#BERNADETTE HAS BEEN ON MY MIND RECENTLY TOO

[cheruverse]

AHA X AKIVILI IS LITERALLY ON MY MIND 24/7 OH MY GOD

THE FACT WE FONT KNOW WHAT AHA LOOKS LIKE. JUST A BUNCH OF MASKS AND CONFETTI PLASTERED

AND WE DONT KNOW WHAT AKIVILI LOOKS LIKE EITHER. WE JUST KNOW THAT THEY TAKE OF A HUMAN FORM.

its so hard to draw them becasue they literally have NO DESIGNS AT ALL 😭😭😭😭

BUT.BUT.BUT. AHA'S INTERACTIONS WITH AKIVILI IN SIMULATED UNIVERSE MAKES ME SO SICK UGH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😞😞😞😞😞☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

"I am so sad. Why did you die?" UGHHHHFHGNGJFUSHDH AHAVILI YOU MAKE ME SO. SICK.

[cecilysass]

Still Feeling My Father Ascend (4/4)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 4

Memory: 1990

Scully wordlessly traces her finger along the dented chrome trim of the diner table, trying to keep up the pretense that everything is normal. That this brutal silence is just a casual pause in the flow of conversation.

She can’t remember a single occasion in her life when making conversation with her father has felt so awkward. Not after arguments when she was in high school. Not when she told him she was voting for Mondale. Not even after she was caught making out with Marcus on the couch in the living room.

They’ve been sitting on vinyl seats for ten minutes and have exhausted all possible topics: Bill’s nascent Naval career, Melissa’s recent vegetarianism, what committee her mother is on at church. It’s so awful that Scully feels like bursting into tears. But of course she would never do that in front of him.

When the waitress sets their orders down on the table, neither her father nor she look down at their food.

He gestures to her plate. “Why aren’t you eating? You didn’t become a vegetarian, too, did you?”

“No, Dad,” she says quietly. “If I had, I wouldn’t have ordered a burger.”

To punctuate her point, she lifts the stuffed burger and takes a bite, raising her eyebrows. He nods and studies her face, not touching his own Reuben yet.

“So,” he says too casually, “how’s it going?”

She’s chewing and can’t answer right away, but her eyes widen ever-so-slightly. She knows what he means.

“The Academy,” he clarifies anyway, toying with the straw on his iced tea. “Are you doing… well? Your superiors are happy?”

She covers her mouth with her hand and nods, slowly. “I think so, yes,” she says, through the mouthful of burger.

“That’s good,” he says, businesslike. He nods briskly. “I’m not surprised, but that’s good.”

He lifts his Reuben now and sinks his teeth into it, and Scully knows that for him, this is the end of the discussion. He’s asked all he needs to about Quantico. He can now report back to her mother that he asked and she answered. There’s nothing more to be said.

She watches him eat for a moment, feeling her anger simmer dangerously under the surface.

“Daddy,” she says softly, “do you know what I wanted to be when I grew up? When I was a little girl?”

His eyes lock on hers, and he puts his sandwich down. “Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. A doctor.”

“No,” she says in a small voice.

“You don’t remember, Dana. You always wanted to be a doctor.”

She shakes her head. “Not at first.”

He places his finger on the table, his gesture for making a point. “You remember how we used to watch Song of Bernadette together? And you asked me why anyone would believe in the Lourdes spring water when there were doctors and hospitals? That’s when I knew you were going to be a doctor.”

“Before that, I wanted to be a Navy captain,” she whispers. “I wanted to sail a ship. I wanted to protect the seas. Like you.”

He looks down at the table now, shaking his head slowly. “That wasn’t for you, and you know it.”

“That wasn’t for daughters, you mean. Only for sons.”

He meets her gaze again. Scully knows she has her mother’s eyes, but right now, the intensity of her father’s fixed stare reminds her of no one in the world but herself. “That’s not fair, Starbuck. I wanted the best for you. When you went to medical school, you wanted to be a doctor. And if that man, that professor of yours, hadn’t—”

“Ultimately it doesn’t matter what I wanted,” Scully says. “It matters what I want now.”

“To put yourself at risk?” her father bites back. “To chase after– what, killers? Mobsters? Rapists? A tiny little thing like you?”

She bristles at his description of her. “Well, fortunately I’m a good shot, Dad. You can ask my instructors.”

“But your gift is science,” he insists. “It was always a calling for you, understanding God’s rules for the universe. Your brilliant mind. Your mother and I, we’ve often discussed it.”

“I don’t think I’ve found my calling yet,” she replies coolly. “That’s why I’m at Quantico. And I think it’s up to me to decide what my calling might be, not you and Mom.”

“Fine. But why law enforcement?” He leans forward intently with his elbows on the table, in the way that he and her mother always taught her was rude. “That’s what I can’t get past. You could have been working in a lab. You could have been a professor.”

She looks down at her burger. It hurts her to the core that he doesn’t see this about her, this part of her that is most like himself. “I still want to protect the seas, Dad,” she says in a low voice.

“But who’s going to protect you, Starbuck?”

&&&

January 1994

It’s a surprisingly good night’s sleep. She doesn’t remember waking up once, and her dreams are more untroubled than they’ve been since the death of her father. Since Boggs.

When Scully wakes up in the very early morning, she’s enveloped entirely in the warmth of Mulder’s grasp, his arm now fully wrapped around her. She has somehow ended up lying with her cheek pressed against his chest, her leg tangled in between his beneath the blankets.

She should move, but she doesn’t.

He’s asleep, silent and breathing evenly. Lifting her head, she can see puffs of condensation from his breath in the gray morning light. It is very cold in the apartment now. She shushes the voices in her mind worried about professionalism and gently rests her head back down on his pectoral muscle. She sneaks one hand under his back. He’s just so warm. It can’t be helped.

He makes a mumbling sound. Uneasy, she looks at him again, slipping her hand out from under him. He’s not at all awake. With eyes closed, he tosses his head restlessly, his lips moving. “Don’t get up yet, babe,” he murmurs almost inaudibly, something flickering behind his eyelids.

She places her cheek back down on his body and wonders who he’s talking to, what relationship from the past he’s evoking in a dream. It’s hard for her to imagine Mulder with a girlfriend. But surely at some point he’s had them—girlfriends more recent than Phoebe Green.

It would have to be someone very patient with his eccentricity and foibles, she thinks. She wonders if he would be disastrous in a relationship—neglecting his significant other constantly for his work—or if he somehow would be able to turn some of his obsessive focus towards another person. Having lately been the focus of his concern, she can’t imagine what his full romantic attention would be like. How intense that would be.

The notion makes her shiver, even though she’s very warm, really. She decides to shut the door on that thought process.

Instead, her thoughts drift to Mulder saying he couldn’t help but have personal attachments at work. She knows what he means. How can they not have a certain closeness, an understanding beyond regular co-workers? It’s only natural. Natural and overwhelming. Something she needs to put up some fortifications against.

Has there ever been a period in her life more intellectually potent than these past five months working on the X-files? The call of investigating something that can’t exist. That shouldn’t exist. His provocations, her volleys back, his syncretic leaps, her incremental moves to bridge his gaps. The chance to always prove her point. To prove herself.

It makes her heart race; it makes her feel alive; it makes her feel like a chess piece placed in the perfect strategic spot in a way she hadn’t ever before. She wishes she could have made her father understand.

She also worries sometimes it’s like a drug, something she won’t ever be able to step away from. Or worse, that it’s like a disease, something that will ultimately take her over entirely, turn her very brain cells against her. That it’s something she can’t protect herself from. No possible boundaries.

Open yourself to extreme possibilities only when they’re the truth, he’d told her.

As though that sentence represented any kind of meaningful advice.

As though that sentence didn’t really represent both of their personal mantras, anyone’s personal mantra, really: only believe in what’s true. A minefield of tautology, of imprecise meanings. Something about his patronizing tone in that moment—speaking to poor grieving little Dana, whose emotions had made her too slippery to get a firm grip on her science—gets under her skin. This is why, she thinks. This is why it’s better not to let him in.

With her ear pressed to his chest right now, she can hear his heartbeat. Steady and reassuring. It just can’t help but feel intimate. Natural and overwhelming.

“Scully.” His voice, creaky and sleepy, interrupts the pattern of his heart. “What time is it?”

She lifts her head to see him. “It’s morning, I think,” she says quietly. She moves away, as discreetly as possible, sliding herself off of his body and back to a more safe and respectable position at his side, carefully removing her leg from where it’s wedged between his. “Very early morning.”

“We got a little, uh, entangled there,” he says, still a bit hoarse. “Sorry about that.”

“I don’t feel at all cold,” she replies. “And that’s what this was all about, so no need to apologize.”

“I don’t feel cold either,” he agrees. “Good teamwork there, partner.”

It’s his typical banter, but something sounds off, like he is distracted. For the first time, she considers that Mulder, too, has boundaries that are uncomfortable to cross.

“Should I get up to see if the snow has stopped?” Scully asks.

“Oh sure,” he says huffily. “If you want to squander all this good warmth.”

She smiles into his shoulder. If he’s feeling uncomfortable, his coping mechanisms are certainly different than hers.

“We should probably both get up and get started on our workday,” she remarks dryly. “That late paperwork, for example.”

“If we have to,” he says, mock resigned. “Go get the forms and we’ll fill them out right here. You can use my head to bear down on.”

“I should,” she says lightly, not moving at all. “I really should.”

There is silence. Scully is suddenly very aware of the precise weight and dimensions of his hand resting on her back.

“Hey Scully,” he says, changing tone. “You believe Cecil L’Ively had pyrokinesis, don’t you? That he wasn’t just a typical arsonist?”

She chooses her words carefully. “I believe he has very unusual physical abnormalities. A basal body temperature of 109. This may have contributed to his ability to easily commit arson. Science, Mulder.”

“And when the evidence points to answers beyond science?”

“There is no beyond science.”

“When the evidence points to answers beyond what’s conventional?”

She watches her own fingers, flexing them and letting them rest back down on his chest. “I don’t think that sort of leap comes naturally to me,” she admits. “I think my natural inclination is to doubt.”

Mulder says nothing.

“You asked me at the end of the Boggs case why I was afraid to believe, after all we’ve seen. It’s not that I’m afraid, exactly. It’s more that … I don’t know how.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Scully,” he says hesitantly.

“No, I’m not like you. Or my dad. I can’t commit to something abstract. I can’t even always commit to something in front of my eyes— not without trying to second guess it. To see where the holes are, the inconsistencies.”

He seems to be waiting for her to continue.

“If I’m being honest,” she adds, “I worry, a little. Whether there might be something wrong with having one’s only role being to doubt.”

“Come on. Your role isn’t just doubt,” Mulder says. “It’s significantly more than that.”

“But if I can’t—”

“You believe in things. Lots of things. You know that, don’t you?”

Her lips slide into a wan half smile. “Like what?”

He takes a breath. “The power of science to explain. Medicine to heal. In goodness, right, meaning, justice. In your father. Probably your mom. In me, for some reason,” he says. “And I don’t think I’m wrong—you came to the FBI believing you could do something important, right? Help protect people, probably. Be effective. Your own personal motives: they’re who you are.”

Her mouth opens in reaction. She feels like she’s been cracked open, her insides examined on an autopsy table: dissected by Mulder and his Oxford degree. She should be horrified, but she’s not, exactly. Instead, there’s something oddly like gratitude blooming in her chest. He’s only known her for months, but he sees this about her, this part she wants to be noticed and seen. She thinks about how to thank him.

Before she can, there is a grinding noise and a startling brightness.

Both Scully and Mulder instinctively lift their heads in response.

His living room lamps come back on. The TV, too, abruptly hums back to life. An oily announcer’s voice makes promises from the speakers. Scully cranes to see the image of a smiling man demonstrating a blender available for only $29.99.

Scully blinks, dazed, trying to let her eyes adjust. The room looks all wrong, lit so brightly now in the very early morning. Suddenly it feels incongruous to be up close to Mulder. It’s not like the cold temperature has magically changed, but sharing the couch with him seems bizarre under the scrutiny of the light.

“Looks like we’re back in business,” Mulder says, his eyes roaming around the room and landing on her. “You good, Scully?”

“Just trying to get used to the concept of light again,” she says, scowling.

“I know,” he says, flopping his head back down on the couch. “Being able to see clearly is so overrated.”

&&&

Later, as the restored heat and the morning sun conspire to make the apartment a degree or two warmer, they wrap themselves up in thick protective layers and seek the promise of coffee and food in Mulder’s kitchen.

She worries about calling her mom from Mulder’s apartment. Scully plans to thoroughly explain the situation and reassure her mother everything is fine. But she knows Maggie will fret because her daughter isn’t at home as promised. She anticipates an anxious barrage of questions.

She looks over at Mulder, inexpertly cracking an egg on a hot pan. Again she tries to imagine him and Maggie engaged in conversation. This time, it’s not as difficult.

“You know,” Scully says to him, watching the eggs sizzle and brown in the butter, “my mom asked me about the possibility of meeting my partner.”

Mulder raises his eyebrows and reaches casually for his coffee on the counter, lifting it to take a patient sip. If he’s thinking it sounds like the kind of blurring of personal and professional she claimed to want to avoid, he doesn’t say.

“I think it might make her feel better if she met you. More confident about my safety, maybe,” Scully says.

“Or less,” Mulder says dryly, reaching down to fiddle with the level of heat on his stove.

“She suggested dinner sometime.” Scully’s eyes dart up to his face and then back down at the eggs. “You don’t have to, of course. It’s up to you.”

Mulder is attempting to flip the eggs with the spatula, not completely successfully. One crumples on its side. He looks up at her. “Of course, partner.”

“Good,” she nods, licking her lip. “Okay, good, I’ll tell her.”

She can’t read the smile that flashes across Mulder’s face in response, but apparently he’s okay with the idea.

“Now, Scully, I have to tell you some bad news,” Mulder says, growing mock serious. “I don’t have jam. I hope you’re okay with butter on toast.”

“I’ll live,” Scully says “Coffee will help.”

She smiles, too. His cheerfulness is contagious. He piles the poorly-shaped fried eggs onto plates, which she crowns with buttered slices of toast.

“Hopefully the streets will be clear today,” Scully says, as they settle to eat at his dining room table. “So I can get out of here and go home.”

“Exactly what all the ladies say after spending the night,” he says.

Her eyes roll reflexively. “Come on, Mulder,” she says. “You must want me out of your hair, too.”

“Nah,” he says, taking a bite of his toast. “I like having you around.” He chews for a moment before adding: “I mean, what if there’s a body around here to autopsy unexpectedly? Or I need some complicated new organization system for my fridge? You’re handy.”

Scully takes a bite as well. “You’re handy, too, Mulder.”

They eat in silence, and Scully has the sensation that something invisible has tightened between them, something tugged more taut.

She wonders if her father looks down on such moments as these—if her father, post death, can see everything now. If he can read deeper meaning in all the trivialities that surround her daily life. In Mulder’s well-intentioned fried egg on her plate. In the state of her unkempt hair, sticking up in places from sleeping on her partner’s chest. In the geometric fingers of ice still criss-crossing his apartment windows.

She hopes from her father’s all-encompassing vantage point, he’s able to discern the significance in all of this. Maybe now he knows her better than she knows herself.

She picks up her mug and sips the coffee Mulder's made her. The day grows warmer, little by little.

[all-de-fandoms]

The ONLY valid version of "Falling in Love With Love" is sung by Bernadette Peters in Cinderella (1997) you can NOT change my mind

In recent months this has been THE song that I've played over and over again on my playlist (that and Taylor's "All Too Well" and "Fine, Fine Line" from Avenue Q– I'm doing terrible, thanks for asking).

Guess people are right- growing up is relating more to the stepmother than to Cinderella. Fuck yeah Bernadette, caring too much IS a juvenile fancy! Learning to trust IS just for children is school!

If anyone's looking for me I'm ugly sobbing on the couch with this looped in the background.

[unpopularwiththepopulace]

Don’t I Get a Dream for Myself ? – Bernadette Peters and the 'Gypsy' Saga

Gypsy. It’s perhaps the most daunting of all of the projects related to Bernadette Peters to try to grapple with and discuss. It’s also perhaps the most significant.

For someone notoriously guarded of her privacy and personal life, careful with her words, and selective of the questions she answers, the narrative around this show provides some of the most meaningful insights it is possible to derive in relation to Bernadette herself. The show’s ability to do this is unique, through the way it eerily parallels her own life and spans a large range in time from both Bernadette Peters the Broadway Legend, right back to where it all began with Bernadette Lazzara, the young Italian girl put into showbusiness by her mother.

The most logical place to start is at the very beginning – it is a very good place to start, after all.

(Though no one tell Gypsy this, if the fierce two-way battle with The Sound of Music at the 1960 Tony Awards is anything to be remembered. Anyway, I digress…)

Gypsy: A Musical Fable with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, burst into the world and onto the New York stage in May of 1959. After closing on Broadway in March 1961, Ethel Merman as the world’s original Mama Rose herself led the first national tour off almost immediately around the country. Just a few months later, a second national touring company was formed, starring Mitzi Green and then Mary McCarty as Rose, to cover more cities than the original. It is here that Bernadette comes in.

A 13-year-old Bernadette Peters found herself part of this show in her ��first professional” on-the-road production, travelling across the country with her older sister, “Donna (who was also in the show), and their mother (who wasn’t)”.

The tour played through cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, New Haven, Baltimore and Las Vegas before closing in Ohio in 1962. Somewhat uncannily, its September 1961 opening night in Detroit’s Schubert Theatre even returns matters full circle to the 2003 revival and New York’s own Schubert Theatre.

Indeed this bus-and-truck tour was somewhat of a turning point for Bernadette. She’d later remember, “I mostly thought of performing as a hobby until I went on the road with Gypsy”.

But while this production seminally marked a notable moment for the young actress as well as the point where her long and consequential involvement with Gypsy begins, it’s important to recognise she was very much not yet the star of the show and then only a small part of a larger whole.

Bernadette was with the troupe as a member of the ensemble. She took on different positions in the company through the period of nearly a year that the show ran for, including billing as ‘Thelma’ (one of the Hollywood Blondes), ‘Hawaiian Girl’, and additional understudy credits for Agnes and Dainty June.

The above photo shows Bernadette (left) with another member of the ensemble (Sharon McCartin) backstage at the Chicago Opera House as one of the stops along the tour. Her comment on the stage of the Chicago theatre – “I’d never seen anything so big in my life!” – undeniably conveys how her experiences were new and appreciably daunting.

Along the tour, she assumed centre-stage once or twice as the understudy for Dainty June, but playing the young star was not her main role. Unlike what more dominant memory of the story seems to purport.

Main credits of June went instead to Susie Martin – a name and a tale of truth-bending that’s now well-known from Bernadette’s concert anecdotes. While performing her solo shows as an adult and singing from Gypsy, Bernadette has often been known to take a moment to penitently atone for historical indiscretions of identity theft or erasure where her mother long ago conveniently left out the “understudy” descriptive when putting down Dainty June on her resumé, in an effort to add weight to the teenager’s list of credits.

Whatever happened to Susie Martin? – many have wondered. Well, she soon left the theatre. But not before appearing in two more regional productions of Gypsy and a 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward with Liza Minnelli and Christopher Walken.

Bernadette too went on to other regional productions of Gypsy. She spent the summer of 1962 in various summer stock stagings with The Kenley Players, like in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and this time she did indeed get to play June.

Above shows photos from different programmes for these productions. While some may have featured odd forms of photo editing, they at least also bring to attention Rose here being played by none other than Betty Hutton.

The two women couldn’t have been in more different positions when they coalesced in these rough-around-the-edges, small-scale productions. A young Bernadette was broaching summer stock in starting to take on bigger roles in the ascendency to her bright and long career. Meanwhile, Betty found herself there while navigating the descent that followed her sharp but fickle rise to Hollywood fame in the ‘40s and early ‘50s. Top billing Monday, Tuesday you really are touring in stock after all.

While details aren’t plentiful for these productions, it was recounted Betty apparently struggled in performing the role. And understandably so. Following the recent traumatic death of her mother in a house fire, and the birth of her third child shortly before the shows began, it’s not hard to see why her mind might have been elsewhere. Still, she was apparently impressed enough by the younger actress who turned in one of the show’s “creditable performances” to make comment that she would’ve liked Bernadette to play her if a movie were made about her life.

Bernadette might not have done this exactly, but she did go on to revitalise Betty’s best-known movie role, when stepping into Annie Oakley’s shoes in the 1999 Annie Get Your Gun revival. With Bernadette’s first Ethel Merman show under her belt, the ball was soon rolling on her second.

The 2003 production of Gypsy was imminently beckoning as her next successive Broadway musical and it was Arthur Laurents who lit the match to spark Bernadette’s involvement. Laurents, as the show’s original librettist, drove the revival by saying he “didn’t want to see the same Rose” he’d seen before. Going back to June Havoc’s description of her mother as “small” and a “mankiller”, and Arthur’s take that Bernadette sung the part “with more nuance for the lyrics and the character than the others”, the choice of Bernadette was justified. Moreover, “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

So Bernadette also had her own baseline of innate physical similarity to the original Rose Hovick, in addition to her own first-hand memories of the women she’d acted alongside as Rose in her youth to bring into her characterisation of the infamous stage mother.

But there was a third factor beyond those as well to be considered in the personal material she had access to draw from for her characterisation. Namely, her own real life stage mother.

Marguerite Lazzara did share traits with the character of Rose. She too helped herself to silverware from restaurants, and put her daughters in showbusiness for the vicarious thrill. Marguerite had “always wanted to become an actress herself”, but had long been denied her desire by her own mother, who likened actresses to being as “close to a whore as you could be without, you know, getting on your back”.

In that case, to “escape a housewife’s dreary fate in Ozone Park”, Marguerite channelled her latent dream through her pair of young daughters instead, shepherding them out along the road. Thus was produced a trio of the two children ushered around the theatre circuit by the driven mother, forming an undeniable parallelism and a mirror image of both Bernadette’s reality and Gypsy’s core itself. Bernadette didn’t see some of these familial parallels at the time when she was a child, considering “maybe I didn’t want to see” – “didn’t want to see a mother doing that to her daughter”.

It was coming back to the show as an adult that helped Bernadette resolve who her mother was and some of the motivations that had propelled her when Bernadette was still a child. She realised, “I think she thought she was going to die very young”, as her own father died young. So “she was rushing around to get as much of her life as she could in there”.

When she herself returned to the production in playing Rose, Bernadette conceded to sometimes bringing elements of her mother and her driven energy into her portrayal, and admitted too she looked “like her a lot in the role”. You can assess any familial resemblances for yourself, from the images below that show a young Marguerite next to Bernadette in costume as Rose, and then with the pair backstage in 1961 in a dressing room on the tour.

Marguerite was ambitious. From her own personal position and with the restrictions imposed upon her, it was ambition that materialised through her children. Irrevocably, she altered them. She placed Bernadette on TV as a very young child (“I was four when my mother put me in the business”); changed her daughter’s surname (“She told me my real name was too long for the marquees,” or really – “too Italian”); doctored her resumé (“Somehow the word ‘understudy’ vanished. ‘No one will know,’ said Marguerite”); and lightened her hair (“She’d say, ‘Oh, I’m just putting a little conditioner on it.’ But slowly my hair got blonder and blonder!”). All in the hope of giving her child a more favourable chance at the life she’d always wanted for herself.

On paper, a classic stage mother. “When I was a kid, she fulfilled herself through me,” Bernadette would say. “She put me into show business so she could get a taste of the life herself.”

But it’s important to consider Bernadette often qualifies that her mother wasn’t as brutal as Rose, nor was she herself as traumatised as June.

Bernadette didn’t begrudge her mother for her choices – at least by the time she was an adult, she’d rationalised them, explaining “naturally it was more exciting [for her] to go on the road with me than staying home and keeping house”.

As a child, Bernadette hadn’t necessarily wanted to be on stage, but there was a sense of ambivalence – not resentful belligerence – as she “didn’t care one way or the other” when she found herself there.

Like June, Bernadette may have been entered into and coaxed around a path she hadn’t voluntarily chosen. But unlike June, Bernadette had a deal with her mother that “she had only to say the word”, and she could leave.

Most crucially, she never did.

But that’s not to say Bernadette was enamoured with acting from the beginning.

She seemed to feel ‘outside’ of that world and those in it. And others saw it too.

It was in 1961 in Gypsy that Bernadette first met Marvin Laird – her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger. The way he put it, he “noticed this one young girl, very close with her mother” who, during breaks, “didn’t mix much with the other girls”.

Beneath the effervescent stage persona, there’s a quieter and more reserved reality, and a sense of separation and solitary division.

When asked by Jesse Green in 2003 for the extensive profile in The New York Times if she thought her experiences on the road in Gypsy were good for her at that age, she gives a curious, somewhat abstract, predominantly dark, potentially macabre, response. He wrote:

She doesn’t answer at first but seems to scan an image bank just behind her eyes for something to lock onto. Eventually she comes out with a seeming non sequitur. “I didn’t know how to swim. I remember, in Las Vegas, I fell in, once, and they thought I was flailing, but I felt like: ‘It’s pretty down here!’ I might have been dying and I was thinking: ‘Look at the pretty color!’ And suddenly my fear of water was gone, and I could have stayed in forever.” After a while, I realize she’s answered my question. Then she dismisses the image: “But I had to get my hair dry for the show that day, so up I came.”

I’m still not entirely sure I know what she’s trying to convey here. My interpretation of this anecdote changes as I have re-visited and re-examined it on multiple occasions at different time points. It’s arguably multiply polysemic.

Was she simply swept up in a moment of childlike distraction, lost in the temporary respite alone away from the usual noise and clamour? Was she indicating comprehension that her feelings and perspectives came secondary to any practical necessities and inevitable responsibilities? Was she using the water to depict a muffling and fishbowl-like detachment from others her age who got to live more ‘ordinary’ lives in the ‘normal’ world above that she felt separate from? Was she referencing the pretty colours she saw as a metaphor for show business and how she became bewitched by them even despite potential dangers? Was she trying to legitimately drown herself, or at least exhibiting an ambivalence again as to whether she lived or died, because of what the highly pressurised demands on her felt like?

The underlying sentiment through her response in answer to Green’s primary question was that, in essence – no. Being a child actor was not “over all, a good experience for a youngster”.

Acting might have been something she fell in love with over time, but not all at once, not right from the beginning, and not without noting its perils.

It was a matter of accidental circumstance that landed Bernadette in the show business world to begin with at such a young age in the first place – “I just found myself here,” she would offer.

Her mother, who was “always crazy about the stage”, “insisted” that her sister, Donna take lessons in singing, dancing and acting.

A further point of interest to note is that, although it was Bernadette with her new surname who would grow up to be the famous actress, look to the cast lists from the 1961 touring production of Gypsy that featured both sisters in the company (see photo below) and you’ll find no ‘Lazzara’ in sight. Donna too, appearing under the novel moniker of “Donna Forbes”, had also already become stagified (nay, ethnically neutralised?) by her mother. As such it is clearly demonstrated that Marguerite’s intention at that point was to make stars of both her daughters. Correspondingly so, when her sister returned from her performance lessons some years before, “Donna would come home and teach me what she had learned,” Bernadette remembered. She may have gotten her “training second hand”, but the key element was that she got it.

For Bernadette, it was a short jump from emulating magpied tricks from her sister as well as routines from Golden Age Busby Berkeley musicals on the ‘Million Dollar Movie’ in front of the TV screen, to her mother getting her on the other side of the screen and actually performing on TV itself – belting out Sophie Tucker impressions aged five for all the nation to see.

The photos below show Bernadette in performative situations at a young age (look for criss-crossed laces in the second for identification).

“At first, as a toddler, Bernadette enjoyed performing; it came naturally, a form of play that people inexplicably liked to watch.” It was “just a hobby” and she “wanted to do it”.

But while she may not have detested it, she didn’t entirely comprehend what was going on either. “I didn’t even know I was on TV,” she said. “I didn’t know that those big gadgets pointed at me were cameras and that they had anything to do with what people saw on the television set.”

When she started gaining more of an awareness of how “such play [was being] co-opted for commercial purposes”, she grew less enthralled. “She didn’t care for the bizarre children, accompanied by desperate mothers, she began to see at auditions: ‘They spent their whole time smiling for no reason, you know?’”

Being a child who had become sentient of being a child performer began to grow wearisome and grating to the young girl who had her equity card, a professional (and strange, new) stage name, and an increasingly long list of expectations by the time she was nine. There’s a keen sense she did not enjoy being in such a position: “I wouldn’t want to be a child again. When you’re a child, you have thoughts, but nobody listens to you. Nobody has any respect for you”.

Gypsy did indeed mark a turning point for Bernadette as mentioned above – but not just in the way that seems obvious. Looking back at it now, it does appear the monumental turning point at which she started appearing in significant and reputable productions, beginning what would be the foundation to her ‘professional’ career. However it was also the turning point after which she nearly quit the business altogether.

When she returned from performing in Gypsy, Bernadette felt like she’d had enough. One way of putting it was that she “then retired from the business to attend high school”, wanting to have some semblance of a normal scholastic experience “without the interruptions”. But whatever dissatisfaction she was feeling as an early adolescent on stage, she didn’t resolve at school – going as far as saying that while at Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, “she was in pain”.

“When you’re a teenager you’re too aware of yourself,” she recalled. Being a teen and trying to come to terms with of the expectation of the ‘60s that “you are supposed to look like Twiggy, and you don’t, you feel everything is wrong about you”. Everything “was all about tall, skinny, no chest…[and] hair straight”. Little Bernadette with her “mass of [curly] hair and distracting bosom”, as Alex Witchel put it, was never going to fit that mould. “That was not me,” she stated. “At all.”

Her self-consciousness grew to the point that it became overwhelming and asphyxiating. “I was trying desperately to blend in and be normal, but that doesn’t allow creativity to come out,” Bernadette said. “I knew I was acting terrible. The words were sticking in my mouth and all I could think about was how I looked”. It was hard enough just to look at herself (“I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror”), let alone to have other people gawk at her on stage. So she stopped trying. She “didn’t work much from age 13 to 17” in the slightest. Bernadette would later reflect in 1981 in an atypically open and vulnerable interview, “I was very insecure. Insecurity is poison. It’s like wearing chains”.

It was a combination of factors that helped her overcome these feelings of such toxic and weighty burden to draw her back into the public world of performing and the stage. “The two people who helped her most, she says, were David LeGrant, her first acting teacher, and her vocal coach, Jim Gregory.” Jim helped with “[opening] a whole creative world for [her] with singing”; and it was David who’d give her the now infamous and often (mis)quoted line about individuality and being yourself.

Having these kinds of lessons, she reasoned, was “really a wonderful emotional outlet for a kid of 17”. The process of it all was beneficial for her therapeutically – “you have a lot of emotions at that time in your life, and it was great to go to an acting class and use them up”. And Bernadette felt freer on stage than she did out on her own in the ‘real world’, saying “[up there] I don’t have to worry about what I’m doing or saying because I’m doing and saying what I’m supposed to be doing and saying”.

Finally then and with considerable bolstering and support, she grew comfortable with the notion of being visible on stage and in public, and realised she was never going to blend in as part of the chorus so it was simply better to let go of such a futile pursuit.

David LeGrant’s guiding advice to Bernadette (“You’ve got to be original, because if you’re like everyone else, what do they need you for?”) wasn’t just a trite aphorism. For her, it was a life raft. It was the key mental framing device that allowed her to comprehend for the first time that she might actually have intrinsic value as herself. And that it was imperative she let herself use it.

She had always stuck out, yes, but she had to learn how to want to be seen – talking of it as a conscious “choice” she had to make when realising she did “have something to offer”.

Thus soon after Bernadette graduated, she stepped back into productions like in summer stock and then Off-Broadway as she made her debut at that next theatrical level at 18. It wasn’t long before she was discovered in what’s seen as her big break in the unexpected smash hit, Dames at Sea. And so Bernadette Peters, the actress, was back. And she was back with impact and force.

Besides, as she’s also said, she couldn’t do anything else – “if I ever had to do something else to earn a living, I’d be at a total loss”. An aptitude test as a teenager told her so apparently, when she “got minus zero in everything except Theater Arts”. So that was that. Her answer for what she would’ve done if she’d never found acting is both paradoxically exultant and macabre – “I don’t know, probably shot myself!”

Flippant? Maybe. Trivial? No.

Acting is thus undoubtedly related highly to Bernadette’s sense of purpose and self-worth. This is what makes it even more apparent that a show with such personal and historical connections for her, as in Gypsy, was going to be so consequential and impactful to be a part of again as an adult and perform on a public stage.

She’s called inhabiting the role of Rose in the 2003 revival many things: “deeply personal”, “life changing”, “like going through therapy” – to name a few.

In interviews regarding Gypsy and playing the main character, when asked what she had learnt, Bernadette would frequently say something like, “It taught me a lot”. Pressed further about specifics, her answers often hem close to vague platitudes as she maintains her normal tendency of endeavouring to keep her privacy close to her chest.

On one occasion, she actually elaborated somewhat on what she’d learnt, giving a fuller answer than the question is normally afforded anyhow. Beyond all it revealed to her about her mother, she extended to admitting “my capacity for love and my capacity for anger” as aspects in her that the show had permanently altered. Moreover, Rose to her was undoubtedly the “most rewarding and fulfilling acting experience” she had ever had.

But while such deep, personal and emotional depths and memories were being stirred up beneath the surface in private, she was getting vilified in public singularly and repeatedly by New York Post columnist, Michael Riedel.

Even before she’d set foot on stage, Riedel set forth in motion early in the 2003 season a campaign of vocal and opinionated defamation against Bernadette as Rose that she was miscast, insufficiently talented, and would be incapable of executing the role.

Too small, too delicate, too weak, too many curves (and too much knowledge of how to use them). Not bold enough, not loud enough – not Merman enough. Chatter and speculative dissent begun to grow in and around the Broadway theatres.

For such a prestigious and historic musical theatre role, it was always going to be hard to erase the large shadow of an original Merman mould. Ethel was woven into the very fabric of the show, with the rights to Gypsy Rose Lee’s memoirs being obtained at her behest in the first place, and the idiosyncrasies of her voice having been written into the songs themselves by their very authors.

To step out from such a domineering legacy would be a marked challenge at the best of times. Let alone when battling a respiratory infection.

Matters of public perception were certainly not helped when Bernadette then got ill as the show started its preview period and she started missing early performances.

Nor did it help with critical perception that the Tony voting period coincided so synchronously with Gypsy’s first opening months – giving Bernadette no time to recover, find her feet, and settle more healthily into the show for the rest of the run before the all important decisions were made by that omnipotent committee.

The tale of her illness is actually undercut by a more innocent and unsuspecting origin than you’d expect from all the drama and trouble it engendered. Bernadette decided nearing the show’s opening to treat herself to a manicure. In the salon, she was next to a woman very close to her with a frightful sounding cough. Who could’ve known then that this anonymous and inconspicuous lady through a fateful cause-and-event chain would go on to play such a part in what is among the biggest and most enduring Tony Awards “She was robbed!” discourses? Or even more broadly – in also arguably playing a hand in the closure and financial failure of an $8.5 million Broadway show after its disappointing performance at the Tony Awards that ominously “[spelled] trouble at the box office” and led to its premature demise?

Bernadette did not win the Best Actress in a Musical Tony that night on June 6th 2004. The award went instead (not un-controversially) to newcomer Marissa Jaret Winokur for Hairspray.

She did however give one of the most indelibly resonant and frequently re-referenced solo performances at the awards show just before she lost – defying detractors to comprehend how she could be unworthy of the accolade with a rendition of ‘Rose’s Turn’ that has apocryphally earned one of the longest standing ovations seen after such a performance even to date.

Even further and even more apocryphally, she reportedly did so while still under the weather as legend as circulated by musical theatre fans goes – performing “against doctor’s orders” with stories that have her being “afflicted with anything from a 103-degree fever, to pneumonia, to a collapsed lung”.

Seeing then as unfortunately there is no Tony Award speech to draw on here, matter shall be retrieved fittingly from that which she gave just a few years earlier in 1999 for her first win and previous Ethel Merman role in Annie Get Your Gun to wrap all of this together.

As has been illustrated, there are many arguably scary or alarming aspects in Bernadette’s Gypsy narrative. There’s undeniably much darkness and an ardent clamouring for meaning and self-realisation along the road that tracks her journey parallel to the show. But unlike Rose’s hopeless decries of “Why did I do it?” and “What did it get me?”, there was a point for Bernadette.

As her emotional tribute in 1999 went: “I want to thank my mother, who 48 years ago put me in showbusiness. And I want to finally, officially, say to her – thank you. For giving me this wonderful experience and this journey.”

Whatever all of this was, maybe it was worth it after all.

[magnusmysteries]

Part 4: The Sixteenth Fear

The Magnus Archives was a horror podcast. It is now completed. Many of the show’s mysteries were never explained on the show. I intend to explain them. Spoilers for the show, but also spoilers if you wanna solve these mysteries yourself.

In part 3 I said every fear has an opposite. But the Flesh didn’t exist before the industrial revolution. So there would have been 13 fears then, an uneven number, and not every fear could balance against an opposite. So how could that be?

The answer is, there were only 12 fears before the Flesh. The Corruption and the Desolation used to be the same fear. 

Diego Molina of the Lightless Flame cult worships Asag. A Sumerian god of disease that could make fish boil. So Asag seems to be of both the Corruption and the Desolation.

In Infectious Doubts Arthur Nolan complains about it: “Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is. Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls the Lightless Flame Asag, like he was when he was first researching it. I just really wanna tell him to get over it; I mean Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church we very much settled on burning in terms of the – face we worship, and some fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesn’t really match up, does it? Plus there’s a lot of disease imagery with Asag that I’ll reckon is way too close to Filth for my taste, but no, he read it in some ancient tome, so that’s that –“

Ancient is the key word. The tome predates the industrial revolution and the Flesh. Asag probably isn’t a thing anymore and Diego is indeed a prat for worshipping it.

In The Architecture of Fear Smirke writes “I know you say the Flesh was perhaps always there, shriveled and nascent until its recent growth, but to grant the existence of such a lesser power would throw everything into confusion. Would you have me separate the Corruption into insects, dirt, and disease? To divide the fungal bloom from the maggot?”

It is not random that Smirke uses the Corruption as an example here. The Corruption is the opposite of the Flesh, so the Corruption is the fear that Smirke believed had no opposite for hundreds or thousands of years.

In part 3 I said vampires where Corruption/Desolation/Hunt. This is a little far-fetched, but I wonder if the vampire’s we’ve seen have been old ones that predate the Flesh. And that’s why they are part Corruption, since Corruption and Hunt used to be next to each other. Maybe there are more modern vampires without the long sucking tongue. Maybe instead of sucking blood, when they bite you begin to burn or boil. Since the Hunt is now next to the Desolation instead of the Corruption-Desolation combo.

In Vampire Killer Trevor says “I have killed five people that I know for sure as vampires, and there are two more that may or may not have been.” There is a missing middle part of Trevor’s statement. Maybe there he talks about killing two vampires that are modern and therefore different so he’s not sure if they’re actually vampires.

Speaking of fears splitting up, why is the Darkness the opposite fear of the Slaughter? In Last Words we hear of the first fear “A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing.” 

And of the second fear “The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself.”

I think the first was a general fear of violence. It includes what became the Hunt “Blood and pounding Feet...” and the Slaughter “...Sudden burst of pain and then nothing”, and the End “The fear of their own end…” And the second fear was the Darkness. They were the opposite by default, simply for being the two first fears.

When the Buried became a fear, the Hunt split up from the Violence to oppose it. When the Vast became a fear, the End split up from the Violence to oppose it. All that was left of the Violence was Slaughter, still opposing the Dark. When humans began warfare, fear of war fit nicely with the Slaughter.

The Eye might have been part of the Dark at first. Still from Last Words: “...because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes…” 

When the Lonely became a fear, the Eye split up from the Dark to oppose it.

So what about the Extinction? Does it have an opposite? Yes! There is a sixteenth fear. And what can be the opposite of the fear of the end of the world? The fear that the world isn’t real. That we’re all just living in a computer simulation. If you think the world isn’t even real, you’re not gonna be so worried about it ending. I’ll call it the Simulation.

Here is how the fears are arranged on the wheel, with the two latest fears added:

Description of image: A circle with 16 spots similar to a clock. On each spot is a number and the name of a power: 1. Corruption. 2 Extinction. 3. Desolation. 4. Hunt. 5. Slaughter. 6. End. 7. Lonely. 8. Stranger. 9. Flesh. 10. Simulation 11. Spiral. 12. Buried. 13. Dark. 14. Vast. 15. Eye. 16. Web.

The Extinction is next to the Corruption. Disease and garbage are both gross. Possessive is an Extinction episode, even if not acknowledged as such by any of the characters. It’s about garbage. And Maggie is creating people out of garbage. She is making the inheritors mentioned in Time of Revelation. There are also creatures made of garbage in Concrete Jungle. And Maggie was full of moving insect legs, showing Corruption influence.

Quote from Adelard Dekker from Rotten Core: “I’ve spoken before about how keenly I’ve watched news of possible pandemics, which is where I suspect the Extinction may pull away from the Corruption during its emergence.” Adelard knows the Extinction is next to Corruption.

The Extinction is next to Desolation. That fits, nuclear weapons cause fire. Quote from Times of Revelation, describing corpses: “They were stiff, and desiccated, mummified by some process Bernadette could not begin to guess at, but that rendered their flesh like tightly packed ash” Ash as if they were burned.

The Simulation is next to the Flesh. The Flesh makes you think humans aren’t people, they are just meat. The Simulation makes you think humans aren’t people, they are just NPCs.

The Simulation is the next to the Spiral. Both make you question what is real. The Spiral makes you doubt your mind, the Simulation makes you doubt your world.

There are four episodes about the Simulation: Binary, Zombie, Cul-de-sac and Reflection.

In Binary Sergey Ushanka uploads his mind into a computer. He becomes a simulation and it hurts. There is influence by the Spiral, the statement giver isn’t sure if she’s going crazy. And there is influence by the Flesh. Ushanka uploads himself into a computer and then he eats the computer. So that’s cannibalism.

In Zombie the statement giver thinks other people aren’t real, they’re philosophical zombies, In other words they like simulations or NPCs. The man that follows her repeats the phrase “Just fine, thank you for asking” and says nothing else. Just like some NPCs in video games will say the same phrase over and over. The man is identical the three times they meet, except for his t-shirt changes color. Sometimes in video games some NPCs will be identical, except for some colors are changed. (Because it’s less work to recollar a character than to draw one from scratch.)

John thinks Cul-De-Sac is about the Lonely. And yes, the statement giver was lonely. But the people affected by the Lonely choose to be lonely, and the statement giver didn’t. His boyfriend broke up with him because of cheating and then he lost his friends because they sided with his boyfriend. 

I think the theme of the statement is unreality, not loneliness. In the Magnus Archives, when someone gets marked by a power it is because they made some wrong choice. The choice the statement giver makes is to return to the place he found dead and soulless. He drives back to his ex-boyfriend to deliver the moose, rather than send it by mail. He specifically wants to meet his ex. Not an act of loneliness, quite the opposite. Also he is returning a moose that is angular and creepy, in other words it is unreal.

When the statement escapes from the nightmare it’s because he got a phone call from his ex. And he says “I love you.” and that fits neatly with the Lonely. But it also fits with escape from the unreal. He escapes because he communicates with a real person.

The road signs says “Road” and “Street”. Generic and unreal. All the houses look the same. Like in a computer game. The statement giver wonders if they are the same house. Like in a computer game where one might reuse the code for a house many times.

The house he enters has stock photos. Unreal.

The people on TV have something wrong with their eyes, similar to the eyes of the zombies in Zombie. And it's a fake cooking show, and a fake infomercial.

The dead woman upstairs was someone who had social media profiles, and that nobody notices had died. Meaning she lived her life online. That sounds like she was lonely. But living online also makes her a good victim for the Simulation. Everyone she talked to was on a computer, she couldn’t know for sure if they were real.

The woman had killed herself with a mirror. I think what happened was she had looked into the mirror and seen that her eyes were wrong, like the eyes of the people on TV. And she had thought she was just a simulation, like everything around her. And therefore she killed herself. Or perhaps she wasn’t reflected in the mirror at all? Like in…

Reflection. Adelard speculated that this statement was about the Extinction, but I don’t think so. The protagonist was in a world that seemed unreal. A fun fair is artificial so that fits the theme. The people were playing games, which fits the theme via computer games maybe.

Adelard says “I can’t quite get past the detail that there was no reflection at all in the mirror he used to return.” It is almost at the end of Adelard’s letter, it’s clearly meant to be significant. The no reflection might be symbolic for the statement giver starting to think he isn’t real, which might be what happened to him after he gave the statement.

Reflection has influence by the Spiral, with the maze of mirrors. There is influence by the Flesh, with the cannibalism.

[keywest-princess]

Ok so this is a project I've been working on for awhile now, about 6 years but I finally did it. I finished making my outsiders oc.

This will just be just a little guide to her. I'll probably edit and update this in the future if need be. But for now enjoy!

Also shout out to @littledickenergy-wow for helping me with her background!

Also tw for sex work

@bigboyliam

(Ps the line art is a little funky because I couldn't find the pen I normally use so I had to make due, just don't look at her for too long)

Name: Bernadette Schuyler.

Nickname: Birdie or 'Dear Girl'

Birthday: October 6, 1945

Age: 20 years old.

Occupation: college student

Sign: Libra

Appearance: Bernadette is a tall, curvy woman with long hair usually worn up in a ponytail with angled eyebrows and green eyes. She wears a dark sleeveless dress with light colored boots paired with a simple belt.

When she was younger in high school, Bernadette's hair was short and fluffy, worn usually with a ribbon or other hair accessories.

Personality: Bernadette is a naturally very kind, talkative and endlessly curious girl who shows great interest in people's unique physical features and is easily distracted by them. Due to this, Bernadette can be very blunt, often asking rather invasive or off-puttig questions.

Bernadette is an affectionate person and a "free spirit," Someone who has a genuine passion for learning new and strange things and isn't afraid to speak her mind or show how she feels. She seems to like knowing more than others, but not in a proud way, as she just enjoys explaining things to people and sharing her knowledge. She is mentioned to act like a kindergartener due to her childish glee.

She is very enthusiastic, affable, and cheery, and is always seen moving. She shows her compassionate side with her friends by making food for them or buying them something she saw them eyeing recently. However, she has shown a more stotic nature during various situations. Thanks to her inquisitive and chatty demeanor, she is a notably level-headed individual, though she comes off as an "airhead" most of the time.

Despite her happy-go-lucky personality, Bernadette is fierce in a fight. When the situation calls for it, Bernadette can be very calm and focused. Her curiosity never seems to extend to whoever she is fighting and she can always maintain her focus on taking then out.

During a rumble one time in high school, Bernadette showed great judgement, aptitude and anger, a side which she does not display often. Her strong heart is what has allowed her to climb the ranks of her status amongst her peers.

Backstory: Bernadette is a descendant of Philip Schuyler, an American general in the Revolutionary War and a US Senator. She was born in Albany, New York but moved to Tulsa when she was 14 when her parents divorced. In high school she became close friends with Darry and later joined the cheerleading squad her freshman year. She became well acquainted with the Curtis family, often coming over after school to do homework with Darry or hang out with him while he watched his brothers while their parents were out together.

Despite being close friends in high school, Darry and Bernadette fell out of touch after graduation when she left to attend college in Virginia. Only a few years later learning about the unfortunate passing of his parents, Bernadette and Darry began to exchange letters about what will happen to Pony and Soda. She expresses her concerns for all three of them and tells Darry that she can come home to help him in any way- either financially or emotionally, to which of course he refuses.

Even so, Bernadette makes the decision to leave college and come back home to Tulsa, saying that the brothers situation at hand was more important than her studies would ever be. After dropping out and moving back in with her mother, Bernadette was able to get a job as a sex worker to help support Darry financially whenever he needed it. He expressed his disgust at Bernadette's work, saying that she should've stayed in Virginia, and that she was too good for this type of work, but knows that she wouldn't be stopping anytime soon.

Likes: Pomegranates, lilies, guns, baking, true crime, and early mornings.

Dislikes: sheer fabric (doesn't like how it feels), spiders, cramped or small spaces, cops, scary movies, and dogs (she's actually just scared if them).

Fun facts about her:

She's considered the best long range shot in Tulsa

She can write short hand

She collects weird things like keychains

She gets motion sickness easily, this is why she prefers walking to driving

Although she's a good fighter, she tends to stay out of rumbles and such because it can interfere with her work

[independentartistbuzz]

Indie 5-0 with Jeremy Dion

Denver, CO-based folk singer/songwriter, Jeremy Dion, has recently released his album, Sharpe and Dion. With inspiration form artists like Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, and John Denver, Jeremy has cultivated his own musical style that he coins as “Mile High Americana.” This acoustic rock meets contemporary folk sound is met with his deep and honest lyrics based on his personal life experiences. 

We got the chance to talk with Jeremy Dion and talk about his new album in this edition of Indie-5. So, without further ado, let’s get started:

What is your favorite song on Sharpe & Dion, and why?

This may seem like an easy question to kick off this interview, but I must confess that I agonized over my response for way too long. There are only seven tracks on this new album, but I feel attached to each of them in their own way, and I love every song for different reasons. But when pressed further, I think “Bernadette” is my favorite track on the album, for a few reasons. First, it’s a real-life love song about two dear friends of mine, whose names have been changed, but whose love for each other infuses the song with an up-beat, catchy little happy tune that’s all about love and affection. A second reason that “Bernadette” is my favorite is that it’s also the most recently written track on the album, so it feels the most fresh. Lastly, we had such an enjoyable time making the music video for this song, featuring the real-life “Bernadette” and “Juliet” in their Colorado home and backyard garden, that it all adds up to good vibes for this track. The video hasn’t been released yet, but stay tuned.

What was your writing process like? What was the easiest song and what was the hardest?

My songwriting process is a little bit different each time, but does have a few common denominators. First and foremost - Music first. I don’t really start to get lyrical ideas until I have the basic musical structure - the key, the tempo, and a few of the chord changes. Once I have those down, then I start to hear a sense of how I want the phrasing to go, how I hear the rhythm of the words, and even sometimes which vowel sounds might work best. All of that starts to take shape in my head (usually while my guitar is in hand, noodling through various ideas) before I have any clear sense of what the song wants to be about. I’m mostly listening at this stage. Listening for words, syllables, phrases, sometimes I sing nonsense words for a while to play with different ways of phrasing the lyrics. Sometimes it seems as if the song is already written, but I’ve forgotten it, and I have to work through this process to rediscover it, and hear it again. It’s a wild process, and one that I have come to trust implicitly. Once I have gotten to this point in the discovery, I usually take a break, put down the guitar, go for a walk, meditate, or just do something else for awhile. I’ve learned that there is some other unconscious part of me that “works” on these songs when I’m not consciously aware of it, and starts to put together the finished product from the various ingredients I was discovering beforehand. It’s wild, I tell ya. Lyrically, the first words that poke all the way through to my conscious mind are usually found in the chorus, which gives me my first real sense of what the song will be about. It’s somewhat akin to opening a book to a middle page, reading a bit, then re-writing that same book up until that middle point so that it all makes coherent sense, and says what you want it to say. I have experimented with different approaches to writing songs, but so far, this is the one I like the most, and has paid the biggest dividends.

The easiest song on the album to write was “Golden Some Day,” which basically wrote itself. The original version of the song became the title track for my second album in 2012, and was the result of a songwriting exercise my producer gave me as we were in the midst of recording that album. It was the first time producer Jamie Mefford (Gregory Alan Isakov, Nathaniel Rateliff) and I had worked together, and after noticing how active my picking action tends to be, he tasked me with writing a song where I could only strum using my thumb. At first I hated his idea, but as soon as I took on the assignment, the song “Golden Some Day” just came through effortlessly. I was going through a divorce at the time, so the emotional content was ripe, and Jamie’s scaled-down prompt was all I needed to help it flow through.

The most difficult song on this album to write was “Last Time To Question,” and truth be told, I strongly considered leaving this track off the album entirely, but I’m glad I included it. This is another breakup song, although it’s got a catchy and rather up-beat chorus that might make the listener think otherwise. The song itself was the most challenging to write because the subject matter was so heavily laden for me. This heartbreak was my first post-divorce love, and it left me pretty emotionally trashed for awhile. But hey, I got this song to show for it, so…

Has your career as a therapist influenced your career in music and vice versa?

My nearly twenty years of working as a therapist has certainly informed my songwriting, in ways both direct and subtle. I have written and recorded at least one song about a particular client, although that concrete example is a bit of an anomaly. More commonly, I find myself pondering the deeper issues that a client is presenting, and how they might relate to my own life when I’m crafting lyrical content. Sometimes a client will say a word in a particular way that triggers a creative thought in me, other times they remind me of some delicate aspect of being human that touches my heart, and I find ways to weave those nuggets into some verses. On more than one occasion, I have started off thinking I was writing a song about a particular client or their particular issue, only to later discover it was about me and my relationship to that issue that was really needing some airtime. So the short answer is yes, being a therapist absolutely informs my songwriting. And does it work the other way too? Interestingly, yes. When I was a fairly new therapist, and also recording my first album and launching dreams of rock-stardom, I was green with envy at all the other musicians I was meeting who were “making a living” with their music. I put that in quotations on purpose, because as I was in my early thirties at the time, married and with an infant at home, and the idea of couch-surfing my way through a ten-city tour was not the type of living I was looking to make with my music. But still, I envied these musicians who were out there really doing it. But then a funny thing happened. The more musicians I met, the more music conferences I attended, the tide started to turn. And the more I shared my story with these struggling musicians, the more envious they became of my unique situation. “You mean you get paid well in private practice, working with kids, you can come and go as you please, and you are your own boss?” they asked. “And you can fit music in wherever you like, but you aren’t depending upon it to pay your bills?” And I started to shift my perspective into how fortunate I was to be exactly where I was, doing what I was doing, with now the added bonus of weaving in the singer-songwriter existence? What could be better?! From what I can gather so far, the therapist-songwriter combo is the perfect fit for my skill-set, my passion, and my joy.

What drew you to create music? Why now?

According to my mother, I came into the world singing, and I haven’t really stopped. Music was my first love, in all its forms. My parents loved music, so it has simply been woven into the fabric of my being that I love to sing, dance, play instruments, listen to music, attend concerts and festivals, participate in songwriting circles, you name it, I’m in! I even wrote a book entitled, “The Art of Mindful Singing,” which was published through Leaping Hare Press in 2017. We humans are all here to create, though some of us seem to embrace that opportunity more wholeheartedly and intentionally than others. I plan on writing and recording music for as many years as my faculties will allow, and maybe even beyond that. I get so much fulfillment from the entire process - from writing, singing, and playing the guitar, to the entire recording studio experience, and finally to releasing and sharing the finished product. I am still learning a lot about each aspect of that process, and it continues to be exciting for me. I definitely feel like my best songs are still yet-to-be-written, and I look forward to listening well enough to coax them into being. I dearly love how this has all unfolded thus far, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

What was your biggest inspiration for Sharpe & Dion?

In the summer of 2020, I played a series of duo shows with my longtime friend and playing partner, Peter Sharpe (The Railsplitters). Peter and I met twenty years ago in graduate school as we were becoming therapists, and have played music off and on ever since. Not only has Peter become an exceptional friend in that time, but his musical sensibilities are exquisite, and I’ve never fallen into musical sync with greater ease with another human. I simply love playing and singing with Peter, and we definitely bring out the best in each other. During the series of shows at a special outdoor venue in Boulder, I was enthralled with the music we were making, and with one song in particular - “Golden Some Day.” Prior to these shows, it had been a stretch since Peter and I had played together, and in that time he procured a beautiful antique tenor guitar, which he now played on “Golden Some Day”. The tonal quality of that instrument, coupled with Peter’s musical ear and tender heart left me awestruck. Hearing it once, I was blown away. When we played the same gig a few weeks later and I heard it again, the decision was made for me: It was time to record my next album, and it was only going to feature the two of us musicians. That was one of the simplest and best decisions I have ever made, and for me, Peter’s minute-long instrumental solo on “Golden Some Day (Acoustic)” is the most beautiful section of the record. I am very proud of the Sharpe & Dion album, and I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it.

You can listen to Sharpe and Dion here: https://open.spotify.com/album/7M9XIJa4pMRXez1aprMyuh

You can find Jeremy Dion via: Website Instagram Facebook Twitter Soundcloud Spotify

[weshallc]

Happy St. Andrew’s Day. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading Bonfire Night! I haven’t put it on the usual fic sites as I knew I would mess about, and Tumblr folk are a patient bunch. I am going to rejig it so it stretches from Bonfire Night to Christmas (probably New Year at this rate) looking back over 2020.

Thank you for the lovely comments and support from @h4t08 @fourteen-teacups @thatginchygal  @bbcshipper @roguesnitch @lovetheturners and new regular @aimee-jessica and @olafur-neal

I really don’t know what I have been doing with my time apart from washing my hands, measuring distances of 2 metres, sewing masks, swearing at the news, collecting Scotch egg and pasty recipes and building a pantry to hoard all my Brexshit preparation supplies.

Enough about me, so as it’s St. Andrew’s Day I thought I might give this another spin. 

BERNS NIGHT (Revisited, just for fun)

Call the Midwife AU (Crown Jewels/Paddy and Bernie/Poplar-on-Tweaven)

CHAPTER ONE: FAIR FA’ YOUR HONEST, SONSIE FACE

“Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm : Weel are ye wordy o'a grace As lang's my arm.”  Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns 1786.

“Will You Reconize me? Call My Name or Walk On By.” Don’t You (Forget About Me). Simple Minds 1985.

Monday 25th January 2016

“His knife see rustic Labour dight, An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like ony ditch; And then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin', rich!”

The room was swept in darkness apart from the light of the wolf moon and the north star penetrating the cold window panes. All eyes were facing towards a wooden table and the elderly man stood behind it. He was in his 60s and wiry, small for a man, but with a silver mess of what once must have been a bonnie head of fire red hair. The body may have looked weak, but the intensity in his bright blue eyes cut through the dimly lit surroundings.

As he spoke again, his voice filled the room, cutting through the anticipating silence. It was a voice that could take a knife and slice right through a soul. The knife in his hand in turn sliced through the offering in front of its high priest. Years of performing the same action with such a passion resulted in precision. The faithful entranced by the spectacle all gasped as one as the incision was violently made. No one daring to speak. Suddenly the trance was lost as artificial light rudely brought everyone back to the present with a blast of the pipes.

“All done then, Reverend Mannion? Can I serve the Haggis now? Don’t want it getting cold now, do we, not at £15 a head.”

“Aye, Violet, the ceremony is over. It’s time for eating and drinking, something the bard would have approved of, rightly so.”

The kilted clergyman winked at an auburn-haired girl in the crowd and tipped his whisky tumbler toward her. She raised her own glass and winked back. Her companion at her table was much taller with dark hair styled in a tidy no-nonsense bob.

The tall one leaned toward the small one and asked, “If it’s already dead, why does he have to kill it?”

“What?”

“The Haggis if it’s already dead, why does he have to kill it?”

Her friend opened her mouth to speak, but she saw a tender hand take hold of Chummy’s arm and explain it was all just ceremony, it was tradition.

“Like all that malarkey at our passing out parade, the day we got our badge. That wasn’t about police work, was it? It’s just tradition.  It’s what the English do well.”

He had been doing really well up until then, but a golden raised eyebrow made him alter his stance. “It is what us Brits do best.”

The raised eyebrow whispered to the police constable. ”Peter, Chummy really doesn’t think a haggis is a real animal, does she?”

He was not the sort of man that would turn heads, but he had a kindness in his eyes and an openness in his face she thought some would see as attractive. If only Camilla wasn’t his superior, and they didn’t work such long hours together, what might have been?

She knew her friend well and sensed more queries would follow. Not sure as a Scot brought up on Tweavenside and now living in London she could provide satisfying answers. Picking up their empty glasses and heading to the bar was a strange sort of refuge for a vicar's daughter and inner-city missionary.

There was a queue, well sort of a queue. In London a queue was made up of people standing in an orderly line and the person who had been stood the longest getting served first. In Poplar-on-Tweaven it resembled more of a rugby scrum and the person who shouted the loudest being ignored, Anyone who called the barmaid by name was bunked up the order. She wasn’t familiar with busy bars, but she was bright enough to work out the system.

“Val, when yer ready hen.” The request came from someone not sure that was their own voice they had just heard yelling those words.

All her life she had been immersed in the wonders of the Bible and was still amazed at how so many miracles had been performed. She had heard all the CPR arguments regarding resurrections and all that, and was still not convinced. But, she now knew how Moses had parted the Red Sea, he had known the barmaid’s name was Valerie.

“What can I get you, chick?”

“Here! I was first.” A grumpy voice struck up.

“Oh Al, you are always first. Let me serve this lass and then I will sort you out”

“Promises, promises.”

“Yeah in your dreams, pal.”

She was starting to feel uncomfortable she hadn’t meant to jump the queue. Maybe she should go back to the table and let Peter get the drinks. A man’s voice interrupted her thoughts, it was quieter than Al’s but held an authority. It wasn’t a Tweavenside accent, but it had a northern softness.

“You serve our impatient friend Valerie, I will see to this young lady.” Then turning to his new customer, “What can I get you, pet”

“Erm a whisky and lemonade and erm a pint, please.”

“Which whisky and a pint of?”

She wasn’t sure; she nudged her bottom onto a vacant stool for security.

“Are you with the law?” The tall bartender nodded towards Chummy and Peter,

“Yes, yes, I am.”

“OK, so that’s a Grouse and diet lemonade, just a dash and a pint of Buckles Best and for you?”

He stepped back a minute. “Your Reverend Wilf’s daughter?”

“Yes, I am.” Bernie suddenly felt more sure of herself. She was never completely certain of who she was when back in Poplar.

“Bernadette?” The stranger was grinning now, his brown eyes glinting under the harsh bar spotlights, or were they green?

“Well, that’s my Sunday name most people call me Bernie, even Dad.”

“Well, since I’ve never seen you in here on a Sunday or any other day. I will call you Bernie. I am Patrick Turner, most people call me Paddy, a few Doc.”

“Oh no, you won’t have seen me here on a Sunday or any other day. I live in London now and before that, well, I am not a big drinker.”

“What can I get you then?” asked Paddy loitering near the coke and lemonade pumps.

“A gin and tonic please, better make it a double it’s quite busy, save me coming back.”

Paddy smiled. “Premium gin?”

“Yes.”

While the optic was emptying into the glass, he asked, “You must have known this old place when Evie ran it?”

“Yes, I know Evie and J..Jenny”

“Oh yes. Jen was here when the wife and I took over she was a great help. We get a text every now and again, doing well for herself now, all loved up.” He winked at her as he ended the sentence, causing her to panic slightly.

“I was sorry to hear about your loss.” She wished she hadn’t said it.

Val had seemed to deal with ten customers to Paddy’s one, and now there was just the two of them alone at the bar. He looked at her in a sort of a non-direct, sort of direct way. Under that infuriating fringe she wanted to reach out and push back.

“Loss is as much a part of love as is healing,” he replied with a hint of melancholy, but without irony.

She was stunned and tried to find a corresponding Bible verse, but she drew a blank.

She focused on what was real and what was present. Her dad had taught her to do that. What was in front of her at this precise moment was a glass of gin and ice and a twist of lime. He was now unscrewing a bottle of Mediterranean slimline tonic.

She yelped, “No!” as he lay the bottle alongside the glass.

“Sorry most people add the tonic to the gin and I cannae bear it drowned.”

“Wouldn't dream of it, surely that would be very presumptuous of me.”

“Aye well, most people I've met are very presumptuous.”

“Maybe you have spent too much time in London. if you don't mind me saying, Bernie.”

“Well, to be fair, we don’t spend a lot of time sitting on stools and propping up bars in my part of London.”

“More's the pity.”

“Can I bother you for a...”

Paddy popped a black straw into her tumbler.

“I will make sure when you come home next time none of my staff will be presumptuous.”

“Oh, I doubt you will remember me, Paddy. I only come up to see my Da. I can't imagine you will be seeing much of me in the future, hardly likely that I would ever be considered a regular.”

“Now who is being presumptuous?”

Bernie went to put the straw between her lips but paused, realizing the stranger was still watching her. She suddenly felt uncomfortable. As heat rose in her cheeks. She suddenly felt awkward on the stool, squirming to find some sort of comfortable position. The stranger smiled in a way she could not understand; it wasn’t smug or suggestive, but as if there were sharing a joke, but she wasn’t sure what the joke was.

She hopped off her seat, for a brief moment realizing her arse was in the air and prayed he had altered his gaze. Focusing anywhere but behind the bar, she grabbed her glass and bottle in one hand, put the whisky against her elbow and waist, the pint in her other hand, turned and swiftly moved toward her thirsty friends.

Shelagh Bernadette Mannion don’t you dare look back and see if he is watching you he is recently widowed with a son, Da said. He is, what do they call them now, a bloomer or something like that. God has shown you his path for you and it certainly does not include the Crown Inn, Poplar-on-Tweaven.

He is still watching me, I can feel it.

[allthethingamabobs]

family sticks together, bruh

Notes: I was re-watching the Bay-verse movies and suddenly got irritated at the no last name thing at the end of the second one. April O'Neil was right there. Their ride-or-die, their badass older sister, their hogosha. So here's my first contribution to the TMNT fandom. I literally wrote this in half a day, so if you see any writing errors all I gotta say is...my bad. Enjoy the found family fluff!

Rating: G

Also on AO3.

April figured it all started with a package hastily stuffed in her mailbox. It was barely small enough to fit, wrapped in that tough paper-cardboard material, and took a few careful pulls to get out. She couldn’t recall ordering anything recently, so the least she could do was try not to destroy what was most likely her neighbor’s mail. But when she flipped it over for the addressee, she was surprised to see “Mikey O’Neil” on it.

April and her “childhood pets” had been reunited four months back now, and it continued to throw her life upside down. A happy upside down, though. Those two names together were doing a number on the loner habits she’d built up since her father’s death. Apparently, all it took was four mutant teenagers and their father to start breaking down those walls.

She snapped a photo of the package and sent it to Mikey as she walked up to her apartment. Her phone lit up with a video chat request seconds later. The boys were just like any other teens when there weren’t bad guys to fight—they loved texting (on their one-of-a-kind turtle phones), sending her snaps, and video chatting whenever they could. April supposed that 15 years alone in a sewer could make one a little starved for new attention, and she was always happy to talk.

One of Mikey’s eyes filled the screen first, and then his grinning face when he pulled back. “You got it!” he hollered.

There was a thump from somewhere behind him, and Leo yelled something about peace and quiet when meditating. Then all she could see was a blurry carapace as Mikey quickly escaped to some other part of the lair. “You got it!” he cheered again, down to a whisper-yell.

“Sure did,” she answered with a smile, while making sure her apartment door locked behind her. “A little heads up would be nice, though. People do steal packages.”

“Man, that would’ve been no bueno. It has my name on it and everything.”

She shrugged—it was New York, what could she say. “About that… Mikey O’Neil, huh?”

He brightened. “Yeah! Makes sense, right? You’ve always been family even if we got separated for like, way too long, and who wouldn’t want to be a badass O’Neil?”

“Hm.” Her smile was fond even as she bit her lip to keep herself from doing something dramatic like tearing up. “You make some excellent points.”

Mikey nodded, seemingly proud of his reasoning. “You get me, April. So when are you gonna come hang out?”

“Not until tomorrow at least.” She set the phone on the counter as she turned to mess with the oven dials. “I’ve got to eat, and then a grimy bathroom and donation boxes are calling my name.”

Two weeks ago, a great aunt she hadn’t talked to since her father’s funeral had passed away and apparently left her succession rights to a New York miracle: a rent-controlled apartment above a quiet antique store. It was a dated unit and still smelled a bit like old people, but she was making it work.

A whine came from her phone. “Aw, shell… Oh, hey! We could help! Four mutants and a human are better than one!”

“That’s sweet, Mikey, but I’ve got this.” Plus, she was starting to pick up the brother’s dynamics. That visit would devolve into complete chaos in no time, given the cluttered mess. There were a lot of breakable objects she was still in the process of either packing up or donating.

“Your loss, Ape. Guess we’ll see you tomorrow.” He got up close to the camera again and whispered dramatically, “You’ll bring the package, right?”

She snorted and leaned over so he could see her face. “Pinky swear.”

“I don’t have a pinky, so I’ll have to believe you. Bye, April!”

The screen went blank, and April had a glimpse of herself in the reflection. She had to admit… her smile looked a lot more genuine these days.

In work news, however, life had been a lot of sucking up to Bernadette and the team after getting her job back, so she didn’t get down to the lair until late in the evening. Entering through the water system wasn’t exactly ideal, so they’d built a biometric, heavily enforced door as an alternative. Leo spotted her first as she shoved her way in and waved from where he was cleaning his katanas.

The new lair seemed to change every time she visited—more light-up signs or beat-up furniture appearing—and she still felt a little guilty for being the reason behind the move. The guys had assured her that they didn’t blame her, and they were having fun with the tall ceilings and tunnels in the new space. Splinter had even claimed one to start a bonsai garden.

“Hey, April! How was your day?” Leo called, carefully setting his weapons aside to get up.

“Not too bad, mostly research on some detox craze—”

“April!?” There was a crash from the back where they had set up a gym area in an upper opening. Mikey came tumbling out, almost right on top of where Raph was exiting the lower tunnel, and he gracefully avoided retaliation. “You got the goods?”

Leo shot her a confused frown, and she answered with a fond “don’t ask” look before rummaging in her bag to pull it out. “Yes, Mikey, I have the goods.”

Mikey bounced over and pulled her into a quick, bone-crushing hug before taking the package out of her hands. He ripped into it and pulled out a gaudy gold chain that looked like it once belonged in a 2000’s music video.

“Bling, bling!” he crowed and threw the shell necklace off to be replaced.

“Wait a minute, is that what was so important you had to order it?” Donnie said as he and Raph joined the group. “That’s such a waste of money!”

“Some ninja you are,” Raph snorted. “You can see that ugly-ass chain from a mile away.”

Leo hummed at that and then frowned. “Mikey, did you even ask April if you could send that to her place before you ordered it?”

Said turtle shrugged. “I knew she wouldn’t mind.”

The others seemed to erupt at once.

“Except it’s an unknown package being sent to her place, especially with the Foot Clan knowing her association with us—”

“Even worse, it’s inconsiderate to just assume—”

“Even worse, Leo? What kind of bullshit is that—”

April was an only child (well, not so much anymore), so she wasn’t used to how quickly one small thing could turn into a full blown argument. If pushing got involved, then 6-foot mutant turtles or not, she would break up that fight—yup, there’s the shoving.

“Guys, GUYS!” April moved forward and intercepted the beginning of whatever as they all avoided bumping into her. “It’s fine. You can have stuff sent to my place, I don’t care. As long as I can get it down here.”

It took a little more convincing to assure them that no, they were not imposing on her, and then they seemed excited about this new opportunity. Apparently, they’d had to scout out addresses before and sneak the package away before the occupants realized. Obviously, this was much more convenient.

Steadily, they all started to order stuff online (with what money or credit card she had no idea) and have it sent to her place. Parts for Donnie, books for Leo, and though she only felt it through the packaging, yarn for Raph. At first, Mikey was the only one who used O’Neil for the address. Then something changed, and they all started to use it too. A package of tea addressed to Splinter O’Neil gave her a small laugh one day. Raph had been the last to address himself as O’Neil, always so stubborn, and seemed almost shy when she delivered it.

April knew she was very biased on this, having seen them as teeny-tiny babies, but her little-big brothers could be pretty adorable sometimes.

---

The last name thing had come up with Splinter one day as they sat in his quiet bonsai garden, enjoying some tea while the boys burned off energy around the rest of the lair.

“I don’t want to overstep any boundaries or anything, but I’ll admit it’s… nice. My dad was really all I had for family, so it was just us and then me for so long. It’s almost like this has all… I don’t know, come full-circle? If that makes sense?”

Splinter smiled and reached out to lay his hand on hers.

“I was not lying when I said I modeled my parenting after your father. One way or another, you both cared for this family, and you know we consider you a part of it.” April nodded, a little choked up, and grasped his hand. He’d said it himself, but she wasn’t ready to fully relive how Splinter felt so familiar, so comforting.

“Besides,” he continued with a chuckle. “Michelangelo has quite enjoyed having a last name, and I think the others were a bit hesitant before they saw that you didn’t mind.”

“Of course not, I’m all for it,” April laughed, wiping under her eyes. “Now there’s more than just me to make the O’Neil name proud.”

---

One other thing she had discovered about being a big sister to four trouble-prone teens: full names were extremely effective.

“Donatello O’Neil!” she shouted the second she stepped into the lair, and all movement ceased. Leo balanced on one foot, mid-throw, Raph was mid-swing across the lair, and Mikey had an orange soda titled towards his face, where it slowly dripped down his front.

A weak “Oh, shell” came from the direction of the lab, and she stormed over. A taunt from Mikey followed but was quickly cut off with a grunt. Donnie was hunched over his desk, head turned slightly to look up at April’s furious approach.

“Why the hell did I just find a tracker in not one but all of my jackets?” She reached into her pocket, grasped the tiny devices, and tossed them on the desk. “I almost had a panic attack thinking I was being tracked by someone else. You know that’s been one of my worst fears ever since the Shredder, and we’ve talked about privacy and emergency plans, Donnie. I have a panic button on my phone, and I gave you permission to track it when absolutely necessary.” She let out a frustrated huff, pointing at the trackers. “What. Are. These?”

He’d sputtered a bit and avoided her eyes as she spoke, but he finally looked up when she stood silent, waiting for an answer. His shoulders drooped, and he wheeled back from his desk to face her. Even sitting, Donnie was only slightly shorter than her.

“Contingency plan,” he finally bit out. “Phones are most likely the first thing a kidnapper would get rid of to avoid tracking.”

“Wh— kidnapper?” That caught her off guard, and the tension in her shoulders released a little. Was there a new danger she didn’t know about? “But who… Oh.”

Movement on his tablet drew her eye, and the footage there followed a shady van that looked very familiar.

The Foot Clan—because an organization that big could still survive with their leader in jail for a year now—had disabled her turtle-approved security system and ransacked her apartment a couple of weeks ago. The cameras from across the street told them that and how the intruders had missed April coming home by a mere 12 minutes. They had obviously been searching for something specific, and she eventually realized it must have been the box of notes from Project Renaissance. Luckily, they had been stored in the lair for safe keeping.

After coming home to that mess, April called Donnie right away and started packing up her necessities. All four of the turtles had met her at her usual sewer entrance, and they formed a tense detail on the trip back. She worked out-of-office that week as she laid low in the lair and waited for the all-clear while they doubled up her apartment’s security. Splinter and the boys were good about giving her space when she was working, but she could still feel the hovering and worry. The guys had been in and out more often, Splinter always had some tea ready for her, and she just knew there had been many hushed conversations out of earshot.

Sure, deadly henchmen being in her apartment had freaked her out, but it had really freaked out her new family. April held her own against all of the weird shit they got dragged into, but there were always reminders that she did not have a shell or ninja training; a sprained ankle, one small concussion, too many bruises to remember, and even a few less inches of hair when it got singed in an explosion.

She looked between the tablet and Donnie, but now he held his gaze steady. “The Foot know where you live, and you refuse to move. This was the best way for us to always be there when you need us.” His voice was even, calculated, but his hands were clasped tightly and one foot tapped insistently.

Oh, her sweet, overprotective boys. Under all that bullet-proof shell, they were all just teenagers who had five people in the world to call family, and they did not take that for granted.

April sighed and turned to sit against the desk, holding out one hand. Donnie took it and held on, grip tight. “It comes from a good place, Donnie, but you have to tell me about these things. Trust goes both ways, okay?”

Leo, Raph, and Mikey were hovering around the entrance to the lab, and she gave them all a stern look to reiterate her point. “I know I don’t have a shell, but I am scrappy, stubborn, and awesome at running in heels.”

“Way better than the Jurassic World chick,” Mikey piped up, and Raph lightly punched his arm.

“You’re damn right,” April answered, smiling at his effort to lighten the mood. “So I appreciate the worry, guys, but you need to talk to me. I worry, too. You might forget, but you’re not invincible.”

“Better off than you,” Raph grunted. This time Mikey punched him, not as lightly. “What, it’s true!”

April sighed. “Come on, Raph, you know muscle isn’t everything.”

“No,” he grumbled, “but you got us. Whether or not you like it, we can take the hard hits.”

“What he means to say,” Leo said, shoving Raph back with his shoulder, “is that we were worried, and we didn’t think you were taking the threat seriously enough.” Donnie’s hand gripped hers a little harder, and she looked back to see him nod in agreement. “We are sorry about the secrecy, though.”

April sighed. “Fair point. You know I love you guys,” they perked up at that, “but having back-up is kind of a new thing for me. It’s habit to go solo, and it’s habit for you four to be a team.”

She held out her other hand. Leo was closest, and he took it with some hesitation. “Still a learning process all around.”

Mikey eagerly grasped Leo’s other hand and then Raph’s, refusing to let go even as Raph gave a shake, so they were all joined. “Family sticks together, bruh.”

---

The O’Neils had been a thing for awhile now, but writing it down was very different to actually saying it outloud. Mikey had no trouble claiming his new last name, and had even dubbed some pizza monstrosity he concocted from as many toppings he could get as the “O’Neil Special.” For the others, it took some time to say it—at least when she was around to hear.

Eight months. Donnie had been talking a mile a minute about a phone meeting set up with an award-winning engineer currently teaching at NYU. He’d been given 30 minutes to ask her all the questions he wanted. April had kind of bullied Vern into setting it up with his new connections, and Donnie had asked her to be there for moral support. She assured him it was all going to go great and to just make the call already. His shoulders went rigid under her hands when the call connected. “Hi! Hello, uh, this is Donatello O’Neil, I got your number from Vern? The Falcon?” She squeezed his shoulders in comfort, grinning proudly for many reasons.

One year and 2 months. Raph had been playing a one-on-one basketball game with Donnie while April refereed. Even as the self-proclaimed muscles, Raph was agile, and he did a quick maneuver around Donnie to score a perfect 3-pointer. “And Raph O’Neil makes the shot!” he whooped, doing a quick victory dance. He didn’t seem to realize it, but April certainly did. She felt warm and fuzzy after that, so she let him get away with traveling a couple minutes later.

For Leo, it just hadn’t come up yet. Although, one day she’d been stress cleaning their mess of a kitchen, and opened one beat-up book in curiosity to see “Leonardo O’Neil” neatly written on the cover page. That was enough for her.

Then her amazing family had finally gotten the acknowledgement they so rightly deserved.

“To you, brothers. Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo.” Chief Vincent paused. “Last name?”

The guys all glanced her way, and April didn’t care if her eyes were a little watery at Leo’s answer. “O’Neil.”

[portiaphan]

DV Characters as Things Hannibal Buress Has Said

Alex: "I'm a gangsta, and gangstas don't ask questions." Yes they do ask questions! I thought that was a main point of being a gangster. "Hey, mothafucka, where's my money?" That's a question. "Do you want to die tonight?" That's a question too. "What? What?" That's two questions.

Alva: Gibberish rap is - I freestyle all the time, just hangin' out with friends. And sometimes when I'm freestyling, I'll lose my flow, you know, but I'll still wanna - I don't wanna just stop rapping because I lose my flow. So I'll just put in nonsense words till I can bring in regular words again.

Brielle: I couldn't imagine only being an actor or a writer. Because what the hell do I do when I'm not working? Mope?

Battista: I’m a dumb guy. My point of view is limited.

Bellamy: Why are you booing me? I'm right!

Beau: SIX PACK ABS! TEN PACK ABS! TWELVE PACK! What if I want an odd number of abs? What if I want a five pack to show people I'm still humble?

Bernadette: My other airport nemesis is airport security. I don't like them at all. They seem so dedicated to keeping bottled water out of the sky.

Calina: I acknowledge that I jaywalked, I apologize not for the act of jaywalking but how my jaywalking made you feel. I'll try not to jaywalk in the future while you're watching but trust that I'll do it for the rest of my life - it's the best way to go about being a pedestrian.

Castora: There's a lot of dudes in my neighborhood that have handlebar mustaches. Which is cool if you want to have a handlebar mustache but don't try to have a conversation with me like you don't have a handlebar mustache.

Catherine: He said, "Man, we are right by the Adige River. These buildings are 200-300 years old, they have rats everywhere. Even the five-star restaurants have rats!" Somehow he made me feel like the asshole for bringing up rats! I don't know what kind of jedi mind trick that was - it confused the hell out of me because I still ended up ordering food then.

Cyrus: So we talk for a little bit. She says stuff, I say stuff, she says stuff, I say stuff. You know how a conversation works.

Celeste: I get upset easily by people. I saw this guy- he was on the phone. He had the phone between the ear and shoulder like that, but he didn't have anything in his hands. Which is really upsetting! Who the hell do you think you are? This action for people that are multitasking. Where's your other task? You're not doing anything else.

Daphne: He'd be the worst real estate agent ever. "Right here we have a 34 bedroom house. Let me show you around the property. Great features to this place, some of the rooms have extra, smaller rooms in them."

Delilah: I was in Scotland for all of August and it was the darkest time of my life. Mostly 'cause they call cookies biscuits. I don't like that at all. It was an incredible culture shock for me, tough to adjust but I tried for a few weeks. Pass me the chocolate chip BISCUITS. Let's have biscuits and milk, everybody. I love Oreo biscuits. But, in the fourth week, I couldn't handle it no more. THOSE ARE COOKIES THOSE AREN'T BISCUITS. Those are cookies. Cookies are cookies and biscuits are biscuits. If you call cookies biscuits, what do you call biscuits 'cause I'm not saying scones.

Everett: I did not move to Verona with a plan. The first time I moved to Verona, I just popped up. My sister was living here in Verona. I just popped up. She had her baby and a husband, and I just popped up. "Hey, what's up? I got $200 and dreams. Let's do this."

Genevieve: I can't just look at a status and move along. I see a status got 36 'likes' — can't accept it got 36 'likes' and move along. I got to click on it and start reading the names of the people that liked it. "Oh, yeah. Jim would 'like' some shit like that."

Grace: Yo ma, money over everything.

Halcyon: Awe man, I gotta get a team. I don't have a team, I just have friends. I call up my friend, "Hey man, I know you're my friend but I need you on my team right now."

Hazel: You have a regular-sized tub and a miniature tub, the sink.

Henry: You never know what could happen when you go into a store - somebody might pull a Tonya Harding on you and break your knee cap. And now you got your knees all fucked up just ‘cause you wanted to get that vinyl.

Hugo: It sounds like God owed someone some money and they couldn’t get to him, so they murked his son. That’s what I really think happened. Jesus got stabbed up in an alley… but it’s easier to sell crucifixes. You can’t sell a pendant of someone getting shanked up in the alley. It’s a marketing scheme.

Ivan: Come to your place at 5:00 in the morning, eat your food, drink your drinks, leave at 6:30 without fucking like it’s cool. That’s a passive burglary.

Isabelle: Two separate charges $400 at Barnes and Noble. Who balls out of control at Barnes and Noble?

Juliana: Believe in yourself like one of those weird-ass clothing stores that only have six shirts in them. So many questions. How much do these shirts cost? How long have y'all been here? Why is there a DJ?

Katarina: Kill people, burn shit, fuck school, I hate spam emails! That's annoying! You think you have an email from a friend but it's spam.

Lucien: I believe in my ability to not spill food in my pants 'cause I'm a goddamn adult. And I've mastered the art of getting food from my plate to my mouth without messing up my jeans. You need to believe in yourself, too and get your life together, that's for babies. Have some confidence in your eating abilities and hand/eye coordination.

Lucrezia: I'VE ALREADY SEEN LIMITLESS.

Lillian: I'm not a club person, I'm more of a bar/lounge type of person. But, I'll go anywhere if you give me a free bottle of alcohol.

Mikael: I have weird aspirations. Like, I really want to kick a pigeon.

Matthias: It's a weird emotion when you're flattered and cynical at the same time. "Oh, that's nice that you would say that, but what the fuck are you up to?"

Marcelo: I just wear black and gray all the time. If you Google Image me, you'll just see a bunch of black and gray. It's simple. If I like a shirt, I'll buy six or eight of them, wear them back-to-back, and just wait for somebody to say something. "That's the same shirt you wore yesterday." "Yeah, but this one is fresh."

Maeve: When people go through something rough in life, they say, "I'm taking it one day at a time." Yes, so is everybody. Because that's how time works.

Nikolai: But this time, it was me and this old lady we were jaywalking together. We weren't together like that. But if we were, so what? Mind your business.

Odessa: It was a phone interview and sometimes when I do phone interviews and the journalist is boring, I just start saying crazy stuff to make it fun for me.

Olivio: There have been times I’ve been out, and my phone battery is at nine percent, and I was like, "Time to go home."

Orion: Don’t thank the lord. I gave you that compliment, thank me.

Priam: I lost my debit card recently, had five charges on it before I caught it. First charge, $30 Chuckee Cheese. Who goes to Chuckee Cheese as soon as they find a debit card? Are you serious?

Paola: I applied for a job at Starbucks. One of the questions was, 'Why do you want to work at Starbucks?' Uh, because my life is in shambles.

Pandora: I don't even know how to use a semicolon to this day, I use a comma every time. And you know what? If I email somebody and they get upset about me using a comma instead of a semicolon, that's not a person I want to work with anyway. And that's how you weed people out of your life.

Ramona: I went into this restaurant in Verona called The Two Gentlemen. Went into the bathroom at The Two Gentlemen, huuuuge rat in the bathroom at The Two Gentlemen and the rat looked at me like "the fuck you doing here?" That was his vibe, very negative vibe.

Rafaella: Sometimes I get drunk and I get into arguments with taxi drivers. And I get out the cab and I slam the door. That's not the way to win an argument with a taxi driver. The way to win is you get out of the cab and you leave the door open.

Regina: And that was the first time in my life, without any sarcasm, I could say, "What? You want a cookie or something?" Because any other time you say that, you being mean, but I meant it from my heart. "How many cookies you want, man? You want seven cookies? That's way too many cookies. You're being ridiculous right now. You can take, like, three or four cookies and get out of my face. Otherwise, you're taking advantage of my generosity."

Ronan: Wack.

Roman: In my hometown of Verona, I'm kind of a medium deal.

Theodora: We got interns at the job. You can just tell them to do stuff. You gotta be nice, though. I had this cat fax something. I handed him a couple of pages, and I handed him another page. I said, "Hey, man, fax something for yourself, too."

Tomas: Rap videos confuse me cause they have to be continued at the end but the never make a sequel. Where’s the second video? There’s so much suspense!

Trinity: I was at the airport and there was this kid, four or five years old walking with his mommy, fixed his fingers in a fake gun, and then took a shot at me. And I'm looking at the wall to see if there's something on the wall he could've been shooting at 'cause I'm in denial. I look back at him, he looks me in the eyes and takes too more shots. Now I'm hit three times, that's an act of aggression. I need to defend myself.

Valentina: Morpheus, Dorpheus, Orpheus, go eat some walruses. Orifices, porridges. Morpheus, Morpheus. Going to the Buffet and Walruses. Confidence, corpseses. Worcestershire sauce. Go into your orifices. Red pill, blue pill. Morpheus, walruses. Seashells by the seashorpheus. MORPHEUS DRINKING A FORTY IN THE DEATH BASKET.

Vivianne: "We'll keep you in our thoughts" With the other bullshit in your heads? No, keep me out of your thoughts, because I hear some of the stuff you talk about and if that's close to what you're thinking about, I don't want to be around that, so keep me and my family out of your thoughts, unless you're thinking of making me a sandwich.

[ryanmeft]

My Top Performances of 2019, Part 2

Here is the second half of the list of my favorite film performances of 2019. I tried to be as objective as possible, but it’s also a result of personal preferences. As before, the order is unimportant. Part 1 is here:  https://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/190668845597/my-top-performances-of-2019-part-1?fbclid=IwAR3_d80vj0FbIVXqWaTV1heUlIDJJmL-JB_ZksaadO_oNRztnhBMICxzTd8

Zhao Tao in Ash is Purest White

She’s got everything you could want in a rusting former industrial town: a good boyfriend who has influence in the area’s small underworld, which gives her power, love and money all at once. In a blink it is all gone, and she finds herself adrift in the world, dealing with the resentments of people with no patience for what she has gone through. Tao is the key component of this crime drama, which is more drama than crime. She does not take the world in blazing force as a crime figure in a Scorsese film might do, but quietly and slowly accepts that the days of her power are past---and unlike the men around her, tries to adapt to, rather than battle, the inevitable.

Ana De Armas in Knives Out

Knives Out is in the grand, disappearing tradition of the character actor, albeit with the parts mostly played by superstars. Yet among a roster that includes Captain America as an irresponsible playboy and Michael Shannon as a professorial-looking semi-Nazi, De Armas’s humble heroine Marta stands out. Maybe it’s because Marta is humble but not naive or entirely innocent, and De Armas manages to capture both her cunning and her honesty without turning her into a doe-eyed victim. She’s the kind of character you want to become a Nancy Drew-esque mystery hero for adults, so you can revisit her later adventures.

Joaquin Phoenix in Joker

Some hated the movie, some loved it, but one thing it seems everyone could agree on is Phoenix’s performance. He’s credited as Arthur Fleck, not as Joker, and his handling of the character couldn’t be more different than any previous portrayal. Arthur is sad and lonely, not at all an enigma---his private life is laid out for us in great detail---and Phoenix portrays him as just sort of being blown through the world, bereft of any real agency. You can debate all day whether the character deserves to be portrayed in a sympathetic way, but you can’t say Phoenix doesn’t pull it off, making us root for this maladjusted, societally-forgotten misfit almost up ‘till the end. 

Sienna Miller in American Woman

In a just world, Miller, hardly a household name, would have her face up on the stage Sunday night for playing this role, a drunken, hard-partying too-young mother and grandmother whose life begins to change when her daughter disappears. I say begins to, because this is not one of those magical stories of miraculous redemption. Debra does not become a good parent to her grandchild right away, and never becomes a great one. Instead, the film follows her throughout years of her life, during which, naturally, she must go on living as she mourns. Miller embodies each stage of this perfectly, never once allowing drama tropes to disturb her unflinching portrayal of an ordinary life.

Jeff Goldblum in The Mountain

What does the word “monster” conjure for you? Whatever traits it brings to mind, they are all present in Dr. Wallace Fiennes. He’s an egotistical, self-interested, callous man who performs lobotomies on mental patients in the 1950’s American heartland, the kind of person for whom his gruesome practice is not an outmoded method to be improved on by advancement, but an art form in itself, and his patients merely the canvas. This isn’t handled like a horror movie: Goldblum is not a mad scientist cackling away in a lab, but an urbane, cultured, engaging professional---which makes him all the more frightening.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Fast Color

Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel were, to a large extent, a marketing department’s ideal female superheroes: always flawless, gorgeous even when kicking ass, unable to make any very serious mistakes. Ruth is very much not that. She’s living wherever she can, dealing with the effects of past addictions, running from the government, scared of her own powers. She’s not just unlike any other woman in tights (without the tights), she’s unlike any mainstream superhero ever has, can or will be. Mbatha-Raw is one of our most underrated actresses, and she portrays Ruth in a way that allows us to both sympathize with her plight and support her as she grows stronger. The movie’s not getting a sequel, because the Hollywood franchise machine isn’t ready for imperfect superheroes yet, but it is getting a series, so at least we’re getting more of Ruth in some medium.

Renee Zellweger in Judy

I won’t pretend I knew much about Judy Garland going in, and frankly I’m not sure I understand her after seeing the movie---it was, in most respects, a fairly typical music biopic. Where it broke the mode is in Zellweger’s performance. I think it’s fair to say the once-household name has been largely forgotten by Hollywood in recent years; she never had the perfect starlet looks or the ideal girl-next-door adorableness that is the main standard on which women are judged. But she had the acting chops, and here she finally gets to prove it. Her Garland is twisted and gnarled inside and out by years of sexist treatment and the resulting substance abuse, but still a loving mother to her children and a great singer---and justifiably angry at the industry that used her up and spit her out.

Paul Walter Hauser in Richard Jewell There was never a single chance of seeing the camera pan to Hauser during Sunday’s roll call of acting nominees---both he and the person he plays are about the polar opposite of Hollywood’s image of itself. And it must be said that while Jewell should not be forgotten, Eastwood’s movie, with its ginned-up anti-press narrative, maybe should be. But none of that is on Hauser, whose performance firmly proves that fat guys can be more than bumbling comedic relief or ineffective sidekicks in the movies. It matters that someone who looks like Jewell is portraying him, and that he does it so well that we can almost overlook the film’s other faults.

  Honor Swinton Byrne in The Souvenir

This one was little-seen, and though it generated awards buzz initially, it’s already been largely forgotten. That’s too bad. Byrne’s Julie is a woman torn between her own ambitions and her love for a man who is---abusive? How to judge him? It’s a toxic relationship fueled by addiction on his part, but the movie is more about how you cope with a partner who is committed but not capable of commitment. Perhaps the most resonant aspect of Julie’s character is the way she holds out hope even when everyone tells her not to, even when she herself knows deep down that it is hopeless. You may find this weak, but I’ve never known a human being who wasn’t in some measure susceptible to it.

Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes Everyone has strong feelings about the Catholic Church---it’s not a thing you go half-measures on. And every Catholic has strong feelings about the last two Popes---again, they aren’t the kind of personalities that inspire milquetoast reactions. What Pryce and Hopkins do in portraying Francis and Benedict, respectfully, is remind us that no matter how much they claim to be the chosen of God, these are after all two men---two men with flaws and opinions, whose own lives have shaped them every bit as much as the Bible or the church. When they are on screen together, you can imagine them in an odd couple buddy comedy, two aging road trippers tending to the flock. Lots of performances didn’t make my arbitrary 20-point cutoff. To be dead honest with you, it’s entirely possible that if you ask me in a year, I’ll have re-considered who is on the main list and who is in the honorable mentions; the idea that what I say now, when all these movies are fresh in my mind and affected by immediate emotional reaction, has to be my inviolate opinion for all time is silly. That said, here are some excellent and noteworthy performances that didn’t quite make the cut.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Kelvin Harrison, Jr. in Waves

Zack Gottsagen in The Peanut Butter Falcon

Isabela Moner in Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Alessandro Nivola in The Art of Self-Defense

Cate Blanchett in Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

More or less everyone in Little Women (I couldn’t decide, and thought more of the acting than the overall film)

Jodie Turner-Smith in Queen and Slim

Cynthia Erivo in Harriet

Kaitlyn Dever in Booksmart

Edward Norton in Motherless Brooklyn

[fic-al]

People Call Me Trixie

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FOR ALL THE SAINTS

December 1960

Rosemary McConlough didn't give birth to her twins that Sunday, but by the time the Quality Street tin was empty, she was the proud mother of one of each. Not only that, but when Christmas morning would finally arrive, her Aunty Iris would wake up to more than a stocking at the end of her bed. Iris had been given, when it came to unexpected Christmas presents, the most precious of all.

Trixie was back at All Saints' Church. This time there wasn't a service in progress that she dreaded interrupting. All Saints' was preparing for its screen debut. Trixie would rather be in charge of the ulcer clinic, than be at Poplar parish church that afternoon. She had never been able to say no to Sister Bernadette, even in a skirt suit and heels. She also had only ever said no to Tom, on one occasion.

As the church got ready for its premier, Trixie had been put in charge of flower arranging, thanks to Constance Spry and a generous godmother. Iris Willens in her role as the church caretaker had done most of the work prior to going into labour. All Trixie needed to complete were a few titivations.

She was attending to the foliage around the church pillars, when she became aware of an all too familiar scent. All too familiar because she had purchased it from Fenwicks herself, not so long ago.

Tom had meant to be kind and was unaware of how close he had stood behind her. The sensation of his breath on her neck had unnerved her, as he tried to make awkward small talk.

Trixie found a quiet spot at the back of the church, sat behind a large square pillar. She could really do with a cigarette right now. To tell the truth, which she knew she owed it to herself to do, she could really do with a drink right now.

Against the commotion of the BBC dress rehearsal, Trixie didn't hear anyone else come in. He was sat beside her before she realized.

"Is this where the naughty children sit?"

"This pew is reserved for sinners only, Dr Turner."

"Well, this hassock looks to have my name on it,” he answered shifting the kneeling cushion out of the way.

Trixie giggled a little too loudly for someone wanting to go unnoticed and Patrick playfully shushed her.

"How is it all going?" He asked, surveying the organised chaos in front of him.

"Well, it's a good job you are here, Doctor. Cecil B De Milne is about to have a stroke, if he doesn't calm down." They both looked over to where the BBC's red faced Barrington Swann was managing to ruffle everyone else's feathers.

"Who is really in charge?" Patrick asked the question, he already knew the answer too.

Trixie raised her eyebrows, rolled her eyes, and pursed her lips. Patrick knew she was too polite to say, so he answered his own question.

"Don't tell me...Field Marshall Turner, she was born for days like these."

Trixie was holding on to the pew, shaking with laughter now.

"Ably assisted by Gunner Gilbert, second in command," she just managed to spray out, before she could no longer speak for laughing.

"What of the company padre?"

"Oh, he definitely would like to go AWOL" Trixie replied, sobering up a little, her attention turning to Tom.

Tom stood exactly where she had seen him on her last visit; in the pulpit. He was helping lighting and camera setup for his shots. Ready for when he would record his very succinct and cheerful Christmas message; for the waiting British public, to ponder on Christmas Day.

He again looked alone and isolated as he had when Trixie had seen him last. His ministry wasn't sermonising and pontificating. It was helping, listening, and healing; he belonged with his congregation, not above it and it didn't matter if it was in the East End or on Tyneside. Trixie knew that now.

They had both stopped laughing, Patrick played with his hat. Trixie held her hands together in her lap, to try and quell the irritating sensation they had recently acquired to be busy. She felt for the ring on her left hand, but it was no longer there.

"Is all well with you, Trixie? I am still your GP. You would tell me if you needed... anything, a referral even...to someone...somewhere else?"

Trixie stiffened. How could he know? Did everyone know? Had Sister Julienne spoke to him about her? Or maybe to Shelagh, they were still close. Now even after everything. Had he maybe just been watching her?

"I am fine, Doctor." She paused and took a deep breath. "No, I am not fine really, but I think I may have found a way."

She took another deliberate intake of air. Only Sisters Mary Cynthia and Julienne knew of her recently arranged Tuesday night obligation.

"I have ...joined a group, made some new friends, in a similar situation...like-minded people."

"That's good, that's very good.” He looked relieved.

"I am thinking of taking up keep-fit in the new year," she smiled. "It's supposed to be very good for the body and the mind and who knows maybe even the soul. I probably won't be very good at it."

"I am sure whatever you choose to do, you will be very good at it, Trixie."

"That's not true! I am not a very good friend or even a very good person."

Patrick recoiled at this, but didn't interject.

"I let you down and Timothy and most of all Marianne,” Her early tears of laughter had turned to tears that stung.

Patrick offered her his handkerchief, she pushed it away.

"I haven't returned the last one you gave me," she sobbed.

"Marianne told me, you had thrown it away."

"No! I washed it!" She responded, wounded by this innocent accusation. "I keep it as a spare at the bottom of my midwifery bag, for my patients."

Patrick smiled, it was like her.

"It's also ideal for removing trifle from your shoe."

Patrick looked confused and raised an eyebrow. He knew the nurses had to clean a lot of things from their shoes, as did he. However, he couldn't help feeling he had missed something.

They again sat looking directly ahead, absentmindedly watching Tom's increasing discomfort. Patrick's son sat at the piano, face interchanging between boredom and amusement, in the way only a young teens can. Marianne's rather peculiar boy was turning into a rather remarkable young man.

It was Patrick who spoke first, "This is a strange place for me. It has witnessed two of the happiest days of my life and also the saddest. Timothy and Angela were also christened here. When I sit here, I feel both passion and sorrow."

Trixie nodded, she had a similar relationship with the imposing building, she suddenly remembered singing with Patrick at Alec's funeral. Jenny had started again, found a way to deal with loss and found hope and new love. Maybe it wasn't too late for Trixie, she looked over at Violet Buckle organising the layette raffle draw. Fred's wife glowed with happiness, maybe it was never too late. Iris Willans was testament to that.

Patrick suddenly continued, "It is like when I see Sister Evangelina. I remember her bringing my son into the world, but also guiding his mother out of it."

He paused, taking his time. Trixie heard his breathing pattern deepen. He then added,

"Even Shelagh, most of the time I look at her and see only love and a kind of peace, but occasionally when I hear Tim call her mum...for just a brief moment, there is only confusion and pain, just a brief moment."

Trixie heard Patrick take hold of a breath and let it escape slowly from between his lips.

"When I look at Tim, I only see Marianne. It seems more and more each day, but it's now less with regret and more with pride."

They were both still staring out at the mayhem ensuing in front of them, but neither of them were focused on the direction they were facing. Patrick wasn't finished,

"Do you know how I feel when I look at you Trixie?... I feel glad, I feel happy. There are no conflicting emotions when I look at you Trixie. I just remember the joy you brought to Marianne's life, the fun, the laughter, the music. I am sure that's what Tim will remember too."

He turned to face her; she kept her gaze ahead of her.

"So don't ever think you didn't do enough, you are enough!"

Trixie couldn't speak for quite some time. Eventually she found the courage to turn to him. She brought her hand towards his coat and said,

"l remember Marianne buying you this scarf, she was worried the nights were beginning to draw in. That was a good day, a sunny day."

Tom Hereward looked back from his crow's nest perspective, away from the increasingly flustered Smee and the rest of his unusual cast.

His attention returned to the two people he had been watching avidly at the back of the church. He noticed they were no longer there.

He had been concerned for the young women who had been visibly upset, but he knew she was in good hands.

You see there is an alleyway that runs between the church and the parish hall, it's the perfect place to share a confidence, to confess, to reminisce and to smoke a sneaky cigarette, whatever your brand.

[jan-uinely]

hot takes [pt. ii]

good[e] morning campers! we have more thoughts on \_ |_ | _/  RuPaul’s Drag Race episode 9... because i have nothing better to think about... lol. This is a novel, btw. 

SO... I have said it before and i will say it again... the in memorium segment gave me life. Robot Barbie Cheerleader. also RIP to jan’s clear drink in untucked. 

Let’s get into the gig, because why not. Unsure if readers are aware, but I am very politically minded. [do I use tumblr as a way to put politics aside for a little while? sure. but I have also worked on campaigns, did not take Elizabeth warren dropping out of the presidential race well... I mean she dropped at the beginning of march and now look at where we are.... anyWAYs.]

I did not like this episode. I did not like the challenge. From what I understand, the only other time this challenge was done was in season 4, but I stopped watching season 4 when sharon wore a conf*derate flag bodysuit for a mini challenge, prior to which she wore a mccain/palin shirt. I still don’t know if it was a joke, but #yeet. 

So this episode took the place of a “roast”/ stand up episode. Those are usually fine. They separate folks a little bit more. But, as someone who followed the recent primary with a VERY close eye, but was could also be humorous about it... Debates are hard to do. What makes a debate work is that everyone is well versed on everyone else’s platform, and knows how to attack them, because they have been the same person the whole time. For some reason, everyone “invented” a different character to play.... no one had a real platform... and it’s really hard to ~volley~ when people don’t really understand everyone’s characters. I also think, similar to the democratic primary- that there were too many people on stage. I also think snatch game happened too early... but that’s another story never mind anyway [did you catch that into the woods/bernadette peters joke???? @ JAN ]. 

So everyone has these “characters” which for the most part are not super consistent with who they’ve been portraying on the show... which makes it challenging. Then, it was moderated very poorly, and then edited together very poorly. There was no flow... it was very choppy. Again... not a fan. 

Season 8 also had a political challenge, but if i remember correctly, that was just a branding challenge kind of. It was better than this. Now, do I appreciate the fact that Drag Race is taking this election very seriously?? YES. But this challenge was just Not It. 

I thought Jaida was very consistent, I liked Jackie’s a lot [It seems like a running gag that she is too prepared in the same way that Jan was too energetic... which has its own election flashbacks....] I am really enjoying crystal... I thought she also had what was close to a fully formed character.. it just needed to bake a little more. 

So... next up... ms. goode. #cringe. tbh I don’t care about the performance. Were they just trying to redo snatch game? basically. were they the only person to try and do that? No. 

This mirror chat was the bomb dot com tho. best part of the episode.

We’re talking about the “oh i’m not political” We knew from episode one that Gigi grew up in a lot of privilege- and wasn’t the only one [@ jan] but jesus has it shown in gigi the most... I mean bob the drag queen said it best.. Gigi goode’s mom vs Jaida Essence Hall. 

But the nerve to openly say “i’m not political, and I don’t like it” when you KNOW at this point in time what the contestants have gone through... it’s just really insensitive. Also to be the open front runner knowing that the RPDR fans can be young and impressionable.. is really irresponsible TBH. 

Guess what? I don’t like to follow the news sometimes. I don’t watch tr*mp’s press conferences. Sometimes I log off twitter and go to tumblr. But I still stay INFORMED on the issues and am able to back up my positions. I VOTE. [cannot believe i’m saying this but i would not be surprised if gigi did not vote in 2016.]

[sidebar]

Maybe it’s bc I stan jan in a way that I have stanned no one else before [the only ru girl who even comes close to it while I was actively watching the show without prior knowledge is naomi] Maybe it’s combined with the quarantine that I have nothing else to do. And with that comes a [virtual] introduction to basically everybody who’s anybody in the NYC drag scene. [I will say the Bob-Monet-Cracker-Jan quad is just A+] So maybe I just have a better idea of what it is [have I gone down a Youtube rabbit hole on this subject? yes] 

Is new york also my personal favorite city? yes. Have I been to LA? no. Do I like the concept of LA? no. Have I been west of the mississippi river? no. So maybe it’s a combination of all of these things [including Jan saying on repeat that New York is the greatest city to do drag] but. The NYC girls are just so much more political. Brita, Bob, MOnet, tbh Jan is also on the record saying some A+ shiz. Marti Cummings is a non binary drag artist running for city council in manhattan. “Everybody black and aquaria.” 

Is NYC politics like any city, full of machines and garbage too? Sure. But NYC is just so much more powerful and political. LA is just the embodiment of privilege.

 I also think it’s interesting that some of the smaller town/city gals will move to LA [Trixie/Katya/Alaska? I’m looking @ you] after they get the drag race coin. Not that it’s a bad thing or anything, it’s just an interesting dynamic. [another aside: the non NY/LA girls deserve it all and i think it’s really powerful when the show directly addresses issues of wealth/privilege/access to drag on the show.] 

[end sidebar]

And Gigi came into the competition saying “I want to be on vogue” which is great. Their fashion sense is great. Most of their outfits are great. It’s great that they can do comedy [sometimes- like when they are not playing the role of Gigi] But something else I take issue with- and don’t get me wrong humility is great- is the whole “I’m not a dancer” that’s BS. they whole back handspring etc, madonna challenge. Maybe you weren’t a trained dancer, but ffs cut the crap. [if you haven’t look up gigi goode showgirls] 

And yet the judges continue to give Gigi [and SP] free passes. It’s like Ru is so afraid that if either of them end up in the bottom, they won’t turn it out and then there will be no frontrunner. Well guess what? In season 7, Max had 2 wins before anyone else and came in 9th. valentina going home was a total gag. Brooke and Yvie lip synced on the snatch game ep. But Apparently when the skinny white fashion queen from the big city [gigi, aquaria] does less than well, they don’t get put up for elimination??? [did aquaria deserve to lip sync for the makeover? idk.]

Gigi is getting a “winner” edit and it’s not really fair to anyone. People who should have won certain challenges were IGNORED, and instead the producers give all the credit to gigi, giving them almost a worse edit. Like we want to see humans, not robots. If we learned ANYTHING from last week is that the judges don’t like when you just “start on 100 and stay there THE WHOLE TIME”. Bc the truth is that [aside from the loads and loads and loads of privilege,] Gigi is really nice and very talented. But I, as a viewer of reality TV, live to see the perfect fail. I want everyone to shine [this is why I loved when Naomi sent manila home, oops] 

Also.. I would like to address the fact that Gigi basically used the same outfit twice... this runway and entrance look have almost the same pattern, with just a slightly different skirt type. I would like for this behavior to be called out bc it is such a memorable silhouette. 

Also- Shout out to Crystal for the most bomb ass runway... I want that whole outfit pls. 

but aside from that... TBH I just want a show with the real top 7 [ the heidi and widow have been cracking me up saying “we’re at top 5″ or “we’re at top 6″ before the ep aired on instagram and I’m loling.. and that VERY AWK moment when Jan is on the x change rate saying that they couldn’t justify putting anyone other that her and widow in the bottom bc gigi and 3 wins and trying to work around not saying SP’s name had 2. [also shout out to jan the real mvp for unfollowing SP on twitter]] doing competitions and having fun. And I’ve said this before. This is a really good season that did not need production’s handprints all over everything. But they chose to cast RuPaul’s Best Friend Race, so they shouldn’t be complaining or trying to manufacture drama.

I was cracking up when Jaida was [clearly prodded by producers] asking is there anything we need to talk about? and then Jackie goes to talk to widow right before they leave and they are just nice to each other. lol no drama here. It’s the season of the inner saboteur. 

So Jackie and widow are in the bottom and tbh I don’t know. I would have liked to see Gigi lip sync. I would have liked this challenge to not happen. but it did. The lip sync song.. I just didn’t love the cut... Katy perry’s voice is so over produced [trend alert] that the illusion of the lip sync didn’t work in the first chorus. Jackie’s plastic bag was just A+. These lip syncs, tbh starting w jan v widow have been very good. not good enough to make up for the garbage that was everything since ep. 3, but close. [and some of that was song choice, some of it was not. I will say brita killed her first one but rip to rock]

Jeff gold bloom. I just don’t know. Maybe it’s bc I never saw jurassic park. Maybe he was just a bad judge. maybe he too was being prodded by production. ugh. You can read the takes on his interactions with jackie somewhere else. 

[wxndinmyhair]

GET TO KNOW THE BLOGGER.

can be used for RP  &&  non-RP blogs to get to know a bit about the person behind the screen  !

1. FIRST NAME  : Y’all can call me Cora

2. STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF  :  ...oh the usual one I give is about my real name and I don’t wanna do that so uh......I have a longer than average tongue and can touch it to my nose?

3. TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON  :  hair, eyes, ass smile

4. A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF  : big popcorn fan ngl

5. A FOOD YOU HATE  : anything I’m allergic to? and mushrooms.

6. GUILTY PLEASURE  : hmm...shiny hunting pokemon has become a recent one.

7. WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN  :  kinda depends on the weather tbh, but I’m more of a t-shirt and pajama bottoms kinda person. just the shirts in the summer.

8. SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS  : I’m demi, so flings aren’t really my thing lol

9. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE  : ...I think if I did, I wouldn’t be where I am now. So while there are things I regret, and things I wish badly hadn’t happened to me, I don’t think I’d change any of it.

10. ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON  :  ...I’m not super touchy-feely, but I show affection in other ways.

11. A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN  :  can I say tangled? lol. but also mary poppins or kiki’s delivery service.

12. FAVORITE BOOK  :  it’s harry potter. it just is lol.

13. YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE  :   either a sifaka lemur or a cheetah. or both. 

14. TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS   (  IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG  ,  YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL  )  :  uh....I’ll actually go with the all time faves so those would be puzzleshipping, zutara, harumichi, ineffable husbands, and carson/mrs. hughes. 

15. PIE OR CAKE  :  cake!

16. FAVORITE SCENT  :  vanilla, lilac, cinnamon, apple

17. CELEBRITY CRUSH  :  it is never not going to the love of my life bernadette peters. but also I’ve always had a thing for miley cyrus and demi lovato lol.

18. IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO  :  I want to go back to spain someday, but other parts of europe too- italy and england most prominantly.

19. INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT  :  I’m an introvert by nature but I have my extroverted moments, and I don’t like to be alone too long.

20. DO YOU SCARE EASILY  :  I get anxious easily, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing. 

21. IPHONE OR ANDROID  : android

22. DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES  :  Yep, I have a switch so mostly nintendo games.

23. DREAM JOB  : psychologist, which it better be considering how much money I’ve put into getting this damn phd lmao

24. WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS  :  Buy a brownstone I mean pay off my student loans!!

25. FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE  : hmm...hate is a strong word for somebody not real. there are characters I just don’t care about though, which is a different thing. 

26. FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER  : ...it’s been several by this point, but yugioh comes to mind most prominently. I’m not totally out of the OUAT fandom, but definitely not as active there either.

tagged by  :   stole it from @moonstonetm

tagging  : Whoever wants to!!

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG149! /X_X/*

- Statement-giver was a pure delight and I’m still snickering every time over this passage:

(MAG149, Judith O’Neill) “I usually head out with the other specimen tech, Fernanda Miqado, a local – and by local, I mean she’s from Manaus, about 200 miles away. Brazil’s… pretty big. And if there’s one thing she’s really good on that I’m not, it’s the weather. I’m pretty hopeless at figuring out what any given day’s going to be like, and just have to rely on whatever weather site I’m currently losing faith in. It doesn’t help that the weather in the Amazon is just plain weird, with rains coming out of nowhere months before the wind should actually be bringing in the clouds, and… n–no one knows why. But… Fernanda, she might not know why but, somehow, she always knew when – to the point where, if she said it might be bad, I would just cancel the expedition. No further evidence needed. Not that day, though. No; that day, we had the world’s pushiest climate scientist breathing down our necks. Doctor Nikos Anastas.”

I’m So Glad Martin read that one because his snappiness was so good with Judith’s voice. They can all be pretty snappy but… Martin sure is something.

(- Not sure if it’s “doctor Anastas” but at the very least: Judith/Martin/Alex ABSOLUTELY gave up on pronouncing his name towards the end, and we got “That was the last I ever saw of Dr. Nikos [Asantas]”, and I’m still laughing every time too.)

- Judith knew that you speak Portuguese in Brazil! Progress from MAG033’s Carlita and her trouble getting understood due to her “bad Spanish” =D

- At first, when the statement appeared to be in Brazil in an isolated area, I thought about the Tundra again. And it’s true that the Extinction statements technically have technically been happening in remote areas – isolated or inaccessible or hidden in plain sight or in what felt like an alternate reality (Bernadette in Garland Hillier’s flat, Judith mentioning feeling disorientated after the fall and that something was wrong), and I’m vaguely suspecting that Peter and/or Adelard’s reading of the new Fear may indeed be… off, and that their summary of it only matches with the statements they consulted but not with the essence of what it is actually…? I can see how Gertrude was dubious about it, since every statement so far is also reminiscent of other stories/elements involving other Fears.

- Faaaaaaaaaaavourite “Holy Heck” moments were (because I’m super easy):

(MAG149, Judith O’Neill) “They were completely still, but there was something about them that made my mouth dry up, and my mind scream to run. [STATIC:] It didn’t feel like they were statues. It felt like they were choosing not to move. [/STATIC] […] I don’t know if it was me or Fernanda screaming. Maybe it was both of us. But I know it was her who first spotted that the detritus figures [STATIC:] were no longer choosing to stand still. [/STATIC]”

… And the tape recorder went all static when the statues were described + Judith’s Fear:

(MAG149, Judith O’Neill) “There’s something in there, [STATIC:] and I don’t know which scares me more: the thought that it’s more than just the things we left behind? Or that that’s all it is, and we can’t escape the ruins of our own future. [/STATIC]”

It had also reacted to Garland’s door and the “description” of the Inheritors, and to Gary’s numbers, before…

- The Extinction statements are getting closer and closer to the current in-universe present time, and this was the most recent statement about The Extinction involving Dekker:

* MAG134: Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson dated 22nd January 2006. * MAG144: Statement of Gary Boylan, given October 3rd, 2009. * MAG113: Statement of Adelard Dekker. Statement undated, likely circa 2012. * MAG149: Statement of Judith O’Neill, given May 13th, 2013.

… How convenient for Jon that Adelard hadn’t mentioned “The Extinction” by name in MAG113, and that there wasn’t any note talking about it either ^^

Assuming that Jon’s approximate dating of MAG113 had been right, then this statement was also the closest in time involving Adelard Dekker at all. That’s still… five years before current time, and we haven’t heard of what his status has been in the meantime. What happened to you, dude.

(Also, according to Gertrude’s note, Adelard had sent Judith to the Institute… and yeeet, it’s a written statement. Gertrude was way better at the “not jumping on people for their live-statements” thing than Jon, but it also raises the question, once again: why was Gertrude choosing to record some? Why Walter about the old Archives, why Lucia about the Last Feast? Why couldn’t she ask them to write it down, in those cases…?)

- … Isn’t it funny how, so far, each of The Extinction statements had something that felt like a personal jab at Martin. Garland Hillier had the bad poetry; Gary Boylan had the concept of being stuck with a parent (and the fear of being like your dad, or becoming like him)

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “[Garland Hillier] spent the next twenty years publishing widely derided collections of poetry, as well as essays on belief and atheism that were roundly ignored by the philosophical salons of the time. He was supported by several literary friends, as he was reputedly a gifted editor, even if his own work was often all but incomprehensible.”

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “Something kept me rooted there, sleeping in a bedroom that hadn’t changed since I was fifteen, and caring for a man who I’d rather just shut up…! [SIGH] We were both… trapped there, I think. Bound together in a sort of wordless misery. I would look at him, and see a grim sort of destiny for myself: trapped here, until I became him – any future I might have had, sacrificed to his. [SIGH]”

Here, Judith actually had a degree, contrary to Martin… but was hired for another reason (and why did Elias hire Martin exactly?).

- So, Martin’s isolation was kind of the point of Peter’s training, and it had been installed as a requirement from the start, with Basira explaining to Jon that she&Melanie weren’t seeing Martin much anymore, Martin trying to cut the interaction short the two moments it happened with Jon – and with multiple mentions, recently, that Peter was growing significantly more absent:

(MAG126) PETER: You talked to him. MARTIN: I… I, I tried not to, I–I, I didn’t mean to… PETER: You talked to him. And that’s understandable, Martin, of course it is! Please don’t think I’m upset, it’s just… not ideal. Shows how much work we still have ahead of us. MARTIN: If I keep avoiding him, people will get suspicious. PETER: [CHUCKLING] They’re already suspicious, Martin, that’s not the problem! I had hoped that all this time apart would have given you the space you needed, but… […] MARTIN: A–a simple “hello” isn’t going to make any difference to– PETER: We’ve been over this. The sort of power you’re going to need relies on your– MARTIN: [SULKY] Obedience. PETER: Isolation. It needs to be you, Martin. You’re the only one who could possibly balance between the two.

(MAG134) PETER: … Look. I’m not gonna pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to. It won’t even work unless you’re willing to commit. In any case, I have plenty of preparations to work on myself, before it’s ready. I’ll see what else I can find to help with your reservations in the meantime, mmkay? Just… don’t hesitate too long. We are on a deadline, after all. MARTIN: … Fine. [SHORT SILENCE] PETER: Right! Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have a family thing to get to.

(MAG138) MARTIN: So… so what? What does it mean? Am I supposed to be reassured that new Entities can be born? That there’s some, some kind of… precedent for The Extinction? … Peter? [SILENCE] Huh. Maybe he has gone to a party. [HUFF] Anyway.

(MAG144) MARTIN: And you? PETER: I have my own explorations I need to attend to. And a, hum… meeting. To arrange. For you…!

Aaand going hand in hand with that, Martin had begun to casually admit that he was beginning to embrace that isolation:

(MAG134) PETER: … Anyway. Point is, I’m not your captor or your torturer. I’m not gonna tell you to stop talking to him, or even saving him if it comes to it. If that’s not a decision you’re willing to make yourself, me scolding you isn’t going to help.

(MAG142) MARTIN: I… can’t believe he’d choose to do something like that. … No, no, I, I can’t think like that, though, I, I can’t let myself, ‘cause I mean, if, if he’s already gone, then all of this is just… [PAUSE] [SIGH] Th–the worst part is I don’t even want to talk to him about it. I’m just… [SIGH] I suppose I’m just getting comfortable with the distance. [SIGH] Cut off. [DRY CHUCKLE] “Lonely”. [INHALE] Mind you, Peter’s not wrong. It really is easier than actually just trying to communicate with people. I should probably try to get him this tape, let him know what happened, that someone came in to… But then, ahah, would that just come across as an accusation? Like, because I don’t wanna… And then, then I guess he’d… hear this bit as well, so… I… I… [LONG EXHALE] What do I do…? […] DAISY: Yeah. Just a… a bit empty around here. You know? MARTIN: Not really. DAISY: Melanie’s out, and… [EXHALE] Jon and Basira’re still off. Bit worried. But they can take care of themselves, you know? MARTIN: Again, not really. [SHORT HUMOURLESS LAUGHTER] No one talks to me anymore. DAISY: ‘Cause they reckon you’re working for the bad guy? MARTIN: Pretty much. … Don’t you?

(MAG144) [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MARTIN: [LONG SIGH] … Well? PETER: I’m impressed! And grateful. MARTIN: I didn’t do it for you. PETER: Even better. MARTIN: … It’s easier, this way. I’m sure you’d have had no problem sending her away. PETER: I hadn’t really thought about it. And now, thanks to you, I don’t need to.

(MAG149) MARTIN: Sort of… surprised Peter hasn’t rocked up with some more… “insights”? Haven’t seen him around for a while, actually. I mean… eh, it’s not like I miss him [CHUCKLING] but, at least he was someone to– [PAUSE] … Ah. [HUFF] [PAPER RUSTLING] Yeah, that makes sense. [EXHALE] A’ight, fine. Just… me on my lonesome for a while, then.

1°) A bit surprised that it doesn’t feel like Martin got reaaaally involved with The Lonely to get Lonely powers, but then, it’s the Institute and Peter has been hovering around him for months so… it probably served as a catalyst?

2°) CRIES BECAUSE:

(MAG142) MARTIN: [LONG EXHALE] What do I do…? [SILENCE WHILE CLOCK STILL TICKS IN THE BACKGROUND] [KNOCK–KNOCK–KNOCK.] MARTIN: [BREATHES] Go away… [KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.] MARTIN: [SIGH] Come in!

(MAG149) MARTIN: A’ight, fine. Just… me on my lonesome for a while, then. … Could be worse. … Peaceful, at least. … I don’t miss all the shouting. [CHUCKLE] Even if it w– [FOOTSTEPS IN THE DISTANCE, COMING CLOSER] MARTIN:  … Wait. [RUFFLING OF CLOTHES] Excuse me! Excuse me, this area is off-limits to the public.

Martin is getting so used to being on his own it’s painful, and:

(MAG144) MARTIN: … It’s easier, this way. I’m sure you’d have had no problem sending her away. PETER: I hadn’t really thought about it. And now, thanks to you, I don’t need to. MARTIN: Yeah, well. It seems to be your go-to move for dealing with anyone. PETER: I’m just not big on confrontation. You understand, I’m sure. MARTIN: We. Are not. The same. PETER: Of course.

3°) Oh, Martin… you’re “not the same” but you sent Jess’s tape without being there (… or only invisible? Though he would have ranted or screamed about Hill Top Road if he had been aware, I think, given his reaction to the Svalbard trip in MAG142?), thus avoiding the… confrontation. And you nop’d out again as soon as Melanie arrived.

I’m curious about his “I don’t miss all the shouting”, though: what is that about…? Is it just The Lonely colouring his memories, and any discussion/slight disagreement is now a Shouting Contest by comparison? Is it about his memories of season 3…?

- Although Martin had kept himself isolated from the Archives but… not from visitors? He took Jess’s complaint in MAG142, and stepped in when he saw Georgie approaching (he wasn’t surprised to see her or that she could see him so… it wasn’t unusual).

(MAG149) [FOOTSTEPS IN THE DISTANCE, COMING CLOSER] MARTIN:  … Wait. [RUFFLING OF CLOTHES] Excuse me! Excuse me, this area is off-limits to the public. GEORGIE: [VOICE ECHOING] Sorry? MARTIN: You can’t be here, it’s not allowed. GEORGIE: Oh, sorry, hum… Melanie told me to wait for her here…? [ECHO DISAPPEARING] MARTIN: Oh, you… you’re here for Melanie? GEORGIE: Yeah. … Georgie. MARTIN: [COUGH] … Sorry. Uh, sorry, I–I didn’t realise. I’m, I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.

;; But aouch, he was… so dry with Georgie when he took her for a random lost visitor? And he only mellowed down when he understood that she was here for Melanie? I’m not sure he is aware of how snappy and cold he sounds – comparing how stern he was here with how he had interacted with Melanie in MAG084 (just before she signed up)… aouch.

Also! “[this area] is off-limits” sounded familiar, AND YEP IT IS:

(Trailer S1T2) ARCHIVIST: Hello? … Hello? … This archive is off-limits. [MUFFLED THUD] Is anyone there? … Martin? Martin, is that you?

(MAG047) ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I didn’t… Can I help you? This place is off-limits. MICHAEL: I disagree. ARCHIVIST: Who let you in here?

… I’m not sure where Martin was, exactly, this time, but it indeed sounded like it was possibly in the Archives themselves? No clock in the background, so it wasn’t Elias’s office (… and I doubt that Melanie would tell Georgie to find her around there). The distant voice + door closing combo puts me in mind of MAG084, which had a similar situation and setting: Martin spotting someone right outside his/an office after reading a statement, discussing a bit in the corridor/other room, further from the tape recorder, then coming back inside with the person (though there were more Door Sounds in MAG084, and only the sound of the door closing with Melanie&Georgie’s departure in MAG149).

- … I’m not that surprised/shocked/in pain about Martin pulling a “sharp squeal of distortion” and disappearing at the end of the episode because I… had been assuming… that he had been able to do that for a long while………………………………

(MAG127) BASIRA: … It was a few months back. After the attack. He’d started spending time with Lukas. At least, he said he was. And I wanted answers. He kept telling me to trust him, to hear the guy out even though he still wouldn’t actually show his face. I told him he could… drop me an email or vanish me. ARCHIVIST: … Right. BASIRA: Honestly, I kind of regret not just… grabbing Martin and shaking an explanation out of him. But I didn’t want to push it. He was in a… bad place, what with the attack and his mom and everything, so I didn’t press it. Now, I try and bring it up, he just… disappears. Nothing to be done.

^There was the ambiguity of whether Basira meant “disappears” as just a figure of speech (“he runs away”) or quite literally; but given the wording, I was inclined to think that Martin fading from the scene supernaturally was A Thing already, back then. And Martin’s heavy sigh in MAG149 after Georgie&Melanie’s departure still keeps that open to interpretation: is Martin used to it (and feels blasé about the whole thing, and the sigh was also… mostly about the conversation he just had with Georgie, the fact that Jon is seen as a lost cause by someone who used to be close to him, or about the rude concept of Other People Having Friends And Doing Things Together), or was it a sigh about himself and the fact he… had finally used Lonely powers for the first time (and what it meant for him)? I’m guessing that if this was the first time ever that Martin disappeared, Peter will be obnoxious as hell about it and will make it official, so we should have a confirmation pretty soon.

Other things I’m not sure about: I’m not sure how to interpret the timing of Martin’s disappearance?

(MAG149) GEORGIE: W–… Jumping on a grenade is only heroic if you weren’t the one who actually threw it. MARTIN: That’s not what’s happening. GEORGIE: Okay. It’s still not something I want any part of. MARTIN: Well…! Lucky for you we’re fully staffed, so… [STATIC AND (FAINT) VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MELANIE: Hey! You ready? GEORGIE: Oh, uh – yeah. Whenever you are. [SQUEAL OF DISTORTION FADES] MELANIE: Who were you talking to…? GEORGIE: Oh, I was, uh– … [HUFF] No one, apparently. MELANIE: [SIGH] … Yeah. This place will do that to you…! Come on. GEORGIE: Sure. [DOOR CLOSES.] MARTIN: [LONG SIGH] [CLICK.]

(DON’T SAY “WE’RE FULLY STAFFED”, MARTIN… SOMEONE WILL DIE AGAIN AND LEAVE A SPOT VACANT…)

And I see several options:

1°) It was unrelated to Melanie and/or it’s actually because of Martin that Melanie hadn’t been there until now (in the same way that in MAG108, Martin had called Basira, Peter had popped up, and Basira had only answered Martin’s call after Peter’s departure, as if he had only just shouted her name a second ago). Martin chose that timing because the conversation had been unpleasant and he wanted to put a stop to it and/or because Georgie accidentally increased his loneliness.

2°) Peter had imposed a specific prohibition over Martin interacting with Basira&Melanie (who were the only Team Archives members around when Martin began to work for Peter), and Martin is still following that order. It would match with Basira explaining to Jon that she hadn’t been able to see/interact with Martin much in the last months; and indeed, since the beginning of season 4, we have only seen Martin interact with Jon (who surprise! managed to wake up from his coma, something Peter hadn’t factored in his deal with Martin – MAG126: “… You said he’d probably never wake up.” “And he beat the odds. Which is good. But it does make things more complicated. It doesn’t… actually change… anything.”), although Martin cut the conversation short both times; with Daisy (MAG142, MAG144), who had officially been “dead” when Martin made his deal with Peter; and with visitors (Jess in MAG142, Georgie in MAG149).

3°) … Martin specifically disappeared because Melanie was coming; either because “two is a crowd”, either because… It’s Melanie.

And Martin and Melanie’s relationship had never been, uh, the fluffiest ever:

(MAG086) MELANIE: I… I just feel like you two don’t want me here. TIM: We don’t. Martin’s not big on change. I don’t want anyone to be here.

(MAG106) BASIRA: Oh, what? You’re gonna judge me? I literally don’t know anyone here you haven’t made cry. MELANIE: You only know Tim and Martin! BASIRA: And Elias. MELANIE: I made Elias cry? BASIRA: I don't know. Probably. You can be very mean.

(Though there were kinder things: Martin did go have a drink with Basira&Melanie at the end of MAG099, and it was once again the plan at the end of MAG106 (though it didn’t apparently happen, or at least without Melanie, according to MAG108).

… But Elias, at the end of season 3, had commented that Martin deliberately going against Melanie’s pulsion to go for the kill… could make things veeeeeeeeeeeery bad between the two of them:

(MAG118) MARTIN: We… we need to leave. MELANIE: We need to kill him. Look at you! He. needs. to die! MARTIN: … no. No, I… I knew what this was gonna be. MELANIE: It’s not just for you! If we leave him alive– MARTIN: Melanie. Melanie, please. MELANIE: … Alright. Let’s get these somewhere safe.

(MAG120) ELIAS: Hm. No Melanie? MARTIN: [SIGH] ELIAS: I’d have thought she would have wanted to gloat. MARTIN: N… no. I, I d– ELIAS: You didn’t tell her. [CHUCKLE] Worried she might create too much of a scene. I understand. I just hope she… doesn’t hold it against you. MARTIN: That’s– that’s not– […] It’s better than you deserve. ELIAS: Perhaps so. But I’m glad you were sensible about it. I was concerned you might have bought into Melanie’s… fixation.

We don’t really know how they interacted before Martin made his deal with Peter but it… didn’t bode well, back then, already. And we’ve seen Melanie six months later, when Jon came back: ready to jump at anyone’s throat, threatening and fundamentally angry. I… don’t think she was exceptionally kind to Martin in that period.

(+ Does Martin know that, in the end, her anger had been supernaturally focused by The Slaughter’s bullet? The surgery happened in the tunnels; even if Elias indeed doesn’t have access to them (which… is something… we’re still not entirely sure about…), he had been able to guess that it had happened – possibly because Jon and Basira had discussed about it in MAG127. But Peter? Peter has never mentioned Melanie’s ordeal: he talked about Breekon and the coffin and Daisy’s comeback, but never about Melanie.

Did Martin just assume that Melanie was like this… on her own? Like Tim had been angry about Jon and the Institute? I don’t think that Martin would need that to consider that uh, Melanie is not more worth saving than Jon (because Martin always has had his biases) but… it’s possible that he just doesn’t know that Melanie had been so antagonising and violent because it was favoured by the bullet? and that it isn’t the case anymore?)

- … Another Big Question raised by Martin Whooshing Himself Away… lay with Georgie’s comment:

(MAG149) [STATIC AND (FAINT) VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MELANIE: Hey! You ready? GEORGIE: Oh, uh – yeah. Whenever you are. [SQUEAL OF DISTORTION FADES] MELANIE: Who were you talking to…? GEORGIE: Oh, I was, uh– … [HUFF] No one, apparently.

Was Georgie casually savage (“Since Martin chose to disappear, I’m taking this as him fleeing, so that means he’s not worth mentioning and is “no-one”)? Was Georgie extremely descriptive (“… Welp, there is nobody there anymore”)? … Or did Georgie forget about even interacting with Martin and did Martin… make himself “forsaken” in her mind…? ;;

(Because if it’s the last option, AOUCH… Would Martin start disappearing from people’s memory, proportionally to how present he had been around them? Something more gradual than what happened to Sasha? Georgie barely knew Martin outside of Jon’s talks and was meeting him for the first time here; Basira&Melanie… didn’t share a lot with him. But if Jon were to witness, slowly, people around him forgetting about Martin…)

(- Insert horrible snicker here because:

(MAG039) ARCHIVIST: Martin… You’re not, uh… You didn’t die here, did you? MARTIN: What? What? N–no… what?! ARCHIVIST: No, I just… No, just the way you phrased that... MARTIN: Made you think I was a ghost? ARCHIVIST: No… it’s– MARTIN: […] A ghost? Really? ARCHIVIST: [TIREDLY] Shut up Martin.

… Well, Martin kinda become a ghost here. For a few seconds. ……………… Oh no, if Martin is to die soon, will he die IN THE ARCHIVES for maximum irony……………)

- Re: Martin’s own Spooky Sounds when disappearing. It’s definitely close to Peter’s “sharp squeal of distortion” (as it was transcribed in MAG100), but way fainter. Interestingly: Peter’s is a constant background noise when he’s there; here, it only happened when Martin supposedly made himself invisible… and the tape recorder stayed with Martin (we could hear his final sigh). So, the tape recorder doesn’t react to Martin as strongly – and either it means that yeah, Martin is way less of a spook than Peter, either that the tape recorder is a bit desensitised to the Archival staff?

Plus: I’m not suuuuuuuure that there is no static when Peter is there (the distortion is too strong for me to hear) but there was definitely more static than distortion in Martin’s case – a bouquet of static, pretty strong, and it sounds like the usual one… but then, I’m not sure it wasn’t also the same one as the sound we could hear when Jon “forgot” about his lighter in MAG136?

(And technically… Okay, I want to “Hope” (el o el) And Be In Denial until I can’t Think About Web!Martin anymore but!!! If Georgie forgot about Martin’s presence and Melanie was unable to process that he was there: it would be pretty much mind-manipulation and really close to what the lighter is doing with Jon, right?)

- SOBBING because ahaha:

(MAG144) [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MARTIN: [LONG SIGH] … Well? PETER: I’m impressed! And grateful. MARTIN: I didn’t do it for you. PETER: Even better. MARTIN: … It’s easier, this way. I’m sure you’d have had no problem sending her away. PETER: I hadn’t really thought about it. And now, thanks to you, I don’t need to. MARTIN: Yeah, well. It seems to be your go-to move for dealing with anyone. PETER: I’m just not big on confrontation. You understand, I’m sure. MARTIN: We. Are not. The same. PETER: Of course.

… as mentioned above, it wasn’t clear exactly what made/pushed Martin to “disappear” but. Although Martin tended to hide or try to defuse the situation sometimes (encouraging Tim to not blow up at Jon, lying low re:Elias after they had learned what the deal was with the Institute), he also used to be able to explode at people’s face when he had enough (calling Jon out on his Sceptic act in MAG039, savagely ranting at Tim in MAG079, keeping the Receipts of Elias’s actions to throw them in his face in MAG118 – … that’s his “end of season” thing isn’t it.). But here, just fading away in front of Georgie when they were having a disagreement over Jon and/or when Melanie was coming… was quite the “not big on confrontation” thing, and Peter would be so glad and so proud, and I hate Peter so much.

Bonus with:

(MAG134) PETER: Martin… My patron, hopefully our patron someday, doesn’t give me any sort of special insights. I’m not quite the accomplished voyeur that Elias was. I have to keep tabs on things the old-fashioned way. MARTIN: What, turning invisible and eavesdropping? PETER: If you like.

Complete with Martin’s own (faint and static-y) “sharp squeal of distortion”… Martin presumably heard them leave, since he seemed to be on the same “plane” as the tape recorder. So. Uh. Yes. Martin, you’re turning into exactly Peter, and what does that say about you ;;

(My “holding-onto-theories-as-long-as-Jonny-hasn’t-gleefully-and-maniacally-bashed-them-in-with-a-pipe” bleeding heart says “Martin looks exactly like his dad!” and “Lukas!Martin!”.)

- Anyway, getting Lonely or not, Martin is… still a Beholding baby, dutifully recording – WELL, unless he hadn’t noticed the tape recorder this time around, but he had been aware of them last time, so?

(MAG134) PETER: I can’t help but notice you’re recording right now? MARTIN: It… was a statement, right, that’s what we do.

(MAG138) MARTIN: I don’t know what Peter’s planning, but my-my guess is that it might involve something below the Institute. Hopefully, by the time you get these tapes, I’ll have something more concrete for you. [PAUSE] Good luck, Jon, I– … [HUFF] Stay safe.

This time again, Martin was veeeeery “taken” by the statement and gave it his voice, and I’m laughing that, by contrast:

(MAG149) MARTIN: Statement ends. [SHORT INHALE] There’s… hum, a, a note here as well. [PAPER RUSTLING] Looks like Gertrude’s handwriting? Start of a letter to… Dekker, thanking him for sending Judith to her, though… it doesn’t look like it was ever finished or sent. [PAPER RUSTLING] “I assume this is another one he was trying to use to prove The Extinction? It… certainly has something in it. Mankind’s trash giving rise to something terrible. And again, fear of the other, inanimate humanoid figures. That’s all very… Stranger, isn’t it?” [SIGH] [LOW]… It’s never simple, is it…?

… I’m ASSUMING that Martin was quoting Gertrude’s note due to the content (being able to call the similarity with The Stranger, and overall reserves about the concept of “The Extinction”) but… his tone was absolutely not making it obvious. He didn’t read it in Gertrude’s voice or as “someone else’s voice” overall.

So yeah, at the very least: still under Beholding when reading a statement!

(And, small Martin thing: I’m so fond of the fact that he still has trouble introducing the statement – mostly when reading the cases numbers:

(MAG149) MARTIN: Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas, Head of the Magnus Institute, recording statement number… 0131305. Statement of Judith O’Neill, given May 13th, 2013. [INHALE] Statement begins.

So many pauses and little hesitations while he reads the numbers! … And, uh. Tim hadn’t bothered with the case number when making An Attempt in MAG086; Melanie didn’t either in MAG086 and MAG106 (Basira did in MAG112 though)… So, uh. Martin has read, what, eleven statements at this point? But I’m still not sure he’s understood that the case numbers are actually constructed from the date, and that giving both of those pieces of information is unnecessary. Hence, probably, why Jon doesn’t bother with it. It had taken Tim 33 episodes to solve The Mystery but. I’m not sure that the information spread.

I’m not sure Martin knows.

Oh, Martin…)

- I’m SO GLAD to hear Georgie’s stance about Jon, and why she… stopped trying and doesn’t want to get involved. To be honest, I’m surprised it… took her this long and happened only after Jon woke up? I had assumed that she had been shaken by Oliver’s encounter and reminded a bit too much of Alex’s situation, and that Jon insisting that he was fine when he couldn’t be had been the things tipping her over, and… it probably contributed. But Georgie really did everything she could in season 3 – housing him, hiding him although she knew the police was searching for him, trying to get him out of his mindset:

(MAG083) GEORGIE: Sure. I just… I know that you get obsessive about stuff, and this right here, I… I’m guessing someone dragged you into something weird, you got hooked in and then it all went wrong. ARCHIVIST: I mean, that is almost exactly what happened. GEORGIE: So what you need now is… distance. ARCHIVIST: You’re right. You’re right. I just… I need to record it. GEORGIE: No, you don’t. This [paper rustles] is not going to help. It’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Look me in the eyes and tell me that it’s not part of the cult or whatever the hell it was that left you homeless. … [SIGH] Come on. What’s it been, four days? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [SOFTER] Yeah. GEORGIE: It drops through the letter box and you spend four days… like this. It’s not– It isn’t right, Jon. You don’t sleep...

And in response, Jon… had been far from an ideal guest (breaches of trust, insisting he couldn’t stop, being an overall mess):

(MAG083) GEORGIE: Okay. And just so you know: not keen on your weird stalkers knowing my address. Not keen on that. ARCHIVIST: Right. [DOOR CLOSES] Right.

(MAG085) ARCHIVIST: I was just, uh… GEORGIE: You didn’t say we got another one. ARCHIVIST I didn’t want to worry you. GEORGIE: I knew it was something. You’ve been weird all day. ARCHIVIST I’m sorry, I… I don’t know. ARCHIVIST : Look, I’m really not sure about this. ARCHIVIST: I just need to borrow it for a half hour or so. I, I’ll look after it. GEORGIE: Wha– No, I don’t– You can blow it up for all I care. It’s been in the loft for, like, twenty years. If I need tape hiss, I’ll add it in post. ARCHIVIST: So, what’s the problem? GEORGIE: With playing an unmarked tape from your stalker? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Look, you just have to trust me, okay. GEORGIE: Yeah, and I want to do that, but how can I when you still won’t tell me what’s going on? ARCHIVIST: You wouldn’t believe me! GEORGIE: Try me. […] Come on, I’m not throwing you out, Jon. I know you wouldn’t be here if you had anywhere else to go, and I… I do want to help, but… y’know, you’re a good person. You were, at least. But whatever this is, it’s messing you up! [SIGH] Look I’ve, I’ve got work to do. You listen, or don’t listen, or cross-record, or whatever you want, just… just think about it first, okay? You can choose to leave it alone. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [TAPE PLAYER IS LOADED] [CLICK–] […] GEORGIE: That’s it. Whatever the hell this deal is, the tapes, documents, I don’t want them in my house. ARCHIVIST: Look, look… No, no… Look, you, you don’t need to be scared. GEORGIE: I’m not! You are! Look at you, you can barely stand! ARCHIVIST: But I… But I need– GEORGIE: Listen to me, Jon. I can’t stop you doing… whatever secret bullshit you want to do, and I’m… not going to throw you out on the street, but I’m not having it in by home. ARCHIVIST: No… No, they won’t. I’ll make sure it doesn’t… I’ll keep it far away. GEORGIE: No, you need to stop. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I can.

(MAG093) ARCHIVIST: Georgie, I just, I needed to do one more. GEORGIE: I asked you not to record them here. ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I… I honestly forgot. It’s been a hell of a week. GEORGIE: Yeah, not just for you. What, you think you just disappear for five days, then turn up looking like the, like the end of Die Hard, and I’ll just write it off? “Classic Jon, what an interesting life he must lead.” ARCHIVIST: No, I– GEORGIE: Where have you been? And what happened to your hand? ARCHIVIST: I don’t want to talk about it. GEORGIE: Tough. ARCHIVIST: Look, I’m moving out anyway, so just… just forget it. I’m out of your life. Alright? GEORGIE: No.

(MAG099) ARCHIVIST: You know that’s not what I mean. I feel like I’m putting you in danger. GEORGIE: Well, yeah. You are. A horrible mannequin thing turned up. Had to change all my lightbulbs. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. This, this is my point! GEORGIE: I said I’m fine with it. At least until you’re properly back on your feet. You’re not doing well. You keep apologising and saying you're changing, but it's all just the same. If you leave, I think it's just going to get worse, and I don’t want that.

(MAG149) MARTIN: Why aren’t you talking? GEORGIE: Ah…! … Because… I think… he’s going to… destroy himself. And… anyone who lets him get too close. And I don’t want that to include me. Or Melanie. […] But, he just carried on anyway– MARTIN: … Yeah, he will do that… GEORGIE:  –and I realised if I kept trying, it was gonna hurt me more than I was willing to accept. MARTIN: Well… [AUDIBLY SMILING] sometimes, helping people hurts. GEORGIE: Sure, but that doesn’t mean… everything painful helps. Sometimes, people have problems that will wreck you long before you can make a dent in them. … And some people don’t want help, they just… want other people suffering with them. […] MARTIN: It’s easy to pass judgement from the outside…! GEORGIE: One more reason to stay on the outside…!

I’m mostly sad that in the end, it all accumulated and went so badly that Georgie changed her mind, but she’s been… the most irreproachable of all, I feel? She did try, really hard, and it didn’t work to pull Jon out, because Jon kept repeating that there wasn’t any problem and proved himself untrustworthy (he still recorded things in her home and… caught her in his nightmares, and never acknowledged nor apologised about it).

Though, regarding Georgie’s perception of the situation:

1°) I didn’t really understand the “grenade” image…?

(MAG149) MARTIN: Look, we’re all just trying to do the right thing. GEORGIE: Maybe. [SIGH] Look… Life forces you to make hard decisions. But… I can never trust someone who goes around, looking for hard decisions to make. MARTIN: And what do you mean by that? GEORGIE: W–… Jumping on a grenade is only heroic if you weren’t the one who actually threw it. MARTIN: That’s not what’s happening. GEORGIE: Okay. It’s still not something I want any part of. MARTIN: Well…! Lucky for you we’re fully staffed, so…

Or was that literally about The Unknowing – the fact that they had placed bombs there? Does Georgie know that it had been the ritual attempt? (She knew Jon was ~trying to save the world~ but maybe she didn’t know that it had happened then?)

2°) Georgie used a lot of sentences presented as maxims or proverbs, as Objective Truths, and it made her words feel very stiff and sometimes cold…… and at the same time, it makes sense. She can’t feel fear; it would make sense that she learnt to function by rationalising, hence putting aside the emotional aspect of things when it comes to self-preservation, because it’s the only way she is able to tell that things are getting bad.

3°) ;; Her descriptions put me in mind of…… what had happened to Alex – and I wonder if she’s not assimilating what she experienced with The End and what Jon is currently doing?

(MAG094) GEORGIE: As the woman got closer, I could see something in Alex tighten, wind so taut that it finally snapped. She lunged forward, grabbed the corpse by its shoulders, and began to scream into its face. What did it want? What had it done? Demanding answers. The dead woman with the shaved head ignored her grip, leaned close to her neck and opened her mouth. For a moment I had visions of teeth sinking into Alex’s flesh, of arterial spray coating the clean, white laminate, but all that passed between them was a whisper. Something soft spoken into Alex’s ear. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she turned to look at me. Her eyes were different. They were still hers, and I could tell they still knew me, but something in them was gone. As my gaze met hers, Alex gave a simple, small shrug, so slowly, it was if every ounce of will she had went into that one small gesture. Her head drooped, staring at the floor, and she gently lowered herself down to lie there. And just like that I was on my own. It feels strange to think that even then I couldn’t find the strength to run. If I’m feeling generous to myself I try to believe it’s because I was unwilling to abandon Alex, or maybe the thing had some power to keep me there, but honestly, it was fight, flight or freeze. And I froze. I saw the dead woman approaching me. Smelt the chemicals that kept her from rotting, saw her lean towards me, saw her lips begin to form words. In desperation I slammed my hands over my ears and shut my eyes, willing myself not to hear, not to understand. As far as defences go, it was basically nothing, but I still think it saved me, at least a bit.

(MAG120) ELIAS: Another dissection room. Another figure standing in its centre; but this one is calm. She simply looks at him sadly, a pity in her face that burns him worse than any flame. More than anything, the Archivist wants to look away, to turn his Eye from her gentle sadness, from the disappointment for what she sees in him; but he cannot. So he watches her, until she simply fades away.

Georgie witnessed a friend running into danger, getting destroyed in the process, and was almost taken by it in turn. She already experienced this. Of course, she would feel like Jon is threatening to do a repeat of the situation, although more gradual.

- …

(MAG149) MARTIN: Oh. … Oh, wai–wait, I thought Melanie-Georgie, and Jon-Georgie were… GEORGIE: Oh, uh, s–same, same Georgie. MARTIN: Oh. … Ah. Aah, so you and Jon…

Does it mean that Georgie and Melanie are friendly exes too. Does it mean that Jon & Melanie have actually kissed the same person, and would it count as a kiss by proxy. How many seconds before Melanie would gouge her eyes out at the notion.

(Melanie had mentioned Georgie to Basira, but not onscreen to Martin! So Martin used to be on talking basis with Melanie, enough for her to talk about her close ones…? ;w;)

- I’m assuming that Georgie was taking Melanie to therapy again and Hhhhhhh, I’m so glad that 1°) Georgie DID POINT OUT that Melanie is currently making efforts to get better – unlike Jon, and that that’s why Georgie is ready to help in Melanie’s case and less so with Jon (we could hear in MAG145 how… no, Jon isn’t really trying at all), 2°) Melanie indeed sounds quieter and more peaceful. Still really hoping that, whether her therapist is a surprise Lonely/Web/Beholding/Extinction!spook or not, it’s actually valid and regular therapy at work.

- The Martin-Georgie exchange also revealed that they hadn’t met each other at the hospital when Jon was in the coma! Though we still don’t know if Martin was a frequent visitor (we only heard him during the s4 trailer and there was no indication as to whether he had been visiting often or not).

… I was fearing that Martin would be meaner than this given that Georgie is Jon’s (friendly) ex but he (more or less) behaved, amazing. Bow down to Georgie’s powers, able to master Martin’s pettiness.

(Although yes, there is an undercurrent of… “I would do this if I were you!” in what Martin is telling her, so Martin is fully aware of who she is and what she represents for Jon <33)

- I’m half-laughing, half-sobbing over the fact that, when people are telling him that they aren’t talking with Jon, Martin’s reaction is to inquire Why and treat it as a serious issue:

(MAG149) MARTIN: Oh. … Ah. Aah, so you and Jon… GEORGIE: … aren’t… really talking anymore. MARTIN: Rrright. [SILENCE] … Why not? GEORGIE: Excuse me? MARTIN: Why aren’t you talking?

Martin, please. You really can’t fathom that people might not want to talk to Jon and his Charming Personality, or that they have their Own Agenda Preventing Them From Talking With Jon just like you, uh. (Forget Fear Patron-shopping: Martin is Jon-aligned in the “do what I say, not what I DO” department.)

- MmMMMMMmm so, Daisy had already made it transparent that Jon was talking a bit more about Martin than we hear on tape:

(MAG144) DAISY: I, uh… I mentioned our conversation to him; he asked me to check on– MARTIN: Just leave. DAISY: Sorry?

……………….. but the novelty is that APPARENTLY, Jon was talking about Martin behind our backs in season 3 already?!

(MAG149) MARTIN: Oh, you… you’re here for Melanie? GEORGIE: Yeah. … Georgie. MARTIN: [COUGH] … Sorry. Uh, sorry, I–I didn’t realise. I’m, I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. GEORGIE: You must be Martin. MARTIN: Y–yeah. Has… Melanie been talking about me? GEORGIE: Oh, hum… Jon used to go on about you a lot.

(… To be fair, there were two other guys working in the Archives and one of them is dead, so identifying Martin on sight… probably wasn’t that hard. Still, “to go on about you A LOT” is… Big, from Jon.

And he had immediately equated “talking with the others” (Georgie’s advice from MAG099) to “talking with Martin specifically” (in MAG102, one month and a long kidnapping&sequestration later):

(MAG099) ARCHIVIST: Is it… Why are you so insistent on keeping me around? GEORGIE: Because you’re trying to cut yourself off, and that’s… that’s really bad! Look, when’s the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me? ARCHIVIST: That’s… I… I–I talked to Martin a, a… a… a few weeks ago…? GEORGIE: Did you talk to him? Or did he talk to you, while you tried to find a way to escape? ARCHIVIST: I… uh… GEORGIE: Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors. ARCHIVIST: All my “anchors” are just as deep in this as me. GEORGIE: Well, you still need them. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Maybe you’re right. I… I’ll talk to the others.

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: In the meantime I… I have a new flat. I should try to get comfortable, change the locks. Even if I might need to be leaving it for a while. Oh, and… I suppose I… I did tell Georgie I’d try to talk to Martin.

Jon. Joooooon…)

(- I’m!! Still!! Unsure!! Whether Jon’s brooding over Martin in season 4 is meant to be potentially romantic or not. There are so many issues entangled right now that it doesn’t feel like a primary option: Martin is doing something dangerous, is the last one of Jon’s original team alive, and was representing a bit of stability/familiarity. It’s only natural and obvious that Jon would be sick-worried over him and longing for any contact, since Tim is now dead and Jon has been sinking further into spooks and monsterhood.

But the idea that Jon was (positively?) talking a bit more about Martin unprompted in season 3 already… Mmmmmmmmmmm…)

- It was an excellent confrontation of different points of view, with much awkwardness (Georgie and Martin both obviously trying to say Where They Were Standing about some issues even when the conversation wasn’t exactly about it – it really felt like they… weren’t really able to talk “together”, mostly exchanging point of views and mutually using the other as a way to justify themselves), but. At the same time. I feel like Martin’s stances were almost completely invalidated given his situation and what happened with his mother?

(MAG118) [STATIC BEGINS] ELIAS: Your mother. MARTIN: [BREATHES SHARPLY] ELIAS: She’s always been… “difficult”, hasn’t she? You take care of her for years, feed her, clean up after her and now, with her condition degrading even further, she is the one that asked to move into a home, to have it left to the nurses! She is the one that refuses your visits. MARTIN: Sh– she’s always been– ELIAS: Strong-willed? Stubborn? No. No, Martin; you know the reason. Your mother… simply hates you. You just don’t know why! It’s not your fault. Though I know that isn’t any consolation, it’s just bad luck, really. How old were you when your father left? Eight? Nine? When you mother began to sicken and he decided he was done with you both. Not old enough to remember him with any great clarity, especially when your mother refused to keep any pictures of him. She never recovered from that betrayal. He just tore her heart right out!, and took it with him. The thing is, though, Martin: if you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like… all you have to do~ is look in a mirror~ MARTIN: [HEAVY BREATHING] ELIAS: The resemblance is quite uncanny: the face of the man she hates, who destroyed her life, watching over her; feeding her; cleaning her; looking down on her with such pity– MARTIN: [RAGGED] Shut! Up! ELIAS: Do you want to know what she sees when she looks a you? [STATIC INTENSIFIES]

… MARTIN, HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO CONCLUDE, ONE YEAR LATER, THAT

(MAG149) MARTIN: … Maybe he just needs some help. GEORGIE: I did help him! As much as I safely could. But, he just carried on anyway– MARTIN: … Yeah, he will do that… GEORGIE:  –and I realised if I kept trying, it was gonna hurt me more than I was willing to accept. MARTIN: Well… sometimes, helping people hurts. GEORGIE: Sure, but that doesn’t mean… everything painful helps. Sometimes, people have problems that will wreck you long before you can make a dent in them. … And some people don’t want help, they just… want other people suffering with them. MARTIN: Nn, Jon doesn’t want that.

… It’s not only that “sometimes, helping people hurts”: it’s also that sometimes, trying to force your conception of “help” over someone who doesn’t want it hurts them on top of hurting yourself.

Fortunately, Jon is not Martin’s mother, and Freud can remain Buried, but. Martin, oh, Martin… you learned absolutely nothing, did you…?

(I’m wrecked over the fact that you could HEAR that he was forcefully smiling, when saying that “sometimes, helping people hurts”. You could just. Hear it. And gosh, Martin, no…)

- ;; Extra-wrecked that, so far, no, Martin’s conception of care… hasn’t really helped anybody. It didn’t work with Tim when Martin was more or less trying to check on him in season 3, and Tim even cut any contact with Martin when he went on his own crusade against the Circus; Basira dismissed him a bit about it in MAG110; trying to tend to his mother… didn’t really work either. Jon has been craving Anything Martin in season 4, though, which is the main difference with the others. So maybe just being there could help, indeed, and that’s precisely something Martin doesn’t feel like he can afford to do at the moment… If he indeed consciously sent Jess’s tape to the other assistants, it means that although Martin hesitated, he was able to step in and take measures after learning that Jon was on the wrong path. So maybe hearing about how isolated Jon currently is, and how even Georgie has given up on him, could push Martin to send another message…?

- I’m a bit relieved by Georgie’s stance about Jon, too, because… yes, if someone should have these feelings about him, it’s her. And at the same time, I feel like the fact that she made them explicit is also a way to say that this is not the only option – it’s hers and her perception of current events, but it’s not… fundamentally the ones other characters will choose and pursue. There will probably be alternatives, there will probably be many different ways to interact with Jon; we’ve already seen Basira’s and it’s not certain that Martin will keep doing his best to not interact ~for everyone’s greater good in the long-run~ now that he’s getting more information about how bad things are going currently. (Or not, and he could still persist in his isolation anyway.)

I’m still curious about Daisy’s and Melanie’s stances because both of them know they’ve been under influence, and Jon was the one who gave them other options. Both would have personal reasons to feel very mad at him (Jonathan “Do what I say, not what I do” Sims had told Melanie it was time to heal, and told Daisy that There Were Always Choices… when he had already attacked two people), with various degrees of betrayal. I’m sad in advance for Daisy, as she had grown kinda close to Jon since she had come back from the coffin and he… hadn’t… told her… about the live-statements… although she would have been the most likely to understand…, and it’s probably not a good idea at all to have them interact without supervision (if Daisy was beginning to “hear her blood” when thinking about Elias, what would happen now that she knows that Jon had been going more monster-y?) but. I want to hear Daisy’s perspective on these things. (Although I’m worried about Jon’s hesitation in MAG148, please, don’t be Hunting again ;;). As for Melanie, I want her to kick Jon’s butt and call him out on his hypocrisy about “healing” and (break of) trust; at the same time, given that she’s currently making efforts to make better, she’s probably in the best position to do so in a productive way.

(Though there is still the question of What Can They Do?, re:Jon… Melanie got a clearer head (and some additional trauma) following the bullet’s removal. Daisy, who had been a Hunter for a looong time, was cut from The Hunt thanks to the coffin. But how could they possibly cut Jon from The Eye? He was still using his powers in the coffin and his personality has been aligned to Beholding for a long time (Georgie had pointed out that Jon had always been the kind to ask questions that could get himself punched), to the point that it’s extremely hard to establish if Jon had been influenced or if it had been him without any spook involved at various points in the series – the gnawing curiosity about the tunnels all through season 2 is a prime example, and although most of Jon’s actions made sense in context (coming along with Basira to be there to help if Hill Top Road turns out too dangerous; seeing the Dark Sun to neutralise it; agreeing to come with Basira to the North Pole to make sure that The Dark wouldn’t succeed its ritual; going down in the coffin to save Daisy; going to talk to Jared and agreeing to exchange a rib against his statement to learn who had sent Jared after the archival staff; planning Melanie’s surgery; going to The Unknowing because he was worried about Tim’s safety; etc.), it’s still possible that Jon wanted to know and experience these things, first-hand, and was only rationalising to himself secondary reasons to put himself in danger like this.So how would they be able to remove him from The Eye’s influence in the same way that Daisy got cut from The Hunt in the coffin…? Could using The Dark or The Stranger or The Spiral help, given how they feel like opposite to The Eye? Gouging Jon’s eyes out? Anchoring him to another avatar like what happened with Gertrude and Agnes…?)

- ;; Kinda hoping that this isn’t the last we’re hearing of Georgie, nor of Georgie-and-Jon… because we already got the “Jon used to get along with x person for years / Jon fucked up hard / too many fuckups / now x person is giving up on him, and it’s Definite And Absolute and their relationship is broken forever” scenario with… Tim? And the series tends to break more long-lasting bonds than it creates (I doubt that Basira&Daisy will stay a duo for long, especially now with the fact that 1°) Basira had hidden that she had let Jon extort Floyd’s statement, 2°) Basira had hidden she has been following Elias’s leads through the season; Basira and Jon, who used to share the same humour, are a Disaster this season; Melanie, who was kinda getting along with Basira as a gossip unit, felt objectified by her; Melanie and Jon never really got along to begin with… There is still Georgie-and-Melanie at the moment, and a bit of Melanie-and-Daisy in the background, but… that’s it.

And in Georgie-and-Jon’s case: there is the fact that Jon mentioned to Melanie, back in season 2, that their break-up had been… bad, at least according to him. Yet, they were still able to be super friendly in season 3. Which means that they have a history of Patching Things Up even though their relationship changes. As mentioned, we already got The Definitive Fall-Out thing with Tim, so I still want to hope that Jon&Georgie cooould… manage to talk things out at some point, or at least have a proper goodbye to give themselves some closure or something. Unless Jon launches The Watcher’s Crown in the next 10 episodes.

… I want to see The Admiral and hear him purr again, gdi.

(- AND I’M STILL “????” OVER THE NEAR ABSOLUTE ABSENCE OF TIM MENTIONS THIS SEASON… From Melanie&Daisy&Basira, I’m not surprised; and right, he’s been dead for a year at this point, and Martin additionally had his mother and we didn’t hear his own feelings about it either; but it’s only been a few months from Jon, and I’m still ? over the fact that Jon… wasn’t able to remember how they had neutralised The Unknowing, back in MAG122.

Especially right now, with Georgie bringing up self-care and cutting yourself from toxic people, and how some people just spiral into their own destruction… Because, surely, the bottom line can’t be that dying is the best option? Daisy brought that notion back when talking with Martin in MAG142 (about how maybe Melanie had been right to want to kill Elias), and we had a glimpse of that through Tim’s spiralling descent into anger&revenge with a bit of suicide ideation thrown in the mix; it was his Answer to everything that was happening to him, it was the only option he deemed acceptable, he was embracing it and admitted in MAG117 that he probably didn’t want to survive The Unknowing anyway… And so, it was sad as fuck and not something to glorify.)

- And all these Relationship Fall-Outs are a good occasion to remember that Peter Lukas has been running the Institute for around a year, now, and HOW CURIOUS it is that characters have been (even more than usual) unable to work together or to trust each other efficiently.

(… Though, nowadays, Peter is apparently less and less present. So, if he’s indeed been… making things worse just by being there, who is currently casting The Lonely on the Institute? Is it Martin?)

- Also brought up again in the midst of the discussion: the fact that the Institute in itself… isn’t neutral, and potentially influences people:

(MAG062) MARY: Mm. Well, they don’t understand up there. They don’t know what this place is. You do, though, don’t you? We’re on the same side, really, even if Elias disagrees. GERTRUDE: If you say so.

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know. But I don’t think I can fire you either. TIM: What? ARCHIVIST: It’s this place. TIM: I don’t understand. ARCHIVIST: Neither do I. [STATIC FADES] I’m trying to figure it out, I’ve– I’ve got the shape of it but… I’m sorry, Tim. Truly I am. But I cannot, and will not, trust you. This place isn’t right, you see that now. I don’t know how or why, but there is something very wrong with the Archives. And I don’t know who here is a victim of it… and who is an agent. TIM: So… what do we do? ARCHIVIST: For now? I suppose we just… do our jobs. TIM: I don’t want to. ARCHIVIST: No…

(MAG079) TIM: There is something in this place, and it’s messing up our heads. It watches us all the time. It stops me quitting. I’m pretty sure it would stop Elias firing Jon even if he decided to actually try running this place for once. MARTIN: You’re sure you don’t just want to stay? TIM: I’m sure. MARTIN: But, like, deep down– TIM: No. MARTIN: … Oh.

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: This place belongs to one of them, doesn’t it? LEITNER: You know the answer to that. ARCHIVIST: The Eye. LEITNER: I have also heard it called Beholding. ARCHIVIST: And I… LEITNER: You belong to it too.

(MAG090) TIM: … You do know, right? I mean, you must know. ELIAS: Know what? TIM: About this place. About what it does to us. ELIAS: [SIGH] Tim, this place is very old. It has all sorts of... idiosyncrasies and not all of them are good for the people who work here. TIM: I think I’d prefer asbestos.

(MAG092) ELIAS: Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, Jon. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett […]. No, it was because he was curious. Because he had to know, to watch and see it all. That’s what this place is, Jon, never forget it. You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard. This, at least, Gertrude understood. […] There’s so much of this place, of ourselves, twisted by forces far beyond us. I just wanted you to know– [DOOR OPENS] […] Yes, I was just saying to Jon. It’s very important to me you understand that no action I have taken has been controlled. I have done everything because I wished to.

(MAG098) TIM: Look, it’s not that. I… [SIGH] This place is evil, Martin. And I think doing what It wants? Probably makes us evil. And It wants those things to be read. I mean, I’m not going to stop you, but, at the same time… MARTIN: I– I get it.

(MAG114) TIM: Anyway, you’re a spook too now, aren’t you? This place loves you too much to let you get swapped.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: I don’t understand. MELANIE: No? You don’t, do you? He’s still alive. You are still alive. So THIS PLACE is still–! [HEAVY STRANGLED BREATHING] ARCHIVIST: Melanie! Melanie, this isn’t you–

(MAG128, Breekon) “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal. But we were drunk on the dawning horror of transportation and took no heed of it.”

(MAG149) MARTIN: … This place isn’t a sickness. GEORGIE: No, I–I think it’s worse. […] MELANIE: Who were you talking to…? GEORGIE: Oh, I was, uh– … [HUFF] No one, apparently. MELANIE: [SIGH] … Yeah. This place will do that to you…!

How fitting, that Melanie, who sounds better lately… has also been getting out more, at least for therapy. Thus removing herself a bit from the Institute, after spending months holed up in there with Basira. (… This is not an invitation for Jon to go roam outside unsupervised again.)

(And Peter had told Martin that he needed the Institute for his plans, and Martin suspected that it was about the tunnels under it. … is the building getting destroyed by the end of the season. BURN, BABY, BURN.)

- What a perfect time, also, to remember that Jon had wondered out loud back in MAG139 about why they had been “chosen”, and hadn’t been able to find an answer. But we know, concretely, about Some People Who Did Some Choosing, and who are doing their damn bestest to be perceived as comedically useless recently, uh. Peter keeps being away and fake-friendly and not helping with anything even about dealing with The Extinction; and Elias allowed Basira to come see him although he was expecting to get beaten up, and pretended that he had messed up here and there and didn’t know much about anything. But. Elias, why did you specifically pick Jon as the next Archivist, even though Xiaoling had offered someone for the position. Why did you specifically send Peter to meet Martin in MAG108, and why Peter’s fixation with Martin.

(I’m still ?? over that last point because, strategically? Elias had just wrecked Melanie after she had tried to kill him multiple times and wanted to keep going; he wasn’t above doing that. And meanwhile, Tim had provoked him, made it extremely clear he would go against the Circus solo even though Elias was telling him not to – and as far as being lonely/isolated went… Tim was like, the perfect option? Still at a loss with what had happened with Sasha, still grieving his brother? So why did Elias choose to send Peter to Martin, who wasn’t a threat to him at the time? Was it only because of the hopeless pining after Jon – since Melanie&Basira had just made it explicit in MAG106 (… and some part of me still wants to believe that Elias. Hadn’t picked up on it until then. Hadn’t noticed. Because he tended to never take Martin into account)? But then, those were Martin’s feelings for Jon, not the reverse, so even if the plan was to isolate Jon more, it wouldn’t have changed anything…?)

- orz orz orz And it’s always a good (bad) moment to remember that:

(MAG126) MARTIN: … When all this is over, I’m telling him everything, with or without your permission. PETER: Martin… when it’s over, you won’t want to. MARTIN: … Mm. PETER: But he will be safe. They all will. MARTIN: … Yeah.

(MAG138) MARTIN: I think he wants me to join The Lonely. ELIAS: Then it sounds like you have a decision to make. […] MARTIN: I don’t know what I expected. [INHALE] Right. Right, we’re done here. [CHAIR SCRAPING ON THE FLOOR] [STEPS LEAVING] ELIAS: Don’t forget to keep in touch, Martin. There are so many people in here, but without one’s friends… [DOOR LOCKING] it does get rather lonely.

(Gasp, yeah, it sounded almost like ADVICE coming from Elias’s mouth, under the obvious gratuitous jab. Shockingly.)

(Aaaand Peter hadn’t been clear about what would make Martin not want to tell Jon: whether it would be because of Jon’s evolution, or because of Martin’s. Right now, we’re getting both, and Martin is getting more comfortable in his isolation…………………. I still hope that if he had a Plan to backstab Peter, he’ll still carry through it and manage to pull that one off (hey, he had already revealed that he was recording the statements for Jon and intended for the tapes to reach him at some point) but ;; In any case, it won’t be pretty, uh…)

Title for MAG150 is… *Undignified French snicker* Écoutez, je suis une personne simple, on peut vraiment réutiliser le titre de façon dégueulasse si on enfonce cette porte ouverte.

It’s funny, because there is an English equivalent for this one, and Jon was using it so much in season 1 and 2 that I had begun to make the compilation of its occurrences, and it had been used both in its concrete and abstract meanings. … It had specifically been used in MAG041, too, which put me in mind of the tunnels under the Institute (title would fiiiit) and the circle of worms, so I wanna Believe In A Corruption Statement because I’ll do that every week under The Filth gets its share in season 4.

Other options: mmm, we know that Gertrude and Gerry had travelled in France when tracking The Stranger so there could be something additional to this and/or the return of Jon Fluently Reading/Understanding languages he doesn’t know? Or it could be a reference to the movie of the same name – Lonely one, then, possibly? Would be a good title for a Buried statement, too, though we already got the coffin mini-arc not that long ago. Literally, it also puts to mind MAG005’s statement (… and in more than one way) so… could be… about that… too… (in which case: Flesh? Hunt?).

Second meaning of the title is L-O-L, that’s. That’s a nice summary of this little soap opera you call an Archive’s current state of affair. (And it’s… nice to think back to the concrete meaning and how, to get out of one, you have… to admit that you made a mistake and take a few steps back in order to revaluate your options. … Or to pursue your initial plans and to crash against the wall/make the wall crumble. Oh no.)

[weshallc]

Berns Night.

So we’ve had a lot of birthdays @thatginchygal @rahleeyah @wednesdaygilfillian (sorry I missed that one) @roguesnitch coming up and @ilovemushystuff is celebrating too! and @h4t08 finally joined Tumblr and @clonethemidwife has returned and there are lots of new folk. Sooo I felt like throwing a party and there ain’t nothing like a Crown Inn party!!!!

This was supposed to be a Crown Stoppy Back but had other ideas so I will post the first chapter tonight as people are still recovering from Burns Night. Don’t worry if you are not familiar with the Burns Night traditions they will be explained more in chapter two. Probably 3 in all. We shall see as they say!

As always, I would be lost without @lovetheturners endless patience and thanks to @roguesnitch for encoraging me. This is dedicated to the most bonniest of lads I hope you had a great birthday and Burns Night with the Bard himself this year😉😘🤗 

CHAPTER ONE: FAIR FA’ YOUR HONEST, SONSIE FACE

“Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm : Weel are ye wordy o'a grace As lang's my arm.”  Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns 1786.

Monday 25th January 2016

“His knife see rustic Labour dight, An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright, Like ony ditch; And then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin', rich!”

The room was swept in darkness apart from the light of the wolf moon and the north star penetrating the cold window panes. All eyes were facing towards a wooden table and the elderly man stood behind it. He was in his 60s and wiry, small for a man, but with a silver mess of what once must have been a bonnie head of fire red hair. The body may have looked weak, but the intensity in his bright blue eyes cut through the dimly lit surroundings.

As he spoke again, his voice filled the room, cut through the anticipating silence. It was a voice that could take a knife and slice right through a soul. The knife in his hand in turn sliced through the offering in front of its high priest. Years of performing the same action with such a passion resulted in precision. The faithful entranced by the spectacle all gasped as one as the incision was violently made. No one daring to speak. Suddenly the trance was lost as artificial light rudely brought everyone back to the present with a blast of the pipes.

“All done then Reverend Mannion? Can I serve the Haggis now? Don’t want it getting cold now do we, not at £15 a head.”

“Aye, Violet the ceremony is over, it’s time for eating and drinking something the bard would have approved of, rightly so.”

The kilted clergyman winked at an auburn-haired girl in the crowd and tipped his whisky tumbler toward her. She raised her own glass and winked back. Her companion at her table was much taller with dark hair styled in a tidy no-nonsense bob.

The tall one leaned toward the small one and asked, “If it’s already dead, why does he have to kill it?”

“What?”

“The Haggis if it’s already dead why does he have to kill it?”

Her friend opened her mouth to speak, but she saw a tender hand take hold of Chummy’s arm and explain it was all just ceremony, it was tradition.

��Like all that malarkey at our passing out parade, the day we got our badge. That wasn’t about police work, was it? It’s just tradition.  It’s what the English do well.”

He had been doing really well up until then, but a golden raised eyebrow made him alter his stance. “It is what us Brits do best.”

The raised eyebrow whispered to the police constable. ”Peter, Chummy really doesn’t think a haggis is a real animal, does she?”

He was not the kind of man that would turn heads, but he had a kindness in his eyes and an openness in his face that she thought some would see as attractive. If only Camilla wasn’t his superior, and they didn’t work such long hours together, what might have been?

She knew her friend well and sensed more queries would follow. Not sure as a Scot brought up on Tweavenside and now living in London she could provide satisfying answers. Picking up their empty glasses and heading to the bar was a strange sort of refuge for a vicar's daughter and inner-city missionary.

There was a queue well sort of a queue. In London a queue was made up of people standing in an orderly line and the person who had been stood the longest getting served first. In Poplar-on-Tweaven it resembled more of a rugby scrum and the person who shouted the loudest being ignored and anyone who called the barmaid by name being bunked up the order. She wasn’t familiar with busy bars but she was bright enough to work out the system.

“Val, when yer ready hen.” The request came from someone not sure that was their own voice they had just heard yelling those words.

All her life she had been immersed in the wonders of the Bible and was still amazed at how so many miracles had been performed. She had heard all the CPR arguments regarding resurrections and all that, and was still not convinced. But she now knew how Moses had parted the Red Sea, he had known the barmaid’s name was Valerie.

“What can I get you, chick?”

“Here! I was first.” A grumpy voice struck up.

“Oh Al, you are always first. Let me serve this lass and then I will sort you out”

“Promises, promises.”

“Yeah in your dreams, pal.”

She was starting to feel uncomfortable she hadn’t meant to jump the queue. Maybe she should go back to the table and let Peter get the drinks. A man’s voice interrupted her thoughts, it was quieter than Al’s but held an authority. It wasn’t a Tweavenside accent, but it had a northern softness.

“You serve our impatient friend Valerie, I will see to this young lady.” Then turning to his new customer, “What can I get you, pet”

“Erm a whisky and lemonade and erm a pint, please.”

“Which whisky and a pint of?”

She wasn’t sure; she nudged her bottom onto a vacant stool for security.

“Are you with the law?” The tall bartender nodded towards Chummy and Peter,

“Yes, yes I am.”

“OK, so that’s a Grouse and diet lemonade, just a dash and a pint of Buckles Best

and for you?”

He stepped back a minute. “Your Reverend Wilf’s daughter?”

“Yes, I am.” Bernie suddenly felt more sure of herself. She was never completely certain of who she was when back in Poplar

“Bernadette?” The stranger was grinning now, his brown eyes glinting under the harsh bar spotlights, or were they green?

“Well, that’s my Sunday name most people call me Bernie, even Dad.”

“Well, since I’ve never seen you in here on a Sunday or any other day. I will call you Bernie. I am Patrick Turner, most people call me Paddy, a few Doc.”

“Oh no, you won’t have seen me here on a Sunday or any other day. I live in London now and before that, well I am not a big drinker.”

“What can I get you then?” asked Paddy loitering near the coke and lemonade pumps.

“A gin and tonic please, better make it a double it’s quite busy, save me coming back.”

Paddy smiled. “Premium gin?”

“Yes.”

While the optic was emptying into the glass, he asked, “You must have known this old place when Evie ran it?”

“Yes, I know Evie and J..Jenny”

“Oh yes. Jen was here when me and the wife took over she was a great help. We get a text every now and again, doing well for herself now all loved up.” He winked at her as he ended the sentence causing her to panic slightly.

“I was sorry to hear about your loss.” She wished she hadn’t said it.

Val had seemed to deal with ten customers to Paddy’s one and now there was just the two of them alone at the bar. He looked at her in a sort of a non-direct, sort of direct way, under that infuriating fringe she wanted to reach out and push back.

“Loss is as much a part of love as is healing,” he replied with a hint of melancholy but without irony.

She was stunned and tried to find a corresponding Bible verse, but she drew a blank.

She focused on what was real and what was present, her dad had taught her to do that. What was in front of her at this precise moment was a glass of gin and ice and a twist of lime. He was now unscrewing a bottle of Mediterranean slimline tonic.

She yelped, “No!” as he lay the bottle alongside the glass.

“Sorry most people add the tonic to the gin and I cannae bear it drowned.”

“Wouldn't dream of it surely that would be very presumptuous of me.”

“Aye well, most people I've met are very presumptuous.”

“Maybe you have spent too much time in London. if you don't mind me saying, Bernie.”

“Well, to be fair we don’t spend a lot of time sitting on stools and propping up bars in my part of London.”

“More's the pity.”

“Can I bother you for a...”

Paddy popped a black straw into her tumbler.

“I will make sure when you come home next time none of my staff will be presumptuous.”

“Oh, I doubt you will remember me, Paddy. I only come up to see my Da. I can't imagine you will be seeing much of me in the future, hardly likely that I would ever be considered a regular.”

“Now who is being presumptuous?”

Bernie went to put the straw between her lips but paused, realizing the stranger was still watching her. She suddenly felt uncomfortable. As heat rose in her cheeks and she suddenly felt awkward on the stool, squirming to find some sort of comfortable position. The stranger smiled in a way she could not understand; it wasn’t smug or suggestive, but as if there were sharing a joke, but she wasn’t sure what the joke was.

She hopped off her seat, for a brief moment realizing her arse was in the air and prayed he had altered his gaze. Focusing anywhere but behind the bar she grabbed her glass and bottle in one hand, put the whisky against her elbow and waist, the pint in her other hand, turned and swiftly moved toward her thirsty friends.

Shelagh Bernadette Mannion don’t you dare look back and see if he is watching you he is recently widowed with a son, Da said. He is, what do they call them now, a bloomer or something like that. God has shown you his path for you and it certainly does not include the Crown Inn, Poplar-on-Tweaven.

He is still watching me, I can feel it.