southern and eastern Europeans was political - that they harboured a tendency towards violent revolutions, communism and anarchy. The Irish, after the violence of the 1916 Easter Rising and the fact that a not-insignificant number of violent revolutionaries tried to facilitate a German invasion of Ireland (and then unionists ran guns during the war through Kriegsmarine U-boat dropoffs on the Irish coast in... defence???? Idk either.), came to be included in this politically radical group. That’s the first strike.

The second strike came from the fact Irish had the British working against them. In those days, British media and culture really set the tone for the rest of the world. Remember, the US was not a world superpower yet - this is when Britain is at the height of its power, ruling 20% of the world’s people and 25% of its land surface by 1924. Britannia really did rule the waves, and much of the world’s culture, at this point. Hollywood, and American ‘soft power’ had yet to develop into the behemoth it is now. British culture persistently depicted the Irish as subhuman, ape-like, feckless, uncivilised and dangerous, as you can clearly see here:

The top one is from 1866, and the second one from 1849. Both were cartoons published in Punch Magazine, which was the pre-eminent social and political publication that EVERYONE read in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It also played a huge role in shaping social attitudes, and you can see more of its, and others, views on the Irish in these excellent galleries. The rest of the British media was the same - almost universally negative views of the Irish, which filtered across the Atlantic over time. And seemed to be vindicated by events like the 1916 Easter Rising, and before that a long running number of secret societies the British kept discovering, plotting revolution against their rule. The whole ‘kiss me I’m Irish’, dying the Hudson green on St Patrick’s day, ‘omg I love an Irish accent’ thing? Didn’t happen until the latter half, or really the last quarter, of the twentieth century. The Irish were pretty much persona non grata when Sarah was alive. Part of the explanation for this came from the idea that the Irish were a part of a lesser race, their Celtic origins leading to a lack of judgement, predisposition to alcoholism and hotheadedness, and passionate outbursts which meant you needed to treat them more like children. Conveniently enough for the British, this explanation meant you didn’t need to treat your subjects like equals, deserving of the vote, or indeed with anything except violence and condescension. Ha. Funny that.

But anyway, back to America.

Third strike: the Irish were Catholic, as Sarah would have been. Only the very richest in society were Protestant, because they were descended from British settlers. Both the British and the US governments of the time viewed Catholicism with deep suspicion, partly for historical reasons (Martin Luther, 1517 and all that jazz) but ALSO because the Catholic Church remained a vastly powerful institution which could and did command the loyalties of people more than the national government, and this represented a dangerous fifth column within the nation state. Most of north and western Europe was Protestant, unlike the south and east which was predominantly Catholic (with the exception of France. But hey, they’re the French. No big.) so the Irish being 99% Catholic was yet another reason they got lumped in with the other ‘undesireables’. 

Not a small part of this was caused by the fact that the Irish had been immigrating to America in vast numbers ever since the Great Famine (aka the Potato Famine/Blight) to the tune of and average of c450,000 Irish per decade between 1850-1900. That is... a LOT. Like, New York’s population in 1890 had only just hit 2.5 million! Ireland’s population TODAY is 5 million! So by the end of WWI, there was already a sense that Too Many Irish were here, particularly since the Irish tended, like most immigrant communities, to move into certain areas in large numbers via family groups and connections. Sarah would have been no exception to this, which I’ll explore more in pt 3 later. It was a very common practice in this period for a man to go to America and work, then bring his family and extended family over. Or for young relations to go and live with family already in America if there was no work in Ireland - which there wasn’t, the Irish economy being subsistence agriculture and not a lot else. 

All of this together means that when Sarah arrives in Jan/Feb of 1918? She’d get a pretty rough welcome at Ellis Island (still used for incoming immigrants until new legislation establishing a visa system in 1924 went through and basically made it redundant.) and beyond.

Below is a pic of an Ellis Island arrival card, just because it’s cool:

These tightened restrictions resulted in not just health checks, but intelligence tests and ‘mental fitness’ tests, which if failed, could result in the immigrant being sent back to their country of origin. However, Sarah would have made it through okay, because she had good English, her profession and likely her marriage cert and references from Joseph Rogers’ commanding officer to speed her passage. She may even have had family connections already in New York or America, but for the reasons outlined in my previous post, probably wasn’t in contact with them. Or if she did contact them, was likely to be ignored and ostracised. Because patriarchy, yay.

But ironically? Getting into America was the easy part. I know, I know, unbelievable, especially when you consider she was PREGNANT during this. I mean, can you imagine enduring morning sickness and all the other joys of pregnancy on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic in WINTER, in danger of sinking from a U-Boat torpedo at any moment? Can you? Can you??? Sarah Rogers came up against an immense set of obstacles just to get into America and just fucking ploughed through them like they were tissue paper. Which explains a LOT about Steve Rogers, that’s for sure.

Join me next time for pt 3, where I explore Sarah’s living and working situation after she arrives and we all learn to be even more in awe of how fucking metal she was.

[su-o]

The tiaras have been dusted off and the pearls polished. Four long years after the final instalment of Downton Abbey, it’s back, this time on the big screen.

It is a crisp, clear morning at Wentworth Woodhouse, the stately home in South Yorkshire. Built by the 1st Marquess of Rockingham, it has the widest façade in Europe, boasts at least 365 rooms (no one is certain of the exact number), and represents two and a half acres of building.

This perfect specimen of English baroque is the setting for the new Downton Abbey film – in which George V and Queen Mary tour the north of England (which also includes a visit to Downton itself, filmed as usual at Highclere Castle in Berkshire) – and today they are shooting a grand ball at the home of the Countess of Harewood in the film, attended by the royal couple and Downton’s Crawley family.

Inside the house, a production unit zigzags in and out of huge vaulted rooms with cables and film cameras, while extras in 1920s ball attire chat nonchalantly on makeshift chairs. Meanwhile in the ballroom – a giant marble space, adorned with deep-red damask wallpaper and enormous flower arrangements – Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton(two of the stars of the original series) slip through the lines of dancing couples in diaphanous silks, as a small orchestra plays a waltz.

In the background, an assistant producer is being told off by one of the volunteers of Wentworth Woodhouse for wandering into a disused room. This isn’t jobsworthiness. The carpet in some rooms is nearly 300 years old and will disintegrate if anyone breathes on it. The wallpaper, meanwhile, is laced with arsenic (as was the fashion at the time) in order to make it a certain shade of green.

Away from the action, Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary (the eldest Crawley daughter), is sitting in her trailer, her sharp features accentuated by period make-up, feeling slightly in awe of the whole process. ‘It was during my costume fitting when it hit me. I got really emotional.’ 

Downton Abbey made Dockery and many of her fellow cast members international names, and no wonder. The ITV series, which ran from 2010 to 2015 and followed the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants, was sold to 220 territories worldwide, achieved a global audience of 120 million and was nominated for 53 International Emmys.

In America, it became the most successful British drama import of all time. It also set the bar for costume dramas, at least in terms of visual sheen. The Crown, Netflix’s lavish regal series (which returns this autumn), has clearly been influenced by Julian Fellowes’ series, which cost, on average, £1 million per episode to make.

Everyone expected that a film would be made, but it was quite a feat getting the cast together. ‘It was like herding cats,’ says Dockery. ‘But I just love it. It’s so familiar and doesn’t feel like work.’

Despite rumours to the contrary, Maggie Smith is back as the Dowager Countess, famous for her withering put-downs, as are Hugh Bonneville’s paterfamilias the Earl of Grantham, his American wife Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) and his two surviving daughters, Lady Mary, of course, and Laura Carmichael’s Lady Edith.

Others involved include Penelope Wilton’s sensible cousin Isobel and many of the downstairs staff: Jim Carter’s stentorian Mr Carson and his wife, the no-nonsense housekeeper Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan); Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol), the plain-speaking cook with Escoffier abilities, and her protégée, the occasionally mutinous Daisy (Sophie McShera).

When I talk to Fellowes though, he is adamant that a film was never inevitable. Rumours circulated about a prequel, following Robert’s courting of Cora for her money and subsequently  falling in love with her, but nothing came of it. ‘When we finished the series, we didn’t envisage a film. We had a lovely party at The Ivy and everyone cried, but that was it as far as I was concerned. Then, as the years rolled by, there was a sense that people hadn’t quite finished with it, and eventually I formed an idea for a feature film.’

The Downton Abbey film, directed by Michael Engler, is set in 1927, just over a year after the series ended, and focuses on the Crawleys and their servants as they prepare for a royal visit. It causes much excitement below stairs, but the staff soon find the monarch’s entourage taking over – including a temperamental French chef (played by Philippe Spall) and a pompous head butler, played by David Haig, who refers to himself as the ‘King’s page of the back stairs’.

Other new cast members include Simon Jones and Geraldine James as the King and Queen, Imelda Staunton (real-life wife of Carter) as Lady Bagshaw, lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a relative of the Crawleys, and Tuppence Middleton as her mysterious lady’s maid, Lucy.

Fellowes was inspired, in part, by a book he had read called Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey, which details a 1912 visit by King George V and Queen Mary to South Yorkshire. As well as tucking into lavish 13-course dinners, which included puddings served in sugar baskets that took four days to weave, they also met local miners and toured  pit villages.

Although the film is set 15 years later, the King and Queen did make similar, unlikely tours around the country, as Fellowes explains. ‘After the First World War, there was a period of unsettled feelings about things – not least the monarchy. It had to re-establish itself as many members of European royalty had disappeared – the German Emperor, the Austrian Emperor, the Tsar of Russia. The structure had to be restated as having an integral role in society and they [George and Mary] were very successful in doing so. By 1930, the Crown was back at the heart of English life.’

For Dockery, making the film was not only a chance to catch up with old friends, but also to further develop a character that the nation took to their hearts.

‘Mary is so complex. We met her at 18 and she was this rebellious teenager – she was bored, and because she was a girl, she wasn’t what her father wanted [an heir to Downton]. Ultimately he became very proud of her, though, and I think  everyone really responded to that. Seeing her journey was what hooked people.’

Now we see Lady Mary very much in control, happily married (to Matthew Goode’s Henry  Talbot) and more than capable of taking over the ancestral pile when the time comes.

‘Julian writes really well for women and I think that has something to do with his wife, Emma [a descendant of Lord Kitchener]. I see a lot of her in Mary, just her expressions and things,’ she says.

Dockery has had a particularly successful career post-Downton. She brought rigour and a dash of fun to her part as an ambitious TV exec in Network (the National Theatre production based on the acclaimed ’70s film), and a sort of watchfulness to the role of a hard-edged widow in Netflix’s warped western Godless. Next year, she will be showing her versatility further in Guy Ritchie’s film The Gentlemen, in which she plays the wife of a drug lord (played by Matthew McConaughey).

One character who has a particularly meaty  storyline in the film is gay footman Thomas, played by Robert James-Collier. We meet at Shepperton Studios, where the kitchen scenes are being filmed. It’s a cavernous setting which production designer Donal Woods describes as ‘like a noirish, Scandi film, as opposed to the glorious technicolor of upstairs’. For the TV series, the servants’ quarters were created at Ealing Studios, but the set has been flat-packed and sent over, as have the copper jelly moulds, kettles and pans.

This time, we see Thomas befriend a footman from the Royal household (played by Max Brown), and he ends up in an illicit gay drinking den in York. This was  an era when homosexuality could result in a prison sentence, but, says James-Collier, for one brief moment his somewhat malevolent character is liberated.

‘He is introduced to this other world that he doesn’t know exists, and there is this sense of relief, this sudden realisation that there are  kindred spirits and that he is not this “foul individual” as Mr Carson once described him.’

The irony that Downton Abbey has been sold to countries where homosexuality can be punished by death is not lost on James-Collier, and he feels a grave sense of responsibility about his role.  ‘I have received letters from young men who say that watching Thomas’s journey has helped them. All I can say is that it’s an utter privilege. It’s the reason why I do it.’

The film’s 1927 setting marks a period in Britain when country houses such as Downton were beginning to feel the austerity of the interwar years. Death duties had to be paid and households streamlined, which meant that many servants lost their jobs. Meanwhile, the General Strike of 1926 – in which the TUC fought against worsening conditions for the country’s miners – underlined a growing sense of solidarity among the working class.

In the film, however, there are no such concerns, and that reflects the point that Downton is in many ways a fantasy. One criticism of the original scripts was that the Crawleys were too benign as employers, that the relationship between master and servant was much more remote, without any of the Earl of Grantham’s well-meaning paternalism. Fellowes disagrees.

‘This notion that people were horrible to their servants is wrong. Most of us, if you think about it logically, and putting aside the moral view that that life should exist at all, would want to get on with the valet or lady’s maid. When you see a character snarling at his butler, you think this isn’t a way of life. None of us would want to be in  a position of speaking to people you disliked.’

If Fellowes is the arbiter of psychological accuracy, then Alastair Bruce is the gatekeeper of  protocol. He was Downton’s historical adviser at the beginning and describes himself, among other things, as the posture monitor.

He explains. ‘The cast tend to put their bums here on the seat,’ he says indicating the back of his chair. ‘But in those days, you didn’t – you would sit at the front. Also, [people’s] shoulders have fallen forward because everyone is on their mobile phone all the time.’

Bruce also helps the actors with their diction and mentions the word ‘room’. Many tended to accentuate the ‘o’s when it fact it should be shortened, so they sound very nearly like a ‘u’.

‘It is pompous bollocks, but if you are recreating the ’20s you may as well get it right,’ Bruce adds. ‘Michelle would quite happily let me describe her evolution in life as a long way from Downton Abbey, but I have some pretty grandiose friends who can’t believe this is the case. I am very proud of the fact that she now has this incredible poise – you never see a curve in her back – and her accent is on point.’

Several months later, I ask Fellowes whether he has plans for a sequel (although in truth, certain scenes in the film suggest a full stop rather than a pause). ‘There is never any point in answering that,’ he says. ‘In this business as soon as someone says that’s the last time I’ll put on my ballet shoes, there they are, a year later, dancing Giselle.’

Downton Abbey is released on 13 September

[in-flagrante]

The wait is over

THE TIARAS HAVE BEEN DUSTED OFF AND THE PEARLS POLISHED. FOUR LONG YEARS AFTER THE FINAL INSTALMENT OF DOWNTON ABBEY, IT’S BACK, THIS TIME ON THE BIG SCREEN. BEN LAWRENCE WENT ON SET TO UNCOVER SOME FAMILY SECRETS

The Daily Telegraph

31 Aug 2019

As Downton Abbey sweeps majestically on to the big screen, Ben Lawrence joins the cast reunion on set

It is a crisp, clear morning at Wentworth Woodhouse, the stately home in South Yorkshire. Built by the 1st Marquess of Rockingham, it has the widest façade in Europe, boasts at least 365 rooms (no one is certain of the exact number), and represents two and a half acres of building. This perfect specimen of English baroque is the setting for the new Downton Abbey film – in which George V and Queen Mary tour the north of England (which also includes a visit to Downton itself, filmed as usual at Highclere Castle in Berkshire) – and today they are shooting a grand ball at the home of the Countess of Harewood in the film, attended by the royal couple and Downton’s Crawley family.

Inside the house, a production unit zigzags in and out of huge vaulted rooms with cables and film cameras, while extras in 1920s ball attire chat nonchalantly on makeshift chairs. Meanwhile in the ballroom – a giant marble space, adorned with deep-red damask wallpaper and enormous flower arrangements – Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton (two of the stars of the original series) slip through the lines of dancing couples in diaphanous silks, as a small orchestra plays a waltz. In the background, an assistant producer is being told off by one of the volunteers of Wentworth Woodhouse for wandering into a disused room. This isn’t jobsworthiness. The carpet in some rooms is nearly 300 years old and will disintegrate

if anyone breathes on it. The wallpaper, meanwhile, is laced with arsenic (as was the fashion at the time) in order to make it a certain shade of green.

Away from the action, Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary (the eldest Crawley daughter), is sitting in her trailer, her sharp features accentuated by period make-up, feeling slightly in awe of the whole process. ‘It was during my costume fitting when it hit me. I got really emotional.’

Downton Abbey made Dockery and many of her fellow cast members international names, and no wonder. The ITV series, which ran from 2010 to 2015 and followed the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants, was sold to 220 territories worldwide, achieved a global audience of 120 million and was nominated for 53 International Emmys. In America, it became the most successful British drama import of all time. It also set the bar for costume dramas, at least in terms of visual sheen. The Crown, Netflix’s lavish regal series (which returns this autumn), has clearly been influenced by Julian Fellowes’ series, which cost, on average, £1 million per episode to make.

Everyone expected that a film would be made, but it was quite a feat getting the cast together. ‘It was like herding cats,’ says Dockery. ‘But I just love it. It’s so familiar and doesn’t feel like work.’

Despite rumours to the contrary, Maggie Smith is back as the Dowager Countess, famous for her

‘When we finished the series, we didn’t envisage a film. We had a party at The Ivy and everyone cried’

withering put-downs, as are Hugh Bonneville’s paterfamilias the Earl of Grantham, his American wife Cora (played by Elizabeth Mcgovern) and his two surviving daughters, Lady Mary, of course, and Laura Carmichael’s Lady Edith. Others involved include Penelope Wilton’s sensible cousin Isobel and many of the downstairs staff: Jim Carter’s stentorian Mr Carson and his wife, the no-nonsense housekeeper Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan); Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol), the plainspeaking cook with Escoffier abilities, and her protégée, the occasionally mutinous Daisy (Sophie Mcshera).

When I talk to Fellowes though, he is adamant that a film was never inevitable. Rumours circulated about a prequel, following Robert’s courting of Cora for her money and subsequently falling in love with her, but nothing came of it. ‘When we finished the series, we didn’t envisage a film. We had a lovely party at The Ivy and everyone cried, but that was it as far as I was concerned. Then, as the years rolled by, there was a sense that people hadn’t quite finished with it, and eventually I formed an idea for a feature film.’

The Downton Abbey film, directed by Michael Engler, is set in 1927, just over a year after the series ended, and focuses on the Crawleys and their servants as they prepare for a royal visit. It causes much excitement below stairs, but the staff soon find the monarch’s entourage taking over – including a temperamental French chef (played by Philippe Spall) and a pompous head butler, played by David Haig, who refers to himself as the ‘King’s page of the back stairs’. Other new cast members include Simon Jones and Geraldine James as the King and Queen, Imelda Staunton (real-life wife of Carter) as Lady Bagshaw, lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a relative of the Crawleys, and Tuppence Middleton as her mysterious lady’s maid, Lucy.

Fellowes was inspired, in part, by a book he had read called Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey, which details a 1912 visit by King George V and Queen Mary to South Yorkshire. As well as tucking into lavish 13-course dinners, which included puddings served in sugar baskets that took four days to weave, they also met local miners and toured pit villages. Although the film is set 15 years later, the King and Queen did make similar, unlikely tours around the country, as Fellowes explains. ‘After the First World War, there was a period of unsettled feelings about things – not least the monarchy. It had to re-establish itself as many members of European royalty had disappeared – the German Emperor, the Austrian Emperor, the Tsar of Russia. The structure had to be restated as having an integral role in society and they [George and Mary] were very successful in doing so. By 1930, the Crown was back at the heart of English life.’

For Dockery, making the film was not only a chance to catch up with old friends, but also to further develop a character that the nation took to their hearts.

‘Mary is so complex. We met her at 18 and she was this rebellious teenager – she was bored, and

‘It is pompous, but if you are recreating the ’20s you may as well get it right’

because she was a girl, she wasn’t what her father wanted [an heir to Downton]. Ultimately he became very proud of her, though, and I think everyone really responded to that. Seeing her journey was what hooked people.’

Now we see Lady Mary very much in control, happily married (to Matthew Goode’s Henry Talbot) and more than capable of taking over the ancestral pile when the time comes.

‘Julian writes really well for women and I think that has something to do with his wife, Emma [a descendant of Lord Kitchener]. I see a lot of her in Mary, just her expressions and things,’ she says.

Dockery has had a particularly successful career post-downton. She brought rigour and a dash of fun to her part as an ambitious TV exec in Network (the National Theatre production based on the acclaimed ’70s film), and a sort of watchfulness to the role of a hard-edged widow in Netflix’s warped western Godless. Next year, she will be showing her versatility further in Guy Ritchie’s film The Gentlemen, in which she plays the wife of a drug lord (played by Matthew Mcconaughey).

One character who has a particularly meaty storyline in the film is gay footman Thomas, played by Robert James-collier. We meet at Shepperton Studios, where the kitchen scenes are being filmed. It’s a cavernous setting which production designer Donal Woods describes as ‘like a noirish, Scandi film, as opposed to the glorious technicolor of upstairs’. For the TV series, the servants’ quarters were created at Ealing Studios, but the set has been flat-packed and sent over, as have the copper jelly moulds, kettles and pans.

This time, we see Thomas befriend a footman from the Royal household (played by Max Brown), and he ends up in an illicit gay drinking den in York. This was an era when homosexuality could result in a prison sentence, but, says James-collier, for one brief moment his somewhat malevolent character is liberated.

‘He is introduced to this other world that he doesn’t know exists, and there is this sense of relief, this sudden realisation that there are kindred spirits and that he is not this “foul individual” as Mr Carson once described him.’

The irony that Downton Abbey has been sold to countries where homosexuality can be punished by death is not lost on James-collier, and he feels a grave sense of responsibility about his role. ‘I have received letters from young men who say that watching Thomas’s journey has helped them. All I can say is that it’s an utter privilege. It’s the reason why I do it.’

The film’s 1927 setting marks a period in Britain when country houses such as Downton were beginning to feel the austerity of the interwar years. Death duties had to be paid and households streamlined, which meant that many servants lost their jobs. Meanwhile, the General Strike of 1926 – in which the TUC fought against worsening conditions for the country’s miners – underlined a growing sense of solidarity among the working class. In the film, however, there are no such concerns, and that reflects the point that Downton is in many ways a fantasy. One criticism of the original scripts was that the Crawleys were too benign as employers, that the relationship between master and servant was much more remote, without any of the Earl of Grantham’s well-meaning paternalism. Fellowes disagrees.

‘This notion that people were horrible to their servants is wrong. Most of us, if you think about it logically, and putting aside the moral view that that life should exist at all, would want to get on with the valet or lady’s maid. When you see a character snarling at his butler, you think this isn’t a way of life. None of us would want to be in a position of speaking to people you disliked.’

If Fellowes is the arbiter of psychological accuracy, then Alastair Bruce is the gatekeeper of protocol. He was Downton’s historical adviser at the beginning and describes himself, among other things, as the posture monitor.

He explains. ‘The cast tend to put their bums here on the seat,’ he says indicating the back of his chair. ‘But in those days, you didn’t – you would sit at the front. Also, [people’s] shoulders have fallen forward because everyone is on their mobile phone all the time.’

Bruce also helps the actors with their diction and mentions the word ‘room’. Many tended to accentuate the ‘o’s when it fact it should be shortened, so they sound very nearly like a ‘u’.

‘It is pompous bollocks, but if you are recreating the ’20s you may as well get it right,’ Bruce adds. ‘Michelle would quite happily let me describe her evolution in life as a long way from Downton Abbey, but I have some pretty grandiose friends who can’t believe this is the case. I am very proud of the fact that she now has this incredible poise – you never see a curve in her back – and her accent is on point.’

Several months later, I ask Fellowes whether he has plans for a sequel (although in truth, certain scenes in the film suggest a full stop rather than a pause). ‘There is never any point in answering that,’ he says. ‘In this business as soon as someone says that’s the last time I’ll put on my ballet shoes, there they are, a year later, dancing Giselle.’ Downton Abbey is released on 13 September

[hedwigsaardvark]

From the Telegraph.

The wait is over: Downton Abbey hits the big screen - and a visit to the set uncovers family secrets 

By Ben Lawrence

30 AUGUST 2019

Harry Hadden-Paton, director Michael Engler and Matthew Goode CREDIT: CHARLIE GRAY

CREDIT: CHARLIE GRAY

It is a crisp, clear morning at Wentworth Woodhouse, the stately home in South Yorkshire. Built by the 1st Marquess of Rockingham, it has the widest façade in Europe, boasts at least 365 rooms (no one is certain of the exact number), and represents two and a half acres of building.

The tiaras have been dusted off and the pearls polished. Four long years after the final instalment of Downton Abbey, it’s back, this time on the big screen. 

This perfect specimen of English baroque is the setting for the new Downton Abbey film – in which George V and Queen Mary tour the north of England (which also includes a visit to Downton itself, filmed as usual at Highclere Castle in Berkshire) – and today they are shooting a grand ball at the home of the Countess of Harewood in the film, attended by the royal couple and Downton’s Crawley family. 

Inside the house, a production unit zigzags in and out of huge vaulted rooms with cables and film cameras, while extras in 1920s ball attire chat nonchalantly on makeshift chairs. Meanwhile in the ballroom – a giant marble space, adorned with deep-red damask wallpaper and enormous flower arrangements – Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton(two of the stars of the original series) slip through the lines of dancing couples in diaphanous silks, as a small orchestra plays a waltz.

In the background, an assistant producer is being told off by one of the volunteers of Wentworth Woodhouse for wandering into a disused room. This isn’t jobsworthiness. The carpet in some rooms is nearly 300 years old and will disintegrate if anyone breathes on it. The wallpaper, meanwhile, is laced with arsenic (as was the fashion at the time) in order to make it a certain shade of green.

Away from the action, Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary (the eldest Crawley daughter), is sitting in her trailer, her sharp features accentuated by period make-up, feeling slightly in awe of the whole process. ‘It was during my costume fitting when it hit me. I got really emotional.’

Downton Abbey made Dockery and many of her fellow cast members international names, and no wonder. The ITV series, which ran from 2010 to 2015 and followed the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants, was sold to 220 territories worldwide, achieved a global audience of 120 million and was nominated for 53 International Emmys.

In America, it became the most successful British drama import of all time. It also set the bar for costume dramas, at least in terms of visual sheen. The Crown, Netflix’s lavish regal series (which returns this autumn), has clearly been influenced by Julian Fellowes’ series, which cost, on average, £1 million per episode to make.

Everyone expected that a film would be made, but it was quite a feat getting the cast together. ‘It was like herding cats,’ says Dockery. ‘But I just love it. It’s so familiar and doesn’t feel like work.’

Despite rumours to the contrary, Maggie Smith is back as the Dowager Countess, famous for her withering put-downs, as are Hugh Bonneville’s paterfamilias the Earl of Grantham, his American wife Cora (played by Elizabeth McGovern) and his two surviving daughters, Lady Mary, of course, and Laura Carmichael’s Lady Edith. 

Others involved include Penelope Wilton’s sensible cousin Isobel and many of the downstairs staff: Jim Carter’s stentorian Mr Carson and his wife, the no-nonsense housekeeper Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan); Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol), the plain-speaking cook with Escoffierabilities, and her protégée, the occasionally mutinous Daisy (Sophie McShera).

When I talk to Fellowes though, he is adamant that a film was never inevitable. Rumours circulated about a prequel, following Robert’s courting of Cora for her money and subsequently  falling in love with her, but nothing came of it. ‘When we finished the series, we didn’t envisage a film. We had a lovely party at The Ivy and everyone cried, but that was it as far as I was concerned. Then, as the years rolled by, there was a sense that people hadn’t quite finished with it, and eventually I formed an idea for a feature film.’

The Downton Abbey film, directed by Michael Engler, is set in 1927, just over a year after the series ended, and focuses on the Crawleys and their servants as they prepare for a royal visit. It causes much excitement below stairs, but the staff soon find the monarch’s entourage taking over – including a temperamental French chef (played by Philippe Spall) and a pompous head butler, played by David Haig, who refers to himself as the ‘King’s page of the back stairs’.

Other new cast members include Simon Jones and Geraldine James as the King and Queen, Imelda Staunton (real-life wife of Carter) as Lady Bagshaw, lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a relative of the Crawleys, and Tuppence Middleton as her mysterious lady’s maid, Lucy.

Fellowes was inspired, in part, by a book he had read called Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey, which details a 1912 visit by King George V and Queen Mary to South Yorkshire. As well as tucking into lavish 13-course dinners, which included puddings served in sugar baskets that took four days to weave, they also met local miners and toured  pit villages.

Although the film is set 15 years later, the King and Queen did make similar, unlikely tours around the country, as Fellowes explains. ‘After the First World War, there was a period of unsettled feelings about things – not least the monarchy. It had to re-establish itself as many members of European royalty had disappeared – the German Emperor, the Austrian Emperor, the Tsar of Russia. The structure had to be restated as having an integral role in society and they [George and Mary] were very successful in doing so. By 1930, the Crown was back at the heart of English life.’

For Dockery, making the film was not only a chance to catch up with old friends, but also to further develop a character that the nation took to their hearts. 

‘Mary is so complex. We met her at 18 and she was this rebellious teenager – she was bored, and because she was a girl, she wasn’t what her father wanted [an heir to Downton]. Ultimately he became very proud of her, though, and I think  everyone really responded to that. Seeing her journey was what hooked people.’

Now we see Lady Mary very much in control, happily married (to Matthew Goode’s Henry  Talbot) and more than capable of taking over the ancestral pile when the time comes.

‘Julian writes really well for women and I think that has something to do with his wife, Emma [a descendant of Lord Kitchener]. I see a lot of her in Mary, just her expressions and things,’ she says.

Dockery has had a particularly successful career post-Downton. She brought rigour and a dash of fun to her part as an ambitious TV exec in Network (the National Theatre production based on the acclaimed ’70s film), and a sort of watchfulness to the role of a hard-edged widow in Netflix’s warped western Godless. Next year, she will be showing her versatility further in Guy Ritchie’s film The Gentlemen, in which she plays the wife of a drug lord (played by Matthew McConaughey).

One character who has a particularly meaty  storyline in the film is gay footman Thomas, played by Robert James-Collier. We meet at Shepperton Studios, where the kitchen scenes are being filmed. It’s a cavernous setting which production designer Donal Woods describes as ‘like a noirish, Scandi film, as opposed to the glorious technicolor of upstairs’. For the TV series, the servants’ quarters were created at Ealing Studios, but the set has been flat-packed and sent over, as have the copper jelly moulds, kettles and pans. 

This time, we see Thomas befriend a footman from the Royal household (played by Max Brown), and he ends up in an illicit gay drinking den in York. This was  an era when homosexuality could result in a prison sentence, but, says James-Collier, for one brief moment his somewhat malevolent character is liberated.

‘He is introduced to this other world that he doesn’t know exists, and there is this sense of relief, this sudden realisation that there are  kindred spirits and that he is not this “foul individual” as Mr Carson once described him.’

The irony that Downton Abbey has been sold to countries where homosexuality can be punished by death is not lost on James-Collier, and he feels a grave sense of responsibility about his role.  ‘I have received letters from young men who say that watching Thomas’s journey has helped them. All I can say is that it’s an utter privilege. It’s the reason why I do it.’

The film’s 1927 setting marks a period in Britain when country houses such as Downton were beginning to feel the austerity of the interwar years. Death duties had to be paid and households streamlined, which meant that many servants lost their jobs. Meanwhile, the General Strike of 1926 – in which the TUC fought against worsening conditions for the country’s miners – underlined a growing sense of solidarity among the working class.

In the film, however, there are no such concerns, and that reflects the point that Downton is in many ways a fantasy. One criticism of the original scripts was that the Crawleys were too benign as employers, that the relationship between master and servant was much more remote, without any of the Earl of Grantham’s well-meaning paternalism. Fellowes disagrees.

‘This notion that people were horrible to their servants is wrong. Most of us, if you think about it logically, and putting aside the moral view that that life should exist at all, would want to get on with the valet or lady’s maid. When you see a character snarling at his butler, you think this isn’t a way of life. None of us would want to be in  a position of speaking to people you disliked.’

If Fellowes is the arbiter of psychological accuracy, then Alastair Bruce is the gatekeeper of  protocol. He was Downton’s historical adviser at the beginning and describes himself, among other things, as the posture monitor.

He explains. ‘The cast tend to put their bums here on the seat,’ he says indicating the back of his chair. ‘But in those days, you didn’t – you would sit at the front. Also, [people’s] shoulders have fallen forward because everyone is on their mobile phone all the time.’

Bruce also helps the actors with their diction and mentions the word ‘room’. Many tended to accentuate the ‘o’s when it fact it should be shortened, so they sound very nearly like a ‘u’.

‘It is pompous bollocks, but if you are recreating the ’20s you may as well get it right,’ Bruce adds. ‘Michelle would quite happily let me describe her evolution in life as a long way from Downton Abbey, but I have some pretty grandiose friends who can’t believe this is the case. I am very proud of the fact that she now has this incredible poise – you never see a curve in her back – and her accent is on point.’

Several months later, I ask Fellowes whether he has plans for a sequel (although in truth, certain scenes in the film suggest a full stop rather than a pause). ‘There is never any point in answering that,’ he says. ‘In this business as soon as someone says that’s the last time I’ll put on my ballet shoes, there they are, a year later, dancing Giselle.’

Downton Abbey is released on 13 September 

Source and copyright The Telegraph

[andimarquette]

Introduce yourself to the rest of the class.

I’m a lifelong writer, originally from California (Los Angeles and then San Francisco), retired now and living in Decatur, Georgia. For many years I wrote under my given name, Priscilla Scott Rhoades, for the gay/lesbian and alternative press in San Francisco, including the Sentinel, Plexus, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. I also published poetry and short fiction in a number of literary journals, and articles in various magazines and newspapers.

A few years ago I tried writing erotica under the pseudonym Pascal Scott. My erotic short stories have appeared in several anthologies including Thunder of War, Lightning of Desire: Lesbian Historical Military Erotica; Through the Hourglass: Lesbian Historical Romance; Order Up: A Menu of Lesbian Romance and Erotica; Unspeakably Erotic: Lesbian Kink; Best Lesbian Erotica, Vol. 2 (2017); and Best Lesbian Erotica, Vol. 3 (2018).

Now I’m trying thrillers. Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller is the first in a series of novels coming from Sapphire Books Publishing.

Who are you and what makes you tick?

What makes me tick? Writing. I truly believe that the writing life is the best life imaginable, and I’m lucky to be able to live it and to share it with my lover, who is also a writer.

What does it mean to you to be an author?

An author is a writer who has been published. A writer is someone who has pages of written words lying around that may never get the blessing of a publisher. Being published is a privilege. I’m extremely fortunate to be a published author. There are lots of good writers who never get published.

What makes a writer a writer?

Writing is an obsession. Thomas Mann said a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The compulsion to write, no matter how your day is going, is what makes a writer a writer. The novelist Don Winslow talks about how when he committed to writing five pages a day, he forced himself to keep that commitment no matter how his day unfolded, including the day he was chased and shot at by drug lords.

A writer is someone who understands that it takes more than desire to write well. As Christopher Hitchens said, “Everyone has a book in them, and in most cases that’s exactly where it should stay.” Everybody has a story to tell, but not everybody can tell a story. Writers need to learn their craft, to study grammar, to respect the beauty of the English language, to take classes, to get a job at a newspaper, to do all the things writers have always been advised to do. And read. If you’re not reading, you’re not a writer. Read everything that’s good. As Jewell Gomez said recently, if you’re reading only authors who look like you, you’re not reading widely enough.

Are you promoting a specific book? Tell us about it. Include the book blurb if you’d like.

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Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller.

Five days after the Loma Prieta earthquake strikes San Francisco, Emily Bryson, a young, everything-to-live-for lesbian SFSU student/part-time exotic dancer, is dead, her body washed up on a beach south of the Golden Gate Bridge. The medical examiner rules it a suicide, and the police close the missing person case filed by Emily’s lover, K. M. “Stone” McStone. Through a series of fortunate circumstances, Stone is introduced to Zoe Martinelli, office manager of Coppola Investigations, amateur sleuth, and student psychic. Stone and Zoe team up to find out what really happened to Emily. Was it suicide, as everyone assumes? Or murder? Or something else?

 Tell us about your biggest guilty pleasure. For example, to you sit naked in your pantry in the middle of the night and eat Nutella with your fingers?

Coffee. I joke about it, but I drink too much coffee. Seriously too much. But still, it’s coffee. I’m interested in watching where the American Psychiatric Association is going with their “Caffeine Use Disorder,” which came this close to be included in the DSM-5 (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, their bible). Now that they’ve depathologized sexual diversity and consensual kink, they’ve got to have somebody to pick on. Guess it’s going to be us coffee drinkers. I’m only half kidding here.

Tell us one thing that you’re passionate about. For example, would you strap yourself to an oil rigging a la Lucy Lawless with a Greenpeace sign in your hands?

Uh, no to the Greenpeace strapping. I’m passionate about my lover, the author Josette Murray. I’m passionate about writing, reading, words, books. That’s about it. Hemingway said he needed two things in his life to be happy: work to do and someone to love. That’s my formula, too.

What’s your writing process? That is, do you have a particular place you write and/or time of day? Do you have any particular things you do before you write? (e.g. do you listen to music, drink coffee, take dance breaks…)

I usually get up between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. and am at my desktop computer first thing, drinking coffee. I write until about noon, then break, and then take it up again in the late afternoon or early evening. This is my schedule now that I am retired, which is wonderful. When I was working fulltime, I wrote when I could—in the mornings before work or in the evenings when they were free, or on the weekends.

Tell us something that most people don’t know about you (unless you’d have to kill us, in which case tell us something that some people don’t know).

Like several of the characters I write about, I was a ward of the state of California and grew up in foster care. I know there are good foster parents out there, but there are too many bad ones, and too many bad group homes. The comedian Monroe Martin, who grew up in care, once joked that foster care is where they take you out of a situation in which you were neglected, molested, or abused and put you into that exact same situation. Too often that’s what happens when a kid goes into care. It did with me, which is part of why I became a writer.

Is there a book by another author that you wish you had written?

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

If time and money were no problem, where would you most like to go in the world?

Europe. I’ve never been. Back in my twenties when so many people I knew seemed to be backpacking through Europe and staying in hostels, I was busy working a survival job, finishing my BA (which took me nine years to complete), and juggling parttime assignments as a freelance writer. If I had all the money in the world—I’m retired so time isn’t the problem now—I’d travel more and see Europe. And I’d do more Olivia Cruises. I got back recently from a Sapphire Literary Adventures at Sea cruise with Olivia to the Caribbean. If I had money, I’d live on a Holland American ship and cruise the world with Olivia.

And finally, what sorts of writing projects are next for you?

I just submitted the second book in the Hard series to my publisher, Sapphire Books. It’s called Hard Luck: An Elizabeth Taylor Bundy Thriller. It picks up where Hard Fall ends and follows the Elizabeth character. I’m currently working on Hard Line: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller. Hard Fall took place in 1989; Hard Luck in 1996. It’s 2008 in Hard Line, and this third book in the series brings the reader up-to-date to that year in the lives of Stone McStone and Zoe Martinelli. And, of course, in every Hard book somebody dies, and there are disturbing circumstances and unanswered questions about the death. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a thriller, would it?

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Pascal Scott is the pseudonym of the author of Hard Fall: A McStone and Martinelli Thriller from Sapphire Books. Writing under her given name, Priscilla Scott Rhoades, her poetry, short fiction, and newspaper and magazine articles have appeared in numerous publications. She has a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and an MA in Liberal Studies from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. After a long career in academia, she retired happily to Decatur, Georgia.

  www.sapphirebooks.com

Facebook/Priscilla Scott Rhoades

Twitter/pascalscottwrit

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Fall-McStone-Martinelli-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07QFYNMC5/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_3?keywords=hard+fall%3A+a+mcstone&qid=1558213269&s=books&sr=1-3-fkmrnull

  Back Cover Blurb

  Five days after the Loma Prieta earthquake strikes San Francisco, Emily Bryson, a young, everything-to-live-for lesbian SFSU student/part-time exotic dancer, is dead, her body washed up on a beach south of the Golden Gate Bridge. The medical examiner rules it a suicide, and the police close the missing person case filed by Emily’s lover, K. M. “Stone” McStone.

Stone, the university’s graduate admissions officer, doesn’t believe it’s a suicide. The Emily she knew had too much going for her to take her own life. Through a series of fortunate circumstances, Stone is introduced to Zoe Martinelli, office manager of Coppola Investigations, amateur sleuth, and student psychic. Stone and Zoe team up to find out what really happened to Emily. Their investigation takes them into the private lives of San Francisco’s exotic dancers and into Emily’s dark past where they discover that some secrets can be deadly.

Was it suicide, as everyone assumes? Or murder? Or something else?

Q & A with Pascal Scott

Introduce yourself to the rest of the class. I’m a lifelong writer, originally from California (Los Angeles and then San Francisco), retired now and living in Decatur, Georgia.

Q & A with Pascal Scott Introduce yourself to the rest of the class. I’m a lifelong writer, originally from California (Los Angeles and then San Francisco), retired now and living in Decatur, Georgia.

[sisterbliss007]

Translation Die Zeit interview Christoph Waltz

Hey everyone,

I have been also working (together with the support of @makamu-a-tumbling​), on the translation of Die Zeit man interview from last year. I’ve finally finished it, as it was quite a long and difficult interview to translate. I apologize for uploading it so late but hope you enjoy it! (As said it was quite difficult and if anyone finds any mistakes and/or has questions please let me know!:) I still have the original scans of the interview in German as well for those interested).

I am a “Traditionalist”

The actor Christoph Waltz and his remarkable way to happiness Actor Christoph Waltz lives in Los Angeles. We have met up with him in his chosen homeland. The timing is special as Waltz is standing right before his 60th birthday. He aims towards balance, talks about the strong and weak characters he played during his career and the decisions he made that made him a happy man.

On a spring morning, Actor Christoph Waltz is standing in the elevator of the Barclay hotel in Los Angeles, when an old man enters the lift. The Barclay isn’t used as a hotel anymore, and now serves as a sort of retirement home for Downtown LA, which also can be rented for photo and film shoots. The old man recognizes Waltz immediately and addresses him, questioning, where Waltz originally is from. "From Austria" he answers. "I was there during the War!" the man tells him. Waltz goes on, looks at the man with a skeptical look and asks:" The War was a long time ago, when were you there?"-"In the sixties!"- "In the sixties?"-Small pause-"Oh," Waltz says "do you mean Vietnam?"-"Ah yes, right, Vietnam!" the old man says.

An hour later Christoph Waltz is sitting in a restaurant close to the Barclay hotel, and can only laugh about the encounter in the elevator. The striking chin outstretched, like you would recognize from his movies. Peter Lindbergh photographed him today for DIE ZEIT magazine MANN, while both of them walked through Downtown (LA), Waltz in front (of him), (and) Lindberg with the camera behind him. At one moment, a Mexican construction worker recognizes him, and winks and shouts to him: "The Latinos love you man!" He shows his famous Christoph Waltz grin, of which you can never be sure if he really is happy or if he is hiding something; he winks back. When later a woman on the street asks him for an autograph, he signs (the autograph). When she also asks for a picture, he briefly lays his hand on her arm and tells her, smiling but firm, in perfect English: "You know what, I would prefer if we didn't take one. I've been photographed the whole day. Maybe on another occasion."- 'I understand that" the women says, at the same time perplexed and pleased, even though she didn’t get a picture, she wishes him a good day and walks on. "You see," Waltz says, when the women is out of earshot, "when you are friendly here, people understand.”

Christoph Waltz lives in Los Angeles, and loves it here. He loves going to the opera, and he has seen the whole Ring (cycle) from Wagner here, the Mannheim production. He can't really agree with the general criticism of European, mostly German actors, on the shallowness and misconstrued image (of LA). "Of course, there are more foolish people here then with us (in Europe). But there is more of everything here. Therefore, more silly people as well.”

In the restaurant he orders a cappuccino and a croissant. Even in this everyday moment he uses his speech as an instrument: "Do you want something to drink?” The waiter asks. And Waltz answers, back stretched straight, the menu like a script in his hands: "Absouuuuuutely. I'll have a cappuccino for the moment. And a croissant or something of that kind would be great." Then, you understand the luck, Quentin Tarantino must feel when he hears Waltz speaking his lines: "The way, Christoph Waltz speaks my dialogue, the ways he sings it, he is saying it like poetry."  In Tarantino's Western Django Unchained, Waltz played the German dentist and bounty hunter Dr. Shultz, and the detail that he comes from Düsseldorf, has everything to do with the fact that, according to Tarantino: "It just sounds so good, the way he speaks the word Düsseldorf."

His love for words was something that he developed very early on during his school time. "I have had six years of Latin and a nice Latin teacher, Elfriede Fiela, who was more interested in the mater itself and not being a teacher as such. That, she carried on to her students. "I find it regrettable that Latin is being labeled as a dead language, and usually…“ He makes a grant gesture, "…I get asked where they then, still speak Latin.” Again the Christoph Waltz grin. "My answer is: in your head.” He smiles.

A former classmate from Vienna, journalist Axel Meister also remembers his love for speech. "Waltz always shone with his ingenious linguistics". At his 'Feier zur Matura', the Austrian Arbitur (the party at the end of your college school years), Waltz gave the closing speech, which contained a subtle sense of deeper meaning.

"I love words" Waltz once told the London Times. Does he have favorite words? "Fiammiferi" he says without having to think about it, matches in Italian. "Or maybe even better: Uova strapazzate!" That is Italian for scrambled eggs. Waltz sneezes every syllable, while he is talking. Can he speak Italian well?  "Totally not." And again ‘The Grin’. Then he speaks better in English, as he already from the late seventies on, while he lived in New York for a while, started refining it. He is proud of that, and you can also see that during his American Late-Show appearances. "I am someone else when I am talking English" he says. "And at that, I am not a mere translator. If you ask me for a specific English word, that I use all the time, then I don't have a clue.” How does the English speaking Christoph Waltz distinguish himself from the German speaking one? "I don't analyze it, as I would be just halfway translating it. It is really pleasant that I don't have to translate. English is like an additional way of expression.” Those who have seen the (late night) show(s), the way he is telling the American public Austrian stories, and then hear him tell in LA, how well the English language suits him, understand: it is also a mask. During those regular appearances, in this chosen homeland (the USA),  Christoph Waltz can be the persona 'Christoph Waltz'; the two-time Oscar winner from the far away Europe, who holds something exotic to the American spectators, matched with a twitch of diabolic enjoyment. It is an extraordinary role. It is the role of his life, of which he has waited so long- in vain- for.

Christoph Walt was born on the 4th of October 1956 in a Viennese theater family. His grandfather (which I think should be his grandmother right?) was a famous actor at the renowned Burgtheater, his German father Johannes Waltz was stage builder, his Austrian mother Elisabeth Urbancic costume designer. At the beginning, Christoph didn't want to be an actor. "It didn't interest me. Even now it doesn’t really interest me. But when it does (interest me), then totally". He did attend the famous Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, but actually he wanted to do film, if possible in the US. As a youngster Christoph Waltz met Senta Berger, who just came back from Hollywood, and who was a friend of the family, and often visited. The glamour excited him. So, at the end of the seventies, he goes to New York, and enrolls into the Lee Strasberg institute, while he works as a waiter. Full of hope, he meets up with the legendary agent Paul Kohner, who worked with Marlene Dietrich. But, he (Paul Kohner) warns him: does he really wants to play roles in which he has to yell "Heil Hitler!" all the time? Waltz returns to Europe, goes into theater, in Switzerland and Germany, and also works for TV meanwhile becoming more and more miserable. His American dream did not come true, and in contrast, (he) experiences a German nightmare: He must play supporting parts in krimi series, just so he can act. This is how the eighties and nineties play out for him. In an episode of the krimiseries Der Alte, he shoots the commissioner; played by Siegfried Lowitz, "that was maybe culturally-wise a heroic deed" he says and laughs. Only rarely he can shine: in 1996 as Roy Black in a TV-movie about the tragic life of the shlager- singer. Waltz receives multiple awards, but the problems stays. The director Peter Keglevic, who wants him for bigger roles, is being held back by producers and directors. "On and on again he hears: no, no not Waltz, for minor quirky parts yes, but not for the main character.”

(He takes) Another piece of the croissant, and a sip of the water. "There is a certain narrow-mindedness which you cannot fight against (the literal translation would be for which no powder exist to fight it). And in some cultures, this is more the case than in others." He says:" In Germany, there is a precise distinction between E and U. E for Ernst (seriousness) and U for Unterhaltung (pleasure). E can't really be U and U definitely can't be E. It always ends in lecturing. Even in schools they understand now that only lecturing does not work, so why would you then do it in movies or on TV?" In the nineties, Waltz often sits at the Munich Shumann's bar, when he has to be there to be another rogue in a ZDF-krimi. He then tells his friends at the bar about (his) German TV (experience): "They really can't do anything with me." "In hindsight, one can recollect these miserable times (without feeling worse)", he says, "but it was mostly frustrating. They weren’t all like that, Reinhard Schwabenitzky and Peter Keglevic, those directors, did always believe in me." He doesn't name any other people.

Wailing did not help, he must work, moreover for his family. Waltz becomes a father early, when he is 24. During his time in New York, he meets his later wife Jackie, a dancer from Brooklyn. With her, he has three children, who now are adults. The family mostly lives in London, as a compromise between New York and Germany. "At that moment, I played parts just to survive, and now I find it honorable. I bit my way through something for a long time that I didn't want to bite through. That was a significant experience. It shows you that as an actor, you have to pay attention to not switch your life with the part you’re playing." "For a life,…" He says, while emphasizing the word life. "…a smaller part can be of a bigger significance than a big part." At the absolute low point of his career, when he hadn't worked for a year, his wife tries to give sincere advice: “You have so many talents; you can do something else then being an actor”. When you speak to Christoph Waltz about this advice, decades later, there is still a glimmer in his eyes, in the sense of: "How can you so wrongly asses me?" "I never thought about doing anything else. I know too much about it. To master a specific matter, you have to do it for twenty years. Hence, older actors are the most interesting. Of course it is interesting; to see a newcomer arrive, but then at least twenty years must pass before it really becomes sensational."

Christoph Walt's first marriage has now ended. A while back, he met the German costume designer Judith Holste, during shooting, with whom he has a daughter. In the beginning, he went back and forth between Berlin and the US. "But the journey was always stressy." Now, the family lives in LA.

After decades of biting trough and suffering, along comes a meeting between two men in the spring of 2008 in Berlin, both which are tattered because of different reasons. Christoph Waltz is still dragging him through German TV, while the American director Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood-prodigy in the nineties, has several problems. His last movie was a flop and for his next production Inglourious Basterds he is still desperately looking for someone to play the part of the antagonist Hans Landa. He already had hundred others read the part, Leonardo Dicaprio also wants to do it, but for Tarantino it doesn't fit. The director fluctuates between knowing that he had written one of the most interesting parts of his life, and the fear, that the part of the multilingual Hans Landa is unplayable. Then the meeting with Christoph Waltz comes, who plays the part of Landa as it he is Landa himself. Very precisely (literately translated it would mean sleepwalking-ly precise) Waltz switches between English, German, French and Italian. His former love for languages, developed during his school time in Vienna, helps him to fulfill his American dream. Shortly after the reading, Tarantino calls him, who is staying in Tuscany at that time. "Christoph, you're my man."-"If you say so, Quentin, I am."

Christoph Waltz also exceeds on set, and shines next to Hollywood stars such as Brad Pitt. Today he says that that shoot saved him. "For me it was about the confirmation that I could do it. Not in vanity, but to confirm for myself that I wasn't going mad." Mad in the sense of: "Look, German TV, German cinema, I didn't just imagine it, I can really do it”. “What would become of him without Inglourious Basterds?” "No idea." Did he ever think about it? "Luckily not." After shooting the movie with Tarantino, but before the world premiere at the Cannes film festival in 2009, Alexander Gorkow, reporter for the Süddeutschen Zeitung, meets him in a Berlin café. Opposite the reporters sits a sad, insecure man. "Who knows if I will be in the movie" Waltz tells him "Quentin is re-cutting everything." He stays in. And how. For the role of Hans Landa, Christoph Waltz wins his first Oscar in 2010. Still in Cannes, in the car to the premier, one of the producers tells him: "Enjoy it. These are the last moments of your old life".

This afternoon, in his new life in Los Angeles, Christoph Waltz notices that his cappuccino didn’t come. When the waiter re-approaches the table and asks if he can bring anything else, your reporter orders a double espresso. Waltz first orders another cappuccino, to be changed at the last moment: “A double espresso as well, please.” The waiter motionless takes this in, and murmurs a “Great.” The first cappuccino which he didn’t bring, totally forgotten. That, then still innervates Waltz. And therefore he puts, in a friendly way, this hard “fact” in front of the waiter: “So I am really happy you forgot the first cappuccino.”

Lack of courtesy, bad behavior and no sense of etiquette, puts Waltz off and he doesn’t care if he offends anyone else. In 2007, while attending the Bambi awards show (German television price show) the Jordan Queen Rania also gave away a price. When she entered the stage, Waltz is the only of 800 guests which stood up. “When a queen enters a room, I don’t have to make any decision” he says “I stand up.” He adds after a small pause: “That kind of negligence, doesn’t only hurt the Queen, but the people that stay seated. That was a painful affair for me”.

That is the old Viennese school. Vienna is and stays his ‘city’, wherever he is living at the moment. His father died when he was very young, Christoph Waltz was seven. What kind of memories does he have of his father? “We have to make a distinction between conscious and unconscious memories. For the unconscious ones I can’t really speak and for the conscious ones I don’t want to”. Here again, Waltz precisely formulates and clearly borders all the lines. “This was always important for me. Seeing all the demarcation points in my live, even as a kid.” He still remembers saying to his school mates: “That is none of your business”. Later on, as an actor, he really understood: “that it is important to make up your own mind about, and decide for yourself, what is private and public”.

To define your own life, and don’t let others define you, was something that he needed. “I wanted this from the beginning, already at school, no, actually already before going to school. I always had this questions of “Where am I?”, “Where are the others?, “How is it positioned?”, “Do I have to agree?”. He always saw himself as separated from the others. Is he a good friend? He thinks for a long time about this question, and for the first time during the conversation, there is a long pause. “I can be a good friend, but I am not automatically one. For all the stability, there also needs to be certain dynamic aspect within a friendship.” He tells about his neighbor, who was really outraged because the tree from Waltz’s property was too high. “Sometimes there are serious storms here, and then the trees move around pretty hard”. What did he tell the neighbor? “Be happy that they move. If they don’t move around, they will break down”. This is also his outlook on friendships, you need to keep on moving, and that is important. He has two best friends, maybe three, not more. Then he takes back on the tree. “I have to admit that now, I did cut the tree, as it became a bit too eerie for me as well.” How would you describe yourself to people that don’t know you? “Totally not, I am not a describer. I recently had a talk about this topic with a befriended director, that an experience is much more important than a description. ”What do you mean?” “To go to the cinema, and experience it all, even when it is not a pleasant one: That is the whole reason why I go to the cinema.” Christoph Waltz has therefore drawn the conclusion –for himself- that he does not speak about his character during the interviews for a movie. “The portrayal of a subject is more important that that subject itself” he rages. “The curator puts himself before the artist, the director puts himself in front of his writer, the painter is standing before his painting and the actor is more important than his character.” He shakes his head. Would he describe himself as conservative? “Gustav Mahler said that: “Tradition is keeping the fire burning and not worshiping the ashes”. When the tradition is genuine, then I am a ‘Traditionalist’.” The great moments in art enthrall him, he just does not want to interpret them. He raves about an essay of Susan Sontags, who has been writing against (this kind of) Interpretation, but without any success. “I am not against the intellectualizing, I am against de-sensualizing. It is all about the experience, in cinema and in theater.” Once, Christoph Waltz was a spectator at the Viennese Burgtheater and saw Otto Sander, an experience which he will never forget. “He was sitting on a cardboard prop of a rock and was telling what the play is about. It is about Oedipus. You saw him and you forgot everything around him. You forgot that the production was from Peter Stein. That Bruna Ganz played with him. That the set design was from Anseln Kiefer. You only saw and heard what he played and said. You could experience what the person goes through, and could identify with his suffering. That is how it should be.”

Christoph Waltz’s hair is longer now, then how we knew him before, and his sharp face features are now even more outspoken. Like most other famous actors, he is small, and when questioned about his height, he answers: “1m72, 1m73” (67.7-68.1 inch) as if every centimeter makes a difference. Two years ago the art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi painted Christoph Waltz for a TV documentary. At a sitting in an old ballroom in Berlin, Beltracchi complains: “You are so slim, darn!” Waltz had reacted to that by outstretching his stomach. The painter then noted different features of his face: “One eye sits higher than the other”. And: “The nose is also not simple”. Waltz reacted to that with his dry humor: “To whom are you saying this, I am having it (the nose)”. After winning the Oscar, the first German speaking one since Maximilian Schell in 1962, a lot of people, colleagues and directors, were happy for him. But here and there comments were heard, also from Til Schweiger. On one hand he congratulated him while on the other, said that this kind of luck, playing a role in such a big movie, which was exactly cut out for him, will not happen again. Unless if Waltz would get another such part.

And exactly that happened again. A couple of years later Quentin Tarantino writes the part of bad-ass dentist Dr. King Shultz in his western Django Unchained for his friend Christoph Waltz. And in 2013 he wins his second Oscar. Since then, the (Oscar) title is adherent to the name of Christoph Waltz. Wherever he shows himself, and is introduced, he is “the two time Oscar winner, Christoph Waltz”.

When he was young, the legendary theater actor Wolgang Reichmann, then already 70 years old, told him that he, in his whole life played three big parts. Waltz was startled. Only three in his whole life? Today he knows how realistic that was. Christoph Waltz emphasizes this multiple times during this day in Los Angeles, that for him, it is all about not standing still. “I can’t sit on that for the rest of my life, I want to keep on working!” He knows, that the Oscars help him with letting the lesser parts pass. There are also flops. “Of course there are bad movies. For my profession, one rule applies: as long as the movie makes enough money, then a flop will not be judged as a failure”. If it happens with three, four movies after another, then it can go quickly. Therefore, Christoph Waltz plays in blockbusters, they also pay very well, he does think that strategic. He tells, that now on set, he can better handle critique than thirty years ago. “Earlier, I would start arguing with the director, and in the end it is was all about who won. Often that was contra-productive.” Nowadays he can listen to critique, and doesn’t react to each of the comments. He learned that, that listing to critique can help. That was also the case when he worked with director Roman Polanski, while filming the Yasmina Rezas play Carnage. Waltz plays, beside Kate Winslet, a cynical lawyer, constantly on his phone, while they are discussing why their son hurt the boy of the other family. It was a showy role, equally funny and brutal.

The first day of filming, he tells, was a real catastrophe: “During the lunch break, Polanski comes to me and says: “Christoph what you’re doing is not funny”. A pretty clear statement. “I understood what Polanski was trying to say. He is a clever and experienced director. He later told me that he knows what he can say, at each moment, during each part of filming. “It was the best and most efficient director’s comment that I ever got”. What Polanski went on to tell him, he doesn’t want give away, (is this) professional secrecy? When Waltz arrives at 8 o’clock sharp, at the morning of our photo shoot, he is making a call, (and goes on to) apologize, pointing to his phone, to say “important”. When he goes back and forth in the hotel lobby while on his mobile, you automatically think about the lawyer in Carnage. About a year ago HIS James Bond came in the cinema. More specifically: THE James Bond wherein he is playing the antagonist Blofeld. Even the announcement that he would play in the new James Bond was greeted with joy under Bond fans. Who, if not Waltz, would follow in the film tradition of German speaking villains, after Gert Fröbe, Curd Jürgens and Klaus-Maria Brandauer. Financially Spectre is a success: it gains 880 million, only one James Bond movie was more successful. And still Christoph Waltz is not happy- with himself, with the result- “I can’t really pretend that I really succeeded at playing Blofeld. It had everything that it needed and all (the requisites) were checked, but it wasn’t what I aspired at”. He already noticed it when filming began, but at the time it was already too late. “An actor can only be really great, when all the possibilities are open.” He doesn’t want to say more about it but what he actually means is this: The chemistry between him and Sam Mendes wasn’t what he wanted it to be.

How does someone survive the PR-spectacle which is a James Bond movie? “I already survived worse”. And he adds: “There is a hint of excessiveness. I understand that with the premier you want to invite lots of guests. But should it really be at the Royal Albert Hall? With that you don’t really do it any good. It is still a movie, and it should stay a movie. The next premier will probably be a national holiday, and this time it was already a couple of days before one. What is so bad about a premiere cinema such as the Odeon in Leicester Square?”

His Blofeld stayed alive at the end of Spectre, would there thus be a next story with Christoph Waltz?” “That I don’t know, nobody knows. Not one word was said about that, except in the press. We don’t even know which studio will produce the next movie, if Daniel Craig will go on.” That also falls on the category of “keep on working”.

And making plans. He wants to direct, and is in the process of making a movie, even has the finances in place as well as filled all the parts with actors, but even in Hollywood an American dream can turn into a nightmare. “It is all very much like an unordered kindergarten” he says and keeps on explaining: “It is not completely dead, but at the moment it is in a condition where people only can say: “Has everyone lost their mind?!” “One of the producers, which wants to finance a big part of the movie, is blocking everything, while it is not arranged yet how big his part in the production is. After six months of work: it is still not moving on. Two actresses-from the Oscar winning category-have said yes, a first class camera man as well, everyone is ready-but at the moment nothing is moving. Then I rather not make it, film history will go on even without my directing contribution.” If you ask Christoph Waltz, who he would like to play in a movie, he answers “Muhammed Ali. I find him one of the great artists of the 20th century, a performance artist, who pays everything with cash and not on credit.” “What do mean with that?” “How he moves, he doesn’t lose his grace, his humor, all under physical treat. How he works through every defeat as an experience. When I think about him, a get a feeling of happiness. There is nothing more beautiful than his fights, even when he gets a hit.” In the eyes of Christoph Waltz, Muhammed Ali was the perfect actor, because he played like it wasn’t all a game. And because even his defeats were made part of his career.

On the 4th of October Christoph Waltz will be 60. When we mention it, he doesn’t move an inch. Will he throw a big party? He looks at his opponent like he is offended. He isn’t someone who likes to celebrate big? “Yes” He says and grins, ”That is how you can formulate it” (The sass is on here). How will he then celebrate his birthday?  “Let’s first presume that I will indeed turn 60. So, on my birthday at 1 pm I get the feeling, it would be nice to celebrate tonight. Then I start calling around and see who has the time. When they don’t have the time they are not there and when they do have the time they come. Those are still the best parties.”

He didn’t even imagine what it would be like to turn 60, when a woman around her thirties comes to the table, interrupts and says: “Hello” just to add one more thing: “You’re my favorite actor”. Then she moves away and leaves a smiling actor behind at the table. It bodes well with him, to life here in the capital city of film.

Christoph Waltz, the late movie star, is a man, who has fulfilled his dreams when he was already older, after lots of defeats and doubts. “It is a good thing that everything happened later in my career. All the success it is not only due to my own account”. He grins again: “I don’t want to life my life, believing that I have to suffer in order for my success to happen” Why not? “That is a protestant view, but I grew up catholic” Is he religious? “No, not since my youth”.

Only now and then he still remembers his old life, the former ‘survivor camp’. When the toaster in his kitchen doesn’t function anymore, he still thinks about how to fix it. His wife Judith then has to say to him, to throw the old toaster away; “Buy a new one” she says to her husband, ”You won two Oscars for heaven’s sake”.

[grandemasterpyrokitsune]

Happy 10th!

The time has finally come to talk about why PaF is so important. Really, anyone could do this anytime, but this date alone has a significance to it. To any of my followers who don’t know(and will sit through this brick wall of text to find out), today is the 10th anniversary of the sneak peek premiere of Phineas and Ferb; technically, February 2008 is when it officially premiered around the world, but I’m sure that everyone else in the fandom is eager to kick off the celebration today. I’m sure this will turn out to be a multi paged thesis, so I’ll try to split this up into parts.

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PART 1: Best Day Ever

Anyway, ten years ago today marks the 10th anniversary of Phineas and Ferb. This show is considered an old soul of sorts, enjoying a long lifespan of 8 years, tons of merchandising and entertainment opportunities, the admiration and respect of many celebrities, and a very long summer. As formulaic as it appears, this show has more history to it than it appears to have.

PART 2:Busted

(This part details history of Disney’s TV animation ventures and basically life before PaF. Feel free to skip if you’re clued in to its history.)

The 2000s were considered a lousy time for TV animation . While many say it's the "worst" decade for it(whether worldwide or just in North America), I'd call it a transitional period. The 90s was an exciting a refreshing time for TV animation where the stories were driven by the creators, not toy designers. I would generally consider it more of the same from the Golden Age of Animation but more modern. The 2000s had newer technologies to work with and perfect while the ‘90s mainly just worked w/ cel animation and did it so well. Flash and CG were in their infancy, so I assume the software got a bit more attention than the stories. Primarily, companies were just looking to work with more cost effective options to make their shows with. It was a rough period,but far from the worst. Anyway, this kind of TV animation is still a relatively new type of animation. Disney were the first ones to spearhead this movement and they made three or four blocks of new cartoon for different generations of kids. 

The first block(formally known as Disney Afternoon)was ushered in with three pilots; Fluppy Dogs, Wuzzles and Ducktales. While the former two merely tested the waters and the latter was the only one successful, all three were made with stellar animation and complex storytelling for what everyone knew as entertainment for kids. After the success of Ducktales, Disney was brimming with pride and made seven years worth of cartoons for this block. Even if some cartoons didn't strike people the right way, they were still wildly memorable. While their D.C. original programming generally doesn't get more than short compilation discs, the DA 'toons get full series releases digitally and through DVD. This prompted to launch One Saturday Morning on ABC. 

With the acquisition of Nicktoon Doug, Disney paired it up with Recess and Pepper Ann, chasing after the success they had a few years before. The aforementioned series were the highest rated on the block while other series are more obscure and buried by Disney. They are acknowledged as good but were overshadowed by 24/7 network like Nick and Cartoon Network bringing a lot more cartoons to a lot more times of the day. 

Disney started to notice how much of an animated surplus they had and that they air their cartoons for weeks on end. Thus, Toon Disney was founded,which became a more visible hub for the cartoon blocks of the 90s and all other ages of Disney. At one point,they started airing Sonic the Hedgehog and making their own co-productions under their most popular TV cartoon brand, Jetix. As extensive as these programs got, they were being seen by fewer and fewer people. 

To overlap slightly with the end of OSM, Disney started making more cartoons for the Channel’s demographic. Shows like Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch, and American Dragon:Jake Long began airing and netting extraordinary ratings. In fact, Disney Channel was probably most successful in the early 2000s. It found its new groove if you will with its signature style of tween/teen sitcom and animated series. The former seem to have more clout on the network after the premiere of Lizzie McGuire,solidifying the formula. Similar to OSM, many cartoons were more or less not acknowledged the way they were 10 years before. Since sitcoms dominated because they were faster and cheaper to make, it seemed that the outcome was better. Over the course of the period (c. 2002-2008) they released the smallest selection of DC cartoons ever while the sitcoms got more and more press. It’s unclear what Disney was going to do next, but soon summer of 2007 came along...

PART 3: Gotta Make Summer Last

Disney Channel aired the premiere of High School Musical 2 and decided to air the first episode of PaF afterwards. As a result HSM 2 netted 17.6 million views and PaF 10.8 million views. We could easily deduce that eager HSM fans made up the clout of viewers, but that’s not to say the show couldn’t prove interesting to viewers anyway. In fact, Disney delayed its original 2007 release in the US to release it in February in multiple countries. Places such as Latin America, Brazil, Japan, France and Portugal got to experience the show right along with us. International promotion was rolled out which only netted PaF even more press. It became one of Japan’s most popular Western cartoons, it got wild promotion in Latin America and most of Europe(all around) made excellent dubs and gave it the lion’s share of time slots. This was a pretty good outcome all things considered.

Thus the cycle began. First came DVDs and games, then came interviews and guest spots, than movies, Disney park attractions, live events and then omnipresence.... scratch that last one, but you get the idea. The TV Movie itself was more or less the peak of the show. It remains the 10th most watched DCOM premiere of all time and the show remains one of the longest running animated series of the main Disney networks(DC, XD, and Junior). I think the last time Disney mass merchandised a TV cartoon this much was Lilo and Stitch(last one not already a franchise was Doug or Recess). The show is even part of the Marvel and Star Wars universes(non canonically of course)Even then, Disney elevated the show to new heights. It had everything Disney wanted; likeable protagonists, innocent motifs, enough songs to last for days, episodic adventures, and tons of mass marketing appeal. This simple show connected people across the world(if the Tumblr/DA fandoms for PaF were any indicator)through its mult-faceted music and rudimentary themes. While this show raised the bar, it also left the bar to be raised another notch by...

PART 4: Meet the Man of Mystery

In 2012, Gravity Falls premiered as a sneak peek behind DCOM Let it Shine. While not an instant ratings hit, it quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed Disney TV cartoons of all time. The spotlight quickly began to fade on the smartest stepbrothers around as new episodes were coming infrequently. While the numbers were still big enough to make Teen Titans Go mutter in awed jealousy, it still was becoming less of a force on the main network. However on Disney XD, it was still Adored by the Network. I remember how I felt watching day long marathons several times a month, sometimes without reason. Despite its mass appeal, Phineas and Ferb could be classified easily as a boy targeted program due to the protagonists and the subject matter. Until XD found its groove, they would continue to spam PaF for what felt like eons. To this day, they still occasionally air it in primetime slots.

The way I wrote this last part may sound cynical,jaded, and/or pessimistic. However, it’s written that way to emphasize another point. After the success of this series, Disney went from relying on a few filler shows to releasing a new show basically every year and truly giving them all the promotion they could. While not all series got the treatment we all wanted them to have, a lot more of them have come and gone to try to re-innovate and reinvigorate the brand. Phineas and Ferb (more or less) singlehandedly convinced Disney TV to put more stock in their animation division. Don’t know how many Fallers know this but Disney actually asked Alex Hirsch to make his pilot for them after seeing his work. They were actively seeking out new talent and new stories. Honestly, while Kick Buttowski and Pickle and Peanut got a lot of flac in the day, they were(to an extent) a sign that the House of mouse was trying to experiment and make something they liked to see. The latter especially seemed like a personal pet project of XD’s off sense of humor. 

I’m sure the networks would have reinvented their cartoons eventually, but PAF brought it out in the best way.  In a way the boys were kind of dc celebrities in their heyday. When you can summon a bunch of popular characters from the live action sitcoms to dance for possibly hours for a two minute music video in the name of a teal platypus made out of digital ink and pixels, that’s pretty special indeed.

CONCLUSION

Phineas and Ferb is my favorite animated series,explaining why I can info dump mostly from memory as I have in this post. While many have told me that it’s nothing special, to me it stands out as the brightest diamond in the rough and a shining testament to the duality of animation in general. Ten years from now, I hope that I can write better when I must wax sentimentality about my favorite cartoon show. Thanks to the cast, crew, creators, and fans for making summer last. See you at the 20th!

[dippedanddripped]

In October 2017, the impossible happened.

Supreme, once operated from a single store on New York’s Lafayette Street, had quietly sold half of its business to multinational private equity firm The Carlyle Group for a reported $500 million, valuing the company at a staggering $1 billion. Many of Supreme’s long-time fans weren’t impressed, accusing the brand of “selling out,” believing that with wealthy investors involved, the brand’s growth would compromise its authenticity.

Aware of the potential backlash, Supreme boss James Jebbia kept the sum of the deal under wraps for months, afraid it could damage the street cred Supreme had carefully cultivated since its launch in 1994.

Cultural credibility, after all, is the secret ingredient that turned Supreme products into status symbols for youth tribes around the world. In the process, Supreme subverted the definition of “luxury” to a point where high prices and avant-garde designs are no longer the sole drivers of desirability.

Cred is what gives Supreme’s scarce box logo tees $800 resale values and differentiates them from any other white T-shirt on the market. They are 25 years of subculture and narrative embedded in one simple item of clothing. And that is the exact example many fashion brands have tried to replicate, with only a handful succeeding.

But cultural cred is intangible. It transcends geography and demographics and isn’t created by one group alone. It’s ambiguous and imbued with nuance, making it hard to define and put into practice. Brands that try to place themselves as authentic to youth culture via strategy alone are indisputably inauthentic.

Cultural cred is made up of various components, many ever-evolving, with specific overarching elements that need to coexist. Without all the pieces in place, a company risks losing resonance and longevity with the influential Gen Z and millennial generations of shoppers, which represent $350 billion of spending power in the US alone. So how do brands crack the code?

Make product responsive

Core to any fashion brand is its product. For consumers, product is the trophy that both unifies them with peers and sets them apart.

“Simply, it’s about making product that young people aspire to wear,” says Sofia Prantera, the Italian-born Slam City Skates alumna and co-founder of London streetwear label Aries.

But what’s perceived as coveted today will have changed by tomorrow, with buyers expecting clothing to be designed, produced, and delivered at the electric speed of Instagram. Streetwear’s business model, rooted in easily churned-out T-shirts, hoodies, and accessories made in limited quantities and distributed through weekly drops, lends itself well to these fluctuations in desirability. For those wanting to keep up with their customers, it’s vital to create products responsively.

In 2011, H&M-owned fast-fashion retailer Weekday launched Zeitgeist, a project in which T-shirts and tote bags were screen-printed in its stores. The designs reflected current affairs and spoke directly to the retailer’s Gen Z and millennial audience. Examples included “Love Wins Deutschland,” celebrating Germany becoming the 23rd country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage; “Fight Like a Girl,” in support of the Women’s March against President Trump; and “Make London Europe Again” against Brexit.

But one size doesn’t fit all. Ideally, working with collaborators should be localized to speak to specific regions. Most of all, expansion into new fields shouldn’t be forced on consumers, and brands shouldn’t forget the products that made them authentic in the first place. Think Supreme skate decks, BAPE full-zip hoodies, or visvim’s FBT shoes.

“Someone like Palace has grown very fast but it has also grown organically,” says Prantera. “They’ve retained independence and I think it shows with their output, because some of their releases aren’t necessarily commercially friendly.” In other words, it feels real.

The element of surprise can’t be overlooked either. Collaborations are often used as a tool. Although unsustainable, not only is continuously replenished (collaborative) product good for business and brand marketing, unexpected products are a clever way for fashion brands to see how their community responds to products put out in real time. It’s a way to test how far a brand can push before it strays too far from its authentic core.

Speak through, not to your audience

Relevant product alone, however, won’t be enough to engage today’s fragmented buyer. Today, being culturally relevant means one must know when, where, and how to speak to your audience. For years, traditional messaging has remained the same and, as the use of social media in the fashion industry became oversaturated, consumers have become immune to homogenous, disengaging content.

What differentiates a label is its attitude, tone, and brand activity. Only by having a distinctive voice can a brand generate shareable content that resonates. Companies can no longer put out content for the sake of it and let engagement metrics overshadow narrative-driven marketing.

Problems occur when brands see their communication channels strictly as additional ways to push out new product. This approach is wrong because brands are essentially telling their followers that unless they’re consuming, they can’t fully take part in the dialogue.

Instead, fashion houses should see social media as a tool to inspire, to expand their universe with content that digs deeper into the company’s backstory, product, and community, while acting as a forum for discussion among followers.

“Don’t only speak to your community, speak through and with them,” says Leila Fataar, founder of Platform13, a London-based brand consultancy that specializes in creating and maintaining cultural relevance for companies through on-brand activations and by connecting them with influential industry insiders. Its roster of clients includes adidas, Under Armour, and Beats by Dre.

Getting the mix right are labels such as Nike, The North Face, and Stüssy, as well as 1017 ALYX 9SM, JJJJound, and BODE. All strike the right ratio and speed when it comes to novelty, product, and honest, value-driven storytelling. It allows followers to become part of the brand’s direction.

“Patagonia is also a good example,” says American industry veteran and creative business consultant Julie Gilhart, who has worked with everyone from Amazon, Prada, and Jil Sander to Goyard and Mulberry. “They have really good communication. They don’t really do anything without talking about it first. If they don’t, their customers are going to talk about it and [the company] is going to do something about it. Your community is sort of like your family.”

Embrace cultural voices

It’s true. Brands should treat their community with love and respect. Fostering a community that sticks, however, is a challenge. A strong community means relinquishing some measure of control to the consumer. This is a scary thought for many companies, but it’s something that gives a brand meaning beyond product alone.

“Sometimes I say no to nice brands because I feel there isn’t enough energy or attitude to bring them into the market,” says Slam Jam founder Luca Benini. “Immediately after I see the product, I check who’s behind the brand and what their approach is. In the long term, this makes the difference.”

Stavros Karelis, founder of multi-brand retailer Machine-A, explains, “There’s a very big turn in our industry, from bigger is better to being more specific to a core audience, not satisfying every single demand. That way you grow steadily in a safe manner.”

Karelis has proven to be an expert in scouting brands with staying power early on. He names Kiko Kostadinov, Grace Wales Bonner, 1017 ALYX 9SM, and Cav Empt as prime examples of labels that have all-encompassing visions of their clientele and brand.

“Someone like Matthew Williams [of ALYX] kept his brand very specific for the first few years,” Karelis says. “There were no shows, no presentations. He communicated his message through specific retailers and through campaigns. It shows that he waited for the right time to build community and educate everyone before it exploded.”

While social media has connected those who are like-minded in their niche interests, it has also meant the death of underground subcultures at the local level, once the foundation of fashion communities, with everything becoming more accessible.

“Growing organically while maintaining your original customer is a challenge,” admits Prantera. Community, she says, is something very difficult to establish and something you can’t manufacture. “You either have it or you don’t.”

Indeed, brands only become authentic by supporting culture, not by hijacking it. At the same time, they need to focus on being anything other than a faceless corporation. And that’s easier said than done.

So how can brands, new or established, build, foster, and then leverage their community to grow a culturally credible brand?

“It’s not rocket science,” laughs Fataar, explaining how brands need to focus on people with similar mindsets rather than the same demographics. “They also need to have conversations with the community they’re trying to be part of and see what they can do to add value to that community instead of just talking to them for a PR story. That’s when brands do well and, to me, that’s what creates cultural relevance.”

Fataar highlights Gucci’s partnership with Harlem couturier Dapper Dan as a sincere case study. “How long did that take to do? But look how much it has done for the brand,” she says.

Where fashion brands often fall down, she adds, is when they identify the wrong people to spread the message, often prioritizing popular online influencers new to the scene over those with true influence.

“You’re not a cultural voice just because you have loads of followers,” Fataar says. “A cultural voice is someone who’s earned their stripes and not just told a story. They’re the ones who have been part of the change and have helped shape the culture. Some of those people don’t even have social feeds, but they’re the ones making stuff happen. If you want to talk to a community of people, you get these cultural voices in to do it. Hopefully, your brand values are the same and you can come up with something that’s important and relevant.”

For Angelo Baque, founder of Awake NY and former brand director of Supreme, building a community means looking inward first. “Instead of putting all this energy into thinking about how to make a million dollars, I’m thinking about how I can incubate and mentor new photographers and find new talent to contribute to the brand, like I did at Supreme,” he says. “You have to think about the long game. With Supreme, people tend to not understand that it’s been around for 25 years.”

Without values, you stand for nothing

One of the best examples of a brand growing its cultural relevance for more than 50 years is outdoor giant The North Face.

“When our brand was born, there was little competition, so making good product was sufficient,” says The North Face’s global general manager of urban exploration and mountain lifestyle Tim Bantle, whose team has been responsible for collaborations with Supreme, sacai, and Junya Watanabe. “Then the industry evolved, and then we were great at creating unique content to support the product through photography and stories of incredible expeditions. For a long time that was sufficient.”

But the environment changed in the last decade, says Bantle, who now believes product and storytelling are only half of the work that needs to be put in. “Once you layer in additional values as a brand, that’s when you start getting a complete package,” he says. “You really can’t be the brand you want to be without addressing these [external] dimensions.”

Whether it’s Nike supporting former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Gucci and Levi’s speaking out against gun violence, Uniqlo parent company Fast Retailing making genuine strides in hiring refugees, or The North Face’s “Walls Are Meant for Climbing” campaign, which took shots at President Trump’s call to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, the brands of the future will be driven by purpose as much as profit. The days of surface-level consumerism are over.

Gilhart argues that, in today’s environment, by not standing for something, you’re at risk of losing the cultural cred you’ve built up with your community. “You may disappoint a few, but it’s worth it,” she says.

Antonio Achille, senior partner and global head of luxury at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company agrees. “Projecting a brand image needs to be based on a very authentic set of values. If there’s a disconnect, it’s a boomerang in your face,” he says.

Bantle adds, “The big institutions that people have historically relied on for a sense of identity and belonging simply aren’t as effective as they used to be. People’s choices of where their dollars go need to go to companies that reflect their values and something bigger than themselves.

“We’ve really turned up the dial on the values component in the last couple of years because it’s the right thing to do. It helps us connect to our audience in a way we feel proud of and can stand by at the end of the day, and it will only become more important as we grow.”

Make sustainability and transparency the norm

Values shouldn’t be limited to external messaging. Those wanting to stay relevant need to be transparent about the way they operate, from how a company treats its employees to sustainable sourcing, production, and distribution.

Research by Boston Consulting Group shows that 73 percent of the world’s clothing eventually ends up in landfills. Meanwhile, 75 percent of consumers surveyed by the group view sustainability as extremely or very important. And consumers have the power to make businesses accountable. According to the report, 50 percent of consumers say they plan to switch brands in the future if another brand does more to protect the environment and help society than their preferred one.

From Burberry burning clothing worth millions (a practice it says it has discontinued) to H&M sitting on $4.3 billion of unsold stock, companies will have to radically rethink their approach to the “end” of a product’s lifecycle.

“If you want to be in it for the long haul, not starting a business in an environmentally and socially responsible way is a risk,” says Gilhart, who adds that future investors might be scared off by consumers potentially calling out a brand’s unsustainable practices. “It’s the number one thing. You don’t want to start something that’s unsustainable when you have as much information as we have now. We’re on borrowed time.”

Companies such as Everlane, Allbirds, and Noah understand this. In May, Noah explained to its Instagram followers in great detail why the prices of some of its sweatshirts and rugby shirts had gone up, guiding users through its supply chain with images of its factories and workers, and breaking down the costs of each individual item.

Noah was founded by former Supreme creative director Brendon Babenzien and has become known for its value-driven approach to fashion, raising money and awareness for causes including the Black Lives Matter movement, ocean clean-up, and programs that support LGBT+ communities.

While it has maintained that it’s “not a sustainable company,” Noah’s willingness to work toward solutions and put integrity above trends, working exclusively with suppliers and manufacturers that treat workers fairly, has created a template for a modern and culturally credible fashion brand.

“The new consumer is very sensitive about increased transparency,” says McKinsey’s Achille. “Before, the primary source for consumers to get your brand identity was through in-store experiences and customer service. Next came marketing. Now it’s not just about the frontline anymore, but it’s a much more holistic equity that you need to build in terms of brand identity.”

Prantera of Aries agrees. “The more vertical your business is, the better it will do. It might not be the most financially friendly solution, but it’s for sure the purest,” she says. “The way people are paid, where you manufacture, how you treat your suppliers, it’s all about how your business appears. It’s not just about design and PR anymore.”

Altogether, what defines cultural credibility probably can’t be encapsulated in one simple formula, but the fundamentals are detailed above.

“Nobody knows how long it takes to build a successful brand. Some brands happen overnight and some take years,” says Gilhart. “But if you start to build a good foundation, which [includes] sustainability, community-building from the get-go, being direct-to-consumer, knowing what you stand for, and being consistent with it, it’s very good. It doesn’t matter who you are, you just have to be transparent and authentic.”

[honoraryskywalker]

11 Questions Meme

Rules:

1. always post the rules. 2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. write 11 questions of your own and tag 11 (or however many) people to answer them.

I was tagged for this meme by both @froomage and @katherinevar, which is great because 1) our Strike-related conversations are one of my favourite things about my Tumblr experience, and it’s nice to talk about something else for once and get to know each other a bit more; 2) their questions were sooooo fun. 

Here are my answers to @froomage‘s questions:

1. What fictional place would you most like to go?

Definitely Middle-Earth. I’d love to tour all of it, but if I had to choose a place to stay for a while, I’d say post-War of the Ring Rohan. They’ve got Faramir and Eowyn. And horses (I’ve only ever ridden a horse twice, and learning how to do it properly is one of my as yet unrealized childhood dreams). 

2. Tell me about your pets! Or pets that you would like to have. Or, if you do not like pets, what the hell?

We have a female cat that’s jokingly referred to as “the cat from Hell” by most of our friends and family. I guess this tells you something about her character. But we love her. And she loves us (in her own way, which includes biting our toes and generally making a mess of our flat in every way she can). 

3. Who is your biggest role model?

My parents, both as individuals and as a couple. Day by day, they have built a family I consider a privilege and a blessing to have been raised in, and with their example they have shaped such a huge part of the woman and wife I am - and I strive to be. 

Sorry if this sounds sappy, but I could literally go on for hours writing how grateful I am for them. 

4. If you were dictator of a small island nation, what crazy dictator stuff would you do?

I’d order the writing of a glorious national epic to rival with Dante and Homer.

(*evil cackle*)

Honestly, I don’t think I’d be that good of a dictator. I like books, tea, hugs and kittens, you see. 

5. What is something that a ton of people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of?

Reality TV, and the disco.  (yep, I hated it even when I was 15). 

6. What fad or trend do you hope comes back?

I’ve never been one to really care about or follow trends, so I wouldn't know... For the moment, I only hope fidget spinners disappear as suddenly as they appeared. /middleschoolteacherproblems. 

7. What was the best compliment you ever received?

This is a very difficult question for me, because  “Words of affirmation” is my main love language, so a kind word can really make my day, even if it’s something very simple. Even something like  “you’re a good person” makes my day, if it’s told by someone I know is sincere. 

8. What would Amortentia smell like to you? (The love potion from Harry Potter that smells like the three things you’re most attracted to.)

Freshly-cut grass, black tea, lime blossoms. 

9. Speaking of Harry Potter, which house do you belong in? Why?

According to the last Hogwarts House test I took (it was a meme here on Tumblr), I’m half Ravenclaw-half Gryffindor. I think I recognize myself in this description. People would describe me as an “intellectual” person, and I’m definitely bookish and curious about the world even beyond my everyday life. But I'm also fiercely passionate about my principles and my opinions, and when there’s something I really care about I’m extremely determined (sometimes even to the point of stubborness). 

10. If you could travel backwards in time, where/when would you go?

There’s so many places I’d love to see (or historical people I’d love to meet). I’d love to visit early modern London and watch Shakespeare’s plays as they were originally performed. Be friends with the Inklings at Oxford. Drink a glass of wine with G.K. Chesterton in his house. Roam the streets of medieval Europe and see the great cathedrals when they had just been built. 

11. What keeps you up at night?

I’ve recently become a fall-asleep-as-soon-as-head-touches-pillow kind of person, unless there’s something that really troubles me. Sometimes I stay awake in bed a little longer to go on reading a good book or look up a couple interesting articles on the Internet or pray a while, if it’s been a particularly busy day and I haven’t had much time. 

12. What’s one thing you wish you could change about yourself?

Two things, actually: my hair and my tendency to be a little bit anxious. 

13. Favourite book of all time?

The Lord of the Rings. 

And here are my answers to @katherinevar’s questions:

1. If you had to live in a house in the woods without internet and phone for a month which five books would you choose to take with you?

The Lord of the Rings - The Bible - Flannery O’ Connor’s short stories - Philip K. Dick’s short stories - The Odyssey 

(and so many more I can’t mention because you said only 5. Yes, I know those short story collections are technically more than one book, but well...) :D

2. Between your favourite actor/actress, singer and author which would you choose to meet and why?

He isn’t an actor... But if we’re talking about living people only, I’d say Christopher Nolan (he’s one of my favourite directors and he sounds like an interesting person to talk to, with many interests and a clever mind).  Or George Lucas. (Star Wars was my first love). 

But I’d love to have a loooooong chat with J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. Or Shakespeare. Oh, Shakespeare. (*heart*).  As for Italian writers: Giovannino Guareschi and Eugenio Corti. 

I feel like I owe much to these people, for the way they have made me laugh and cry, given me food for thought, shaped my worldview and enriched my life with their stories and their characters. 

3. Which song could listen for 24 hours without getting bored?

Right now I’m binge-listening to Bruce Springsteen’s American Land (the live version from the 2006 Dublin concert). But it changes very often.  

4. Your favourite movie?

Star Wars (I-VI). Yes, I’m one of the few people who loved the Prequels but didn’t like The Force Awakens. 

Also, Gran Torino by Clint Eastwood. 

Again, there are many more which I had to leave out...

5. Is there a book you would change the ending and which one is it?

Ask me again after Lethal White has been published and we find out if Robin married Matthew in Career of Evil or not. 

6. Who is your favourite author that you buy his books with eyes closed?

Most of my favourite writers are from the past, so I’m not really “following” any author right now (with the exception of our friend Robert Galbraith). But I still have a lot of books by G.K. Chesterton / Philip K. Dick to buy, so...

7. If you had to leave your country where would you like to go?

Somewhere in the UK, or Dublin. 

8. Which is your favourite book character?

You can’t make me choose between Samwise Gamgee and Faramir. :)

9. Your favourite tv-show?

Generally speaking, I tend to prefer miniseries. I loved BBC’s Pride and Prejudice and Stranger Things. As for the longer series, I haven’t watched many, but I usually prefer the ones which are more comedy than drama. I was a huge fan of Monk and Psych. 

10. Have you ever bought a book that was mentioned in another book you were reading?

Only when I was studying at university (I bought books which were mentioned in the bibliography of other books). 

11. Which is the quality that most people apreeceate about you?

People often tell me I’m wise, a good listener and a good giver of advice.

I tag @katherinevar, @froomage, @many-books-little-time, @somebluenovember and anyone else who’d like to answer. :)

My questions:

1. What does it take for you to fall in love with a story? (a good plot, deep characters, etc.)

2. If you had to describe yourself with 3 adjectives, what would they be?

3. Is there an author/book/show/film you really love, even if it embraces a worldview that’s completely different from yours? 

4. What is a book you really wanted to like, but didn’t? (or a book you didn’t think you’d like, but ended up loving)?

5. Write a quote that really resonated with you and explain why. 

6. Did you ever “meet” a fictional character who was just like you in their appearance/character/behaviour? 

7. What is your favourite food?

8. Is there a trait which makes you hate a character instantly, no matter what they do?

9. What is your favourite childhood memory?

10. If you could only read one book to your children, what book would you choose?

11. What is your favourite fairy tale (I’m talking about “classical” fairy tales) and why?