#enthused contemporary homes

[mybeingthere]

Hybrid marquetry by Alison Elizabeth Taylor, born 1972

lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

"Marquetry—the age-old technique of applying small pieces of colored wood to create decorative patterns—is a word that conjures up visions of antique stores and auction house catalogues; it feels like a craft enthused over by connoisseurs, not the makings of contemporary art. Brooklyn-based artist Alison Elizabeth Taylor, however, knows otherwise. Over the years the artist has transformed marquetry into something wholly her own in a signature process that incorporates inlaid wood, painting, and collaged textures.

A native Nevadan and a witness to the boom and bust of Las Vegas, Taylor uses marquetry to create poignant scenes filled with the landscapes and misfit characters of the Southwest. A tension exists on the works’ very surface: the intricacy of the marquetry, associated with the decor of upper-class homes, entices the eye to linger on oft-overlooked subjects."

https://news.artnet.com/.../alison-elizabeth-taylor...

[clubdionysus]

[BAD DECISION #53] Imposter Syndrome

warnings: namseok aka the starluvrs biggest supporters!!, gallery date <33 starluvrs playing pretend <333 oh they luv each other soooo much :( disgusting! so lovely!

notes: remains to be one of my fave bd doodles hehe. the is the last chapter tonight bc it leads us into a lil treat tomorrow <3

wc: 5.7K

bd total wc: 540k (ongoing)

AO3 | MASTERLIST | MINORS DNI

So used to chasing stars, Jeongguk had almost forgotten how much he enjoys chasing sunsets, too. Sky clear, save for a few wispy, high-altitude clouds, it fades through blue, clementine, pink - until, eventually, it's overwhelmingly mauve. Has him thinking about that time on your apartment roof.

A few canvases and far too much paint, he remembers it fondly - and knows that you were right to implement that five-date rule, no matter how spectacularly you both failed at it.

"This doesn't feel like home," you say with a coy smile, Jeongguk taking a wrong turn as you enter your city.

Leaving it up to him to implement the bird, you're sort of surprised that he hasn't mentioned it for the entire drive. Hasn't even been a little provocative in his jokes or the placement of his hand on your thigh. Has behaved himself well. 

It's very confusing, by all measures.

"No?" He replies, as if he isn't responsible for it.

"No," you insist. "You never go this way."

You'll still be able to make it home, it just adds a fair distance onto the journey. You live across the other side of the city; Jeongguk centrally. You haven't been out this way since Taehyung's last showing at the Ryu, but you know the area well. All the galleries worth noting in the city are in this district.

"First time for everything," Jeongguk says softly, as if he isn't taking another left turn further away from the roads that would lead you home. It dawns on you that perhaps he has a place in mind to complete the bird - but you know your surroundings. Know that there's one place this particular road leads. Can see it in the distance.

Brutalist in its architecture, the cluster of concrete ahead of you looks out of place and yet totally at home against the striking mountains that shadow your city. Coming into summer, their green leaves obscure the rocky terrain that presents itself during the colder months.

You always thought there was beauty to be found in the brutal. Have had endless discussions about the building and how it's the epitome of what a gallery should be: imposing, unwelcome, and impossible to ignore, no matter how much you dislike it.

The largest gallery in the entire city, it's home to a rotation of exhibitions, hosting both heritage and contemporary showings for local artists, as well as international showcases. That's what really sets it apart. Gets people talking. You've a yearly membership, but haven't been in months. Have been too preoccupied with your own showcase organisations for Taehyung, or busy tending to your origami children with their father.

"Gguk," you gingerly question, glancing across to find a charming smile settling on his pretty lips. "What are we doing here?"

Lights spill from the large glass windows of the entrance lobby, and the parking lot is packed. Unusual for this time of night, for it closes by dusk most evenings. Only ever stays open late for special events - of which working in an art cafe has never provided you with the privilege of attending.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Jeongguk is a terrible, gorgeous liar. "Dunno. Just thought I'd see if anything was going on."

And as you spy an incredibly animated Hoseok enthusing with Namjoon out by the front of the building, dressed far more formally than either you or Jeongguk currently are, you know for certain Jeon Jeongguk will never stop with the white lies - but you also realise that perhaps it's okay to let them slide.

Pulling into a parking spot, Jeongguk's grin persists.

"Your nose'll grow," you tell him of his Pinocchio-adjacent tendencies.

Glancing across to you, Jeongguk licks his lips. "Don't act like you'd hate it if I had a bigger nose."

The way your lips part satisfies Jeongguk like nothing else. Knows he's got you thinking about his nose in a capacity that very few people will ever get to think about his nose in. Knows you're reliving the way it feels. Doesn't help with the way his cock is ready and willing to step into action at any given moment. Has been dying for the entire day.

"I'm not dressed for a gallery," you whisper, looking over to the building, ignoring his suggestive comment.

"I've got a spare blazer in my boot," Jeongguk says. It's on a hanger with a crisp black shirt, of which he knows he'll quickly change into. "And there's like, three pairs of your shoes in there, too. I'm certain there's some heels."

An oversized blazer with heels won't look terrible with the jeans you're wearing, but you're sure it will be far more casual than the rest of the punters.

Twisting his key in his ignition, Jeongguk tells you to wait where you are as he heads out to the boot. Returns quickly with the hanger for his clothes and a pair of heels looped over his fingers.

"Here," he says, passing the shoes over to you, then rids himself of his casual wear. Is thankfully parked far enough away from the gallery that he's obscured in the settling dusk of the evening. Strips the white vest that had been clinging to his skin. Tosses that towards you, too, then begins to thread his arms through the black shirt. "For under the blazer."

Credit where it's due, he really does think about the fine details. Staying in his passenger seat, you're a little restricted, but manage to get out of your sweater and pull the fabric of his vest over your body.

Tight to your chest, it definitely wasn't made for your body, but it's warm, and it smells like him, so you think that perhaps it was. You quickly switch shoes. Are pleasantly surprised, because you've been looking for these heels for weeks, unaware they were hanging out in his boot. Left them there after Pohang. Was worried you'd left them at the vacation house.

Blazer on, as you step out of the car to smooth yourself out, you're pleasantly surprised by the switch-up of your outfit. Make a note to seriously steal his clothes in the future, instead of settling for shirts.

A whistle pierces from Jeongguk's pouty lips. "Damn."

Walking around the car to meet you, he just can't help himself. Hooks an arm around your waist. Pulls you closer to his body, and steals a kiss. Mumbles into your lips. "I changed my mind. Back in the car. You're too hot. Gotta fuck you."

"Mmm, your self-control... so sexy," you joke, so amused with how weak he gets whenever he's a little horny.

"You forget I've seen you naked," he husks. "Self-control around you is impossible."

Gently pushing him away, you glance across to Namjoon and Hoseok, who are pretending like they aren't talking about you, when you know for a fact they most definitely are.

"We've got eyes on us," you say in regard to your friends.

"Good," Jeongguk huffs as you clasp his hand, pulling him towards the gallery. "Maybe they could learn a thing or two."

"Such as?"

"How to stop beating around the bush and actually date."

"Gguk," you can't help but laugh at his sheer audacity. "Took you, like, a year, a million birds, and what? Like, four hundred non-date-dates for you to actually ask me out. And I had to tell you to do it."

"Still did it."

"You're just as bad as they are," you insist. "Worse, even."

"How?!" He protests, quite positively affronted by such a claim.

"You were shagging me for months-"

"That's neither here nor there."

"-and still didn't ask me out."

"You didn't want to be asked out!" He defends himself with a mischievous grin. 

"Doesn't matter!" You laugh. Neither of you are taking this conversation seriously - which is just as well, because you're coming within earshot of your friends.

"What doesn't matter?" Hoseok asks, a brow raised. Dressed in all black, there's a sleekness to his understated formalwear. It's classy. Sophisticated. The slicked-back hair, and menacing grin on his lips, too.

"How I managed to wrangle entry for tonight's exhibition," Jeongguk replies, finally giving you a little context on why you're here, 'cause he knows it'll shut you up.

By the entryway behind Namjoon and Hoseok are vertical banners advertising the seasonal exhibition that launches tomorrow morning. Brilliant and metallic as they flow in the light breeze, the signage reads: Golden Rage - in association with Amsterdam Museum.

Anyone with a pinprick of art history proficiency will understand the reference to the Dutch Golden Age, a term now abandoned by Amsterdam Museum to be more reflective of the darkness surrounding the seventeenth century. Still, the artwork produced at the time tells stories of everyday people often forgotten about in time. Moments of history were captured in a way that reminds you of your photo booth pictures with Jeongguk. Names and identities lost, but evidence of love and desire remaining for centuries.

Namjoon just raises a brow. Smiles. "You didn't wrangle fuck all. You're committing fraud."

"And you're assisting," Jeongguk playfully banters, as Namjoon unclips his PRESS badge from his breast pocket and passes it over to Jeongguk. Hoseok does the same, but his badge simply reads GUEST .

"If anyone asks, you're giving it five stars," Namjoon tells Jeongguk. Had been invited to the exhibition as a member of the press. Mentioned it to Jeongguk in passing, and had subsequently been roped into an elaborate scheme involving identity theft and the need to ask Hoseok to come along, just so he could get a guest pass, too. Swings and roundabouts, Namjoon thought when he agreed to it all. "Don't get me fired."

Jeongguk tells Namjoon to fuck off, but also promises he won't. You bid your friends farewell, smiles all round, and slip into the ease of what it's like to have Jeongguk's hand on the small of your back. Though his blazer obscures the touch and removes some of the intimacy, it doesn't make it any less endearing.

"Head up," he whispers as you stroll past the reception area. "Pretend like we're supposed to be here."

You've badges that prove credentials, and very few people (if any) would even think to check them. You're fine, and you know it, but there is a little adrenaline that comes with sneaking in somewhere you know you shouldn't. It excites you. Makes you feel all giddy, as if you're getting a glimpse into the life you want to build for yourself.

The gallery's white walls and marble flooring are clean and sleek in a way that feels like a far cry from the cafe you work in. The Ryu offers a nice middle ground between the two, admittedly - but you've spent so many hours there now that it doesn't have the same overwhelming essence that the gallery you're in now has.

In fact, you feel somewhat at home at The Ryu.

Jina's assistant, who's filling in for her during her maternity leave, is perfectly nice, but also far too keen on taking the credit for the showcases you plan and prepare for Taehyung. There's another one in the works, two weeks from now.

It's a little different from all the others. There's a lot riding on it. In fact, it's probably the most important and ambitious exhibition you've helped organise so far. Whenever Jeongguk asks about it, you downplay it - but as you glance across to him, and slip your hand into his, you know you need to be honest with him about it all.

And you will be.

Just not tonight.

The world can wait a little longer. You wanna stay in this dream with him while you still can.

"We are supposed to be here," you sweetly hum, playing into the role you're taking on for the night. "What's our story?"

Jeongguk chirps a slight hum of confusion, his warm grip on your hand tightening, then contemplates your question momentarily. Smiles, when he thinks of that first trip to Busan, and how you had decided to be versions of yourselves that don't exist. Realises that you're wanting to do it again; to make some pretend life for yourselves.

It's not 'cause this life isn't satisfying. Quite the opposite.

It's just 'cause you like playing make-believe with the man who makes you feel unreal in the most intrinsic of ways.

He likes it when you're playful. Likes what it leads to, yes, but likes the ridiculousness that comes before it. Safe and secure, he's allowed to be a fool with you without feeling foolish.

Rounding the corner, into the hustle and the bustle of the gallery lobby, he quietly weaves a tall tale of your lives.

"I'm disgraced art critic," he tells you with conviction, and is pleased when you gasp.

The chatter and laughter of galleryists obscures your conversation. Your lowered tones can't be heard above the pianist playing in the corner of the ample open space, champagne flowing and lofty laughter echoing from wall to wall.

You've privacy in the most public of spaces; a shared intimacy never to be shared with anyone else.

"Disgraced?!" You whisper with surprise, playing into his dramatics.

"Disgraced," he confirms with a cloying smile and a thump in his chest. There's an effortlessness to your back and forth; an understanding that you can indulge in such fivotly without fear.

And so you implore a little further. "What did you do?"

"It's not what I did." Jeongguk leans a little closer to your ear, so he can really whisper, "It's what you did."

You gasp, pulling away from him to turn your head in surprise. "Me?!"

"You," he nods, looking down towards with such affection you forget there are other people in the room. Don't care for the art, nor for the networking. You care for him, and little else. The feeling is mutual. "You're an old money heiress. The bird around your neck? Tiffany. The blazer? Gucci."

You're pretty sure it's Uniqlo.

Still, he continues with his lies of such grandeur that anyone would be enthralled to hear him speak. There's a magic to Jeongguk's mayhem, a sparkle in his eyes whenever he indulges in these little fallacies with you. 

He's cosmic in your company.

"You were a muse," he tells you. He thinks it should be true. Thinks artists would be mad to look at you and not paint a masterpiece. "To some of the finest artists of our time. So many of the greats wanted to paint you - and so many did."

There's lore to this little life Jeongguk is making up for you. In his head, you're way back in the Golden Age. The 1600's. Europe, maybe. He's not sure. Has let the banners advertising the exhibition inform his delusions.

You're imagining the 1920s. Opulence and indulgence at the very heart of it all. He'd mentioned Gucci after all - but your art history is far better than your fashion history. You're thinking a good forty-odd years ahead of the first clothing pieces made by the designer brand.

Accuracy isn't important here, though. You're colouring outside the lines, and are damn well having fun doing so.

"So what did I do to disgrace you?"

"Well, I became infatuated," he states all rather plainly, with a simple shrug of his shoulders.

"Dangerous."

"You were too gorgeous," He says, then presses a kiss to your hair. Reinforces, "Too damn pretty. Out of my league and out of my tax bracket. Wouldn't even look in my direction-"

"But what if I did?" You suggest a revision to his story. "But you never noticed because you were always too concerned with other people also admiring the artworks of me?"

"Well, then it proves I was right to be disgraced for my actions," he assures you.

There are large archways around the lobby, all leading off into different exhibition halls. While you could make your way into one of them, you find yourselves walking around the spacious white lobby, weaving in and out of people.

"Tell me what you did," you giggle, your spare hand coming to clasp his wrist. It's an enthusiastic display of affection; reinforcement for the holding of hands. Jeongguk bites down on his bottom lip. Tilts his head to the side and then shakes it gently to rid himself of his giddiness.

"Collected art," he says, still smiling. "So much. I'd put a gallery of this size to shame - but the issue? They were all artworks of you. Lined the walls. Had run out of space. Different angles, different colours, different styles. Had every version of you imaginable. Bordered on perverse, actually."

You picture it now, Jeongguk standing in a gallery full of your reimagined portraits, bereft at the idea of never being able to have you. Perverse in his eyes, but pure in his heart - and you find the scenario far more erotic than you should. The obsession. The yearning. The desire. The make-believe that you know is rooted in something authentic. There's a reason that painting is still up in his living room. He gets off on it. Not sexually, but mentally. His ego inflates when he looks at it.

Admittedly, he does often end up a little horny, but that's thanks to the memories. Thanks to you.

"All portraits?" You clarify.

He nods, continuing to guide you around the room even when you reach your starting point once more. "All until the one that sent me mad."

"Which was?"

"You had a lover," he tells you - and finds that his stomach does a pathetic little churn at the mere thought of it. "Some asshole, sleazebag in the upper classes. A shitty artist, but one that kept getting shows because his daddy had the money to fund it and no fucks to give about his kid."

"Your contempt sounds personal."

And it is.

In Jeongguk's head, this asshole looks a lot like Seokjin. Prick.

"I'm an art critic, baby," he reasons, as if he's not just called you baby outside of the bedroom. Your heart is in your throat. Might just throw it up onto your sleeve. Give it to him. Let him eat it up. "Just being... critical."

"Okay, so go on," you smile. "Why did you hate his work so much?"

"They were sketches," he eventually says. "Charcoal, or something like that. No larger than A4."

"But?"

"But you were nude in every single one of them."

You gasp. "Jeongguk!"

"Hey!" He defends. "Wasn't me. Blame your asshole lover."

"Was it a scandal?" You pout.

"Not really. The sketches weren't known about really, not amongst the wider audience of art appreciators," Jeongguk reassures you. "But within the circles your shitbag lover frequented?"

"Oh, what an asshole," you say, understanding immediately what he's getting at.

An old-fashioned case of revenge porn. A strange thing to think about.

"God, everyone wanted you."

"And so how did it disgrace you?"

"One was delivered to me," he says. "To the place I housed my collection, attached with the note: Look, because you'll never get to touch. I knew the asshole himself must have sent it. Something came over me. A fit of rage. So, I went to his seedy little studio and burnt the place down."

"Jeongguk!"

"What?!" He protests. "I was defending your honour."

"How?!"

"I was burning all of the nudes!"

"Okay, so fast forward," you laugh. "We're here together - how did we get from nude burning to attending galleries together?"

"Well, it caused quite the commotion within the art circles of the time. Everyone knew it was me, but it couldn't be proven at trial, so I went home a free man - and when I arrived home, who was there waiting for me?"

"Me?"

He nods. "You. You were fascinated by my obsession," he says. "As if you're not a totally reasonable obsession to have. Anyways, during the trial, you'd become just as infatuated with me as I was with you, desperately trying to understand my mind."

"Did I ever?"

"In a way, yes," he smiles. "We both just fell into this state of mutual obsession. You were ostracised for associating with me, and ever since, the rooms we walk into fall silent at the mere sight of us."

"Do we care?"

"Not in the slightest," he says. "In fact, we revel in it."

There's a certain truth to this, no matter how absurd and whimsical the story may be. You do like it when people catch glimpses of you and Jeongguk. A woman across the room has turned her head three times within the first fifteen minutes of you entering the building. Likely just checking Jeongguk out - but how can you blame her? Face like an angel, body built for sin.

Much like Jeongguk's fantasy version of himself, you're convinced that the people who gawp at Jeongguk are perverse. That they want in him in the worst of ways. The best of ways, too - though you suppose they're one and the same.

Picking up gallery guide pamphlets as you walk on by the stand, you know that you probably look out of place.

Admittedly, Jeongguk's clothes look effortless on you, thanks to the proportions. The skin-tight vest and the oversized blazer seem intentional. Tucked into your jeans, the white fabric is thick enough not to go entirely sheer over your bra, but you're a little conscious of it regardless.

Jeongguk's black shirt is formal enough for him to blend right in - but you both know you're a little out of place.

Part of him regrets not planning this aspect of his evening - but he also hadn't planned on visiting his parents when setting the wheels in motion. Had forgotten he needed to swing by with the trophies when he'd arranged all this with Namjoon.

Nodding to a dark entrance towards the rear, Jeongguk says, "The exhibition I wanna show you the most is through there."

Dark and imposing, it's a large curved arch that appears almost black beyond it.

"Y'know, we could have just come on the weekend," you say softly, so beautifully in awe of the effort he's gone to.

Sure, it's just a few pulled strings here and there, but you don't think anyone has ever done something so considerate for you. 

Silly as it may be, you feel like an imposter; as if things like this don't happen for people like you. Not that you've done anything not to deserve it, but because you've never really had someone care like this before.

Jeongguk, at the root of your relationship, is your best friend. He knows you like the back of his hand. Every vein. Every freckle. Every scar; what caused them, and what had to be endured in order to heal.

Attentive in his nature, you shouldn't really be surprised by such a gentle act. If you'd have heard a similar story relayed from his time with Jiyeong, and the art gallery was replaced by something she was particularly interested in, you'd have thought: Yes. That sounds like something he'd do.

You've imposter syndrome in the silliest of ways. Feel out of place - but you're surrounded by art. Know you're right at home.

Though if you were to think about it, it's really not the art that makes you feel that way.

Jeon Jeongguk is like the first bite of a strawberry in the chill of winter. 

You wait all year for the mart refrigerators to be lined in pristine punnets of crimson and cadmium. Will pay a small fortune for those early-season pickings. A little underripe, and far too much white beneath the lush green leaves, you don't care for imperfections. 

By the time strawberry season rolls around, you'll have spent so long without the delicacy that every single one of them will be perfect. Bruised skin, blackened seeds, it matters not. The flaws only make them sweeter.

"C'mon," he encourages, a saccharine smile on his soft pink lips, eyes adorned with stars as he looks at you. The warmth of his hand in yours only intensifies. You're not an imposter, his touch whispers. You're right where you're supposed to be. "We'll get distracted and miss it if we don't make the effort to actually go in there."

That's the thing about you and Jeongguk. Time wasted together is never a waste, but letting it slip from you is just so easy. Rough grains of sand; hours, minutes, seconds tumble through your fingers - but just like its honey hue, it'll stick to you, too. Will forever tarnish your skin.

Lasting, is the impact of Jeongguk. On you. On your life. On the very fabric of your world.

"Us?" You grin, taking the lead, pulling on his hand as you head towards the entrance. "Get distracted? Since when have we ever done that?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

You say no. There's no need. Will natter about nonsense as you amble over to the archway, instead.

Both laughing, you're in such good spirits that it's hard to remember a time when happiness didn't sit on your shoulders like an old friend; an imp with devilish horns that you know are the result of a clumsily broken halo. No malice, just mischief.

Above the entryway, thick black text boldly declares the intention set out by the curator: Common Skies . A play on the term 'common ground', you raise a brow as you look at Jeongguk. He isn't looking at you, but he is biting down on his bottom lip as if he knows you're putting it all together.

"What?" He sheepishly mumbles through an incredibly pleased, suppressed laugh.

"Skies?" You question the choice of word.

"Common ones, apparently."

Rolling your eyes, you decide to take the plunge and enter the exhibition - and are pouting instantly .

On a central pillar is the focal point of the small gallery room: Verschuier's Tailstar over Rotterdam.

Deep, burnt oranges illuminate a nightscape of the titular city, where townsfolk watch on in awe as the great comet of 1680 passes over it. Though children are crying in the foreground - fear of the unknown, you suppose - the piece has an overwhelming sense of wonder. People stare towards the sky with navigational tools. You wonder what they were aiming for, and decide that maybe it's better not to know.

How human it is, you think, to wonder. To marvel. To fawn and theorise over the things you can't explain, and the possibilities this world could have.

When you glance over to Jeongguk, there's a depletion to your heart rate. A calmness. Contentedness. The promise that for as long as he shall live, you will always have a man who marvels at you like you're a comet worthy of the history books.

Just like the subjects of the painting, he'll fawn and theorise over you. Won't be able to explain a damn thing about you, 'cause he'll spend the entire time fighting smiles and being at war with himself over what to talk about first.

"So," Jeongguk begins, recalling the research he'd done on the topic just so that he could talk you through the exhibition. "In Europe, historically, comets were signs of huge catastrophes. People thought they were a warning. Apocalyptic, kind of."

"Same as here," you muse, connecting the dots together and understanding the concept of the exhibition as a whole. "A common ground."

"Common ground over common skies," Jeongguk smiles with a nod. "This section of the exhibition is all about stars and comets. How different cultures reacted to them. Europe and the Joseon dynasty were worlds apart during the time period, yet they shared the same sentiments. Feared what they didn't understand. Still romanticised it."

Turning on the spot, keeping a tight grip on his hand, your eyes scan over the collection - and sure enough, you're surrounded by celestial events that must have shocked worlds and changed the trajectory of lives.

Despite the volume of work, it's curious how the most stellar depiction of a cosmic entity exists not on parchment nor on canvas. It's not etched into wooden plinths or carefully traced onto ancient moon jars that sit upon them.

Instead, they reside in your eyes and his; beaming at one another like lunar lighthouses in the midst of a tidal storm. The waves glitter and glow around you both, but your light will prevail, always.

Antares, is the way you feel for one another. The heart of the Azure Dragon. A red supergiant. Twenty-five million years in the making.

No piece of art strung up on these walls could ever compare. There are stars in abundance, of oil and acrylic, charcoal and calligraphy ink, but they don't capture the beauty of the sparks that fly whenever Jeongguk is by your side.

Strangers notice it. Do double takes. Whisper to their companions, do we know them? Are they famous? There's something familiar about them...

It won't be until they're on their way home, speckled skies twinkling in delight, that they'll realise they must have seen incarnations of shooting stars with their very own eyes. Manifestations of magic only ever seen in fantasy novels, or whispered around campfires.

Your evening is spent in an amaranthine haze of whimsical stories and unfiltered laughter. There truly is no better person to be around than Jeongguk. From hypothetic stories behind artwork that neither of you recognise, to the genuine, considered thoughts he puts into analysing the works you're keen on with you, he's the best gallery partner you've ever had.

The only one you've had, really. Seokjin never cared much for art, only for the superficial monetary value of mundane canvases. You've had a handful of museum dates over the years, but they were always awkward and forced.

And so galleries have been a place for you to indulge in introversion; a recharge for your batteries.

Something about Jeongguk stems your batteries from ever running low. He's like Duracell bunny. Go, go, go. The conversation never needs to cease - and it doesn't, or at least not until you're back in Jeongguk's car.

He's driven a little further into the city. Parked up at his favourite vantage spot on a small mountain not too far from the centre. The starlovers playlist hums quietly in the background, lights from the city glistening beneath you.

With your back to the door, heels off, your foot rests on the pad of the passenger seat. Anyone else, and he'd tell them off. Say something about how you should be more careful with the upholstery. Would reach over. Knock your foot down.

But he's too dumbstruck to muster any words. Just giggles when he looks at you. Bites his lip. Lets his piercing do the thing. Shakes his head. Eventually, tenderly says, "This is so stupid."

"What is?" You beam right back, so pretty in your shared happiness.

He shrugs. "All of this. You. Me. The fact we're a couple . What we're about to do. So stupid."

Not stupid bad. Not even stupid good. Just stupid in how giddy it makes him feel.

"You're thinking too much," you tell him with unbridled fondness. Know exactly what he means. Feel it too; foolish in the frivolity of it all. "But a word to the wise, Gguk - most girls wouldn't take too kindly to being called stupid."

"You know I didn't mean it like that," he assures you - and he's right. You do know. You just like winding him up.

"Too late," you feign over-dramatic insult. Pout. Wipe away a faux tear from your sparkly cheek. "Can't believe my boyfriend just called me stupid ."

Boyfriend .

Yep. He's still not used to it. Still gets ridiculous butterflies. Confirmed.

"I would never," he protests, reaching out to pull on your wrists. Drags you closer. Ignores the awkwardness of leaning over the centre console, as his hands find your cheeks. Faces no objection when he presses dumb, nonsensical kisses against your lips. Is dopey and obtuse and ever so simple in the way he giggles, even now. Doesn't stop smiling. Not once. "Not stupid."

Deep down, you know you both are, even if just a little bit. It really doesn't matter if you're a bit ditzy in each other's company, for you still managed to work out that all of your puzzle pieces perfectly align. Pretty smart, if you do say so yourself.

"Know what is stupid?" You hum against his lips, not pulling away. He punctuates your question with a tender kiss.

"I'm sure you're gonna tell me."

You smile. Punctuate his sentence, now, with dainty acts of devotion. Whisper, "The fact we're not on the backseats right now."

And while Jeongguk will gladly be a fool for you, he knows better than to keep up the dense facade.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" He smirks, pulling away. Is arrogant as he cocks a brow, back inclined up against his door. He knocks his head to the side, indicating where he wants you. "Ladies first."

"On one condition," you bargain, playing into his flirt. Will give him what he wants, but won't give it to him easily.

"I'm listening."

"Ladies first in all aspects of what we're about to do."

"Is that not always the case?" He ribs, using his tongue to toy with his lip ring. Knows exactly what you're insinuating. "Do I not always make sure ladies come first? In all aspects."

You shrug. Flirt. "Just a friendly reminder."

But Jeongguk has spent a day thinking about all the things he wishes he had done to ruin that damn friendship with you months before he mustered up the courage to actually do so.

"There's nothing friendly about what I'm gonna do to you, B," he assures with a cocky grin, then corrects himself. "Do with you. Now, get that pretty ass of yours in the backseat."

"Say please ."

He shakes his head. Presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek. Smirks. "Don't make me ask again." 

"Say please," you reinforce, just to rile him up a little more.

But Jeongguk is in no mood to let you take control of the situation. You're in his clothes, and he wants to be in you. Thinks it's a fair trade. Knows you'd agree.

"Backseat, baby," he instructs, jaw sharp, eyes dark, determination unwavering - and how can you refuse? "Now."

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I don't know what to think about this 2001 contemporary home built in Carbondale, Illinois. It has 6bds, 5.5ba, and is listed at $513,500. There isn't much privacy allowed for in the design, and I must wonder what the architect was thinking, since some of it makes me dizzy.

The living room is dramatic, angular, and 2 stories high. It has an interesting assortment of windows with a fireplace built into a corner.

From the living room, you go downstairs to a black & white dining room. Look at the staircase- no railings. This room reminds of Alice in Wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole, for some reason.

Large, spread-out kitchen is off the living room and the cabinets match the blue walls. I'm not too enthused w/the gold walls in here, though. There're spiral stairs in the corner for convenient access to the 2nd fl. (As opposed to going back to the dining room to use the stairs.)

So, the spiral stairs lead up to this wide hallway between the bedrooms and baths.

Overlooking the living room from the balcony. Looks like a toddler or small dog could squeeze thru those glass strips.

The main bd is spacious. There's a whole area the size of another room, plus a wood burning stove and French doors to a deck.

There's a nice skylight over the bed, but the bed is placed right next to an opening over the living room. See what I mean about privacy?

Here's a nice secondary bedroom. It's a good size and would make a perfect guest room.

This space is being used as a children's room, but it looks more like a playroom. There's no privacy at all- there's a mezzanine over it. I was the type of kid who get into that bed via the mezzanine.

Here's a small shower room. I don't like these inexpensive free-standing showers. I had one and it was a bitch to clean.

The deck that the main bedroom has access to.

The house comes with a lot of land, though, 20 acres.

[ntriani]

OQM Playlist : Life during quarantine #12 Listen to Life during quarantine #12

BEWARE THE SECOND WAVE As we enjoy this heatwave in Finland and relax with each other, literally sharing the same spaces once again, we must realise the temporary nature of our new freedom.

HEADSTART I became an obsessive fan of The Jam at around the age of 13 – I even had a photo book of my favourite press clippings of the band. This love for The Jam also ignited some kind of realisation that political discourse actually exists within the confines of pop music. What was astonishing about records like ‘Going Underground’ or ‘Town Called Malice’ going straight into the #1 spot on the national pop charts was the potent message those singles possessed. Of course, as I got older, I realised a lot of my contemporaries despised The Jam’s Paul Weller, finding his political songs too simplistic and dismissed them as nothing more than sloganeering. For me Weller’s lyrics hit home because I could fully relate.  When singles such as ‘Funeral Pyre’ also went straight in at #1 you had to admire the sheer gall of releasing  such uncommercial music and then seeing it hitting the top of the charts. The Jam remain one of the great British single bands.

CHANGING MAN Once The Jam ended there was a dramatic change from Weller with what came next; The Style Council. In came a mix of cappuccino drinks, Euro Euphoria and a committed  focus on style –  the political intensity and focus on living in Thatcher’s Britain that so defined The Jam disappeared. Weller, always a modernist in the truest sense, was now increasingly becoming a foppish clothes horse, enjoying not being the voice of a generation and even more so enjoying being a pop star and having some fun. It’s astonishing to think that Weller was still only 25 when he formed The Style Council, but the sense of relief from Weller is evident in the freedom of the music The Style Council initially released. One could surmise that Weller had simply had enough carrying that political lyrical torch. It felt like he was more enthused by singing songs relating to matters of the heart and looking good in some sharp vintage threads and tailor made suits (which he still does) than plotting any further political music movement.

I FOUND YOU AGAIN For me,  I lost interest in Weller and his music for a long time after those first couple of Style Council records. The band descended into a bland pastiche of soul and trying to keep up with some notion of modern pop trends, which by the end saw Weller struggle professionally. I was late picking up on Weller’s increasingly successful solo career and kind of resented his honorary status amongst the Britpop community (Weller was always so much better than that.) But then the 22 Dreams album pulled me back into his orbit. Mostly absent was the dad rock replaced by a wide palate that took in a myriad of influences backed by solid songwriting and wilful experimentation. And ever since it’s been mostly great stuff from Weller.  His voice has matured, his records remain eclectic and interesting and his songwriting still delivers. His politics still appear in his music from time to time but it’s more subtle and more grown up. The bright spark of political anger that so defined his youth has mostly gone but musically Weller remains a contender.

[realestateprperties]

Shapoorji Pallonji Parkwest Bangalore - Stunning Views. Superb Atmosphere. Stellar Price.

Shapoorji Pallonji Parkwest Bangalore is an upcoming residential development project by Shapoorji Pallonji Group. This project offers elegant 1, 2, and 3 BHK luxury apartments with high-quality amenities. Living in the IT city is a happiness. Owning your home here is like a dream coming true. And when the city has already made its mark as a burly presence in the global scenario, it is a bit usual that international trends in every sphere are obvious. Realty sector is one if the leaders in this case. The city has countless stylish buildings, both in the residential and commercial sectors. Homes in the city are attractive and more lavish than existing ones and the city looks like an innovative veil has covered it.

One such new and exciting project in the residential space is the Shapoorji Pallonji Parkwest. The property is coming up. This is a great choice for a place, as the region is enthused with contemporary developments and has transport, dining, shopping educational, medical, and utility centers all in close access.

Shapoorji Parkwest Bangalore is enthused with units that are embellished with high-end stipulations and luxurious layouts. The living room and bedrooms, for example, have large windows for sufficient cross ventilation and natural light. The maid’s room has a divided entrance to respect your privacy. The home is cut out as 1, 2, and 3 BHK BHK luxury apartments. The facilities here are quite many. There is a clubhouse, meditation center, swimming pool, gymnasium, kids’ play area, cafeteria, Laundromat, theatre, flexible hall, many dedicated areas for sports, and open green parks, manicured and aesthetically expertise.

The towers here rise to floors each with a unique sky lounge in each tower. So be on top of the world and surrounded by the clouds here at Shapoorji Parkwest Bengaluru a luxury housing complex located at the most adored location of the city. The stunning complex consists of units and offers 1, 2, and 3 BHK apartments with dissimilar configurations. The apartments are well-prepared with the finest amenities that are required for a happy and satisfied life. Key features of the expansion are exclusive sky-lounges in each tower, an elegant clubhouse, a kids' play area, a swimming pool, a jogging track, a tennis court, a theatre, basketball courts, and many other characteristics. Shapoorji Parkwest Binnypet is designed to give you a decisive sense of comfort in contemporary life. Experience the comfy lifestyle that you have always desired.

Some of the sign projects that have made the Shapoorji Pallonji Group a hallmark of excellence and trust in India. Renowned for its quality construction, well-organized design, and wide variety of amenities Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate has shaped several prestigious commercial and residential landmarks in India. In the corporate actuality segment, SPRE has built a chain of SP Infocity IT Parks in the IT/ITES SEZs at numerous locations across the country. In the residential section too, SPRE has made a formidable name for itself by building some of the most premium properties in the city.

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[sequinpillowcase]

Funny Labrador Sequin Pillow Case - A Perfect Gift For The Dog Parents

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[reachingforthevoid]

Dr Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen

I rewatched this serial, the first of Dr Who’s fifth season, on 9 January 2022. I have no memory of watching it as a child, and may not have done, but I do recall the excitement as this once considered missing story was returned to the BBC in the early 1990s. Older fans in Australia and elsewhere had always enthused about it, claiming it was one of the best Dr Who stories ever… Only when we watched it on an eagerly awaited VHS it didn’t quite live up to the nostalgic hype. Ah well. I haven’t watched it since, until now.

The basic story, seen in context, is pretty good.

The gaps between seasons are getting longer, so it’s sensible to have the Doctor explaining to Victoria about the TARDIS. Jamie is a bit like an older brother to her, which is sweet. I’m glad that during the story Victoria shows a bit of character, but she is parked rather a lot. And my word the far future is sexist.

The archaeological dig is reminiscent of Victorian explorers, or Agatha Christie murder mysteries, or Indiana Jones’s adventures than actual archaeology. At least the group aren’t all white men, and it’s mostly the white men who die off quickly. I note, though, that the human baddies don't have British accents. Meanwhile, the rocket crew are seriously channelling Star Trek vibes.

As for Klieg, the main human baddie… given what’s been going on in the social media world over the last decade or so, I can’t help but think that a contemporary version of this serial would have Klieg as a thinly disguised tech bro… as it is, he is a power hungry rich idiot.

This is the third Cybermen serial in nine stories, and we get yet another reinvention. This time, we’re on Telos, their home world. Unless I missed it - my attention did wander - Mondas isn’t mentioned. We do get to see the first iteration of Cybermats, which are terribly cute. And, since the Daleks now have a mega version of themselves with their Emperor, so do the Cybermen with their controller.

In summary, it’s better watched in context and without the expectations of it being brilliant.

[lizseyi]

What Is Classical Pilates - Brighton Pilates

One of the biggest I questions I get asked is, what is Classical Pilates? So, in this blog post I am hoping to clear this up for you.Classical Pilates is a discipline created by a man called Jospeh Pilates. The exercises have been developed by Joseph Pilates over time on various apparatus, which he designed. The Reformer, Cadillac, Barrels, Pedi Pole, Magic Circle (to name a few) were all created to give the user feedback and resistance, which, in turn helps to create length in the spine, lift, open, stretch and tone the body.In today's Pilates market, there are many variations of the The Method (Pilates). Whilst each of these classes have their place, often these variations are Pilates based and confused with: core work, stability and physio based classes, they are not pure Pilates classes.

 The true success of Pilates comes when you work his full system. That being: The studio apparatus and mat work.The Joseph Pilates system (mat and apparatus) has been carefully designed to work all ranges of movement of the body. As you develop you are introduced to more challenging exercises. A Classical mat class follows a set structure and you work through the system starting with the hundreds, and you finish standing after your press ups. As you progress, more and more exercises get dropped in but the class structure largely remains the same. The class is a workout and it flows, seamlessly from one exercise to the other. As you progress and get stronger the class becomes more cardio based as more exercises are dropped in to the same class length, the flow increases and therefore so does the sweat!HowJoesph Pilates used to work was he'd welcome his client's to the studio he would then guide them around the whole studio working the full system on all the apparatus. He would teach them mat work, this was homework.

He would ask them to practice their mat exercises at home and then come back next week when they would work the studio again adding in more exercises as they improve. Their training would continue like this and huge improvements were seen, which is why Pilates is so popular today.The classes that I offer range from the true method: Classical Mat right through to HIT Pilates. HIT Pilates would be unrecognisable by Joesph Pilates.

These classes are simply hybrids, a modern twist on a method that works. It is not Pilates, strictly speaking. My Contemporary mat classes are the modern approach to Pilates too. They definitely have key principles of Pilates within them, and there are many manyClassical Pilates exercises within the class. But the order is different, we use bands, balls (none of these would have been used by Joseph Pilates traditionally). As I said before there is a place for all this work, it's all great stuff but if you want to learn true Pilates, then the classical mat and studio work is where you want to be.

The contemporary twists suit many people today as they offer: variation, small equipment, music and sometimes, mindulness.My goal with Brighton Pilates is to offer classes that enthuse everyone to come along and enjoy the benefits that Pilates has to offer. I accept that the Classical Method isn't for everyone. I accept that some people would scowl at me for offering 'HIT Pilates' as this is 'not Pilates'. But, my mission as a Pilates teacher is to deliver fun varied classes that suit everyone. I always encourage all my clients to come to the studio before starting Pilates (of which most of them have). This is so I can teach The Method and explain the origins to all new starters. From there, everyone can choose which Pilates path suits them.In an ideal world, all my clients would do a studio class once a week, a mat class once a week and for their cardio needs, a HIT class once a week. This really does cover all bases. For those that would like to do that.

I offer an 'Intro Package' which offers a 1:1 classical studio session and a flexi pass where clients can book onto all the classes that I have on the timetable. I believe as a Pilates teacher it is my job to teach clients what Pilates is and it's history but which approach they choose to take and which class they prefer, that is up to them ultimately. All I hope for is that everyone who comes along enjoys moving as much as I do. I can also promise that whichever class you chose, they will always be: safe, fun and friendly.

[grandhotelabyss]

I saw on social media that Eugene Lim has a new novel out. I don’t think I’ll read it. I’m mostly at home with dead writers today, and as for living ones, I’ve internalized the idea that the ones who matter probably aren’t being disseminated by the major publishers, even if I’m lazy about reading my peers in the True Mainstream in Exile. For our audiovisual Monday, above is an unlisted early-pandemic-era video lecture from May 2020 on Lim’s 2017 novel, Dear Cyborgs, which I taught several times in two different introductory lit courses as an example of the most contemporary of contemporary fictions. 

Once I taught it alongside Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, and a passel of modern poets in a class called Literature and Public Life. I fumblingly tried to explain the layered hipster irony of the moment in the book when a character sings an Eagles song in a karaoke bar. As I was presumptuously telling them who The Eagles even were, I realized that these Zoomers knew, that the majority of students who never spoke—Midwestern young white women, decidedly not English majors, most from the suburbs—were in fact all Eagles fans. “What’s your favorite song?” they demanded, suddenly enthused. Not seeking any points for originality, I offered “New York Minute,” though as a child of the Hell Freezes Over era, I also appreciate the anti-religious ballad, “Learn to Be Still.” Normie aesthetics! So much for experimental fiction! Yet I’m from the suburbs too, and I do like The Eagles.

The above lecture, a year and a half old, feels much older, as if the last two years encompassed a decade. It’s one of my favorites among my video lectures: a brief but thorough account of radical politics from motive to outcome. I was very frank when I taught these giant classes, before I was informed with maximal and insulting rudeness that my services were no longer required, nor even especially appreciated. But enough of my resentments! When I first read Lim’s novel I admired its candid admission that radical politics are an aesthetic disposition, but now I think that to indulge or excuse this fact is repugnant in ways I didn’t see then; I hadn’t yet grasped the post-left insight, that this aesthetic pseudo-politics is the legitimating rhetoric of one class in power, not the cry of a powerless and oppressed underclass. 

As for the novel qua novel, it barely exists, which is why in the lecture I can’t remember who says or does what among the characters; stylistically, the narrative formally mimics the web browser experience as an occasion for witty political sententiae. 

Novels about the Internet are too literal. My last three novels are at least in part about the Internet, but I don’t make a nuisance of it. Nobody who actually manages to tear their bleeding eyes away from the scroll to pick up a book wants the screen experience straightforwardly replicated; if they’re going to read about it, surely they want it circumscribed by the unique intelligence of the form that preceded it—and will probably succeed it too, on that day when all the screens go dark and we’re left with our libraries again.

[astrovian]

Richard Armitage interview for The Guardian (08/10/2020)

Full transcript under the cut

You were playing the doctor, Astrov, in Ian Rickson’s triumphant West End production of Uncle Vanya when the pandemic closed theatres. How did the last night feel?

We were lucky in that we’d completed the majority of the run – there was about six weeks left. We were quite surprised that our houses were full every night. Then Broadway went dark and you could feel the change in the atmosphere within our company that it was inevitable. The following week we came into work and were told it was all off. We sat on stage for a while, not knowing what to do, we all had a little drink with the crew and that was it – we were in lockdown.

As time progressed it became clear that we weren’t going back. Like most other commercial theatres, opening to a socially distanced audience is financially not possible but also logistically it’s really difficult for those old London theatres.

What was interesting for me in that last week was that so much of the play, from the doctor’s perspective, is talking about living with epidemics and the stress of life. It started to resonate in a different way. When Chekhov was writing the play he was dying of tuberculosis and they had just been through two epidemics. As a doctor, Chekhov had been on the front line. For Russians watching the play at the time, the idea of a disease that would definitely kill you was much more immediate. Suddenly within the last weeks of performance, the play felt so much more relevant. It was quite extraordinary.

The play’s environmental concerns also resonate with this pandemic year and our renewed appreciation of the natural world.

People thought the environmental elements of the play had been added on because it felt so contemporary – the conversations about deforestation and this one man’s efforts to replant the woodland. But it��s there in the original, probably in a slightly more detailed form as Conor McPherson was more economical with the language in this version.

After closing to the public, the actors returned to an empty theatre to film Uncle Vanya. Had a cinema version always been planned?

There was going to be an NT Live – they’d been in to do a scratch recording. So it was a huge disappointment but the fact we were finally able to make a film – and much more of a hybrid production than anything you’ve seen before – was really exciting. Hats off to [producer] Sonia Friedman who just took a leap of faith.

How is it different to other filmed plays, like the recording of The Crucible that you made at the Old Vic?

Usually when you’re capturing live performance, one of the benefits is that you include the audience on the night you shoot. We shot over a week and did an act a day using six cameras in various places in the auditorium with different lenses; the cameraman would also come on to the stage with a handheld and move around with us for some innovative, detailed shots that you’d never be able to capture without staging the play specifically to film it. Even audiences who came to see the play will get something more than the day they saw. There were certain moments in the play which in the rehearsal room we really wanted to be intimate but when you are performing to 800 people you have to open up the play. So we were able to bring it down into a much more intimate, claustrophobic place.

What was it like to perform in an empty theatre?

We were so enthused to get back on stage. Initially the camera team and crew felt like a sparse audience. Every day I’d stand there and remember watching the audience gathering. It was a real sense of nostalgia, sadness actually, wondering how long it will be until we can get a full audience again. It’s not a luxury but a natural instinct to want to gather in a room and watch something live – whether it’s standup in a pub or jazz in a basement bar. There’s just this human instinct to want to come together.

What do you think of the government’s response to the crisis in the arts?

The government is trying to spin many, many plates. Our industry is vulnerable – we can’t really go back to work without audiences. I do feel like the response has been late and there probably hasn’t been enough initiative in terms of how do we make it work. We could have done something for theatres like the “eat out to help out” scheme – if theatres could operate at 30% capacity, maybe the government could have subsidised to get them towards breaking even. That hasn’t happened. I suspect it’s because there’s too many industries in trouble. For some reason the arts is never seen as a critical industry. Everybody in the arts felt incredibly insulted by the idea that the arts aren’t viable. It does make money. If theatres die in small cities then the hub of the community is gone. You need a more long-term view in investing and keeping these places alive.

The Haymarket in your home town of Leicester was one of the first theatres to go out of business because of the pandemic.

I’d been there recently. My little nephew wants to be an actor and I’d seen him perform in an amateur production there. It was a great theatre space. Leicester is fortunate because it does have other venues. But there are some smaller towns that don’t have many arts hubs and when they’re gone, they’re gone. We’re kind of hanging on by a thread. The news of cinemas suffering is another nail in the coffin.

You’ve done a lot of voice work and recorded audio books – what’s the appeal in lending your voice to a project rather than your appearance?

I love reading. I think that’s what brought me into this profession. It wasn’t watching films and wishing I could be in them but reading books and, in my imagination, creating a mini movie out of them. An audio book is very similar to that. I get real satisfaction out of it. Very rarely have I found a book that I didn’t connect with. I read as if I’m reading to one person. It gets to the root of why I do what I do. I just love storytelling.

[fleckcmscott]

Fun and Only

Summary: During a night out, Y/N and Arthur bump into someone from Arthur’s past. Y/N tries to decipher him.

Warnings: Swearing

Words: 4,088

A/N: This was a request from the sweet, kind @imdeaddear2! I hope you like it! Thank you for making the request, because I never would have written this scenario without it. 😀 Special thanks to @arthurflecc for the beautiful intro pic! Also, thanks to @hhandley80​ for reviewing the exchange in the middle section!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open!

"Y/N, it's little league season. Know what that means?"

Needing to finish the paragraph she was reading, Y/N raised a finger. The dense case on her desk was a tough assignment; she'd been toiling at it most of the morning. She liked her new position. Truly. But the pace at which she prepared files was slower than she would have preferred. The particulars of labor laws were, well...laborious. Reviewing evidence types she wasn't familiar with took time. It made her impatient. Anxious to soak up all the information she could get her hands on.

But, she supposed, no longer being plagued by guilt for indirectly supporting the Waynes was worth the learning curve.

Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her ankles, swinging her foot back and forth as she regarded Terry. While he was incredibly friendly, chatting with everyone and anyone, they remained acquaintances. Periodically, she conferred with him over a motion or sought to get his opinion about the upcoming mayoral election. ("I've seen Wayne's legal bullshit. He's not getting my vote.") Those discussions didn't go far. Usually, he tried to bond over parental matters - she and Arthur didn't even have a plant.

She could tell this was going to be another attempt. "You're doing a fundraiser and I should buy chocolate bars?" she asked.

"Even better." Digging into his too-tight pants pocket, he retrieved a checkbook-sized pamphlet. "The Gotham Squires are selling these to charter a bus for the All-Stars tournament. They're the number two team in the state!" He shoved a photo of his kid at her.

She murmured a polite, "He's all grown-up." He spoke of the team's new uniforms and his nine-year-old's batting average. Half-listening, she flipped through the booklet. It was a coupon collection, mostly two-for-one sales at various restaurants and vouchers for discounted movie tickets, good on weekdays only. They were quite pricey at fifteen dollars apiece. But she was inclined to buy one. The savings might help Arthur practice letting go of his wallet. Allow him to stop worrying about money and indulge a little, the way he deserved.

What made the cash fly from her purse to Terry's palm was the certificate in the back: a half-off deal for Amusement Mile. Satisfaction was written all over her face as she studied the yellow cardstock's terms and conditions, the outline of a circus tent, the faded ink encouraging her to "Enjoy the Ride!" Coming from a rural area, she'd never gone to an amusement park. One had been four or so hours east, but her father had preferred to stay close to home, fearing he might be needed in an emergency.

The annual county fair had been a must. Everyone had worn his or her Sunday Best, the occasional breeze kicking up dirt as they toured the fairground. The rides had been creaky, unsound, and should have been reported to the local safety commission. She'd gone on the Tilt-A-Whirl and the giant slide, waving at her parents and hanging onto her burlap sack. One year, Mabel had screamed and cried until Y/N grabbed her hand and led them out of the house of mirrors.

Swinging the mallet as hard as he could, her father had impressed her mother with the strongman game. The puck wouldn't hit the bell. Doily and needlework competitions had been her mother's purview, crafts Y/N had practiced but quickly tired of. She'd preferred the pie contest. Her mouth had watered, hankering for a taste of the first-place winner. The agricultural exhibits had been the largest section, with its prized horses, pigs, and chickens. She'd broken the rules and stuck her fingers in the rabbit cages to feel their soft fur; she'd been bitten once.

Wistfulness wasn't the only reason the theme park appealed to her. There was Arthur's history with it. He kept a postcard of the Ferris wheel pinned to the divider in his writing nook. And he'd described some of the odd jobs he'd done. Carrying boxes of merchandise, filling in for other clowns, picking up litter (and keeping the returnables). It hadn't been steady, merely hours offered to him if he'd inquired. But it'd given him pocket change. Enough to buy cigarettes and keep the utilities on for another month.

The week had been warm up till now, and the good weather was expected to continue. He loved taking her to new corners of the city, had ever since their first date. Introducing her to his old stomping ground wouldn't take a lot of convincing.

When she got home, he was perched on the sofa, clad in a thermal shirt and a pair of her too-short pajama bottoms. (A funny combination that meant their laundry was in the machine.) Elbows on his knees, journal on the coffee table, and pen at the ready, his concentration was plain to see. The discipline he had to pursue his dreams, the way he studied comedy specials on TV was admirable. She got a glass of water and smiled at his ill-timed laughter. That he didn't understand the host's humor was logical. Roasts were usually unkind. While Arthur's jokes weren't always funny, they weren't mean-spirited.

She crouched next to him, peppered kisses along his shoulder. His damp curls brushed her cheek, and she breathed in the zesty musk of his shampoo. "I wouldn't waste too much effort on this guy," she said. Her caress followed the freckles on his bare forearm, feeling the muscle flutter under her fingertips. "He's kind of an asshole."

"The audience helps me figure out the timing." He muted the television, lips quirking. "You like some of his songs."

"He makes a better singer than comedian," she rebutted with a peck.

They went over their respective days, how his earlier appointment went, the paperwork she'd done. Tuna casserole was their choice for dinner, and Arthur put on an LP while they cooked. Once the dish was in the oven, she hugged him close. "I have an idea for Thursday night." She went over the Amusement Mile discount, enthused about his expertise, reveled in how her praise softened his features and brightened his eyes. "I'd love it if you took me around. Taught me all the magic behind the scenes. And I'm dying to see where you do your street performances." She massaged the nape of his neck. "Maybe I'll stop by and give you a tip."

Crooked tooth peeking out, he nodded. Then he grasped the counter on either side of her hips and pressed his forehead to hers. "That sounds great."

~~~~~

A small memorial flowerbed, filled with alternating swirls of white gardenias, purple pansies, and yellow daffodils, was situated just beyond the park's main entrance. The marble fountain bubbling in the center reminded Y/N of a bird bath. It was modest, from a bygone era in which the wealthy hadn't dared to flaunt their fortunes for fear of strikes. The bronze plaque declared the city's thanks to Benjamin Wayne for funding Amusement Mile's construction during the height of Gotham's industrial boom. Before most of the factories had fled. Before times had become tough for the majority Gothamites. It was annoying, how the Waynes had their fingers in everything. She hoped not one nickel of what they spent tonight went into their bank accounts.

Arthur paid it no mind. His head was tipped back a degree or two, his clear green eyes darting from attraction to attraction. Smoking was one of his habits she disapproved of. But she couldn't dispute how attractive he was, puffing the cigarette dangling from his puckered lips. The chestnut tones of his brown hair were brought to the fore by the grounds' multi-color lighting, and a lock or two fell over his temples. The loose curls at his neck bounced with each step, a boyish buoyancy to his gait.

Her stomach growled as soon as the aroma of fair food hit her. They picked a booth that claimed it sold Gotham's original franks. He asked to order for her. She let him, watching as his grin widened and he stated, "Four hot dogs for my girlfriend and me, please. With relish and mustard." Then they shared a candy apple, taking turns nibbling at the fruit's hard, sugary shell. Its juice dribbled onto her pale pink top, staining the embroidered neckline. Her groan of disapproval became giggling as he stole chaste kisses, wiping her off as she chewed.

His palm at the small of her back, guiding her as they walked down the midway, fanned a glow in her heart. He'd made headway when it came to displaying his affection in public, though he still tended towards timidity. Early on, she'd concluded his reticence had nothing to do with her - he never pulled away if she grabbed at him. He was simply a gentleman.

Most examples he followed were from an older era, one lost to the bluntness of the eighties. Those moments he'd let himself go, when he'd make it clear they were a couple, lifted her spirit. Not only due to the pride she felt at being on his arm, but also because it meant he was finding his own way. Arthur wasn't a shy suitor or a contemporary romantic hero. Rather, he was somewhere in the middle. Old fashioned, through and through, with threads of modernity woven into his fibers.

As they strolled, they stumbled onto a black and white photo booth. She sat on its cracked wooden stool and tried to tug him inside. But he wanted a picture of her, he said. To put in his wallet. To look at if he was having a bad day and wasn't at home. Her response was to snag his collar and yank him to her lips. Snorting, he shut the nylon curtain. At the clink of quarters in the coin slot, she straightened her puffed, cap sleeves and fixed her hair in the scratched featherweight mirror. The camera's flashes blinded her, but she thought she'd managed to smile naturally enough.

Before she had a chance to stand, he whipped open the drape and showed her the strip of portraits. "I knew I was dating the prettiest woman in the city. Maybe even the sweetest."

She cupped his cheeks as she stepped out. Rubbed the tip of her nose to his. He was unfailingly generous. Too generous. While she was fine with her appearance, she wouldn't win a beauty pageant. Hell, she wouldn't even be a runner-up. Or a contestant. And sweet was one of the last words she'd use to describe herself. But she wasn't going to correct him. "And I found the handsomest, funniest man." His stare was wide-eyed. After releasing a stuttering breath, he pulled her along.

Upon entering the gaming area, he slung his arm around her waist. Mischief laced his whisper as he spilled secrets. The darts for the balloon pop were dull, the balloons underinflated. He advised her to stay clear of the baseball and milk bottle stand, saying, "The bottom bottles have lead in them. You'll never knock them over."

Then he warned her off the ring toss, saying the rings were too small to win the best prizes. She decided to take her chances, regardless, and paid the attendant. Arthur tutted gently as she gave him the last ring, having already wasted four.  A step to the side, then he paused to line up his throw. A short clap announced his victory. The prize options included a dinky toy car and a rubber snake. She picked a plastic, red keychain, embossed with "I was Amused in 1982" and the silhouette of a coaster. It was an improvement over her old car dealership tag. "I'll think of tonight whenever I see it."

Gaze fixed on her mouth, he sighed happily. He began to reach towards her, his arm raised ever so slightly-

"Art!" a rich baritone called. "Hey, Art!"

Arthur flinched. She moved to peer behind him. The approaching man was tall, his balding head half a foot higher than Arthur's. A blue and red flannel shirt with gray trousers covered his portly physique. Confidence oozed from him with every stride, a pleasantly surprised smirk on his round face.

Y/N's interest was piqued. Unless it was someone who remembered Arthur from Live! with Murray Franklin, no one ever approached him on the street. And she hadn't heard him be referred to by anything other than his proper name (besides Penny's terrible "Happy.").

But his reactions concerned her. Arthur's back tensed as the man closed in, stopping a yard away. "Hi, Randall."

"How's my boy been?" Randall asked jovially, hands at his sides. "Gary told us about your mom. Could you use a little cheering up?"

Arthur blinked faster than usual. "No. She's okay. And I feel a lot better now."

"Oh. Well, good for you," Randall said.

Going back and forth between them, she tried to puzzle out their dynamic. Their familiarity was obvious. Randall seemed caring enough, although she found it odd he'd referred to her thirty-five-year-old partner as "boy." Arthur had mentioned Gary was a former colleague. It would make sense Randall was, too.

He threw her a glance. "Hey, you have family visiting. Is this your cousin?"

She brushed off the assumption and extended her hand. "I'm Y/N L/N. His girlfriend."

"Oh, yeah. The paralegal." He shook it firmly before addressing Arthur again. "Gary said you finally got a date."

The pat to Arthur's bicep was a little too hard, jolting his stiff frame. The set of his jaw and flaring of his nostrils betrayed a turmoil she hadn't initially picked up on. She touched his hand but he shoved it in his pocket.

All right. She had to get to the bottom of this. It was hard to ascertain if his current reaction was due to his social challenges (which could cause discomfort) or Randall's words. She didn't want to jump to conclusions. After all, she and Patricia teased each other whenever they met for lunch or chatted on the phone. A good ribbing was needed every once in a while.

Starting a cross-examination in front of Arthur would contribute to his unease. After a moment's deliberation, she nudged him. It took a couple of tries to get his attention. "Would you please get us a large lemonade?" His brows rose, anxiety in the wrinkles of his forehead. She stretched to kiss his temple. His eyes narrowed but he got the hint, scuffing his shoe and glowering at Randall as he walked off.

When Arthur rounded a corner by the water pistol race, she lounged on one of the booth's metal poles. "Have you known Arthur long?"

Randall nodded in the direction Arthur had gone. "We worked at HaHa's. I'm a clown, too. We did parties, the children's hospital, store openings."

"Arthur loved that job." She crossed her arms over her chest. "It's too bad the slow season hit. But he's doing pretty well on his own."

Confusion crossed the big man's visage. "Uh, yeah. The slow season." He chuckled, then. "Anyway, you and Art, huh?"

Smiling broadly, she folded her arms over her chest. "Yes, me and Art."

"Pretty serious, huh?"

If he wanted gossip to bring back to the workplace, she'd gladly give him some. Especially if it reflected well on Arthur. "We live together. It's been great."

"No kidding." With a sardonic grin, he shook his head. "A woman like you. I didn't know he had it in him. It was always just him and his mom. Talked about stand-up sometimes. Mostly kept to himself, though. Never really talked much." Randall shrugged lightly. "But we liked him. He did all the shitty jobs no one wanted and never complained."

Arching a brow, Y/N felt her suspicions grow. While Arthur was learning to disagree and contradict her without hesitation, he nevertheless had the inclination to go along. It was plausible he hadn't argued about gigs. Had they taken his preferences into account?

Then Randall confirmed her skepticism, saying in a jokey tone, "That laugh really got everyone going, too. And his laminated cards. We had a pool on whether it was part of his act. I mean, him being in Arkham and all, who knows what the fuck he could have come up with?"

Deciphering what kind of man stood in front of her was suddenly uncomplicated. She'd run into his type all too often. They lurked in garages and offices. Diners and restaurants. Courtrooms on both sides of the bench. People with no real power who walked on others. Persons who threw their weight around to feel in charge. Bullies who hid behind a veneer of kindness.

She understood why he'd called Arthur "boy."

What she said had to be chosen carefully. Randall and Arthur worked in the same field, likely competed for clients. If her big mouth came back on Arthur, she wouldn't forgive herself. She straightened, squared her shoulders, and forced her voice to stay professional. "If you liked him, wouldn't you have split the less desirable jobs with him? I'm sure he didn't like being taken advantage of."

His looked at her in disbelief. "Hey, he was paid fair and square, like all of us."

"And he understands how to speak to a 'woman like me' more than you ever will." A sharp exhale as her cheeks burned. "From what Arthur has said, you could learn a lot from Gary. Please tell him hello from us and have a good evening." With that, she headed off to find Arthur, ignoring Randall's lame attempts to call her back.

Arthur was in line when she spotted him. He stepped forward and pointed to the menu. As she approached, she noticed how he fidgeted with his cigarette, tapping it repeatedly though there was no ash. The subtle tremble in his knee. If he continued to carry himself so tightly, his muscles would cramp.

Clearing her throat, she slipped behind him and hugged his back. "Did you have to deal with that insufferable know-it-all every day?"

He grabbed the proffered cup from the clerk and headed to a nearby table. Plunked himself down and took a drag off his smoke. Stress poured off him, clear in every flex of his fingers. His palm went to his stomach as he practiced controlling his breathing. "What- What did he tell you? That everyone thought I was a freak? How much I fucked up?" His voice lowered then, barely above a whisper. She could tell he was talking to himself. "The hospital?"

"Enough to know he was a jerk. I'm glad you're not there anymore." She put her chin on his shoulder. Watched him take a sip of lemonade. "Nothing he said matters, but I told him how important you are to me." She tucked a hair behind his ear, and he leaned into her touch. Their gazes met, his shining in the dim light. The evening had been fantastic so far. She wasn't going to let some asshole ruin it. "Come on," she urged, jutting her hip towards him. "We still have half the park to explore."

~~~~~

About a third of the way through their ride on the Mad Hatter, Amusement Mile's famous coaster, Y/N realized eating had been a mistake. A big one. Thrown to a fro in the sharp curves, she could nearly taste the bile in the throat. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, willing her nausea to pass. For his part, Arthur appeared exhilarated, laughing with every peak and valley. Seeing that happiness was a gift, one that gratified and partially distracted from her queasiness.

Fortunately, the enclosed cabins on the Ferris wheel were a respite. They waited an extra turn to board the outer wheel, which rotated at a leisurely pace and allowed her stomach to settle. The view from the top was beautiful, Gotham Cathedral's lit spires and the Westward Bridge prominent against the night sky. Wayne Tower was also visible, but she did her best to ignore the high-rise and its gaudy "W." He pointed in the direction of Burnley and said, "There's our home." She was unexpectedly moved. Then he kissed her soundly, which quickly advanced to mild necking when the wheel paused.

The carousel was antique, according to the sign. The only original attraction left in the park. A massive wooden structure with a mirrored center, it had three rows of horses, broken up by the occasional bench. He stepped onto the gray platform and picked one, painted red and yellow, roses etched along its back. But she climbed a nearby leaping horse instead, its black mane and tan body faded by years of sunlight.

He quirked a dark brow until she beckoned him with a nod. Cheeks pink, countenance tender in the lingering blinks of the incandescent bulbs, he followed suit. "Hang onto me," she instructed. As the calliope's whistles began their jaunty tune, he cupped her hips and pressed into her. A flutter tickled her stomach. She reclined against him, let her eyes fall shut as his warmth surrounded her. Round and round they went, chuckling airily. Not at any jokes or amusements, but at the joy of one another.

Arthur picked the last ride, an old mill called Romantic River Caves. She had to stop herself from snickering at the idea of a middle-aged woman and her nearly-middle-aged boyfriend cruising along in something built for teenagers. But he delighted in cliches and corniness, a preference she attributed to his inexperience and kind nature. Though such gestures hadn't thrilled her since she was a girl, she appreciated them with him.

The boats were short and narrow, just wide enough for the two of them to sit side-by-side. Curved backrests encouraged cuddling. Off-key versions of old standards played through tinny speakers. Myriad displays were inside, a mix of plaster dioramas and paintings. Two swans swimming, their beaks touching. A couple on a picnic under a tree. Bouquets and hearts galore. There were five or so seconds of darkness between each one. He took advantage of those breaks, kissing her again and again until she was breathless.

She scanned the starry painting above them, the comets' trails stretched across the tunnel's ceiling. "It's been a long time since I've done anything like this. Twenty-five? Thirty years?"

"Me, too. I snuck in when I was a kid. To see the circus and the merry-go-round." He smoothed his hair back, pressed his legs tighter together. "When I moonlighted here, I could've gone on the rides and to the shows. I- I didn't want to alone."

He paused and she put her palm on his thigh. Gave him an encouraging squeeze. "That postcard I have?" he said. "By my desk? It was in my locker at HaHa's." His fingers covered hers, tips tracing her knuckles. "It's good to have a person to have fun with. To have you."

She beamed at that sentiment, for she felt it, too. Yes, she'd been complete on her own. No, she hadn't been lonely. But he added to her existence. Introduced her to activities and experiences she hadn't previously considered or realized she'd needed. Going to a comedy club. Dancing despite her lack of skill. Or enjoying vulnerability during quiet conversations in their bedroom rather than fearing it. He'd broadened her life in ways she was still discovering. And he regularly told her she'd bettered his. "You're my favorite ride," she said.

A sharp snort left him, followed by a bashful chuckle. He shook his head. "You're crazy."

"I didn't mean that." She batted his chest playfully. Tried to cross her legs under the safety bar. "This relationship we've started." Light appeared at the end of the tunnel, the shallow pool's grimy floor coming into view as the water level fell. Soon they'd be amongst the crowd. "Remember when I said we'd never be perfect? I like our imperfections. They fit. Like..." She contemplated. "A pen and paper. They're good on their own but they're best together." Cringing, she covered her face. "God, that didn't even make sense. A pen needs paper."

"Didn't you say you needed me?" he teased, pulling her hand from her brow to place it on his sternum. "I don't mind being your paper." Blushing, Y/N turned to him when he cupped her jaw. Ran his thumbs over her cheeks. She joined him in ignoring the attendant's instruction to disembark. Arthur kissed her, a delicate graze to her mouth before he drew her bottom lip between his. "You're the best ride, too."

~~~~~

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve​, @howdylilflower​, @sweet-nothings04​, @stephieraptorr​, @rommies​, @fallenstarsabyss​, @gruffle1​, @octopus-plasma​, @tsukiakarinobara​, @arthur-flecks-lovely-smile​, @another-day-in-chuckletown​, @hhandley80​, @jokerownsmysoul​, @64-crayon​

[courtlandmcintosh]

[Hafsanur Sancaktutan, cisfemale, she/her] who’s that? oh it’s [Courtland McIntosh]. i hear they’re [19] and are known as [The Wallflower] around [Ohio]. they’re also a [Freshman] at [OSU], and are part of [OSU’s art club & McIntosh Orchards]. they’re known to be [caring & thoughtful] and [prying & an overthinker]. some people say they remind them of [the soft glow of fairy lights, bundling up on a cold winter’s morning, journaling & the first stroke of paint on a new canvas]. only one way to find out! [Bee, 21, GMT]

BASICS

Full Name: Courtland Ariane McIntosh

Nickname: Courtland, Court

Birthday: May 27th

Age: 18

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Hometown: Manhattan, NY.

Sexuality: Bisexual? (Still questioning)

Grade: Freshman

School: OSU

Occupation: Managing the family orchard

Activities: Art club

LIKES/DISLIKES

LIKES: Wildlife, sunrise, art in all its forms, journalling

DISLIKES: Being alone in a crowd, bullies, being underestimated, overheating

TL;DR BIO

Courtland McIntosh took a long time to grow into herself, and her family’s legacy. Between her solitary hobbies and general shyness, she was always reluctant to stretch herself beyond the social reach of her twin. However, after a sudden life-change on her sister’s part, she realised she couldn’t hide in her shadow forever. Now, Courtland is studying at OSU and running her family’s new orchard, determined to prove that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

FULL BIO

Courtland’s life has undeniably been one of privilege. Being descended from the self-proclaimed “reigning emperor of apples” himself comes with a swathe of perks, both nutritionally and financially. Along with her twin sister Braeburn, Courtland grew up in the lap of luxury and the heart of Manhattan. In every sense aside from literal, the two were always attached at the hip as kids. Their dynamic shone through even in their early years; Braeburn

Out of the pair, Courtland was always the most introverted. She held no active disdain for other people outside of her family, but she struggled with approaching others socially. Whenever the choice was provided, she would opt to stay at home and work on her hobbies rather than going out to play. She established an early interest in art, especially painting. Her parents had very polarised reactions to this; while her father was mostly indifferent and concerned for their furniture, her mother was all-in, to an off-putting extent. While in her own mind she was providing unwavering support and motivation, to a young Courtland, she was offering up unsolicited criticism and pressure to improve even her most whimsical finger paintings, constantly. While she couldn’t know it at the time, these attitudes from her parents would prevail as she grew up, no matter what the pursuit was. Cello, her studies, writing - it was all or nothing from either side. She internalised both of these responses, but art would remain as her escape for years to come.

Braeburn was the one who made sure of that. No matter where they went or what they did, Braeburn was the driving force behind what little confidence Courtland had. Outside of arts and crafts, a young Courtland could credit each and every new venture in her life to her twin; her dependence wove itself into existence early on. Because she was quieter, Courtland saw herself as weaker, and during her childhood that didn’t present itself as much as a problem. It was a fact she was willing to accept. She didn’t need to be popular in her own right at school - Braeburn was extroverted and charismatic enough to attract a healthy crowd to their elementary school lunch table, and she was content to linger quietly in the corner. That isn’t to say she offered nothing to her sister - she was perceptive, and observant. From her slightly removed perspective, Courtland was happy to offer her sister a fond ear and often pertinent advice. Beneath their contrasting surfaces, their bond was always one of give and take.

Their coexistence held strong all the way through middle school, and the early beginnings of high school as well. Courtland had a few people she met through Braeburn that she would call friends, but none of them were close. Braeburn remained her idol, and the centre of her world, and so when her sister began to shut her out, she knew something was seriously wrong. Courtland couldn’t understand it. Looking back, she cringes at the way she made her sister’s struggle about herself over those months, but until her sister eventually came out she had herself convinced that she had done something wrong. For a while, nothing could get through to her. Not the hushed knocks and whispers from outside of her bedroom door, nor the drawings softly worded letters slipped beneath her door.

For a while, the world became a faded version of itself. Her art lost its spirit, and in turn so did Courtland; she had no idea how to be herself without her twin. This, combined with the already messy maelstrom of feelings that came along with puberty, made for a difficult time in Courtland’s life. When Braeburn was finally ready to come out, the relief was incomparable. She had her twin back, and her twin had herself back. It was all Courtland could ever ask for - and a wake-up call, all at once. She had to be stronger, and more independent. Of course she would always be there for Braeburn, and she would still count on her in the same way, but she wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet.

It took a little while, but between helping her sister run lines for Little Shop Of Horrors and helping here and there with the set design, she realised it was time to branch out. The school had a small, but open art club, and with encouragement from Braeburn she eventually plucked up the nerve to sign up. She loved it. School was no longer just a place to accrue accomplishments - the was a small part of it that became a second home. She made friends there, ones all of her own, and although it took her a little while to open up she took her new, individual social life in stride. Braeburn was still her best friend, but for the first time she could confidently say she had friends she wasn’t related to. For once, other people were looking up to her - the other members of the art club respected her, they valued her contributions, and by the end of her junior year she took over as its president. As it turned out, she liked being a leader.

This, in turn, fed into a growing interest in the family business. Braeburn had started college prep in her junior year, with a range of schools in mind - some Ivy League, some not, but all fitting into schools her father referred to as ‘The Apple League,’ AKA any school he personally approved of. At the same time, her confidence grew. She was a smart girl. She held her own in several AP classes, and from her time in art club she realised she had ideas. Here and there, she began to pitch some ideas to her father over the dinner table when he brought up business concerns. For several months, he either brushed or laughed these off - but Courtland had changed. For once, she didn’t want to shy away from confrontation. She took her time, compiled her ideas, and worked them all into a presentation she was rather proud of. After several run-throughs with Braeburn there to offer pointers, she sat their father down, and finally asserted herself. To her surprise, he was enthused. So much so that, when her college acceptance letters eventually came in, he encouraged her to head to OSU so that she could oversee the launch of their newest orchard while she studied.

Going to college so far from home and so far from Braeburn would be her biggest challenge yet, but Courtland was ready for it. She packed her bags, and with a steadfast promise to facetime her sister as often as possible, she set off for Ohio to kickstart a new chapter of her life.

HEADCANONS

As young children, the twins developed in very different ways. While Braeburn’s speech came to her rather quickly, Courtland dawdled far behind in that area. She didn’t speak until shortly after their third birthday. Instead of talking, as soon as she could grasp on to a crayon for more than a few seconds, she started to draw. It made her so visibly happy that her parents provided her with all the art supplies a toddler could dream of. Her mother encouraged this as much as possible, hoping for a child prodigy, while her father was a little more wary of the mess. He did, however, have a couple of her first paintings of apples framed for his office. Her love for art only grew exponentially from there.

Throughout Courtland’s childhood, her sister was her idol. Her hero. She was always more reserved, keeping to herself and her hobbies unless somebody actively invited her to participate in social activities. More often than not, that invitation came from Braeburn. This pattern never really faded, and during the brief period before her sister came out where she withdrew into herself, Courtland became more aware than ever of how dependent she had let herself become. Even when Braeburn came out and their bond gew stronger than ever, she remained cognisant of her growing need to branch out as her own person.

When Braeburn first came out to her, Courtland wanted to offer up the best possible advice to her sister. To prepare herself for this, she bulk-bought as many contemporary fashion magazines as she could get her hands on. After holing herself up in her room for several days with those after school, she found herself hooked, and still enjoys flicking through these magazines on occasion, even though she rarely goes for the products advertised in them. They provide a range of pose references and jolts of inspiration every now and then for her art.

Throughout high school, Courtland began to feel a need for a little independence, although she wasn’t sure how to establish herself. She wasn’t bullied, but she was rarely included - sometimes she felt like an afterthought, hanging off the edge of Braeburn’s social circle. Eventually, with enough support from her sister, she finally joined the school’s art club towards the end of her sophomore year. For the first time she made her own friends, completely of her own merit, and the club became her passion. Before too long she was its secretary, and then its treasurer, and finally its president by the end of her junior year.

Courtland was always fascinated with the family business. While Braeburn was always expected to eventually take on their father’s legacy, Courtland was the only one who actively wanted to enter the world of apple farming at all. Her pitches for their orchards were rarely taken seriously, until around her senior year of high school. When Biff let the family know he was planning on opening a new orchard in Ohio, she saw an opportunity. With her gradually bolstering confidence she put together a presentation complete with elaborate slides, detailed infographics, and a laser pointer. She rehearsed the speech for weeks on end, mostly with her sister as the sole audience member, until she eventually cornered their father in his office and delivered the whole thing. By the end, he was impressed enough to request that she oversaw the project during her time at college, running that small branch of the business under his remote supervision.

[fst-critique]

In what appears to be a clever spoof on pop-music videos like those broadcast on MTV during the early 2000s, Lanvin’s joint Resort and Spring 2022 Menswear collections were unveiled in a 3 minute short and set in what appeared to be a small house on some beach haven paradise. Directed from the first-person point of view, the video’s protagonist was that of a model seemingly being tortured backstage as a cast of hair and makeup artists aggressively prime the woman for an upcoming runway show. Her mind drifts as she imagines herself taking part in a tropical setting partying with other beauty’s adorned in brightly colored outfits without a care in the world as the track Pure Shores plays in the background. This scene would continue even amidst a brutal storm that battered the shack. Nothing could halt the carefree vibe. In just a matter of minutes, the model was back in reality as a familiar voice awakened her deepest fantasy. “Wake up, wake up” shouted the Lanvin creative director Bruno Sialleli at the zoned-out dreamer, instantly the imaginary receded, and the real show that is life began. However, perhaps those commands would have been better used at the designer himself as his showing for the Spring 2022 season matched a convoluted theme of opulence and dread. Wake up Bruno, this is Lanvin, not not the flailing Forever 21’s men’s summer sale.

Since the departure of the well-respected menswear creative Lucas Ossendrijver in 2018, Lanvin’s menswear division has failed to live up to its predecessor’s groundbreaking philosophy. No one likes living in the past, no matter how candid and glorious it appears upon reflection, though, Bruno Sialelli’s work in the men’s space is enough to drive viewers back into the archives to remind themselves of just how good how the previous two-decades have been. Ossendrijver has moved on. His place within both the history of design and that of Lanvin is cemented in the success that stimulated and contributed to the wider acceptance and elevation of what it meant to dress a contemporary man. For Sialleli, no such thought has accompanied his men's voyage. His eye has been strictly focused on priming the womenswear for a comeback. In the three years since Bruno's appointment, the turnaround and growth for the Parisian house have been solid, even admirable. This resort season is no different. Referencing the archive and narrowing down on an aesthetic of glamour and decadence has guided the lost ship that was Paris’s oldest French couture house since the departure of Alber Elbaz. Even so, his inability to steer the smaller vessel that is the menswear line calls into question the company’s decision to continue with him at the helm.

For starters, out of the forty-some looks presented this season, nearly half of the presentation saw womenswear take precedent as a result of having included Resort-wear into the mix. Before this, each menswear outing has resulted in more attention being placed on dressing the female counterpart. Harmonious and bohemian, the floral prints, leather coats, and revealing skirts and mini dresses were bourgeois yet youthful. Glancing back to the applauded “If I Was a Rich Girl” Fall Winter 2021 Womenswear collection, the bridging of the seasons has begun to define a promising narrative for both Bruno and the Maison. Fringed trims hung from terry buttoned cropped tops and that of a mid-thigh length wrap skirt alerting wearers that while the Winter parties had succumbed to the warmer weather, the energy would continue into the summer. Party clothes for a generation who have been cooped up in their homes for the past year and a half no doubt. Digging further and further into the archive saw another interpretation of Jeanne Lanvin’s signature bubble silhouette done up in an enthused light pink pastel with short sleeves and the weight centered on the garments back. The womenswear portion of the collection was a triumph. New and accessorized with rounded crescent bags with gold chains, the Lanvin woman who chooses to purchase the upscaled beachwear will surely look posh with a mai tai in hand. On the contrary, the men’s excerpt was forgettable, unenthusiastic, and disorderly.

Dating back to his first menswear collection in June of 2019, Bruno’s aesthetic has often mirrored that of whom he had replaced. Sialleli comes across as that of Ossendrijver’s younger brother whose inability to transition and move into the present has cast his work in an unflattering, stale light. The Spring 2022 collection may as well be from 2002, or 1992: there is hardly any movement of scalability in this collection. Last Fall it was knockoff grunge attire, the season before that- Spring 2021- saw a Parisian attitude dumbed down to simple suits and a bowling shirt. Unimaginative and uninspired, the remainder of the men’s set for 2022 has followed suit. Look one saw an image of a bleak man pondering into the mirror as if so dissatisfied with his clothing he perhaps wishes he stayed home for the weekend. What followed was “trippy” checkered prints- his and her version's pulled straight off of a Tama Impala cover- table clothe check patterns, and high waisted trousers recycled from season after season without a hint of change. Flipping this subdued style on its head was the inclusion of horrendous surfer attire that was so tight you couldn’t help but feel for the wearer. When matched with a softer tailored suit, the image only became worse. Concluding the show with a monogrammed Jeanne Lanvin logo “JL” ended the presentation with a poor aftertaste of the lazy streetwear branding craze of yonder. Placed on a puffer jacket, a women’s wrap coat, an ill-fitting jumpsuit, and a matching set of a polo and trouser, the mundanity was primed for a directionless mood. Such is the state of Lanvin Menswear.

Choosing to mix the resort season with a menswear offering is a nuanced idea that combines two seasons into one. Outside of the paralleled color pallet and print combinations, the whole was split into desirable women’s attire and tacky, oversaturated men’s clothing. Lanvin should opt to invest in a menswear designer who is both worthwhile and concentrated. Until then, such efforts are aimless.

[aboutcaseyaffleck]

Actor Casey Affleck Reflects On The Past And 'The World To Come'

The last time I saw Casey Affleck was after an 8:30 a.m. Sundance Film Festival screening of “Manchester by the Sea,” which left my colleagues and I so emotionally drained we were pretty much useless for the rest of the day. Affleck finds this very funny. “Oh man, that’s awesome,” he laughs. “That was a tough screening. At Sundance I’m usually just going to sleep at 8 a.m.” We’re talking on the phone a few days after the festival’s virtual premiere of his latest movie, “The World to Come,” which made its Sundance debut last month under very different circumstances. “It’s so strange doing these things sitting in front of your computer,” he sighs.

Directed by Mona Fastvold, “The World to Come” is a powerful period piece about a forbidden love affair between pioneer women played by Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, set in upstate New York during the early months of 1856. Affleck produced the picture, in which he plays a supporting role as Waterston’s uncomprehending husband, and he did his best to soldier through a crowded Zoom Q&A after the Sundance screening, with results pleasant enough, but nonetheless missing that in-person festival magic. “I used to love going to film festivals and talking to journalists and seeing all the movies and talking to other filmmakers,” he laments. “Sitting here alone in a little office in my house is such a drag. But it was nice to know that the movie was getting seen, at least.”

While big brother Ben plays Batman in studio pictures, Casey has exhibited a restless independent streak ever since he was a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. (Our ninth-grade classes competed against each other in the Mass. High School Drama Guild Competition. His won, perhaps unsurprisingly.) A longtime friend of the Brattle Theatre and former creative advisor for the Independent Film Festival Boston, the younger Affleck has always seemed more at home in indies. Not a lot of actors would follow an Oscar-winning role in “Manchester by the Sea” with a microbudget art film like “A Ghost Story.” But then his internalized, minimalist acting style is often at odds with the concerns of contemporary blockbusters. There’s a weird dissonance watching something like Disney’s hokey Chatham sea adventure “The Finest Hours,” with Affleck going full Montgomery Clift while surrounded by CGI silliness.

“The World to Come” is the most ambitious project yet from Affleck’s Sea Change Media, which partnered with Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon’s legendary NYC indie institution Killer Films for the arduous production that began with a conversation between Affleck and novelist Ron Hansen nearly a decade ago. “When I did ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ I got to know Ron Hansen, just because I loved the book so much. Ron has a very unique talent for writing 19th century language. He’s just from another era. I asked him if he had something he wanted to work on together, and I thought he would send me one of his things. Instead, he sent me this story by Jim Shepard. It was beautiful. I said, why don’t you and Jim write the script? And they took about six years, but it came together beautifully. Good things come to those who wait, I guess.”

The film eventually shot in Romania with a break built into the schedule to accommodate the changing seasons that are so crucial to the movie’s rugged, outdoor textures. “We were way out in Transylvania, out in the mountains,” Affleck explains. “We were just in some valley and they built a couple of farmhouses. I like being far away in a new place. It makes you feel outside of your life. And I love working in weather. There are so many aspects of moviemaking that are artificial, but when there’s extreme weather, it’s real. I did this Disney movie about a boat rescue, and it was, like, December in friggin’ Quincy and they were just soaking us with water every single take. There’s not a lot that you have to quote-unquote act. You’re just standing there, teeth-chattering, shivering, just being.” This reminds me of the scene in “Manchester” when he and Lucas Hedges have an argument walking in the blistering cold and can’t remember where they parked. “I forgot about that one,” he laughs.

I’d never say so on the phone, but I consider Affleck’s performance as Lee Chandler in “Manchester by the Sea” among the finest I’ve seen in my 22 years of reviewing films, worthy of discussion alongside Brando’s Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront” in its aching, inchoate longing. Lee holds his grief somewhere very private and dear, as if to begin to forgive himself would be an act of betrayal. The movie nails a gruff, emotional constipation popular among men of a certain stripe, especially in New England. (My mother offered my favorite review of the film: “Why don’t they just talk to each other? Jesus, this is like watching you and your father.”) Words don’t come easily to most of Affleck’s movie characters, but he chafes at the description of them as inarticulate. “It’s funny, I find the characters in ‘Manchester’ to be sometimes very articulate,” he argues. “There’s misunderstandings, but they end up communicating what’s inside.”

“The World to Come” is rife with such mixed signals and miscommunications, about which co-star Katherine Waterston raved during the Zoom Q&A after the Sundance screening. “It was so much fun to play the scenes with Casey,” she said. “A lot of these scenes are written as dances, where somebody tries to reach out and engage and they’re misunderstood. Inarticulacy is a very interesting thing to see in film. The failed attempts. Failed communications. It’s actually fun to play those things. You don’t know what the other person’s going to throw at you. It keeps it really alive on set. Mona and I felt if we had the money we could have kept shooting this thing for months, because the scenes were so much fun to explore.”

Affleck agrees. “When Katherine’s character writes in her journal or she starts talking to Vanessa, they have this beautiful, expressive way of speaking to each other,” he enthuses, whereas his character “says what he’s gotta say in as few words as possible. He’s very brusque and curt, which I enjoyed. The way that he talks is the communication equivalent when he gives her a birthday gift of sardines and a tin of raisins.”

Indeed, her increasingly florid diary entries — originally intended as a ledger to keep track of the farm’s monthly expenses — become the heartbeat of the film, providing an emotional release otherwise suppressed by the rigid formality of the era and the ugly drudgery of day-to-day farm life. “The World to Come” is ultimately a movie about the need to share our stories, and how through telling them we make sense of ourselves. As producer Koffler explains in the press notes, “Part of the film’s vision is to dramatize a very basic human impulse: to create, to connect, to say ‘I was here, and I mattered.’”

This has become a recurring theme in Affleck’s recent work. In 2019, he wrote, directed and starred in “Light of My Life,” a little-seen but strikingly tense post-apocalyptic road movie about a father and daughter hiding out in the wilderness after a pandemic has wiped out most of the women in the world. The film begins with Affleck telling the little girl a bedtime story that runs almost 13 minutes and sneakily sets up the movie’s major themes. Then in last month’s well-acted but regrettably soggy “Our Friend,” he starred as real-life journalist Matthew Teague, whose soul-baring Esquire story about his wife’s struggle with cancer became a national phenomenon.

“Matt Teague wrote that article and then wanted it made into a movie as his way of processing everything that had happened,” the actor elaborates. “You transform pain into other things as you go through life. That was all him working through it. I like stories about storytellers and I like stories within stories. Obviously, I wrote and directed a movie that starts with a 12-minute bedtime story. I love that. I know that other people don’t love it as much as I do, so I have to be careful about it.”

That kind of love led to last summer’s “Stories From Tomorrow,” a project initiated during lockdown by Affleck and his schoolteacher mom Christine, encouraging children to send in poems and short stories to be read on social media by celebrities like Matt Damon and Jon Hamm, as well as his “The World to Come” co-stars Waterston and Kirby. “That was something I started out at the very beginning of the quarantine as a small project to encourage kids to write creatively, because I know it can be a great way of processing anxiety and working through feelings that you aren’t really talking about or aren’t aware that you’re having. It wasn’t something I thought would go on forever; once the kids are back in school that ought to be where they should be doing all that kind of work. But while they were sitting at home, I thought it would be a good way to get their attention off the awful news and into something more imaginative. And I also got a chance to read all these super-cool stories! Really creative stuff that kids sent from all around the world.”

Finally, as a Boston publication it would be dereliction of duty not to mention the hysterical Dunkin Donuts commercial parody from when Affleck hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, so dead-on in its depiction of a local 'regulah customah' that on one of my critics’ poll ballots that year I tried to nominate the sketch for Best Documentary. Alas, the performer shoots down a pet theory I’ve been hanging onto ever since, that the dirtbag Boston guy in the Bruins hat is secretly a grown-up version of Affleck’s scene stealing, bug-swallowing Morgan from “Good Will Hunting.”

“I hadn’t thought about that, dude. That’s really funny. It never crossed my mind." He pauses before confiding, "I wasn’t that great on SNL… I just wasn’t all that funny on the skits, because it’s live and you’re reading the cue cards and it was my first time. But when we went to make that little pre-recorded short film of the Dunkin’ Donuts ad, I really felt like that was my wheelhouse there. I could’ve played that character in a movie. I could have gone to work and played him every single day, and I would have had a blast. That was really fun to do. I would love to do another one of those. That would be funny to see that character again.”

I bet that guy’s got some stories.

“The World To Come” is now in theaters and will be available via video on demand Tuesday, March 2.

[source]

[letterboxd]

Grand Gestures.

Casually breaking new ground for the rom-com genre, writer-director Natalie Krinsky tells Dominic Corry about creating her quietly revolutionary new film The Broken Hearts Gallery—while leading man Dacre Montgomery reveals his Letterboxd habits.

“Good, bad, ugly. The whole lot. I love reading the bad reviews. I’m all about it.” —Dacre Montgomery

An antidote to 2020 malaise if ever there was one, the upbeat, emotionally frank and unapologetically sentimental new big-screen romantic comedy The Broken Hearts Gallery is here to lift your spirits and mend your broken heart.

Blockers and Bad Education star Geraldine Viswanathan leads the film as Lucy, a New York art gallery assistant prone to hoarding physical memorabilia from past relationships. After being dumped and fired in quick succession, Lucy meet-cutes Nick (Stranger Things break-out Dacre Montgomery), an aspiring hotelier with a large empty space on his hands, in which Lucy decides to stage the titular pop-up exhibition, filled with objects representing lost loves.

Proving there are still plenty of new places to go in the well-worn rom-com genre, Krinsky’s film is generating passionate responses on Letterboxd, where fans are celebrating its contemporary sensibility. “Refreshingly modern,” writes Anne. “Diversity is easily achieved and there’s really no heteronormativity. People are just people, love is just love, and that’s what wins me over.”

“Definitely a very 2020 film,” writes Jovi. “It couldn’t have been written in the same way even ten years ago. It captures being in your twenties in the modern day perfectly.” “Bloody loved the female empowerment and the unconventional narrative and characters,” enthuses Meg.

Geraldine Viswanathan and Dacre Montgomery in ‘The Broken Hearts Gallery’.

Reading through the reviews, the most common reaction is praise for how unapologetically inclusive the film is, in a way that feels appallingly novel for a mainstream film. As Krinsky explains it, “I wanted to make a film that was reflective of the world that I see around me and the world that these characters would inhabit if they lived amongst us mortals.” Or, as Montgomery casually states, “I think it’s where we’re at in 2020 with casting and stuff.” The ease with which the film does this indicts most of modern cinema for its lack of representation.

Krinsky’s inclusive casting and characterization decisions stretch across the entire cast, encompassing that essential feature of modern rom-coms: the quirky ‘best friend’. As well as lending authenticity and personality to the leading characters’ lives, the bestie is often where the ‘com’ in rom-com comes in. The Broken Hearts Gallery has an abundance of quirksters, from Lucy’s roommates (who include Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo as saucy, serial heartbreaker Nadine) to Nick’s straight-talking BFF Marcos (a very funny Arturo Castro).

But the chemistry between the central couple is everything in romantic comedies, and The Broken Hearts Gallery benefits greatly from its fresh-faced, emerging-star leads, both of whom are Australian. “We had a rapport with each other much faster maybe than usual,” Montgomery says of his and Viswanathan’s shared background. “I haven't worked with an Australian actor or actress overseas so that was really nice. She’s a wildly talented, comedic actress. It was my first foray into this sort of genre. I was sort of shit-scared and she’s really held my hand through it.”

Geraldine Viswanathan and director Natalie Krinsky.

Krinksy, likewise, was blown away by Viswanathan’s talents, having seen her work in Blockers and Hala. “She does this great physical comedy in Blockers, and then in Hala, she plays this really vulnerable, dramatic teenage role. I was so taken by her ability to pull both of those completely different parts off. I just immediately had this feeling, which I hadn’t ever had before, of: ‘this is Lucy’. She’s got this comedic timing that is very much like Lucille Ball, it’s got this effervescence to it. She’s able to do so much without saying a word. And then she opens her mouth and it’s a gift.”

It’s no small thing for Viswanathan to have been cast as Lucy. Many an actor’s career has been made by a leading role in a romantic comedy, and—current industry upheaval notwithstanding—Viswanathan looks set to break out even further with her performance here. Montgomery’s and Krinsky’s enthusiasm for her work echoes a central theme in The Broken Hearts Gallery: when Montgomery first met with writer-director Krinsky about the film, she told him the story was somewhat inspired by the idea of seeing men support women in their careers, as Nick does with Lucy. “That was a big thing for me,” he explains, “because I have a lot of really strong women in my life that have supported me—my partner, my mum, my grandmother, so on and so forth.”

Those who know Montgomery from Stranger Things will be interested to learn why he pivoted to romantic comedy. He tells us he was looking for something diametrically opposed to his break-out performance in that show. “As a viewer, I love comedy. As an actor, can’t think of anything scarier. I function in this realm of ‘plan, prepare, do everything the way I know’. The great thing about this was it was ever-evolving. It really did force me to come out of my comfort zone.” (Montgomery will pivot again for his next role, which he says is “kind of a dream role. I can’t speak about it now… Again, it’s 180 degrees in the other direction, so it is a wild ride.”)

Krinsky is also switching things up, career-wise. The Broken Hearts Gallery is her first feature film, after cutting her teeth in television writers’ rooms (Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, 90210). She credits that environment for training her to fix storytelling problems on the fly. A story a decade in the making, Broken Hearts came from her own romantic aspirations and fears. “I had had many conversations like [the one Lucy has early in the film with Max (Utkarsh Ambudkar), where he dumps her after telling her she’s ‘a blast’]. So that certainly came from my life. I’d been fired from my job. I was moving apartments and I was going through the detritus of these past relationships and kind of trying to figure out what I was going to keep and what I was going to hold on to. You kind of pepper in those things [that are] reflective of relationships in your twenties.”

‘The Broken Hearts Gallery’ director Natalie Krinsky.

Going into the film, Krinsky was very conscious of trying to set it apart from rom-coms that have come before. “Making a good romantic comedy is actually quite difficult because it’s so well-trodden, and because there are beats that we want. We want to cheer for two people falling in love. Because of that, my philosophy going into this was very much centered around Lucy. We’ve seen a lot of romantic comedies in the past where we see a woman trying to fit herself into a mold in order to be with someone and ultimately realizing, ‘Oh, that mold isn’t who I am’. Lucy is a character who certainly has her foibles and has her anxieties and has her eccentricities, but she consistently asks the world to love her because she is weird, not despite the fact that she is weird. That messaging was really important to me.”

In another case of the film gently nudging the rom-com genre forward, it acknowledges how ridiculous grand romantic gestures can be, but still manages to include a few. Krinsky believes there is room for grand gestures in real life. “I certainly hope so. I would like a grand gesture every once in a while—wouldn’t we all? We deserve it. I’m a little bit hopelessly romantic in that way. And I will say I like the surprise. To be able to just, show up home and say, ‘I was walking around today and I saw this cactus. And I thought of you. And here it is.’ Maybe that’s not so grand, but it’s the gesture at least.”

We note that another unique aspect of The Broken Hearts Gallery is the feeling that it doesn’t seem like it’s going to live or die on whether or not the two main characters end up together. “I think they both needed to confront a little bit of who they were,” Krinksy agrees. “Which I always think is the truth about really falling in love, is that in order to have a good relationship, you need to have a good one with yourself first.”

Clearly a huge fan of the genre, we ask Krinsky to recommend her favorites from the canon. “I love some of our recent classics. When Harry Met Sally is a perfect romantic comedy. Bridget Jones’s Diary is a perfect romantic comedy. I love Clueless—even though it’s more com than rom. And then I really love some of the older ones. Broadcast News is one of my all time favorites. Going back even further two of my go-tos that hold up today are His Girl Friday and It Happened One Night. Those two, especially if you’re talking about the ‘strong female lead’, they held them in spades and that fast quippy dialogue I just really live for.”

Montgomery, meanwhile, turns out to be somewhat of a cinephile, something he cultivated as a teenager in the Australian suburbs. “I worked at McDonald’s and I spent all my money on going to [electronics and DVD store] JB Hi-Fi. That’s my childhood in a nutshell. Growing up, I was either at the cinema or in my room and spending all my money on DVDs. All my friends worked at video stores. That was kind of my jam.”

And then—mic drop—Montgomery casually shares the news that he has a secret Letterboxd account. Yes, dear reader, it appears that Dacre is a full-on ’boxd-head. “Oh yeah. I mean, that’s why I was so happy that this [interview] was coordinated. Other than obviously having a chance to talk to you just in general to chat about the platform, it’s a combination of a couple of things that I’m going to put quickly in a couple of words: obviously you can create watchlists on Disney+, Netflix and so on. But then you’ve got so many bloody platforms, all of your lists are in different spaces and all of your movies are spread out on different platforms.

“For me, the biggest role for [Letterboxd] is I can formulate everything in one place, on one platform and look at it. It’s just got so … much … stuff. If I’m up for a horror movie, but I want it set in the snow, I can log on there and it’s, like, The Thing, Hold The Dark. All these great movies. Which I love. And I can read reviews of them before or after.”

Montgomery’s partner is also on Letterboxd, as is his childhood best friend. “Every time we leave the cinema, he gets on Letterboxd and writes a review—his honest, immediate reaction to what he’s just seen. It’s the first thing he does. It’s a great outlet for him. He’s had filmmakers reach out to him, which is another lovely thing. I think a lot of the arts and creative community is actually active on that platform. My buddy just spent the $20 for the year thing and now he can see what his top actors are that he watches, what’s his most-watched decade. I love that sort of stuff. I’m such a cinephile, to be able to collate everything into one sort of succinct thing—that’s my dream.”

Naturally, we ask Montgomery to represent his home country and name-check some Aussie films and filmmakers. “Obviously I’m still quite young, but a lot of cinema like Felony, The Rover, Animal Kingdom, that whole sort of genre, like all the David Michôd films. That sort of realm, I loved growing up. Baz Luhrmann’s films, obviously. Don McAlpine, Australian cinematographer. Bruce Beresford. There’s such an amazing pedigree of actors as well, most recently, obviously the Edgertons [Joel and Nash], Ben Mendelsohn, Heath, obviously, and Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman.”

Curious to learn more about why a bona-fide star would lurk on Letterboxd where his own performances are ranked, rated and reviewed, we ask Montgomery: what does he get out of it? “I don't have this in-built bias or expectation, even though you’d think I would to kind of go, ‘Why didn’t they like that?’ I love reading the bad reviews. I’m all about it. I’m just interested to see what they engaged with. I think that’s the great thing about Letterboxd as opposed to any other platform is that I can just kind of log in under my alias and read everyone’s uninhibited dialogue that’s come out just after they’ve seen the film. And I love that. Good, bad, ugly. The whole lot. I think it’s the coolest thing ever.”

So then, the final, obvious question: has he been reading the Broken Hearts reviews? “I love to look up the Broken Hearts Gallery page. I think people are just enjoying this level of escapism. If they had the ability to go to a drive-in or to the cinema, wherever they are, people are just kind of going ‘it was so nice to get out of my house and out of my head’. It’s what any cinema tries to do, that level of escapism. I think it couldn’t have come at a better time. Once it’s done its cinematic release, it’ll be on streamers and then people can have that level of escapism who weren’t able to go to the cinema, so that’s really nice.”

Prepare yourself for The Broken Hearts Gallery by checking out this extremely thorough Letterboxd list of romantic comedies, expand your romantic comedy horizons with this list of South Korean rom-coms, and get a feel for where Letterboxd members are at, rom-com-wise, with this romantic comedy showdown.

‘The Broken Hearts Gallery’ is in theaters where possible. Dacre Montgomery’s first book of poetry will be released in October. Comments have been edited for clarity and length.

[maddie-grove]

The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2019

My main takeaways from the past year’s reading:

Sometimes you think something is happening because of magic, but then it turns out to have a non-magical explanation so weird that you find yourself saying, “You know what? I wish faeries or God were responsible for this. I’d honestly feel less disturbed.”

Stop bathing and changing your clothes and shaving for three years, three months, and three days. You’ll find out who your real friends are. I promise you that.

I want more books about bisexual ladies!!! Give them to me!!!

Anyway...

20. The Prodigal Duke by Theresa Romain (2017)

Childhood sweethearts Poppy Hayworth and Leo Billingsley were separated when his older brother, a duke, sent him away to make his fortune. Years later, the duke is dead, a financially successful Leo has come back to England to take his place, and Poppy has become a rope dancer at Vauxhall Gardens after a life-shattering event. New sparks are flying between them, but is love possible when so much else has changed? Leo and Poppy are believable and charming as old friends, Romain makes great use of obscure historical details from the oft-depicted Regency period, and I loved Leo’s difficult but caring elderly uncle.

19. Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi (1996)

Althea Winsloe, a young widow in 1900s Arkansas, has no interest in remarrying, but almost everyone in her small Ozarks community is pressuring her to remarry, and she still needs someone to help farm her land. Enter Jesse Best, a strong young man with cognitive disabilities who’s happy to take on the work. As he makes improvements to her farm and bonds with her three-year-old son, Althea gets to know him better and starts to see him in a new light. This earthy romance could’ve been a disaster, but instead it illustrates how people with disabilities are often...uh...simplified and de-sexualized in a way that denies them autonomy. Morsi has a similarly nuanced take on Althea and Jesse’s community, which is claustrophobic and supportive all at once.

18. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (2018)

Outspoken and insecure, bisexual high school senior Leah Burke is having a tough year. Her friend group is in turmoil, her single mom is seriously dating someone, and she’s caught between a sweet boy she’s not sure about and a pretty, perfect straight girl who couldn’t possibly be into her...right??? The sequel to the very cute Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat pulls a The Godfather: Part II with its messy protagonist, sweetly surprising romance, and masterful comic set piece involving the Atlanta American Girl Doll restaurant.

17. Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper (2006)

Kidnapped from her home in eighteenth-century Ghana, fifteen-year-old Amari is sold into slavery and winds up on a South Carolina plantation, where she faces terrible cruelty but finds friends in an enslaved cook, her little son, and eventually a sulky white indentured servant around her age. When their master escalates his already-atrocious behavior, the three young people flee south to the Spanish Fort Mose in search of freedom. Draper’s complicated characters, vivid descriptions, and deft handling of heavy subjects makes for top-notch historical YA fiction.

16. A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole (2019)

After her controlling politician father was jailed for poisoning a bunch of people in their small, prosperous African country, Nya Jerami gained unprecedented freedom but also became the subject of vicious gossip. Johan von Braustein, the hard-partying stepson of a European monarch, wants to help her, partly because he sympathizes and partly because he has a crush, but she thinks he’s too frivolous and horny (if wildly attractive). After an embarrassing misunderstanding compels them to enter a fake engagement, though, she begins to wonder if there’s more to him. I’m not a huge fan of contemporary romance, but this novel has the perfect combination of heartfelt emotion, delicious melodrama, and adorable fluff. 

15. One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney (1997)

Stephen, the Duke of Ashburton, has always done the proper and responsible thing, but that all changes when he learns that he’s terminally ill. Wandering the countryside in the guise of an ordinary gentleman, he ends up joining an acting troupe and falling in love with Rosalind, the sensible adopted daughter of the two lead actors. Like another Regency romance on this list, this novel celebrates love in many forms: there’s the love story between Stephen and Rosalind, yes, but there’s also Rosalind’s loving relationship with her adopted family, the new bonds she forms with her long-lost blood relatives, the way her two families embrace the increasingly frightened Stephen, and the healing rifts between Stephen and his well-meaning but distant siblings. Stephen’s reconciliation with his mortality is also moving.

14. My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes (2018)

Facing a death sentence in Newgate, footman-turned-prosperous banker Quinton Wentworth decides to do one last good thing: marry Jane McGowan, a poor pregnant widow, so she and the baby will be financially set. Then he receives a pardon and a dukedom at the literal last minute, meaning that he and Jane have a more permanent arrangement than either intended. I fell in love with the kind-but-difficult protagonists almost at once, and with Burrowes’s gorgeous prose even faster. 

13. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (2013)

It’s 1986, and comics-loving, post-punk-listening, half-Korean Park and bright, weird, constantly bullied Eleanor are just trying to get through high school in their rough Omaha neighborhood. He’s only grudgingly willing to let her share his bus seat at first, but this barely civil acquaintance slowly thaws into friendship and blossoms into love. Far from being the whimsical eighties-nostalgia-fest I expected, this is a bittersweet love story about two isolated young people who find love, belonging, and a chance for self-expression with each other in an often-hostile environment (a small miracle pre-Internet).

12. Shrill by Lindy West (2016)

In this memoir, Lindy West talks about the difficulties of being a fat woman, the thankless task of being vocally less-than-enthused about rape jokes, the joys of moving past self-doubt, and the very real possibility that Little John from Disney’s Robin Hood was played by “bear actor” Baloo, among other subjects. I was having a hard time during my last semester of law school this past spring, and this book’s giddy humor and inspiring messages really helped me in my hour of need.

11. Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood by Karina Longworth (2018)

In 1925, very young businessman Howard Hughes breezed into Hollywood with nothing but tons of family wealth, a soon-to-be-divorced wife, and a simple dream: make movies about fast planes and big bosoms. He got increasingly weird and reactionary over the next thirty years, then retired from public life. More a history of 1920s-1950s Hollywood than a biography, this book has the same sharp writing and in-depth film analysis that makes me love Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This.

10. The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan (1966)

In Civil-War-era Virginia, iron-willed Martha Farnsworth and her nervous younger sister try to run their nearly empty girls’ boarding school within earshot of a battlefield. When one girl finds Union soldier John McBurney injured in the woods, she brings him back to the house, where he exploits every conflict and secret among the eight girls and women (five students, two sisters, and one enslaved cook). Charming and manipulative, he nevertheless finds himself in over his head. Cullinan makes great use of the eight POVs and the deliciously claustrophobic setting; it’s fascinating to watch the power dynamics and allegiances shift from scene to scene.

9. A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian (2018)

Reserved tavern keeper Sam Fox wants to help out his brother’s sweetheart by finding and destroying a nude portrait she once sat for; disgraced gentleman Hartley Sedgwick isn’t sure what he wants after having his life ruined twice over, but he happened to inherit his house from the man who commissioned the painting...plus he’s not exactly reluctant to assist kind, handsome Sam in his quest. I wrote about this heart-melting romance two times last year; suffice it to say that it’s not only one of the best Regencies I’ve ever read, but also possibly the best romance I’ve ever read about the creation of a found family.

8. Frog Music by Emma Donoghue (2014)

Blanche Beunon, a French-born burlesque dancer in 1876 San Francisco, has a lot going on: her mooching boyfriend has turned on her, her sick baby is missing, and her cross-dressing, frog-hunting friend Jenny Bonnet was just shot dead right next to her. In the middle of a heat wave, a smallpox epidemic, and a little bit of mob violence, she must locate her son and solve Jenny’s murder. This is a glorious work of historical fiction; you can see, hear, smell, and feel the chaotic world of 1870s San Francisco, plus Blanche’s character arc is amazing.

7. The Patrick Melrose novels (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last) by Edward St. Aubyn (1992, 1992, 1994, 2005, and 2012, respectively)

Born to an embittered English aristocrat and an idealistic American heiress, Patrick Melrose lives through his father’s sadistic abuse and his mother’s willful blindness (Never Mind),  does a truly staggering amount of drugs in early adulthood (Bad News), and makes a good-faith effort at leading a normal life (Some Hope). Years later, the life he’s built with his wife and two sons is threatened by his alcoholism and reemerging resentment of his mother (Mother’s Milk), but there may be a chance to salvage something (At Last). Despite the suffering and cruelty on display, these novels were the farthest thing from a dismaying experience, thanks to the sharp characterization, grim humor, and great sense of setting. Also, I love little Robert Melrose, an anxious eldest child after my own heart. 

6. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope (1974)

In 1550s England, no-nonsense Kate Sutton is exiled to the Perilous Gard, a remote castle occupied by suspicious characters, including the lord’s guilt-ridden younger brother Christopher. Troubled by the holes she sees in the story of the tragedy that haunts him, she does some problem-solving and ends up in a world of weird shit. Cleverly plotted, deliciously spooky, and featuring an all-time-great heroine, this book was an absolute treat. The beautiful Richard Cuffari illustrations in my edition didn’t hurt, either.

5. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole (2019)

Daniel Cumberland, a free black man from New England traumatized from being sold into slavery, and Janeta Sanchez, a mixed-race Cuban-Floridian lady from a white Confederate family, have been sent on a mission to the Deep South by the Loyal League, a pro-Union spy organization. Initially hostile to everyone (but particularly to somewhat naive Janeta), Daniel warms to his colleague, but will her secrets, his shattered faith in justice, and the various dangers they face prevent them from falling in love? Nah. Alyssa Cole’s historical romances deliver both on the history and the romance, and this is one of her strongest entries.

4. The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite (2019)

Heartbroken by the death of her father and the marriage of her ex-girlfriend, Lucy Muchelney decides she needs a change of scenery and takes a live-in position translating a French astronomy text for Catherine St. Day, the recently widowed Countess of Moth. Catherine, used to putting her interests on hold for an uncaring spouse, is intrigued by this awkward, independent lady. I’ve read f/f romances before, but this sparkling Regency was the first to really blow me away with its fun banter, neat historical details, and perfect sexual tension.

3. The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli (2010)

After losing his entire fortune to a tidal wave, Sicilian nineteen-year-old Don Giovanni de la Fortuna sinks into poverty and near-starvation. Then Devil makes him an offer: all the money he wants for as long as he lives if he doesn’t bathe, cut his hair, shave, or change his clothes for three years, three months, and three days. This fairy-tale retelling is an extraordinarily moving fable about someone who learns to acknowledge his own suffering, recognize it in others, and extend compassion to all. 

2. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell (2013)

In this collection, Russell weaves strange tales of silkworm-women hybrids in Japan, seagulls who collect objects from the past and future, and, yes, vampires in the lemon grove. She also posits the very important question: “What if most (but not all) U.S. presidents were reincarnated as horses in the same stable and had a lot of drama going on?” My favorite stories were “Proving Up” (about a nineteenth-century Nebraska boy who encounters death and horror on the prairie), “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis” (about a disadvantaged high school student who discovers an effigy of the even more hapless boy he tormented), and “The Barn at the End of the Term” (the horse-president story). 

1. The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (2016)

Lib Wright, an Englishwoman who has floundered since her days working for Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, is hired to observe Anna O’Donnell, an eleven-year-old Irish girl famous for not eating for four straight months. With a jaundiced attitude towards the Irish and Catholicism, Lib is confident that she’ll quickly expose Anna as a fraud, but she finds herself liking the girl and getting increasingly drawn into the disturbing mystery of her fast. Like The Perilous Gard, this novel masterfully plays with the possibility of the supernatural, then introduces a technically mundane explanation that’s somehow much more eerie. Donoghue balances the horror and waste that surrounds Anna, though, with the clear, bright prose and the moving relationship that develops between her and Lib, who grows beyond her narrow-mindedness and emotional numbness. I stayed up half the night to finish this novel, which cemented Emma Donoghue’s status as my new favorite author.