#Jeremy my beloved you’ll have your day in the sun

[chloesimaginationthings]

You should totally have Jeremy meet the gang if you haven't already!

I definitely should, so far this is the only time I’ve drawn him in the comic!

[sorcererinthestars]

A very happy belated birthday to my darling @shadeofazmeinya. My apologies for not being around much this weekend, but to make up for it, here is a birthday ficlet! I hope you enjoy!

unedited, so sorry if it makes no sense!

Loosely inspired by this beauty by the one and only @fahchaus

---

A wedding was not seen often in the lands of the Gods. Particularly a union between so powerful gods as the Solar Queen and the Wild One. The humans below had even felt a Stirring - something was happening as the sun and the shadows seemed to shift on themselves. It was a feeling of mystery, similar to the one that gripped hearts in the center of an unknowing wood. Not bad. Just ... unsettling. Like a higher power was now changing and the way the world works would be forever changed. For the Pantheon, well, they were just thrilled that such a happy union was able to be created right under their noses. They turned their small world into a utopia, a beautiful place for a wedding. Their Tree - the giant Tree, the One Tree - was decked out in floating lights. Flowers and garlands were strewn everywhere. Michael watched the whole affair from the throne in the sky. He wasn’t hiding, per se. Not really. Hiding meant he didn’t want to see the others and that wasn’t true at all. He wanted to see them. Especially Gavin. But he felt kind of ill. Binding a human union was broken by death. A godly union couldn’t be broken by anything at all. They could throw away the rings, sure, but they’d still be Bound by blood and magic. It was a strong Oath. Jack - it was always Jack - landed next to him after about an hour of sulking. His feet hung off the edge of the platform and he gave Michael a bit of a smile, flowers braided into his beard for the festivities. “Nervous?” “No!” Michael snaps. He shifts, hoping not to muss his ceremonial clothing. His pink armor was gone for now, but his pink sword stayed. Instead, he was shirtless, his clothing simple but somehow made magnificent by the swirls of magic glyphs painted on his skin like war paint. Binding Runes, given to him by the Creator - Ryan.  “Yes,” Jack just chuckled. “It’s okay to be nervous, Michael. I haven’t said I’ve ever wed before, but the humans pray to me sometimes when they do it, and it seems like they all have marvelous times.” “They’re humans...,” Michael murmurs. “It’s different.” “Maybe,” Jack shrugs, squeezing his leg a bit in solidarity. “But the Solar Queen has always been there for you. You love him. This is just binding the Wild Places with the Sun. It’s helping the world Below. And it’s helping you. I don’t think its something to be frightened of.” Michael frowns and looks below, catching sight of a small retinue by the machines. The flash of light too powerful to be anything that wasn’t his Lover. His Gavin. He frowns but can’t help the flash of longing in his throat. Jack chuckles. “Look at you. Pining when he’s just down below. You’re smitten. Just give it a few more hours and you’ll be together. I promise.”

*** Jeremy had to wear special glasses to get Gavin ready for his big day. The man was positively glowing in excitement. No nerves here, just enthusiasm. He was the one who proposed, after all, and the Sun never really dimmed on his love. He was a man who had dark moods, dreadful moods, but not today.  Shimmering, he seemed to wear cloth spun from the very rays of sunlight he controlled. White and shining, they draped over his body, gold bands around both arms. A halo of sunlight wrapped around his head. Jeremy finished the last of the draping and stepped back to admire his work. “Hell,” he huffs. “I’d hate to get blood on this.” Gavin shot him a look. “I’ll incinerate you, you knob.” Snorting, Jeremy shook his head. “I’m clean, I promise. And hey, this marriage thing doesn’t mean you can get out of helping me with the blood .. you know that, right?” The other chuckled and his grin was positively menacing. “No, of course it won’t,” he purrs. “I want to see what happens when we finally active the minging thing anyways.” “You two seem to be almost done,” a third voice pitched in. It was warm and dark and the man who carried it seemed to have an aura of night around him, sparking like the spots of stars reflected in the warm pools of shadows that condensed in every footstep.  They didn’t often show off like this. But this was a special occasion and they all felt the need to act their best. The Dark God brushed his fingers over his Solar Queen’s face, just gently. “Seems like you finally found the perfect fit for your energy,” he smiles. “I’m happy for you.” Gavin seemed to shine a bit brighter and he laughs. “I’m not dying, you mong, I’m just moving into Michael’s cabin. Works on as usual tomorrow.” Ryan smiles back, chuckling too. “I suppose, but I won’t be surprised to see your mantles both change a bit because this. The Solar Queen and the God of the Wild Ones may be forever changed.” Gavin frowns a bit, his heart skipping a beat, but he swallows back the fear. “We’re ready for this.” Ryan bowed his head a bit. “I’m sure you are.” ** The wedding was a small affair, in the end. They didn’t have any other followers except them on the island anyways. They even dressed Geoff up and got him to leave his chickens for the party. The man had hugged both Gavin and Michael and gave them his best. He said he’d name chickens after them... which was a big step, seeing who had killed the most of his beloveds. When Gavin came through the gates and into the farm where they all waited by the tree, Michael thought his heart was going to stop in joy. The Creator, Ryan, officiated the ceremony. It was soft and sweet, but the binding magic felt firm around them both. When they kissed, the small crowd erupted in joy. Michael almost couldn’t let go, his head dizzy from the warmth and power of his lovely boy. The rings seemed to echo that power... they were One now, for better or for worse. The sky seemed brighter to Michael, but maybe that was just excitement. But he could have sworn he saw a tree extend a few leaves Gavin’s way... a True sign of the Lord of the Wilds. ** It was quiet when they finally got back to their small cabin after the ceremonies were complete. They closed the doors and were finally alone together, staring at each other across the pool of light from their small torches. Gavin was still glowing slightly, but looked tired. It didn’t dampen the smile across his face. Michael stepped forward, putting his sword to the side. “Hello,” he purrs, pulling Gavin closer to him a bit. His boy laughed. “Hi.” They kissed then, soft but demanding, passionate in the way that the kiss at the wedding could not be. Michael twisted his hands in the fabric and yanked him close, pulling his Solar Queen against his body as Gavin’s arms wrapped around his waist. They kissed as if the other was air, was life, was warmth.  When they pulled apart, foreheads pressed together, Michael laughed and Gavin did too, until they were both cackling, unable to understand the magic that now tied them together. Michael looked down at his ring, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe we went through with it,” he whispers. “Second thoughts?” Gavin asks, a bit of anxiety in his tone. “Jack was saying...” “Jack needs to learn to keep a fucking secret,” Michael retorts, pulling him in for another soft kiss. “I’m not having second thoughts. Anything but. I’m just... it’s a lot.” “It is,” Gavin said, kissing at his neck while Michael spoke, before pulling back a bit. “But for now, it’s our wedding night, and I want to see how many of those war paint sigils I can break before morning.” Michael’s smile is bright. “Come on, then, you.” The sun may be setting down on their little island, but the start of a new life was just beginning. Down a bit on their Island, the other Gods smiled, knowing that they had started a new life, a new generation of happiness in their world. And down below, humans celebrated without knowing why, without fully grasping the triumph of the heavens. For now the Wilds, once dark and full of terror, were tamed by the Solar Queen. And the brightness of the sun now brought new life where there wasn’t one before. All hail the Union and let it burn bright.

[aion-rsa]

Labyrinth: the Unsettling Second Character Played by David Bowie

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Not everything we enjoy is good for us. A chocolate-filled doughnut, for instance, can be delicious even while it crams our arteries with trans fat. The simple fact of knowing that something is unhealthy doesn’t stop it from being fun, which is to say that it’s still okay to love Jim Henson’s 1986 cult kids’ film Labyrinth while acknowledging that its sexual subtext is creepier than a drunk uncle on a camping trip. 

It’s not as if nobody noticed the vibe between lead characters Sarah and Jareth at the time, or in repeated viewings since. Like Bowie’s codpiece, it stares you in the face all the way through the film. Jareth’s a 300-year-old Goblin King (played by a 38-year-old pop star) who wants to live within 15-year-old Sarah. Jareth spies on Sarah, comes into her bedroom, drugs her, dances with her, and promises to be her slave if she’ll love him, fear him and do as he says. Their dynamic is wrong in every size and colour, and – depending on whether you’ve spotted the other character Bowie plays in the film – could be about to get a little bit more wrong.

Sarah’s scrapbook in Labyrinth (1986)

The events of Labyrinth are a fantasy that takes place in Sarah’s mind. Using the childhood dolls, stories and ornaments spotted around her bedroom in the early scenes (Hoggle and Ludo toys, a Goblin King statue, a wooden labyrinth game, storybooks from Snow White to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland…), Sarah invents a scenario in which she’s a put-upon fairy tale hero who saves her baby brother. It’s a coming-of-age fantasy that teaches Sarah to leave her childhood behind, recognise her inner power and step into the adult world. The film starts with her dressed as a princess and play-acting, and ends with her literally clearing her room of toys and games, and symbolically passing on her beloved teddy bear Lancelot to her little brother Toby.

If Labyrinth were a ‘real’ fairy tale, then Sarah’s absent mother (the girl lives with her father, stepmother and new stepbrother) would be dead. She isn’t, as we can see from recent photos around Sarah’s mirror and the scrapbook of press clippings Sarah keeps about her, decorated with hearts, the word “mom”. Sarah’s mother Linda Williams is a theatre actor who’s famous enough for her love life to be written about in the papers. Several of the newspaper articles in the scrapbook show her mother pictured with another actor, topped by a headline about their on-again-off-again romance. The other actor in those photos is played by David Bowie. That means that when Sarah was dream-casting the much older lead in her personal coming-of-age fantasy, she gave that role to… her mother’s boyfriend. Therapists of the world, start your engines.

A.C.H. Smith’s 1986 novelisation of Labyrinth was written with input from Jim Henson and screenwriter Terry Jones. In this 2018 podcast interview, Smith explains that Henson gave him over 20 pages of feedback about the draft manuscript and invited him to visit the set and watch several days’ filming. Jones also spent an afternoon with Smith and gave him permission to use an abandoned boneyard scene in the novelisation which had been originally written for the film. The novelisation is canon, is the point. It bears the official stamp. And the novelisation gives us more on the characters of Linda Williams and her actor boyfriend Jeremy. Here, it describes Sarah’s bedroom press clippings:

Sarah’s mother and her co-star, Jeremy, were cheek to cheek, their arms around each other, smiling confidently. The photographer had lit the pair beautifully, showing her to be so pretty, he so handsome, with his blond hair and a golden chain around his neck.

Novelisation-Sarah clearly has a thing for Jeremy, who comes over in the book as louche and flirtatious. Smith describes Sarah as being thrilled by Jeremy’s French-speaking sophistication. She’s impressed by his language and mockery of others, and keeps repeating an actorly phrase she’s heard him say about “finding a way into the part.” 

Sarah’s bedroom mirror in Labyrinth (1986)

In one scene from the book, Sarah remembers celebrating her 15th birthday with Jeremy and her mother. The novelisation describes them giggling poolside at Jeremy’s members’ club before receiving his gift of “an evening gown in pale blue” (her mother gets her a music box, so the evening gown is a Jeremy-only deal). Sarah wears the dress that night to a musical, after which Jeremy takes them all to a dimly lit restaurant:

Jeremy had danced with Sarah, smiling down at her. He kidded her that a flashbulb meant that they’d be all over the gossip columns next morning, and all the way home he drove fast, to shake off the photographers, he claimed, grinning.

That’s not the only time Sarah dances with Jeremy/Jareth. Film audiences will remember the masked ball part of Sarah’s labyrinth fantasy, a hallucinatory scene that plays out in the feature as romantic yet sinister, but which is made explicitly sexual in the book. In this Sam Downie interview, Smith says of the novelisation’s dance scene, “It gets quite sexy when she is in the bubble and dancing with Jareth and so forth. I made a little more of that in the book because I felt the book needed that, it needed that extra little emotional kick at that point.”

Read more

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The book scene has Sarah being perved at by a stranger who “relished her face, then her white shoulders, her breasts, hips, and legs,” and sidled up to tell her that she was remarkably beautiful. Dancing with Jareth, the 15-year-old is described as feeling like “the loveliest woman at the ball” and finding “the touch of his hands on her body thrilling.” 

When he told her that she was beautiful, she felt confused. 

“I feel … I feel like … I — don’t know what I feel.” 

He was amused. “Don’t you?” 

“I feel like … I’m in a dream, but I don’t remember ever dreaming anything like this!” 

He pulled back to look at her and laughed, but fondly. “You’ll have to find your way into the part,” he said, and whirled her on around the room. 

Jeremy’s catchphrase, there. In the book, fantasy-Jeremy/Jareth then tries to kiss Sarah, when she realises that the whole room is watching them and laughing:

“Jareth seemed to be unperturbed, but she turned her face sharply away from his, horrified. He held her more tightly, and insistently sought her lips with his. Suffused with disgust, she wrenched herself free of him.”

This is supposedly Sarah’s fantasy. She’s the one in whose imagination all this is happening. In 2016, the film’s conceptual designer Brian Froud explained the thinking to Empire. Sarah, says Froud, is approaching the age of sexual awakening, and so has created Jareth as a composite image of the kind of men who turn her on. “We’re not looking at reality, we’re inside this girl’s head.” Jareth’s costumes were designed to reference “a leather boy”, the armour of a German knight, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and male ballet dancers. “He’s an amalgam of the inner fantasies of this girl. Everyone always talks about Bowie’s perv pants, but there was a reason for it all! It has a surface that’s fairly light, but then every so often you go, ‘Oh, my God! How did we get away with that?!’”

Telling a children’s story about a girl’s veiled sexualised fantasies of her mother’s boyfriend is getting away with a fair bit. There’s more to the film of course, and ultimately, Sarah vanquishes Jareth by rejecting his sinister allure and asserting her own power. Her attraction to him though, especially in the novelisation, is undeniable. What makes this uncomfortable isn’t the fact that Labyrinth is in part a story about adolescent female sexual awakening, but that its vision of that awakening was dreamt up by grown men and shows an underage girl drawn to a man of their age. Thought of that way and it’s less sure that Sarah’s is the fantasy we’re watching.

It was a different time, though, the 1980s. All this stuff was much more mainstream back then. 16-year-old Samantha Fox could be photographed topless for Page Three of national newspaper The Sun. Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones could openly ‘date’ a child. The charts regularly featured songs about adult men heroically wrestling with their sexual attraction to schoolgirls. And the 83-year-old writer of a children’s film novelisation could reminisce about how thrilling it was to have danced with the film’s young star at the wrap party, and laugh at how much more thrilling it might have been if only her mother hadn’t insisted on staying so close to her “very beautiful 14-year-old daughter” all night. A different time. (Except, that last anecdote was recounted in 2018. Perhaps the time isn’t quite as different as it should be.)

Don’t let any of this put you off though. Like a chocolate-filled doughnut, Labyrinth remains a sweet childhood treat… with a slightly sickening centre.  

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Labyrinth celebrates its 35th anniversary in the US on June 27th.

The post Labyrinth: the Unsettling Second Character Played by David Bowie appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[starlalalala]

oh sleep, oh rest

a/n: First published ah fic! Very representative of my love of angst, hurt, and freewood. 

Pairing: freewood (implied)

Warnings/Tags: Minecraft AU, Angst, Dark God Ryan, Possession

Summary: The Dark God was gone. Ryan was free.

Ryan woke slowly, feeling like he'd been asleep for days. His eyelids fluttered before they were finally able to stay open, and that's when he noticed the cold stone floor against his cheek, the dim flickering light cast from a single torch in the large room, and the heavy smell of rotting meat.

He forced himself to his hands and knees. His arms shook. The movement and smell made him gag -and then suddenly there were hands on him, gently helping him to his feet. Ryan tried to speak but he was hushed, and dizziness forced his eyes shut as he was walked to some surface and sat down.

When Ryan opened his eyes again, he looked down at his own body. He was worryingly thin, his kilt held up only by his belt. His ribs were almost visible through his vest. He felt as small as a child, sitting on what now seemed like an oversized-

Throne.

There was a light chuckle as he gasped.

"Remember, lovely Ryan?" It was hard to make out details in the dim light, but it was Gavin standing tall in front of him, his creeperskin clothes partially covered by a deep green cloak that Ryan had gotten him years ago. The only light cast most of his features in shadow. Ryan was struck with the desire to see him in the sun.

"Gavin," Ryan breathed, and yes, he remembered. Most of it, at least -so much was a blur, the time his consciousness was buried under the Dark God's, but there were moments. Attacking Geoff, battling Michael, wilting Jack's farm. He'd chased Jeremy from his altar, and Gavin-

"Gavin," Ryan said again, and nearly overbalanced in his desperation to reach for him.

But Gavin was there, keeping him upright, holding his shoulders and looking down on him with a kind smile. It seemed so strange, and Ryan could only think that it had been so long since he'd seen Gavin smile, and he seemed so different, more sure of himself. How long had it been? Ryan clutched at Gavin’s arms as he searched his mind, looking for any sign that he might be forced back under again.

The Dark God was gone. Ryan was free.

"Gavin," Ryan croaked, and this time Gavin laughed. "My head... there's nothing..."

"Always figured your brain was empty, lovely Ryan," Gavin said, and Ryan nearly sobbed. Here was Gavin, laughing with him, talking with him, after who knew how long-

After all he’d done-

"The others," Ryan realised, new panic gripping his chest. He and Gavin were alone. "Gav, the others- did I-"

"You didn't do anything, lovely Ryan," Gavin assured him lightly, one hand stroking through his hair. "The others are safe. They'll always be safe."

Ryan frowned, confused, but Gavin's calm seemed contagious. He only wanted to lay his head against the other’s chest, rest until things made sense again. Still, he had questions, and even with his head pounding, he needed answers.

"You saved me," Ryan said, and Gavin beamed, and Ryan had been afraid he'd never see that expression again. "How? How did you get rid of... that thing?"

Gavin laughed again, a sharp, clear sound that seemed to ring away the rest of the dust that had settled over Ryan's mind.

"Not sure what you're talking about, lovely Ryan," Gavin told him with a sweet smile, and Ryan wasn't sure if the vice he felt around his heart was real or imagined. "I'm right here."

"No," Ryan whispered. He wanted to scream it, but he could barely make a sound around the lump in his throat.

Gavin -Gavin's body- leaned forward to give Ryan a light kiss on the forehead, hands moving from his shoulders to embrace him. Gavin -he still felt warm, but for the first time Ryan looked into his eyes, and he didn't see Gavin there. It was the same green he'd looked into so many times, but flat. Shallow. No light in them. "No."

"You were a wonderful host, lovely Ryan," Gavin told him. Their foreheads touched, and Ryan felt the breath of the words against his face, trapped staring into those eyes. The image blurred for a moment. He thought he might be crying. "But I couldn't resist a change of pace."

"Leave him alone," Ryan croaked, and fear helped him find his voice. "Get out of him-"

"It's been so long since I've had a willing host, lovely Ryan," Gavin said, and he sounded so damn happy, so different from how he'd been when puppeteering Ryan around. "It's such a nice feeling, to be accepted so wholly. Even those who wanted power from me fought when they realised what it entailed, but it's so wonderful with him..."

"He wouldn't," Ryan snapped over Gavin's dreamy sigh. "Gavin wouldn't."

Ryan wanted to fight back against the embrace, sickened by the tenderness from what was so completely not Gavin. But he found himself holding tighter to the arms around him. He needed to know, needed to understand, needed to undo-

"He made a deal first. Traveled here on his own, begged an audience like a good subject. And you know I keep my word," Gavin shrugged, gently tugging on Ryan's hair to force his face upwards. "It's not that I didn't enjoy having you as a vessel, lovely Ryan. But he's kept his word too, and it's so quiet when there's not another consciousness fighting yours. So peaceful." Gavin grinned. "Like there's no more mosquitoes."

"What deal?" Ryan demanded, even though he had a sinking suspicion that he knew.

"Leave you, first of all." And there they were, the words that made the tears spill. Gav- the Dark God cooed, and moved one hand to wipe them away. "Didn't you want to be free, lovely Ryan?"

He wasn't expecting an answer. Ryan wasn't sure he could give one.

"And he didn't want his friends hurt either. He made me swear to never harm any of you, and I won't." The Dark God leaned forward until he was whispering into Ryan's ear, the words spoken too softly for what they meant. "The others are all locked up in the castle. They're fed and safe and together, and they'll never escape.

"You'll be joining them soon. But it felt wrong not to say goodbye, lovely Ryan."

Ryan grabbed Gavin's shoulders, and roughly pushed him away so that their eyes could meet properly, so Gavin could see the desperation on his face, in his grip. He knew the Dark God could destroy him for it, but with the deal he could he bold, and it wasn't like it mattered anyway, not with Gavin like this, not when Ryan had ruined everything-

"You can't just give up," Ryan pleaded. He never let his grip slacken, even though the Dark God made no move to get away, even though it would make no difference if he did. "Gavin, please, don't do this-"

Gavin's expression shifted -but only from quiet affection to fond amusement.

"It is done, lovely Ryan, and besides," the Dark God shrugged, idly twirling a strand of Ryan's hair around his finger, "he can't hear you."

Ryan's stomach dropped, and the Dark God shook his head gently.

"Nothing so morbid, lovely Ryan. He sleeps," the Dark God told him, and the tone he used talking about Gavin, like he was some sort of beloved pet. It made Ryan’s stomach turn. "He was so tired, you see. He'd been worried about you for so long, and he's had to worry about his friends, and you trying to kill them and them trying to kill you... he's more at peace now than he has been in weeks." 

Ryan wished he thought the Dark God was lying.

"Please, no," Ryan whispered. He didn't know what else to do. "You can come back -I'll make the same deal, leave him and leave the others alone-"

To his dismay, the Dark God laughed.

"I know you'll miss me. And what we had was special. But you'll have your other friends to keep you company, and I promise I'll visit." Ryan began to feel the tug in his stomach that he recognised as a teleportation spell, and the room began to twist at its edges.

"Gavin," he pleaded, one last time, desperate-

"Don't worry, lovely Ryan," the Dark God said as his vision faded, "I'll take good care of him."