#also it's lost in english but that his stage name and birth name begin with the same letter & thus sound. jaskier... julian...

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt "i will NEVER deadname my best friend" of rivia

"he will ALWAYS be dandelion to ME"

[sihaya74]

NEW The Lessons of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal S1:E4 -- FAMILY DON'T END WITH BREAKFAST

Lessons of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

S1:E4 – FAMILY DON’T END WITH BREAKFAST

And so dear friends and #FannibalFamily, we have arrived at S1:E4 of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, the episode titled “Oeuf.” And I just have to say it, and I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I have always thought that oeuf is a weird-looking word. There. I said it.

            It’s not necessarily the combo of the three vowels all in a row. We have lots of those in English. I think it’s the ‘o’ followed by the ‘e.’ Whenever I see an “oe” combo at the beginning of a word, my mind immediately goes to the Greek tragic hero, King Oedipus, father slayer, mother lover, and poor, eyeless guy that he was. And then I think of Freud’s “Oedipus complex,” his now mostly debunked theory that all children, namely male ones, go through a stage in childhood in which they sexually desire their mother and develop an antagonistic attitude toward their father. Freud theorized that if parents were loving and not abusive, children would eventually exit this phase. Karl Jung coined the term “Electra complex” in which the theory applied to female children experiencing the same feelings about their fathers.

            It is funny of course that my brain has led me here because the events of “Oeuf” do indeed have to do with family – with mothers and fathers. Boys that have one mother too many, grown men that had mostly none, and a confused teenage girl who now has lost a mother and must contend with the memory of one dead father and the expectations of two live ones.

            They do so much to us – mothers and fathers. Good and bad. The sheer pressure of the idea often makes me glad I never had children. I can be content that the only person I have the power to mess up is myself. Hallelujah.

            An oeuf is an egg. The first three episodes of Hannibal were: “Apéritif,” “Amuse-Bouche,” and “Potage.” So, at this point, we have had an appetizer and a cocktail and a bit of hearty soup. And now out of nowhere – EGGS! In doing research, webpages about French cuisine informed me that the oeuf course is not typically included in a dinner menu. EXCEPT for this episode of Fuller’s show, in which Hannibal prepares breakfast for dinner, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest traditions ever created. I eat breakfast for dinner quite often. It gives one a little bit of comfort at the end of the day, especially if the day was sad or rough or long. Yeah, your boss yelled at you and you slipped and fell in the parking lot and scraped your knees and there’s nothing good on TV tonight, but DAMMIT, you can have pancakes.

            Hell... Now I want pancakes…

            Anyway, it was sage Ron Swanson who said, “There has never been a sadness that can’t be cured by breakfast food” (Freedman). And even in an episode of a show about a cannibal psychiatrist and his obsession with a twitchy, beautiful FBI agent, breakfast comes through in the clutch yet again. More about that later…

            The title of this episode is also very apropos because eggs are symbolic in and of themselves. In each episode of Hannibal, a symbol emerges. In S1:E1, it was the MONGOOSE. In S1: E2, the MUSHROOM. In S1:E3, BOATS. Eggs are symbolic of fertility, abundance, birth, and rebirth. In this episode, we see the birthing of an important thing – a FAMILY. Fertilization occurred in the Hobbs’ kitchen in “Apéritif.” The insemination was messy and violent, but the result was the same. By Episode Four, it is time for nest-building. And we know exactly which bastard would be best at that, beautiful bird that he is.

            “Oeuf” was written solo by Jennifer Schuur (Big Love, The Catch). Undoubtedly, she is the namesake of poor Marissa Schuur, who wound up impaled on a rack of stag’s antlers in “Potage.” Personally, I think having a character named after you in an episode of one of Fuller’s shows an amazing and beautiful tribute. If it happened to me, I would probably stop people on the street to tell them about it. The episode was directed by Peter Medak (who has directed so many things I can’t even list them, but I just want to say that he directed Zorro: The Gay Blade which means that he is a true gift to the world forever.)

            Schuur wrote an absolutely masterful episode here. The overarching theme of FAMILY is cultivated through all five acts of the script. She shows us three separate families all developing and growing at the same time. They are:

Eva’s family of Lost Boys

The BAU family with Jack as the domineering father

The Murder Family – Abigail and her two beautiful, confusing dads

In every act of this story there is a part of our lesson – a bud, a leaf, a root – that ultimately bursts into full flower at the end of the episode. Sorry, I cannot extend the egg motif to this. Birds build nests in trees – Eva, Jack, and Hannibal all build different kinds of nests. One of them is sundered by the end.

The theme of family is introduced right away with Will sitting at the Turner family table, amidst the remains of a rotting family meal and the rotting remains of the family itself. Again, we see the pendulum swing – we see the decriminalization of the scene as Will views it in his mind. I believe this is one of the best set pieces of Fuller’s adaptation of Harris’ work. The pendulum swing, which signals to the viewer that the murder scene we are observing is about to be literally rewound and undone, is very effective. The image of the pendulum is taken directly from Harris’ Red Dragon. In the beginning of the novel, when Will is alone at the Leeds’ crime scene, Harris says, “In his mind, a silver pendulum swung in darkness. He waited until the pendulum was still” (11). In Fuller’s version, once the pendulum is still, the scene has been deconstructed and Will enters as the killer, metaphorically walking in the suspect’s steps and murdering with the suspect’s hands. It is one of my favorite parts of the series. Will ends every decriminalization with the phrase, “This is my design,” and I must say, it always gives me goosebumps.

            The Turner family has been killed by someone they knew, someone known and also short. The image of blood splattered all over the family portraits on the wall speaks to the theme of the episode and to the larger, real world concept of family. So much blood shed in families, by families, and for families in this world. Even if no one else has ever seen you bleed, your family has. It really can’t get more intimate than that.

            A bit of a thirsty sidenote here: during the murder recreation, Will points at the Turner daughter and commands her to “eat her growing foods” or forfeit dessert (Schuur 2). This is unbearably hot and a perfect example of Daddy Will in action. There is a continuing light-hearted disagreement amongst Fannibals whether Will is “Daddy” or “Baby,” to which I answer “YES.” To Will Graham stans like me, he is all things. He’s every woman; it’s all in him.

            After Will has recreated the murders, Jack enters the scene and the following bit of dialogue occurs:

            JACK CRAWFORD: What do you see, Will?

            WILL GRAHAM: Family values.

            JACK CRAWFORD: Whose family values?

The viewer can detect the note of cynicism here in both Will and Jack’s assessment of the scene. I often imagine that if Will had answered Jack’s question, he would have said something like “America’s.” In Fuller’s show, the true killing floor of the American family is laid bare just as David Lynch does in Twin Peaks. The horror isn’t at the movies, folks. It lives next door – it works at your local car dealership – it sits next to you in the pew at church.

            In the next scene, we cut to Will’s comfy Wolf Trap home, where Hannibal Lecter ascends the porch, enters through the front door, and begins feeding links of suspicious sausage to Will’s dogs. The script doesn’t indicate that the sausage is made of human flesh, but considering that later in this episode Hannibal feeds Jack boudin made from “rabbit,” (a very clumsy one in a plaid jacket we see being chased through the woods), I think it’s safe to guess that Hannibal made a lot of “rabbit” sausage.

            Hannibal then begins exploring Will’s home. This scene always feels to me like an animal marking its territory. I am a cat owner and I can tell you that my cats have rubbed themselves all over everything I own. One of my cats even waits on the bathroom rug, so as soon as I get out of the shower, she can be the first to rub against me and deposit her scent. What can I say? The felines love me. Hannibal pokes through Will’s books, and literally roots through his underwear drawer. When Hannibal encounters the stacks of size small white t-shirts folded neatly in this drawer, I wish he had pulled one out and gave it a good sniff. Considering Hannibal’s legendary sense of smell, this would have made tons of sense. If he had, it would have been akin to the scene in Harris’ Hannibal when Dr. Lecter literally tastes Clarice. He breaks into Clarice’s Mustang, sits there breathing in her scent and then, “he leaned forward, found the leather steering wheel by scent, and put around it his curled tongue, cupping with his tongue the finger indentations on the underside of the wheel…Then he leaned back in the seat, his tongue back where it lived, and his closed mouth moved as though he savored wine” (Harris Hannibal 285). “Did you just smell me?” indeed.

            Hannibal finishes his tour of Will’s home by admiring Will’s fly-fishing lures at his worktable set up for the process. The script indicates here that Hannibal sits down at this table and ties off a salmon tie Will has been working on, with his surgeon’s precision. Then, for a seemingly whimsical purpose (Get ready, y’all – this cannibal loves WHIMSY), he pushes the barb of the lure into his thumb, draws blood, and then puts the now injured finger into his mouth. The sound of Hannibal sucking the blood off is described as a “sound not unlike a quick kiss” (Schuur 4). If this scene isn’t showcasing the start of a tempestuous romance, then I don’t know what the fuck it’s doing otherwise. Yes, this is Hannibal-style reconnaissance, but it’s possessive and lingering and it’s about love, GODDAMMIT.

            Next, in the beginning of Act One, we see Abigail and Alana at Abigail’s hospital. They are walking the grounds, discussing Abigail’s therapy. Abigail explains that she feels lost, that she is without a home. As opposed to helping her, she feels like the support groups she is in are wringing her out. Abigail concludes that most of the other patients in these groups are merely being performative and false and that this style of therapy is of no help to her. Alana listens and commiserates, but she encourages Abigail to continue trying to open up in group. Abigail’s dissatisfaction with her therapy will come up later on in the episode. Alana, bless her heart, tries her best to connect with Abigail, to serve as a confidante and a reliable adult in the young girl’s life. But considering the horrific secrets Abigail continues to harbor, the only person who can really help Abigail is Hannibal; incidentally, that is exactly the way Hannibal wants it.

            We then see Alana arriving at Dr. Lecter’s office. Over her beer and Hannibal’s wine, they discuss Abigail’s progress at the hospital. Hannibal believes that the only way Abigail will make progress is if she is removed from the hospital and re-integrated into the real world. Alana vehemently disagrees. She cautions Hannibal about trying to become Abigail’s surrogate family because to Abigail it “would only be a crutch” (Schuur 9). Hannibal relents and agrees to Alana’s therapy plan, but we see later on that this promise Hannibal makes is an empty one.

            Now, back at the Turner crime scene, the entire BAU family is in attendance – Jack, Will, Jimmy Price, Brian Zeller, and Beverly Katz. Team Sassy Science (as Fannibals refer to Price, Zeller, and Katz) are processing and preserving evidence. Jack explains to all of them that the Turner family had another son, Jesse, who went missing the year before; authorities could not determine whether Jesse was a runaway or was kidnapped.

            We see a theme of appearance versus reality unfolding in this scene. The images families portray to the world and the actual horrors underneath. Will echoes this sentiment while examining the Turner family photos. He says, “False faces in family portraits. Layers and layers of lies betrayed by a sad glint in a child’s eyes” (Schuur 10). A big sad onion, the Turner family.

            In the next scene, Schuur very pointedly pulls the theme of family forward again. The team has returned to the BAU lab at Quantico. As they work, they discuss their own families. Price, Zeller, and Katz all had siblings. Will was an only child. The description of the staging for this scene in the script says, “Jack faces Zeller, Price, Katz, and Graham. He’s like a demanding father, presiding over his children as they present what they’ve just learned at school. Will stands slightly apart, not quite fitting into this surrogate family” (Schuur 12).

            Just as Will didn’t fit into his own family, now he does not fit into his work family. In this way, Will’s plight mirrors that of Chris O’Halloran, one of the Lost Boys we meet later, who is also having trouble integrating into his new family. Mind you, Chris’ new family is a lot more murdery than Will’s, but I believe this is an important parallel. As an empath, Will does not only relate to and inhabit the feelings of the killers; he feels into the lives of the victims as well. The Lost Boys are both – killers and victims.

            Although she is a controversial figure, there are some tidbits of wisdom to be found in the work of the late self-help guru, Louise Hay. In her book You Can Heal Your Life, Hay writes, “We are all victims of victims” (99). She uses this phrasing to describe what happens in families. Parents victimize their children in the same way that they were victimized by their own parents. If these children do not make diligent attempts to avoid recreating these patterns, they will victimize their own children in the same ways. In this manner, generational trauma is created. All of the Lost Boys in this episode are victims of their surrogate mother, Eva, and her desire for love and belonging. But these boys were victimized by their own families before Eva ever showed up – that’s how Eva could get to them. Their inherited pain opened the door.

            Also, Will not fitting in with his BAU family is juxtaposed with the family that Hannibal is preparing for Will. Throughout the episode, Hannibal is laying the groundwork to fuse his family members together. The Doctor’s plans do not turn out exactly as he wants them to, but he makes impressive progress.

            At the end of the scene at the BAU, Will concludes that Jesse was involved in his own mother’s death based on the positioning of her body at the dining room table. A posture of forgiveness and acceptance is what tips Will off.

            In Act Two, there is more intense discussion of family, this time between Hannibal and Will. Will sits in the familiar leather chair in Hannibal’s very well-appointed office and Hannibal begins their session with the classic, and cliched psychiatrist’s open: “Tell me about your mother” (Schuur 15). Even though Will castigates Hannibal for the “lazy” questioning, we still find out a great deal about both Will and Hannibal’s family histories in this scene. Will never knew his mother and grew up poor, following his fisherman father around from port to port. Hannibal’s parents died when he was young; he was an orphan until his Uncle Robertas adopted him at sixteen. I should note at this point, being the insane fan that I am, Bryan intended for the person to play Hannibal’s uncle in later episodes to be David Bowie, which would have been absolutely perfect beyond reckoning. The only man on earth who has cheekbones to rival Bowie’s is Mads Mikkelsen, so selling them as actual blood family would not have been difficult in the least. We lost a lot of things when the Starman left us; this amazing opportunity was one of them. It will always be my headcanon, and that’s the best that can be done. (BTW - #BowieForever).

            Hannibal stresses that he and Will both have a lot of things in common with Abigail; their complicated relationships with family is yet another. In this exchange between the two men, an important piece of dialogue occurs that I must quote in its entirety.

            WILL GRAHAM: There’s something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. Never connected to the concept.

            HANNIBAL: You created a family for yourself.

            WILL GRAHAM: I created a pack of strays. Thanks for feeding them while I was away…

            HANNIBAL: I was referring to Abigail Hobbs (Schuur 16).

Once again, in looking at the scripts in more detail, I am amazed at the sheer manipulation Hannibal attempts, just right out of the gate, just four episodes into Season One. Hannibal says that it is Will who has created a family with Abigail. I assume he means by killing her father. But, in fact, it is HANNIBAL who has created the family because he is the one who saved Abigail’s life. In that moment in the Hobbs’ kitchen, after Garrett Jacob Hobbs slashes his daughter’s throat, after Will shoots him ten times, after Will rushes to Abigail’s side, who is bleeding out on the floor, just a matter of minutes from death – in that moment, if Hannibal had not intervened, Abigail would have died. Will was way too upset – he was shaking life a leaf from head to toe. He looked as if he was having a panic attack, like he would pass out – his expression is terrifying as his entire body vibrates with his ragged breaths, blood splattered all over his face and his glasses. If you need just one scene from any film or TV show he has ever acted in to understand why Hugh Dancy is such a fucking amazing actor, this scene is the one.

            When Will places his hand over Abigail’s wound to stop the bleeding, he can’t apply enough pressure. He is too upset – too much blood leaks between his fingers. Behind him, Hannibal stands. Looking at his face, (more of Mads’ genius microexpressions), the viewer sees him make a conscious decision to get involved. As if his mind said aloud, “All right, I shall intervene here. I think I know how I can use this.” Use this? For what, you ask? To get Will. To get Will to spend more time with him, care for him, talk to him – perhaps, already, in feverish fantasies, he has imagined Will killing with him. Even though events often make us question whether or not Hannibal truly loves Will, he does. It’s all about Will. From “Do you have a problem with taste?” to “See? This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us,” it’s all about Will. I can’t say I blame Hannibal. If Will Graham stumbled into my life, I think it would immediately become all about him too.

            In this conversation, Hannibal is continuing his laying of groundwork. It started in the Hobbs’ kitchen – then, he stayed by Abigail’s side in the hospital. So did Will. Even when she was in her coma, the two men protected her.

            The return to Abigail’s family home in “Potage” is like a ceremonial goodbye to her old family. Her old family who was at least partially killed by her new family. This is the same as Eva is doing. Eva says to her Lost Boys later in the script, “you can only have one family” (Schuur 28A). Apparently, Hannibal believes this as well. It is astonishing how quickly he moved to build himself this new family once he made the decision. It once again proves just how intensely Hannibal was KO’d by Will at their first meeting. It also proves that the loneliness Hannibal has been experiencing since his sister Mischa’s death is becoming unbearable. In Harris’ canon, Hannibal tries to turn back time. In Fuller’s version, Hannibal creates a family from blood and violence.  

            In the next scene, we see Jack and Hannibal having a lovely dinner together in Hannibal’s royal blue dining room. Out of all the set designs in the show, I love Hannibal’s dining room the most. It reminds me of the first lines of Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” – “Blue, blue, electric blue – that’s the color of my room, where I will live – blue, blue” (“Sound and Vision – David Bowie”). Hannibal tells Jack that they are eating a boudin noir made from “rabbit,” the aforementioned plaid-jacketed one. I always find it hilarious how amused Hannibal is by feeding people meat to people without their knowledge. It’s almost penetrative. It’s so male. Hannibal will get inside you one way or the other. The two men discuss Will. Jack is concerned that the Lost Boys case is hitting Will too close to home. Hannibal suggests that Will’s life in the past is not properly anchoring him. “He needs a anchor, Jack,” Hannibal says (Schuur 19). But that anchor is not Jack. Hannibal is already Will’s paddle, he might as well be his anchor too. Hannibal is just like Will. He’s every woman. It’s all in him.

            Back at the BAU, Team Sassy Science examines more evidence from the Turner crime scene – soda cans, shoes, video game controllers. From this evidence, the team determines that there were three other boys with Jesse at the crime scene. Zeller is the one who dubs them, “The Lost Boys.” This is, of course, an apt moniker because both the Peter Pan tribe and the pack of film vampire teens are examples of created or found family. They are misfit children, all of them. Price pulls Connor Frist’s fingerprints, which will lead them to their next crime scene.

            Next, we see Jack storming into Will’s Quantico classroom and very unceremoniously dismissing his students. He tells Will about Connor Frist, who went missing ten months ago, and that Will must get ready to board a plane with the team to the Frist’s home in Huntsville (I assume Alabama.)

            Cut to the BAU team and other officers entering the Frist family home, which is all decked out for Christmas, even though it has not been the holiday season for some time. The mother, father, and two smaller Frists are all dead. A dog trots into the scene carrying a decapitated arm. You gotta give it to Fuller and all the writers on this series. The humor is darkness at its finest.

            Act Three begins back at the BAU with Team Sassy Science examining the bodies of the Frist family. They discover that one of the bodies is the Lost Boy Connor Frist himself, who was apparently shot and then his body burned in the family fireplace. Together the team theorize that Connor tried to kill his mother, but she did not die with the first shot to her head, and possibly began having a seizure, which caused Connor to panic. Because of this panic, someone taller with a larger caliber weapon dispatched both Connor’s mother and Connor himself. Down feathers found with Connor’s remains indicate that someone put a pillow under the boy’s head before he was shot. The juxtaposition of the savagery and compassion of the Frist scene befuddles Jack, but Will manages to catch the loose thread of the fabric saying of Connor’s death, “Whoever shot him… disowned him” (Schuur 26).

            Next, we see Will in Hannibal’s office again. I found myself beginning to question at this point if every time we see Will in Hannibal’s office if he is attending his therapy session or if he and Hannibal are close enough now that he just goes to Hannibal’s office whenever he needs to talk. I know his appointment time with Hannibal is 7:30 p.m., but I am unaware if it is every week or every other day or every day. (If anyone reading this knows, please comment.) Will is angry when he enters Hannibal’s office – not at Hannibal, but at himself and at the Lost Boys. He tosses down a very plain, but neatly wrapped package that he says he intended to be a gift for Abigail: “Magnifying glass. Fly tying gear,” but that he “thought better of it” (Schuur 27). After buying the gift, Will realizes that Abigail’s father taught her how to hunt and that the idea of Will teaching her to fish bears too strong a resemblance to the trappings of fatherhood. Hannibal asks Will if he is “feeling paternal;” he confirms that he is and asks Hannibal if he feels the same, which Hannibal also confirms, but also passes along Alana’s warning about the dangers of assuming new familial roles for Abigail. Will then explains that he is actually angry about the boys in the case he is currently working. A great deal is made of Will’s almost perfect empathy. Several plotlines in the series really bring it to the fore and rely on it for dramatic movement. But Will’s empathy is also showcased in small moments like this one with Hannibal. Will says, “I’m angry about these boys. I’m angry cause I know when I find them, I can’t help them. I can’t give them back what they gave away” (Schuur 27). Will is angry because the boys cut themselves off from the one thing Will never really had – family. Jack Crawford is correct – the case is hitting Will too close to home. But most importantly, Will is upset that he will not be able to help the boys once he tracks them down – to Will, actually finding them is secondary. Being able to fix something once he does is paramount. It is a horribly naïve view for someone who spends as much time with murder as Will does, but it is the essence of who Will is. Will cares. But he also cares too much. People who care too much run the sincere risk of burning themselves out – and when they do, God help those around them. Their new life philosophy doesn’t always shift into “don’t give a fuck,” it shifts into “I’m gonna make people pay.” Not always, but as a person who cares too much, sometimes I really crave a villainous turn for myself… I’ll never do it. I’m too soft-hearted.

            In this context of Will’s anger at the boys who sacrificed their own loving families, Hannibal enters with the verbal equivalent of quick-dry cement and a rake. AKA, groundwork manipulation. He remarks to Will, “Abigail is lost, too. Perhaps it is our responsibility, yours and mine, to help her find her way” (Schuur 28). See? You and me, Will. You and me. You can’t fix what’s wrong with these boys, but together we can fix Abigail. Won’t it feel nice to create something rather than destroy it? Won’t it feel nice to belong somewhere, to belong to someone? Hannibal is a genius. Completely unethical, but when Hannibal wants something or someone, he doesn’t let anything get in his way, even if he has to eat them.

            Now, we see for the first time in the episode our Lost Boys family – but we see them with their surrogate mother, Eva, played insanely well by Molly Shannon, who absolutely kills in dramatic roles. Personally, I love comedic actors in dramatic roles; I feel they are able to shift back and forth seamlessly because in all forms of comedy is the element of darkness – the dissatisfaction or anger or fear or sadness that drove the creator to write it. But, I digress…

            Eva is sitting in a diner with her three “boys,” C.J. Lincoln, Jesse Turner, and Chris O’Halloran. Over burgers and fries, the “family” is discussing what happened to Connor. Eva makes Connor’s murder sound like a mercy killing, that he was granted the love he could not kindle for his new family. Chris asks about Eva’s “real” family – she vaguely mentions a brother and it seems he was not particularly kind to Eva. Eva (and her name is Eva, I imagine, to be like that of Eve, the first mother ever in Christian mythology) – Eva says, “The family you’re born into isn’t really family. Those are just people you didn’t choose. You have to make family” (Schuur 28).

            In expressing this, Eva is expressing the feelings of very real people, many of whom are in Hannibal’s audience, who have been disowned by their families. Or, people who have had to walk away from their own families in order to preserve their own safety and sanity. Families are rent apart for all reasons under the sun, but the ones I hear of most often are because of neglect, abuse, and marginalization. Children are disowned by their parents for all sorts of reasons – the child is queer or the child doesn’t want to be a doctor or the child isn’t religious or the child has an addiction or the child suffers from mental illness or for whatever shitty reason the disowning parent needs to make themselves feel justified. But also, children cut their parents off all the time too – for similar or equally shitty reasons. These people then go on to create new families wherever they can find them – at work, in the military, at school, online, at the gym, or in their own minds.

            If a family member is hurting you and won’t stop and you are able to get away, you owe it to yourself to do so. I would never, ever say that someone should stay in a situation where they are unsafe or unhappy or in danger. Many people need their new families like air because their real families will never be mended – the gap will never be bridged and in many cases shouldn’t be. But to loop back to Louise Hay, I must offer her wisdom again, “We are all victims of victims.” Families, all of them, of every ilk, are messy. No one emerges unscathed. No one.  

            In the next scene, we see Will alone in his classroom at Quantico, sitting at his desk, studying photos of Jesse Turner and Connor Frist. The beautiful and badass Beverly Katz comes in. Will tells her he believes all of the Lost Boys have ADHD because they are small for their age and this could indicate they have been taking meds that have stunted their growth. Bev informs Will that Price has identified the gun that killed Mrs. Frist; it was used to kill C.J. Lincoln’s mother a year ago.

            Now, we see all of Team Sassy Science, Jack, and Will looking at a picture of C.J. along with his juvenile criminal record on a screen. They bandy about theories about C.J. Will does not believe he is the ringleader. He believes the leader to be a still older boy.

            Meanwhile, Eva’s family of Lost Boys are at a convenience store. As young Chris stands next to Eva at the cash register, C.J. glares at Chris from behind a shelf of soda bottles. C.J.’s eyes are as flat and cold as a sheet of ice. The boy is dead inside. Chris is terrified. He involuntarily urinates all over himself. When Eva discovers Chris’ now wet state, she cleans up the puddles using napkins from the counter and tries to console Chris, though she is completely unaware of the cause of Chris’ distress. I guess being a murdering criminal really doesn’t prepare a person for sudden motherhood of mentally disturbed children. Gosh, who woulda thunk it?

            We shift now back to Abigail Hobbs’ very posh psychiatric hospital. (I find myself wondering who is paying for Abigail’s stay in the upscale sanitarium. The FBI? Based on the state of health insurance in America, I doubt her parents’ insurance is covering it. That and both her parents are dead. I wonder if Hannibal is paying for it. I wonder if legally Jack could have allowed Hannibal to bankroll Abigail’s recovery. Hannibal has the money, trust me. I will discuss my theories about the source of Hannibal’s funds in a later post, but let’s just say it’s a combo of family money and dead people money.)

            Hannibal invites Abigail to leave the hospital for the evening and come to his house so he can make her a proper dinner. Abigail questions whether the hospital administration will allow her to leave after her egregious wall-climbing episode in “Potage.” Hannibal’s response to her is very significantly phrased: “You could say I’m one of your guardians” (Schuur 31). The foundation of Hannibal’s House is almost complete – the pillars have been sunk. Just need to wait for the concrete to dry.

            Hannibal tells her he will have her back by bedtime. As Abigail gets ready to leave with Hannibal, she comments about how much she dislikes being in group therapy. She cannot be open in group because she cannot tell them about her murder of Nick Boyle. Hannibal says, “You must only lie about one thing. And when you’re with me, you don’t have to lie about anything” (Schuur 31A). The purpose of this comment is twofold. First, it is more of Hannibal preparing the way for his Murder Family – all families have secrets, silly ones and painful ones and all kinds of hidden information. Hannibal is now the only person in the world Abigail can tell the truth to – Hannibal has effectively isolated her from everyone, even people like Alana who are actively trying to help Abigail in good faith. This in Hannibal is classic narcissist behavior and we see him do it with almost everyone he really cares for – Abigail, Bedelia, and especially Will. The second purpose of this comment is that Hannibal is absolutely convinced that Abigail helped her father kill his victims and he wants Abigail to come clean with him, Hannibal keeps secrets like he keeps business cards, but if he has identified you as someone that belongs to him, you are not allowed a single secret of your own. He will poke around in your underwear drawer or your subconscious or both until he gets the truth. I suppose one could look at their subconscious as the underwear drawer of their mind. If so, both of mine could use a good cleaning. Anyway…

            Act Four begins in Hannibal’s kitchen, the setting of many important scenes in the series. It makes me think about the tried-and-true principle that when a person throws a party, no matter how large or luxurious the rest of the house is, the bulk of the partygoers wind up in the kitchen. A good deal of the things that happen in Hannibal’s kitchen could not be termed as “parties,” but there definitely is a lot of action and drama in this room. Hannibal is making breakfast for dinner, a recipe, in fact called, High Life Eggs. Should you like to recreate this recipe, you must immediately acquire yourself a copy of Janice Poon’s Feeding Hannibal. Janice was the food stylist for the series. She is an amazing chef, stylist, and person to boot. She loves her Fannibal Family and the book is resplendent with full color photos and a foreword by Mads himself. No Fannibal library is complete without a copy. High Life Eggs is eggs and sausage. It looks delicious.

            As Hannibal cooks, Abigail stands in the kitchen and the two discuss her future. She discovers that on a side counter Hannibal is steeping mushrooms in a teapot. He encourages Abigail to drink the tea, laced with the fungi’s psilocybin, to help her process the traumatic memories of her father. Abigail agrees.

            Now back at the BAU, Team Sassy Science and Jack and Will are looking at a case board filled with photos of the Lost Boys and the timeline of their abductions and the subsequent family murders. The boys are traveling southbound, but since none of them are of driving age, the team is confused as to how they are moving that way. This is the moment that the idea of an adult who is traveling with the group enters Will’s mind. He determines that the boys have been capture-bonded to this adult who now serves as their new master. Based on Will’s hunch, Jack expands his search.

            We return to Hannibal’s kitchen where Abigail Hobbs is now totally on a full-blown shroom trip. In her inebriated state, she drops a teacup on the kitchen floor and watches it shatter. This is the introduction to one of Hannibal’s most predominant and important motifs. The provenance of this motif in Harris’ work will be discussed in a later post, but it would be remiss of me not to mention the first occurrence of the teacup, a symbol of fraught and delicate meaning in the series. Hannibal explains that Alana would not approve of him giving psilocybin to Abigail, but that it will be one of “many secrets” the two of them will share (Schuur 36). It occurs to me at this point that Hannibal “capture-bonds” people to him just as Eva does – well, with definitely more nuance and finesse, but the philosophy is the same. Because Hannibal knows about Abigail’s murder of Nick Boyle and has helped her cover it up, he always has this secret to use against her, and should she get out of line, it is the threat of the revelation of that secret that keeps her bound to Hannibal. Much, much later, Alana calls it blackmail and she is absolutely correct. Abigail also stays connected to Hannibal because let’s face it – he’s damned charming and seems to give her exactly what she needs. If you need an attentive daddy and aren’t very picky about his criminal record, one could do a lot worse that Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

            Abigail begins experiencing the nauseous phase of a hallucinogenic trip. Hannibal coaches her through it, and tells her to lean into her feelings. She muses dreamily that Hannibal is making breakfast for dinner. Then, a very crucial dialogue exchange occurs.

            ABIGAIL HOBBS: Eggs and sausage was the last meal I was having with my parents.

            HANNIBAL: I know. It’s also the first meal you’re having with me.

Again, Hannibal proves himself to be an astonishingly devious motherfucker. The meal selection is purposeful. The mushroom tea is purposeful. In Abigail’s state of enhanced consciousness, her senses will be teased with the nostalgia of the smells and tastes of her family kitchen – but now, instead of her father preparing that same meal, she will see Hannibal. The smells, the tastes, the memories will all blur together and Hannibal will become her new father. Although Hannibal’s weapon of choice is a good knife, throughout the series, he also wields a more subtle one – drugs. He drugs so many people in the series it is difficult to list them all. As a doctor, he is aware of all the medications, both natural and synthetic that can be used to warp the human mind. And he makes use of them all. If you don’t love him, he’ll dose you with scopolamine and flashy lights until you do. Like I said, Hannibal gets what he wants – no matter what.

            The significance of the breakfast meal reaches a higher note when the viewer realizes at the end of the episode that the other person Hannibal intended to be sitting at the dining room table with he and Abigail was Will Graham. If Will hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Hannibal’s plan to cement the foundations of his family that night over sausage and eggs might have been successful.

            Hannibal and Will both have, in their own ways, tried to place themselves in Abigail’s life as new family members, new fathers. The difference is in intention and execution. Will stumbles into this new fatherhood and seems to have only the best hopes for Abigail, although his own motives seem confusing to him. Hannibal executes his plan with precision and solid intent. Since “Apéritif,” he has incrementally been making both Will and Abigail more accustomed to the idea of the three of them as a family. He insinuates the idea into their subconscious minds and he also states it just flat out to their faces. Hannibal comes at you from all sides. When he wants something, Hannibal will get it by hook, by crook, or if you are unlucky, by something sharper.

            Back at the BAU, Alana has come in to help Jack’s team try to identify the Peter Pan of the group of Lost Boys. She and Will and Bev all look at files and photos of kids who have gone missing and fit the basic profile Will has worked up. Through discussion and teamwork, they pull out the file of Chris O’Halloran as a possible Lost Boy. When Alana says that the boys are like, “brothers looking for a mother,” everything clicks in Will’s mind (Schuur 39).

            Will goes to talk to Jack. He tells Jack that the leader of the boys is a woman who is “looking to form a family” (Schuur 39). Jack says, “Family can have a contagion effect on the alienated. You adopt the same behaviors” (Schuur 39).

            This, of course, is exactly what is happening to Will and Abigail as Hannibal’s contagion works its way into their system. Will, as an empath, is already known for adopting the behaviors of those around him, even down to their ways of speaking and physical gestures. But, like Hannibal, Will is becoming more protective of Abigail. Like Hannibal, Abigail is lying more often, and is learning how to lie better. And they both are becoming more reliant on Hannibal. The virus is already in their system. I would imagine that under a super-powered microscope, the Hannibal virus wears a little three-piece suit and you can hear strains of a tiny piano playing The Goldberg Variations. It’s absolutely true and you can’t convince me otherwise.

            The BAU team then comes up with video camera footage of Chris O’Halloran in a convenience store with Eva. Chris’ family lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and so the team gears up to descend on that home.

            Act Four ends with Chris on the front doorstep of his family home, ringing the doorbell. His mother opens the door and is overwhelmed with joy to see her missing son returned to her. Until C.J. steps onto the porch holding a gun.

            Act Five begins with an FBI SWAT team and all of Team Sassy Science and Jack and Will storming into the back yard of the O’Halloran home. The boys are holding Chris’ family hostage at gunpoint around a barbeque grill. SWAT shoots and kills C.J. Chris runs. As Jack and the rest of the team tend to Jesse Turner and the O’Halloran family, the patriarch of which has been wounded, Will catches up with Chris by the pool. Chris has a gun. Will begins coaxing Chris to put the gun down. The boy is conflicted, confused. Eva suddenly steps out from behind the pool house and settles in behind Chris. She drapes her arm in a motherly embrace around Chris’ neck, revealing her firearm. She commands Chris to kill Will. Will begins baiting Eva. He questions the horrible things she has done to the boys, her “family” she supposedly loves – she kidnapped them; she forces them to kill people. At this point, Eva says something that is very key to our lesson.

            EVA: I’m honoring them like their other mothers wouldn’t. They’re not invisible anymore. I can see them. I see who they are and love them (Schuur 40A).

            Seeing and being seen is one of the most dominant and recurring themes in Hannibal. Acceptance and understanding are as well. More about that in my conclusion.

            Eva continues to push Chris to shoot Will. Chris freezes. When Eva raises her own weapon to fire at Will, from behind him, there is a shot. The camera cuts to show that the shot has come from Beverly Katz. Eva is hit in the shoulder. As she falls, Chris is released. Bev takes the kid away and Eva is arrested.

            We now see Chris sitting in the back seat of Jack Crawford’s car. Jack gets in the driver’s seat and turns over his shoulder to talk to Chris. Jack is preparing Chris for the long hours of questioning and court proceedings that are in his future. Chris asks about jail and then says of Eva, “She told me they weren’t my family. That we had to make our own family” (Schuur 43A). Chris asks to speak to his real mom, but Jack tells him that can’t happen until later, probably after a good deal of interrogation. Jack takes Chris away.

            Now, at Hannibal’s house, we see that Alana has arrived and is laying into Hannibal about checking Abigail out of the hospital without her permission. In a line that is absolutely hilarious to the #FannibalFamily, Alana says, “Rude, Hannibal. Shockingly rude” (Schuur 43A). It has all sorts of implications, but I find myself most often wondering if Hannibal could lop off a small bit of himself for Alana to eat or even more to the point, if he could find a small piece of his body that he could eat himself. The rude get eaten. Hannibal is definitely more than a snack. He's a five-course meal.

            Hannibal apologizes. He tells Alana that she was right, that Abigail was not yet ready to leave the hospital. She suffered some distress and so Hannibal has given her “half a valium” (Schuur 44). The two go into the dining room, where Abigail sits, her eyes watery with stoned emotion. Alana sits in the place at the table that was meant for Will. Abigail smiles brightly and stares at Hannibal and Alana. The image of her two guardians shift into a beautiful image of her parents. When Hannibal asks her what she sees, Abigail says, “I see family” (Schuur 45). The episode ends.

And now dear readers, the LESSON.

To which you say, “Oh my God, about fucking time!”

I promised you a lesson. I never promised brevity.

            Outside of Hannibal, in the non-fiction world, some people are lucky enough to have “real”  family members who are kind and reliable people. Still, many people have to leave their “real” families behind and find and make their own. I have delineated the reasons people must walk away from family before – abuse, neglect, or any shade of agony along the spectrum of wielded pain.

            Many people are crucified by their families for being the one thing those family members cannot tolerate – DIFFERENT.

            When I was a little girl, I loved Mr. Rogers. I still do. I love him with all my heart. One of the reasons I loved good ol’ Fred was because every single day, he told me, “You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are” (Fred Rogers, every day).

            And so the lesson…

            “REAL” FAMILY LOVES US FOR EXACTLY WHO WE ARE.

            They love our strengths and our weaknesses. They love our admirable traits and our not so admirable ones. They love our morning breath, and our crappy dancing, and our little idiosyncrasies. They love the big things about us too. They don’t shame us for being who we are and they don’t try to change us to fit some ridiculous standard that they deem to be more “acceptable.”

            They love our scars as much as our smiles.

            If your own family doesn’t love you like this – get you a new one. Even if you have to make it.

            Just don’t kill anybody.

          �� Try social media. I hear tell there’s lots of folks there.

            By the way, I must send MUCH, MUCH LOVE to my #FannibalFamily.

            Eva was wrong. You can have more than one family. I have two.

            Here endeth the lesson…

References:

Freedman, Adrianna. “54 Ron Swanson Quotes from ‘Parks and Recreation’ Guaranteed to Make You Laugh.” Men’s Health, www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a34774462/ron-swanson-quotes. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Harris, Thomas. Red Dragon. New York, Berkley, 2000.

Hay, Louise. You Can Heal Your Life. New York, Hay House, Inc., 2004.

Rogers, Fred. The thing he said on every single episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Schuur, Jennifer. Writer. “Oeuf.” Hannibal, season 1, episode 4, Chiswick Productions, 2012.

“Sound and Vision – David Bowie.” Lyrics.com, www.lyrics.com/lyric/32096867/David+Bowie/Sound+and+Vision      . Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

[seeasunset]

CHARACTER SHEET ―

FULL NAME. Vasco (Preferred name)

Léandre d'Arcy (Real / biological name)

NICKNAME. Captain, Vasc, Vas, Tattoos, sailor.

ALIASES. See above!

PRONOUNS. he / him

HEIGHT. 5'6 (167 cm)

AGE. 27 + (verse dependent)

ZODIAC. Taurus

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. English, Portuguese (both European & Brazilian), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and many other languages.

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒 ―

HAIR. Brunette, though it can be seen almost blonde in some lighting or darker in other types of lighting.ㅤ

FACIAL HAIR. ‎‏‏‎Clean-shaven, unless we're going for older!Vasco.

EYES. Goldish-brown

SKIN TONE. tanned

BODY TYPE. He's not too muscular, but he is built enough to withstand the tossing and roughness when things goes sideways sailing. A bit of muscles throughout his body.

VOICE. ‎‏‏‎Not deep, though he has what is called a west country accent. ‎‏‏‎ ‎

DOMINANT HAND. Right, but he is mbidextrous.

POSTURE. Straight with confidence surrounding him as well as an air of authority. Much like the leader he is.

SCARS. Just small scars you have to look closely at to notice. The biggest one you could see is when he lost his arm during his fleet commander verse.

BIRTHMARKS. Nope.

MOST NOTABLE FEATURES. A mole on the left side of his cheek, sharp yet piercing eyes, tattoos covering his face and down his neck to the rest of his body, earrings on his left ear, and long hair.

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 ―

PLACE OF BIRTH. Modern day: Unknown. In the game, Serene.

HOMETOWN. N/A

SIBLINGS. Bastian D'Arcy (Brother)

Unnamed brother (Twin brother / separate timeline I'm doing with a friend's Vasco)

The Nauts (some being seen as siblings)

PARENTS.

Felisberta D’Arcy (biological mother)

Nicéphore D’Arcy (biological father)

𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐋𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 ―

OCCUPATION. Sea Captain / Naut's life.

CURRENT RESIDENCE. On the sea / on his ship (Sea-Horse). Depending on the verse, he may have a small apartment / place to go to if he has to go further on land. It also depends on with the person he falls in love with.

CLOSE FRIENDS. De Sardet, Kurt, Aphra, Petrus, Síora, and Constantin. It also is verse dependent for anyone else.

FINANCIAL STATUS. Pretty wealthy.

DRIVER'S LICENSE. Yes, he has one, but he rarely uses it, given he sucks at driving.

CRIMINAL RECORD. Not exactly / complicated. He has petty criminals, but nothing he got caught with. It's mostly clean.

𝐒𝐄𝐗 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 ―

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual.

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. ㅤN/A

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. switch / bottom

TURN OFFS. Pulling hair (it really depends on his mood), knife play, anything regarding his neck (biting is iffy, but nothing else).

TURN ON'S. Anything regarding his thighs or stomach area, hair pulling (again, it depends).

LOVE LANGUAGE. Acts of service, words of affirmative, & gift giving.

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. Vasco has a habit of reading a poem or giving something to his lover if it reminds him of them. He's a bit flustered when it comes to such things, but he will go ahead and do it. And much like mentioned before, he does get flustered a lot, especially at the beginning stages of the relationship. He tends to be that supportive and caring boyfriend.

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐎𝐔𝐒 ―

CHARACTER'S THEME TUNE. Raise the Black Flags - Teminite

HOBBIES TO PASS THE TIME. Reading poems / books, writing his own poems (or just his thoughts / feelings of the day), fishing, walking down the beach, collecting seashells, researching sea animals, and anything sea-related.‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ㅤ

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Left brained ㅤ‏‏‎

‎ SELF-CONFIDENCE LEVEL. Complicated. On one hand, Vasco is confident in his skills in many areas if not all. Being a leader, in combat, communicating, etc. At the same time, he is that depressed gifted kid. ‎

Tagged by: Stolen

Tagging: Y'all <3

[queenmarytudor]

The Spanish Princess S2 rewrite

The wonky timeline and horrible inaccuracies of The Spanish Princess season 2 inspired me to plot out the season myself.

I made some minor timeline changes to make things flow easier, speeding up the time between events while ignoring Catherine’s first daughter born in 1510 and Mary’s 1518 French betrothal - but I can guarantee my version is 100% more accurate than Emma Frost’s ;)

I used the same following events in the series as rough reference points: 

Birth and death of Prince Hal - episode 1

Battle of Flodden - episode 2

Princess Mary’s birth - episode 4

Field of the Cloth of Gold - episode 6

but I’ve dramatically altered the context, featuring a lot more festivities, the births of Margaret Douglas and Frances Brandon, and Henry VIII’s affair with Mary Boleyn!  

EPISODE 1 - SIR LOYAL HEART (1511)

King Henry VIII and his new bride, Queen Catherine of Aragon, are crowned king and queen of England, to great rejoicing.

The new court is full of revels; Henry dresses up as Robin Hood to surprise his young queen, along with his band of merry men. An amused Catherine is declared his Maid Marian. The happy king and queen dance together, while Mary, Henry VIII’s sister dances with the king’s best friend Charles Brandon. After the revelry, Catherine confesses to her husband she is with child.

Henry writes to his father in law Ferdinand that he considers him his new father, and prefers an alliance with him rather than any other prince.

Catherine is sent a blessed girdle by her sister, Margaret queen of Scots, to guarantee a safe birth. She had been given it by Catherine previously to use in the birth of her son, prince James of Scotland, and hopes it gives her similar luck. Catherine is touched by the kind gesture. 

On New Years day, Catherine gives birth to a prince, named Henry for his father.

Henry goes to a shrine, Our Lady at Walsingham, to give thanks while Catherine recovers. The king of France, Louis XII, is made godfather of little Prince Hal.

When Catherine is churched and returns to court there are jousts to celebrate England’s new heir. Henry jousts as “Sir Loyal Heart”. His sister Mary gives Charles Brandon her favour before the pair joust. Henry is victorious, but Charles admits privately to Mary after that he let the new father win. Catherine happily awards her husband the main prize.

A grand feast follows, where a jubilant Henry encourages the people to take the gold from his costume. A stampede follows, and the laughing king and queen must be helped to safety.

Their happiness is interrupted by the sad news that prince Hal is dead.

The court is plunged into grief, and Henry, in an effort to distract himself, declares war on France, wanting to win back the land lost to England. He asks a mourning Catherine’s help in convincing her father to fight with him. She agrees eagerly; God has taken her son, but he will surely bless them with another when they defeat their ancient enemy.

EPISODE 2 - FLODDEN (1513)

There has been several months of planning war against France, and Catherine is in the early stages of pregnancy. She talks to the Venetian ambassador about hiring Italian ships for an invasion, asking about the cost. Henry admires her attitude, and declares her regent of England while he is in France. 

On the eve of her husband’s departure, Catherine tells him their child has quickened, leaving Henry even more eager to win for the sake of their son’s future inheritance.

Before they cross the channel to fight, Mary promises Charles Brandon to look after her brother. He reassures her they will both be fine; Mary says he’ll look after the king, and she the queen.

In France, Henry, Charles, and the other men wait on Catherine’s father, Ferdinand of Aragon. He never arrives, and Henry is incensed to discover he has been betrayed. He successfully lays siege to Therouanne, taking the town and demolishing the walls, creating large fires. They carry on, leaving destruction behind them.

Meanwhile in England, a now visibly pregnant Catherine heads the Privy Council meetings and realises they will have to fight the Scots, allied with the angry French. She writes constantly to the king’s almoner, Thomas Wolsey, worrying how her husband fares.

Catherine, helped by Mary, busies herself preparing essential items for battle, including sewing banners of the royal arms of England and Spain.

Margaret writes a letter pleading her sister not to attack, but Catherine burns it and rallies her soldiers with a rousing speech, saying “English courage excels that of all other nations!”. The soldiers proudly take her banners to battle at Flodden field, where they slaughter the Scots.

Catherine and Mary wait anxiously before England is declared victorious and Catherine is brought James IV of Scotland’s body. She wants to send his head to her husband, but her men persuade her not to. She sends her friar, Friar Langley, to Scotland to comfort the now widowed Margaret.

Across the sea Charles Brandon distinguishes himself by capturing a gatehouse at Tournai. Henry is sent James IV’s bloodstained clothes and a letter from Catherine informing him of her success. Inspired, Henry leads the successful assault on Tournai.

In England, celebrations continue for their victory, but are dimmed when Catherine goes into labour early and gives birth to a stillborn son. Mary comforts her, promising Henry will be home soon.

Henry returns from France victorious, creating Charles Brandon the Duke of Suffolk for his actions. He assures Catherine all will be well now the enemy is defeated, as his sister Mary is to be betrothed to Louis XII of France to make peace between the two countries.

EPISODE 3 - GRIEF (1514)

In Scotland, a grieving Margaret is comforted by Archibald Douglas after being declared regent on behalf of her son, the now king James. He can relate to losing a spouse, as his wife died not long ago. 

In England, Catherine is pregnant again, and sews Henry’s battle torn shirts as Mary gets fitted for her wedding dress. Henry’s sister is horrified at having to marry the French king.

Wolsey is now the archbishop of York, and Catherine is beginning to resent his growing influence and power at court. Henry has come up with an idea to claim Castile on behalf of Catherine. He and Catherine argue viciously over it. She thinks it is ridiculous; even if she agreed to fight with her father over the land, Castile is her sister Joana’s before hers, as their mother’s heir. Henry says Joana is mad and incapable of ruling, and therefore it passes to her, and by extension, him. 

Catherine is miserable, not helped by her bad pregnancy. She is constantly sick, but disguises her pain to say goodbye to Mary. At the waterside before her departure, Mary gets her brother to promise she can choose her second husband. Henry agrees, and Mary sets sail for France with several ladies in waiting, including Mary and Anne Boleyn.  

In Scotland, a lonely Margaret finds herself falling in love with Archibald Douglas. 

Catherine is torn between her husband and her father, even more so when Henry decide to send Charles Brandon over to France to discuss a new alliance with King Louis against him.

In France, Charles talks to Louis about an alliance against Ferdinand but the French king is reluctant.

Catherine goes into early labour and gives birth to a son they name Henry for his father. He dies minutes after birth in his parents arms, and both are devastated.

Charles Brandon informs Mary of the queen’s loss; both comfort each other before Charles reluctantly sails back to England.

In Scotland, Margaret secretly marries Archibald Douglas, breaking the terms of her regency.

Back in England, Charles tells Henry he tried his best but Louis refused. Henry reveals he has dropped his plans to get revenge on Ferdinand for the sake of the queen.

Henry tells Catherine he has realised there are more important things to focus on - like her, recovering. They cuddle in bed, brought back together in shared grief for their son. 

EPISODE 4 - THE THREE QUEENS (1515 - 1516)

In Scotland, Margaret’s secret marriage is discovered when she becomes pregnant. Besieged and desperate for help, she sends a letter to her brother in England.

In France, Mary becomes a widow after King Louis dies. Henry sends Charles Brandon to bring her home, not before making him promise not to marry her. As she had with Margaret, Catherine sends her friar, Friar Langley, to comfort another Tudor widow; she has no need for him now as her prayers have been answered - she is with child again.

In France, Friar Langley tells Mary that the privy council, especially Wolsey, will never let her and Charles be wed. The pair marry anyway, helped by the new French king, Francis. Francis also gives his blessing for the Duke of Albany to take up the regency of King James in Scotland.

Henry is furious with both of his sisters, as Mary has married without his permission and Margaret urges him to send an army to help her. Henry refuses to send an army, but says Margaret can stay at his court.

Archibald urges Margaret to obey the council and surrender her son to a newly returned Albany, but she refuses. After a long argument, a defeated Margaret turns over James to Albany and flees with Archibald to her brothers court for the sake of her unborn child.

Mary reminds Henry “as you well know, I have always borne good mind towards my lord of Suffolk.” She beseeches him to “keep all the promises that you promised me when I took my leave of you by the waterside.”

Wolsey convinces Henry to allow Mary and Charles to return home to England if they pay a fine. To sweeten her brother’s disposition, Mary steals a large French jewel, the Mirror of Naples, for him. 

On the Scottish borders, Archibald refuses to cross into England with Margaret and reveals he intends to make peace with Albany. A betrayed Margaret carries on to London without her husband.

Mary and Charles return home to England, but her lady Anne Boleyn decides to stay on with the new French queen.

All 3 Tudor queens, Catherine, Mary, and Margaret, are now back together in the English royal court, and pregnant.

Margaret has still not forgiven Catherine for the role she played in her first husband’s death. She asks for her blessed girdle back, and Catherine agrees. 

Shortly after, Margaret gives birth to a daughter, also named Margaret. Catherine visits her and apologizes for the hurt she has caused. She gives her new dresses and jewels that befit the queen regent of Scotland, and Margaret thaws.

Catherine tries to reconcile the three Tudor siblings, saying their children will all be cousins and it would be a shame to make them enemies as they will be the future royal family. 

Henry forgives his sisters; he delights in wearing the Mirror of Naples Mary has stolen from King Francis, and tells Margaret Archibald’s actions were “Done like a Scot”.

Grand jousts are put on to celebrate Mary and Margaret’s return to court. Catherine and Mary watch on proudly as their husbands compete against each other, while Margaret is cheered by a letter arriving from her husband, saying he is trying to negotiate with Albany.

Catherine successfully gives birth to a little girl, named Mary in honour of her aunt. Wolsey, now a Cardinal, is made her godfather, while Margaret Pole is made her godmother and governess. A delighted Henry assures the Venetian ambassador “We are both young; if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God the sons will follow.”

EPISODE 5 - MAY DAY (1517 - 1518)

Henry and Catherine are head over heels with their surviving child, now a thriving toddler. Mary is constantly flaunted by her parents to ambassadors and courtiers who dote on her; the king names her his pearl of the world, and brags she never cries. The royals are informed of attacks on foreigners in London, but caught up in their happiness, they brush off the news.

The three queens meet at Margaret’s London townhouse, with their children, Princess Mary, Margaret Douglas and Henry Brandon. Mary is pregnant again, while Margaret is eager to return to Scotland as the people around her household are becoming increasingly hostile towards her.

On May Day there are large scale riots in the city, and royal officers including Charles Brandon are sent to suppress them. Three hundred rebels are rounded up and sent to the king and queen. An emotional Catherine, Margaret and Mary beg for Henry to have mercy on them for the sakes of their wives and children, which is given.

Margaret leaves with her daughter to reunite with her husband in Scotland. Mary and an increasingly devout Catherine accompany her northwards while on pilgrimage to visit the Our Lady shrine at Walsingham, the same place her husband visited in thanks after she gave birth to their short lived son. Catherine suspects she is pregnant again.

While his wife is away, Henry entertains his daughter, and writes a Defence of the Seven Sacraments with Thomas More. Increasingly bored as the months pass, he begins an affair with one of Catherine’s ladies, Bessie Blount.

On her return to court, Catherine tells Henry his sister has given birth to a healthy girl named Frances in honour of the French king, and surprises Henry with her own big belly, obviously with child. He orders Te Deum to be sung in the churches in celebration. 

In her absence, Henry has grown a beard as part of a peace pact with Francis, but Catherine dislikes it and asks him to shave. He agrees happily after her surprise.

Unfortunately, their joy is as short lived as their child; Catherine soon gives birth to a daughter who dies not long after.

EPISODE 6 - CLOTH OF GOLD (1519 - 1520)

Catherine and Henry take comfort in Mary and the new title, “Defender of the Faith”, that Henry has been given by the Pope. Catherine is teaching her daughter Latin, and all is well until it is discovered that Bessie Blount is pregnant. She is sent away from court to a nearby priory to avoid the scandal being discovered.

Back in Scotland, Margaret discovers her husband Archibald has been living openly in her house with a mistress.

Cardinal Wolsey devises a royal summit with the French king, the Field of the Cloth of Gold, to cement their peace treaty. Henry is eager to see his rival, King Francis, in the flesh.

Bessie has given birth to a bastard son, Henry, who Henry immediately recognises as his own and gives the surname Fitzroy. He makes Wolsey his son’s godfather, and sends him to a secret christening. Henry promises Catherine Fitzroy will be kept away from court, but he will do his fatherly duty. He sends some of Princess Mary’s ladies to care for him.

Margaret writes to her brother she wants a divorce. Catherine sympathises with her sister as she is in a similar position, but urges Margaret to commit more fully to her husband, as she is. Henry and Catherine are determined to put the Fitzroy argument behind them and spend time with Princess Mary as a loving royal family.

Margaret discovers the Duke of Albany has been invited to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and urges him to convince her brother to help her.

Henry, Catherine, Henry’s sister Mary and Charles Brandon attend the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France. In their absence, England is ruled by Princess Mary, Margaret Pole and the Privy Council.

At the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the Duke of Albany talks to Henry; again Henry and Catherine refuse to support his sister in a divorce. Margaret needs to work out her differences with her husband, for the sake of their daughter.

Catherine and Queen Claude of France become friends, bonding over their husband’s rivalry and their ladies in waiting becoming mistresses. Catherine is grateful Henry is discreet with his lovers, unlike Francis with Francoise de Foix, and that in England there is no official recognised royal mistress position.

King Francis proposes a match between his son and Princess Mary; Henry agrees to allow some French ambassadors to visit England.

In England, the French ambassadors meet with Mary. Mary, watched over by Margaret Pole, entertains them by playing the virginals and offering them strawberries, her favourite.

In France, the kings hear the ambassadors are enchanted with the princess. Catherine is secretly displeased, as she favours her nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, as Mary’s future husband. She says her daughter is far too young to marry, and the four royals agree they will wait until Mary is older for the pair to wed. 

At the festivities, Catherine’s lady Mary Boleyn reunites with her sister Anne, who returns with them back to England as one of Catherine’s ladies.

EPISODE 7 - THE KING’S PEARL (1522 - 1523)

Catherine concentrates more on her daughter’s future. Hearing of his talents, she meets the great scholar Juan Luis Vives and commissions him to write a book on female education for Princess Mary.

A desperate Margaret writes that her marriage to Archibald is invalid as James IV is still alive. Catherine is incredulous; she had seen the Scottish king’s dead body herself. Catherine and Henry again refuse to support her.

After an annoyed Henry tells Edward Stafford off for failing to keep the Welsh in line, Catherine persuades Henry that an Imperial marriage would be better for England and their daughter. 

Charles V visits England, where a grand pageant is performed in his honour. Henry’s sister Mary plays Beauty, while Mary Boleyn is Kindness and Anne Boleyn Perseverance. Afterwards, Anne flirts with a courtier, Henry Percy; she says she likes his beard.

In the midst of the festivities Edward Stafford, still annoyed over being rebuked by the king, makes a snide remark overheard by Wolsey.     

Princess Mary, wearing a Valentines brooch for her cousin, meets Charles V. Catherine says he cannot leave without seeing Mary dance. Mary does not need to be asked twice; Catherine watches her daughter proudly as she impresses the emperor. 

In Scotland, Margaret commands Albany to appeal directly to the Pope for a divorce, as Archibald has turned her mad. He agrees to help her. Margaret and Albany finally come to an agreement over the regency of James, which is confirmed by the Scottish parliament. Margaret is not regent, but is able to help her son govern. 

Princess Mary is formally betrothed to Charles V, but after he leaves England Charles breaks the treaty and marries Isabella of Portugal. This infuriates Henry, who takes his anger out on Catherine. They have a blazing argument, where he blames her not only for her nephew jilting their daughter, but for not bearing a male heir. Edward Stafford has been listening to prophecies that predict his death and intends to kill him himself after their argument; England is not safe if he were to die without a successor. Catherine argues they have an heir; her mother ruled as a queen in her own right, and she herself ruled the country for him when he was in France.

Juan Luis Vives presents his finished book to Catherine. She tells him “If I had to choose between extreme sorrow and extreme well-being, I think I would prefer the former to the latter, for people in disgrace need only some consolation, while those who are too successful frequently lose their minds.”

She is comforted by Vives’ assurance that she is a good queen and mother, and a model for all woman. Henry meanwhile, is comforted by Mary Boleyn while Edward Stafford is executed for treason.

EPISODE 8 - DECLARE, I DARE NOT (1525 - 1527)

Archibald approaches the Scottish parliament heavily armed, but Margaret orders cannons to be fired at him. Henry Stewart, the master of artillery, is eager to obey, but the English ambassadors are appalled at their actions. They tell her not to attack her husband, but Margaret replies they should “go home and not meddle in Scottish matters”.

In a ceremony, Catherine watches on as her husband announces Princess Mary will go to the Welsh Marches with Margaret Pole and her own council to learn how to govern. It appears Henry has changed his mind and is prepared to accept his daughter as the first ruling queen of England; Catherine is delighted, especially when Mary is given the executed Stafford’s lands and the lordships of Bromfield, Chirkland and Yale to support her new role.

In the same ceremony, a proud Mary and Charles Brandon look on with their daughter Frances as their son Henry is made earl of Lincoln. Shortly after Henry Fitzroy is made Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Catherine is furious, especially when Henry declares his bastard and household will go to the northern borders to defend England against the Scots. 

Mary Boleyn gives birth to a girl, Catherine Carey, named in honour of the queen. Catherine says the child looks just like her father. 

Henry and Wolsey press ahead with arranging a marriage treaty with France as discussed at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; Catherine, desperately wanting to make amends with her husband, reluctantly agrees.

Wolsey tells Henry Percy and Anne Boleyn off for getting betrothed without approval from the king. She is only a knight’s daughter, and beneath Percy’s rank; he is sent from court to marry Mary Talbot.

An ambassador for the French marriage, Bishop Tarbes, arrives to see Princess Mary. Tarbes questions Henry and Catherine about their daughters legitimacy. Catherine brushes off Tarbes’ concerns, as the Pope had given her and Henry a dispensation to marry even if her marriage to Arthur had been consummated.

Henry visits Mary Boleyn and congratulates her, wondering if her daughter is his. While looking after her sister, Anne talks with Henry; sparks fly.

Margaret is relieved to hear the Pope has finally sanctioned a divorce from Archibald. Though she acknowledges she will have to let Archibald attend Parliament, she is free to marry again should she choose. She drinks to her success with Henry Stewart, acknowledging he is quite handsome…

Henry has grown his beard out again, but this time refuses to shave when Catherine reminds him she hates beards. He insinuates to Anne Boleyn she could be his mistress, but she refuses after seeing how he’s treated her sister.

Princess Mary is formally betrothed to the French king’s son and there is a joust to celebrate. Henry competes with the motto “Declare, I Dare Not”, in stark contrast to Sir Loyal Heart in episode 1, and Catherine is confused.

With the celebrations over, an emotional Henry and Catherine must say goodbye to their daughter. Together they watch on as Mary, helped by Margaret Pole, prepares to leave court for her own estates in the Welsh Marches. As he holds his wife, Henry’s gaze cannot help but drift to a smiling Anne Boleyn nearby…

Embracing her daughter, Catherine gives Vives’ book to Mary as a farewell present. She promises her she will one day be queen of France - and England.

In a flash forward years later, Henry and Catherine’s daughter Mary is crowned the first queen regnant of England, to great rejoicing.

The last episode basically comes full circle to the first, with several parallels:

France are enemies/friends

Henry jousts for Catherine/Anne

Catherine loses Prince Hal/Princess Mary

Henry and Catherine are crowned/Mary is crowned

and we all know how the future will be, with a queen replaced because she can’t produce a male heir…

[inseongsfoxybae]

The way you move

Pairing: Boyfriend Jaeyoon + Idol Female Reader; established relationship

Genre: Smut + Fluff ending

Warnings: hard dom!Jaeyoon, jealousy, dirty talk/cursing, sex against the wall, thigh riding, a bit of fingering, overstimulation, unprotected sex (reader’s on birth control), riding, creampie + aftercare

Words: 2,375

Requested: Hello! I would like to make a request for Jaeyoon, where his idol!girlfriend has a sexy stage with kai from exo and he gets jealous and it leads to rough sex? 👁👄👁 

Author’s message: Hi, dear anon!, your request is finnaly here! I had a great time writing it (as Jaeyoon as wrecking me more then anything these days), so I hope you enjoy it ^.^. Also, feel free to send in a new request anytime. Foxy kisses  😘

P.S: As english is not my mother language, it may contain misspelled. Also, sorry for any other mistakes :) 

Synopsis: After a hot special performance with your friend Kai, Jaeyoon got jealous of your touchy moves on stage and proved who owns your heart and body when you got home.

this gif is killing me  🥵

You are close friends with Kai and, as he’s going to have a stage on a music festival, he invited you to make a special performance of Mmmh with him. Your group was out of the line up, so you had enough free time to practise with him and gladly accepted the invitation. 

When you told Jaeyoon the news, he looked a little uncomfortable, but even so, he smiled and supported you. It's not that he wasn't happy for you or didn’t trust you, he just knew how sexy this song is and he didn’t like other guys touching his bae, especially Kai, who had known you for so many years. Jaeyoon was a bit jealous, but didn’t show it to not muddle your enthusiasm. 

You had three weeks for the festival and you stepped into a dance room of SM to start the practices. At first, you thought his back dancers would participe on the performance too, but when you entered the room, only Kai was waiting for you and then you realized what his “special stage” meant - a couple performance. 

You got a bit nervous about what Jaeyoon would think about it, but shook those thoughts off your mind and focused on the choreography. Everything went good during rehearsals, you learned and cleaned the movements quickly and the great day has finally come. 

SF9 was performing at this festival too, so you came along with them, your mind running between giving attention to your boyfriend and passing the choreo one last time into your head. Once you had arrived at the arena, you said your goodbyes and hurried to your dressing room to get ready. Kai was already there, wearing a super tight and sexy outfit that would make any girl swoon. 

You quickly put on your clothes - hotpant shorts and a sexy cropped top - and make up and rush to watch SF9’s stage. They performed a special version of Good Guy and Summer Breeze and you almost drooled at their sensual movements and outfits. And when they left the stage and Jaeyoon was face to face with you, you swore you almost fainted at your gorgeous boyfriend. 

Jaeyoon froze when he saw you dressed like that, his heart skipping some beats. “So, am I pretty?”, you smiled and stepped closer to him. He swallowed while staring fondly at you. “You’re stunning”, he breathed quickly and you chuckled. Jaeyoon was about to pull you into his arms to kiss you when Kai showed up calling for you. “We are the next. Get ready”, he said shortly and glanced at Jaeyoon. 

“I have to go now, baby. See you later in my dressing room”, you pecked his cheek and ran away to the other side of the backstage. Jaeyoon was very proud of you, but he couldn’t stop to feel uncomfortable about you being alone with Kai. However, he shook it off his mind and found a place to watch your performance. 

It was your turn, the moment you waited for the last month was finally happening and you felt your heart race faster. Kai took your hand and led you to the stage, where you got your positions and started to dance when the music played. The song was sexy, the choreo was hot and you felt his hands running through your body, his face only centimeters aways from yours, his hot breath fanning your neck and lips. 

Both of you gave yourselves completely to music, feeling every beat with your bodies pressed together in fluid movements, the crowd going crazy with your intimate connection on stage. It was a success, one of the best performances of the night and the media had their eyes on you as soon as you left the stage. Kai was answering some reporters and bloggers when your eyes found Jaeyoon on a corner. His lips were showing you a proud smile, but his eyes were serious, dark, maybe even angry, mainly when Kai wrapped an arm around your waist and whispered something in your ear. 

When you looked at Jaeyoon again, he wasn’t there anymore. You got rid of Kai’s grip and ran to look for your boyfriend, but your manager pulled you to your dressing room first to take some photos and changed your clothes. You were leaving the room when Kai approached you. “Thank you for today, Y/N. You were amazing”, he said smiling. “I‘m the one who has to say thank you”, you answered, smiling back and Kai unexpectedly hugged you tightly, catching you by surprise. 

“I have to go”, you broke the hug and turned around only to see a dumbfounded Jaeyoon watching you. “Jae, where were you?”, you asked, trying to catch his attention, but he only locked his eyes with yours, no words. “Do you still have schedules today? Wanna go home with me?”, you reached for his hands, but he stepped back. “I go to the car”, he spoke for anyone in particular and left. “Wait for me!”, you exclaimed and ran behind him. 

There was a small car waiting for you, one of FNC's staff would drive you and Jaeyoon home. Neither of you spoke along the way, Jaeyoon’s eyes were fixed on the window, looking at no place, while you were staring at your lap, trying to find words to tell him. Even when you got at your building and entered the elevator, he didn’t say a single word or looked at you. 

Only when you stepped out the hallway, you got the courage to talk to him, grabbing his hand. "Jaeyoon, what's wrong with you?", you inquired staring at his back. Jaeyoon stopped in front of the door of your shared apartment and sighed heavy. "I'll show what's wrong", he snorted, opening the door and pulling you into the room. 

He slammed you against the wall, pressing your bodies together, his hot breath fanning on your face. "The way you move. That's the problem", he growled against your lips, but without touching it yet. "The fucking way you fucking move beside fucking Kai", he spat his words on your face, his dark eyes penetrating deep in your soul. 

"Are you jealous?", you teased him as he pressed you stronger on the wall, so that you were almost on tiptoe. "Are you mocking me now?", Jaeyoon stepped even closer. "Do I have to show you who you belong to?", his lips only millimeters aways from yours. "Show it", you implied as he mouth was roughly pressed against yours, kissing you hungrily, devouring and sucking all you have for him. 

As his lips worked up there, his hands roamed along your sides and hips, pushing your skirt up. His fingers hardly rubbed your pussy, you gasped and arched your back at the sudden stimulation, as he pulled your hips towards his thigh, placing it between your clothed core. Jaeyoon flexed his muscle thigh and started to move you back and forth in a desperate pace, his leather pants causing a searing heat against your thin lacy panties. His mouth was now attacking your neck, sucking and biting hard, leaving deep marks on your soft skin, as his hands set the unforgiving pace of your body. 

"Could Kai fuck you like this, Y/N?", Jaeyoon whispered in your ear. "Answer!", he commanded and you moaned a desperate "No". "Of course not. I'm the only one who can ruin you like this, make you feel good", he groaned, sucking another portion of your skin. "And tonight, baby, I'm gonna fuck you till you forget your own name", he continued as one of his hands moved to rub your clothed clit, you were squirming and screaming at the overstimulatiom, your wetness going down on your inner thighs. "Cum for me, babygirl", he growled against your skin, licking a sweet spot on your neck.

And like a flashlight, the knot on your stomach exploded and your orgasm flowed over your body, your legs shaking hopeless around Jaeyoon's thigh. He placed you on your feet, you barely being able to stand by yourself, while he took off his pants along with his briefs, his full hard member bouncing into the air. Jaeyoon closed the distance between the two of you, kissing you harshly, while his strong hands ripped your panties effortless. He grabbed the back of you thighs and pulled you up, wrapping your legs around his hips and mercilessly slamming his length into your throbbing core. 

Jaeyoon set a unforgiving pace since the beginning, his thrusts deep and violent into you, filling your pussy completely. “I bet Kai couldn’t take you like this, huh?”, he groaned as you screamed his name desperately, your back banging against the way with every powerful thrust as your nails digged into his flesh. He had barely started and your eyes were rolling to the back of your neck already, your body convulsing in pleasure. “JAEYOOON - FUCK”, you screamed at the top of your lungs as you came undone, your waters washing over Jaeyoon’s dick.

He increased his pace, chasing his own high, grunted “fucks” and a long hiss leaving his mouth when he released his seeds deep into you. His shaking legs lost their strength and he collapsed on the floor with you still in his arms, both of you breathing hard and trembling. Jaeyoon pulled out and watched his semen coming out from your slit, dripping on his low stomach and down his thigh.

Your face was still hidden in his neck, your arms had fallen loosely on his sides. "Y/N", Jaeyoon called you, softer this time, as you just hummed, too weak for answering. He wrapped his hands onto your upper arms and moved you away from his neck, leaning you on the wall. Both of your eyes met and you smiled at him. "Well, I guess you proved I'm yours", you teased him and you both laughed. "But I think I'll have to dance with other guys more often if it means you'll fuck me on the wall every single time", you confessed and he chuckled, blushing slightly. 

"Are you okay? I mean… Aren't you sore?", Jaeyoon asked shyly. "It's not a big deal", you shook your head and placed your hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "Jae…", you stared at him, "... I still want you...", you pecked his cheek, "... inside me…", you pecked his nose, "in our bed", you kissed his lips. Jaeyoon wrapped his arms around you and got up with you into his embrace, kissing you passionately. 

He moved you to the bedroom and laid you carefully on bed, taking off the rest of both of your clothes. His mouth and hands were all over your skin, touching and kissing and nibbling all the right places, his dick cradled between your legs getting hard again. His thumb found your clit and rubbed it slowly, taking his sweet time to make you wetter and ready for him. His fingers teased your entrance, curling up one, then two, then three digits inside your pussy. 

"Jae...", you moaned his name quietly and he looked up at you, "... I'm gonna ride you now", you two smirked and Jaeyoon was caught in surprise when you pushed him till his back touched the mattress and your legs straddled his hips. You kissed the tip of his dick and palmed him a little till it's full hard and pushed yourself down, filling your pussy to the brim, both of your moans echoing through the cold air of your room. 

You started to slowly grind against him, wiggling your hips with his in a sensual pace that drove you wild, in a way only the two of you could. Jaeyoon gripped your hips and helped you move, pulling up and down on him. "The way you move, babe...", he breathed, ".... it's so good - ohmygod", he groaned when you set a faster pace, your body bouncing on his. 

You leaned in to kiss his lips and neck and he took the chance to dig his heels into the sheets and thrusted upwards. His balls slammed against your pussy roughly, the cacophonous sound of your wild dance and moans filling the room. You clenched around him, his deep thrusts making you high already, and Jaeyoon grunted your name, increasing his pace. 

The merciless speed made both of your visions hazy and your legs shaking, desperate whines and trembling when your orgasms hitted you like a rocket. You two collapsed into each other’s body, breathless, sweaty, cloudy mind. Jaeyoon slipped out from you and pulled you closer to him, taking your lips in a tired tender kiss. Your hands wiped away the sweat and some strands of damp hair from his forehead.

A few minutes later, when you calmed yourselves down, Jaeyoon broke the silence. “Y/N, I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier”, he swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t treat you like that, ignored you like that, hurted you like that”, he whispered guiltily. “You didn’t hurt me, Yoonie. You just have to trust me better”, you looked up at him. “I love you, Jae, more than anything. And you know I’m yours and only yours, no one can’t take me away from you. Do you know it, right?”. 

“I know, babe. And I trust you, but when I saw you dancing with Kai like that… I can’t help being jealous. Sorry about that”, his eyes shook.

“Shh… Don’t talk about Kai anymore. Let’s forget about that performance and focus on us. I love you, Jae, and you won’t lose me for anything or anyone”, you reassured him.

“I love you too, baby...”, he smiled and pecked your lips. “... and I’m yours forever”, you both smiled. “Now, let’s take a shower together and sleep?”, he suggested and you nodded.

Jaeyoon took you into his arms and guided you to the bathroom, where you took a hot shower together, relaxing into each other’s bodies. After the both of you were clean and properly dry, you plopped into your bed and snuggled closer under your thick blankets. Jaeyoon ran his fingers through your hair, sweetly humming a lullaby till he fells your head pending over his chest, your calm and steady heartbeat and breath. He kissed softly your forehead and closed his eyes, drifting away as well.

[chiseler]

The Mysterious Death of a Hollywood Director

This is the tale of a very famous Hollywood mogul and a not-so-famous movie director. In May of 1933 they embarked together on a hunting trip to Canada, but only one of them came back alive. It’s an unusual tale with an uncertain ending, and to the best of my knowledge it’s never been told before.

I. The Mogul

When we consider the factors that enabled the Hollywood studio system to work as well as it did during its peak years, circa 1920 to 1950, we begin with the moguls, those larger-than-life studio chieftains who were the true stars on their respective lots. They were tough, shrewd, vital, and hard working men. Most were Jewish, first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe or Russia; physically on the small side but nonetheless formidable and – no small thing – adaptable. Despite constant evolution in popular culture, technology, and political and economic conditions in their industry and the outside world, most of the moguls who made their way to the top during the silent era held onto their power and wielded it for decades. Their names are still familiar: Zukor, Goldwyn, Mayer, Jack Warner and his brothers, and a few more. And of course, Darryl F. Zanuck. In many ways Zanuck personified the common image of the Hollywood mogul. He was an energetic, cigar-chewing, polo mallet-swinging bantam of a man, largely self-educated, with a keen aptitude for screen storytelling and a well-honed sense of what the public wanted to see. Like Charlie Chaplin he was widely assumed to be Jewish, and also like Chaplin he was not, but in every other respect Zanuck was the very embodiment of the dynamic, supremely confident Hollywood showman.

In the mid-1920s he got a job as a screenwriter at Warner Brothers, at a time when that studio was still something of a podunk operation. The young man succeeded on a grand scale, and was head of production before he was 30 years old. Ironically, the classic Warners house style, i.e. clipped, topical, and earthy, often dark and sometimes grimly funny, as in such iconic films as The Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, and 42nd Street, was established not by Jack, Harry, Sam, or Albert Warner, but by Darryl Zanuck, who was the driving force behind those hits and many others from the crucial early talkie period. He played a key role in launching the gangster cycle and a new wave of sassy show biz musicals. At some point during 1932-33, however, Zanuck realized he would never rise above his status as Jack Warner’s right-hand man and run the studio, no matter how successful his projects proved to be, because of two insurmountable obstacles: 1) his name was not Warner, and 2) he was a Gentile. Therefore, in order to achieve complete autonomy, Zanuck concluded that he would have to start his own company.

In mid-April of 1933 he picked a public fight with Jack Warner over a staff salary issue, then abruptly resigned. Next, he turned his attention to setting up a company in partnership with veteran producer Joseph Schenck, who was able to raise sufficient funds to launch the new concern. And then, Zanuck invited several associates from Warner Brothers to accompany him on an extended hunting trip in Canada.

Going into the wilderness and killing wild game, a pastime many Americans still regard as a routine, unremarkable form of recreation, is also of course a conspicuous show of machismo. But in this realm, as with his legendary libido, Zanuck was in a class by himself. He had been an enthusiastic hunter most of his life, dating back to his boyhood in Nebraska. Once he became a big wheel at Warners in the late ’20s he took to organizing high-style duck-hunting expeditions: the young executive and his fellow sportsmen would travel to the appointed location in private railroad cars, staffed by uniformed servants. Heavy drinking on these occasions was not uncommon. (Inevitably, film buffs will recall The Ale & Quail Club from Preston Sturges’ classic comedy The Palm Beach Story, but DFZ and his pals were not cute old character actors, and their bullets were quite real.) Members of Zanuck’s studio entourage were given to understand that participation in these outings was de rigueur if they valued their positions, and expected desirable assignments in the future. Director Michael Curtiz, who had no fondness for hunting, remembered the trips with distaste, and recalled that on one occasion he was nearly shot by a casting director who had no idea how to properly handle a gun.

But ducks were just the beginning. In 1927 Zanuck took his wife Virginia on an African safari. In Kenya Darryl bagged a rhinoceros and posed for a photo with his wife, crouched beside the rhino’s carcass. Virginia, an erstwhile Mack Sennett bathing beauty and former leading lady to Buster Keaton, appears shaken. Her husband looks exhilarated. During this safari Zanuck also killed an elephant. He kept the animal’s four feet in his office on the Warners lot, and used them as ashtrays. If any animal lover dared to express dismay, the Hollywood sportsman would retort: “It was him or me, wasn’t it?” Zanuck made several forays to Canada with his coterie in this period, gunning for grizzly bears. Director William “Wild Bill” Wellman, who was more of an outdoorsman than Curtiz, once went along, but soon became irritated with Zanuck’s bullying. The two men got into a drunken fistfight the night before the hunting had even begun. In the course of the ensuing trip the hunting party was snowbound for three days; Zanuck sprained his ankle while trailing a grizzly; the horse carrying medical supplies vanished; and Wellman got food poisoning. “It was the damnedest trip I’ve ever seen,” the director said later, “but Zanuck loved it.”

Now that Zanuck had severed his ties with the Warner clan and was on the verge of a new professional adventure, a trip to Canada with a few trusted associates would be just the ticket. This time the destination would be a hunting ground on the banks of the Canoe River, a tributary of the Columbia River, 102 miles north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, a city about 400 miles east of Vancouver. There, in a remote scenic area far from any paved roads, telephones, or other niceties of modern life, the men could discuss Zanuck’s new production company and, presumably, their own potential roles in it. Present on the expedition were screenwriter Sam Engel, director Ray Enright, 42nd Street director Lloyd Bacon, producer (and former silent film comedian) Raymond Griffith, and director John G. Adolfi, best known at the time for his work with English actor George Arliss. Adolfi, who was around 50 years old and seemingly in good health, would not return.

II. The Director

Even dedicated film buffs may draw a blank when the name John Adolfi is mentioned. Although he directed more than eighty films over a twenty-year period beginning in 1913, most of those films are now lost. He worked in every genre, with top stars, and made a successful transition from silent cinema to talkies. He seems to have been a well-respected but self-effacing man, seldom profiled in the press. 

According to his tombstone Adolfi was born in New York City in 1881, but the exact date of his birth is one of several mysteries about his life. His father, Gustav Adolfi, was a popular stage comedian and singer who emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1879. Gustav performed primarily in New York and Philadelphia, and was known for such roles as Frosch the Jailer in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. But he was a troubled man, said to be a compulsive gambler, and after his wife Jennie died (possibly of scarlet fever) it appears his life fell apart. Gustav’s singing voice gave out, and then he died suddenly in Philadelphia in October 1890, leaving John and his siblings orphaned. (An obituary in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reported that Gustav suffered a stroke, but family legend suggests he may have committed suicide.) After a difficult period John followed in his father’s footsteps and launched a stage career, and was soon working opposite such luminaries of the day as Ethel Barrymore and Dustin Farnum. Early in the new century the young actor wed Pennsylvania native Florence Crawford; the marriage would last until his death.

When the cinema was still in its infancy stage performers tended to regard movie work as slumming, but for whatever reason John Adolfi took the plunge. He made his debut before the cameras around 1907, probably at the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn. There he appeared as Tybalt in J. Stuart Blackton’s 1908 Romeo and Juliet , with Paul Panzer and Florence Lawrence in the title roles. He worked at the Edison Studio for director Edwin S. Porter, and at Biograph in a 1908 short called The Kentuckian which also featured two other stage veterans, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett. Most of Adolfi’s work as a screen actor was for the Éclair Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the first film capital. The bulk of this company’s output was destroyed in a vault fire, but a 1912 adaptation of Robin Hood in which Adolfi appeared survives. That same year he also appeared in a famous docu-drama, as we would call it, Saved from the Titanic. This ten-minute short premiered less than a month after the Titanic disaster, and featured actress Dorothy Gibson, who actually survived the voyage, re-enacting her experience while wearing the same clothes she wore in the lifeboat. (This film, unfortunately, is among the missing.) After appearing in dozens of movies Adolfi moved behind the camera.

Much of his early work as a director was for a Los Angeles-based studio called Majestic, where he made crime dramas, Westerns, and comedies, films with titles like Texas Bill’s Last Ride and The Stolen Radium. In 1914 the company had a new supervisor: D. W. Griffith, now the top director in the business, who had just departed Biograph. Adolfi was one of the few Majestic staff directors who kept his job under the new regime. A profile in the February 1915 issue of Photoplay describes him as “a tallish, good-looking man, well-knit and vigorous, dark-haired and determined; his mouth and chin suggest that their owner expects (and intends) to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better.” It was also reported that Adolfi had developed something of a following as an actor, but that he dropped out of the public eye when he became a director. Presumably, that’s what he wanted.

Adolfi left Majestic after three years, worked at Fox Films for a time as a staff director, then freelanced. During the remainder of the silent era he guided some of the screen’s legendary leading ladies: Annette Kellerman (Queen of the Sea, 1918), Marion Davies (The Burden of Proof, 1918), Mae Marsh (The Little ‘Fraid Lady, 1920), Betty Blythe (The Darling of the Rich, 1922), and Clara Bow (The Scarlet West, 1925). Not one of these films survives. A profile published in the New York World-Telegram during his stint at Fox reported that Adolfi was well-liked by his employees. He was “reticent when the conversation turned toward himself, but frank and outspoken when it concerned his work. Mr. Adolfi is not only a director who is skilled in the technique of his craft; he is also a deep student of human nature.” Asked how he felt about the cinema’s potential, he replied, with unconscious irony, “it is bound to live forever.”

III. The Talkies

In spring of 1927 Adolfi was offered a job at Warner Brothers. His debut feature for the studio What Happened to Father? (now lost) was a success, or enough of one anyway to secure him a professional foothold, and he worked primarily at WB thereafter. Thus he was fortuitously well-positioned for the talkie revolution, for although talking pictures were not invented at the studio it was Sam Warner and his brothers, more than anyone else, who sold an initially skeptical public on the new medium. After Adolfi had proven himself with three talkie features Darryl Zanuck handed him an expensive, prestige assignment, a lavish all-star revue entitled The Show of Shows which featured every Warners star from John Barrymore to Rin-Tin-Tin.

Other important assignments followed. In March of 1930 a crime melodrama called Penny Arcade opened on Broadway. It was not a success, but when Al Jolson saw it he sensed that the story had screen potential. He purchased the film rights at a bargain rate and then re-sold the property to his home studio, Warner Brothers. Adolfi was chosen to direct, but was doubtless surprised to learn that Jolson had insisted that two of the actors from the Broadway production repeat their performances before the cameras. One of the pair, Joan Blondell, had already appeared in three Vitaphone shorts to good effect, but the other, James Cagney, had never acted in a movie. Any doubts about Jolson’s instincts were quickly dispelled. Rushes of the first scenes featuring the newcomers so impressed studio brass that both were signed to five-year contracts. While Adolfi can’t be credited with discovering the duo, the film itself, re-christened Sinners’ Holiday,remains his strongest surviving claim to fame: he guided Jimmy Cagney’s screen debut.

At this point the director formed a professional relationship that would shape the rest of his career. George Arliss was a veteran stage actor who went into the movies and unexpectedly became a top box office draw. He was, frankly, an unlikely candidate for screen stardom. Already past sixty when talkies arrived, Arliss was a short, dignified man who resembled a benevolent gargoyle. But he was also a journeyman actor, a seasoned professional who knew how to command attention with a sudden sharp word or a raised eyebrow. Like Helen Hayes he was valued in Hollywood as a performer of unblemished reputation who lent the raffish film industry a touch of Class, in every sense of the word.

In 1929 Arliss appeared in a talkie version of Disraeli, a role he had played many times on stage, and became the first Englishman to take home an Academy Award for Best Actor. Thereafter he was known for stately portrayals of History’s Great Men, such as Voltaire and Alexander Hamilton, as well as fictional kings, cardinals, and other official personages. The old gentleman formed a close alliance with Darryl Zanuck, whom he admired, and was in turn granted privileges highly unusual for any actor at the time. Arliss had final approval of his scripts and authority over casting. He was also granted the right to rehearse his selected actors for two weeks before filming began. All that was left for the film’s director to do, it would seem, would be to faithfully record what his star wanted. Not many directors would accept this arrangement, but John Adolfi, who according to Photoplay “was determined to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better,” clearly had no problem with it. His first film with Arliss was The Millionaire, released in May 1931; and in the two years that followed Adolfi directed eight more features, six of which were Arliss vehicles. He had found his niche in Hollywood.

One of Adolfi’s last jobs sans Arliss was a B-picture called Central Park, which reunited the director with Joan Blondell. It’s a snappy, topical, crazy quilt of a movie that packs a lot of incident into a 58-minute running time. Central Park was something of a sleeper that earned its director positive critical notices, and must have afforded him a lively holiday from those polite period pieces for the exacting Mr. Arliss.

In spring of 1933, after completing work on the Arliss vehicle Voltaire, Adolfi accompanied Darryl Zanuck and his entourage to British Columbia to hunt bears. Arliss intended to follow Zanuck to his new company, while Adolfi in turn surely expected to follow the star and continue their collaboration. Things didn’t work out that way.

IV. The Hunting Trip

It’s unclear how long the men were hunting before tragedy struck. On Sunday, May 14th, newspapers reported that film director John G. Adolfi had died the previous week – either on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which paper one consults – at a hunting camp near the Canoe River. All accounts give the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage. According to the New York Herald-Tribune the news was conveyed in a long-distance phone call from Darryl Zanuck to screenwriter Lucien Hubbard in Los Angeles. Hubbard subsequently informed the press. The N.Y. Times reported that the entire hunting party (Zanuck, Engel, Enright, Bacon, and Griffith) accompanied Adolfi’s remains in a motorboat down the Columbia River to Revelstoke. From there the body was sent to Vancouver, B.C., where it was cremated. Write-ups of Adolfi’s career were brief, and tended to emphasize his work with George Arliss, though his recent success Central Park was widely noted. John’s widow Florence was mentioned in the Philadelphia City News obituary but otherwise seems to have been ignored; the couple had no children. 

V. The Aftermath

Darryl F. Zanuck went on to found Twentieth Century Pictures, a name suggested by his hunting companion Sam Engel. One of the company’s biggest hits in its first year of operation was The House of Rothschild, starring George Arliss and directed by Alfred Werker. The venerable actor returned to England not long afterwards and retired from filmmaking in 1937. In his second book of memoirs, published three years later, Arliss devotes several pages of warm praise to Zanuck, but refers only fleetingly to the man who directed seven of his films, John Adolfi, and misspells his name.

In 1935 Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with Fox Films, and created one of the most successful companies in Hollywood history. He would go on to produce many award-winning classics, including The Grapes of Wrath, Laura, and All About Eve. Zanuck’s trusted associates at Twentieth-Century Fox in the company’s best years included Sam Engel, Raymond Griffith, and Lloyd Bacon, all survivors of the Revelstoke trip. Personal difficulties and vast changes in the film industry began to affect Zanuck’s career in the 1950s. He left the U.S. for Europe but continued to make films, and sporadically managed to exercise control over the company he founded. He died in 1979.

In 1984 a onetime screenwriter and film critic named Leonard Mosley, who had known Zanuck slightly, published a biography entitled Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon. Aside from his movie reviews most of Mosley’s published work concerned military matters, specifically pertaining to the Second War World. His Zanuck bio reveals a grasp of film history that is shaky at times, for the book has a number of obvious errors. Nevertheless, it was written with the cooperation of Darryl’s son Richard, his widow Virginia, and many of the mogul’s close associates, so whatever its errors in chronology or studio data the anecdotes concerning Zanuck’s personal and professional activities are unquestionably well-sourced. 

When Mosley’s narrative reaches May 1933, the point when Zanuck is on the verge of founding his new company, we’re told that he and several associates decided to go on a hunting trip to Alaska. The location is not correct, but chronologically – and in one other, unmistakable respect – there can be no doubt that this refers to the Revelstoke trip. From Mosley’s book:

“There is a mystery about this trip, and no perusal of Zanuck’s papers or those of his former associates seems to elucidate it,” he writes. “Something happened that changed his whole attitude towards hunting. All that can be gathered from the thin stories that are still gossiped around was that the hunting party went on the track of a polar bear somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness [sic], and when the vital moment came it was Zanuck who stepped out to shoot down the charging, furious animal. His bullet, it is said, found its mark all right, but it did not kill. The polar bear came on, and Zanuck stood his ground, pumping away with his rifle. Only this time it was not ‘him or me,’ but ‘him’ and someone else. The wounded and enraged bear, still alive and still charging, swerved around Zanuck and swiped with his great paw at one of the men standing behind him – and only after it had killed this other man did it fall at last into the snow, and die itself. That’s the story, and no one seems to be able to confirm it nor remember the name of the man who died. The only certain thing is that when Zanuck came back, he announced to Virginia that he had given up hunting. And he never went out and shot a wild animal again, not even a jackrabbit for his supper.”

VI. The Coda

Was John Adolfi killed by a bear? It certainly seems possible, but if so, why didn’t the men in the hunting party simply report the truth? Even if their boss was indirectly responsible, having fired the shots that caused the bear to charge, he couldn’t be blamed for the actions of a dying animal. But it’s also possible the event unfolded like a recent tragedy on the Montana-Idaho border. There, in September 2011, two men named Ty Bell and Steve Stevenson were on a hunting trip. Bell shot what he believed was a black bear. When the bear, a grizzly, attacked Stevenson, Bell fired again – and killed both the bear and his friend.

That seems to be the more likely scenario. If Zanuck fired at the wounded bear, in an attempt to save Adolfi, and killed both bear and man instead, it would perhaps explain a hastily contrived false story. It would most definitely explain the prompt cremation of Adolfi’s body in Vancouver. Back in Hollywood Joe Schenck was busy raising money, and lots of it, to launch Zanuck’s new company. Any unpleasant information about the new company’s chief – certainly anything suggestive of manslaughter – could jeopardize the deal. A man hit with a cerebral hemorrhage in the prime of life is a tragedy of natural causes, but a man sprayed with bullets in a shooting, accidental or not, is something else again. That goes double if alcohol was involved, as it reportedly was on Zanuck’s earlier hunting trips.

Of course, it’s also possible that Adolfi did indeed suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Like his father.

John G. Adolfi is a Hollywood ghost. Most of his works are lost, and his name is forgotten. (Even George Arliss couldn’t be bothered to spell it correctly.) Every now and then TCM will program one of the Arliss vehicles, or Sinners’ Holiday. Not long ago they showed Adolfi’s fascinating B-picture Central Park, that slam-bang souvenir of the early Depression years in which several plot strands are deftly inter-twined. One of the subplots involves a mentally ill man, a former zoo-keeper who escapes from an asylum and returns to the place where he used to work, the Central Park Zoo. He has a score to settle with an old nemesis, an ex-colleague who tends the big cats. As the story approaches its climax, the escaped lunatic deliberately drags his enemy into the cage of a dangerous lion and leaves him there. In the subsequent, harrowing scene, difficult to watch, the lion attacks and practically kills the poor bastard.

by William Charles Morrow

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My sources for this article, in addition to the Mosley biography cited in the text, include Stephen M. Silverman’s The Fox That Got Away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth-Century Fox (1988), and Marlys J. Harris’s The Zanucks of Hollywood: The Dark Legacy of an American Dynasty (1989). For material on John Adolfi I made extensive use of the files of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Special thanks to James Bigwood for his prodigious research on the Adolfi family genealogy, and to Mary Maler, John Adolfi’s great-niece, for information she provided on her family.

[armsdealing]

CHARACTER SHEET repost. do not reblog.

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME.     daniel arcelio salazar espinosa PRONUNCIATION.   i’m not smart enough for this shit right now, figure it out. NICKNAME.     dante, dan, danny GENDER.     cis man HEIGHT.     6′0 AGE.     31 ZODIAC.     leo SPOKEN LANGUAGES.     english, spanish, some portuguese

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR.     brown EYE COLOR.     dark brown SKIN TONE.     light brown BODY TYPE.     muscular but not bulky. ACCENT.     mix of chicano and standard inner-city LA inflection. VOICE.     on the deep, raspy side. DOMINANT HAND.     left. POSTURE.    lil bit of a slouch. a cool amount.  SCARS.     a scar on his right cheek, and a cut in his left eyebrow. bullet scar in his abdomen. a few surgical scars.  TATTOOS.   he has the god huehuecóyotl in the back of his left hand, and xochipilli on the back of his right hand. roses in his left foream and a sacred heart in the inner side of his right elbow.  BIRTHMARKS.  N/A   MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S).     his hand tattoos, the stripe on the side of his head, his low-pitched voice and his laughter. 

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH.     crenshaw, los angeles HOMETOWN.     leimert park, los angeles FIRST WORDS.   "´áme!” (as in “dame” -- gimme! -- in spanish) SIBLINGS.    ramón and mariana salazar. PARENTS.   rené and pilar. PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.  his parents were both full time workers, so for the few first years of his childhood, he mostly was left to be under his older brother’s supervision until the work day ended. still, they tried their best to help him with his homework and school affairs, watching over him and trying to keep him “on the straight path”  -- but he had still ample time to do whatever he wanted, considering how lax ramón was about everything as long as he did his homework and chores. time his little sister was born, his parents were a little older and had a little more time, and so dante suffered major middle child syndrome. with rené and pilar having to look after “the princess of the house” and ramón out in the streets wilding, he was kind of unsure of his position in the household. he couldn’t be the favorite, as that spot was already seemingly “taken” by the younger kid and only daughter, and he couldn’t be the “rebellious” one, as his brother already had that role down, seeing as he was in the beginning stages of joining a gang.

and then he got shot, and lost his foot, and then not much later ramón went to juvenile. and his parents truly pulled through during this portion of his life. looked everywhere for all possible resources to help him, made a bunch of calls and public appearances, took him to all his physical therapy sessions and psychology appointments, and just -- really took his trauma seriously. it helped his recovery in a tremendous way, and dante is very grateful for them. they pulled a 180 in a way, especially his mother, who became a bit of a helicopter parent during his late teens, but he managed to convice her he was okay. and he really was okay. and pilar begrudgingly accepted it and eventually let him go. 

he ultimately considers them to be good parents. not perfect, but very good. he still gets along really well with the two of them. 

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION.     he’s a musician. a guitar player, to be precise, though he also plays piano. used to be part of a fairly popular punk group called Cadejos, left out of “professional differences” with the lead singer. he’s also a songwriter -- he wrote half of cadejos’ discography. and he writes music for other groups. he even writes pop music sometimes.  CURRENT RESIDENCE.     an apartment in santa monica.  CLOSE FRIENDS.     used to be the people he started out cadejos with, but fuck those guys. currently, he’s good friends with la’rissa @streetsofsecrets​ RELATIONSHIP STATUS.     no strings. FINANCIAL STATUS.   he’s doing well financially, but he ain’t rich by any means. DRIVER’S LICENSE.     yeah.  CRIMINAL RECORD. cops stop and “mistake” him for someone they’re looking for all the time, but he’s never been arrested so far. VICES.        cigarettes, weed. did a bit of coke in his early twenties, but cut it short. 

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. bisexual. PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.     submissive  | dominant |  switch. PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE.     submissive |  dominant |  switch. LIBIDO.     medium-to-high. TURN ON’S.     confidence, neck kisses, biting, artistic-driven people. dirty talk. putting his fingers in your mouth.  TURN OFF’S.    people touching his leg stump, as it’s quite sensitive. it’s a sign of trust when he lets people touch it, but during sexual situations it’s uncalled for either way. any hardcore bdsm. LOVE LANGUAGE.    quality time. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.     most relationships he’s had have been on the casual side, due to his transient lifestyle and being constantly on tour. he prefers that unless he’s really into the person. he’s been with a few overly jealous people and he’s realized he’s not into his partners being constantly on his business about where he is and if he’s got company, especially since he usually doesn’t do things to warrant mistrust, he’s just busy and most of his work is done during the night time and it involves going to bars, clubs, parties, and sometimes they can come with him and sometimes they can’t. overall he’d be okay with settling down, they just need to be okay these things. 

it’s also better if you don’t come on too strong right from the start. again hes okay with serious relationships, monogamy, etc -- he’s at the age where he “should be thinking about it”, according to his mom anyway -- but he’d like to start off simple. build things gradually. big conversations like that at the very beginning make him uncomfortable. 

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.     acción - la vida boheme HOBBIES TO PASS TIME.    reading. listening to music. videogames. boxing. driving his motorcycle on the highway.  MENTAL ILLNESSES.     treated PTSD. PHYSICAL ILLNESSES.    deals with phantom pain now and then. LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. right-brained. PHOBIAS.      none. SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.     high. VULNERABILITIES.     his family. 

TAGGED BY: people a long time ago. TAGGING: @nightmove​​ @exmateria​​ (judai) @streetsofsecrets​​ (la’rissa), @amorcitio​​, @surviveds​​ (your choice), @brutlist​​, @soypeor​​ (your choice)​

[holisticalecsecareanu]

This interview by ERA News Beta speaks to Alec about a varied number of subjects to do with his film casting and debut in GOC, but farther than that, Alec speaks in great detail about his journey in Romanian theatre,  his views on the state of Romanian theatre today,  his acting philosophy.

I found this an incredibly revelatory article about Alec because you don’t fully realize, until an interview like this,  the depth and breadth, not only of his intelligence, but of his strong beliefs and views regarding his chosen profession. It’s very different going from little snippets in interviews where Alec discusses mostly just one project, to this really comprehensive presentation of who he is as a person and an actor. Also, obviously being able to discuss such complex subjects in his native language, I believe, really allows him to open up more comfortably.

He has a -LOT- of strong feelings and responses to the questions the interviewer asks and he expresses them eloquently, intelligently, and also pretty bluntly, sometimes. It shifted, a little, and not in a bad way, who he is in my head, or rather, it fleshed out who he is in a way that all the quick sound bites and magazine interviews don’t.

I know, from this, that he will never strop striving to push himself and his abilities, to discover new and different ways to learn in his craft. This interview also goes a long way towards explaining how Josh, Francis, and he,  formed such a bond, because I believe they also hold these beliefs and commitments to the roles they take on and the projects invest in. It’s almost like kismet because what are the odds that these three individuals would have the same kind of approach to the story they were telling? I think that is why God’s Own Country is such a superlative and luminous film.

Also, the Fight Club production sounds KICK ASS and I wish I had seen it and I can’t believe someone didn’t tape it!

And, yes, that photo, because it never, never ceases to rock every aspect of my world.

This interview is in Romanian but, at least on Google, there is a Google translate button that appears. I have also provided the Google translated version below; am not able to vouch for it’s accuracy, but at least it is something!

Thank you if you’ve read this far. :-D

Google Translation of Interview Below. : 

The first British film brings a London agent to Alec Secăreanu

There is also news that one of the young aspirants managed a movie in Hollywood, and for a second people hold their breath, dismayed, wondering "what the hell is this?", Before the engines start again. and to see life beyond its course - Radu Iacoban once said to me, referring to an entire generation, actors who are making their way to a glory that neither they nor we know much about yet . It could have the American endorsement or the greatness of the European trophies, in any case it will no longer be possible to rely on the applause of those who built their illusions in the theaters where they were taken by force or on the admiration of those who dreamed of the two hours of the program. television of yesteryear.

Alec Secăreanu is not one of the 10-15 actors who appear constantly in the distribution of each of the films of the new wave, fueling the impression that only a few people have managed to finish the theater institute in Romania lately. But it has the merit of entering Tyler Durden's mind. And to enter Tyler Durden's mind is courage, especially since it is a dark mind, split into two completely separate universes, and in each of them reigns revolt in all its forms, revolt against the system, against consumer society, against to an absent father and, therefore, against God himself. It's an even greater courage to do this after a perfect director has already passed by, who explored his corners, in tandem with an iconic actor.

The first six rounds of Fight Club demonstrations were, at the end of last year, an absolute success in Bucharest, so the complete version follows, with sophisticated projections made by Les Ateliers Nomades - the company that made the famous mapping on the Parliament Palace - and imagined stunt figures under the guidance of experts from the Gladiator Association, which works in the good tradition of its illustrious founder, Szobi Csech. It's like we lost sleep. Anyway, Tyler Durden doesn't sleep either… Alec Secăreanu certainly sleeps quite a bit himself, since in the meantime he finished filming the first feature film in which he took the lead role, a kind of Brokeback Mountain with a farmer from Romania, the debut film of the British director Francis Lee.

There were nine weeks of filming in Yorkshire, enduring the "bipolar weather" of England, during which time he learned, among other things, to cut the hooves of cattle, to make cheese, to witness the birth of lambs. Oleacă already knew from the Fight Club. And in few percussions I surpass him, after Alexandrul Dabija's Requiem, from the National Theater in Bucharest. In addition to stories about the British system, a show business performance machine, news about new theatrical productions in Bucharest or evaluations of Romanian theater in general, from Alec Secăreanu I found out that there is an online radio that takes you far, Nice Cream FM , and something even more interesting, that there is Radiooooo, with five "o's", which allows you to choose from the map of the world what kind of music you want, in decades, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. «You can understand your decade and your country and listen to, say, Mongolian music from the '60s. It's something like Wikipedia, users are still uploading music, so they've already reached an impressive database, "says Alec.

Rep: Actors of your generation make most of the film and most make film outside. Ana Ularu, Iacoban, Bucur… a long series in which you have just been included, in the most honorable way, with a British production, a kind of Brokeback Montain as far as I understand, a love story that happens on a farm and involves a character born in Romania

Alec Secăreanu: The first feature film in which I had the main role, "God's Own Country" is Francis Lee's debut film. I really wanted a Romanian for the role, because the character in this story is Romanian, and the director wanted everything to be as authentic and organic as possible. Of course, the character has only a line or two in Romanian, not at all significant, by the way, for the story, so they could take absolutely any other actor who speaks English with an accent. But he wanted everything to be organic. The casting director from Romania gave more than 40 rehearsals and, a few weeks later, the director came to Bucharest and wanted to meet about 13 of us, a group from which he chose three actors. The three were in London for a final test, a so-called chemistry test with the other actor, the one who had already taken the role.

YOU HAVE TO HAVE EXTREMELY STRONG NERVES THOUGH, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE STAKES ARE HIGH. PROBABLY THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO GET USED TO AS AN ACTOR IS TO BE REJECTED. YOU GO TO DOZENS OF CASTINGS, TO HUNDREDS OF CASTINGS, YOU GET FIVE OR TEN PERCENT OF THEM, TO THE OTHERS YOU ARE REJECTED AND, MOST OF THE TIME, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.

 They are simply looking for something else, the sooner you understand this system, the better. To keep your lucidity and show signs of mental health. And you have every reason to protect your health, since, in the end, the tool you work with is yourself and, if you break this tool or if it is defective, it no longer serves you properly. My character's name is Gheorghe Ionescu, he is a young Romanian farmer who went to work in England, who ends up working somewhere, in an isolated complex in Yorkshire, and there he meets a guy, the boy of the farm owners. An unexpected meeting for both of them, surprising, a friendship and a fascination are linked and the two end up living a love story, although neither of them identifies as a gay person. In fact, the film does not want to be a gay movie, but, rather, a story about people, a plea that some encounters are love. A very interesting creative connection was created between me, my colleague, Josh O'Connor, the director Francis Lee and Joshua, our operator.

We had two weeks of rehearsals, in which we discussed very well each stage of the script, each sequence, what happens to the characters, the history of each of them. When I started working, everyone in the frame knew what to do. I filmed a lot of exteriors, on which occasion I got to know very well the weather in England, which is dementia, you

have four seasons in one day, it starts with snow, followed by a storm, then hail, then the sun rises, then again it snows a little and so on. In fact, the weather was a real problem at the connections, because I was starting a frame in the sun and when I resumed it, it was snowing outside, so things didn't fit.

THE TWO WEEKS OF REHEARSALS HELPED ME BUILD THE CHARACTER, BECAUSE I HAD TO WORK ON THE FARM, I LEARNED TO WORK WITH COWS, SHEEP, TO WITNESS THE BIRTH OF LAMBS, TO CUT THE HOOVES OF CATTLE, TO MAKE CHEESE , LOTS OF THINGS. IF THIS THING WITH ACTING DOESN'T WORK… I LEARNED SOME EXTREMELY USEFUL THINGS, WHAT CAN I SAY.

Rep: I understand that the benefits were even greater, you chose an invitation to the British actors' union and a London agent…

Alec Secăreanu: I had the opportunity, for nine weeks, to work in a healthy system from the ground up, starting from the way the union works, to the fact that the actors from the British schools learn notions of personal discipline from college, in a broader framework for the management of the profession. I was treated as a member of their union. A month and a half after I finished filming, my agent received an email from the union asking if I had been paid for the work done, so that the warranty that had been withheld from the producers at the time could be released. in which they announced the film. What can I say… welcome to Romania!

I told them that I am not part of this union, they told me that such a contract in the UK guarantees me these rights and allows me to become a member. I'll be back on the 20th for a series of meetings, and we'll probably finish the talks on this occasion. In the meantime, I also have an agent in London, in addition to those who represent me in Romania.��I started the relationship with my agent from Romania, Alexandru Harsany, from RAA (Romanian Artists Agency), two years ago, when I was just returning from Venice, where I stayed for about three months, at the Art Biennale, where I was a performer in an installation built by Alexandra Pirici. Alexandra…, a perfect artist… two days ago completed a performance that will be presented at the Tate, in London…

Returning to my professional path, my stake, I once told my agent, is to work abroad, because in the country, unfortunately, you have nothing to do. You just have nothing to do. Seven to eight films are made a year, which usually have the same cast. In fact, if you look at Romanian films from the last ten years, you might get the impression that only 15 actors have graduated from the University of Romania lately. Beyond this shortcoming, there is no market, the options are few, I do not understand how many of my colleagues manage. Well, I'm in this situation too. Outside, once you have a major project, some doors open, everything goes on.

HERE, I HAVE COLLEAGUES THAT PEOPLE RECOGNIZE ON THE STREET, BY SUBWAY AND BY BUS, WHERE THEY ARE MAINLY BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TAXI MONEY. IT'S FRUSTRATING.

I worked with my agent in Romania, I updated my casting photos every six months, which means to make available to potential producers a picture of the state, in which you must be relaxed, not to frown and to highlights your features as best you can. We have updated, to the necessary standards, the video materials or CV presentations, ie that series of things without which you have nothing to look for at the door of a casting director or an agent. While filming in England, the producers there issued a press release announcing that they were filming and that they had a certain distribution. At time number two, Alexandru's mail exploded, hundreds of requests, questions and offers came, sent by casting directors, agents, an entire machine was set in motion.

During the filming in London, I had five days off at one point, and the producers arranged for me to meet with some other directors, agencies, to see how things worked. They are somehow looking for unpolished stones, hoping to find the next great talent. We don't have this culture. I know only one casting agent who goes to shows or to UNATC, to see new faces, and that is Domnica Cârciumaru. The others always work with the same people, and that's especially because they don't know other people, they don't look to see what actors there are on the market, they don't care. Romanian agencies do not have casting databases, for example.

There are real platforms out there for that. Our casting directors work from project to project. 'What I need, a 40-year-old woman. Where else have I had a 40-year-old woman? Aha, in the gum commercial. Well, let's call that one too - that's how things work. In London I had meetings with three agencies and I opted for a rather large one, The Independent, which deals not only with actors, but also with directors, screenwriters, a total of about a thousand people. I liked that it works as a boutique agency, they have 40 agents, every week they meet and discuss the projects that are on the market and to which they have access and then they try to promote the people they represent. In addition, this agency is open to the States. We will see…

Rep: Returning closer to home, you have a few shows in Bucharest, including Fight Club, one of the revelations of last season. The first six rounds of Fight Club demonstrations were an absolute success, so the full version follows… 

Alec Secăreanu: In addition to the most recent premiere, Fight Club, we have an extraordinary show at Godot, «Flowers, Girls, Movies or Boys», which we have been playing for ten years with great success. It is one of the first texts written by Mimi Brănescu, he being a basic actor, but lately he has reshaped himself on dramaturgy and screenwriting. A show about relationships, which follows the evolution of two couples, from the moment when future lovers know each other, until a little later, when they may lose love. It's a good, funny text, it catches the audience very well. I'm one of those lovers, a filthy neighborhood wannabe, the kind who feels like he knows them all, and obviously he's not.

His evolution is very interesting, he hits a person he underestimates, in any case he did not expect to have such an impact on him. The girl is from another social class and this very conflict between social classes arouses him and makes him get closer. In time, however, the two realize that they do not have much in common.

I KNOW, I KNOW, THERE'S A THEORY THAT OPPOSITES WOULD BE DRAWN, BUT THEY'RE MOST LIKELY DRAWN TO THE POINT WHERE THEY REALLY HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON. THEY MAY NOT EVEN MEET AT ALL, AND THAT'S THE STRANGENESS OF THE COUPLE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.

I have another show at the National Theater, Requiem, directed by Alexandru Dabija, entered the seasons last year, things are going well. We expected him to be selected in the National Theater Festival, but it seems that was not the case. It is a text Vişniec, first placed in Romania, with references to an area that seems to be of great interest to Dabija now, more precisely the area of ​​war, the world of soldiers. Vişniec was also interested in this form in one form or another, if we think of "The Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War".

most spectacular staging of this text. There was another show, once in France, he told me that he had seen it, but that it is much more extravagant. Dabija thought of an image show, there are costumes, there is scenery, there are quite a few actors on stage, about 20, some of them employees of TNB, most of them - collaborators. It is sung, it is sung beautifully, the music is by Ada Milea, some songs are really very nice, it is a kind of music specific to the instruments with which it is played: an accordion, a big drum - where I play… We have some marches and various others pieces that lead to the military music area.

I play the role of a soldier who still believes in victory. The story takes place in a cafe Chez Vişniec, a place where soldiers meet who are preparing to return home, who dream of the triumphant march and the glory of reception in their cities. All sorts of people gather at this cafe, some who have never believed in victory, others who have believed, there are some who still believe that victory is possible - all sorts of psychologists synthesized from this theater of war.

What did not delight me about this text is the fact that the characters do not have an evolution from one end of the show to the other. A logic does not have to exist, it is an area of ​​the theater that Vişniec has accustomed us to, but the characters, although very vehement, with a very strong speech, were suitable for a well-deserved development.

Rep: Do you believe in victory? Or have you not fought your big battles so far?

Alec Secăreanu: No, the great battles did not take place. But we started with a few fights, some of which we lost, others we won, others are still contested. I lost, for example, the struggle with the idealism I had at the end of college. I was very disappointed when I finished college, very disappointed… I had high expectations from the Romanian theater market, I hoped to have a vision, a coherence, a general enthusiasm. Of course, everyone wants to be part, at some point, of a movement that means something. I'm still part of the independent theater area, so I never relied on the state theater to do anything for me.

BY THE WAY, I THINK THAT THE STATE THEATER HAS ENTERED A KIND OF SHADOW CONE, IN THE SENSE THAT, AT LEAST THAT IS MY IMPRESSION, IT HAS BECOME MANNERIST, IT HAS NO IMAGINATION, IT HAS STUCK IN SOME RECIPES THAT SEEM TO WORK AND, WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS, NO ONE SEEMS WILLING TO DEVELOP NEW THEATRICAL EXPRESSIONS.

And in the latter case, the high hopes and high expectations were primarily for them, because they manage the funds needed to do that. Every year they have to put on a number of shows and I look in amazement that they are not trying to discover anything, they are systematically going to areas where they have been before, they only walk on dirt paths. It's not the commercial that has to bring the world to the theater. There may be a commercial area, but I think it is our duty, of artists, actors, directors, to push the boundaries a little, to invent new ways.

But the independent theater is currently identifying itself as an area of ​​precarious means. You do shows that catch the audience - logically, otherwise you can't finance yourself, the setting is, most often, modest, consisting of two chairs and a table - since there is no money for something more sophisticated, the costumes are also as they are - most often the actors come with their clothes from home. It's a poor theater, let's face it. If you try to look for what is happening in the independent theater, the first time you notice the lack of funds, and you notice it as a spectator and it would not be your job as a spectator to see things like that. It can be seen that the director made a kind of compromise with the money to make this show. While in the state theater a lot of funds are lost.

There are exceptions, of course, but my huge frustration is that you see shows with extraordinary budgets and you don't understand why the money went for such a show, which doesn't bring anything new. While in the independent theater there are so many ideas and so much desire to work, but there is no funding for their realization. I was really talking to someone the other day, because we're looking for funding for Fight Club, and I was asked, okay, beyond funding, what's the business? Let's get along, we're talking about an art form, and monetizing art in this brutal way is harder to imagine, because our stake is to try to develop new theatrical languages, we need grants, state aid, maybe even the private area, the effort is not made for a show to be sold like this, to fill the halls.

If you want that, you have a party, you call the world, you play a few more instruments, you say three more poems and that was it. Either way you want to go, the discussion inevitably reaches the area of ​​the diseased system, which you have little to do, except to try to build it from scratch.

I have a cultural association with some colleagues. We realized in 2007, when we finished the University, that there is no point in hoping, that we will not receive any kind of help from the theaters, where even now the places are blocked.

I WOULDN'T SAY THEY AVOID YOUNG PEOPLE, BUT RATHER THAT THEY ARE WARMER WITHOUT US. THERE ARE A LOT OF EMPLOYEES IN THEATERS WHO DO NOTHING, BUT KEEP THE SEATS BLOCKED, TWO OR THREE SEATS APPEAR ONCE EVERY THREE YEARS.

IT'S A KIND OF SLAVERY, PEOPLE WORK IN A WELL-GROUNDED SYSTEM, WHICH NO ONE REALLY WANTS TO CHANGE.

In fact, the same situation is in every state institution, many people who receive a meaningless salary. And these are not theater companies, to say that they are families, but they are state institutions, financed from the budget. One is an independent, self-financing theater company and theoretically is allowed to do whatever it wants with its money, and another is a budget-funded theater, obliged to function for the public and to educate it, to arouse it, to motivate it. . If you put the same pieces of Caragiale and Chekhov every year, and only that, and only that…

Rep: There are all kinds of public calls lately for the elimination from the scene - from various scenes - of the generation we call, coded, "golden", as we saw calls of some intermediate generations, I would not know how to define them , to finance somewhat less intellectual productions, which have at least some connection with the public. Where is the truth? And with the golden generation, what should be done, ideally, from the point of view of the new wave you represent?

Alex Secăreanu: Who else is today a consumer of magazine theater, for example? They are nostalgic, and they know where to find their shows, and they somehow look for them by virtue of inertia. I have no problem taking care of established actors. I appreciate them as history and there are some from which I had a lot to learn, because they are better than me. Victor Rebengiuc, for example, with whom I worked for a short film called Casting Call, written and directed by Conrad Mericoffer, is a man from whom I learned a lot. The story follows an elderly actor, who is called to a casting, but it is not necessarily about the elderly actor, but a generic meditation on the condition of the actor, because we are all, in fact, in the same situation. I played, Paul Ipate, Victor Rebengiuc and Sergiu Costache.

I learned a lot in the short time I spent with Rebengiuc, how to behave in a team, how to approach a role…

IT'S LIKE CHESS. IF YOU PLAY WITH SOMEONE WHO IS BETTER THAN YOU, YOU LEARN FROM HIM. IT'S NICE TO HAVE SOMEONE BETTER BEAT YOU, BECAUSE YOU LEARN FROM HIM.

There are cases, however, in which it would be in the best interest of the actors in question to give up, as is the case of Radu Beligan, for whom I have a huge respect, but who has advanced a lot in age, goes through natural stages of life, to simply remember the lines, it is simply no longer possible. What we want from this story is already doing him a disservice. It's just an example. With reconfigurations and reinventions it is harder… but actors like Victor Rebengiuc and Marcel Iureș believe that they went in different ways from the very beginning, they wanted more than they were offered and they looked for more.

In this profession you never stop searching, because as soon as you get the impression that you know them all, you enter a very dangerous area, an area where you don't come up with anything new, and the viewer feels that. You have to surprise him, he has to see you doing something new, otherwise there is no stake.

Rep: Fight Club… You were able to get into Tyler Durden's mind, a courage, probably, after his twisted imagination was once explored by David Fincher, with the iconic film released in 1999. What you found there ?

Alex Secăreanu: Fight Club… is a story that, for me, started many years ago. I read Chuck Palahniuk's book in 2006 and I thought that this book must be a theater show. The idea bothered me for many years, until last year, when the stars lined up, I said it would be time to do it, especially since I found an exceptional team. We developed ideas, we had a lot of meetings in which we kept challenging the imagination, to see where the story can take us, and finally we were ready to put everything into practice. Sure, we hit the funding. Arcubul financed us for the show, which is a complex one, with multimedia elements, videomapping, fight scenes, music,

It was a test for us first of all, to see if our ideas work, if the team works. After the first six rounds, we realized that we are on a very good road, which must be continued. We can bring new elements to the theater, we can develop new languages ​​in the theater, we wanted from the beginning to make an experience for the spectator, a one hundred percent experience made for him. We wanted the spectator, when he left the theater, to feel that he had received a punch in the stomach. We got pretty close to the goal, all the people said, after the show, that they lived that thing that we felt when we were little and we watched a karate movie, and after the movie you wanted to jump around the house, to give more and you a fist, try another scheme.

He left absolutely no one regardless of this show, which is very important. We need some more money to set it up the way we thought it would. The amount is not large for a state theater, but huge for an independent theater. About 60,000 euros. Usually, in the independent theater you say, come on, how much do we have, 5,000 euros? Let's do it, we come home with more clothes, we cut another set, we give up that one, the other one and we did the show. When you have thought of an artistic approach in a coherent way, you cannot make concessions like this. You can not. There are elements, means that you absolutely need to build your convention fluently, to say what you wanted to say.

THERE ARE ALSO PRODUCTIONS AT TNB OF ONE MILLION EUROS, APUS DE SOARE, THIS ONE FROM TEN YEARS AGO OR WHEN IT WAS MADE, TWO SEASONS WERE ALSO PLAYED AT REVEDERE.

There is also a record amount for a show that has never been played before. I don't know how much the funding was, but let's remember that in the year of Caragiale, a theater wanted to do D'ale Carnavalului somewhere, at the Metrorex Halls. They equipped a hall with bombers, cars, an entire fair built from scratch, and the show was never done again

[sonderrow-moved]

IC            IS            VOICE            BODY            MEMORY            PLOTTING

★ I.D

FULL NAME: Jael Roy Singerman BIRTH: March 19th, 39 y.o. SEX & GENDER: Male SPECIE: Human..? ETHNICITY: Caucasian (?) LANGUAGE: English and French OCCUPATION: Counter terrorist defender RELIGION: Atheist SEXUALITY: Heteroflexible ★ ANATOMY 

HAIR:  Very short, tangled mix of charcoal and black with a front bang EYES: Chocolate brown FACE: A jagged jaw with large, half crazed looking eyes, Jael’s previously, one might say, stereotypically beauteous features are now wasted by dark, deep scars and wrinkles COMPLEXION: Warm olive SCAR: Multiple deep scars run over Jael’s body. Although numerous, they do not cover the majority of it, only at key points from what seems like slashes and gun wounds TATTOOS: One… HEIGHT: 195 cm BUILD: Lean rectangle shaped, toned by regular training VOICE: Rough and warm ★ PERSONA LIKES: Camaraderie, sex, beer DISLIKES: Weak-willed people, party poopers, social politics MBTI: ESFP “The Entertainer” ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral POLITICAL STANCE: Middle Liberal EDUCATION LEVEL: Military college DRUGS: ??? PHOBIAS: ??? DISORDER: None diagnosed ★ “ARGO FUCK YOURSELF.” Jael was born on a dairy farm in the middle of Canada, on a road right between the city and the countryside, surrounded by six other siblings and two hardboiled parents. Being the kid in the middle, Jael never especially put much thought in his position compared to his brother and sister. Actually, he never put much thought into anything, and just went on with life as it went, following what everyone told him was normal. An average kid, Jael was popular with his peers as he had the look of, well, the average “not bad looking at all” north american kid, had an early growth spurt and was doing pretty well at sports. Quickly, however, Jael found himself hanging out with friends who didn’t think too much like himself, falling in group into every fad as they grew up. At home, no dark tale of abuse with his family, no real life-scarring drama. Just the technical, material support and teachings of parents. With nearly no warmth nor bonding, which only made Jael bond with his gang full of mischief. Drugs, smoking, sex, they all shared everything, with depending degrees. And the boy’s lifestyle was soon far from what his family expected it to be. He still finished his chores at the farm, but his increasingly sloppy ways, too eager to finish to go elsewhere, brought some judging comments. Still, family is family, and Jael would say he was plenty content with it. While he wasted his time away during his secondary school years, Jael was barely able to graduate; his part-time work in a fast food chain was, to him, even bigger of a highlight than the time he’d spend in class. In the end, Jael only needed the simple suggestion of his father to enroll in the military. And although one could tell this would be the opposite of how he currently lived, his simple mind were satisfied of the pros, and so easily the sheep decided to step into this path. ★ “HISTORY STARTS OUT AS FARCE AND ENDS UP AS TRAGEDY.” At first given dubious looks by his entourage, Jael actually didn’t have much difficulty letting go of his bad consumption, as he found that those time killers were only replaced by others. In the beginning hard on his body, training became like second nature, waking up so tired and lazy, but immediately finding an inexplicable relief in releasing tension out of his system, and be able to go farther and farther, a newly degree of competitiveness rising into Jael. Was it this to be alive? Colour sparked in his previously apathetic eyes, energy ran through his frame. Even in his harshest moments he’d have something, someone, although emotionally clumsy, to have his back. Thing is, he’d never realise he was alive. Because he was only living through it. And soon enough, Jael felt like he just blinked as everything went so fast. He was given whatever medals, standing on whatever private stage and, at some point, he was instated in special ops. Surrounded by people who spoke big words, wore big suits and had big names. He listened and memorised the field, followed orders, took a deep breath and banked his paycheck. As he closes his eyes now, it starts to fade. Where which event had been. Which people were there. Jael looks at his friends, who remember exactly everything despite the years. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. Then, one mission felt dubious. Everyone could feel it in their spine. “higher ups asked for this” sounds like such a cliche, but when it is told to you by someone you trust, someone you spent years and years with, someone who saved your life more than you can count, when it is also your job, your friends need you and you’ve only known this since forever. There was nowhere else to go, no space to fight against what those small guys in their small suits told. And it went wrong, so wrong. It’d leave him disfigured forever. ★ “THIS IS THE BEST BAD IDEA WE HAVE SIR…” You’re being shown people going under, switching identities, running away like only something from another world, until you realise it is happening to you too. At first, you think you can survive for your comrades, until things turn out for the better. Then, one by one, gone. All gone. Hunted down? No. MUCH WORST. Gone in a way buried at the back of the mind, hidden in the dark; the thought of it enough to make him sob, shiver. And there was only one left; the most idiotic of them. The one who probably didn’t deserve to survive. Jael wasn’t the brightest bulb, and before he knew it he was in jail, under his fake name, waiting for his face, under his hair, beard and scars, to be recognised. But it never did. And he never understood how he managed to survive. Just going with the flow, fucking with every crack in the system he could see, because that is only what he did. And he did like he always did; he adapted to his environment. Build partnerships, found a group to hang around with. What changed? There were no rules anymore. It didn’t exist; the lingering familiarity of earlier years stroke his scalp. Only now he was much bigger, stronger… As his cellmate, Jael met a man, a man who was the exact type he despised. The same type of man who put him in this situation, and destroyed everything his heart held and could hold dear. The reason for the disappearance of his brothers in arm, the unknown state of his family; men who used others they deemed expandable to do their dirty work. A man seeing himself so high above the others, acting as he didn’t understand his situation at all. The white collar didn’t have to brag, it always showed in his eyes; how he saw those around him as ants and tools to be used. Jael would be unable to take it anymore at some point, and maybe, for the first time in his life, his eyes showed a another kind of spark. Was it rage? Passion? Anger? He didn’t know, he could only hear the pounding in his chest, grabbing this guy by his obnoxiously silky hair and bashing his head against the table, wasting away precious powder. Unlike what he felt in the past, this one never seemed to satiate. He had done nothing wrong; yet life decided to betray him. Jael was never much of a man of vengeance, although he believed in justice. However, in this moment, he could only cry out what he had lost and take it out on the person he suddenly decided to hold responsible. A smaller body than his could do nothing against his training, and the laugh and cheer of his mates only made the blood in his veins boil stronger. The hatred shoved up his guts at every striking snarks, and his victim’s razor sharp look while being held down, not wavering, only encouraged him further to relieve his needs of violence. Dump all dopamine in that motherfucker’s ass as a sign of dominance. Nevertheless, at some point, never did Jael knew this kind of release would happen more than once, with less eyes and noise. In bathed breath and confusion. In the midst of nothing being right, any progress being reset over and over in some pool of nonsense, there was only this. The sweet, sweet (or was it, really? No. It wasn’t, but he believed so.) sensation of biting and nailing against his body, hands wrapped against another’s throat like relieving some good memories of mission fatalities. Have his usual focus on the present enhanced by a thousand, and his desires suppressing any part of this pawn he didn’t want to look at, only the ones he could take a single drop of pleasure from; those white collar, soft and pale hands, those silky long hair, sultry shaped eyes and thoroughly moisturised skin. And, although he somehow dismissed it as a game, Jael felt a sense of satisfying ownership take over him while his shivs would run over the other, being his territory just like everything in this cell. It’d become some sort of a habit, yet not so often as to not arise suspicions; if anything others believed they were mostly at each others’ throats, with the guards not against that bastard being roughed up.. and they were right, because this wasn’t some cute lovemaking; a good half of it was attempted murder. Another crowd was even worst; they believed them to be rivals, friends in disguise. A crazed, vicious schedule settled in while Jael’s head slowly, but surely, forgot. Forgot everything. Outside this place. Like at the farm, where all day would be the same, and he’d stop counting the day and feel the seasons. His body had always been a tool to a mean, and his character darkened in pure survival and simple, basic needs. His mind cracked atop his personal dummy, violence taping as to not let it break. What shook him ever so slightly, was how his cellmate changed. Jael frowned while observing. It was so subtle, yet gradual. Even his dumb mind could pick up if the person he saw extensively everyday was shifting. The speech would switch, and they’d end up exchanging nearly amusing banter while he strangled the man until he passed out, spurting jokes while blood smeared alongside his arms and thighs. Jael’d never tell whatever he thought of his dear cellmate. It grew into something. Something he felt like had no word, no description. And before long he dared do something he didn’t do for real in so long; share. Share not facts which would only raise some points with inmates, but simple yet meaningful ones that reached the edges of his heart. Like generic childhood memories, hobbies, “i met a guy like that once”… There was nothing good about that relationship. Nothing he could ever share because no normal person could understand. It felt as close as it could be with a comrade… but in a twisted, perverse, way. Still, it was the one thing that seemed, at the very least, real. Where Jael could find an identity, and not only be driven by pure instinct, not acting like a simple sheep. The thing was, not once did he ever wonder what his cellmate was thinking, feeling. From the two of them, he was the most selfish now. Just acting impulsively, with no second thought on the consequences of his actions. He was never able to evolve more from there, because finally karma stroke. Whatever had been done in the shadows, it was performed nearly, he could say, admirably. Everything well put in place, inmates stealthily moving towards the exit as other stayed. The sense of eariness drowning in the air while he was sweeping the floor. Crashed furniture and thrown buckets of water, only had the time to fight off one person that a shiv was already piercing through Jael’s flesh, pain stunning his body long enough for another to go through his stomach. He was swept off his feet, back hitting the wet and soapy concrete floor, stained by his own blood. That is when John Smith was officially dead.

[perpetuitys]

AAAA hello everyone i’m peep and this is my independent n impulsive vampire bb michel !! also sorry for being Mad late i’ve been moving/flying for the past couple days but i’m finally settled in and super super excited to rp with you all :~) but Yes this is michel he has an attachment to the sea ...... he’s curious abt everything ..... can be very sarcastic at times .... and more found below !! also def hit me up to plot on discord <3 @uwfmintro​

STATISTICS  

FULL NAME:  michel de la rue NICKNAME(S): michel’s fine AGE:  twenty-five GENDER + PRONOUNS:  cis male + he/him ORIENTATION:  bisexual ZODIAC:  sagittarius sun, libra moon BIRTHDAY: december 3rd, 1802 PLACE OF BIRTH: paris, france OCCUPATION(S):  bartender, helps with the liberation TRAITS: (+) open-minded, honest, adventurous, curious, independent  / (-) turbulent, careless, irresponsible, impulsive, dogmatic

BIOGRAPHY

the following biography page contains the following: death, grief, suicidal ideation.

read at your own risk.  

HUMAN

it was eleven years later and new york was just starting to feel like his home. michel still hated speaking english and the permanent odor was sort of annoying, but he felt like he had a purpose that wasn’t dependent on war. fatigued by the aftermath of the french revolution and disappointed in the end of napoleon’s reign, the de la rue’s left their mother country when michel was fourteen in hopes of creating something new and fresh, devoid of any monarchial rule. his family lived a fairly simple life that was dedicated to running their bakery in brooklyn.

this simple life began to feel quite exhilarating as he found himself falling more and more in love with a newly-immigrated family friend at twenty. ever since meeting colette lyon (which of course was at the bakery — where else) he couldn’t think of anything else. the two remained inseparable into their marriage, too, where the two decided to momentarily elope to the beach despite his parents’ wishes. both colette and michel had a fascination with the sea, perhaps symbolizing the voyage that connected their childhood with their newfound adulthood. this fixation grew as he decided to leave his  family in favor of becoming a fisherman running his own shop at the local fish market (also against his parents’ wishes). and as their family grew to include two children, he believes it truly was the best financial decision he’s ever made (which he was well-aware there weren’t many).

but honestly, michel’s favorite thing about new york had to be the selection of taverns. the routine of waking up early, going out to fish, spending his entire day trying to sell his catches at the market, and coming home to two rowdy toddlers proved to exhaust the brunette both physically and emotionally by the time he was twenty-four. so, it wasn’t a surprise to often see him spending most of his evenings during the week at the local bar, making several short-term friends who also wanted to make the most of their night. however one night felt different as michel became what was most likely the most intoxicated he has ever been with a room with equally intoxicated men who decided that receiving fists hurt good and fighting felt fun. he was too drunk to process the chilled air (perhaps that hurt good, too), but something felt wrong as the men continued beating on him. leaving him bleeding out in the early winter air, it very quickly dawned on him that there would be no more life for him to live. no more colette. or his family and their quaint bakery. never see his children get married. as he made peace with this reality, in his last moments he thought about the sea.

VAMPIRE

everything felt bright and intense as he gasped his first breath of immortality. focusing his attention on how fast his senses were heightening and the excruciating bloodlust, it took a moment for him to realize his bougie surroundings. confused, capricious, and super fucking hungry, aleksander was there to guide him into this new underground world.

which honestly terrified the fuck out of michel. as his senses began to settle, his heart sank to his feet thinking about his death — the stupidity, carelessness and impulsivity causing an eternal separation to the life he worked hard to achieve. he grew depressed and the intense bloodlust that he wasn’t able to get a grasp on wasn’t doing much to uplift him. he depended on the older vampire emotionally as transitioning into a life completely vacant of his family was very challenging as he witnessed the rest of their lives at a distance. this often resulted in michel coming to him, very depressed as he questioned his vampirism, with aleksander always finding a way to lift his spirits and remind him of his purpose. because he saw it in michel that night before he died at the tavern. he saw the charm and how he could make anyone in the room feel like his best friend. he knew that once this cloudiness of despair and self-loathing blows over that a magnetic charisma would lie underneath. something he can use.

so, aleksander stayed beside him. reassured him. and ultimately invited him into his home to live as he would adopt him as a son, passing down his millennia of knowledge on to him and sowing seeds that he hoped to one day reap. luckily, the stages of grief passed away quickly throughout the coming months as michel realized the potential in this unfortunate situation. firstly, he has never seen so much opulence in his life. he heard stories of it, though mostly negative ones as they were all passed down from the french revolution, but now this was able to be his reality. and he was pretty fond of his newfound speed and strength. now at least it was guaranteed he wouldn’t die from another drunken bar fight.

but as he was increasingly noticing the positives of living in the mansion, the negatives began to bother him. or as others call them: helena. you see, with his human siblings, he didn’t have the problem of trust as they all grew up together and shared blood. but it wasn’t long after moving in that michel realized just how necessary the blood relation would be and how significant the corvinus name is in their world. and perhaps another large part of the problem was they didn’t truly see him as a sibling at all. truthfully, the condescension stung at the beginning and resulted in michel spending most days keeping to himself and reading the literature that occupied the walls.

as decades passed and michel was sure colette and the kids had most likely passed too, he found himself integrating back into human society by the end of the nineteenth century. which he surprisingly felt more relieved than disheartened by, as he’d finally be able to get more separation from his older sibling, but perhaps it could also be one of the signs of vampire cynicism creeping in. because, oh boy, did it creep in. the first couple decades of the twentieth century were probably most notably some of the sloppiest years michel had. he began transitioning from blood bags (the mansion always had them on deck) to feeding directly from humans and while he knew never to bite the neck, he felt it hard to resist biting elsewhere. and found it hard to resist in general, often accidentally killing a few people in the process.

however, once magdelena was born, he found himself becoming interested in the family again and decided to clean up his careless feeding act. as she grew older, he became quite fond of her presence and protective, because she sort of reminded him of his own son and daughter who he had left behind. in a way, it felt very cathartic to (practically) raise her; like he was writing a wrong and filling the void that the act of no longer being a father created. being there for her and caring for her gave him a purpose that he lacked up until that point (which probably explains his tendency to overfeed). he came around the house more, helping her as she developed into her vampirism and taught her all the things aleksander had taught him. minus the shitty values. when he would pop back into society, he spent it educating himself on new ideas and theories that inhabited both human and supernatural spheres, mostly out of curiosity and his love for learning if anything. during this time, he also eventually met others of his vampire kind as well as lycans, though more clandestine. many of which soon became his closest friends.

and that’s why he was fairly devastated to know about aleksander’s plans. his stomach twisted knowing that someone who once raised him could be capable of such cruelty. it sickened him — and he let him know it. which, in turn, earned him expulsion from his home of two centuries. maybe some saw it coming — how michel was often distanced from the start — but it still hurt the vampire nonetheless. he lost connection to his first family and it hurt like a bitch to lose it to another, regardless how he felt about them individually. especially to leave behind magdelena, who he felt attached to since her childhood. but he hoped that this would send a statement throughout their underground world. that they should not turn their eyes away from injustices no matter who it’s coming from. he needed to get the vampires to care about this issue and needed to do something to bring awareness and a call to action. so, in comparison, present-day michel is much less gloomy and blindly naive than early-day michel, luckily. although he still feels guilty and a tinge of regret for his association to aleksander, he finds that offering any resources he can in the fight for the liberation is his best way of coping with it.

[jiminfms]

         *  hi  ,  my  name’s  tee  and  this  ain’t  a  waist  trainer  bitch  ,  this  a  back  brace  i  got  scoliosis  .  𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨  ,  𝐢𝐭'𝐬  𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫  𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫  𝐤𝐫𝐢𝐬   ( finally  )  !  i  prefer  either  feminine  or  non - binary  pronouns  ,  and  i  reside  in  the  est  time  zone !  it  has  taken  me  so  long  to  formally  write  and  i  highkey  hate  it  because  i  lost  muse  for  my  queen  miss  giavanna  ,  so  i  decided  to  bring  another  muse  instead  of  leaving  because  honestly  ...  i  love  ya’ll  🥺 .  the  way  i  love  miss  jennie  kim  is  more  than  i  wanna  admit  ,  so  let  me  introduce  you  guys  to  the  tiny  ball  of  aggression  that  is  jimin  jung !

          omg  !  i  was  walking  yonge  street  downtown  ,  and  you’ll  never  guess  who  i  saw  .  jimin  jung  !  i  just  saw  a  post  about  them  on  sixsecrets ! i  think  it  said  something  like  ' jimin  jung  physically  restrained  by  security  guards  following  a  verbal  argument  with  fellow  customer  at  drake  one  fifty ! ' .  isn’t  that  wild  ?  i  guess  it  makes  sense  though  ,  since  they’re  apparently  antagonistic  and  bellicose  .  but  i’ve  heard  they’re  also  sultry  and  voguish  ! i’ll  just  stick  to  giving  them  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  .  i  mean  ,  it’s  not  like  i  know  them  personally  —  they’re  a  famous  singer  /  songwriter  and  model  ! you  know  ,  i’ve  actually  heard  rumors  that  redacted  ,  but  they’re  just  rumors  …  i  think  .  i  dunno  .  if  you  happen  to  run  into  them  ,  tell  them  i’m  their  biggest  fan !

FULL  NAME  :  jung  jimin  .

NICKNAME(S) :  n/a  .

AGE  +  DATE  OF  BIRTH :  24  +  june  10th  ,  1996  .

ASTROLOGICAL  SIGN  :  gemini  .

MEYERS - BRIGGS  PERSONALITY  TYPE :  entj  .

MORAL  ALIGNMENT :  chaotic  neutral  .

GENDER  +  PRONOUNS  :  cis  female  +  she / her / hers  .

SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :  bisexual  .

ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :  biromantic  .

PLACE  OF  BIRTH :  kensington  ,  london  ,  england  .

PLACE  OF  RESIDENCE  :  toronto  ,  ontario  ,  canada ( specifically  ,  in  the  neighborhood  of  forest  hill ) .

OCCUPATION  :  singer  /  songwriter  and  model  .

VOICECLAIM  :  dua  lipa  .

NATIONALITY  :  british  -  korean  .

ETHNICITY  :  korean  .

LANGUAGES  SPOKEN  :  english  ,  korean  ,  and  japanese  .

i.  prosopography  .

            jimin’s  story  begins  with  the  fateful  meeting  of  her  parents  ,  kim  seo - yeon  and  jung  do - young  ,  on  a  cold  winter’s  day  .  they  found  themselves  at  the  tender  ages  of  20  and  22  ,  attending  a  boring  christmas  gala  with  their  parents  when  they  would  have  preferred  to  do  anything  else  in  the  world  .  seo - yeon  was  a  women  who  knew  what  she  wanted  the  moment  her  eyes  landed  upon  it  ,  so  when  she  made  brief  eye  contact  with  do - young  ,  she  purposefully  spilled  a  glass  of  champagne  onto  his  expensive  tom  ford  suit  and  made  a  big  deal  of  it  .  this  sparked  their  whirlwind  romance  ,  and  six  months  later  they  found  themselves  announcing  their  engagement  to  korean  media  outlets  .

           despite  how  quickly  they  were  engaged  ,  their  parents  saw  this  as  mutually  beneficial  .  seo - yeon  is  the  youngest  daughter  of  the  wealthy  kim  family  ,  owners  of  the  kq  group  conglomerate  that  was  worth  billions  in  its  own  right  .  do - young  was  the  only  child  of  his  parents  ,  and  came  from  park  family  lineage  where  their  hotels  and  resorts  were  the  cause  of  their  fortune  .  the  families  were  soon  to  be  one  ,  and  the  couple  was  the  chaebol  heirs  that  others  envied  .  following  their  lavish  wedding  ,  seo - yeon  and  do - young  decided  that  they  were  going  to  head  off  to  london  to  make  a  life  for  themselves  .  so  ,  they  transferred  to  oxford  university  ,  finished  their  schooling  ,  and  shortly  after  seo - yeon’s  graduation  from  the  financial  economics  program  ,  the  couple  discovered  that  they  were  expecting  .

          it  was  a  sticky  summer  day  when  seo - yeon  unexpectedly  gave  birth  to  their  daughter  ,  who  decided  not  to  allow  her  parents  time  to  get  to  the  hospital  .  jimin  was  born  in  the  bathtub  of  her  parents’  luxury  bathroom  ,  and  right  into  the  arms  of  her  slightly  panicked  but  overjoyed  father  .  from  the  time  that  she  was  a  toddler  ,  araminta  was  a  very  precocious  child  ,  picking  up  on  skills  quite  quickly  and  speaking  in  few  short  sentences  by  the  time  she  was  eleven  months  old  .  as  she  grew  older  ,  jimin’s  parents  remained  hands  on  despite  their  busy  schedules  ,  and  decided  that  they  would  see  what  their  daughter  would  have  the  most  interest  in  .  when  she  was  four  ,  her  parents  began  piano  lessons  ,  and  it  was  evident  that  she  had  a  natural  gift  for  the  instrument  .

            life  for  jimin  had  always  been  comfortable  ,  but  she  didn’t  want  to  take  the  usual  route  ,  or  what  was  expected  of  her  .  she  had  always  been  interested  in  music  ,  so  she  she  originally  started  with  taking  dance  classes  .  she  trained  in  all  forms  of  dance  in  order  to  be  well  rounded  ,  and  she  initially  had  dreams  of  becoming  a  backup  dancer  ,  but  when  she  was  playing  around  and  decided  to  make  a  video  singing  a  song  that  she  had  written  all  on  her  own  ,  jimin  became  an  overnight  sensation  .  her  song  ,  hotter  than  hell  ,  blew  up  almost  instantly  and  she  was  signed  to  warner  music  group  .  

            i’ve  written  enough  VCJNXVBHCV  but  her  career  has  followed  the  timeline  of  dua’s  ,  although  it’s  slightly  off  by  maybe  the  month  or  the  year  .   she  has  won  a  total  of  forty - two  awards  in  her  career  ,  including  two  grammy  awards  and  three  brit  awards  .  although  miss  dua  got  a  lil  clowned  for  her  dancing  at  one  point  ,  i  must  say  that  jimin  is  quite  the  performer  ,  and  definitely  makes  use  of  the  stages  by  recreating  music  videos  or  simply  giving  the  audience  an  experience  .  she  has  not  released  future  nostalgia  as  of  yet  ,  but  it’s  what  she’s  currently  working  towards  !  through  her  career  ,  she  is  known  by  her  mononym  jimin  !

ii.  temperament  .

jimin  is  a  real  bitch  ,  but  she  doesn’t  go  out  of  her  way  to  ‘  out  bitch  ’  someone  because  she  finds  it  to  be  kinda  dumb  .  she’s  primarily  looking  to  have  fun  ,  and  no  one  is  about  to  be  bitchy  around  her  without  getting  snatched  up  .

she  parties  like  she  just  turned  twenty - one  and  dares  someone  to  say  something  about  it  !  invite  her  to  the  club  and  she’s  coming  without  a  second  thought  .  she’s  the  friend  who  will  make  plans  and  will  get  a  little  sad  when  people  cancel  on  her  ,  but  she’s  still  going  to  find  a  way  to  enjoy  herself  .

does  not  take  authority  seriously  and  she  can  be  seen  making  a  jerking  off  motion  whenever  someone  kisses  up  to  those  of  authority  .  talks  shit  ,  but  backs  it  up  because  if  you’re  bold  enough  to  talk  shit  you  might  get  hit  ,  right  ?  

she’s  a  sultry  bitch  and  she  loves  it  .  give  her  the  chance  and  she’ll  flirt  with  a  tree  ,  she’ll  flirt  with  a  plant  ,  and  she  might  flirt  with  your  significant  other  .  she  can  get  kinda  lewd  and  will  say  something  really  off - beat  ,  and  honestly  shut  her  up  if  you  do  .

the  epitome  of  a  gen - z  /  millennial  line  straddler  as  she  can’t  walk  past  a  mirror  without  taking  pictures  of  herself  .  sickeningly  vain  as  she  takes  pictures  at  any  chance  she  can  like  after  getting  her  hair  and  makeup  done  or  even  when  she’s  out  and  about  shopping  .    

iii. headcanons  .

jimin  is  quite  chaotic  and  she  does  not  hold  back  from  it !  she’s  a  pot  stirrer  ,  and  she’ll  watch  everything  unfold  as  if  she  wasn’t  the  one  to  start  the  problems  in  the  first  place  .  not  afraid  to  spread  a  rumor  or  putting  a  trolling  instagram  comment  on  one  of  her  posts  on  blast .  she  likes  to  be  petty  ,  but  she  can  back  it  up  ( but  it’s  NOT  fat  enough  😔 )  .  

her  style  is  vastly  different  than  what’s  expected  .  on  stage  ,  i  would  think  her  style  is  something  akin  to  kpop  stage  outfits  ,  but  not  necessarily  as  tame  .  she’s  not  afraid  to  show  skin  so  there’s  a  lot  of  embellished  leotards  and  heels  ,  dramatic  eye  makeup  and  perfectly  styled  hair  .  off  stage  ,  she  likes  a  relaxed  but  high - end  style  .  lots  of  denim  ,  lots  of  black  ,  loves  oversized  pieces  ,  but  she  loves  to  follow  trends  where  she  can  .

loves  to  yoga  ,  pilates  ,  and  anything  else  that  doesn’t  involve  having  to  go  to  an  actual  gym  .  she  especially love aerial  yoga  as  it  keeps  her  flexible  as  a  dancer  .

miss  jennie  didn’t  let  us  enjoy  it  long  enough  ,  but  jimin’s  hair  is  canon  to  jennie’s  blonde  pieces  ! she’ll  switch  up  the  color  every  so  often  with  temporary  dyes  ,  but  other  than  that  ,  it’s  usually  always  blonde  !

she  doesn’t  drink  st*rbucks  so  don’t  ask  her  to  go  ,  and  she  especially  doesn’t  go  because  she  likes  very  simple  coffee  drinks  .

iv.  wanted  connections  .

give  me  everything  ,  please  !  i’d  love  some  of  the  basics  like  former  friends  ,  best  friends  ,  industry  rivals  ,  friends  with  benefits  ,  confidant(s)  ,  frenemies  ,  good / bad  influences  ,  one  night  stand(s)  ,  enemies  with  benefits  ,  or  a  current  or  ex  fling  !

because  i  love  my  women  loving  women  ,  hand  over  the  ex  girlfriend  !  in  my  head  i’m  thinking  that  they  were  a  really  happy  couple  and  they  were  really  good  to  one  another  ,  but  they  drifted  apart  .  they  remain  good  friends  and  people  probably  think  there’s  still  feelings  because  they  can  be  rather  touchy  feely  with  one  another  (  👀 )  .

ifykyk  ....  but  i  love  angst  !  i  love  to  have  my  heart  ripped  right  out  of  my  chest  so  give  me  angst  in  any  form  :  angsty  friends ,  exes  ,  anything  !  

a  couple  who  are  stuck  in  a  limbo  !  they  have  yet  to  make  it  past  the  point  of  friends  ,   wondering  if  they’re  just  a  hookup  to  one  another  would  there  could  potentially  be  more  .  they  probably  fight  a  lot  because  of  those  underlying  feelings  ,  but  it  could  be  interesting  to  explore  either  way  !

give  me  enemies  !  and  not  for  fake  but  two  people  who  genuinely  dislike  one  another  .  it’s  not  surprising  for  jimin  to  not  get  along  with  a  lot  of  people  considering  the  fact  that  she’s  not  ...  the  nicest  ,  and  i’m  not  entirely  sure  as  to  why  they’d  dislike  each  other  ,  but  it  could  be  so  much  thank  u  KFJDFDS  .

give  me  the  heartbreak  that  still  lingers  i  will  sell  you  my  SOUL  .  maybe  their  relationship  was  good  ,  or  it  was  a  mess  KNFJD  ,  but  but  when  they  broke  up  they  haven’t  fully  gotten  over  it  yet  ?  probably  a  lot  of  lingering  looks  ,  and  giving  compliments  but  they’re  kinda  awkward  because  they  don’t  know  how  to  approach  each  other  sometimes  .

[luckywilliams]

Ann Todd: A ‘peaches and cream stunner’ of a film star from Northwich.

Dorothy Annie Todd was born on January 21st, 1907, in Hartford, Cheshire, and under the shorter, presumably more glamorous stage name of Ann Todd, she went on to become a film star and actress famous across the world. She had an acting career which spanned the best part of 60 years, from the 1930’s to the early 1990’s, and which encompassed films, stage and TV. During this time, Ann met, and worked with, many of the most famous people in movie history, including Alexander Korda, Alfred Hitchcock, David O. Selznick, Gregory Peck, Sir Ralph Richardson, and many others. She also starred in a number of films directed by David Lean, one of the greatest film directors of all time, and became Lean’s wife in 1949.

Despite Ann Todd’s distinguished career, and her stellar connections with some of the leading film and acting legends of the 20th Century, little has been said or written about her in the town and county of her birth. It is therefore appropriate that Ann now features as one of the on-line ‘Hidden Women of Cheshire’ in a promotional campaign currently being run by the Mid Cheshire Community Rail Partnership (see www.amazingwomenbyrail.org.uk.) Ann Todd certainly led a remarkable and colourful life, which definitely deserves to be less ‘hidden’, particularly in the town of her birth.

There is some ambiguity about the year of her birth in Hartford. – Many biographies indicate that she was born in 1909. However, the 1911 Census, and other registry evidence, clearly shows that she was born two years earlier, in 1907, and was christened in March 1907. Like many in the acting profession (both past and present) it was perhaps best to be a little coy about one’s true age. Ann Todd’s slim frame, good looks and comparatively small stature (she was 5’4’’) meant she always looked quite young. Indeed, possibly to Ann’s delight at the time of her marriage to film director David Lean, in 1949, she was described in at least one American newspaper report as being 29 years old, rather than the more accurate age of 42!

The future film star, Ann Todd, was born into a well-to-do, affluent middle class family, in Hartford, Northwich (population 850 in the census of 1901). Though Ann was born in Hartford, her sales manager father, Thomas, was a Scot from Aberdeen, and her mother, Constance, was a Londoner. By 1911, the Todd family had moved to London, probably to advance Thomas’s career in sales management, and Ann had acquired a younger brother, Harold, who went on to achieve fame as a writer of comedies such as ‘No, my Darling Daughter’ and ‘A Pair of Briefs’ which were commercially very successful during most of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The family still seem to have been very affluent in London, and could afford to accommodate two live-in female teenage servants, and Thomas’s adult sister, Ethel, within the household.

Harold was packed off to school at the exclusive Marlborough College, and then undertook a degree at Cambridge University. Ann Todd went to school in Sussex, but acting seems to have been in her blood from an early age, and she was soon enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, specialising in the interesting combination of elocution, drama and fencing.

It didn’t take long for Ann Todd’s star potential to be noticed, and by her late 20’s she had been signed up by the British film mogul Alexander Korda. She was a key actress in a number of the films he produced in the 1930’s, such as ‘Things to Come’ and ‘South Riding’. Ann’s big break, in terms of worldwide fame, came in 1945, when she starred opposite the British matinee idol, James Mason, in a film called ‘The Seventh Veil’. Her performance as a troubled concert pianist drew rave reviews in America. The film critic of the Los Angeles Times, for example, commented that she ‘carried the film’, and it was American film critics at this time who first dubbed the Northwich born actress as the ‘pocket Greta Garbo’ because of her distinctive style, looks and diminutive stature. Hollywood, in the form of the great David O. Selznick (the driving force behind the film production of Gone with the Wind) soon came calling, and Ann was offered the largest film contract ever offered to an English actress at that time – probably worth around a million dollars all told - which was an astronomical sum in the late 1940’s.

With Selznick’s backing, in 1947, Ann starred opposite the Hollywood screen legend Gregory Peck, in the Alfred Hitchcock directed film “The Paradine Case”. Much has been written about Hitchcock’s preference for directing blonde actresses such as Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren, and Ann Todd certainly fitted in with the look and style of these other actresses. Tippi’s relationship with Hitchcock, in the film “The Birds” certainly seems to have been fraught. However, no hostilities between Hitchcock and Todd seem to have surfaced. Indeed, Ann Todd starred once again for Hitchcock in the 1950’s, in an episode of his successful U.S. TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”.

The Paradine Case wasn’t as commercially successful as hoped, but America never lost its enthusiasm for Ann Todd. All aspects of her life, personal and professional, continued to be of interest to U.S. reporters, and features about her were carried throughout America, in newspapers from Lubbock in Texas to California, Utah, and Albany in New York. In 1957, William Glover of the New York press described 50 year old Ann as being “a damsel of allure” as she prepared to make her debut on Broadway. Not surprisingly, she was given a very laudatory obituary in the Los Angeles Times, on the day following her death in London in May 1993.

Ann Todd’s career in British films is often undersold. We are told, for example, that she specialised in playing rather stoic, put upon, post-war British housewives. – Anyone that watches her 1950 performance as the morally ambiguous probable Victorian murderess, Madeleine (in David Lean’s film “Madeleine”) must realise that she could play a wide range of roles with subtlety and distinction.

In fact, there were many different aspects to the Northwich born actress’s career. For a start, she seems to have recognised the significance of television, as a medium for acting and drama, from the very beginning. She played a leading character in the late 1930’s British television serial “Ann and Harold”, which was produced during the pre-WW2 days when Britain was pioneering the introduction of television (an experiment abruptly ended by the onset of war). In fact, many experts regard ‘Ann and Harold’ as being the first ever attempt at producing what today would be called ‘soap opera’. Ann Todd’s involvement in television also extended to America, where she appeared not only for Hitchcock, but also in John Frankenheimer’s 1960 TV movie adaptation of Hemingway’s ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro,’ alongside Hollywood movie star Robert Ryan. Following many an actor’s adage about never giving up or retiring, Ann continued to appear in TV productions, such as Michael Gambon’s 1992 Maigret series, until she was well into her 80’s.

Ann was well versed in the challenges of appearing before live theatre audiences: In 1957, she made her Broadway debut (thus escaping the pressures of a traumatic divorce from David Lean) by starring as a wealthy American socialite in a production of the little known play “The Four Winds”. Back in England, during 1954-5, she took on some of the leading female Shakespearean roles, during a complete season of acting with the Old Vic Theatre Company. All this just goes to show how accomplished and versatile Ann Todd actually was as an actress. Not content with film, stage and TV performances, the multi-talented Cheshire born actress also developed a highly successful career as a travel writer and documentary producer, in the 1960’s, with programme credits to her name such as “Thunder of the Gods” (1966) and “Thunder of the Kings” (1967).

In many respects, Ann Todd grew up in Northwich, London and Sussex to become an archetypal Hollywood movie queen. – She had wealth, good looks, and a prodigious amount of talent. Her private life was also stormy, to say the least, and filled the gossip columns of papers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was married and divorced three times. Her first husband, Victor Malcolm, was the grandson of Lillie Langtry, the famous music hall artiste and mistress of Edward VII. In an era when there were no ‘blameless’ divorce cases, Ann’s 1949 divorce from Nigel Tangye, her second husband, was particularly bitter. Ann left Tangye to live with and then marry the film director David Lean, who was Tangye’s first cousin. Tangye sued Lean for $160,000, largely as a consequence of his ‘misconduct’ with Ann. This financial claim was thrown out by the divorce court judge, but Tangye was granted custody of Ann  Francesca (Ann Todd and Tangye’s daughter). Happiness eluded Ann Todd in her third marriage to David Lean, as well. They were living apart from each other within 5 years, and Ann was granted a divorce, on the grounds of Lean’s desertion, in 1957. None of this personal trauma seems to have adversely affected either Lean or Todd. David Lean went on to achieve further cinematic immortality with his direction of the film “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962. Ann Todd immediately threw herself into a starring role in a Broadway production. It was here, in her dressing room, in 1957, whilst preparing for her role in “The Four Winds” that the admiring American film and theatre critic, William Glover, interviewed Ann, and referred to the now 50 year old Northwich born actress as a “real peaches and cream stunner” of a film star. In terms of her energy, zeal and talent for acting, William Glover’s summary was just about right.

Adrian L. Bridge, April 2018.

[poisonquill]

                                       QUEEN OF THE QUILLS.                                         rita alvera skeeter. twenty five.                                               creative. silver tongued. resourceful.                                                 corrupt. cruel. vindictive. selfish.                                                  reporter. columnist. gossip icon.                                                        death eater collaborator.

                                                             too bad. so sad.

playlist pinterest 

soft betrayal, mom jeans and high heels, long nails tapping impatiently against paper, organized chaos, quietly humming while ruining yet another life ( piece by piece ), ancient typewriters, never getting your hands dirty ( but your hands are stained red, regardless ), the devil’s favorite weapon is a quill, coffee that burns your tongue, burying yourself in strangers, chasing stories, the sweet taste of destruction, heart shaped lollipops, sunkissed shoulders, blurred lines between right and wrong, dog eared pages, blowing bubbles, fake smiles, the color of dark oceans, running in high heels, slowly becoming an empty shell of a girl, sour ambition, ‘my heart will leave you blistered and stained’, roses tucked behind ears, revenge in a tea cup, backhanded compliments, writing and writing and writing until your heart bleeds, scribbled notes in margins, blood red lips..... and how you’re so afraid that you think it might just break you ( luckily, villains don’t break that easily ).

LINDSEY MORGAN? No, that’s actually RITA SKEETER from the MARAUDERS ERA. You know, the child of ADRIANNA VARGAS (NEE SKEETER) and DIEGO VARGAS? Only 25 years old, this SLYTHERIN alumni works as an REPORTER and is sided with THE NEUTRALS / HERSELF ONLY. SHE identifies as a CIS WOMAN and is a HALFBLOOD who is known to be VINDICTIVE, CRUEL, and CORRUPT but also SILVER TONGUED, CHARMING, and RESOURCEFUL. — &&. ( LIZ, GMT+2, SHE/HER, 22. )

BACK TO BASICS.

name: margarita alvera skeeter. born name: margarita vargas. occupation: journalist. nicknames: rita, ree.

+ creative, silver tongued, resourceful, charming and bright. - two faced, cruel, vindictive, selfish and scheming.

age: 25. date of birth: december 31. zodiac: capricorn. hometown: acapulco, mexico. current location: lives across the street from the ministry in an apartment she can most definitively not afford. gender: cis female. pronouns: she/her. orientation: bisexual. allegiance: herself only. but she collaborates with the death eaters frequently, as she will write anything that they want. spoken languages: spanish ( native language ), english ( fluently ), french ( sufficient ). moral alignment: neutral evil. - A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience (x).

element: water. house: slytherin.

BACKGROUND & FAMILY.

so. margarita vargas was born as the youngest of five daughters. she grew up in the coastal city of acapulco, located in mexico, and her first few years were spent in absolute bliss. her father, a muggle man, was a famous - and later, infamous, televangelist. diego vargas was known all over mexico for his weekly broadcasted church service, and became very rich for it. what did he do with this wealth? well, for the most part, he spoiled his family rotten.

the vargas girls were the perfect daughters, as was expected of them. they grew up in the public eye, attending sermons, smiling pretty, posing for elaborately staged family portraits. and always, always saying the right things. like pretending that they were being sent off to a christian girl’s school every year, instead of attending illvermorny.

mr. vargas married adrianna vargas knowing full well that she was a witch, and intended to take full advantage of that. and adrianna was happy to make diego’s life easier, because she loved him. but more than anything, she loved him for his fame, his money, his success.

unfortunately for the vargas, everything came crumbling down when rita was eight. then, it became public knowledge that her father was heavily involved in financing and also collaborating with several corrupt political bodies which aimed to cause mayhem, destruction and terror within the country.

so the vargas fell from grace, and out of favor in the public eye. mr. vargas faced jail time, lost all of his sponsors, and suddenly didn’t seem so appealing to mrs vargas anymore. so adrianna packed up her bags, took her daughters, changed their names and moved to england. and so margarita vargas found herself with a new identity - rita skeeter.

after that, she would never see her father again. her mother never spoke of him ( like most things, in the skeeter household - problems were buried but never forgotten ), and refused to acknowledge his existence.

their new life was a sharp contrast to their past, which would come to seem like a blurry dream. while the vargas had bathed in luxury and money, the skeeters kinda struggled financially. her mother was fueled by fury - angry with a man that had humiliated her, taken advantage of her, left her with nothing. so she vowed to never be dependent on anyone else ever again. she found herself a job, and set up a new life for herself and her daughters, one that wasn’t focused on the saintly teachings of her ex-husband. instead, adrianna skeeter drilled into her daughters that success, power and glory was all that mattered. everything else, even family, comes second. you can only depend on yourself.

so, the skeeter girls became competitive. cut throat. dangerous. her sisters’ names can be read in the highest offices of britain, in politics, in the nicest corporate offices in london. but they also hardly ever speak to each other, anymore.

HOGWARTS YEARS.

she arrives at hogwarts ready to prove herself. show that she’s just as good as her sisters, if not better.

but she soon realizes that she falls painfully short — that she isn’t the brightest of the skeeter bunch, that she isn’t the most talented witch. hell, she doesn’t even place second.

so what does she do? she plays dumb. pretends that she’s just a pretty face. it’s just a fluke that she’s getting high grades - it’s not that she sits up all night studying. or that she manages to bribe and cheat her way into getting a time turner by her fourth year. she’s working herself into the ground, but refuses to let anyone know. it’s better, that way.

really though, pride isn’t the sin that will hang rita. she’s playing the long game, and comes to realize that no one doubts a pretty, senseless girl. so that is what she shall be.

she gets through hogwarts on dirty tricks and hard work, but makes it look effortless.

around hogwarts, she was known as quite the party girl, always looking to have a good time. maybe a little too good of a time, actually. her reputation always walked the line, on that one.

she acts drunker than she is, but is careful to always remain sharp. most people think of her as baby skeeter - fun, but harmless. for rita, secrets become a currency.

and so she moves through different social circles, shedding her personality like a snake sheds its skin, all to fit in with any crowd, any house. she loses herself somewhere along the way - at this point, rita doesn’t know who she is. but that’s just as well. rita skeeter has never let anyone in, and she never will.

a new name appears in the school paper around rita’s fourth year. bridget higgins writes the stories that are on everyone’s lips, but no one knows who she is. obviously it’s rita.

by her seventh year, rita manages to become an animagus, and a royal blue beetle begins its reign. miss higgins’ stories become more and more elaborate, more daring, more scandalous. by the end of her time at hogwarts, rita is already writing in blood, destroying lives through the flick of her quill.

AFTER HOGWARTS.

rita started interning at witch weekly during the summers after her fifth year at the school. she wrote short fluff pieces about fashion.

after graduating, rita started working as a columnist for witch weekly. she wrote a popular gossip column about popular famous witches and wizards, but also dipped her toes into the pool of wizard politics in britain.

eventually, she came to take on a second job at the daily prophet. she stretches herself too thin, but she makes it work. somehow.

at the daily prophet, she writes more political stories. zeroes in on the ministry. asks uncomfortable questions. shows up where she is definitively not allowed to be. she becomes a pain in the ass like no other, and writes exposés that become notorious for putting people in tight spots.

many at the ministry treat her like crap, like a bug that needs to be squashed. she realizes quickly that they have little respect for her, and she is quite happy to return the favor. if they treat her like she’s awful, she might as well be just that.

her stories aren’t entirely fabricated —- every story that she writes has a seed of truth in it. just enough to make it believable.

most of it is bullshit though, but to stir the pot, she every now and then drops something that is very accurate. sometimes she does it to help the order. sometimes she does it to help herself or the death eaters. but there is always a motive behind it.

eventually gets involved with the death eaters. didn’t actually mean to, but fucked with the wrong person at the ministry !!! now she’s under their thumb and it kinda sucks but she’s also not that mad about it because she gets some ~~~~carefully selected~~~ information in return. so she basically writes whatever the fuck the death eaters want her to write.

rita started out with the goal of doing good reporting, but realized quickly that those stories did not sell papers and gained little interest from the public. so she turns to sensationalism, doesn’t see the harm in spinning her stories a little further than necessary. which soon spiraled out of control.

RITA’S FUTURE ( 1998 and forward. )

rita skeeter goes missing in 1999 and is rumored to be laughing all the way to the bank because the biographies she wrote on harry potter, albus dumbledore and severus snape sold MILLIONS. new books by rita skeeter resurfaces every few years, but no one ever sees her again. conspiracy theorists are sure that she was murdered ( and her books are now penned by a ghost writer ), but others say that she’s off on an island somewhere.

THE TIME CLASH.

so ------ rita is pulled from her youth, straight into the future. it’s a bit of a shock, of course.

rita is a reporter first, everything else second. so what does she do? RESEARCH. looks around. tries her best to figure shit out. makes diligent notes of everything that has gone wrong, and everything that has gone right. she researches her future self. she researches everything her future self has written.

most of all, i think she adapts. to the muggle technology, mostly, but also to the new world order.

AS A PERSON.

holds a grudge like no other !!

other talents include backstabbing and lying!

lowkey mean. lol.

only does what serves her best : ~)

neutral evil thank u

never sleeps? runs on coffee and caffeine pills

has never done a selfless thing in her entire life

daddy issues 4 sure

super good at faking niceness!!! it’s a talent, really

most stubborn gal ever, try to change her mind

doesn’t actually realize that she’s the villain

always playing dirty

*sombra vc*: where’s the fun in playing fair?

has like three cents to her name at all times :/

always working a fucking angle and plays the long game.

loves attention!!!

cut throat, will drop u so fast !!!

very bi 

loves hearing her own voice!!!

but also very observant and can shut up if she knows that’s more beneficial to her !!

the type of person to take and take and take until u are left with absolutely nothing

10000% her parents’ daughter !!! takes after them both.

very determined!!!

doesn’t really believe in what voldemort is doing, but also isn’t personally invested enough to properly care.

trust issues!!

not so much motivated by money ( she’s broke ) as she is by fame. could have something to do with her past idk.

possibly the most selfish girl on the planet?

FAVORITE CHARACTER TROPES.

THE DARK CHICK - good at reading emotions, resolving fights and weaponizing her strengths — all the while keeping an eye on what she considers to be the bigger picture.

FEMME FATALE - ‘first she turns you on, then she turns on you.’

INTREPID REPORTER - a troublemaker sort of journalist.

THEN LET ME BE EVIL - any sense of good reporting and morals gets broken down by being treated like crap by presumptuous forces of good for too long. aka everyone telling her she’s shit.

CONSUMMATE LIAR - a liar so good you never want to play poker with them because you’d go home without your underwear and short next week’s paycheck.

BITCH IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING - wears a thousand masks to hide her true colors.

THE POWER OF ACTING - a character who acts her way through life.

NO FACE UNDER THE MASK - does the real rita skeeter even exist? who is she? can she remember her true personality? probably not.

THE EVIL PRINCE - a character that knows they’re meant for greatness, but there are a lot of other… less great characters in their way. if only these characters could be “persuaded” to move, then nothing would stand in their way to the throne. ;)

CHRONIC BACKSTABBING DISORDER - someone who constantly and successfully betrays their allegiances. switches sides as frequently as she switches clothes. what is loyalty?

AMBIGUOUSLY EVIL - it’s never quite made clear what side she is truly on? sike, she’s playing for both teams !!!

HEEL / FACE REVOLVING DOOR - morality is grey, and this character switches sides so often that in the long run, they end up… just not having one.

THE CORRUPTER - the metaphorical devil on your shoulder.

THE CON ARTIST - selling lies so outrageous they can’t possibly be true, but still getting away with it.

CHARACTER INFLUENCES.

SOMBRA ( overwatch ) - always got another dirty trick up her sleeve, kinda selfish, always infiltrating something, out there manipulating those in power hell yeah

KELLY KAPOOR ( the office )- the narcissism, the many layers, the gossip, the jealousy, the drama, the lies, ‘i don’t talk trash, i talk smack. they’re totally different’.

CONNOR WALSH ( htgawm ) - wow i can’t believe rita skeeter is connor walsh?? either way. so sly, bit of a slut, utterly shameless, lies a lot, doesn’t care too much about other people, very confident, bit over emotional at times. gets whatever the fuck they set their mind on. the ends justify the means, always.

MARGAERY TYRELL ( game of thrones ) - the cleverness, the manipulation, the scheming.

HERA ( the goddess ) - the vengeance, the viciousness, the jealousy.

DEBBIE EAGAN ( glow ) - lowkey thinks the world revolves around her. bit manipulative. really ambitious. kinda cut throat. ready to throw anyone under the bus to get places.

JESSICA HAMBY ( true blood ) - the strict religious upbringing, the rebellion, the occasional softness.

ALISON DILAURENTIS ( pretty little liars ) - the bitchiness, the cruelty, the constantly shifting personas, the lies.

CHANEL OBERLIN ( scream queens ) - really ruthless, can be quite mean, bit narcissistic.

LIRA ( to kill a kingdom ) - the siren!!!! singing (aka writing) people to their undoings!!!! with little to no remorse!!! hell yeah

LAUREL CASTILLO ( htgawm ) - a snake that is good at hiding under the radar, kind of shady, highly manipulative, bounces back and forth between allegiances.

JACKIE BURKHART ( thats 70s show ) - the STYLE!!!!!!!! the narcissism! the manipulation! the greed!

[leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION ( Jeannette Nobbe)

VOLSKRANT.NL 31/01/20

by Mennon Pot

https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/conchita-wurst-sorry-dat-ik-zo-n-wandelend-cliche-ben~b0477817/

(Conchita) Wurst: 'I'm sorry I'm a walking cliché'.

Above all we know Conchita Wurst as the bearded 'female 'singer who won the ESC in 2014. But we've moved on and are a bit wiser. It´s just Wurst now, but the beard is still there.

With light feathered steps, Thomas Neuwirth (31) enters the conference room of the hotel in Groningen where he is staying: black combat boots, black leather pants, tight black T-shirt, the black beard and the perfect short trimmed jet black hair..

He introduces himself as Tom. It's not difficult to recognise the bearded drag queen Conchita in him. (Kopenhagen, 2014, remember?) but the dress and wig are stowed away for a while. Conchita has a sort of sabbatical, so to speak.

Neuwirth is on tour as a man. Stage name: Wurst. Yesterday evening he performed in Groningen; the next concert will be 7 february at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. His new album 'Truth over Magnitude' also carries the artist´s name Wurst.

Let's get this straight: when the subject is Conchita Wurst, the word 'transgender' sometimes comes a long. Wrongly. Neuwirth is a man, ('but incredibly gay, of course'), who has a choice from now on: being on tour as a drag queen (Conchita) or as a man (Wurst) .

´a lot of fun, being a masculine stage persona', he says. Conchita will turn up again somewhere else.

Holland appreciated Conchita's 'Rise like a Phoenix' with the highest score, almost 6 years ago.

Neuwirth didn't forget: twelve points, douze points from Holland for the bearded diva from Austria.

Then hectic years followed. 'After the Song Contest I thought, I have to make the most of it now, build my fame and cash it in. So I surrounded myself with all kinds of experts, managers, stylists, make/up artists, the whole circus. After 3 years I was exhausted. I couldn´t do it anymore. I told my audience every nigh, be yourself, believe in yourself. But along the way, I forgot myself.´

He got rid of the experts’ circus and is having a relaxed tour now, with a small entourage. He feels good again, although in 2018 he had to announce he is infected with the HIV virus. His manager politely asks, almost in an humble manner, not to talk about that.

Tom doesn´t appear to be very worried about that. There has seldom been a star who starts an interview so cheerfully. ´A great photo shoot and after that talk about things I find beautiful and fun.

Terrific, I was already looking forward to it when I came out of bed.´

´Curriculum Vitae'

1988 – Born as Thomas Neuwirth in Gmunden, Austria

2007 – Candidate at the talentshow Starmania, and boyband Jetzt anders!

2011 – Debut as female persona Conchita Wurst, the debut single `I´ll be there´

2012 - Second place at the Austrian Songfestival

2014 – ESC winner with ´Rise like a Phoenix

2015 – First album ´Conchita´, co-presenter ESC

2018 – Second album ´From Vienna with Love´

2019 – Debut as male stage persona ´Wurst´, third album ´Truth over Magnitude´

2020 – Wurst ´Trust over Magnitude´ Sony Music

Wurst will be performing in the Melkweg in Amsterdam on February 7

SOUNDTRACK

Music from the Motion Picture Titanic ...1997

´My first CD. I was 9 years old when I bought it. `My heart will go on´’changed my life´. As it were, Céline Dion gave me permission to be utterly dramatic and to be over the top. When I came out of the closet, I heard that song in my head.

It was also a liberation for me as a singer. My mom always sang with a thin, high falsetto voice. I thought that was how it should be. Dion taught me, you may yell as hard as you can, with all the power you have in you. When you sing so loud, you can’t fake it. The sound you push out of your body, is the sound of your body, unique and by definition authentic. Céline Dion taught me that singing is something really physical.´

SERIES

The Crown ..Netflix..., 2016 until 2019

´For me it´s getting difficult to watch a movie to the end. I guess that´s because of all the series on Netflix and HBO. My favorite is `The Crown´.. ´the intro alone is so beautiful, that liquid gold that forms a crown, such art. I used to watch it twice. Ít says something about the fact that I can´t choose between the two women who play Elizabeth and the two men who play prince Philip. All the actors are great. The costumes, the stories, the palaces, it´s so delightful. The history also intrigues me, after every episode I checked on Wikipedia if it was really what had happened.

PARTIES

´At Christmas I always come back to Vienna. I love the lights, glitters and decorations, my inner Mariah Carey is looking forward to it every year. Christmas 2019 was extra special because it had been a long time since the whole family came together at my grandmother´s house.´

I would love it to be like that every year... A couple of days being together in one home. Talking, getting to really know my family. Maybe now you think, days on and on with uncles and aunts, such horror! It is easy to say that I don´t really have much in common with these people. But I do, Really. They all have a story and similarities with your stories. Ask them about your life and tell them about yours.´

That´s what Christmas is all about to me. To me, the birth of Jesus has not that much to do with it.´

ISLAND..

I have an agreement with my best friends to go on vacation at least once every two years. We have been to Mykonos a couple of times, THE especially gay island. I´m sorry I sound like a walking cliché.´

The sun, the sea, the beaches, the small streets, so cosy. We rent a house with a pool and for a week or two we live in our own little paradise, actually being a bit tipsy the whole time. Go shopping and cook.´

`What´s also very important, on Mykomos, the wind is always blowing the right way. I love to watch the women, because their dresses and their hair flutter so beautifully.´

STYLE ICON

Victoria Beckham

I was and still am a big Spice Girls fan and I especially admire Victoria Beckham, because she lives her life the way she wants. She appears in tabloids every day, but has survived a crisis in her relationship and has stayed happy with the love of her life and her family. I think that it´s really strong.´

In regard to her style, she can go from very classy to very trashy, I like that. One day she´s wearing a designer dress, the next she and David Beckham are walking in identical jogging suits. She couldn’t care less. I think that it´s inspiring.´

´I think she is utterly authentic, raging through the glamour. Although I have never met her, I´m sure that I could have a lot of fun with her. I´d love to drink some tequila with her for an afternoon or so.´

AGE

30

´I thought becoming 30 was really special, I lost my wild behaviour, came to be more restful. Some way or another I think a lot about some things my mother said: in my twenties, I ignored those lessons, but now I´m 30, I suddenly realised she was right for example how important family and friends are.

I´m 31 now, I have inner peace and my life in order, but I still feel young. I´m convinced that this the best period of my life´. My advise to everybody... be 30.´

ALBUM

Recomposed by Max Richter / The Four Seasons ..2012

I don´t play any instruments and until not too long ago, I didn´t really know much about music. I really found that a pity sometimes. Fortunately, my good friend Martin studies at the School of Musical Arts... !! He´s studying the history of music intensely and tells me about a lot of great composers. I learn a lot from that.´´I never understood classical music and didn´t really know anything about it, but thanks to the listening sessions with Martin I fell in love with Vivaldi..

The pop artist of the classical artists.

´Max Richter interpreted Vivaldi´s Four Seasons and composed it in a modern fashion. It´s a modern, post minimalistic piece, completely different from the original one, but you still recognise it. Greatly done, at the moment it´s my favorite album.´

BOOK

Friedrich Schiller « Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen ». About the aesthetic upbringing of the people..´

´A good friend advised me to read the philosophical letters from Friedrich Schiller ..Letters, 1794-1795)

That´s a hard job to do. Because of the old fashioned German I had to read some sentences 5 times. You always have to wrestle yourself through a thick layer of 18th century sexism.

´But further on you´ll find something beautiful. Schiller writes a lot about finding your inner beauty and your own truth. Dare to be yourself. Embrace your darker sides. Those are important as well.´

´At the same time he preaches self-perspective.. don´t take yourself too seriously, you´re not the center of the universe. That is very worthy to me. Namely because I DO think I´m the center of the universe, haha.

`Still it´s very wise of him, to send a message from 1795 to a 21st century queen with a Mariah Carey complex.´

CLUB

Circus in Vienna

´The Arena is a huge complex in Vienna, a concert building with a mega discotheque. A couple of times a year they organize Circus, my favorite gay club night. I always go there with my group of closest friends, but it´s actually a bit of a rule that we lose each other and disappear into the crowd.´

´I roam around all night- Every room, every floor has its own musical theme and decoration. I love the types of people I meet there, their clothes, their fetishisms, everything.´

….Arena Vienna, Baumgasse 80, Vienna

CITY

Amsterdam

´I live in Vienna, I love Vienna and I will always come back there, but the greatest city I´ve been to is Amsterdam – since then I traveled all over the world so I know what I´m talking about.

´Of all the cities I visited, Amsterdam is the only one where I would want to live a period of time. So that´s what I´m gonna do, this summer, for a few months to begin with.´

´I can see that Amsterdam also has the flagship stores from all known store chains. And a lot of tourists, like every special city. But I see all these small jewelry shops where they sell their self-made jewelry. Little bakeries. Cosy streets. And a lot of water. I love water. I love cities with lots of water.´

[behind-the-screen-of-bangtan]

The poet born from the Sea

This post is part of the TSU. It belongs to the second part: Towards adulthood.

In “Skit: on the start line”, RM concludes the monologue about his fears while he was a trainee with a metaphor:

[...]I am as inconsequential as a speck of dust. It’s as if though before me lies the bluest ocean, and if I turn to look back, a vast desert. In this hourglass-like mindset, in this mood, I spent my three years as a trainee. And now, my debut is finally drawing near. Even after I debut, new oceans and new deserts will likely await me. I am not afraid, because what has made me who I am are the oceans and deserts I have witnessed until this moment. I will never forget the oceans and deserts I have seen.

This image of deserts and seas is one of the most recurrent in Bangtan’s discography. Don’t mix it with the link between Jimin and water though.

The biggest occurrence of this idea is during 화양연화 (The Most Beautiful Moment Life). It starts in the concept for 화양연화 Pt.1 and in the last scene of “I NEED U” (original ver.).

There are 3 concepts: “In Bloom”, “Unrest”, and “Daydream” - that’s set at the same seashore as the end of “I NEED U”.

The pictures were accompanied by poems by Arthur Rimbaud, including a verse from “The drunken boat”:

Then I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, Infused with stars, the milk-white spume blends, Grazing green azures: where ravished, bleached Flotsam, a drowned man in dream descends.

And one from “Eternity”:

It’s found we see. What? – Eternity. It’s the sun, free To flow with the sea.

Jean Richier made interesting interpretations of Rimbaud’s poems in L'Alchimie du verbe de Rimbaud - note however that these interpretations were made on the original texts in French and thus can’t apply on the English translations used here so Big Hit’s artistic team most likely don’t know about it.

Details can be found in the glossary but to summarize, the verse from the “Drunken Boat” refers to Rimbaud’s beginning as a poet and the one from “Eternity” has hidden meanings such as human ignoring their god, and words, the main element in poesy, ending by death. There’s also a strong association between the sea and motherhood - for example, Rimbaud as a poet is born from the "Poem of the Sea”.

Similar ideas can be found in BTS pictures. The main theme of The Most Beautiful Moment in Life is Youth, which implies the death of childhood (also supported by the poem “The sleeper in the valley” used with these pictures):

And the birth of adolescence (from a pond):

The other two concepts are placed in parallel in the two books. “Unrest” is set in a flat and is in color while “Daydream” is set by the sea and is in black and white.

The second one could be their longing for the past (thus the black and white) and the mother sea.

The first one could be the present, namely the newborn youth (they’re still wet) facing the dangers of the youth (the exact theme of 화양연화 Pt.1 as explained in the 151208 interview from MV Bank Stardust for “RUN” around 3:40): alcohol, drugs, loneliness, death...

We find the same thing in “I NEED U” (original ver.): sad and alone in most of the MV but together and happier when they’re at the sea. They come back to the sea to escape reality, especially the two boys that possibly suffered the most in the BU: Seokjin and Taehyung. Indeed, Taehyung faces the sea again in the Prologue, he tries to jump to escape his crime but we see in “RUN” that he’s drowning instead of finding peace. As for Seokjin, the end of the Highlight Reel and his poster show how much he’s missing the sea - both the sea from the BU and the reassuring mother sea. He replaces Taehyung at the top of the scaffolder in Euphoria but instead of jumping, he frees himself from his camera by throwing it in the sea. All these videos - excepted  “RUN” - also have a shot of the sea in common:

Lastly, note that this second birth could also be assimilated with the beginning of the boys as artists, just like Rimbaud. It’s supported by the picture of V associated with the verse from “the drunken boat”:

He’s writing while being in the water, like a literal poet from the sea.

In 화양연화 Pt.2, the sea is slightly less present but still here:

This picture is placed in the middle of the photobooks, between the “Je Ne Regrette Rien” and the “Papillon” concepts. The boys oscillate between those two worlds, one being the reality and the other a dream. Just like they swang between “Unrest” and “Daydream”.

We thus have people in a foreign world, so aliens, who come from the water, like whales. Cue “Whalien 52″! (don’t complain about my humor, I know no one’s reading this).

Lonely lonely lonely whale Like this, try calling once again Until this song that doesn’t have a response Reaches tomorrow

The song can be about both the youth and the artist/celebrity not fitting in the world, how they feel lonely because they’re different - like the 52-Hz whale is lonely because it can’t communicate with other whales (more details can be found in Muish’s rambling).

Sadly for the youth/artist, they’re going to wander in the world for a certain time before they can find another sea. It’s the story seen in “Save Me” (they’re at a beach without any sea, so like a desert) and told in “Lost”, the only song from the Wings series including the image of the sea and the desert:

I’m still standing here with my eyes closed Lost between the deserts and oceans I’m still wandering Where should I go yeah I didn’t know there were this many Paths I can’t go and paths I can’t take I never felt this way before Am I becoming an adult?

Just like in “Skit: on the start line”, the boy is walking between the desert and the sea.

Love Yourself is the next step. In this series, the yellow and blue colors were heavily used (details here). Yet, there’s almost no view of the sea.

The first mention is in “Best Of Me”:

Though I’ve not seen the end for me too If such an end exists, would that be you Though I wished for tender waves Why didn’t I know that you are the sea How am I speaking your language And also breathing your breath I’ll be you you who’s grasping on I meet your lips on the knife

The whole Love Yourself 承 Her album is about finding a destined love, so the sea. It’s confirmed in “Serendipity”. Jimin is in a yellow room figuring the desert and the sea is right in front of him.

Sadly, as explained in the hidden track “바다 (Sea)” and later in Love Yourself 轉 Tear, this sea was actually a desert - just like a mirage, you see it but you can’t reach it.

Is this place that I’ve reached really the sea, or is it a blue desert?

The sea ending up being a desert can also be seen in “FAKE LOVE (extended ver.)” MV with the transformation of the main room:

The boy interrupted his search of the sea in Love Yourself 結 Answer, the time for him to realize he had to love himself first before trying to find the sea. Now  that he’s done with that, he’s finally rewarded in Map of the Soul Persona, where he meets the ARMY Bomb ocean:

It’s confirmed in both “Make it right”:

Across the desert and the seas I wandered across the Wide wide world Baby I

[...] In the desert that I waded through without you, I’m thirsty So please quickly come and hold me I know that the sea without you Will be just like a desert in the end

And “HOME”:

I left home Hoping that all of these imaginations Won’t end as a mere mirage

[...] I felt like I could achieve anything I wanted I saw the ocean yeah Before I even opened this door Oh yeah

BTS has found their sea, their source of hope and love in ARMY. And with all this power, they turn from a poet to a god and change the water (love) in wine (art) in “Dionysus”:

Right now I’m in front of the door of the world The cheers that I hear when I step on the stage Can’t you see my stacked Broken thyrsus Now I’m born again, finally

[...] Born as a Kpop idol The reborn artist The reborn artist The reborn artist

[...] Drink it all up up up My wine glass ay Everyone fall in in in Into the crazy artist One glass one shot Two glasses two shots Drunk on art, sing it Ong-heya 

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogue(s) - Prologue (page 2)

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