#i mean. having a living history book and not asking questions???? boo | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bailey-writes · 4 years

Text

So You Want Your OC to be Jewish

So you’re writing a story and you want to make a Jewish character—great! I’m here to help. I always want more Jewish representation but I want good Jewish representation, so this is my attempt to make a guide to making a Jewish character. What are my credentials? I’m Jewish and have been my whole life. Obligatory disclaimer that this is by no means comprehensive, I don’t know everything, all Jews are different, and this is based on my experiences as an American Jew so I have no idea, what, if any, of this applies to non-American Jews.

If there’s anything you want me to make a post going more into detail about or if there’s anything I didn’t mention but you want to know please ask me! I hope this is helpful :) Warning, this is long.

Jew PSA

If you are Jewish you can use the word Jew(s), e.g. “She’s dating a Jew.” If you are not Jewish you cannot use the word Jew(s). This is not up for debate. Non-Jews calling us Jews has a negative connotation at best. Don’t do it and don’t have your characters do it.

Basics, Plus My Random Thoughts that Didn’t Fit Anywhere Else

A confusing enduring issue is, what is Judaism? It’s a religion, but some Jews aren’t religious; is it a race? A nationality? A culture? A heritage? The only constant is that we are seen as “other.” There’s a lot of debate, which makes it confusing to be Jewish and as such it’s common for Jews to struggle with their Jewish Identity. However many people agree that Jews are an ethnoreligious group, aka Judaism is a religion and an ethnicity.

Temple/Synagogue/Shul = Jewish place of worship. Shul is usually used for Orthodox synagogues.

Keeping kosher = following Jewish dietary rules: meat and dairy can’t be eaten together and you can’t eat pork or shellfish. Fish and eggs are pareve (aka neutral) and can be eaten with meat or dairy (but again not both at the same time.) When eating meat it has to be kosher meat (e.g. kosher Jews are allowed to eat chicken, but not all chicken is kosher. I know it’s kinda confusing I’m sorry.) Kosher products in stores will have symbols on them to identify them as kosher. If someone is kosher they’ll probably have separate sets of utensils/plates/cookware/etc. for meat and dairy

Shabbat/Shabbos/Sabbath = holy day of the week, day of rest, lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Depending on observance Jews might have Shabbat dinner, attend Shabbat services, or observe the day of rest in its entirety (making them shomer Shabbat)

Someone who is shomer Shabbat will refrain from any of the prohibited activities. These can easily be looked up but include: working, writing, handling money, cooking, and using technology.

Bat/Bar/B’nai Mitvzah = tradition where a Jewish boy/girl becomes a man/woman. Celebrated at 13-years-old for boys, 12- or 13-years-old for girls. Girls have Bat Mitzvahs (bat means daughter in Hebrew), boys have Bar Mitzvahs (bar means son in Hebrew) and twins or two or more people having one together have a B’nai Mitzvah. They will study for this for months and then help lead services and, depending on observance level, read from the Torah. The ceremony is often attended by family and friends and followed with a celebration of sorts (in America usually this means a brunch and/or party.)

Goy/gentile = non-Jew. These words are not slurs, they are literally just words. Plural of goy is goyim and is a Yiddish word, plural of gentile is gentiles.

Jewish holidays follow the Hebrew calendar, meaning that according to the current solar/Gregorian calendar the dates of our holidays are different each year.

Jewish law recognizes matrilineal inheritance. This means that Jewish law states your mother has to be Jewish for you to be Jewish. This is because of reasons from biblical times that I can explain if you wanna come ask, but as you can imagine is a bit outdated. While Orthodox Jews might embrace this idea and only consider someone Jewish if their mom is Jewish, many Jews are more flexible on the idea (and yes, this does cause tension between Orthodox Jews and other Jews at times.)

Judaism =/= Christianity

Some people think Judaism is just Christianity without Jesus (some people don’t even realize we don’t believe in/celebrate Jesus so newsflash, we don’t) and that’s just wrong. Yes both religions share the Old Testament, so they also share some history and beliefs, but the entire ideologies of the religions are different. In brief, they are similar in some ways but are not the same.

What seems to me to be the biggest difference is that Christianity (from what I understand) has a heavy focus on sins, more specifically repenting for/gaining forgiveness for your sins. In Christianity you are born tainted by original sin. In Judaism we believe everyone is born pure and free from sin and everyone is made in God’s image. Judaism has some concept of sin, but doesn’t focus on them and instead focuses on performing Mitzvot (plural, singular form is mitzvah. Direct translation is “commandment” but basically means good deed or act of kindness. It also relates to the commandments, so following the commandments is also performing mitzvot.) Examples of mitzvot include anything from saying a prayer or lighting Shabbat candles to helping a stranger or donating to charity (called tzedakah). One of the main tenets of Judaism is tikkun olam, which directly translates to “repair the world” and means exactly what it says on the tin. Instead of focusing on being forgiven for doing bad Judaism focuses on doing good. The only day we focus on past wrongdoings is Yom Kippur, one of our most holy holidays, discussed below.

Holidays

Rosh Hashanah – The Jewish New Year, occurs around September and lasts for two days, though Reform Jews often only celebrate the first day. Day of happiness and joy, celebrated by eating sweet things for a “sweet new year” (often apples dipped in honey) and circular challah to represent the end of one year and beginning of another. Also celebrated with services and blowing the shofar (rams horn.) Some spend the day in prayer and/or silent meditation. Possible greetings: chag sameach (happy holiday; can be said on almost any holiday), Shana Tovah, or happy new year (which is what Shana Tovah means, some people just say it in English.)

Yom Kippur – Day of Atonement. Occurs ten days after the start of Rosh Hashanah. One of if not the most solemn day for Jews, but also the most holy. The day is spent reflecting on yourself and any past wrongdoings and atoning. The day (sundown the night before to sundown the day of) is spent fasting, a physical way of atoning. We do this in hopes of being “written in the Book of Life” and starting the year with a clean slate. The shofar is blown at the end of the holiday. Most Jews will end the fast with a grand meal with family and friends. Most common greeting is “have an easy fast,” but happy new year is still appropriate.

Sukkot – Celebrates the harvest, occurs on the fifth day after Yom Kippur and lasts seven days. Celebrated by building a temporary hut outdoors called a sukkah and having meals inside it, as well as shaking palm fronds tied together (called a lulav) and holding a citrus called an etrog. Very fun and festive holiday. Possible greetings include chag sameach or Happy Sukkot.

Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah – Some Jews (mostly Reform Jews and Jews living in Israel) combine both holidays into one day while some celebrate them as two separate days. Either way they occur immediately after Sukkot. Shemini Atzeret is similar but separate from Sukkot and features a prayer for rain; Sukkot is not mentioned in prayers and the lulav isn’t shaken but you do eat in the sukkah. Simchat Torah celebrates finishing reading the Torah, which we will then begin again the next day. It’s a festive holiday with dancing and fun. Some Temples will roll the entire Torah out and the children will run under it. Appropriate greeting for both would be chag sameach.

Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah are referred to as the High Holidays.

Chanukah – We all know about Chanukah, celebrating the reclaiming of the Second Temple and the miracle of the oil lasting eight days. The most represented Jewish Holiday there is. Unfortunately it’s one of the least significant holidays for us. Occurs around November or December and lasts eight days and nights. Celebrated by lighting candles in the Menorah each night with a prayer and kids usually get gifts each night. Also celebrated with spinning tops called dreidels, fried foods like doughnuts (sufganiyot in Hebrew; usually the jelly filled ones) and potato pancakes called latkes. Greetings: happy Chanukah or chag sameach.

Tu B’Shevat – Birthday of the trees, basically Jewish Arbor Day. Minor but fun holiday, sometimes celebrated by planting trees. Occurs around January or February.

Purim – Celebrates how Queen Esther of Persia defeated Haman and saved her people, the Jews. Occurs in Spring. Festive holiday traditionally celebrated by dressing in costumes, eating sweets, and giving tzedakah (it’s also technically commanded you get drunk so woohoo!) Whenever Haman’s name is mentioned you make a lot of noise, booing and using noisemakers called groggers. Greetings: happy Purim, chag Purim, or chag sameach.

Passover/Pesach – Celebrates the Jews being freed from slavery in Egypt. Occurs in Spring and lasts eight days. The first two nights (some only celebrate the first night) are celebrated with seder, a ritual meal with certain foods, practices, prayers, and readings from a book called the Haggadah and often attended by family and friends. Most famous prayer/song of the holiday is the four questions, which ask why that night is different from all other nights and is traditionally sung by the youngest child at the seder. The entire holiday is spent not eating certain foods, mostly grain or flour (the food restrictions are complicated and differ based on denomination so look it up or ask a Jew.) We eat a lot of matzah during Pesach, which is like a cracker kinda. I personally hate it but some people actually like it. Greetings: happy Passover, chag pesach, or chag sameach.

Tisha B’Av – Anniversary of the destruction of the Temple. Occurs in Summer. Very sad, solemn day. Some celebrate by fasting from sunrise to sunset. Not the most widely celebrated holiday. Some also commemorate the Holocaust (also called the Shoah) on this day as it was the destruction of a figurative temple.

Denominations

There are a bunch of denominations in Judaism, we’ll go into it briefly.

Religious denominations:

Reform/Reformed: This is the least religiously observant level. Often Reform Jews don’t keep kosher or observe Shabbat, their services on Shabbat will use instruments. Reform Jews probably attend services for the high holidays at the very least and probably had a Bat/Bar Mitzvah. Might say they consider themselves more culturally Jewish. Their Temple/Synagogue will be the most “liberal”—aka have more female/diverse Rabbis and a more diverse congregation. I’m Reform and my Temple’s lead Rabbi is a woman and we used to have a Rabbi who’s a queer single mother.

Conservative: More religiously observant and more generally traditional. Might keep kosher or observe Shabbat, but not necessarily. Services likely won’t use instruments (not supposed to play instruments on Shabbat). Most likely had a Bat/Bar Mitzvah, but girls might not read from the Torah, though this depends on the congregation. They do allow female Rabbis, but in my experience it’s less common.

Modern Orthodox: Very religiously observant but also embrace modern society. Will keep kosher and observe Shabbat. Men will wear kippot (singular=kippah) and tzitzit under their shirts. Women will cover their hair (if they’re married), most likely with a wig, and wear modest clothing (only wear skirts that are at least past their knees and long sleeves). Emphasis on continued study of Torah/Talmud. Parents will likely have jobs. Might have larger families (aka more children) but might not. Services will be segregated by gender, girls won’t read from the Torah publicly, and female Rabbis are very rare. Children will most likely attend a religious school. Will attend shul services every Shabbat and for holidays.

note: there are some people who fall somewhere between modern Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox, or between any two denominations really. as you can imagine people don’t all practice the exact same way.

Ultra-Orthodox: Very religiously observant and not necessarily modern. Will keep kosher and observe Shabbat. Men will wear kippot or other head coverings and tzitzit under their shirts, and are also often seen wearing suits. Women will cover their hair (if they’re married) with a wig or scarf and wear modest clothing (only wear skirts that are at least past their knees and long sleeves). Emphasis on continued study of Torah/Talmud. Men might have jobs but might instead focus on Jewish studies, while women most often focus on housework and child-rearing. Don’t believe in contraception (but this is kinda nuanced and depends). Will often have very large families because having children is a commandment and helps continue the Jewish people. Might be shomer negiah which means not touching members of the opposite sex aside from their spouse and some close family members. Services will be segregated by gender, girls won’t read from the Torah publicly, and there won’t be female Rabbis. Children will attend a religious school. Will attend shul services every Shabbat and for holidays.

Ethnic denominations (the different denominations do have some differences in practices and such but tbh I don’t know much about that so this is just the basics):

Ashkenazi: Jews that originate from Central/Eastern Europe. Yiddish, a combination of Hebrew and German, originated from and was spoken by Ashkenazim and while it’s a dying language it’s spoken among many Orthodox Jews and many Jews of all levels know/speak some Yiddish words and phrases. Majority of Jews worldwide are Ashkenazi.

Sephardi/Sephardic: Jews that originate from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and southeastern Europe. Ladino, a combination of Old Spanish and Hebrew, originated from and was spoken by Sephardim. It is also a dying language but is still spoken by some Sephardim. After Ashkenazi most of the world’s Jews are Sephardic.

Mizrahi: Jews that originate from the Middle East and North Africa.

Ethiopian Jews: Community of Jews that lived in Ethiopia for over 1,000 years, though most have immigrated to Israel by now.

Stereotypes/Tropes/Controversies/Etc.

There are so many Jewish stereotypes and shit and I ask you to please be mindful of them. Stereotypes do exist for a reason, so some people will fit stereotypes. This means your character might fit one or two; don’t make them fit all of them. Please. Stereotypes to keep in mind (and steer away from) include:

All Jews are rich.

All Jews are greedy.

All Jews are cheap/frugal.

All Jews are [insert job here]. We’ll go into this more below.

All Jews hate Christians/Muslims/etc.

All Jews are white.

First of all Ethiopian and Mizrahi Jews exist, many Sephardi are Hispanic, and today with intermarriage and everything this just isn’t true.

All Jews have the same physical features: large and/or hooked nose, beady eyes, droopy eyelids, red hair (this is an old stereotype I didn’t really know existed), curly hair.

Many Jews do have somewhat large noses and curly hair. I’m not saying you can’t give these features to your characters, but I am saying to be careful and don’t go overboard. And don’t give all of your Jewish characters these features. As a side note, it is common at least among American Jews that girls get nose jobs. Not all, but some.

Jews are secretly world elite/control the world/are lizard people/new world order/ any of this stuff.

STAY AWAY FROM. DO NOT DO THIS OR ANYTHING LIKE THIS. If you have a character that’s part lizard, do not make them Jewish. If you have a character that’s part of a secret group that controls the entire world, do not make them Jewish.

Jews have horns. If you have characters with horns please don’t make them Jewish.

Jews killed Jesus.

The blood libel. Ew. No.

The blood libel is an antisemitic accusation/idea/concept that back in the day Jews would murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals and sometimes even for consumption (did I mention gross?) Not only did this just not happen, but it’s actually against Jewish law to murder, sacrifice, or consume blood. Yes these accusations really happened and it became a main reason for persecution of Jews. And some people still believe this shit.

Jews caused The Plague.

The reason this conspiracy exists is because many Jews didn’t get The Plague and the goyim thought that meant it was because the Jews caused it/cursed them. The real reason Jews didn’t get it is because ritual hand-washing and good hygiene kept them from getting it. Sorry that we bathe.

Jewish mother stereotype.

Ok, listen. I know stereotypes are mostly a bad thing but I have to admit the Jewish mother stereotype is not far off. Jewish moms do tend to be chatty and a little nagging, are often very involved in their children’s lives, and they are often trying to feed everyone (although they don’t all cook, my mom hates cooking.) They also tend to be big worriers, mostly worrying about their family/loved ones. They also tend to know everyone somehow. A twenty minute trip to the grocery store can turn into an hour or two long trip because she’ll chat with all the people she runs into.

Jewish-American Princess (JAP) ((I know calling Japanese people Japs is offensive. Jews will call girls JAPs, but with a completely different meaning. If that’s still offensive I am sorry, but just know it happens.))

This is the stereotype that portrays Jewish girls/women as spoiled brats basically. They will be pampered and materialistic. Do these girls exist? Definitely. I still recommend steering away from this stereotype.

Names

Listen. Listen. There are some names that Jews just won’t have. I won’t speak in definites because there are always exceptions but you’ll rarely find a Jew named Trinity or Grace or Faith or any form of Chris/Christopher/Christina etc. Biblical names from the Old Testament? Absolutely Jews will have those names they’re actually very common.

I’m in a Jewish Sorority. My pledge class of ~70 girls had five Rebeccas and four Sarahs. Surprisingly only one Rachel though.

When it comes to last names I have two thoughts that might seem contradictory but hear me out: a) give your Jewish OC’s Jewish surnames, b) don’t give your Jewish OC’s the most Jewish surname to ever exist.

By this I mean I would much rather see a character named Sarah Cohen or Aaron Levine than Rachel Smith. Just that little bit of recognition makes a happy exclamation point appear over my head, plus it can be a good way to hint to readers that your OC is Jewish.

On the other hand, please don’t use the most stereotypical Jewish names you’ve ever heard. If you have five Jewish OCs and one of them is Isaac Goldstein then fine. If Isaac Goldstein is your only Jewish OC I might get a little peeved. There are tons of common Jewish surnames that are recognizable and easy to look up, so don’t revert to the first three that come to mind. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it yucky, for lack of a better word.

Jobs

We all know there are certain jobs that are stereotypical for Jews to have. We’re talking lawyer, dentist, doctor, banker type stuff. To an extent these stereotypes exist for a reason, many Jews go into those careers. Do not make these the only careers your Jewish OCs have. Stereotypes might have reasoning behind them but it doesn’t mean they aren’t harmful. If you have multiple Jewish OCs some of them can have these careers, but not all of them. I do know a lot of Jewish lawyers, dentists, and doctors. I also know accountants, people involved in businesses (“mom, what does Brad do?” “he’s a businessman” sometimes there just aren’t more specific words), people involved in real estate. I don’t actually know any bankers personally, and with money and stuff being one of the most common and harmful Jewish stereotypes I would suggest steering away from that.

These are common fields for Jews, but Jews can have literally any job. Please feel free to get creative. And if you have more than one Jewish OC you can think about making one of them a Rabbi, but DON’T do this if they’re the only Jewish OC. Please.

Yiddish

So I mentioned Yiddish earlier. Like I already said, it’s not a very widely used language anymore but there are some words and phrases that are still used by a lot of Jews (in America at least.) Here’s a list that is absolutely not comprehensive:

Oy vey = oh no

Shvitzing = sweating (but not just a little bit. Shvitzing is like SWEATING)

Kvetch/kvetching = whine/whining or complain/complaining

Mazel tov = congratulations; this is the same in Yiddish and Hebrew

Chutzpah = nerve or gall (e.g. “He’s got a lot of chutzpah for breaking up over text like that”)

Kismet = fate; I just learned this is Yiddish

Bubbe and Zayde = grandma and grandpa

Schelp/schlepping = drag/dragging, can also mean carry or move (e.g. “I had to schlep the bag all around town” doesn’t mean they literally dragged it)

Schmutz = dirt or something dirty (e.g. “you have schmutz on your face”)

Schmatta = literally means rag but can be used to refer to ratty blankets or clothes

Plotz = collapse (usually used in the sense of “I’m so tired I might plotz” or “she’s gonna be so excited she’s gonna plotz”)

Schmuck/shmendrick = both mean more or less the same, a jerk or obnoxious person

Shtick = gimmick, routine, or act (can be used like (“I don’t like that comedian’s shtick” or “he always makes himself the center of attention it’s his shtick”)

Spiel = long speech, story, or rant

There’s so many more so look them up and think about using them, but don’t overdo it. A Jewish person isn’t gonna use a Yiddish word in every sentence (or even every day or every few days.)

Israel

In my community at least it’s very common that by the time your college-aged that you’ll have been to Israel at least once.

Israel is a controversial topic within the Jewish community and in the world. It’s sensitive and complex. I really, really suggest not getting into it. Just don’t bring it up because no matter what you say someone will be unhappy. Just don’t do it.

Ashkenazi Disorders

Ashkenazi Jews have some sucky genes (I’m Ashkenazi so I can say this, you cannot.) These sucky genes cause certain disorders to be more prevalent for us. Children only get the disorder if both parents are carriers of the disorder, so Jews usually get genetic testing done before having children. If both parents are carriers the risk of the child getting the disorder is high, so parents might reconsider or have some indecisiveness/fear. Some of these are:

Tay-Sachs

Cystic Fibrosis

Canavan Disease

Familial Dysautonomia

Gaucher Disease

Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Fanconi Anemia

Mucolipidosis IV

Niemann-Pick Disease

Torsion Dystonia

Bloom Syndrome

Ashkenazi Jews also have a high prevalence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women and increase the risk of breast and prostate cancer in men.

Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and Lactose Intolerance are also very prevalent

In a dorm of like 40 Jews, six of them had Crohn’s.

Ways to Show Your OC is Jewish

Wears Jewish jewelry, e.g. Star of David (also called Jewish Star and Magen David), Chai symbol (means life), jewelry with Sh’ma prayer, or hamsa (but beware this symbol is used outside of Judaism).

Mentions their temple, their Rabbi, having a Bat/Bar Mitzvah, going to Hebrew School, Shabbat, or a holiday coming up.

Have someone ask them a question about Judaism.

Have someone notice they have a mezuzah on their door.

Most Jews will have a mezuzah on the doorframe of the front door of their house/apartment, but they could even have one for their dorm room or whatever. It’s traditional to kiss your hand then touch the mezuzah when walking through the door, but most Jews don’t do this every time, at least not most Reform or Conservative Jews.

Have them call out antisemitism if you’re feeling spicy

The end! I hope this helped and if you have any questions my ask box is always open!

#writing advice #writing tips #writing help #jewish characters #judaism #writing resources #writeblr community #wtwcommunity #i said i would make this post literally months ago but i finally did it!

13K notes · View notes

oasis-for3v3r · 3 years

Text

Cloud 9 <3

Prompt-reader is a famous singer and performs her first live performance with David Bowie, doing a duet of Under Pressure on Live Aid

David Bowie x Reader Platonic Pairing @laneofpennies @a-none-bee @angelofhell323

Warnings: none unless you count descriptions of nervousness. And a lengthy fic

Okay, let’s do it.

Was the first thing you said to yourself. At eight am. On a Saturday. In the middle of July. You usually be sleeping until 2pm on weekends since you were usually so busy on the weekdays. Being Englands new up- and- coming musician is all.

“Ow!” you said as your foot slipped on something and stubbed your toe on the edge of the dresser. You bit back a mirad of curses as you picked up the foul weapon.

Oh.

Sky Heavens- Head in the Clouds. Your first album. Of course. You were lucky enough to get one from the store. Nearly all of the record shops were sold out. You should be happy, I mean sales were doing great, and as for the royalties-

Oh my gosh how has it ben 25 minutes already?!.

It was a very important day for you.. you were preforming for your first crowd ever. So of course you were excited. but more nervous because, it was your first time. And you had terrible stage fright. And you were doing a duet with David Bowie. Oh you almost forgot.

Your first performance was gonna be Live Aid.

As you tucked in your fancy bell-sleeved bloused you asked yourself a string of questions. For example:

How in the hell did you get into live aid?

What song were you gonna sing with David, er Mr.Bowie?

Were there gonna be high notes? Could you even hit them?

Am i dressing too casual?

Oh my gosh, were going after Queen.

Your final though was punctuated with a hailing of a cab. You felt dizzy after you entered the car so you focused on the horizon, which made your eyes get heavier and heavier until...

“Ma’am this is a cab not a daycare” the driver grunted.

Your head snapped up, wiping the drool off off your chin. You have got to stop making this a habit. You scolded to yourself.

Every time your legs hit the ground of Wembely Stadium, you could feel the muscles in your leg turn into jelly. Your heartbeat is playing the percussion. And your pretty sure that your haven’t taken a breath since coming out of the cab.

You finally taken a breather when you hear commotion coming from the nearest hallway. You saw so many stars you could’ve swore you were in space. You saw Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, Brian May, (you couldn’t find John Deacon) Adam Ant was sitting on a couch reading a magazine. Next to him was Elvis Costello sticking straws down his hair, you were about to laugh when-

“Boo!”

“Jesus!”

“No this is David.” joked a lanky man with blond hair, and a pastel blue suit, matching your all white outfit (with a pale blue headband) making you too look like the color of the sky.

“Mr.Bow- David, hi!” you exclaimed, trying to sound as cheery as possible.

He hesitated for a moment looking in your eyes as if searching for something only for a moment. “Come into my trailer, i need to talk to you.” he says softly.

You followed him into what looked like a portal to the personification of serenity. There were books piled on top of a small table. A kettle burning on low. With not surprisingly, a pile of teacups littered on top of the counter. You also noticed (on nosier inspection) small annotations scribbled in the corners.

“Y/N!!”

“YES” you exclaimed, jumping slightly. You have got to start paying more attention to your surroundings.

“Tell me whats on your mind, and be honest” his voice was filled with concern, but somehow still comforting.

You took a breath- seventh one today. And started:

“ I feel like everyone will be disappointed, when they see me. All I ever wanted to do was make music that someone will relate to and find comfort in. And now that I have that, which I am very grateful for, I have to handle the price of fame as well. People put celebrities on pedestals and if they make one mistake in the public eye the pedestal crumbles. And don’t even get me started on the media. And today one of the biggest days in history, and if I do bad, then i will not only disappoint myself but the families in Africa who are relying on me to succeed. And-”

“Y/N” David said sternly “Calm down, you will be fine.” He took a breather and said.” You remind me of myself when I was younger, a shy little Capricorn boy, I just wanted to make music, and the fame tagged along. Its what happens eventually. I just used theatrics to cover up the stage fright.” “Now I just focus on the crowd as if they were one person and give them ll the light I have.”

“As for you when singing Under Pressure with me- while singing Freddie’s part- I want you to take all of the audience’s energy, make it into light and give it towards the sky.” “Give everybody hope.”

Just then you heard.a knock at the trailer. it was time for you to get ready.

You watched as Queen rocked the show. This was gonna be hard for you to follow up. You felt like this performance was gonna be talked about for decades. You felt pity for the future generations that wont get to see this.

You watched with butterflies in your stomach, as you saw David perform TVC 15 which bleed into Rebel Rebel. You smiled with fondness, as the corners of your mouth twitched,(which happened often when you’re nervous). When you were turned around.

Moustace, Freddie Mercury.

“Hello, Darling. You’re going up next with Under Pressure, right?”

“Y-Yes ” you were shaking

“ Well don’t fuck it up darling. And make everyone proud.” He said with a smile (that was also in his eyes)

You nodded, and he turned you back around. Just in time for you to be handed a microphone and introduced by David.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage-for the first time ever- Sky Heavens!!!”

You heard more applause than you expected. But then again it was your very first time ;)

You heard the beginning of the song, and you knew you had no time to be nervous as you started:

Mmm num ba de Dum bum ba be Doo buh dum ba beh beh

Then together-

Pressure pushing down on me Pressing down on you, no man ask for Under pressure that burns a building down Splits a family in two Puts people on streets

Um ba ba be Um ba ba be De day da Ee day da- that's okay

So far you have just been looking at the horizon, seeing the sun begin its descent, little by little.

It's the terror of knowing what this world is about Watching some good friends screaming, "Let me out!" Pray tomorrow gets me higher Pressure on people, people on streets

This is for peace and hope in Africa.

Chipping around, kick my brains around the floor These are the days it never rains but it pours Ee do ba be Ee da ba ba ba Um bo bo People on streets Ee da de da de People on streets

This is for anyone who has felt stress for being themselves

It's the terror of knowing what this world is about Watching some good friends screaming, 'Let me out' Pray tomorrow gets me higher, high Pressure on people, people on streets

The sun was setting now, making the crowd look like angels and your outfit dipped in the sun. David was looking at you with the biggest grin on his face as if seeing his child gain confidence. The high note was coming, and you were ready.

Take all the Audiences Energy

Turned away from it all like a blind man

Make it into light

Sat on a fence but it don't work

Give it towards the sky

Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn

Give everybody hope

Why, why, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

That was the highest note you had ever hit. The energy that the crowd was giving you was electric. You felt unstoppable.

Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking

David was practically yelling into the mic, as he felt unstoppable with you too.

Can't we give ourselves one more chance? Why can't we give love that one more chance? Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?

Because love's such an old-fashioned word And love dares you to care for The people on the (People on streets) edge of the night And love (People on streets) dares you to change our way of Caring about ourselves This is our last dance This is our last dance This is ourselves under pressure Under pressure Under pressure Pressure

On the final word you hugged David, he shouted in your ear so you hear him over the roaring crowd. “YOU DID IT LOVE!!! IM SO PROUD OF YOU111″

You look over his shoulder to see Freddie Mercury.

Clapping.

For You.

You felt as if there was the sun poured inside of you. As if you were weightless. You found your new home; on Cloud 9.

#david bowie #freddie mercury #liveaid #live aid #80s music #icon #first look #fanfic #writerscommunity #proof #oc #david bowie x reader #freddie mercury x reader #queen #love #under pressure #vanilla ice

164 notes · View notes

bamfdaddio · 3 years

Text

X-Men Abridged: 1978

The X-Men, those take-me-to-the-ballgame mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 109 - 116) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Tony Dezuniga

Yes, the plan here is to toss Kurt at Magneto and yes, it’s objectively the best panel of 1978. (X-Men 113)

If the X-Men were a tv-show, the Phoenix mending the M’Kraan Crystal would probably have been the finale of season 1 of X-Men: the New Generation. Now that we’ve had this big finish, Claremont takes his time to sow new plot seeds and navigate his team of merry mutants in new directions. Compared to 1977, 1978 is a lot more laid back, with smaller arcs and more character moments.

Take the first two issues of the year, for example. The victorious X-Men come home from their space capers and for a moment, all is well. Ororo is a plant mommy, Kurt is a grade-A cutey and Jean comes out to her parents as the Phoenix. (Intrigued? Read more here.) And, because Moira going back home to Scotland, the X-Men say goodbye to her through… a baseball game! (Which, I guess if you’re comic book character bound by the comic book code, is the next best thing to just getting drunk together.)

It’s all very straight-edge wholesome.

Lilandra is very absent: I’m assuming she is sleeping off the space jetlag somewhere. idk

Sure, there’s still a few action-packed B-plots: a fight scene is mandatory in a comic book, after all. Weapon Alpha tries to claim Wolverine in the name of the Canadian government and some nobody named Warhawk sneaks into the mansion as a phone repairman to rig the Danger Room into a Death Trap.

(Look, you have a danger room. Why are you calling phone repairmen? During breakfast, did Charles go around the table, asking anyone if they wanted to fix the phone and everyone was like “nnnnnno, I am le tired”.)

Anyway, how would you unwind after a baseball game? Scott has an awesome idea! (I'm betting Scott would have embraced the Comics Code.)

This is the one issue not drawn by John Byrne this year. Dezuniga does a fine enough job, but Jean using her powers looks like she’s barfing psy-energy all over the place. (X-Men 110)

Warhawk traps the rest of the X-Men in the Danger Room. Wolverine gets a moment to shine as the team’s rogue, finally getting a win after getting knocked on his ass lately. Also, Kurt calls Warhawk Krieghabicht. (Hee.) Jean, meanwhile, is startled because despite her phenomenal powers, she was taken out so easily. She makes the formal choice to rejoin the X-Men.

And the next time we see them… THE X-MEN HAVE VANISHED? (yes, i know this sentence contradicts itself, shut up)

We find Beast at a circus in Texas, investigating their disappearance while on a sabbatical from the Avengers. See, Lorna called him because Havok was kidnapped in Scotland and the X-Men did not pick up, so she called good ole Hank McCoy. We know Charles is honeymooning with Lilandra, so where are the X-Men?

Cerebro leads Hank to a circus and, dude, for someone who’s supposed to be a genius, you draw the conclusion that these are the brainwashed X-Men way too slowly.

I by no means wish to belittle Storm’s situation, but Wolverine is in equally skimpy clothing while chained the fuck up, Beast. Can’t spare a little sympathy for him? (X-Men 111)

Beast continues being the worst detective mutantkind has ever known: even Jean, who’s currently a cigarette smoking trapeze artist named Miz Destiny, barely convinces him that these are the X-Men. When Beast finally confronts the Ring Leader, it turns out to be… Mesmero!

This pose: appropriate for a super villain or suitable for a Harlequin novel cover? Especially with all this talk about enthralling? (X-Men 112)

Apparently Mesmero doesn’t give a fuck that half these X-Men aren’t the same X-Men that fought him before. Revenge is a dish best served cold and to the wrong table, apparently. Beast fighting ole Messy causes Wolverine to spring free from his hypnotic influence. Wolvie proceeds to slap Jean out of it (literally) and they free the rest of the X-Men. But when they come and confront Mesmero in his little circus wagon, their villain is knocked out…

By Magneto.

dun dun DUN

Magneto proceeds to kidnap them, like this:

Magneto, who has no patience for narrative baggage, also yeets out Mesmero over the Andes, no big deal (X-Men 112)

Just like Mesmero, Magneto wants misplaced revenge. Instead of exacting vengeance on Charles, Moira and the Defenders involved in (literally) infantilizing him - no, seriously, he was a baby - Magneto comes for these All-New X-Men. (Look, logic has never been one of Magneto’s super powers.)

He takes the X-Men to his secret base below the South Pole, tucked away under a literal volcano. (He really should be on the tourist board for Amazing Antarctica, this is his third base there.) The X-Men, after they have safely landed, attack him, but they are tossed around like rag dolls, falling one by one - even the Phoenix.

Jean does have the right idea, though: it’s my theory that the key to defeating Magneto is being equally dramatic and hammy. (X-Men 112)

Somewhere on a cruise ship, Charles loses contact with the X-Men and proceeds to do absolutely nothing about it. Damn, but Elizabeth Taylor Lilandra must have some pretty choice moves in bed.

YOU COULD TRY FINDING OUT, CHARLES. (X-Men 113)

When the X-Men wake up, they're bound by Nanny, a robotic… uh, nanny! And Magneto unveils his revenge: he has scrambled the X-Men’s brains: they are fully conscious, but are trapped, powerlessly in their bodies, which won’t follow the instructions of their brains. It’s as if they’re the minds of adults, trapped in the bodies of infants - just like Magneto was. (He does not succumb to an evil laughter, but he’s definitely drifting into Evil Overlord territory.)

Look, a lot of this is very silly. Magneto hasn’t really been codified by Claremont yet: he’s still very much the sixties super villain and he doesn’t have his Holocaust-past yet. His motivations don’t make much sense: it’s never made clear why he needs the base, for example, or why he doesn’t just kill the X-Men. And yet, he seems more menacing than he used to be. Might be because these X-Men actually have a hard time beating him.

A lot of this era works like that. There’s the occasionally very silly trappings of a superhero comic, but there’s also glimmers of exceptional writing. Take the following scene, for example, which I’ll just include in its entirety, because fuck it. Storm is trying to break free, on the flimsy premise that she was a highly advanced baby who had the motor skills of a toddler. (I’ve met babies. They basically eat, sleep and poop. They can’t really do this.) And yet? This scene kind of works.

Like, the fact that this scene works despite the fact that Magneto thought to give his Nanny-robot a sixties copper bob-cut and a aluminium French maid headpiece is a testament to effective writing. (Also to Magneto’s attention to detail.) (X-Men 113)

No worries, Storm succeeds the second time she attempts this.

Together, the now free team manages to almost defeat Magneto, but Phoenix grows a little too zealous, destroying precious machinery. It proves to be their undoing: the roof to the base cracks open, letting lava in. Things grow dire and Magneto gets the nope out of there.

The lava turns on the heat and the team gets split up. Phoenix escapes together with Beast, and they both collapse into the freezing snow in the Arctic. A helicopter saves them, but what about the rest of the team? Are they dead?!

They’re dead enough for Professor X, and I really have questions about the effectiveness of Cerebro. After a brief mourning period, Beast rejoins the Avengers. But what really happened to the X-Men? Well, they fled into the Savage Land!

So, are we getting a sexy costume change with every new locale and/or story arc? What is this, Charmed? (X-Men 114)

The Savage Land plot is… kind of messy and confusing? First, Storm is attacked by Sauron (yay!) and he even hypnotizes Wolverine and uses his love for Jean against him (ew!), but as soon as Karl Lykos gains control again (boo!), he explains how he

Did not fall to his death;

Is suppressing his pterodactyl side (ain’t we all);

allied himself with the Savage Landers.

Then Ka-Zar, Marvel´s discount!Tarzan, explains how someone named Zaladane transformed a hapless innocent into Garruk, the Petrified Man, who is some sort of… living god? Who stopped some sort of interdimensional invasion by mending some sort of… portal rift? And then he set up shop in the swamp and built some sort of futuristic city? And he wants to enslave all of the natives of the Savage Land? And he built his city on the geothermal fissure that heats the Savage Land, so now the jungle is being choked out by snowy tundra?

Such a mess. And I know Zaladane gets important later, but, ugh, the socio-political tensions in the Savage Land is generally not what I’m here for.

One of the few Savage Land scenes I do like is also messy, but the emotional kind of messy. See, the X-Men on their part believe Jean and Hank are dead, and Scott takes it rather… lightly? When Storm confronts him about it, he confesses he does not mourn Jean as much as he thought he would, as if she were a different woman ever since they crash-landed the shuttle. Storm rejects this confession, always solidly in Jean’s camp, and basically tells Scott to man up. Scott has a point: Jean has changed and it’s not like people have fallen out of love for less, but there’s something to be said for Storm’s firm “for better or for worse”-argument. The scene ends unresolved, and I like that.

Anyway, there’s some X-Men fighting dinos and flying lizards, so there’s at least that. Oh, and Colossus develops a suddenly intense bond with a Savage Lander with a mohawk, which is a detail that becomes important later. Another significant detail?

There’s a lot of weight to that snikt, bub. (X-Men 116)

The implication is that Wolverine simply kills the guy in cold-blood. It’s a little weird that both Storm and Kurt are so okay with this, especially because Storm tries to save Garruk later. This, however, also marks an important direction in which they’re taking Wolverine, becoming the most ruthless of the X-Men.

In the end, Cyclops blasts the foundations of the citadel to smithereens, solving everyone’s problems and putting a neat bow on this tangled plotline. Also, all of a sudden? The X-Men are monthly again! (yay!) And they’ve upgraded from All-New, All-Different to Uncanny on the cover, though the name of the comic won’t officially change until issue 142.

Best new character: Like Hell I’m giving this to Weapon Alpha! So instead, it’s going to the two stylish, mohawked ladies who “show the island” to Piotr. (Again. They’ll be relevant later. Sort of.)

What to read: X-Men 109, for the denouement of the Phoenix Saga (or the first part thereof). The rest is rather inconsequential.

26 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

A weird defence I've seen of RWBY's conflicts has been that it's good writing simply by the virtue that people can disagree on what's the right thing to do in said conflict. Which doesn't work when one decision is being presented as the only valid choice while every other option is either not addressed or demonized. This isn't a story leaving a nuanced set of stances to explore, it's a guy on stage signalling the crowd to boo whenever someone goes against the Protag's decision.

Real quick, I want to talk about RWBY by not talking about RWBY. I’ve seen this argument a lot too and the tl;dr is that just because your audience debates the right action in a conflict — something that is inevitable given how subjective media is — doesn’t mean the story encouraged that reflection in any way. As you say, RWBY pretends that those disagreements don’t exist and that This Is The One (1) Right Answer... which entirely defeats the purpose of a morally nuanced situation in the first place. That lack is bad writing because it demonstrates the author’s inability to provide an accurate picture of the conflict while still ensuring we come out of it liking the parties involved. The conflict was too complex for them to manage alongside equally complex characterization, so they just pretended it was far simpler than it actually was. That’s not something to praise.

But to get to the not RWBY part. I’ve mentioned this a couple times before, but one of the scenes that I think manages these sorts of conflicts really well is the funeral fight in The Haunting of Hill House, episodes 6, “Two Storms.” So warning from here on out for spoilers. Sometimes, the best way to see what’s not working well in one show is to look at another show that does (basically) the same thing successfully and compare the two.

Normally I’d include screenshots, but Netflix doesn’t allow that :/ So I’m forced to rely on bullet points.

The basic premise is that the Crain family has assembled in daughter Shirley’s funeral home, the night before they bury their sister, Nell. A lot of secrets are about to come to light.

The scene kicks off when their father, Hugh, relays the call he got from the housekeeper the night of Nell’s death. She had committed suicide in the family’s childhood home.

Though everyone knew how she’d died, son Steven is distraught at hearing the details and reveals that a few weeks prior Nell crashed a book signing of his. This shocks the others given that this was very unusual behavior for Nell.

Shirley likewise reveals that she got a call from Nell who’d been worried about their brother, Luke, but hadn’t spoken to her the night of her death. The implication is that no one did. They’ll never know what was going through her head the night she died.

Hugh reveals that she did call him. “I talked to her.”

Stunned by this news, his children demand to know what was discussed and Hugh is clearly reluctant to continue. However, he eventually says that Nell wasn’t just worried about Luke, but also the “Bent Neck Lady,” a specter from her childhood.

The viewer knows that ghosts are real in this show. The kids don’t. Or rather, they all experienced supernatural occurrences in their childhood, are still experiencing them now, but only some of them are willing to admit they’re real. Steven is the diehard skeptic of the bunch and starts yelling at his father, accusing him of aiding Nell’s delusions and ignoring a family history of mental illness. In particular, he declares that this “makes you culpable [in her death].”

Steven continues to accuse Hugh of “holding back information” about Nell and Hugh shoots back that “If I held back anything it was to protect you kids.” The viewer understands Hugh’s dilemma: the only reason he keeps things to himself is because Steven and the others refuse to believe the truth, with an added dose of this supernatural stuff being very dangerous. Steven asks, “Why do I need protection from the truth?”

Before their fight can go any further, Shirley tells Steven, “You might want to check yourself before you start talking about the truth.” He published an autobiographical book about their childhood trauma and notably capitalized on a supernatural angle he doesn’t believe in. Shirley calls it “blood money.”

As the argument about the ethics of his book rages, Shirley defends herself primarily with how everyone else thinks this is “blood money” too. No one took a cut when Steven offered one, proving how despicable they all think it is.

Meanwhile, sister Theo has been getting heat for being drunk (a coping mechanism for her own supernatural troubles) and Shirley eventually pushes her far enough that she admits she did take Steven’s money and used it to get her degree. “It’s good, fucking money.” Suddenly, Steven has someone in his corner and Shirley’s main defense has crumbled.

Shirley is furious that Theo had this secret income but was still living with her and her husband. Theo reminds her that she offered to pay rent, but Shirley isn’t interested in hearing that. She demands that Theo move out immediately and uses this betrayal as the new way to protect herself. She’s the victim here.

Steven, sensing another secret in the works, cautions Shirley to “get off your high horse before you fall off.”

Shirley maintains her position until her husband blurts that they also took Steven’s money. Shirley hasn’t been running the funeral home well and they would have sunk without it.

Despite being the punching bag for the second half of this fight, Shirley is offered both reassurance and dignity. Her husband emphasizes that the only reason they’re struggling is because Shirley is a good person. She does too much work pro bono. Shirley also delivers the line, “Do you have any idea how much you’ve humiliated me?” calling into question the husband’s choice to admit this now, purely as a way to prove her wrong.

Shirley leaves to get some distance and discovers that someone — something — has put buttons over Nell’s eyes. The shock of this keeps the fight from continuing and, as plot intervenes, gives the characters the space needed to eventually start healing and forgiving one another, notably by sitting with the various truths they all now have to grapple with.

Phew! A long summary, but I’ve put this much detail in to highlight the nuance of the scene. Obviously RWBY would differ in many ways — less cursing, for one — but the core elements of any morally complex scene should be the same. The important takeaways here are that no one in the Crain family are “pure” or “evil” and everyone gets their chance to be both right and wrong. Hugh is right that Steven won’t listen to him and wrong in that he didn’t do enough to help his kids. We get Steven and Hugh’s frustration, their understanding of the world at odds with one another. Steven is wrong to put everything on his father and justified in starting his writing career with their story. We watch the scene move from “Steven is Wrong and everyone agrees” to “Oh shit nm, more and more of the family are revealing that they benefited from his money, complicating how “wrong” he actually is.” Shirley is right to point out that Theo is getting drunk during their sister’s funeral and Theo is right to point out that being drunk doesn’t erase having a good point. Theo is allowed to scream at the group and then immediately be offered help when she falls. Shirley pretends she’s better than all of them and is slowly, horrifyingly proven wrong, but is then still extended compassion and is allowed to point out how horribly they’ve just treated her. The husband is right about the money, wrong about keeping it a secret/revealing it the way he did, right in how he tries to diffuse the other fights, and VERY wrong by getting caught kissing Theo down in the storeroom!

The scene twists and turns in a way that highlights everyone’s points and their flaws, the moments when their perspective should be upheld and questioned. The end result is a scene that has space for the audience to debate everyone’s choices without imposing the single view of This Person Is Obviously Wrong/Right and If You Think Otherwise You’re Not Watching The Show Correctly. The show itself acknowledges the complexity and nuance of these problems. It asks, “Hugh should have tried harder, but what more can he do when his kids literally don’t believe this stuff exists? Was Steven really justified in writing a book about their collective experiences? What does it mean that something his family sees as capitalizing on their trauma also helped them keep businesses and schooling afloat? Was it okay for Shirley’s husband to keep that money a secret, even if it helped them? How might he have told her in a less cruel manner? What about Shirley’s life has led to her intense need to be on that ‘high horse’?”

And of course: “Who is really responsible for Nell’s death?” By this point the viewer already knows that there is no “really” here. This is too complicated a tragedy to lay the blame at any one person’s feet. Everyone in this room has moments of justified accusations and moments of chastisement because they’re well written, well rounded characters who are neither saints nor devils. The length of the scene (done in a single shot!) emphasizes that if you just wait long enough, even the most perfect looking person will eventually have a skeleton pulled from their closet. No one is above mistakes.

RWBY has NONE of that. Zip. Nada. Nothing. RWBY gave us a scenario with many of the same, core themes — secret keeping, secrets unwillingly revealed, blaming others for your mistakes, hurtful actions with helpful consequences, questioning who is responsible for a tragic death — and instead of even attempting to give us some of the above nuance, RWBY said only that Ruby was right, Ozpin was wrong, and demanding that the audience ignore the nuance they could already see in order to accept the canon.

RWBY’s scene asks the audience to play dumb and look at the world as a Black and White place, despite the show simultaneously insisting that “the world isn’t a fairy tale” and is, in fact, filled with shades of gray.

Just not any shades of gray that mess with that dichotomy that now drives the story.

That’s not good writing. It’s oblivious and contradictory writing that makes the audience frustrated. Not satisfied, surprised, contemplative, or curious. Just frustrated.

#rwby #the haunting of hill house #mymetas #Anonymous

45 notes · View notes

mistwraiths · 3 years

Text

4.5 stars

When Abriella's sister gets taken by the Unseelie King, Brie must retrieve three artifacts from the Seelie Court. To do so, she'll have to pose as one of the potential brides for the Seelie Prince. As she gets involved with the Unseelie Rebels as well, she soon will learn nothing is as it seems in the Faerie Lands.

This will have MAJOR SPOILERS so if you don't want to be spoiled just know that this is a pretty average book that ends with explosive betrayals, reveals, and second guessing everyone's intentions. I would recommend it but know that it's nothing spectacular.

These Hollow Vows isn't an original book but by god I enjoyed it. However, we should get the big parts out of the way like this book has a lot of similarities to ACOTAR. Maybe it's meant as a giant love letter to Sarah J Maas in general but it makes you wonder just a little. Give your Fae a little something unique. Because while Finn and Ronan are characters in their own right, all I can see them mostly as Knockoff Rhys and Rowan 2.0. Side note: why have a character named Ronan and then just call him Sebastian 100% of the time it's CONFUSING.

I really didn't have a big opinion of this book until we started nearing the end and things happened. I was interested but wasn't super loving it until then. The main reason was that for a book that's supposed to be about saving her sister and getting these artifacts, there's shockingly little of that. Brie mentions this and it's absolutely her goal, but there's way more emphasis and focus on her feelings and relationships than hunting for her sister or artifacts. In fact, quite wild enough that she just... asks for the artifacts and gets them pretty much??? And on one, she's waiting so damn long on the King collecting her that it's ridiculous. Also? Sebastian is also looking for her sister and Brie just... doesn't ever ask him about the progress??? The plan?? Anything??? I know she's working on it but um.... hello? I'd be pestering the FUCK out of him. And she just... doesn't.

Also, we're told she's supposed to pose as one of Prince Ronan's potential brides which she does but nothing happens in this regard? If you liked the Selection or was interested in this potential plot, there's no competition whatsoever. You don't meet any of the girls or go anything of that which kind of begs the question why put it in if you're not going to explore it??? Also, there's a severe lack of female characters. The maids don't count. There's Pretha but we don't get a lot of them. And her sister who is gone. A queen we meet once. And oh, Nik who is just a safe place for the MC to sleep at once.

I think the main thing I struggled with is that the main character doesn't know things which is fine but the characters either straight out don't tell her or give her the littlest breadcrumbs. It's fine for awhile but it starts to get really frustrating. Aren't Fae all about loopholes and being clever. If something prevents you from speaking it, maybe there's other ways but now that I'm finished it definitely feels more like it was purposeful to keep Brie ignorant and in the dark. Still, the last 100 pages felt like so much because we finally get information on top of so much more.

The love triangle was okay. It's very clear at least to me that the book absolutely wants you to like one over the other, and I feel like it's quite obvious who the better of the two is even before the wild ending. Spoilers here, but the book to me feels like it's rooting more for Finn. Even though this is Sebastian's book of the love triangle. Sebastian and Brie have a history and its clear that they both love each other in their own ways, but Brie mentions just enough and her powers seem to respond more to Finn which is like flashing neon signs. However, I don't know 100% what to think about Finn because I can honestly say I don't really know him from the breadcrumbs we get and we just didn't get a lot of time with him. We just know he's tall, dark, and handsome with tan skin, he's a prince, he's broody, and he's got tattoos. Because he's a prince of the Unseelie court he might have dark or star powers, which is eerily like Rhys. We know a bit more of Sebastian because he's a constant in this book. He's just very concerned about Brie and in love with her and wants her safe. He has white hair, green eyes, tan skin, and wind powers seem to be mentioned so it reminds me of Rowan but with more personality.

One of the best things in this book is that it keeps you continually guessing and unsure of each boy's intentions. And that was actually a lot of fun. You don't really KNOW who to trust because in the grand scheme of things you don't know enough about them. Is Finn really helping refugees because we don't get to SEE anything happen, we're just told. Is Sebastian even LOOKING for Brie's sister, again we don't get to see we're just told. Could Finn had helped rescue Brie's sister or even stopped the bond from happening or did he want it to happen so the metaphorical blood isn't on his hands? Why is Sebastian not his enemy? Does Finn mean well for both courts or just Unseelie? Does Sebastian even care about the refugees, what is his plan and why hasn't he tried to do something about it? Why did Sebastian hide so much? Does he really love her love her? Is the potential brides thing actually a SCAM?

Which leads to the best part.

The betrayals. I was LIVING. I'm here for it. Brie's betrayal. Finn's betrayal. Sebastian's betrayal. What makes this book almost get a 5 star rating is the explosive betrayals and reveals. Brie being like sorry boo to your mom but I'm going to get my sister back? Iconic. Finn's yeah I take sacrifices so I can be immortal and not age and do magic. Sebastian's yeah I'm actually half-Unseelie and I didn't tell you that bonding me would kill you but I did tell you I love you, and want your crown.

It just leaves you in SHOCK and wondering what the hell is going to happen now

#these hollow vows #lexi ryan #steph reads #steph's book review #book review

18 notes · View notes

thebeebi · 3 years

Text

The promise pt. 2

pairing: Namjoon x reader, ft. Yoongi

warning: disturbing, violence, yandere themes, a bit of fluff, possessiveness, smut (in the future) and swearing, more will be added in the future

genre: fantasy, modern

word count: 1.9k+

a/n: I am posting this a bit early, because I am so excited about Yoongi’s appeareance in this chapter. I hope you will love this chapter as much as I do. Enjooooy ♥

Part 1

He wanted to keep his promise even if it meant to get blood on his hands. He would do anything for her. But was that really what she wanted?

Y/N sighed and gave up once again on finding out the reason her best friend became so cold. If she could, she would have asked their other friends about what might be going on with Namjoon, but most of them left their little village. Well… left? That is kind of nice way of putting it. They ran away without saying goodbye. I guess they were tired of being here. Y/N stood up from the Namjoon’s bed and walked to him. “You know… even my patience has limits.” She was facing his back as she patted his shoulder and then walked out of his room, slowly pulling the door to close as she looked down and headed to her own.

Once Y/N was out of sight, Namjoon ran towards the small cabinet near his bed and swiftly opened it, which caused some of the decorations to slightly shake. He took out the heavy book and blankly stared at it. He dusted the cover even though he has been holding the book every day for the past few years. Namjoon looked around making sure there was no one around him, even though he knew he was alone. He opened it carefully and flipped through most of the pages until his eyes landed on the last chapter. It took him many years to go through the book. Not because it was difficult to read, but to carry out everything written in it. It was difficult to decipher what the words in the dead language meant, but once he found the dictionary in the library, everything went smoothly. He was surprised how easy it was to find the little lexicon that helped him to understand the content of the huge bloody book from that night. It was too easy to find. Like it was no coincidence, but Namjoon didn’t care. Not when it would later make him fulfil the promise he once made to Y/N. It is almost finished. It is almost done, Y/N. I just need a few more days and then everything would end. Namjoon abruptly closed the book and hid it again in the cabinet. “Just a little bit longer,“ he sighed and took shirt which had been tucked to the side of the armchair, swiftly putting it on. Determined to fulfil his promise, he marched out of the room towards the basement, to prepare all ingredients for his final step. The step which would ensure Y/N’s happiness.

Y/N circled around her room feeling suffocated. He is so secretive. She huffed as she was considering all the options she could do. Talk to him? Didn’t work! Y/N wanted to scream. She was frustrated and she had enough. It felt like the walls were closing on her and without wanting to be swallowed by them, she ran out of her room, escaping from the house she called her home. She passed by huge rose garden Namjoon planted for himself. He never let anyone else step into it. He always dug around, planted the roses and watered them. No one was allowed in and Y/N was no exception. The roses she saw were beautiful, it almost felt like they were mocking her with their beauty. Y/N scoffed and looked around making sure Namjoon was nowhere close. “I will show you!” she made her way towards the innocent plants and started plucking them, not caring about the harsh pain from the thorns ripping into her skin. The visions of past events started to flood in. She saw Namjoon from far away, as he whispered something to thorny flowers. He smiled at them spilling all his secrets. What angered her was how relaxed he was around the bushes but not around her. How he told them something with a smile but didn’t do so as much to her anymore. She was jealous of the bright red flowers. Stupid roses. Tears started rolling down her cheeks as she recalled all the moments, he spent in the garden but not with her. Y/N’s knees started shaking as a heart-breaking sob escaped her mouth. Pathetic. There was no better word she would describe herself with at that moment. Y/N closed her eyes trying to calm her breathing before she stood up again to walk away from the mess she created. Blood dripping from her injured arms created a small trail, marking the road she stepped on.

Even though Namjoon was the only person she ever needed, it did not stop her from making friends. Well, at least people who stayed. People who stayed, or should I say a person who hadn’t run away yet? She stood still in front of the wooden door, deciding whether she should knock or just shout his name. There is no difference in that anyway because he would be the only one to ever open the door. Yoongi. His life was as miserable as Y/N’s. His mother died during the delivery and his father who tried to be both mother and father overworked himself and passed away when Yoongi was 16 years old. They knew each other since they were kids, but were never as close as she was with Namjoon. “Yoongiiiii!!” She called the boy’s name 3 times before she heard the sound of the door’s being unlocked. Finally. Y/N thought as she stepped closer to the door, being just a few centimetres away from the wood. She loved doing this for two reasons. The first one, because it would scare the crap out of Yoongi and second because he would blush whenever she did that. “Boo!“ she shouted and once she saw the surprised face of the older boy, she started giggling. “How can you be so surprised all the time, Yoongi?“

Yoongi read the last page all over again and again. Before the letters made sense but these few were so cryptic. What did he even mean? He scratched back of his neck frustrated. For the past few years since his father died many people went missing. What was weird though was that they were the people of the same age as himself. He did not understand why. He considered them friends but they not even once told him, they were tired of living in the village and that they wanted to leave. How strange. He felt lonely since his father died but Y/N was always there for him and made it a bit better. He smiled a little while thinking about the girl who always showed up at his door trying to surprise him. She has done it so many time that it became a sort of tradition for Yoongi to act surprised. Not like he was ever scared but whenever he acted surprised she was happy. Her bright smile was what kept him going. He tried to shake away the thought of her and started re-reading the last few pages again. The shivers went down his spine when he saw the first words even though he had read them the all over again.

Yoongi put down the small diary which held the last words of his father. There was nothing more. At first, when Yoongi found the diary, he felt relieved that his father left him something. But it was until the moment when he read the content of it. For the past three years, he has been rereading it, trying to find out what his father meant by it. He did not understand what was going on, but the content of the scribblings was too familiar now. It felt like the history was repeating and the only clues were in the diary. Sadly, Yoongi never got to know what forest his father referred to. Not like he never tried to find out. It is just that people never replied to his questions. He asked people in the village, but instead of the answer, they started ignoring him. He asked Y/N who was mentioned, but she had no idea either. She did not remember anything. Or maybe she refuses to remember anything? Y/N did not want to remember about the sad night that took her mother away. Asking her was all in vain and Namjoon always coldly replied that he did not know about which forest he was talking about. Yoongi abruptly closed the diary when he heard a woman’s voice yelling his name. Y/N. He smiled and hid the diary into the cabinet before he started heading towards the heavy wooden door. “Yoongiiiii!!” He heard her for the second time shaking his head scoffing and put his hand on the handle. “Yoongiiiii!!” He moved his lips from side to side to remove the smile and put on an expressionless face as he opened the door hearing his name being called for the third time.

“Boo!“ she shouted and Yoongi knew it was his cue to ask surprised but in the stomach, he started feeling butterflies. “How can you be so surprised all the time, Yoongi?“ Y/N asked and made her way inside passing by Yoongi. She took her shoes off and walked inside the living room right towards the sofa and there she sat down. Yoongi was one step behind her until he made his way to the kitchen, to make the tea Y/N loved so much. “What happened this time?” Was all he asked before Y/N started complaining once again about her best friend not telling her everything. If pretending to be scared was for Yoongi tradition, then this was something given. There was not a time when Y/N came by and did not complain about Namjoon. “I am tired, Yoongi. I am really tired of that.” Y/N said as the older boy brought her cup of tea. Yoongi nodded and was about to sit down when he noticed the blood on the floor. What? He looked around looking for the source until his eyes landed on the Y/N’s arms. What happened? He stood up and left the living room to grab the first aid kit to treat her wounds. He kneeled in front of her and without saying or asking anything, he started dabbing on the wounds cotton pad soaked with disinfectant. Even though he was dabbing lightly, after a whimper from Y/N, he tried to be even more gentle. Instead of explaining where she got hurt, she looked away and exhaled. “I want to know what is wrong. I don’t want him to keep something from me. I tell him everything.” She let the tear roll down her cheek and sighed. “I love him so much,” Y/N said not realising that with the last sentence she broke the heart of the boy kneeling in front of her.

Part 3

a/n: I hope you liked this part. I had so much fun wiriting this. Mostly because Yoongi is here and yeah... he is a sweetheart. ♥ But we all know that! If you are curious when will be the 3rd chapter uploaded, then please check out the schedule. :)

#bts fics #bts smut #bts namjoon #namjoon x reader #bts yandere #namjoon yandere #bts rm #namjoon fics #bts fanfics #bangtan #bts au #rm x reader #fanfics

38 notes · View notes

taeminyourmind · 4 years

Text

Petal x Taemin (A)

Summary - You and Taemin have been friends since grade school. But when he finds out you’re dating Jongin, jealousy takes him to the point of no return and will do whatever it takes to “protect” you.

Genre - Angst

Rating - Mature

Warning!! - Violence, death, and mentions of blood

Pairing - Reader, Taemin, EXO Kai as Jongin

Word Count - 3.2k+

A/N - This story contains mature themes. Reader discretion is advised. This story is PURELY FICTION and DO NOT represent any of the characters in any way, shape or form.

Dedicated to a dear Anon who asked about the story and gave me motivation to edit and repost the story.

Rain falls heavily against the window where you peer out at the vicious storm looming in the distance. Massive gray clouds slowly swirl the sky with light purple lightning flashing from within while roars of thunder shake the ground. The howling wind whips harshly, pushing over everything not tied to the ground. Trash cans roll through the fields leaving traces of trash behind, car alarms get lost in the wind, and trees are stripped of their leaves. Where people run and hide from storms, you are fascinated by their ferocious nature, demanding respect from everyone and everything.

The lights above flicker with each rumble until they go out completely, leaving the school to rely on emergency lights. Everyone in the region knew of the storm that was approaching, but for some reason, your school still demanded every student be in attendance. It isn’t their first time making a careless decision, when a winter storm hit and temperatures were below zero they still demanded students either attend classes or face consequences. And now, with the storm slowly approaching, the government and school found it best to keep everyone sheltered in place until it passes.

If you didn’t have your best friend, Taemin, by your side, being locked in the school with nobody to talk to would drive you mad. You and Taemin are like two peas in a pod, always seen together day and night. Your story started on a playground in grade school, as do most childhood friendships. Taemin’s home life was broken, sent to live with his grandmother after his parents didn’t feel like caring for him anymore. He loved them dearly and couldn’t understand what he did to make them abandon him. In this world, he was alone, oftentimes curling in his bed, crying from the taunts of his nightmares. That was until he found you and he vowed to never let anyone he loved be snatched from him again.

“What are you thinking about?” A voice whispers from behind. You bring your shoulder to your ear as their breath tickles your it.

You turn around in time for Jongin to place a flashlight under his face saying ‘Boo!’ like he’s telling a scary story around the campfire. A gentle chuckle hums against your lips while your boyfriend fails to make scary faces.

“Stop,” you laugh and softly hit his shoulder. He looks down at you with a teasing smirk.

“Did I scare you?”

“I thought I would die of a heart attack,” you say jokingly. “How’d you find me?”

Jongin flashes the light at the windows and winks at you. “This room has the biggest windows and I know how much you like storm watching. I just put two and two together.”

Jongin stands beside you, clicking the flashlight off. He reaches out and wipes the fog from the window just lightning strikes through the sky, highlighting his features. From the corner of your eye, you steal glances at your boyfriend, the familiarity of his face brings back memories from when you first saw him. It was middle school, and just like now, you saw his side profile as he was getting books out of his locker. Immediately, you were mesmerized as Taemin ranted about his science teacher. He was the new kid, so you decided to approach him, with Taemin on your heels, and the rest is history.

Jongin turns his head, connecting his eyes with your loving stare. Under his gaze, you feel exposed. Your cheeks begin to warm when he turns his body slightly towards you while his eyes look over your face. You can’t differentiate the sound of thunder and the pounding of your heart when he closes the gap between you. The closer he gets, the faster your heart beats and the quieter your breaths become.

“Ahem.”

The abrupt sound breaks your trance making you and Jongin jump and look towards the door. Taemin stands in the doorway with a flashlight in his hand, pointed at the two of you. Even in the darkness, you can feel him looking at you with nurturing eyes before glaring at Jongin.

“You didn’t tell him about us, did you?” Jongin asks, leaning close so only you can hear. You shake your head and divert your eyes to the floor.

“Principal Park wants all of the guys on one side of the school and girls on the other,” Taemin says bluntly. “He wants us to hurry so he can get a headcount.”

“Alright,” Jongin nods and turns to you. “Do you want me to walk you to the other side?”

“No!” Taemin clamors. His sudden outburst causes you and Jongin to look at him in confusion. He clears his throat and speaks in a softer tone. “I mean no, I want to take her. I have to talk to her anyway.”

Taemin hurries to your side and takes your arm in his hand before rushing out the room, leaving Jongin behind before he can protest. Silence falls between the two of you while you walk through the eerie hallways that are lit up from time to time by lightning. Outside, tree branches snap under the aggressive wind.

“What did Jongin mean back there?” Taemin softly asks. His hand falls from your arm to his side, brushing against your every few steps.

“It’s nothing really,” you whisper, keeping your eyes straight ahead.

“Petal,” he says. He stops and grabs your wrist to keep you by his side. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

You turn to face Taemin and see his worried eyes looking over your face for something.

“Why do you call me that? I never knew the reason why.”

Taemin shrugs. “You’re like a flower petal to me, beautiful, gentle, fragile.” He pauses for a moment and asks his question again.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” you stammer knowing it’s a lie in itself.

Taemin’s shoulders relax as he lets your wrist go. He begins walking down the hallway again, waving at you to follow. The more you walk beside him, the more guilt piles in your stomach knowing you were untruthful to your best friend.

“Do you love me?” He suddenly asks without looking at you.

“Of course I do,” you say, playfully nudging his shoulder with yours.

Voices grow louder the closer you get to the hallway. A line of girls stands against the lockers, murmuring to each other.

“Good night, Petal,” Taemin says, pressing a small kiss on the top of your head.

You watch as he disappears down the hallway until darkness completely consumes him. Still, guilt nestled in your stomach causing you to lean against the lockers and holds your arms around your torso. Why is it so easy to lie about something so small?

Taemin walks by himself in the hallway while thoughts swirl around his mind. Thoughts of you, Jongin, you and Jongin together, the possibility of you lying, it’s all he can think about. He reaches the boys’ side and maneuvers through the crowd, his eyes searching for Jongin until he sees the boy sitting alone, looking out the window. He takes a seat beside Jongin and softly clears his throat until Jongin turns his attention to him.

“Hey,” Taemin says. Jongin nods his head upward and turns his attention back to the window. “Um, what did you mean back there? When you asked ___ if she told me something.” His tone is sharp.

Jongin snaps his head back to Taemin with squinted eyes. His head tilts slightly at his harsh tone before blowing out a breath.

“I thought she would’ve told you by now,” Jongin sighs with frustration. “We’ve been dating for the past six months. We wanted to keep it quiet until our first anniversary, but I was sure you would be the one person to know.”

An image of you and Jongin clouds Taemin’s mind. The thought of you giving him your love and attention makes his vision tunneled. His hand firmly squeezes the flashlight in his hand. With Jongin in the way, he would steal you away from him, and he can’t have that, he won’t allow it. Something rumbles within his core as the storm hover overhead. Principal Park yells for the boys to enter the locker room, causing a stampede and leaving the two boys alone. Before Jongin can get up, Taemin lifts his hand and smacks Taemin on the back of his head, knocking him out cold.

Jongin’s body lays on the floor, his chest slightly rising and falling. Taemin looks around before grabbing his ankles and pulling the unconscious boy to an empty science classroom. The thunder booms through the room while Taemin stands over the boy, his face twisting in disgust. He kneels down beside the boy and covers the boy’s mouth with one hand and pinches his nose with the other.

Jongin’s face starts to turn pale as his body stiffens. Taemin gazes at the clock, watching it tick; but time can’t control him as he lets his hands fall when he feels like it. He stands to his feet again and looks at the result of his nefarious action. As Jongin’s lifeless body lies in the middle of the floor, a bolt of lightning lights the room, illuminating his pale face.

A hint of worry travels through Taemin’s veins as his mind races for ways to cover up his murder. His eyes dart around the room and smile like Norman Bates when an idea pops in his head.

“Goodbye Jongin,” Taemin says as he walks to the cabinet and grabs an armful of Bunsen burners before attaching them to the gas taps. “May you rest in peace.”

Sounds of shouting and running erupt through the school. The word ‘fire’ is shouted over and over as everyone begins to file out the school. You stand to your feet but are immediately knocked down by everyone pushing their way towards the exits. Your body curls into a ball with your hands protecting your head, trying your best to minimize any damage. Shouts of your name come closer until you feel strong hands lift you off the ground. Before you knew it, you were being carried in someone’s hands as they ran out of the building.

You prepare yourself for the raging storm but feel a slight wind instead as it passes over the school. Slowly, you look up and see Taemin looking down at you with worried eyes. You can’t hear him but read his lips asking ‘Are you okay?’. You nod before glancing around in search of Jongin. Your body wiggles in Taemin’s arms until you free yourself and land on your feet.

“Where’s Jongin?” You ask, looking around frantically. Taemin follows close behind you, dodging everybody that gets in his way. “Did you see him?”

Your face fills with fear as you turn to face Taemin, your hair sticking to your face from the light rain. Taemin’s face falls when he sees tears welling in your eyes.

“Was he with you?” You scream over the crowd and sirens blaring into the parking lot. “Please, Taemin.”

Taemin shakes his head. “He’s here somewhere. Let’s just wait until everything dies down a little.”

You try your best to not break down, your chest burning from withholding your emotions. Taemin guides you away from the group to a bench under a tree. Your body leans against his as he puts his arm around your shoulders. He holds you tenderly, humming a lullaby, sending you into a deep sleep.

“Don’t worry, Petal,” Taemin whispers. His fingertips trace small circles on your back while his eyes stare at the raging flames. “Everything will be better when you wake up.”

You stand alone in front of a newly planted tree with a plaque reading “Kim Jongin - A dutiful student that is now a star in the sky”. You swallow your tears back as you stare at Jongin’s name. It’s been a month since he’s been gone, a month since your world fell apart. Nothing seemed real since that day, not the principal announcing his death, not the EMTs carrying a gurney with a white sheet draped over it, not attending his funeral, not planting this tree in his memory. But when you picked up the phone and dialed his number out of habit only to remember he wasn’t on the other line. He’s no more. Now, you call just to hear his voice in his voicemail.

You’re really gone, aren’t you? You think as tears roll down your face. The same gut-punching feeling you felt at the news of his death comes back, punching you over and over until you fall to your knees, bawling. Memories flood your mind, playing like a movie on the big screen - your first hug, kiss, and date, the time he surprised you with flowers after a choir recital when you spent many late nights talking on the phone, and everything in between.

But even with those memories, standing still like a picture, you can see Taemin somewhere near. A jealous friend he was, always seemed to have a crush on you, but you could never see the two of you being together.

A hand gently holds onto your shoulder and startles you. Spinning around, you quickly wipe your tears and see Taemin kneeling beside you.

“He had a long life ahead of him,” you stammer between shaky breaths. “There was so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to see.”

Taemin nods. “You loved him.”

“I know we were young, but when you connect with someone on a deeper level you feel like they’re the one.”

“He might not have been the one,” he says bluntly causing you to snap your head towards him, your eyebrows furrowing.

“Lee Taemin, how can you say such a thing when I’m in mourning?” You snap, pushing his hand off your shoulder. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I am your friend, a friend that loves you.”

You scoff at his statement and stand to your feet, walking away from him. He shuffles to his feet and runs after you, grabbing your arm to pull you back. You snatch it away and turn towards him with tears and anger in your eyes, yet you force out a laugh.

“Do you love me, Taemin?” You ask. “If you loved me, you would see that Jongin brought me joy and happiness, you would be happy for me if you loved me. You would comfort me more than anything because you loved me. If you loved me, you would be my friend.”

“I am your friend.”

“Then act like it!” You exclaim before rubbing your hands down your face. Your voice softens as you look back up at him. “Act like my friend Taemin. A friend that loves and cares about me.”

Accusations of Taemin not loving and caring for you angers him as he hangs his head. Slowly, his eyes raise as he clenches his fists.

“I’ve never loved or cared about you?” He growls through clenched teeth. “I’ve done nothing but love and care for you while you give it all to him. He was coming between us and I couldn’t lose you. I refuse to lose you.”

Your mouth before closing. Each step you take back he takes one towards you until you stumble back over your own feet. He stands over you with furious eyes while you hold out a hand, preparing yourself for the unthinkable.

“I did what I had to do to protect you, to protect us!”

“Taemin,” you stammer. “What did you do?”

“What needed to be done,” He whispers with saddened eyes. “But I’m not the only one at fault. You lied to me about the two of you.”

“I told a white lie, I didn’t fucking kill anyone!”

“You might as well have killed me.”

You kick out your leg, connecting with his knee to make him fall. Crawling to your feet, you stumble a few times before you dash towards the school and yank the door open. A hand grabs the back of your shirt and pulls back causing you to fall backward.

“I did everything I could to protect you,” Taemin whispers harshly in your ear. “I took care of people that gave you trouble, did everything I could to protect our friendship, and this is how you repay me?”

You wiggle your body to try to escape his grip but he holds your shirt tighter, shaking you when you refuse to answer. You beg for him to let you go only for him to laugh maniacally. You reach your hands up to scratch his face resulting in a loud groan. His grip loosens allowing you to escape up the stairs until he grabs your ankle, making you fall as he pulls you back down. Your free foot repeatedly smashes against his face until he holds it down. His bloody face stares at you with dark eyes and a twitching smile that makes you squirm.

Your hands grip the rails to keep Taemin from pulling you down to him. The feeling of the metal rubbing against your palm makes you let go and allows Taemin to pull you towards him. His hand wraps around your neck, restricting your airway and making your chest burn as you cough and gasp for air.

“This is how Jongin died,” Taemin snickers sinisterly, his eyes glazing with rage.

You push the deadly image out of your mind as you search for the strength and stand against Taemin’s force. You reach forward and press your thumbs against his eyes until he lets go and stumbles back with a growl. Gasping for air, you quickly stand to your feet and throw punches to Taemin’s body and head, attacking him when he’s vulnerable. The closer you get to him, the more he steps back to the stairs leading to the basement. With a shove, you push him down the steps where he lands on the platform. Your heart drops slightly as he lies motionless, his eyes cold.

“Taemin?” You stammer as you look at the boy’s body. Cautiously, you descend the stairs and kneel next to him, shaking him slightly.

Hesitant, you check for a pulse to avail. You clamp your hand over your mouth as you sit back until you’re against the wall. Unexplainable emotions stir inside you - love, hate, happiness, anger. The many memories the two of you shared are now overshadowed by the terror that loomed below the surface. Taemin, your best friend that you loved dearly, was someone you loved, but also a monster.

No matter how much you try, you can’t wrap your head around anything that’s happened. It seems like a dream, instead, this pain reminds you that you’re alive and alone. Your boyfriend was gone at the hand of your best friend, and your best friend is now gone at the hand of you. Is it weird that when you fought for your life, you did it out of love for Jongin, for his life that was cut short, which ended up killing your best friend? Maybe this is what Taemin meant when he told you he had to do anything to protect you.

You shake your head, refusing to understand Taemin’s method as he lies a few feet away from you. All of the love you had for Taemin has transformed into anger as you scowl at him. For everything he’s done and said, no amount of sweet memories can take away the bitterness in your mouth. For Jongin and your freedom, you fought the one person that was supposed to be beside you.

“This is how you die,” you sneer, pitting his words against him. “Goodbye, Taemin.”

#taemin angst #kpop angst #taemin scenarios #kpop scenarios #taemin fanfic #kpop fanfic #shinee angst #shinee scenarios #shinee fanfic

37 notes · View notes

ourplaceinthecosmosphff · 4 years

Text

Chapter 1. The Case Against Fairytales

'his eyes across a room tangled up in her imagination they had spent a lifetime together by the time he said hello' atticus

My brother died the same way he came into the world: silent, eyes closed, changing my life as I knew it.

We spent our whole lives trying to convince anyone we could that we were as regular as they were, but here's the first fundamentally different thing when you are royal: the meaning of the word ‘everyone’.

In our case, we usually mean anyone in the country, most of the international media, and at least a sizeable majority of the world's population. It's not that everyone knew us... it's just that enough people did. Enough for it to be easier to call them 'everyone'.

When my brother Louis was born, mom had been rushed to the hospital in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. The press was notified, they promptly set up camp at the hospital entrance, and the people started prayer campaigns to the safe arrival of their new prince and heir. Everyone rejoiced at his arrival. I remember, I was there.

At three years-old, it felt like everyone was every single person in the planet. It was mostly just the people in our country; to everyone else, his birth was a quick, short line of announcement, maybe some notice to the fact that the newborn baby boy was taking his older sister's place as heir, and not much else.

When he died, everyone was every single person in the planet. The second thing fundamentally different when you are a royal: from a very early age you must learn that tragedy sells more than joy. And in any constitutional monarchy country, a royal family is merely another commodity.

A few people talked about my early graduation from University. A lot more people talked about my boyfriend breaking up with me. There were a few articles about my little sister's victory at the ice-skating junior final. When she fell on her face in front of the cameras while attempting a risky move, she went viral. When my brother came into our lives, a few people took notice.

When he left us, everyone did.

---- ---- ---- ----

I, too, am a victim of culture appropriation. Since the dawn of time, from the moment humankind developed communication skills, there has been storytelling. And for the past few thousands of years most stories that parents tell their young as they tuck them into their blankets every night, have been about my culture. As far as that goes, it is not the most damaging kind of culture appropriation. But I have a duty today, and I will not shy away from it. I am sorry to say I must, and will, shatter the beautiful image of fairytales that kids have been fed for so many years now.

I know what you are thinking – oh, boo-hoo, the poor little princess girl; is life too difficult in your beautiful palace with all the money a person could ever need? And yes, I know. I am not a victim. The same colonialism that placed my ancestors, and therefore, me, in the position of privilege and power I am in today has created many more actual victims around the world. But that is also why I must tell this story the way it was always meant to be told: truthfully. With all the weird, awkward, awful, bits and pieces that fairytales tend to skip.

Fairytales would, for instance, skip straight to the grand, majestic welcome ceremony between the Queen of the United Kingdom and the King of Savoy in a sun floored courtyard with guards on tall, furry black hats strutting around, standing in a red-carpeted dais, with a handsome prince making eyes at me. But in my story, we will start with the train.

That’s right, in modern fairytales you don’t take a lovely carriage ride to a neighboring kingdom. You take a train there – a commercial train, if you can, because modern times beg for demonstrating to the masses that the Monarch isn’t throwing money around. We were trying to highlight the easy routes of access to our neighbors to the northeast, and so we took the ferry across the Celtic Sea to Hugh Town Island and from there, Eurostar number 2 train that made a quick stop in Penzance, UK, and then went straight to London.

The train ride isn’t comfortable – even if you have a first class private car. It’s bumpy and crowded and a terrible place to spend three straight hours. On that particular morning, I was in our car with my father, his household secretary Auguste, my private aide, Cadie, and a few other staff members.

In fairytale world, when a princess does not look the part, there is usually the appearance of a fairy godmother who sings a nice song and magically transforms her into a Proper Princess™. There is no fairy godmothers when you are a real princess- real ones, sure, but they are not magical-, but you do learn from an early age what a Proper Princess™ should look like, act like, and sound like, and god forbid you don't.

In the train that day, I heard all that was keeping me from being Proper™ from Auguste, who was in many ways the exact opposite of a fairy godmother. He had all the menacing authority of one, with none of the charm. He also didn’t have wings or a sparkly wand; he had greying short hair, and thin, small, reading glasses that he always pushed down to the tip of his nose to look above, which made me wonder what was the point of the glasses at all.

Before our arrival, I had to change my lipstick, which was too dark, my dress, which was too short at the daring height of above my knees, my shoes, which were open toed and therefore wrong, and finally, make sure to brush my hair once more.

My parents never subscribed to the idea that we were forbidden to do anything. They were raised on stern rules and heavily traditional costumes and wanted their kids to live more freely. So, growing up, they revolutionarily told us that we were free to be whoever we wanted to be – in private. In public, we had an obligation to be Proper™. After all, as I heard repeatedly growing up: royals don’t make mistakes, we make history; and history remembers.

So, yes. I, a grown, 25 years-old, law-school graduate, bar-approved acquisitions lawyer, changed out of my dress into a more proper one because my dad asked. Because as a princess, you’re never just yourself; you’re the country. And if your country comes from a Roman Catholic tradition, your hemlines must reflect that, no matter what century it is.

The country in question was just to the south of the United Kingdom, west of France, a large island named Savoie. The English call it Savoy, which is how it was pronounced anyway. It was originally populated by the Irish, but over the years it was conquered by the English, the Spanish, and the Portuguese until finally, in the 13th Century, it was conquered by France. It was bigger than Ireland, but smaller than England, and one of the biggest GDPs in the world, with a population of 49 million. Under the reign of Louis XV, however, France lost most of its possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, and to secure Savoy, the king sent part of the court to live there and to reign in his stead as his emissaries. Louis XV's reign grew weak, including his ill-advised financial, political and military decisions, which discredited the monarchy and arguably led to the French Revolution 15 years after his death. France dealt with its dissatisfaction by revolting, Savoy however, secluded away at sea, decided to declare independence before the Revolution had even taken steam. The political leaders of the Island reached an agreement with the king's emissary, Prince Louis, the highest ranking monarch on the island; in exchange for support for the severance of all connection to France, he was then made King Louis I of Savoy. The Royal House of Savoy grew steady and strong by protecting its people and assuring them a freer, better life than the one they'd known under French reign.

A few years later, I sat on that train in front of the current King of Savoy. My father.

“You look beautiful, Maggie.”

“Thank you.”

“The other dress was beautiful as well. Just not for today.”

“Mm-hm.”

A moment of silence went by. I picked up my phone and checked my emails. There was one from Sophie with the subject ‘urgent!’ so I clicked in it feeling my heart race.

It read,

‘Marie, I’m sorry to bother you on your days off, but the depositions got moved up to Monday and we can’t find the notes on the manager deposition, you were the one who did them. Is there any chance you have a copy and if so can you send them to me? Enjoy England! XO Soph’

Sighing, I put down my phone and quickly found my laptop on my suitcase. I turned it on as I replied to Sophie’s email to tell her to expect my deposition notes shortly.

“You know if we could I’d let you wear whatever you wanted.” Dad added as I logged into my computer.

“I do.”

I moved quickly through my folders realizing the most recent update on my notes hadn’t been uploaded to the cloud. Sighing, I logged on to the train WiFi and checked the storage service online. It didn’t connect.

“Honestly, darling, you look even prettier with this dress.”

I looked up, mentally wondering if the previous versions of the notes would be useful.

“This isn’t about the dress.”

I realized, then, that it wouldn’t matter anyway because I wouldn’t be able to send them to Sophie without internet. I looked out the window, realizing perhaps too late that we were in the tunnel, underwater. Of course there wasn’t internet.

“Well, what is it about?” Dad asked, putting his book marker back inside the page he was on and laying down the book to give me his full attention.

“Work, papa. I have a job.”

“Yes, and it’s your day off. Maybe you should try and turn off from work for the next few days?”

I smiled down to my computer, “maybe this is a conversation for another time.”

Dad adjusted his posture, looking a little taller, and looked around the room to Cadie and Auguste sitting in a booth nearby with our private hair and make-up artist, and dad’s footman, and personal aide.

“Excuse me, everyone, would you be so kind as to give us the room? Or, uh, the car? There is a little lounge outside, isn’t there?”

“Of course, sir.” Auguste said, jumping up immediately with the aide, and Cadie and Cass, the make-up artist, followed.

After they had left and closed the door behind them, I looked at my father. He lurched back in his seat and smiled at me.

“Go on,” he said. “If you don’t scream I don’t think they’ll hear us.”

“Why would I scream?”

“I don’t know, Maggie. But I don’t know why you would be so passive aggressive, either. Can you tell me?”

“What do you want, dad?”

In truth, I added the ‘dad’ at the end of the sentence to make it sound less aggressive, but as he stared at me, I felt uncomfortable not explaining myself.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”, I asked, tiredly. “I’m here, wearing a proper, long, not-slutty dress-“

“No one here used that word-“

“My toes will be perfectly hidden away when we arrive, I have hidden my ugly, evil legs under some stockings-“

“Really, Maggie, no one said your legs were-“

“My make-up is light and my hair is simple and non-threatening. I know not to smile too much or too little and to let the adults lead the conversation”, I said, the word ‘adults’ dangling bitterly from me lips. “And not to walk ahead of you, but always behind, taking your lead.”

“You make it sound so stiff and calculated.”

“And I have taken time off of work to be here.” I said. “All other Junior Associates are working overtime and through weekends to cash in as many billable hours as possible to be promoted to Full-time Associates, and instead I took off four days to travel with my dad.”

“Work, for work!”

“So, again, what do you want? How else am I not meeting your expectations?”

I spoke calmly, gently, and as low a volume as I could just to confront his joke not a minute before about how if I didn’t scream the others wouldn’t hear us. I made sure to be as poised and contained as I could. He heaved a sigh.

“I’m sorry you had to take time off work.”

I waited, as he stared in his usual lovingly, patient way. I smiled, more as a peace offering than genuinely.

“You know very well they won’t fire you.”

Still, I was quiet, smiling as sincerely as I could.

“And I know that isn’t fair, but there’s nothing I can do about it. So tell me something I can do and I will.”

“Okay.” I said, nodding. “I want your honesty. Don’t treat me like a child you need to protect, don’t patronize me. All I want is an honest answer.”

He adjusted himself in his seat and cleared his throat. “Alright. Go on.”

“Why am I here, papa?”

He blinked, seemingly confused. I could tell he expected a harder question.

“Your- Because your mother sprained her ankle?” he answered, still unsure. “What- do you mean philosophically? Why are any of us here, really? I don’t understand.”

I tried not to smile. “I mean I have a life. I am not your heir. Louis is your heir, it is his job to help you when mom has emergencies.”

He sighed deeply, finally arriving at the same page where I was.

“Your brother is in school.” He said. “And you are our oldest child. So, I’m sorry if it disrupts your life, Maggie. But you are needed.”

“And after school?” I asked “His graduation is in 6 months. Are you telling me that after he graduates university and moves back home, when he is starting his career, maybe moving to the capital, when you and mom have an emergency, you will call him up instead of me?”

He gave the table a sad smile. “If that is your wish, yes.”

“So that’s all, then?” I confirmed, suspiciously. “He moves back after graduation and you will give me the space I need?”

He smiled. “Is that what you want, then?” it wasn’t a confirmation. It was a tone of accomplishment. Of finally realizing what was it that I wanted, as if this entire conversation that’s what he had been trying to find out.

“I went to school for years. I interned for a year. I studied hard for the bar exams in America and Savoy. Yes, dad, I want to use the degree I worked hard for.”

“Okay, then. We will give you space.” He said. “Space from us, to be who you want to be. To be normal.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling, slightly amused at his dramatics. “That is not what I meant.”

“But it is accurate.”

“Papa...” I sighed.

“I’m just saying, sweetheart, I understand.” He insisted. “It’s why you went to America for University, it’s why you are based on the capital now. As long as you’re too close to us, you can’t live a normal life.”

“I can never live a normal life. We are not normal.”

“But you wish to try.”

I chuckled. “How?! You said it yourself, they will never fire me. My firm, I mean. Wherever I am, I am never just me and my degree and my career. People look at me and see you, as if I am you. I am their King. I am the Royal Family of Savoy. They’ll never take me seriously or afford me the same opportunities as everyone, because I am not everyone.”

He nodded, slowly, then sighed. “Yikes. You’re right. That sounds tough.”

“And I’m the passive aggressive one?”

“Job security and the attention of your bosses. That sounds awful.”

“Papa...”

“You want the space to dedicate yourself to your career without us pulling you away for royal work. Is that it? Okay. You got it. As soon as your brother is back from University, I will make sure you’re only needed for official events, and only if you’re not working.”

He sounded serious now. Sincere as when he delivered the End of Year address every Christmas, which was meaningful. Getting dad to afford me the same seriousness he afforded his subjects was as much seriousness as I could get from him. Still, there was no mistaking the sadness in his eyes.

“Even before his affirmation ceremony?” I asked, trying to sniff around for a trick.

The affirmation ceremony was meant to make clear to the country that an heir to throne had the seal of approval of the Monarch, and it usually happened when the heir was 21 years of age, to signify the Monarch believed in the event of a tragedy, the heir was ready to rule. In modern times, it meant an heir was ready to start working as a full-time royal. Though my brother was 22, the family had decided to wait until he had graduated university to do his ceremony.

Dad took longer than I wished, but finally, he nodded. “Yes. I promise.”

If you’re paying attention, then you might have noticed the math doesn’t add up. How come my 22 years-old brother is the heir when I said I am 25, the oldest child? Well, as with most fairytales, as well as with most of life, the problem is the patriarchy. For the thing is, though I was older than Louis by three years, because I was born a girl, he became the heir when he was born. So, at three, I went from future-Queen to lower ranking older sister.

It wasn’t unusual, my father himself had two older sisters who were lower than him and his brothers in the line of succession. As a result we had older cousins who we outranked. I cared about all this at 25 the same as when I was 3: not at all.

Absolute primogeniture law was passed in Savoy when I was 5, propelled by my birth and the new times. It was, however, not retroactive. This meant the law was changed for future births, not past ones, so all girls born after the law came into effect would be heirs in their own right, no matter how many brothers they got after, and all girls born before would go into history as having missed it by ‘just a bit’.

Louis and I, though, didn’t sit around having long discussions about who would be a better ruler. There has never been an instance in which we were arguing and I yelled something like, “first you stole my throne and now you stole my cookies! I hate you!”. For us this was just a little footnote in the family tree. A little fun fact to tell our future kids one day. And although I couldn’t remember what it felt like, I always knew it was much better not having to be the Crown Princess of Savoy.

---- ---- ---- ----

When we finally reached Penzance, the small town in the tip of the isle of England where sat the second Eurostar station, I was able to finally connect to the internet. My father left our train car to walk about with his security because he wanted to witness the new English policy of installing a check-point at the entry due to the immigrant crisis – a huge part of why we were there. While he did that, I sent Sophie my notes on the deposition, and answered some messages.

There was one from Louis, my aforementioned brother:

‘are you close?’

And one from our baby sister, Lourdes:

‘what do you think??!!!!!!!!’, with an attachment of two videos.

And, lastly, one from my mother, Her Majesty Queen Amelie-Elyse, back home with a sprained ankle.

‘Hope all is well! Let me know when you’re with your brother. Don’t forget to let your hair down before leaving the train!’

She didn’t mean it in a philosophical, have fun kind of way. She literally meant let my hair down, apparently it softened my features.

I replied to her with a selfie, with my hair properly brushed and down, in preparation for the arrival in London, which was close now. Let Louis know we were almost there. And sent a quick, uncommitted ‘woah!’ to my sister, without opening her attachments. They were always the same: videos of her practicing. There was only so much ice skating I could watch in a lifetime.

My mom answered my text with, “why did you change your dress?!”

I sighed, getting ready to justify this decision as well, already anticipating she would argue that the fascinator wouldn’t go with this one dress, so I told her I already had another fascinator standing by.

Growing up with fairytales they don’t tell you about the little annoying details. Characters who are annoying usually are the villains, the ones the Princess escapes from, usually saved by the prince. They don’t tell you sometimes, actually a lot of the times, the people you love can be equally as annoying.

---- ---- ---- ----

When we arrived at the station in London, I was already wearing my disc fascinator in a light shade of blue matching both my lace dress, this time reaching all the way to my ankles, and eyes. We were quickly greeted by the Savoyen Ambassador to England in front of the press, and escorted into government cars towards Whitehall.

The large parade ground was a traditional courtyard in central London that usually housed ceremonies related to the military and the royal family. When we arrived, the day finally was washed in a feeling of ceremony.

The place was lined neatly with military guards, security barricades and the Scotland Yard Police kept watchers and paparazzi at bay, the press lined up inside to have the best view of all involved. As we arrived, the traditional 41 gun salute was already sounding on. A military band was playing. People waved and yelled hello as we drove inside. I suddenly knew what to do, as if my body had the gene for it. This was one thing that was definitely genetic.

I stepped out of the car delicately, smoothly, knees together like a proper lady, polite smile on my lips in thanks to the guard who saluted as I left. My father greeted a handler who escorted us to the front of all the lined guards, where three structures had been set up: one large one in the middle, with a red-carpeted stage and a large roof, the British Royal Coat of Arms in the center with the British flag to its right and the Savoy flag to its left. Decorative flowers and elegant plants here and there. Two smaller, simpler structures to both of its sides. Inside all of them, men and women in formal suits and ties and knee-length, appropriate dresses and hats.

We walked the grovel path to the larger structure as the band played and the press, lined up in front of this platform, took their photographs. My father climbed the steps first, quickly being received by the small, elder, lady in a lavender overcoat and matching hat, impressive set of pearls dangling from her neck. She smiled as he lowered himself down to kiss both her cheeks warmly.

The queen then looked at me and I approached, just as our handler told Her Majesty:

“And may I present, Her Royal Highness, Princess Marie-Margueritte of Savoy.”

I lowered myself in a curtsy, and as she extended her hands to hold mine, I also kissed her cheeks, trying to avoid knocking her hat with mine.

“Welcome.” She smiled. “I hope the ride was forgiving.”

“Very comfortable.” My father told her. “Always surprising how fast it is.”

“Yes. You’ll remember, I’m sure, the Prince of Wales.” She said, walking us to the center of the platform where another two men awaited.

My father and the Prince of Wales greeted each other warmly, they were more used to running in the same circles – royal weddings here and there, international summits and meetings, or whatever it is they do.

“We’re so glad to have you.” He told my father.

“I don’t know if you’ve met my daughter, Princess Marie-Margueritte.”

Smiling, I curtsied to the Prince of Wales as he held my hand, before kissing my cheeks.

“You brighten this day, Your Royal Highness.” He told me, before stepping closer to add, in a whisper. “Sorry you have been dragged to this.”

I giggled, “I’m happy to be here, sir.”

Straightening up, he noticed my father was already greeting the man behind him. “Hopefully we won’t bore you too much. I have tried to bring someone else closer to your age. Have you met my son?”

The handler didn’t know it, but there were no introductions necessary. And yet, all I could do was smile politely as we were introduced to:

“His Royal Highness, Prince Harry of Wales.”

I wondered, for a moment, if he would acknowledge that we already knew each other.

“It’s a pleasure, Your Royal Highness.” Holding my hand in his, he brought my knuckles to his lips.

The answer was, obviously, no. So I lowered myself again in a curtsy as an excuse to avert my eyes from his.

I couldn’t understand why, but I had been unprepared for him. With all of Auguste’s preparation, all the briefings, with all the preachings about my appearance, no one had prepared me for him. I don’t know if it was that, like me, he was one of the youngest there, or how absurdly, almost ridiculously tall he was, or maybe how the blue in his eyes contrasted with the red of his hair, but he just… stunned me. When he kissed my hand, his eyes traveled down my legs all the way back to pierce mine, igniting a wave of electricity down my spine I was unable to control.

He leaned back, and there we stood, hand in hand, wordlessly.

“You can follow the King, ma’am.” Auguste whispered behind me, his voice making me jump slightly, as I quickly pulled my hand from Harry’s, not before realizing he had something scribbled on his palm.

My father and the Queen were deep in conversation, with Charles besides them, as they reached the center of the platform to watch the guards. The Queen in the middle, my father to her right, and the Prince of Wales to her left, I walked forward to stand beside my father, while Prince Harry walked to his.

We waited just a moment, and then the band started playing the Savoy National Anthem, and the British Anthem after it. A few words said, more ceremony here and there, and the Prince Wales formally invited my father to inspect the Guards, so they left together, accompanied by one of the military leaders to walk among the rolls of guards, as the three of us stood behind to watch.

“I was sorry to hear about your mother, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I said, looking regretful, walking towards her, closing the gap left behind by the others. “She was sorry she couldn’t be here.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious.” Prince Harry interjected.

“A sprained ankle.” I explained, looking ahead.

“Harry is also here after a small hiccup with the Duchess of Cornwall, my daughter-in-law.” His grandmother told me. “An illness in her family, nothing serious.”

“Hopefully I’ll have time to meet her before we leave.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She nodded. “How did you mother hurt herself?”

“Horse fall. She was never very fond of Polo, I’m afraid this will drive her further away from it.”

“Oh, that is regretful.” The Queen said.

Harry looked at me. “Do you play?”

“I do, sir.”

“Harry is very good,” his grandmother told me, “he will be the one playing with you in the charity match in the coming days.”

“I look forward to-“, I started, but Harry had started the exact same sentence. We locked eyes, and chuckled.

“You first.” I said.

“Please, I insist.” He responded, cheeks reddening.

His grandmother looked between us, and then back to the uniformed men in front. She then said, in a low tone, something I would spend a large part of the upcoming months thinking obsessively about:

“Be careful with him... He will charm you, but he is a heartbreaker.”

The words astonished me so much I looked at her, unsure she had actually said them. But she had, clearly, because Harry was also looking at her, quite shocked.

“Granny!” he complained, in such a whiny tone I broke into laughter.

“Do I lie?” She asked him, grinning. It only made him look more shocked.

“Don’t ruin my reputation in front of foreign royals!” he said, in a low tone, before looking at me. “Specially such pretty ones.”

My giggle froze in my throat under his intense glare, and I could feel my cheeks reddening.

The Queen looked at me. “Oh, you’re blushing. It’s too late, I see.”

It was.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

Margueritte’s outfit

The ask box is open! Let me know your thoughts? And if at all possible, like this page so I know you liked it? Thank you so much!

[A/N: Attention: by continuing to read you are accepting that some sad stuff is coming. You been warned. Thanks for checking this out! Let me know your thoughts?? thanks!!!!]

[A/N2: Hey! Nat here. I wanted to talk a little more about the story we are about to go on together.

In the upcoming chapters you will be introduced to the Royal Family of Savoy, a fictitious European country right below the UK, to left of France. When I first posted a fanfiction, FIUYMI, I made the main character latina, since that’s what I am, and I had previously felt that I couldn’t relate to other characters I had read. In this one, however, I decided I wanted to write about a fictitious monarchy, and I knew I wanted to make it as realistic as possible.

As much as I wanted at many points in the story to make the character look more like me, the idea felt like cheating: Margueritte is a blood royal, born to a life of specific privileges and hardships, and pretending she could look like the type of people who don’t have white privilege would be trying to ignore a very real issue: all monarchies - past and present - existed, lasted and gathered riches on the back of people of color. Most of their descendants still carry white and wealth privilege because these royal families, however many years ago, supported and perpetuated colonialism and white supremacy that left countless countries and their populations still recovering today.

That is a legacy Margueritte didn’t chose, and which she also doesn’t have to face, but in this story she will chose too. As you’ll see, she finds herself in a much more influential position she thought she would have, and as such she realizes she has two options: she can stick to the message her family - and other royal families - have perpetuated for generations and keep her head high, mouth and ears shut, so their legacy can survive; or she can chose to be a modern Queen who will make the institution relevant again. I want to write about this because this issue is important for the times we live in, particularly after the way the Duchess of Sussex was treated in the United Kingdom.

What that will look like will depend on who Margueritte is as a person and whose advice she takes, and that is a journey I hope you’ll take with us =) ]

#prince harry fanfic #prince harry fanfiction #princeharryff #royalfanficcollection #princeharryfanfiction #princeharryfanfic #brf #fanfic #fanfiction #modern royalty fanfic #chapters #modern royalty au #im so excited about this story #but also like #really nervous #i missed this

54 notes · View notes

papermoonloveslucy · 3 years

Text

WHICH HUSBAND DO YOU MEAN?

January 3, 1962

Lucille Ball gave an interview to Dick Kleiner of Newspaper Enterprise Association that was printed in newspapers on or about January 2, 1962. The article is reprinted verbatim below with added footnotes in parentheses for historical perspective and photos for editorial enhancement. Quotes by Lucille Ball are in bold italics.

Richard Arthur Kleiner (1921-2002) was an American columnist whose question-and-answer column "Ask Dick Kleiner" appeared in hundreds of newspapers across the country. Kleiner wrote about Broadway for fifteen years, then switched to covering Hollywood in 1964. He was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, interviewing thousands of stars.

Lucille Ball's blush clashed frightfully with her orange and lavender stretch slacks.

But it was hard for her to keep from blushing after her remark, which is known, technically, as a "boo-boo."

The question had been, "Do you plan to do any work with your husband?"

Lucy sailed right into her answer. "I don't think so," she said. "You see, nowadays he's more interested in producing and directing and isn't acting as much as he---"

Then she stopped and there was a slightly sick look on her beautiful face.

"Did you mean Desi or Gary?" she asked.

"Gary."

"Oh."

The blush started. "I was sure you meant Desi."

* * * * *

The blush spread. It clashed with her coral lipstick, too. But she recovered beautifully. In fact, she burst out into that wild, ringing laugh which her fans know so well.

"You know," she said, "these things have been happening to me. Three days after Gary and I were married, l was in the elevator here in the apartment. And the operator said. ‘How is Mrs. Morton today?' I said, 'Well, you know I don't get to meet many people in the building.' And then realized he meant me. So I said, 'Oh, I'm fine, thank you’. He gave me the oddest look.” (1)

* * * * *

The blush began to recede. The tall redhead seemed to be part of the interior decoration of her apartment. She was the splash of color the room needed; her walls, carpet, furniture, are all in shades of pale green, and against that wan background her color and costume stood out like a well thumb.

She was eating a bowl of prunes. "I'm on a diet, just grapefruit, prunes, meat and coffee; it makes me tired, but I feel great."

And she was full of plans for her future. She ticked off the movies and TV specials she wants to do, starting with "The Good Years" on CBS-TV January 12. (2)

"I've had so many offers," she said. "I can do almost anything I want to do and that s a nice feeling. Any TV series or spectacular I want to do. But I don't think I'll do a TV series again. It s too much work.” (3)

She says she likes to keep busy, because she's the kind who just can't sit around on her pale green furniture and wither.

"I don't have any plans or desire to retire," she says: "I'm going to die when I'm 69 of a cerebral hemorrhage and I'll be working right up to then." (4)

One thing she doesn’t want to do is go outside her own field. She’s had several chances to try straight dramatic parts, but she's turned them all down.

* * * * *

"I have no desire to do a dramatic part." she says. "That would spoil the magic, and I don't want, to do that." (5)

By "spoiling the magic," she meant that she has a place in the hearts of the public with her comedy. It's a place she richly deserves and has long wanted to occupy.

"Even as a kid," she says. "I liked to be funny. At the time, I thought it was because I liked to be funny. But now, after reading all these autobiographies of show people, I realize it was because I was insecure and wanted to be liked. So I tried to make people laugh. It's amazing what a great psychologist I was as a kid."

____________________

FOOTNOTES

(1) It is apparent that Lucille Ball is giving this interview in her New York City apartment. She resided at the Imperial House, located at 150 East 69th Street.

(2) “The Good Years” was an adaptation of the book of the same name by Walter Lord about the first two decades of the 20th century. Ball co-starred with Henry Fonda. Billed as her return to network television, it aired on January 12, 1962.

(3) As history knows, Ball was soon convinced to return to series television just a few months after this interview was published. The show would be titled “The Lucy Show” and aired until 1968. Although the workload never lessened, Ball immediately followed up with “Here’s Lucy.” Undaunted, in 1986, she made a third and final attempt at a sitcom titled “Life With Lucy,” which only ran for three months.

(4) After her exhaustion while on Broadway doing Wildcat, Lucille Ball was keenly aware that her health was precarious. At the age of 50 in 1962, Ball here predicts her death at age 69, just 19 years later (1981). In fact, she lived until 1989, dying at age 77. The cause of Ball’s death was listed as a ruptured abdominal aorta. A cerebral hemorrhage is most often associated with strokes.

(5) Lucille Ball was dubbed the Queen of Comedy, but she did tackle dramatic roles occasionally. Her biggest success in a drama was The Big Street (1942). Despite her eloquent reasoning here, she succumbed to the allure of stretching her talents by acting in the dramatic telefilm Stone Pillow in 1985. Once again, Lucille Ball’s health was pressed to the limit by the rigorous location shooting. Ball should have stuck by her initial instincts. The critics were unkind, expecting the same comic Lucy they had grown used to from 30 years of television.

#Lucille Ball #1962 #The Lucy Show #Stone Pillow #Dick Kleiner #TV #The Good Years #Desi Arnaz #Gary Morton #Newspaper

5 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 4 years

Text

The Casagrandes Reviews: Croaked!

Halloween Havoc rolls on as we shine a light on the other beloved holiday on October 31st, Day of the Dead! Sid and Ronnie Anne’s well meaning plan to help Sid’s sister Adelaide move on from her frog’s death ends up convincincing the small child she has power over life and death. I’m sure all big sisters do that at some point. More about the whole being dead thing under the cut.

I’ve hyped this one up in both previous Casgrandes reviews, so as you can tell i’m excited for this one. As i’ve mentioned before but will repeat for anyone new here, I absolutley love this episode and when I did a binge a month ago for labor day of this show, it was one of the standouts by a wide margin. I only held off so long because why should Halloween be the only holiday I cover during spooky season huh? I mean yes it’s in my halloween coverage’s title but there’s always room for incusivlity. Like jello or Wolverine.

As for if i’m covering this show’s paired episode, the show’s episode for halloween itself...

Yeah I have nothing against the episode ITSELF, it’s just.. eh. I mean we do get bobby as a dracula and sid as a lobster, a cute dance sequence and Stanley griping about not getting to wear his costume at work, which is valid, and then wearing said taco costume at the end... it’s just wrapped around your standard “character blows off a family engagment for something that turns out to suck” plot, the only diffrence being Bobby being the best brother ever is supportive of Ronnie Anne going to a 6th grade party and gladly helps salvage the night at the end. And it wasn’t a plot I liked to begin with, so it had that going against it. And I Know, I tend to zero in on i’ve seen it before a lot.. but that’s because .. it’s OKAY to do a tried and true plot tha’ts been done a million times as long as you can do something entertaining with it. Both She Ra and Avatar the Last Airbender are about a world tha’ts long been conquered whose long lost savior comes to turn the tide of the war.. but that’s about as much as they share in direct comparison and both are fucking fantastic for diffrent reasons entirely. But as rehashes go that episode wasn’t BAD , just eh, and i’d rather focus on things I can write more about frankly.

Speaking of which, yeah I love this episode, and like “Mexican Makeover” it comes from Lalo Alcaraz of La Cucharacha fame, a comic strip writer whose also the show’s consultant for mexican culture, and is part of why the former episode disapointed me: because this one was REALLY fucking good. So enough hype , pitter patter let’s get at er. The episode opens with Rosa setting up a day of the dead altar for her Father, with Sid and Ronnie Anne wondering what’s up, with Sid out and out wondering if Day of the Dead is mexican halloween something i’m ashamed to admit I thought of it as for years and years, because i’m as white as I am dumb, and most cartoons didn’t go much beyond “the dead come back for a day” and get into the more metaphorhical aspects we get to here. I assume Coco is the exception, as is the book of life I just still need to watch both. And yes you may boo me over this, I certainly deserve this. I do however like this line as it’s a common misconception, and gives a lot of kids likely thinking the same about the holiday in the audience a surrogate.

Ronnie Anne also wonders what the altar’s for. Rosa, while minorly annoyed at the two is happy to edcuate explaning it’s a day for honoring your loved ones and inviting them back, metaphorically though the metaphor was lost on young me since both Mucha Lucha and El Tigre had the dead literally come back, via an altar with offerings of their favorite things. It’s a nice bit that not only explains the holiday for those in the audience who either forgot a lot of that (raises hand) or didn’t know any of that, and also helps explain how the holiday is metaphoircal, something I didn’t think about before because as we’ve established i’m kinda dumb. The point is I like it. Sid however gets an idea: Her sister Adelaide has been down in the dumps since her Frog, Froggy died, likely named after Big the Cat’s frog but this Froggy’s penchant for running off probably just got him ran over since Adelaide lives in the city and Frogger is sadly inaccurate, as George Costanza leanred the hard way.

So our ambigiously gay duo visit Addy, who being a 6 year old who just lost her pet is bawling her eyes out. So our duo tells her about day of the dead and they set out to get froggy’s faviorite things: From shoelaces to the hoppit, a frog themed version of the hobbit I both wish is real and belives is probably better than the second two hobbit movies, flies (with help from a dirty diaper because this show and it’s sister can’t resist poop jokes.. go with your audience I guess), and a lilypad. The result is this.

I”m.. not going to ask why a 6 year old’s frog has the frog equilvent of a naked burt renoylds on a bearskin rug photo, froggy’s sexy secrets died with him. But unfortuntely nuance is lost on a 6 year old, so Addy assumed Froggy was actually coming back and just grieves harder now. So Sid comes up with Plan B B: bring froggy back from the dead at the old pet semetary. Though since they don’t want to defile his body they try a dead ally cat first instead.

One Zombie Test Cat later, they decide sometimes dead is better and just go with plan b: Sid once had a goldfish that died and her parents got her a replacement, and since it worked on her, and apparently still works on Bobby, they decide to pull that. They rent a frog from the pet store. And if your asking “wait pet stores , even fictional ones, do that” and suprisingly.. no they do not, but Pete, the guy at the pet shop which is also named after him, likes Sid’s mom’s tour. Okay two questions: one is that little pete from the adventures of pete and pete all grown up? I mean I know what happend to his actor...

youtube

But in universe we have no idea. And Brendon Small, the character and the actor, showed up on Clarence so it’s plausable. And secondly where can I get the job as owner of my own pet store near melissa joan hart doing a gator show. I may have a career goal now.

So they sneak in subsittue froggy, and we get an adorable montage of Addy hanging out with Froggy the Second: Getting some son, eating flies (though Addy spits her’s out. She’s not Lana.), and watching the Hoppit.. as I wish to one day. I mean we see a trippy bit of it but not the actual thing.. I guess I can add seeing a full version to my small list of things related to this franchise that I only I want along with my a diffrent world-esque spinoff show following Lori and Bobby.

Addy happily sleeps after that giant ball of adorable, and Sid and Ronnie Anne take Froggy 2 back to Creepy Guy at the Pet Store.. I mean Pete.. I mean Future Me. So Sid pats herself on the back metaphoircally for the plan.. which this being a sitcom, naturally has kinda snowballed. Now Addy thinks she has power over life and death. Guess she has the same Christmas LIst as Crow

As not to break a small child’s heart for the second time in two days, our heroines decide they have to bring back her wish list: Great Aunt Milly, Old Mr Woodburn, and Abraham Lincoln.

Since they don’t have a time traveling phone booth, they’ll have to go with the next best thing, my boy Tio Carlos. Seriously why they don’t use this adorable nerd more is beyond me. But Carols being an adorable history nerd gladly agrees to play LIncoln for what he thinks is a play.. I mean greanted they could just tell him the truth. He’s a dad, he gets this kinda thing. Meanwhile our girls dress up like said aunt milly and shenanigans insue. It’s a really funny scene.. until it falls apart with the mr. woodburn impersination, revealing it was all a hoax, and sending Addleaide crying to her room understandably not wanting to talk to either of them. Still we got Carolos as lincoln. That’s not nothing.

But yeah having made things worse by accident, the girls go to Rosa for help who while understandably annoyed at the mess they made, is more than willing to come with and help. Because Rosa is fucking amazing ,that’s why. She sucessfully coaxes Addy out and then takes her down to the Casagrande’s place to show off her altar and explain the true meaning of day of the dead: Thinking about your loved ones.. keeps the memories alive. Thinking about who they were, what they loved, what they meant to you.. it’s not raising the dead.. but honring them. It not only made the real value of the holiday sink in for me but i’ts a good message for kids, and a good way to teach them about a holiday most probably didn’ know how it worked if they even knew at all. It’s a really sweet powerful moment, and the combination of alcaraz’s writing and Sonia Manzano really brings it to this scene. It’s easily the show’s best. Good stuff.

Froggy II interupts the scene.. turns out a trail of bacon bits, that we saw left earlier, lead him back, and Pete’s been following him the whole way and is winded because of course he is. We’re in the same blobby shape I get it man your fine. So with Addy already liking the second froggy, and having fully come to terms with the first’s death, Sid offers Pete tickets to her mom’s show in exchange for Froggy II, whose named that in this scene and who we saw in uptown funk. As long as it’s the splash zone he’s fine with it and Sid knows her mom enough well enough to know Becca would probably gladly trade a ticket for her daughter’s hapiness. Plus it’s easier to get someone to willingnly sign the wavers about getting gator blood on them when they already want that so win win. We end on a Day of the Dead party with the whole cast in day of the dead makeup, eveyrone happy.. except Carl who’se subplot of spreading marigolds everywhere I missed and he ended up at the Loud House. Why this didn’t lead to a crossover I dunno. I mean if Steve Urkel can jetpack into the family from step by step’s yard, why not? I know the 90′s were a diffrent time but this was a missed opportunity. Funny gag anyway. And scene.

Final Thoughts: I was pretty transparent with this one: I think it’s a wonderful, heartfelt, and well done look at day of the dead tha’ts educational without cramming the education part down your throat, like any good cartoon that teachs you something should do, and it’s also really funny and endearing.Not much else to say, it’s just really good and I was glad to highlight it and if you haven’t seen it, please do it’s perfect viewing for the season. If you want more Casagrandes I have two reviews under the nick tab on my blog, and will be covering the second batch of Halloween/Day of the Dead episodes later this month, along with the new loud house halloween special Ghosted. And if you can’t wait for either of those, monday i’ll be covering the new ducktales halloween special. Until we meet again, viva la muretos. Play us out Nimoy...

youtube

#the casagrandes #croaked #Adelaide Chang #sid chang #ronnie anne santiago #rosa casagrande #carl casagrande #froggy ii #nickeodeon #day of the dead #halloween #halloween havoc

8 notes · View notes

picturebookmakers · 3 years

Text

Marika Maijala

In this post, Marika talks about ‘Ruusun matka’ (Rosie’s Journey), her wonderfully fresh debut picturebook as an author and illustrator, published in Finland by Etana Editions. She talks openly about her intimate creation process, and the challenges of writing.

Visit Marika Maijala’s website

Marika: When writing this blog post, I am completely stuck in my writing process. I am trying to write a new story, but it keeps escaping me. Actually, even this blog post makes me a bit nervous, because it is a story as well: How did the book turn out the way it did?

Rosie and the race dogs in ‘Rosie’s Journey’ (Etana Editions, 2018)

My first picturebook as an author was ‘Rosie’s Journey’. It’s the story of a race dog, who runs away from the race track to find a place where she can run the way she likes to. Now, as I am struggling with my writing, I have returned to this project often and tried to figure out how I did it. It is hard to reach, as now, looking at it after a couple years have gone by, I only remember chaos, randomness and doubt, exactly the same feelings I am having now. I think I need to go further back to see how it started.

I remember sitting in a book meeting in a publisher’s office a few years back. We were discussing a forthcoming book project. There were two stories on the table, and the publisher asked which would I rather illustrate, this other story, or this one, with two happy dogs? I remember replying immediately: “the one with happy dogs”. The other story got selected, and it turned out to be a great book, but I think that deep inside of me I only want to draw happy dogs. In the end I even made a very stupid story for myself about four dogs driving around in their car. They are happy.

So maybe that’s why the main character in my first authored book is a dog. She just appeared in my sketchbook one day. Here is the first sight of Rosie. She seems happy.

This was a new notebook – an A3 Moleskine I had bought on one Interrail trip in Italy, and I carried it all the way home through Europe; how stupid. Especially as it was still empty after two years. That was a time when I was very tired of my work. I had illustrated children’s books for over a decade, worked with wonderful writers and received nice reviews for my illustrations. But I felt I didn’t really enjoy drawing. I used computer a lot, because I didn’t trust my drawing skills. So I took out this huge notebook and started scribbling, messing around. Drawing badly. Pictures came out. They were bad, but I enjoyed making them.

Around that time, I was selected for a masterclass with some other Finnish illustrators. Our teacher was Kitty Crowther, whom we all admired very much, so this was a special weekend for all of us. January was cold that year in Helsinki, and the course took place in a spooky old house by the sea. We were running on the frozen sea and making all kinds of exercises to free our creation and find our inner stories.

That weekend, I showed my new drawings for the first time to other people and got encouraged by the feedback I received from Kitty and other illustrators. Maybe I really was going in the right direction? We still often talk about this weekend with those artists, and looking back at it now, I think it was an important turning point for many of us. For me it was.

This is one of the drawings I did on the course. I still look at it when I am having a bad day, or I feel lost. Depending on the day, I am either the lion or that person getting eaten by the lion.

More drawings of Rosie started to appear in my notebook. I dared to show them to my publishers Jenni Erkintalo and Réka Király at Etana Editions. They were also encouraging and said that there was a story building up. I think it has always been difficult for me to see value in my work and ideas; this is why having friends and colleagues whom I can trust has been so important. When I doubt, they say just go ahead. I try to do the same for them. Through this whole process I was not alone, and so many decisions concerning the images and the story we made together with Jenni, Réka as well as the editor Kirsikka Myllyrinne, who encouraged me to keep the story very simple.

Here we get to the point where I always struggle: the story. When I was forced, I was able to produce this synopsis for the book:

The story goes: First, Rosie runs at the stadium, then she runs to escape the stadium, and in the end, she runs with friends because she wants to. And at the turning point, she stops. How did this scribble grow into a picturebook with 25 spreads (normally the picturebooks I illustrate have about 12 spreads)?

I think this book grew out of drawing – the joy of drawing. In a way, this is the content of the story as well, to find your own way of being, your own expression. For Rosie it is running, maybe for me it is drawing. And when I found the enjoyment in drawing, I got enough courage to finally write the words too, which so often escape me.

And maybe, in the end, it was just about finding the right tools for drawing. I remember an exercise from Kitty’s course, in which we were drawing, eyes closed, only feeling the paper, and the pen touching the paper. I really love how the crayon feels  on this particular type of paper. And funnily enough, to approach a visual task through some other sense than vision, helped me to create an image I felt was also interesting to look at.

Drawing in these notebooks was a very physical act: I filled five of them, drawing dozens and dozens of pictures. Also, scanning the images from these books required some patience as they are large, heavy and annoying to handle.

One of my crayon boxes is an old Russian box of chocolates given to me by Finnish writer Hannu Mäkelä. We have made many books together. He is also the creator of my favourite books from childhood: the ‘Herra Huu’ (Mr. Boo) series.

It is quite an exhausting method to search for the story through drawing. I guess I sort of needed to live the story myself, to know how it goes. There are a large amount of drawings that did not end up in the final book. But I think I still needed to draw them.

Life on and under the bridge in a sketch for ‘Rosie’s Journey’. Unpublished.

Rosie makes a leap. Unpublished.

I don’t like to put morals in my stories, because who am I to teach anyone. I would rather let people find their own meanings in the story. Maybe I am more trying to find out about things myself, I have questions in mind, not answers. And some questions get answers during the process, some don’t.

Maybe the questions in this story were: What is it to be happy? What is it to be free? What is keeping us from doing things we love? Why do we hurt, imprison and enslave each other: humans, animals? Can I do something? If I save myself, what happens to the others? What can be discussed in a children’s book?

In the story, I combined my own history and happenings during the past few years with the story of a real rescue dog, Rosie. My friend saved her from a bad place and took her to her home, where she lived peacefully with three other dogs. She was a hound dog, just like Rosie in the book, the most elegant creature I have ever seen. I thought that maybe through my experiences I was able to understand her, that there are feelings, desires, experiences, all living creatures share.

An early sketch for ‘Rosie’s Journey’.

Race depot in ‘Rosie’s Journey’.

This I try to keep in mind when I draw and write children’s books: we share so many things, even with those we think we don’t share anything with at all. In a way I want to stress that, as much as we are and will always be focused on our own little lives, and the ups and downs in them, there are millions of others doing the same thing. And these ups and downs are very precious for those experiencing them. Kindness I also like a lot.

A sketch from my Italy notebook.

I love to watch people and animals doing their things. At the stations, in malls and supermarkets. On the streets and in the parks.

The train station in ‘Rosie’s Journey’.

I love to draw so many details in my illustrations that they often almost steal the story. Or they become the story, which actually I don’t mind. Something I really was fighting against in Rosie’s story as well was its linearity, the basic narrative structure it follows. Maybe I was trying to show options of where the story could go. Or that in a way our stories depend on other stories.

Spring in the city from my second authored picturebook ‘Suden hetki’ (Etana Editions, 2020).

People and animals living their lives in ‘Joulu juksaa’ (Etana Editions, 2019), a Christmas story written by Juha Virta and illustrated by me.

For many of the ‘best’ pictures (in my opinion) in ‘Rosie’s Journey’ I don’t have different/alternate versions. The pictures came out in one moment, with no effort, no planning, no pain. I didn’t want to redraw them; they had everything I wanted in them. In a way, I had made it easy for myself, as the concept of the book is so clear: Rosie is just running through different sceneries and settings; all I needed to do was to draw them. The themes – freedom vs imprisonment – I had in my mind and they can be found in the pictures when you study them.

I said that creating the story was a challenge for me. Still, I guess I know what I like in a story. I wanted it to be a simple story. And I didn’t want there to be any big climax in the end. Rosie just finds two friends and they run together. As simply as it sometimes goes in life. But we made a little change in the way of telling things, when the dogs start to run together. Until this point, Rosie has been running alone through large panoramic scenes, in an undefined time. In this important moment, when the dogs find each other, the story time is slowed down, and cut into a sequence of images, like in a film.

Rosie, Siiri and Iida in ‘Rosie’s Journey’.

In a way ‘Rosie’s Journey’ is a classical coming-of-age story, which pictures the growth of a protagonist to selfhood. I think the story became clear to me only when I made the last image. And it really is the last one in the book (although of this portrait there are at least five different versions). Also, the text on the last page was the last thing I wrote in the book. It came after long discussions with many friends, having gone through some small hardships in life, having tried terribly hard to find the right words, and then they came, immediately when I stopped trying:‘I am Rosie’, says Rosie. — ‘Shall we run again?’

There are so many ways we can express ourselves, and no way is above or below. I guess it depends on each of us which we find most important, or dear, easy or hard. I noticed that for me, when making this book, it was important to utter words as well. At first, we had thought with the publishers that it would be a book without words. But to dare to use words, and to use my own words, felt very important to me. Maybe for me, an essential way to express my thoughts and feelings about this life is to combine words and images. A long time after finishing the book, I found this drawing in my childhood home.

“I am Marika Maijala. I am 4 years old, my sister is 7 years, and my mum 8 years.”

I tried to draw a picture of my writer’s block. I am the tall creature piling heavy stones into the hot air balloon. A little girl asks, “What are you doing?”. I am making an easy thing difficult. Instead of just letting the balloon fly, I fill it with stones. Or, maybe I am making the impossible: I’m going to fly with a balloon that really cannot fly. I guess I can choose.

Buy this picturebook

Ruusun matka / Rosie’s Journey

Marika Maijala

Etana Editions, Finland, 2018

Rosie is a race dog. By day she runs at the track. By night she sits in her little room. One day she doesn’t stop at the end of the track. She jumps over the fence and runs away. Rosie keeps running. Where does she go? A sensitive portrayal of a special journey by award-winning illustrator Marika Maijala. This large-format book is Marika Maijala’s debut picturebook as both author and illustrator.

Finnish: Etana Editions

Swedish: Förlaget

French: Hélium

Spanish: SM

Italian: Clichy

Korean: Munhakdongne

Chinese (Simplified): Gingko/Post Wave

Chinese (Traditional): Pace Books

#finland

4 notes · View notes

sympathyfortheblinderdevil · 4 years

Text

All is Fair: Ch 11

Hi, Y’all! Thank you for being so patient and not giving up on this fic even though I have been egregiously late with updates. At best, my life is erratically populated with periods of leisure time and periods of hectic, soul-crushing work. I, like many of you, am in the midst of a forced period of leisure time, so you will probably see more frequent updates. I appreciate those of you who are willing to stick around to see what happens next, and I hope you are in good health. Tell me what you think! x

Discovery and Dissolution

Polly Gray sat in her Bentley, wrapped in fur. Through her dark glasses, she watched the scene on the street where Lia worked. The bitter north wind cut straight down the sidewalk in front of the library and sent patrons scurrying for shelter within. A cluster of people shuffled through the arched brass doors, and Lia stepped out. She was a vision in a blue cashmere long coat, a mink collar clutched around her neck. The wind caused her coat to flap and play peek-a-boo with leather boots that stretched up to her knees. Both items were gifts from Tommy, Polly surmised. She noticed that Lia still wore an older pair of wool gloves. Guess he couldn’t think of everything.

Despite the cold, Lia wore a little smile as she walked along. She’d been hard at work referencing and cross-referencing research with a professor of Art History at the University of Birmingham, and he was pleased with the help she’d given him. He had mentioned working with her again in the near future. Lia had come a long way from shelving books. She was beginning to realize the kind of life she had only dreamed was possible when she first came to Birmingham. As she neared the corner, though, she was pulled out of her thoughts when she noticed familiar-looking woman in a posh car was watching her.

Polly lowered her window and called out, “Lia, Lia Montrose!”

Lia slowed down and warily approached the car. Polly extended a sumptuously gloved hand, looked over her sunglasses at Lia, and introduced herself, “Polly Gray…Tommy’s Aunt Polly.”

Lia visibly relaxed and took her hand at those words, “Mrs. Gray…I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Get in, it’s time we got acquainted.”

In a matter of minutes, Lia found herself sitting in the kitchen at No. 6 Watery Lane while Polly found two cups and put the kettle on. She then reached into the cupboard where she found a tin of tea. Upon opening it and sniffing the contents, she decided that it would do. Decked head to toe in Parisian tailor-made garments, she looked odd moving around the kitchen with such familiarity.

While they waited for the kettle to boil, she offered Lia a cigarette and lit one of her own. They’d spoken hardly a word since they entered the house. Lia was loathe to break the silence with small talk, so she waited for Polly to say what was on her mind. They sat, smoking and soaking in the dusty quiet of the dimly lit room.

Only when Polly poured the tea did she finally speak. “I brought you here so that you could see where Tommy lived...where we all lived before the money came.”

Lia looked all around the room and smiled, “So this is where Tommy began.”

Polly waved her hand with a flourish and laughed, “Who knows where Tommy began. If I hadn’t witnessed his birth I’d swear that he was flung out of heaven and barred from hell.”

Lia smiled knowingly, “Well, Lucifer was a fallen angel.”

“Exactly.” Polly raised an eyebrow and leaned back in the rickety chair. “I want you to understand why Tommy is,” she searched for the right words and finding none she continued, “the way he is.”

Memories flooded Polly’s mind as she looked all around herself, gesturing here and there with the hand that held her cigarette. “Look around you, Lia. This is where we moved when things got better. You don’t want to know where we lived before when things were worse.”

Lia swallowed hard and held her cup with both hands as if to draw every bit of heat out of it. She was suddenly cold. She had not grown up with much, but she was certainly comfortable. Her home had a lightness about it. The room where she sat with Polly was cozy, homey even, but the air was laced with soot and traces of despair.

“Does that explain why he is so driven?” Lia wondered aloud.

“Partly,” Polly mused. Then she looked at Lia with soft brown eyes, almost like she sympathized with her. She felt sorry for anyone who loved Tommy, even herself. “He has always been different. Clever and driven since the night he was born.” Then she looked away, “But he did have a big heart.”

Did.

It wasn’t Polly’s intention to make Lia uncomfortable or uncertain of her place in Tommy’s life, but Lia couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated. Lia’s chair creaked as she shifted her weight and sat her teacup on the table, and Polly saw in her eyes a vulnerability that hadn’t been there before.

“We all had to make sacrifices to get where we are today, but Tommy has sacrificed the most. Business comes first. Always. Ada says that Tommy likes you, he may even grow to care for you, but there are certain things you will have to accept if you want to be with him...”

“So he has said,” Lia broke in. She immediately regretted cutting Tommy’s aunt off, though Polly showed no sign of being offended. She just sipped her tea and smiled.

“Has he said what he plans on doing with you when he returns to London, Dear?”

Lia winced a bit at the question. “No.”

There was silence between them again. A clock ticked out the seconds from the next room and the sounds of people shouting to each other in the street filtered through the walls. Having finished her tea, Polly lit another cigarette and let the quiet grow around them. She believed that you could learn a lot about a person by how they chose to deal with spaces in conversation, so she waited and watched.

Lia ruminated on Polly’s last question as long as she could, then stood and looked toward the parlor, silently asking permission to go in. Polly rose and accompanied her. Dusty furniture and photographs sat frozen in time as if they were waiting for Polly to run the sweeper or Ada to polish the tabletops. The fireplace sat waiting to be lit. But she couldn’t see Tommy until she looked up the shadowy stairwell. It was narrow, and she could barely see the top stair in the darkness, but something in the woodsy smell that drifted down reminded her of him. Polly caught the wistful expression on Lia’s face and placed her hand on Lia’s back.

“His room was up there,” Polly nodded.

Polly peered into the darkness and flipped a switch, then nodded in the direction of the stairs, inviting Lia to climb them.

***

The sleek grey Bentley rolled along Cannon Lane and splashed slush in its wake. Lia sat in back with a heavy woolen blanket wrapped around her legs. She made small talk with Rodney, the Blinder up front. Already, she knew that he had a fiancé and that they were to be married in June. His mum and dad were from Coventry, and they were both deceased. Also, Tommy had taken him under his wing as a boy of thirteen. Tommy kept him from starving and from, as Rodney put it, “…falling in with the worst sort of criminal element.” It seemed like everywhere she turned there was another person with a story about what Tommy had done to help them.

Rodney delivered her to her door, and eager to get out of the cold, Lia darted inside.

“Jenny, are you here?”

A few snowflakes floated to the floor while she hung up her coat and unbuttoned her mink lined gloves. She noticed that the kettle was on, and so she called out again.

“Jenny!”

Her cousin bounded down the stairs, pulling her arms through the sleeves of a cardigan as she came.

“Jesus, Lia!” she laughed. “Is the bloody house on fire?”

“I have news,” Lia beamed.

Jenny nodded her head and set about fixing tea, “Go on then. Tell me your news.”

“WE have the use of a car.”

Jenny froze and her heart sank. “Come again…”

“A car, Jenny! Tommy doesn’t like the idea of my riding the bus and walking to work, so he is sending a car ‘round for us every morning and afternoon. One of his men will drive us to and from work,” she enthused.

Jenny stood blinking at her for a moment then responded in a monotone voice. “A Blinder, Lia. ‘One of his men’ means a Blinder. I’d rather walk in the rain and snow.”

She turned her back to Lia and got out the plates, careful not to take her simmering mood out on the crockery. She tried her best to keep her distrust of Tommy out of her relationship with her cousin, but it was hard to keep things light when every other word out of Lia’s mouth was “Tommy”.

Jenny had taken quite a bit of flack at work because of Lia’s connection with Tommy Shelby. She’d had her fill with entering rooms full of chatter only to have them go silent, and she had dodged several sideways comments about her recent promotion. She hated to kill the mood, but someone had to be the voice of reason. Rolling up to work chauffeured by a flat cap wearing thug was more than she could tolerate.

Lia balled her fists and tried to modulate her voice as she asked, “Why do you hate him so much? Hmm? He is good to me and he wants to help you too.”

“Help? Is that what he calls it?” Jenny turned back around and eyed Lia’s obviously new and obviously bought by Tommy clothes. “If you want to play house with him and let him dress you up as his little doll that’s your business, but I won’t be ferried around town in a car that was paid for with blood money.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it. Our family weren’t always saints. Granddad was the first one in the queue to spunk away his wages on the horses and the last one out of the pub at night.”

“Right, and it was people like the Shelbys who were more than happy to take his wages off of him while Nan and our dads went shoeless.”

She had a point. Lia hated the fact that she had a point. Damn Jenny for always knowing how to snatch the stars from her eyes. Lia sat down and put her head in her hands to hide her tears. It was so easy to let Tommy do little things for her, to buy a scarf here and some gloves there, to make life easier for her in a thousand little ways. He never made her feel like it was payment for services rendered. How could Jenny take all of Tommy’s kindness and turn it into something dirty, something tainted and wrong? The gifts and the thoughtful things he did for her were not part of a transaction, they were just part of the way he liked to take care of her. She wished that for once Jenny could see the goodness in Tommy.

Since Aunt Polly had shown her the house and the betting shop where Tommy had launched his empire, she had a deeper understanding of him. Since she’d stood in his tiny bedroom where he had wrestled with the echoes of the tunnels and sweated through nightmares of poverty and war, she saw him through different eyes. She had grown to tolerate his last-minute cancellations and welcome him without pouting when he’d kept her waiting half the night.

Polly had opened her eyes to the man behind the façade in a way that he could never do himself. With that understanding, she opened herself up to the possibility of a life with Tommy. No, nothing about what happened between them was mercenary. Tommy just took care of people in his life. She was used to Jenny acting like an older sister and alerting her to pitfalls she had overlooked, but this was too much. The tears of frustration and despair that she had hidden behind her hands were becoming tears of rage. Over and over Jenny had proven that she wouldn’t ever approve of her relationship with Tommy, and Lia was finished with seeking her cousin’s approval.

She wiped her eyes and spoke through gritted teeth, “You know, Tommy has offered to let me stay in one of his properties near the library. Maybe it’s time to take him up on that offer. I’d hate for my reputation as the Shelby whore to rub off on you.”

��Jenny put down the knife she’d been using to slice the bread. “Calm down. I didn’t say that…”

“But that is what you meant.” Her words came out clipped and cold. “I don’t want my reputation for sleeping with the Gangster of Parliament to ruin your chances with some nice mid-level clerk, so I’ll just move out.”

“No…don’t! I’m just worried about you. You are like my little sister and I’m afraid you’re riding for a fall. What happens when this is over?”

Lia abruptly stood and lashed out at Jenny, “Over?” Lia growled.

The word struck a chord of fear in Lia that made her dizzy. In an instant, all of her nights with Tommy, the taste of his sweat, the feel of his mouth, the smell of his sheets, flashed through her mind. She turned that fear into rage and took a step toward Jenny as she shouted, “I love him! That’s enough for me! Why can’t it enough for you?”

It was true. She loved him so much that it hurt. Her face was red and blotchy and her chest heaved with every breath. She was tired of fighting Jenny at every turn, and at that moment all she wanted was Tommy’s arms around her. She needed him so badly that she felt like she would fly into a million pieces without him holding her together.

Jenny took a step backward and bumped into the kitchen counter. Lia looked truly deranged. A realization came over Jenny like a wave. Lia was a different person now— a person who turned a blind eye to the ugly side of her man and made excuses for his shortcomings. It had been happening gradually over the last few months; the absent-minded dreamer that she had grown up with had disappeared. Back then, no matter how far out Lia got Jenny was always the voice of reason who could reel her back in, but Lia wasn’t listening to her anymore. This was different.

There seemed to be no turning back. Jenny knew that she had already said too much, but couldn’t resist a parting shot as she headed for the stairs. “Love? How can you love him when the only things you have in common are each other?”

Even as Jenny said it, she wondered if it was true.

***

Tommy and Arthur were sitting opposite each other at Tommy’s desk in their shirtsleeves talking about horses. Arthur had put too many logs on the fire and the room was like an oven. It was past the close of business and they should have been heading home, but they had lately taken to staying for drinks a couple of nights a week. Arthur would tell stories about Billy and the chickens, and Tommy had even opened up a bit about Lia. Arthur was cursing the heat and rolling up his sleeves when they heard someone pounding at the door.

“You expecting company?” Arthur asked in his rough, whiskey soaked Brum.

Tommy ran the tip of his tongue along his teeth and shook his head, “No.”

They stood and Arthur made his way toward the door, his hand on his pistol.

“Who’s there?” he boomed.

A muffled voice called, “Lia Montrose. I need to see Tom…Mr. Shelby.”

Arthur turned in his brother’s direction and feigned seriousness. ”Shall we let her in, Tommy?”

Tommy rolled his eyes and huffed, “Open the fookin’ door; it’s freezing out there.”

Lia entered the building shaking snow from her disheveled hair and stamping the slush from her boots. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and her eyes were a bit watery from the wind. She imagined that she looked a fright, but Arthur thought she looked like an angel.

Arthur stood there looking her up and down while she tried not to gawp at the pistol hanging loosely under his arm until Tommy cleared his throat and began to make introductions.

“Lia, this is my brother Arthur. Arthur, Lia Montrose.”

Arthur straightened up and offered to take her coat. As he hung it on the rack, he smiled a bit too broadly and said, “Tommy has told me a lot of nice things about you.”

Tommy knew that something was wrong because he and Lia hadn’t planned on seeing each other until the weekend. After a few pleasantries, Tommy stared at Arthur until he made his excuses and left.

Chills shook her body; she was shaking like a leaf, so Tommy took her by the hand and led her into his office where a fire roared and two glasses of whiskey were already waiting. He sat her down on his desk and took a seat in front of her, all the while rubbing the warmth back into her arms and hands. She looked down into his crystalline eyes and tried to find the words to say what she’d come for. At that moment, she was ever so grateful that Tommy knew how to take his time with her. He would wait until she was ready to talk.

She finished her first glass of whiskey and leaned into him. She breathed deeply and sighed, feeling better already simply for having him there to hold her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she mumbled into his collar.

“About…” he prompted her while stroking her head.

She sat back up and his hands went to her thighs rubbing slow, soothing circles over her skirt. She watched his hands and thought about what Jenny had said. She didn’t know very much about him, other than what they did together. Hell, she only just met his brother. His business dealings were a mystery and she had learned more about him from the papers than from his own words. So what if she became breathless around him? So what if her tummy fluttered every time he entered the room? Surely there was more to love than the helpless infatuation she felt for him.

Tommy lay his head in her lap and wrapped his arms around her hips thinking that maybe she would be able to tell him what was wrong if his eyes weren’t watching her. She ran her fingers through his hair and took a deep breath.

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“Is that right?” Tommy whispered.

Lulled by the sensation of her fingernails on his scalp, he could feel the knots in his shoulders loosen. He was trying his best to be attentive to her needs, but his mind drifted to what he’d like to do with her on his desk.

“Jenny and I had an awful row… the worst one we’ve ever had,” she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and went on, “I can’t live with her anymore.”

That got his full attention.

#Peaky Blinders #peaky blinders fiction #Tommy Shelby #peaky blinders fic #tommy shelby x oc #peaky blinders fanfiction #all is fair

40 notes · View notes

bobdylanrevisited · 3 years

Text

Bringing It All Back Home

Released: 22 March 1965

Rating: 10/10

Thus, we have arrived at the three greatest albums of all time. Dylan has gone electric and dropped the protest songs, much to the dismay of his loyal folk fanbase; they would later show up in force to jeer and boo at the man they once revered as a their new messiah. Despite having the nerve to plug in his guitar for much of this album, the B-side is still acoustic, and this is a perfect collection of songs that would prove rock ‘n’ roll could also be poetic and meaningful. Just because he had a backing band and was singing differently, Dylan was still honing his writing skills and experimenting with narrative, structure, and also quite a lot of drugs.

1) Subterranean Homesick Blues - This was my introduction to Bob at 13 years old. I remember seeing the iconic video, hearing the nasal voice, and being so confused by the words, but I was instantly fascinated and determined to discover more about this strange man. Fourteen years later and the song still has a wondrous effect on me, this folk/rock/rap is a perfect rant on youth and disillusionment with the establishment. Iconic lines like ‘20 years of school and then they put you on the day shift’ or ‘join the army if you fail’ are all time classics. This is a barnstorming opening track, which shows that the old Dylan is dead and the new Dylan is coming out swinging.

2) She Belongs To Me - A much more mellow track, about a lover whose artistic, bohemian ambitions must be pandered to. Dylan’s singing is brilliant, and it’s a nice little song in between two of the album’s rockiest numbers.

3) Maggie’s Farm - The farm in question is Silas McGee’s Farm in which Dylan played a civil rights protest show, and he’s making it very clear that he won’t be doing that again. A ‘fuck you and farewell’ song to the community he once led, this is a scathing attack on the folk scenes expectations of him and how they oppressed his creativity. Famously, he would play this at the Newport Folk Festival in the summer of 1965 and almost start a riot. However, this is another classic and has been regularly reworked and played live over the last 55 years. Whilst I’m sure Bob’s anger has subsided over that time, it proves just how perfectly this song captures feelings of angst and artistic freedom, something Bob had to deal with every time he shifted genres.

4) Love Minus Zero/No Limit - Another gentle love song that dissects infatuation in a beautifully poetic way, another song that would resonate and be performed live for decades, another song with perfect singing from Bob. Though his voice is slightly higher/more nasal on the louder tracks, the singing throughout this electric period is my favourite of all the ‘Dylan voices’. I’m always confused when people say he can’t sing, I think no matter how much he changes, he always sounds like Bob Dylan, and you can’t ask for anything better than that.

5) Outlaw Blues - Dylan is now an outlaw, on the run from his former peers and fans. This is another loud, energetic, bluesy rock song that proves Bob is changing his identity and is almost a villain like the legends of the Old West: ‘I might look like Robert Ford, but I feel just like a Jesse James’.

6) On The Road Again - A very surreal narration of bohemian 60s life, describing a nightmare family that Bob implores the daughter to move away from. Again, this could be interpreted as moving away from the folk scene, however it is more likely that this is just another absurdist and funny tale that Bob loved to write during this period.

7) Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream - In the same vein as the previous track, this is a long, absurd, surreal, confusing, hilarious, meandering, and just plain weird song that is essentially the story of the founding of America. It is by no means literal or historically accurate, but it seems to be taking swipes at the foundations of the country and capitalism as a whole. It’s a brilliant piece of work that again shows how far Bob has come with imagery and metaphor. Also, the false start on the track never fails to put a smile on my face.

8) Mr. Tambourine Man - Now we move to the acoustic side of the album, and what an opener this is. One of his most loved, most played, and most covered tracks, this is another one for the history books. Is Bob the Tambourine Man who is being begged to keep performing for the masses? Regardless, this epic poem is like experiencing a dream, with lucid imagery and psychedelic lyrics that make you feel as if you are tripping on LSD alongside Bob. I know I’ve said this about a lot of tracks, but it is the definition of a perfect song and I think it’s impossible to get bored of, unless you’re listening to The Byrd’s cover which a heaping pile of shit and I won’t hear otherwise.

9) Gates Of Eden - Much like ‘Chimes Of Freedom’, this is another biblical epic, this time focusing on identity and youth in the 60s. The words are snarled as Bob sings about innocence, sin, and conformance, and the songs feels more like a renaissance painting than a piece of music. It’s truly stunning, you almost sit in awe as you try to take it all in, realising that a 23 year old, 56 years ago, was more in tune with society and his generation than anyone before or since.

10) It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) - There’s a chance I may repeat this claim, as my opinion is always changing, but gun to my head I would say this is the finest song Dylan ever wrote, and would even go so far to say that this is the finest song anyone has ever written. It’s not even a song really, it’s a poetic stream of consciousness that takes aim at capitalism, authority, and of course, his audience. I could honestly write a book about it, dissecting each line and phrase, as there is not a single wasted word or beat. I really can’t do it justice here, just go listen to it or one of the many live versions, it’s always mind blowing to comprehend how anyone can write a song that feels like your brain is whispering the truths of the universe.

11) It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue - The closing song is, again, flawless and personally in my top 5 Dylan songs of all time (though you’ll learn my top 5 has about 30 songs in it at any one time). A morbid farewell to the folk scene, this is a beautiful song that captures the sadness of a relationship ending and, much like the rest of the album, it is filled with imagery that is both challenging and esoteric. This has also been consistently been played live since its release, and it’s a testament to how amazing the songs on this album are, as the majority of them have stood the test of time and been in Bob’s repertoire for over half a century. All in all, a perfect end to a perfect album.

Verdict: I hope I’ve made it clear that this album is one of the best things ever made, not only in regards to music, it’s just one of the best things ever. Despite my love of hyperbole, I do think these are 11 songs which certainly changed my life and how I view music/art/culture, and I hope it can have a similar effect on whoever reads this. What’s crazy is, even with all the fawning above, I actually think his next album is even better, which seems impossible. Dylan was on a roll and the backlash from this album, and his live performances, was only going to propel his songwriting and historical importance to new heights.

#bob dylan #bringing it all back home

2 notes · View notes

nola-unchained · 4 years

Text

SCREAM FILM FRANCHISE PROMPTS .

SCREAM :

❛ Would you settle for a PG-13 relationship? ❜

❛ I’m sorry if my traumatized life is an inconvenience to your perfect existence. ❜

❛ You sick fucks. You’ve seen one too many movies! ❜

❛ Are you alone in the house? ❜

❛ We’re gonna play a little game. ❜

❛ My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me! ❜

❛ When do we see breasts? I wanna see Jamie Lee’s breasts. ❜

❛ You cut me too deep. I think I’m dying here, man. ❜

❛ You take a knife and you slit ‘em from groin to sternum. ❜

❛ I will totally protect you. Yo, I am so buff, I got you covered, girl. ❜

❛ We ask you questions and if you get one wrong, boo-gah, you die. ❜

❛ What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m not a killer? ❜

❛ We already played that game, remember? ❜

❛ I mean did Norman Bates have a motive? Don’t think so! ❜

❛ See, it’s a lot scarier when there’s no motive. ❜

❛ Oh, you wanna play psycho killer? ❜

❛ Oh, please don’t kill me, Mr. Ghostface. I wanna be in the sequel! ❜

❛ Well, you’re not going to be alone any more, right? ❜

❛ There’s always some stupid bullshit reason to kill your girlfriend. ❜

❛ I never thought I’d be so happy to be a virgin. ❜

❛ What’s your favorite scary movie? What comes to mind? ❜

❛ You hang up on me again and I’ll gut you like a fish, you understand? ❜

❛ Tell me something. Did you really put her liver in the mailbox? ❜

❛ This is the moment when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life, for one last scare. ❜

SCREAM 2 :

❛ I’m not interrupting anything, am I? ❜

❛ Have you ever felt a knife cut through human flesh and scrape the bone beneath? ❜

❛ You should really deal with your trust issues. ❜

❛ This is just the kind of guy you’d love to bring home to mom… if… you had… a mom. ❜

❛ I was just reading in your book about your last cameraman, the guy got gutted. ❜

❛ First of all: he wasn’t gutted. I made it up. His throat was slashed. ❜

❛ You know, you must be getting quite a lot of flak on that, right? ❜

❛ Your flattering remarks are both desperate and obvious. ❜

❛ Well, I was hoping I might get just a few words with you. ❜

❛ Tell us everything that’s happened, looking back on the last two years? ❜

❛ Whoa, Hey, hey, hey hey, Deep breaths, Lot of deep breaths. ❜

❛ Why do you always answer a question with a question? ❜

❛ Yeah, and I’m impatient. Look, do you want to leave a message for someone? ❜

❛ So, why don’t you show your face, you fucking coward? ❜

❛ The killer is trying to finish what was started. ❜

❛ If the killer is following a pattern, maybe we can figure out who’s next. ❜

❛ So what do you wanna do, bonehead? Sit here, wait and see who drops next? ❜

❛ Don’t you know history repeats itself? Hm? ❜

❛ I thought I was gonna be up there until opening night. ❜

❛ So, uh… what’s your favorite scary movie? ❜

❛ Is that the best you can do? ❜

❛ “Drink with your brain.” That’s our motto. ❜

❛ That shit only calls you when he’s drunk. Don’t go over there. ❜

❛ No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be the hero and you’ll never, ever get the girl. ❜

SCREAM 3 :

❛ Not only did they-did they kill the film, but they killed my cast.. ❜

❛ Variety called me a “pariah”. I don’t even know what a “pariah” is. ❜

❛ Oh, it’s hard being friends with you, [Name]. ❜

❛ When you’re friends with [Name], you die. ❜

❛ It’s time you came to terms with me and with mother! ❜

❛ I had no idea they were going to make a film of their own. ❜

❛ Fucking kill me! You can’t fucking kill me! ❜

❛ So, why don’t you tell me, who you are? ❜

❛ Answer right, your girlfriend lives. ❜

❛ I’m sorry I’m running late. I’m still on the 405. I’m about 10 minutes away. ❜

❛ Uh, look, since I got you on the phone, let’s talk about your character, okay? ❜

❛ See? I don’t understand why I have to start the scene in the shower. ❜

❛ When it’s a threat, you’ll know it. ❜

❛ The killer is in the house and he’s upstairs! ❜

❛ The question isn’t who I am. The question is: Who’s with me? ❜

❛ Now, do you have somewhere we can be… alone? ❜

❛ If you do one thing to attract attention to yourself, one thing, I’ll kill them both. ❜

❛ I don’t want them. I want you. It’s simple. You show yourself, they survive. ❜

❛ I’ll call you when you’re on your way. ❜

❛ How do I know they’re not dead already? ❜

❛ What’s the matter? What are you staring at? ❜

❛ You’re gonna pay for the life you stole from me, [Name]. ❜

❛ You did it all. You did it! You call them all, even your closest… friends. ❜

❛ How do you know you’re not hearing things? How do you know I’m not someone in your head? ❜

SCREAM 4 :

❛ You forgot the first rule of remakes: “Don’t fuck with the original”. ❜

❛ Oh, my God, I love it. I’ve seen it five times and still gets me every time. ❜

❛ Am I, or did whoever make it just underthink it? ❜

❛ Don’t we hear enough of this story every year? ❜

❛ I’m not trying to scare you.. ❜

❛ This is the last person you’re ever gonna see alive. ❜

❛ You’re in my movie, you got a fun part, so don’t blow it. ❜

❛ People live and people die, and you’d better start running! ❜

❛ And I like him - To tease, to torment, to make him squirm! ❜

❛ Sorry about that. Just… making around before taking off. ❜

❛ It’s okay. I mean, you had… a lot of stuff… going on back then. ❜

❛ I think I have just enough time to slice someone open! ❜

❛ You do know there are cops all over the house? ❜

❛ You think this is all about you? You think you’re still the star? ❜

❛ You’ve done very well by all this bloodshed, haven’t you? ❜

❛ Well, how about the town you left behind? ❜

❛ I’m gonna slit your eyelids in half so you don’t blink when I stab you in the face. ❜

❛ But if you wanna be in the hospital, I’d be happy to put you there - in the morgue! ❜

❛ It’s kind of the one component the killer is missing. ❜

❛ You film your entire high school experience, and, what, post it on the 'net? ❜

❛ Well, if you wanna be the new, new version, the killer should be filming the murders. ❜

❛ Working on less of a Shrequel and more of a Screamake. ❜

❛ Ah, friends count, but it’s the family ties that cut deep. Am I right? ❜

❛ The ones you care about most. And what’s closer than family? The bond of blood. ❜

#unchained:meme #meme weekend

7 notes · View notes