#it was so RIGID. so fitted and theater should never be like that ever

[mzminola]

Community

Straight and cisgender people being part of the broader queer community is good in a variety of ways, and the example from my own life is growing up queer in a small town with parents who were supportive before either they or I knew I was queer.

My mom and dad grew up in Berkeley CA and were involved through their youths in a variety of extremely nerdy things like the Society of Creative Anachronism, Dungeons & Dragons (and a Star Trek inspired sci-fi variation), theater, etc. Within those groups, and other parts of their lives, they had a lot of queer friends.

They moved around a lot as adults, and this was the pre-internet era so staying in touch was harder, and even when they stayed in touch they didn’t necessarily see people in person much. I wound up growing up in a small liberal town in western WA. Statistically, due to the small population, I just did not know any out queer adults in my hometown when I was growing up. There was no GSA at the school, either.

But for years I had stories of queer adults, long before I ever knew I needed them. I never once worried my parents wouldn’t accept my bisexuality, because I was so very used to my parents talking about queer friends of theirs who were giant nerds, with the exact same fondness and nostalgia as all their other friends. Stories of queer-specific shenanigans were told alongside all the other shenanigans.

We had semaphore flags in the costume playtime box because Dad’s a nautical history nerd, and we had big motorcycle goggles designed to fit over chunky glasses because Mom used to catch rides around the Bay Area with lesbian biker friends. That blend and casualness was just a normal part of my childhood.

~

I learned from stories of my parents’ friends that you could take stereotypes and turn them into in-jokes; gay friends playing backyard baseball or catch or other sports totally flubbing a throw, and heckling each other with “What’s the matter honey, your wrists too limp?”

~

I learned about the AIDS epidemic, of the loss, the grief, the stigma, and of the ways people fought back. Supported each other. I learned a lot more when I was older from queer adult survivors of the epidemic online, but I learned first from my parents, who were still grieving friends they lost.

This was not distant history, this was not something that happened to “other people” this was something that happened to their community.

~

My father’s mother’s brother is gay. My great uncle. He raises tropical birds. When he was a much younger man than he is now, the signaling style of wearing a diamond earring in one ear was starting. Now, at the time, most men to wear a diamond earring as a signal of their sexuality wore very small, discreet flecks. Just this little flash of light that might catch your eye, that might make you look again.

Great Uncle inherited his mother’s engagement ring, took that honking big “look at me and admire how I got engaged! Look at me, look at me!” diamond to the jeweler, and got that sucker turned into an earring. You could not fucking miss it.

And you know what? That’s how I learned about queer signaling as a thing people could do, it was presented as a fun family story, and I wouldn’t have heard it if not for my parents, because Great Uncle lives in a completely different part of the country from us and doesn’t travel much, so I’ve only met him twice, during which everyone was catching up on current life, not stories of his youth.

~

When my mom, dad, and their friends were all young adults who’d recently left home and were living in a different state from their families, one of their friends was a butch gay man who’d recently come out to his parents. And his mom wanted to be supportive, and she was a person who sewed clothes herself. So she made him shirts. She had his measurements, and she’d regularly mail him care packages with beautifully hand-made button up shirts in pink and purple fabrics. Because those were the gay colors at the time, and she wanted to make sure he knew she supported everything about him, that she would never want him to change himself to fit in society’s mold.

Now the thing was, pink and purple were not actually to his taste. They were not colors he’d normally pick out for himself. But he and his parents didn't live in the same state anymore, this was pre-Internet, if you wanted to share photos you had to take them, develop the film, and mail them. So she wasn’t seeing his style regularly, she was seeing the style of the out gay men back in the Bay Area, and doing her best.

He wore the shirts. He was running around the Oregon countryside as a butch gay man in the early 1980’s in pink and purple button ups, because his mom made them for him with love, he loved her too.

So I heard this story growing up, and I learned from it. I learned parents could love and wholly support their queer children long before I ever heard about parents who rejected theirs. I learned love is in the actions we take. That it’s going to be imperfect, but what matters is we’re trying our best, and accepting that from each other.

~

I’m bisexual, and I’ve got some weird gender stuff going on. I did not know any out queer adults in my hometown growing up. I did not find any writings until the early 2000’s when the Internet became more accessible. My school did not have a GSA.

But I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew pieces of west coast queer culture and history. I knew queer people could be giant nerds, could be outdoorsy, could be silly and serious and fully rounded people with rich, wonderful lives. That their friends and family could accept them wholly without hesitation. Because what was there to hesitate over?

I’ve said before my hometown is liberal, and it is, but it still had enough prejudice to keep me semi-closeted as a teen. I had peers insist to me that “a child needs a mother and a father”, had adults insist civil unions were fine but marriage equality would violate religious freedoms, heard peers use “gay” as an insult from late elementary school onwards (and the teachers just ignoring it).

I needed all those stories from my childhood. I needed them. And I had them. Without ever having to ask.

And my brother had them too. He’s straight and cisgender, and he has never been anything but 100% supportive of me. He was arguing for equal rights and refusing to use the derogatory language peers were before I ever came out to him.

When I see people trying to gatekeep the queer community, this is what I think of. I think of being a kid in a small town, without knowing any local out queer adults, hearing people around me say bigoted things, but having all these stories burning in the hearth of my heart, and I think…

You want to douse that flame?

You want to reach back in time and wrench those stories from the child I was?

You’d rather I grow up isolated, confused, lonely, and scared, than have my straight, cisgender parents in the queer community? You want me to be isolated now, you want my brother to abandon me?

Really?

Identity and community are intertwined, but they are not rigid, nor should they be.

Community being broader is good.

[whitehotharlots]

Reading recommendation (and a brief meditation on the utility of Frank Wilderson)

I’ve read an awful lot of self-styled “afropessimistic” theory. I’ve been wanting to write about it for some time. But there are significant hurdles. First off, I’d need to read a lot more if I wanted to engage with it in a scholarly sense, and reading it is a very painful chore. The effort required would necessitate a greater reward than the mild serotonin boost of a successful blog post, yet attaching my own name and affiliation to any critique would open me up to vicious reprisal, mostly from people who have not read any of the works being discussed.  I mean, come on... Look at the term: afropessimism. It can hardly be uttered aloud among the uninitiated, you have to explain that you’re not trying to dismiss an intellectual movement, that this is what these writers actually call themselves.

Long story short, I highly recommend this new piece from the LA Review of Books: “On Afropessimism,” by Jesse McCarthy. It’s a longform review of a new book by the man who coined the term, Frank Wilderson, titled simply Afropessimism.

I didn't come to Wilderson until long after reading Frantz Fannon, Derrick Bell, and Cornell West. These are all relatively fatalistic theorists who regard being black (or "blackness") as necessarily existing in a state of alterity, one that was perhaps inalterable, but they nonetheless did not regard themselves as fundamentally inhuman. Nor did they argue that reform is impossible (hence the “pessimism”) and that therefore inaction was the only viable approach to praxis. I've never read Orlando Patterson (the other foundational theorist cited in the by McCarthy), but this passage resonates strongly

Racial exceptionalism, political immutability, “antiblackness” as structural antagonism, and abjection in the form of “social death”: each of these concepts predates Afropessimism, and as I see it, together they form its foundation. Indeed, it is the synthesis of all of these ideas into one purportedly coherent worldview that I take to be the innovation of Afropessimism. I have deliberately chosen the writers, scholars, and thinkers cited above, however, precisely because they do not come to the same conclusions as Wilderson. Several could be said to be strongly opposed; even Derrick Bell (whom Wilderson might have suggested as a predecessor but does not cite in Afropessimism) ultimately counsels in his book’s epilogue that we move “beyond despair” and calls on us to “fashion a philosophy that both matches the unique dangers we face and enables us to recognize in those dangers opportunities for committed living and humane service.” Part of my point here is that those who disagree with the Afropessimist worldview cannot be simply dismissed as “soft” or naïve. Nor should anyone infer that simply because one critiques the Afropessimist synthesis, one cannot also hold strong views in agreement about any number of more specific points of analysis.

This has been one of the more striking aspects of the afropessimism becoming ascendant in mainstream anti-racism (aside from the fact that it's only rarely acknowledged as the intellectual base of the movement)--the belief that even people who take an aggressively dim view of race relations can still be dismissed as naive, or even as actively white supremacist, simply for suggesting that some degree of reform is desirable.

The description of Wilderson's work contained within McCarthy’s review gives us a glimpse into how such dismissal became normalized: a combination of utter self-assuredness and the ability to assert complete moral parallels between acts and situations that few sane people, prior to 2017, would have considered equivalent:

For many of us, such a leap is neither ethical nor comprehensible. But for Wilderson the portability and paradoxical fungibility of slavery fits perfectly with his interest in film and his Lacanian and Fanonian readings of it. How else to explain passages in Afropessimism in which incidents involving a terrible white roommate situation he and his girlfriend find themselves in circa 1979 are, for Wilderson, obviously comparable to Steve McQueen’s 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave, which was based on Solomon Northup’s 1853 slave narrative. This is not a jest, but a sustained and intensely explored analogy, in which the whipping of Patsey (played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film), descriptions of the cool sadism of Mary Epps (the slaveowner’s wife) from Northrup’s 1853 narrative, and Wilderson’s troubles with a batty white roommate all share the same stage. We are asked to imagine them as coequal and even coeval psychological theaters of cruelty, whose mise-en-scène simply involves different props. The plantation is everywhere and all the time. It is ontological, which means that it attaches trans-historically to all Black persons regardless of their social position.

How far does this go? In his academic monograph on film studies, Red, White & Black (2010), Wilderson forthrightly asserts that Black academics are not subalterns in the academy but “Slaves of their colleagues.” Is being talked down to in the faculty lounge really the same as being whipped at the post, or slinging rock on the corner, or being placed in solitary on Rikers Island as a juvenile? Is working at Merrill Lynch in New York as a Black woman really the same as working shifts as a Black gay man in a McDonald’s in Alabama? Is it ethical or desirable to confound all of these into a tortuous equivalency while telling those who propose to fight at your side to shut up because you don’t like the analogies they are using to connect themselves with your suffering?

For a long while I've been trying to argue that what we now regard as wokeness, at least in its present and culturally dominant state, has borrowed its means of comportment--if not its fundamental worldview--from afropessimism. This combination of hectoring paranoia and cocksure self-righteousness is now the norm in liberal spaces, even (maybe especially) among people who have no rational claim to especial victimhood.

Key to this is Wilderson’s assertion that blackness is not only an inescapable reality structuring all human existence, but that as such, it means that black people are fundamentally inhuman. Not just an exempted or subaltern class: a different conceptual entity altogether:

It is fair to ask of a [critical] “lens” whether it actually sharpens our view and, if so, to perform demonstrations of clarity? A major problem for Afropessimism is that its claim to revealing the underlying structural truth seems to repeatedly require abandoning any significant contact with historical reality. With social categories like class, gender, and material facts made irrelevant, the theoretical work is forced to concentrate itself in rhetorical aphorisms that seem to be slouching their way toward slogans. “The antagonist of the worker is the capitalist. The antagonist of the Native is the settler. But the antagonist of the Black is the Human being,” Wilderson tells us. The problem with this, apart from its faux-syllogistic form, is that human identities are not fixed and rigid boxes, but dynamic rings of change that merge and overlap. The Black Americans involved in the colonization scheme of Liberia in the 19th century were both Black (formerly enslaved on US plantations) and also settlers. Obviously, there are Black capitalists just as there are Black workers. Is there a double-jeopardy principle for antagonisms or some calculus by which they can be selectively negated?

Regarding oneself as inhuman means that you simply cannot win, even while you're winning. It means, also, that you get to exempt yourself from the rules of human interaction that are otherwise universal. Your statements and beliefs cannot be subject to any means of adjudication, since by your own self-understanding you will never be validated, which means in a bizarre turn of logic that your validity is inevitable. Your immorality is always assumed, which means your morality can never be put into question. Nothing you do or say can ever be considered bad or incorrect, because you believe yourself to have been exempted from such abstractions, that the only possible judge of yourself is therefore yourself. This is a tremendously inviting mode of comportment to both paranoid neurotics and mediocre intellects, which goes a long way in explaining how it became so popular so quickly. 

[monotonous-minutia]

ALL OF THEM (someone asked me to do that so I’m passing it along to you)

thank you!! Just managed to finish this before the kiddo woke up :)

1. favourite performance you ever attended

I’ve been to exactly 3 opera performances, and one was technically an intermezzo, and I’d say that one because it was a surprise that my teeny tiny home town that doesn’t even have an opera house despite being the third largest city in the state would do a production of a super obscure piece that I happened to love, AND it was in English with a hilarious translation, AND that translation happened to be by a friend of mine who worked at the theater that put it on (which is also the theater that turned me gay). The intermezzo in question was La serva padrona (which is fantastic look it up) and it was translated to Maid to Marry which I will never not get a kick out of.

2. a performance you would’ve wanted to attend (present or past)

Literally anything Mentzer has done that hasn’t been filmed which is unfortunately a lot (she was Idamante??? And Octavian?? And Adalgisa??? and Rosina?? and Prince Charmant with Frederica von Stade in Cendrillon??? seriously universe get your shit together she deserves more recognition)

3. a piece perfect for your commute

anytime I take a long walk I listen to Hoffmann, almost anytime I drive I listen to my mezzo boi playlist that consists of all my favorite trouser role arias/duets etc. (so, like, every one that I’ve heard)

4. do you have a go-to opera (and version)?

lately Hoffmann and Idomeneo (the latter of which I still think should be called Illia e Idamante or just Idamante but I digress). Versions would be: for Hoffmann, Sher (2009 & 2015), La Scala ‘95, and Brussels ‘85 and for Idomeneo Met 2017 and Salzburg 2006.

5. an opera you loved only on the second listening

as mentioned earlier, Idomeneo

5. a composer you have tried and failed to like

again not really sure bc I’ve liked most of what I heard, but I don’t really vibe with Glass

6. a character you love and definitely never want to meet in real life

Possibly Elizabeth from Don Carlo(s); love her because she’s wonderful and deserves so much better, but wouldn’t want to meet her because we would probably just cry a lot.

7. following up on that: your guilty problematic favourite character

hmmmmmm maybe Eboli?

8. forget anatomy/physiology. which voice category/fach would you choose?

mezzo :D

9. a casting/singer’s voice you’ll defend to the death. (now tell us why)

Nadine Sierra. Seriously people have been so mean to her in comments/reviews lately and it’s just rude because she’s amazing and adorable and talented and definitely one of my favorite divas, reins in my heart as my second favorite Countess Almaviva and is my favorite Illia and I want to see her as everything. People don’t even have anything specific about her to critique, they just say she’s bad. Which, it’s okay to just not like a performer, but don’t bash them because you personally don’t like them. Erg. Her voice and expressions SLAY me and she deserves only positivity.

10. and a production you’ll defend to the death

Sher Hoffmann. People are so mean to it in the reviews! I think it’s utter genius and the sets and costumes are so eccentric and fit the aesthetic of the opera so well, and the casts are amazing--anyone who wants to criticize Lindsey or Calleja can back off and never return. Also to all the critics who complain that it’s too risqué, they have obviously never seen the Geneva 2008 one where the chorus spends a good part of the opera almost fully nude, as does Olympia. Sher’s Hoffmann is my favorite and as the question states I will defend it to the death.

11. something you’re a rigid traditionalist (or revolutionary) about?

I’m kind of a traditionalist for ballet scenes in opera. I get it can be hard to stage those extended musical bits that aren’t as welcome now as they were back in the day, but how is it helping to make the choreography weird and irrelevant? I’d rather just have the ballet removed altogether than suffer through some weird staging. If a production retains the ballet, I would either like to just see some pretty dancing (actually, the Troyens that just streamed last night is a good example of that imo), or something related that’s also kinda funny (like the Wiener 2020 Don Carlos, though I’m not 100% okay with everything in it) or something that makes a statement about the opera (like the 2006 Salzburg Idomeneo, which I wrote a really long thing about earlier). My favorite choreography in any opera so far though is Mark Morris’s super awesome genderfluid choreography for the Met 2009 Orfeo ed Euridice because it’s just some really pretty dancing and also very gay. 

12. an opera that made you have an ~*awakening*~ of sorts (any sort)

Don Carlo(s), you probably know why by now 😉

13. an opera/music debate do you know so much about that people will suspiciously ask “why...do you know this?”

Probably Hoffmann and its various edits

14. rant about a topic/an opera you love but haven’t found a good time to do so on your blog.

I’m not really a fan of countertenors in castrati roles. I’ve seen some countertenor performers that I like, and some productions with them that I’ve enjoyed, but I really need my mezzo bois. I know there’s not really enough to justify one over the other, given the original voice type is now nonexistent, but I will take any opportunity to infuse more sapphic energy into operas. Plus, I just like the sound of the mezzo voice better. And a LOT of my favorite mezzos have played those roles and I seriously don’t know what I’d do without Alice Coote’s Idamante or Elīna Garanča’s Sesto. If a role was specifically written for a countertenor—I see this more in modern opera, Adès in particular—that’s a different story. I enjoy those. But for Baroque/opera seria, I wanna see mezzos.

[fanaiceach]

@vampyrdoctor​ said: ❛ What if I dreamt that you kill me? ❜

hill house starters || accepting 

      Theirs was a complicated dance. Not unlike the trajectories of celestial bodies, forever destined to throw one another’s gravity out of alignment when their orbits intersected. Animosity had become a routine thing -- at least from Geoffrey’s perspective. A familiar dynamic, even if the edges had long since worn away like a stone polished by the flow of the river it inhabited. He hated Jonathan Reid in principle only, because he didn’t quite know what he would do if he stopped. 

      There had been tests of that, over the years. Even in the early days more than one opportunity had presented itself. In Swansea’s office, when Jonathan was still too young to recognize the potential of his own power. In the theater, when the Ekon was already weakened by the fight with Doris Fletcher’s putrid form. Even in Pembroke’s attic, their long overdue skirmish didn’t need to be as much of a game as Geoffrey had made it. And then at the end, standing in the cemetery, how difficult would it have been to put a stake through Reid’s heart in that unexpected vulnerable moment?

      It would have been only fractionally more challenging than the prior evening’s resolution. It started as something stupid -- didn’t it always? From a traditional mundane exchanging of blows things had escalated, old tensions bubbling up to the surface as they were apt to do in Geoffrey’s less charitable mindsets. The most visceral one of their fights had gotten in some time, and in hindsight Geoffrey had to wonder if Jon had thrown it on purpose. Because after a few barbed swipes and a fist-to-jaw shuffle, the hunter had the Ekon pinned, newly reinforced wooden stake poised just a hair’s breadth away from the vampire’s undead heart.

      Breathing was hardly a necessity, but Geoffrey’s breaths were coming harshly as he glared down at the man he’d once sworn to loathe. To kill the moment the opportunity arose. Truth be told he could still think up a few good reasons to do it, top of the list being his very nature, followed by the fact that Jonathan had done a damn good job of culling Priwen’s numbers over the years. And still that old failure ate at Geoffrey, sharper than any hunger pain he’d yet to experience as an immortal -- that guilt at ever having ever allowed the doctor to walk free. His father hadn’t received such a mercy from Carl. And Ian... 

      So many blood drinkers had fallen to Geoffrey’s blade and stake and crossbow bolt. Why the fuck should Reid have been any different? At once Geoffrey knew the answer but refused to acknowledge it, which only served to drive him deeper into his roiling resentment.

      But there, looking down at the doctor trapped beneath him, his expensive coat soiled from the pavement and his perfect hair skewed out of place, Geoffrey hesitated. Even as Jonathan said softly that it was the hunter’s right to do it, that his ultimate goal was finally within his grasp with that horribly sad and understanding little smile on his face. And Geoffrey had never hated him more.

      Never loved him more, either -- and didn’t that just aggravate him all the worse?

      He couldn’t do it. Of course he couldn’t fucking do it -- if he hadn’t done it all that time ago he didn’t know why he thought he could do it now. He’d thrown the stake and let Jonathan up and he’d seethed and railed internally against a god he’d long since stopped believing in about how unfair it all was. Then in the heat of it all, he’d kissed his once-rival. It wasn’t the first time, probably wouldn’t be the last. Geoffrey had thrown every ounce of his frustration into the crashing of their lips together, and Jonathan had met it with nothing but unwavering care. Just as he did with all of life’s trials. No amount of goading -- pressing harshly against the doctor, fisting his hands around his lapels, nipping at his lips with too-sharp teeth -- changed Jonathan’s apparent resolve, and it was Geoffrey’s own that crumbled first. 

      Jonathan led from there.

      Led them here, when things were said and done -- done more than they were said, in truth -- to bed. With Jonathan at Geoffrey’s back, an arm slung across the other man’s midsection, surgeon’s hand loosely clasping one of the hunter’s. Geoffrey said little, wasn’t quite sure what to say or if he even wanted to say any of it, but his thumb rubbed slow circles on the back of the Ekon’s hand. The sun was due to rise shortly, evident in the way sleep lulled the doctor’s quiet words. Such diurnal rigidity didn’t plague Geoffrey’s kind, but he found himself unwilling to break the spell that held them both enraptured. But a string of words exhaled against the back of Geoffrey’s neck brought him pause, brought the subtle motion of his thumb to a standstill.

      ‘What if I dreamt that you kill me?’ he asked like it was an acceptable form of pillowtalk. The casual air was betrayed, though, by the melancholy earnestness in the man’s tone. Jonathan’s heart was firmly stitched to his sleeve. Geoffrey held the query for a moment, turned it over in his mind to see it for all its facets. There was more to it than worry for a simple dream, he knew. The question was larger than that and asked something of them both. Not for the first time Geoffrey did suspect that that very well may have been a wish of Jonathan’s -- death’s final kiss, an embrace he’d been denied for so long. And the Irishman had gleefully volunteered for his role as executioner. A role he might never have fit as easily as readily as he professed.

      “Then as soon as you wake you’ll know it was just that -- a dream.” Shifting his hand so that their fingers could interlace, he brought Jonathan’s knuckles up to his lips, which he brushed against the other vampire’s skin in an uncharacteristic display of tenderness. But still he would not turn to face him. “Sleep, Reid. And maybe your mind can conjure up something better for me to be doing in those subconscious visions of yours.”

[opallene]

You’ve Got a Friend in Me

So... This might be little known about me, but I was deeply into the Toy Story fandom (such as it is/was) back when Toy Story 3 came out in 2010.  Yes, I saw the original films as a child in theaters, and yes, Toy Story 3 shattered and wildly surpassed any expectations I might have had going in.  It was immediately, and I believe still is, my favorite film.  Period.  My love for Toy Story 3 is many layers deep.  I’ve produced fanfiction (the latter of which has suddenly aged poorly in some respects with the introduction of TS4!) and a carefully curated fanmix that I am still very proud of and still enjoy myself in regular rotation.

So now I’ve seen Toy Story 4.  It was certainly a good movie, and also certainly an entertaining entry in the Toy Story saga.  Did it live up to its predecessor?  No, it didn’t, but I didn’t necessarily expect it to, because that would be a very difficult feat to accomplish at this point.  But it had some very strong narrative points, which I’ll attempt to dissect and discuss.

Spoilers for Toy Story 4 ahead.

The thing is - Even though each entry in the series was probably written to be “final” at the time, TS3 brought a level of narrative closure and completeness that the previous films hadn’t.  3 made a perfect trilogy.  The end of TS3 led everyone to a metaphorical life-after-life.  Their struggles (literally to hell and back) complete, they could finally relax and be their truest selves, “into the wild blue yonder.”

Maybe I was forgetting that every film was actually very much about Woody, and that there were still lessons he could learn (and thereby teach the audience).  By the end of TS3, Woody had finally overcome his laserlike loyalty to a particular person -- But, we now realize, not his loyalty to his “career,” and to his very rigid ideas about how to perform that function.

(1) Single-child “Ownership”.  This idea has been out there throughout the series -- Either you’re an “owned” toy belonging to a particular person, or you’re “lost” (with a generally negative connotation, up until now).  This distinction has been drawn in especially black-and-white terms by Woody himself, while the other toys have been open to a gray area in the middle (e.g. Sunnyside Daycare, TS3).  In TS4, Woody is challenged to consider the extreme other end from his position - and lo and behold, he experiences firsthand the merits of it (namely, charitable work to enable other toys to live out their purpose) and decides it’s a shift in thinking that he can live with.  By the end of the film - radical character growth accomplished.

(2) Leadership means always being in charge.  This was made plain in the beginning of the film.  It’s difficult for Woody to fit in when there’s already an established leader, and he just can’t take orders.  He continues to act erratically (listening to his “inner voice” and acting on what he thinks is best) throughout the movie.  When he’s really out of his element (and his solitary efforts fail), Bo Peep is the only one who succeeds in “leading” him.  Woody finally learns to take a back seat when there’s an expert around.

Did Woody make the right decision at the end of the film?  For purely personal (sob sob sob) reasons, I want to say “WHAT, how could they?!”  For narrative reasons, I’ll resoundingly say Yes.  For all the talk Woody has done about the cycle of childhood, “Watching them grow up and then go on to do other things that you never get to see,” and so on, Woody himself has been stuck in a childlike mode perpetually.  Now, he has finally gotten to mature.

Exhibit A: He experiences a genuine (romantic) peer-to-peer connection and eventually throws himself into investing in it.  I’ve always seen the toy-child relationship as a deified one; a duty that must be done; the only way to Know your Creator, religious overtones and all that.  Personally, as a nonreligious person, I am rejoicing inside more than I thought possible to see Woody finally free himself from that dogmatism and to put some focus on an equal, of-his-own-world partnership.  He’s broadened his horizons in terms of the types of love that are out there to be had.

Exhibit B: He learns a new type of altruism that is completely non-self-serving (unless you count the positive emotion of gratification as self-serving, but that’s a whole other argument to be had).  Let’s face it: Pretty much everything Woody has ever done up until now has been fairly transparently self-serving, even when it’s under the guise of altruism.  He is even called out for it point-blank by Bo in this movie.  (Yess!)  I’m actually very impressed with how the whole “voice box transfer” went down.  Gabby started out as your conventional villain, but all it took was an appeal to logic to obtain Woody’s willing participation.  Woody was at a vulnerable place emotionally, but I do not believe he was ultimately taken advantage of.  Gabby’s logic was accurate and convincing.  Organ donation is by definition one of the most selfless things a person can do.  After donating his non-essential voicebox, Woody goes on to witness new life breathed into another (and, that person doing what she was meant to do) as a direct result of his gift.  In the end, Woody stays on with Bo Peep and the others to perform more “matchmaking” acts of getting toys together with children.  The thing that Woody can no longer do himself, he can go on to pay forward through others and make a greater impact in that way.  Ultimately, this is how I now see and accept that Toy Story 3 didn’t have to be the end, much as it seemed it should be at the time.

And plus, I like crying at movies.  If I’m crying, it means they did something right.

There was one thing that kinda bothered me.  As "good with toys” as Bonnie was supposed to be, she really cast Woody aside.  Even when Woody and Forky both went missing together, there was nary a mention of Woody’s absence.  Brutal.  I understand why they had to do this -- to drive Woody’s emotional crisis, to further establish that he really wasn’t needed in his current post and to free him to choose his own path at the end.  Also, kids will be kids, and it’s realistic for a child to act that way.  Still.  Brutal. ;(

I was also disappointed not to see much of Buzz and Jessie’s romantic relationship in this movie (I fell for them, HARD, in TS3), but - This was Woody’s movie.  Woody’s and Bo Peep’s - It was their turn.  And you can be darn sure, I Felt the Feels.  Shout-out to the lighting and color storyboardist(s) for the entire ending sequence of the film.  It was perfect. :’)

The pace, at times, was also frenetic.  Being a toy has always been portrayed as a stressful existence, but in TS4 it felt like every-time-you-blink-augh-there-he-goes-again-I’m-stressed-out-by-all-the-constant-separation!!

In all, TS4 wasn’t as sweeping of a narrative as TS3, and the themes were nowhere near as universal.  It’s hard to beat themes of aging, becoming a burden, feeling your obsolescence, confronting your inevitable mortality (TS3) - And although TS4 obviously touched on the big theme “Why am I here?”, it seemed a little directionless in its execution of that.  Are we supposed to relate to Forky’s exhibiting constant suicidal tendencies until he’s taught there is a good reason for him not to be that way? (?)  Most living creatures, including humans, have an innate self-preservation instinct, and the will not to live arises under extenuating circumstances, so that didn’t particularly ring true to me.

Where TS4 really shone was in its treatment of Woody’s character specifically.  I was pleasantly surprised to see his character elevated another level.  There are lessons we can all learn here.  It was no TS3, but it was still quite solid and I’m sure it will be getting many of my repeated viewings!

Thanks for reading...Hit me up if you’d like to chat about Toy Story!

[unkindrewind]

GENERAL >

FULL NAME: Charles Matthew Ayers NICKNAME: Charlie // Preferred, only his mother calls him by his first name . Ken // Around campus by peers due to attachment to Sarah. Charliebear // by Sarah .  Space-case. Airhead. Dunce cap. Nimrod, Etc // by Christopher AGE: 19 - 20 // Verse Dependent  BIRTH DATE: December 19th , 1964 ZODIAC: Sagittarius ETHNICITY: White GENDER: Cis Male PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Craven Creek , Washington SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual // Closeted would imply awareness of some kind , most attraction to those male presenting is seen as ‘ just being friendly’ in his eyes. Coming from a very traditional small town in the 70s & 80s with no obvious LGBTQ representation. . He is oblivious to his sexuality for the most part. RELIGION: Raised Protestant // Personally non - practicing , or practices only around family SPOKEN LANGUAGE: English . Handful of French and Spanish CURRENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Living within his messy dorm at SCU EDUCATION: EDUCATION: High-school graduate from Carpenter High // Had to repeat a few classes making him graduate a year later than his peers. Freshman at Silas Craven University - SCU - on a sports scholarship. OCCUPATION: Part time // Usually night - shift at Flick Picks Video Rentals. TRANSPORTATION: 1970  Ford Mustang Sportroof // Sky blue, basic model. TYPICAL LOCATIONS [ FOR PLOTS ETC ]:  Flick Picks Video Rental shop. SCU campus // Class, dorm and frat parties, hockey arena, pool . Movie theater.

RELATIONSHIPS >

PARENTS: Denise Ayers // Mother . Richard Ayers // Father - On friendly enough terms with the two of them, but the institutionalized 'parent /child' detachment has always been present . Richard, the businessman always on the go, has never taken a moment away from his work. And Denise, though a stay - at - home mother, often spends her time in the company of fellow mothers and projects around the house. Beyond the basics, they know very little about their children and hold to the belief their main job is to provide and care for them, not be their best friends. SIBLINGS:  - Christopher Ayers // Older brother, by three years - A very complicated relationship. Christopher is, in the eyes of everyone and especially their parents, the proverbial 'golden boy' : Smart. Handsome. Charismatic.  Popular. The desire of every girl's heart. Captain of every sports team he's been a part of, that position currently being in SCU's lacrosse and basketball teams. From the outside looking in, he is by old school terms, perfect, though few see or even know of the rather aggressive and twisted side of him, including their mother and father. That side is and, since their childhood, has been reserved for Charlie's eyes only. Yet despite taking the brunt of Chris's cruelty and jokes at his expense, Charlie has always admired and looked up to him. And sadly, still does. - Robert ‘Robbie’ Ayers // 12 year old brother - Close, though sadly not as close as they once were. Moving away from home has created a bit of an inevitable distance. Between games, parties, and basic expectations of highschool, Charlie had been Robbie's go-to babysitter. The two had been thick as thieves - Robbie being among the rare few to not only know of Charlie’s dabble in home-movie horror, but even star in a few films himself - and whenever a need for brotherly bonding and advice was warranted, Charlie was there. -Rosie Ayers // 3 year old sister - Sadly, Charlie isn't as close with her as he'd like to be. Born when he was just beginning his escalation in popularity, he didn't spend much time with her, and over all still hasnt. NOTABLE CONNECTIONS:  - Irene Fernandez // @gcrefxed Close Friend Fellow target of the mysterious killer .  - Sarah Reed // @killerxquccn Best Friend since middleschool. The term 'soulmate' has been thrown around [ Much to the annoyance of Charlie's exes ] due to how close they are and how well they get along. As have many other affectionate monikers; 'Sarah Sunshine' among them, inspired by the bright and warming smile that since knowing her the mere presence of has never failed to make Charlie's day all the better. A matching pair : The jock and the cheerleader. A match that due to their popularity hasn't gone unnoticed ; people speculating they are dating or saying they should be, and earning them the nicknames ' Barbie and Ken ' since highschool, and often heard around campus. Girlfriends and latenight partners come and go, but Sarah has always remained. She is considered by far one of the most important people in Charlie's life. One he could never - and would never - imagine living without. Fate, however, has different plans. SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Jessica Thompson // Recent Ex Girlfriend.  Beautiful, upper middle class, and notable mean girl. Well, notable only to those she targets ;  mainly fellow girls lower on the popularity totem pole. Sly and clever Jessica  knows who to target, how, and how to get away with it. Which is precisely what happens, and has her entire school career..  Charlie in particular was never aware of her actions, as she is always careful to show her cruelty when few are around and those least likely to spread word,  though to anyone else in his position the writing was very clearly on the wall. Through most of their close to two year relationship, Jessica used Charlie's good-hearted nature, penchant to fall hard for pretty girls, and unfortunate tendency to be too forgiving to the point of becoming a pushover to those he cares for to her advantage: taking more than giving, but giving just enough to make him believe there was more requited love than there really was. In truth, her sights - like many- had always been on Charlie's older brother, Christopher, ever since highschool, but being the revolving door of women type, his sights were never aimed in her direction. To Jessica, Charlie was merely a fall back; if you can't get the prize, second best was better than nothing. Until one fateful night, Charlie decided to stop by Jessica's dorm and found none other than his older brother there to greet him. Half dressed and radiating smugness. In no way did either Chris nor Jessica attempt to deny what had happened between them, Chris giving Charlie a pitying pat to the shoulder and leaving the scene with a final jab, ' Guess she wanted a real man. '  While it was a dream come true for Jessica, to Chris it was nothing more than a one night only event, with the added enjoyment of his conquest being his brother's girlfriend . Despite the betrayal, Charlie not only wanted to fix their relationship but blamed himself for her act, asking what he had done to drive her to it. Jessica, seeing Charlie's devotion as weakness, was merely disgusted.  Simply giving a cutting, curt 'There's nothing to fix.' And like that, it was over. Leaving Charlie heartbroken and devastated, with that wound never able to fully close seeing Jessica around campus often. SEXUAL / DATING HISTORY: Has had quite a few partners and girlfriends, but wouldn't be considered a playboy like his older brother by any means. While he can be on the promiscuous side, generally he wants more meaningful connections. Sadly, without realizing, he tends to lean towards more superficial relationships -not helped by his worry to open up about his true interests and passions in life- which takes a toll on said relationships longevity.

PHYSICAL TRAITS >

EYE COLOUR: Hazel // Warm brown with small flecks of mossy green HAIR: Dark Auburn // Kept short // Wavy HEIGHT: 6 ‘ 3 ” BODY BUILD: Athletic // Fit , broad shouldered NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS: Has a very slight crookedness to nose after having it broken during hockey practice in highschool.   . A warm , sometimes described ‘dopey’ grin . Kind eyes. FACECLAIM: Ross Lynch

PERSONALITY >

INTELLIGENCE:Not the sharpest tool in the shed. Academically, he can be a bit slow. Emotionally and creatively, however, very adept and intelligent. More right brained. INTERESTS: Film fanatic . Horror movies // Has an interest in one day becoming a movie director but keeps it very close to the vest. Sports enthusiast . Hockey // Plays for SCU’s  team. Swimming // On SCU’s swim team.  Attending every party he can. STRENGTHS: Easy going . Understanding . Empathetic . Great sense of humor . Determined . Playful . Outgoing . Sweet . Loyal . Imaginative . Open - minded . Supportive . Energetic. Congenial. WEAKNESSES: Insecure // mostly about intelligence . Stubborn . Blunt // Says the first thing that comes to mind without thinking it through . Apologetic or sometimes overlooks the bad actions of those he cares for / his family . Gullible . Occasionally reckless // especially when stressed .  Too forgiving . Christopher. DISPOSITION: Very laid back, friendly and approachable // easy to strike up a conversation with on just about anything SOCIAL STANDING: Popular // Both he and his older brother Christopher have been since Highschool SLASHER TROPES: Dumb Jock // The Nice guy

SYNOPSIS >

Nice house. Nice yard. White-picket fence. Mother, the home - maker. Father, the shrewd businessman. Children, well behaved and well liked. The Ayers family lives the ideal cookie-cutter simplicity of upper middle - class conservative America. And for most that's enough. For Charlie Ayers, the second eldest son, it is. At least, he thinks so. An upbringing of keeping to the status quo, hard rigidity to conform, is all he knows. Evident in his persistent standing as another popular jock continuing into college . In 1983 small town suburbia, minor deviations from the expected norm is a thing balked or crucified. Even something simple as an innocuous interest. And therein lies the reason his true love, of media, of a genre most consider ghoulish and the dream to DIRECT and make such films , has been kept a secret from most.          A JOCK WITH A HORROR MOVIE FETISH? WEIRD!  A silly thing to hide, perhaps. Yet hide he does. Perhaps not entirely well, as the few home-made films in his repertoire have been surreptitiously added onto the shelves of the VHS rental store he clocks into most weekdays. But he'll take the fact he hasn't been reprimanded by his superior as a win. Flick Picks Video Rentals is, in many ways, a haven. A place where for the first time, Charlie could feel at home with his covert passions for film in which he would be expected to be ashamed anywhere else. A small respite, that unbeknownst to young Charlie, wouldn't last. Despite the kindly reminder to rewind before returning, most seldom listened. In the quiet and uneventful hours of the night, that became Charlie's job. VHS popped into the rewinder, eyes on the CTR TV to check for any scratches or tangling of the tape, slide into its box upon completion, rinse and repeat. It was a tedious task to be sure, but something Charlie found mildly comforting in its predictable repetition. One that seldom provided any surprises. 

               Until ONE TAPE …

It wasn't unheard of for someone to record over one of the rentals. Uncommon, yes, as it was guaranteed to earn you a ten dollar fine to replace what was lost, but not unheard of. Usually in such a case, rewinding was stopped, the tape set aside with a note. Yet something- … something wasn't right. This tape wasn't one of theirs. Or professionally made for that matter. The film had the signature grain, bad lighting and time code at the bottom of something made at home. But the stationary upward framing, fixed on a single person. A single tied person. Bloodied. Sobbing. This wasn't right. A masked figure stepping into view. Toying with the other. Armed with a knife. This definitely wasn't right. The one tied, turned frantic. The knife slicing. The blood. It couldn't have been real, right? Someone trying their hand at horror like he did. And effectively at that. It was unsettling to say the least. Something he brought up, showed to a coworker the next day, and was assured in a chiding manner it was fake. Even he in what film making experience he possessed, had reservations. Why, then, he remained uncertain he wasn't sure. 

 That uncertainty nagged. Knotted his stomach. And eventually, sent him in an unorthodox direction to his university's theater department for answers. The course of logic he followed said if it was fake, a third and perhaps more experienced opinion wouldn't hurt. It was by pure luck and happenstance that one person with such qualifications was there. While the two had apparently gone to the same highschool, Irene Fernandez had been a complete stranger to him. Might have had something to do with them traveling within social circles so different they might as well have been separate planets altogether. Her skill and knowledge in special effects, however, made her essential to his needs. Was a random encounter over a gory VHS tape an awkward first meeting? Yes. Yet it was not nearly so bad at its beginning as it became in the end, when upon repeated viewing with Irene, Charlie's fears were proven right. No dyed corn syrup or tubes used to spurt it. No retractable prop blades. The blood, murder, all of it was REAL. Which meant the killer was as well. 

 Such a realization made all the more terrifying as another tape appeared in the return slot ...

[hayaomiyazaki]

Transcript: MAURICE 4K restoration Q&A with James Ivory

I had the absolute, tear-inducing honor of seeing Maurice (1987), one of my favorite novels and films, in its 4K restoration at the Quad Cinema in NYC last week, which included a Q&A between critic David D’Arcy and the film’s director James Ivory. I have included a transcript of the Q&A below the cut (I’m not a professional but I did my best). Enjoy!

DD: How many of you saw this film in NY 30 years ago? Oh my God. Wow. Who saw it for the first time tonight? Please ask a question. Wow. How difficult was it to put this financing deal together 30 years ago? JI: It wasn’t difficult because we’d made A Room with a View, so everyone was very, you know, into what we were gonna do next. I mean, it really wasn’t a problem. DD: So, when this film opened, it played at The Paris [Theater], and Jim [?] told me before we walked in that it played for four months, which seems ― for anything besides a studio film that’s locked in somewhere ― seems like an eternity. A Room with a View played for over a year, was it? JI: Over a year, yeah. DD: Yeah. Happy with the four months or did that not exceed your expectations? JI: Well, who would not be happy at The Paris Theater? DD: So, I read― We did an interview about this in San Francisco about six weeks ago, and what I didn’t know as I was doing research on this is that there was some resistance on the part of the estate that this be made into a movie. Is that right? JI: That is correct. DD: Talk about that. JI: Well, it had nothing to do with the subject matter of the book; it had to do with the belief of writers and literary critics and so on that of all his novels, it was the least good, and that, therefore, if we were to draw attention to it by making it into a film, in some kind of way that it might pull down his literary reputation. So for that reason, they were― When we said we wanted to make it, which was after they... I won’t say that they refused or anything like that, but they were surprised and not especially enthusiastic. DD: Did they take some convincing? How did that happen? JI: Nah. One meeting and it was all okay. We went in there and― Well, they wondered why we had wanted to do A Room with a View and not A Passage to India, and when we said we wanted to do A Room with a View ― the first time when we went to his [Forster’s] executors ― their mouths fell open and they said, “That little book? Why would you want to do that?” DD: So you didn’t have your normal screenwriting partner [Ruth Prawer Jhabvala] working on this project. Why was that? JI: Well, there were two reasons. She was in the midst of writing a novel and she didn’t want to be interrupted in that; that was the novel called Three Continents [(1987)]. And she was also one of those who thought this was his least good book, and she called the book and the film “sub-Forster” and “sub-Ivory,” she said. However, she was enormously helpful. When Kit [Hesketh-]Harvey and I had written the screenplay, she was very, very helpful in making suggestions that would help the story. It was her whole idea for the trial of Risley―I mean, Risley being set up and then arrested (Lord Risley, the friend from Cambridge) and sent to prison. And as a real reason to frighten Clive into some sort of quote-unquote “normal” adult life. That was her idea; that’s not in the novel. There were other things, too... She was always very good at helping one cut things down. DD: Looking back at the way critics saw the film in ’87, what do you think now? Talk about the reaction of the critics. JI: Well the reaction was good here. We never met people―I mean, everybody seemed to like it. And it was right at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and I think, really, people―[mumbling]―there to, you know, confuse issues of morality with a lot going on. No one said, “This is a film that should not be made or should remain,” whatever. There was nothing of that sort. But I think the shadow of the AIDS crisis quieted people. But, really, they were pretty enthusiastic back in the day. I didn’t feel too stabbed [?]... except in England. DD: Tell us about that. JI: Well there, the reaction was strange, really. As somebody put it ― it changed in the direction of the critics, almost all of whom were male ― he called it “mealy-mouthed.” And their reaction was not all that supportive. But almost to the [mumbling], they were gay: every single film critic. So you figure that out. DD: In the film that you just saw, there’s a great line that I’m going to mangle, which is that the English have a hard time accepting human nature [“England has always been disinclined to accept human nature”]. So, some casting choices that you made which were not― I thought the actors fit those roles very, very well, but you had other people in mind originally. Would you talk about that? JI: Well, yeah. Well, Julian Sands was going to play Maurice and John Malkovich was going to play the hypnotist [Dr. Lasker-Jones, played by Ben Kingsley]. John Malkovich was Julian’s great friend and they had worked together in [The] Killing Fields [(1984)], and they were going to play those two parts. Then Julian had some kind of crisis of...his, in which he left the film, his agent, his wife and child, and his country, and came to live in New York for a while. And so he pulled out, like, three weeks before we were ready to start. I mean, the film was all cast, everything was there, we found the locations: everything was ready. And then we had to replace him. But I had met James Wilby. James Wilby played a little, very tiny part ― tiny, you don’t even know it! ― in A Room with a View. I met him and I thought he might work, and he called me back. DD: Have you ever had the experience before of an actor pulling out at the last minute? JI: Not pull out, but― Yeah, we did. In A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, Nick Nolte was supposed to play the role of the father in that, and he got involved in doing Thin Red Line, and he was off in the South Pacific somewhere for months and months and months and months longer than he was supposed to be. So he had to be replaced. Then, Kris Kristofferson, who, I think, knew about the situation and had heard about it, and read script ― he offered to do it. He wanted to play the part and I’m terribly glad he did. Nick would have been great, but also Kris was just fantastic in that. I think! DD: I know we’re gonna have some questions from the audience, so I have two general questions I want to ask because I think other people might also be very interested. Why did your producer-director-screenwriter partnership [with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala] last as long as it did? Longer than most marriages, longer than almost anything? How do you account for that? JI: Well, it’s like the American government. Why has it lasted so long? I was the president, Ismail [Merchant] was Congress, and Ruth was the Supreme Court. And we all respected ― we tried ― we respected each other. Each of us did perform our functions and then there was great love and affection there, and that was also part of it. DD: One other thing. There’s a term that’s come to be used: the “Merchant-Ivory film.” Did a critic name that or you, Ismail― JI: No! DD: How did that term come about? JI: No, I don’t. I mean, it’s fine. It’s okay. Why not? Now we’re like a certain kind of movie. People come and actually offer me a book to autograph of novels that were made into films that we didn’t make. So... DD: Alright, let’s get some― Right here, please. Speak up! We don’t have a mic. Audience 1: It’s a pleasure. [mumbling] I was on the set watching you guys film ― JI: Oh yeah? Audience 1: ― [mumbling] Real quick question. Filming at [University of] Cambridge, I know you guys had a problem in some of the halls― JI: No, only the chapel. That’s where the row was. Audience 1: Oh, okay. And you [D’Arcy] mentioned Merchant-Ivory. Things like Downtown Abbey [sic] have a strong hold... [mumbling and a man next to me talking over my recording; Audience 1 asks about Ivory’s being American and his repertoire of films that have become part of British cinematic culture and history]. JI: You know, I always think of these as American films. I’m American, so how can they― Nobody else is British who made them, except for the actors and the crew, but, you know, they don’t count. [audience laughs] So, to me, I’ve always thought of them as American films. And I know what you’re saying, and I don’t think the English ever liked calling them British films. They didn’t really accept them as British or think of them as British. They were too weird and foreign. Audience 1: I think of them as British― JI: Well that’s really Forster. And, of course, it was in the case of [Kazuo] Ishiguro― I mean, you know about that, with The Remains of the Day. Yeah. DD: Other questions? [quick issue with the mic not working, and D’Arcy gets up to fix it] Audience 2: Mr. and Mrs. Bridge [(1990)] seems to reflect a very similar class structure. So many of your films deal with that very rigid class structure. People suffered greatly. It seems to me that Kansas City, Missouri is eerily the same and unchanging to this day, and it fascinated me [mumbling] that you wanted to do Evan Connell’s great books. JI: Well, I was interested in those two novels ― Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge ― when we were working in India. And strangely enough― I mean, we were getting on a train in Calcutta to go to Delhi, and there were these guys that had these rolling book carts. I had read Mrs. Bridge and just thought it was an extraordinary book and I loved it, and then there was Mr. Bridge being sold in a Calcutta station. So I got that and read it on the train. And then we arrived in Delhi and I gave the books to Ruth Jhabvala and I said, “This would make, I think, a wonderful movie. I love it.” She read them and she said, “We couldn’t possibly make this into a movie!” I didn’t think about it for a while. Then, I learned, later on, once I’d met Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward ― just sort of met them socially ― I learned that Joanne Woodward was actually going to make a television version of Mrs. Bridge. I thought that, “Why don’t we combine the two books and make a film?” And then Ruth was ready to go along. She said it was one of the most enjoyable scripts for her... periods of work for her. That and The Golden Bowl were her two favorite pieces of work. Audience 3: There’s one scene where Maurice is having breakfast with his family and his sisters are there, and there’s a woman that’s never identified. JI: That’s― Yeah. The film had a different form once. The film was written― I mean, the script was written as a kind of flashback for much of it. I remember her name was Gladys, and she was the girl that Maurice imagined or tired to kiss and she pulled away from him in some kind of... distaste. That was a friend of the sisters; that’s who that was: Gladys. Audience 3: [can’t make out exactly what Audience 3 says here because she stopped using the mic, but she asks about any deleted scenes] JI: Well, I don’t know. That may be― I don’t know what’s happening with the cut out scenes in this current restoration. I think they’re probably there. I think you’ll find those scenes in there. DD: Okay, the man sitting right there. Audience 4: Can you hear me? Maurice’s mom ― is that the same actress that played Mrs. Baylock in Richard Donner’s The Omen? JI: Yep. Billie Whitelaw. DD: Okay, I was told I have one question left, but that was so short that we’ll give another one. Yes? Audience 5: In 1997 [he is misspeaking and means 1987, the year Maurice was released], there were a couple years there where there were several movies about gay people that were positive and encouraging and this is obviously was. [mumbling] To what extent, given when it was made, was it a political decision for you [mumbling]? DD: Can everybody hear him? I don’t want to paraphrase that. Audience 5 [with mic]: When you made the movie in 1997 [he is misspeaking and means 1987, the year Maurice was released], there was all sorts of stuff going on. To what extent was it actually a political decision or was it just― JI: It wasn’t a political decision. It really wasn’t. I mean, I read the book― We were going to make another movie and that fell through, and suddenly we didn’t know what we were going to do. And I reread that book ― not especially looking to do it or anything ― and I liked it very much, and I saw its resemblance, in many ways to A Room with a View: it’s about muddled young people who are living a lie. And I thought this would be a very good film to make, and also relevant to the day because that hasn’t changed... and that’s how it came about. Audience 5: It was a very good film for a muddled young person. JI: Yes, I know. We want you less muddled. DD: Okay, ask your question, and then I’m going to get in trouble for letting people ask [mumbling]. Audience 6: In the extended set ― there’s a DVD set which now seems to be quite rare ― there was an entire character that was cut out of the film: the young boy. JI: Yeah. Right. Audience 6: The movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes. Was that just done because of time? JI: That was―that was done―Yeah. That was part of this whole flashback situation. Audience 6: I see. JI: But he [Adrian Ross Magenty] turns up again in Howards End [(1992)]. He’s the Schlegel brother, the young brother of the Schlegel sisters. DD: Okay, ask your question. Audience 7: Given the time that you did make this film, did you have a particular vision yourself ― I’m sure that you did ― what your vision was in terms of what you were trying to achieve with this particular story at that particular time? JI: Well, I was trying to achieve what Forster was trying to achieve: I just wanted to tell that story. And as much as possible cinematically, and with is tone of voice. I didn’t set myself a sort of goal to achieve, something I’ve almost never been able to do...that. We just, you know, do our best to go on. [laughs] I really didn’t think of it in that kind of way. DD: Do we have time for one more? Yes! Oh, good! Audience 8: I’m a musician, and the music is stunning, of course. It is such a melancholy feeling in the beginning. How much of that was collaborative [mumbling] discussing the tone of the music, which lends so much emotional texture to the film? JI: Well, the way we used to work was― I mean, he [Richard Robbins] would have read the novel and then he would have read screenplay and then he would have seen― he would have been getting ideas already and thinking about what he might do. Then he would see the rough cut and then he would see the final cut, and somewhere along in there, he and I would sit down together and he would play me things or he would have certain themes he wanted to develop. We’d talk about it a bit. But, on the whole... I mean, it was a step-by-step process, him always going ahead for all the films. DD: Okay, we’re getting the hook here. There’s another sold out screening! Thank you all for coming after 30 years. Thank you very much, James Ivory.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

the cognitive functions as musicals?

I know someone did this already with types as musicals so I’m going to take this in a wildly different direction, namely: I grew up mostly on 50s-60s era movie musicals, so that’s what you’re mostly getting. Also one light opera, one avant-garde opera, and one movie-only musical. Basically if you came here to see me say “your dom function is Hamilton” then you should have said so.

Ni: Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan (technically this is an operetta. I do not care very much). Patience satirizes the aestheticism movement that arose in Britain in the late 1800s, which argued that art should be about aesthetics and not political or social commentary. I think Gilbert’s argument of “fuck that” is very Ni.

(couldn’t find a gif from Patience because only hardcore nerds every put it on, so here’s something from Pirates of Penzance).

Se: The Music Man. Also considered: Guys and Dolls. Anything about fast-talking con-men with a good patter song, basically. I think The Music Man is the stronger movie; though it does have a critical shortage of young hot Marlon Brando, the singers are way better and I think it’s generally funnier.

Ne: Mary Poppins. Is this technically a Disney movie and not a stage musical? Arguably. Did you say stage musical? No. Do I think a film that’s all about shaking people out of a rigid routine and also exploring weird possibilities like walking into chalk drawings and making people fly, that also has songs sung by a famous Broadway actress, is appropriate as a musical representation of Ne? Yes.

Si: The Sound of Music. I think this and Mary Poppins serve as a great contrast, in that Julie Andrews plays a nanny/governess character who shakes a wealthy family out of a rut but The Sound of Music is very loosely based on a true story and is ultimately far more grounded in reality.

Te: Singin’ in the Rain, more for production than for the plot, though a lot of the plot is about trying to make an effective movie. The production, for those who don’t know, consisted of MGM basically looking through their back catalog of songs and saying “how can we make more money off of this” and then they made a fantastic movie that features some of the funniest lines ever and will forever be one of my favorites.

(I tried to find a gif of Lina saying “I make more money than - than Calvin Coolidge. PUT TOGETHER!” but I couldn’t so you get this)

Fi: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s all about a search for love and identity and learning to accept the successes of others, and the stage play is framed as a one-woman show (unlike the film which is framed more as a tour - still very good).

Ti: So this is the only one I’ve never seen but I couldn’t think of a classic or not classic musical that really fit Ti. Einstein on the Beach is an experimental opera by Philip Glass about Einstein, but it doesn’t really have a plot, is about theoretical physics, and is five hours long and allows people to kind of wander in and out because it’s five fucking hours long. In other words it’s about a Ti dom and is pretty anarchic and the lyrics to the knee plays, which I have heard if not seen performed, are basically Gertrude Stein word salad (I sound very critical and I’m really not - I mean, I refuse to attend a 5 hour performance of basically anything but the music is actually really fascinating to listen to).

Fe: Fiddler on the Roof. This one is pretty important to me in that it’s basically required viewing for people of Eastern European Jewish descent (my mother said that when the film came out her parents let her miss a day of school to see it in theaters because representation of their parents’ lives onscreen was such a big deal), but it’s also very much about a tight-knit community and the dynamics. Oklahoma! is also in this kind of theme.

[oneletterwrites]

ah!! your writing is very good ❤ if it's not too much to ask for, maybe a belarus/nyo iceland drabble please? something with a first date sort of thing?

A Series of Firsts

Emily could hear the whispers from the other students in the halls. She keeps her face screwed up in a neutral expression as she heads for her first class. High school is bad enough but changing schools in the middle of the year could be ruinous to her whole life.

Luckily her first teacher doesn’t make her do a stupid introduction, letting her take a seat in the back. She keeps her eyes down, secretly texting her best friend from her old school. Ling makes fun of her instead of being consolidating.

A few kids try to talk to her but they are immediately put off by the fact Emily just gives them annoyed looks on reflex. Her face usually takes a turn for resting bitch face but with people she doesn’t know it gets much worse. They leave her alone with words of ‘rude’ and ‘mean’. Not that it matters much to her.

She manages to find the small locker the school provides. It takes her a few tries to open the contraption, a few other kids coming over to talk to her. She gives them the same looks. It doesn’t deter them and that makes it so much worse. Eventually she leaves them with a quick slam of the locker and going to her next class without a word.

This teacher asks her if she wants to introduce herself and Emily stares at her like she has two heads. They try to get her to say something.

“No?” Emily takes a step towards the back of the room while the teacher tries to make it a joke but it falls flat. Just before the bell rings, a girl walks in that looks much older than the rest of the sophomores.

“Ah! Everyone this is Natalia, she’ll be the teacher’s assistant for this hour.” The teacher shows Natalia a desk next to the front of the room for her to sit at and spread her things out. She does so with her lavender hair falling over her shoulders in a glossy curtain. 

Emily can hear some of the crass boys in her class talking about how they can find ways to talk to the T.A. As rude as she thinks it is, she doesn’t say anything. The T.A. looks like they can handle themselves, a fact that is proven when they send a sharp glare to one of the boys who flinches when they catch her angry stare. Then she turns the look to Emily.

She had been staring and instead of looking away from the violent look directed her way, keeps looking until the angry expression melts from Natalia’s face and Emily’s heats up. She snaps her head down to her desk, hoping the short cut of her hair is enough to cover her face.

–

Emily jumps when her locker is slammed shut for her. Some random kid in one of her classes leans on the one next to it with a smirk on his face. She blinks at him unamused.

“Can you not do that?” She asks. The boy laughs and tries to give her one of those boyish charm smiles. Too bad Emily is far used to that from the looks her family gives her.

“So what are you doing after school today?” They ask. Emily doesn’t dignify it with an answer.

“We should hang out.”

“No,” Emily says quick. She doesn’t even look at them as she opens her locker again to block them from her sight. She grabs her last book as it’s shut on her again. She doesn’t wait around for him to say anything, just walks away. On the opposite side of the lockers is Natalia, surrounded by her friends, a group of seniors and juniors of varying social groups. Emily does her best not to look at the T.A. but their eyes lock regardless.

Emily holds her books tighter at the feeling of someone watching her walk away.

–

“Come on Nat!” Emily looks up from her book. She managed to convince the teacher she needed to go to the library to study for classes. Since she had proven to be the least trouble making the teacher granted her permission. Too bad Natalia is there as well, rejecting some boy.

“No,” She says coldly. Emily has learned. Listened in on some of the talks her classmates have when the T.A. has her headphones in and they have time to talk. Natalia is a little trouble making in the sense she doesn’t care, an ice queen to end all tropes. Rumors spread she has knives on her at school and threatens people who bug her too much.

“Nat listen-”

“No,” She says again just as bored. The boy groans and plops down next to her as she reads.

“Not even one little-”

“No.” She snaps her book shut and stands to move to the opposite side of the library, just a table away from where Emily sits.

“Why not?” The boy whispers as he follows her. Natalia finally looks at him with a glare in place.

“I don’t like you,” She says. Emily hides her face to make sure the snort she lets out can be masked by the pages. Her ears burn red when she hears the boy ask if it’s because Natalia likes someone else. She doesn’t want to look but she does. She freezes seeing Natalia glance her way.

“Actually,” Natalia says in the most teasing voice Emily has ever heard out of her. Somehow her posture goes more rigid as Natalia stands once more to move to the seat right next to Emily and lean right into her space.

“Me and my girlfriend have a date later today.” Emily’s eyes go wide and she blinks between the two seniors with her mind in short circuit. The boy gives her a bad look, judging the accuracy in Natalia’s statement.

“I-” Her words get choked up and Natalia gives her an odd look. Possibly pleading for help.

“I- I’ve been meaning to ask, if it was your house or mine today?” Emily makes up words as quick as she can. Natalia’s shoulders drop in relief as she turns to fully face Emily in her chair.

“Mine would be best today,” She says and a genuine smile crosses her face that sends Emily’s heart pounding to another dimension. The boy gives up on talking to Natalia but she doesn’t leave.

“Thank you I suppose,” She says and drops some of the playful act. Emily finally feels like she can calm down not under the pressure.

“You’re welcome,” She mumbles. The book in front of her is desperate for her attention but it’s difficult with Natalia still beside her.

–

“Hey.” Emily almost expects it to be one of the boys from her grade but the cool voice tells her it’s not. She blinks up to Natalia who switches from foot to foot awkwardly in front of her.

“Hi?” Emily says. She catches sight of the group Natalia usually talks with watching and smiling between themselves.

“Do you like movies?” Natalia’s words are tight lipped. Emily shrugs, holding her arms to her.

“I like more scary ones,” She admits. Natalia nods her head and grabs a strand of her long hair to run her hands over in nervousness.

“Have you seen Mindless yet?” Emily shakes her head with confusion growing every second.

“Do you want to come see it with me?” The senior asks. Emily bristles with no idea how to react. With her face turning red she nods. Natalia lets out a soft sigh.

“It’s a date then.” She turns on her heel to walk to her friends who smile brightly. Emily closes her locker quick to go to class, a small bit of dread in her stomach when she realizes Natalia will be right in front of her the whole hour.

It’s easy when Natalia only offers her the slight smiles and gives nothing to anyone else.

–

“My friend tried to brainwash her ex once,” Natalia says on the way to the movie. Emily snorts into her hand and watches the trees as they pass. Natalia gave her a little card with her number on it. After a few texts they found a day and time for their date. Lukas almost had a fit but he couldn’t when Natalia rolled up in a nice car and Emily ran outside and told her to step on it before he could ask questions.

“I think my brother has his best friend brainwashed,” She says. They looked up the plot to the movie to make sure they would both really want to watch it. Interesting sounding enough they decided to keep it.

“So do you really bring knives to school?” Emily asks. Natalia gives her a side glance and the corner of her mouth twitches up for a second smile.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” That ends that conversation. Emily fiddles with her fingers.

“Any other rumors you have questions about?” Natalia asks once the car is parked and the theater looms in front of them. Emily shakes her head.

It’s a little awkward at first but with Natalia set with her sour candy and Emily with her licorice, they hold hands on the arm rest between them. Emily is thankful the lights go out so her face can’t look as red.

The scarier parts of the movie make her twitch but nothing she can’t handle. The psychological parts make her cover her mouth in shock that someone, even just a movie character, would do such a thing. Natalia snickers beside her at her reactions.

“Who does that!?” Emily exclaims once they exit the theater. She puffs up her cheeks once she realizes how loud she is but Natalia just smirks at her outbursts.

“That was fun,” She says. Emily lessens her anger to smile softly. Their hands remain linked as Natalia drives her home. She parks on the street.

“Thank you? I guess..” Emily says unsure if she should say anything else. She’s never done much of a date thing before. She glances up at Natalia to find a hand on her cheek and pulling her closer.

The kiss is soft as a first. There’s a soft air between them when Natalia pulls back.

“See you tomorrow,” She says. Emily scrambles for the door handle. At the front door she stalls to watch Natalia smile from the street then drive away knowing she’s safe inside.

“Who was that?” Lukas scares the hell out of her. Emily glares at him as her hands fidget about.

“Someone from school,” She pushes past him and his prying questions, especially because she doesn’t know how to answer them. Whatever they are now to each other will have to be discussed another day.

–

It’s a little weird the day Natalia walks into the classroom and holds out a plain white envelope to her. Emily blinks up at her dumbfounded. They don’t interact in class, trying to keep some sort of personal and work boundary between them. They’ve gone on a few other dates, all fun in Emily’s opinion, and since Natalia keeps asking her, she must think they are fun too.

This is a bold interaction, bold enough that the class has gone quiet to watch them. Emily looks at the envelope, taking it with a confused look to the giver. Natalia just shrugs to an unasked question.

The envelope isn’t closed completely and Emily flips the top to pull out the contents. Her eyes go wide as she recognizes the ticket inside.

“Only if you want to,” Natalia says to her. The prom ticket stares Emily in the face. Carefully she looks up to the senior.

“Okay,” She manages to say. Natalia smiles softly at her then. Her hair drapes across Emily’s desk as she leans down casually to give her a quick kiss to the shock of everyone around them. The T.A. goes back to her desk with a bored look on her face as if she didn’t just show a public display of affection. Emily keeps her head down to hide the smile on her face.

–

Emily is sick of being fussed over. Lukas has tried to pin up her hair in three different styles, twice each in an annoying way. She smacks him away as the doorbell rings. She carefully walks downstairs in the slight heels but Lukas beats her there. Her breath gets caught at Natalia in a long purple dress that has a black sequined sash running around her torso to make her look thinner than she already is.

“Hi,” Natalia says blankly to Lukas. Her face actually lights up at seeing Emily. Her dress is shorter and more frilly, down to her knees in a dark blue that wraps around her neck to leave her sleeveless. She can’t help the smile on her face. Her parents get a few quick pictures in and they are out the door.

The limo they are in is bustling with life. Most of Natalia’s friends are there and then some Emily has only seen in passing. She gets properly teased for being so young going to prom but nothing malicious. It’s made better by Natalia sticking close to her, keeping their hands locked the whole night.

She has never danced before, but being able to tuck herself into Natalia while swaying back and forth has to count for something.

[todaybharatnews]

via Today Bharat Filmmaker-writer Vikram Bhatt speaks on handling the thriller genre, working with Bipasha Basu and whether he can remake Raaz today. Vikram Bhatt has been a prolific filmmaker in the thriller genre, giving us movies like Kasoor, Raaz and 1920. “Thrillers, like love stories, will never go out of fashion,” he says. Bhatt has also written films, including Dastak, Aetbaar and Hate Story. His recent film as a writer, Dangerous, starring Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover, is currently streaming on MX Player. Bhatt spoke about the thriller genre and working with Bipasha Basu. He also revealed whether he can remake Raaz today. Q. How do you get thrillers right? Luckily for me, the audience is clever. I think a thriller is about the improbable, which you have to make probable. Like you’d feel this character could never commit a murder, that’s improbable. But logic and motivation make it plausible. Ah! I just gave my secret away! Q. How much do you keep the actor in mind while writing a story? When I’m writing, after a point, I don’t do that. Because then you become too rigid in your imagination. Ultimately, films are a director’s medium. Once you’ve written the script, it is up to the director how he visualises it and what actors he feels will fit in. You have to stop interfering. I think that’s what a writer should do once he hands over the script to the director. Q. Do you ever worry about your message not being conveyed well enough to the audience? It can happen. At some point, you have to stop working for the end result and start enjoying the process, because if you are goal-oriented, the process becomes miserable. You don’t have much control over the end in any case. The films that have been miserable for me as a director have not done well. Some films I enjoyed making have also not done well, but at least I had fun in the process. Q. Dangerous reunites you with Bipasha. How has your equation with her changed over the years? I think she is living a semi-domesticated life, or I should say she has semi-domesticated Karan (Singh Grover). She has always been dedicated and passionate about her work. I think she still looks a million bucks. She’s kept herself in shape and relevant. The best thing about Bipasha is she’s not desperate about work. A lot of women actors decide to latch onto big stars and think that’s what a film career is all about. That might be stardom, but not acting. In a big star film, you are going to get just one or two songs. But there have been a lot of actresses who decided to take a film on their shoulders. When you do that, you take the responsibility for the success or failure of the film. And Bipasha has been one such actress, who’s made a career by not working with the big guys. She got success without walking the trodden path. That’s what’s special about her. Q. Bipasha said you understand the pulse of a woman in your stories. What do you say about that? I don’t know if I understand women’s stories, but I don’t see men and women differently. I see a character as genderless. Let’s just say I don’t have a misogynistic approach to writing, and that perhaps shows in my understanding of women — which probably means not misunderstanding them. Q. Do you think you can recreate a Raaz given today’s audience? I don’t know how I made it in the first place. I don’t think films are made, they just happen. I shot an arrow in the air. You try to make the film to the best of your ability. The only way to not make a flop film is not make a film at all. Q. In the more than two decades, how do you think the audience’s attitude towards the genre has changed? Today, the audience is smarter and you can’t take liberties with common sense. When you are writing thrillers, everything has to be researched now — poisons, guns, bullets. You can’t fire a bullet from one gun and find the cartridge of another. The audience is very clever. If they see one hole, the entire plot falls. Q. You’ve tried other genres like comedy. Why don’t you do that now? I’m very impatient when I want to make a film. I don’t want to wait for actors. Deewane Huye Paagal and Awara Paagal Deewana had a huge cast. There are directors who are ready to wait for three months or three years to make one film. I would go bananas if I had to do that. Q. A film of yours which you’d like to remake and improve if given a chance? What is done is done. It was an attempt, and if it didn’t work, there was something wrong in it. If you want to be in the business of entertainment, you should not delve so much into the past. You must learn your lesson and move on. If I want to recreate the past, it means I’m not thinking enough about new ideas and the future. Q. How do you see films releasing on OTT platforms? That is a reflection of the times we are in right now, but it’s not permanent. It’ll change. Film theaters will come back. People just need to have that confidence that they won’t die watching a movie.

[idolizerp]

[ LOADING INFORMATION ON NIGHTMARE’S MAIN VOCAL GO SUWON…. ]

DETAILS

CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 24 SKILL POINTS: 18 VOCAL | 06 DANCE | 02 RAP | 06 PERFORMANCE

INTERVIEW

on stage, it’s serious business from all angles: precision and presence complete with the ladylike poise. with more than a decade under her belt spent entertaining the likes of finer art, it’s only proper to continue the image of utmost elegance. only a turn darker. think belladonas in bloom. lilith. a lady midnight kind of deal. appropriate, really, given their name. 

elsewhere, it’s a different kind of story: she’s warmer in places that aren’t under the limelight, dialing up that near maternal sensitivity almost effortlessly on the occasional variety show. here, suwon’s not quite the driving force in conversation, but rather the one who keeps the flow, makes it light, easy to swallow down. but because it’s better to be safe than sorry, honesty remains to be the best policy. it should be noted, however, that she’s never been blunt in her manner of speaking.

as a result, the media doesn’t have much to say, for better or worse. the rare time that some obscure journalist decides to snoop only ever leads them to the disappointment: from the dorms to the gym, there and back again to an all-too mundane routine. otherwise, it’s an obscure account detailing bits and pieces from her theater days. the comments that follow are more or less in the same vein of: she’s in an idol group now?

an honest to god miracle, really, that no one has gone so far to uncover the incident behind her abandoned theater debut. given how netizens are, considering anythingat all as a miracle is a true understatement in it of itself.

it’s only within the company of close friends and family that she can breathe a little better; still carefree and unbothered, but unapologetically frank. by default, suwon’s always been the sisterly type, accessible in a way that those her age and older don’t always appear to be. it’s better that way, for her sake and for others, being wide open rather than to be closed shut.

BIOGRAPHY

15.

it’s half a house, half something more with a pulse. sunlit, soothing with the smell of rosemary. on the kitchen counter there are jars of dark honey. she sets the flowers down. even at this age, it’s still ever a temptation to dip her fingers in where they shouldn’t be.  “those are for ssaem, suwon."her mother’s voice moves across the room before she does, soft as an apparition even in her work gloves and torn denim.  suwon sighs. caught red-handed before she could even make a move. "i know, mom.” never mind the cherub mischief that rests in her gaze, anyway. in spite of it.

mrs. go picks up the bouquet. daffodils with a white ribbon tied over the stems. a gift for doing well, or better yet, just something to remember today by.  “oh, these are lovely.”  

“uhuh.” in the midst of her distraction, suwon had managed to reach for one of the jars.

“there should be a vase somewhere to put th-suwon! what did i just tell you?"  "finders keepers."

19.

a lack of affection isn’t the problem here. she knows a kind of love that only grows with age, expands with each reassurance: "you’re doing great, baby.” “there’s my girl.” “i love you so, so much.” with parents that have done nothing but give never-ending support to a passion that’s lasted for over a decade, it’s overflow rather than a deprivation.  it isn’t a lack of attention, either. classical vocal training is less sophisticated than it sounds, both in name and its outcomes. she’s attended to in detail by her teacher, from her posture to the wholeness of the last note held out for the final number.

maybe it’s not a problem of searching for something. maybe it’s not a problem at all.

being caught by want is a whole other kind of whirlwind. knowing it, knowing to shape herself to its pull: eyes half-lidded, lips trailing, the pace of heartbeats.  summer soon becomes a season she looks forward to.

“who is it?” it’s june and suwon is sitting in the shade with a senior from the music department, oversized sunnies flipped over her head.

“okay, let me correct myself: who is it this time?"  suwon laughs. she can hear her mother’s voice echoing in the back of her head.

("always, always getting her hands in places where they shouldn’t be-”)

“well. for starters…"

21.

the news doesn’t fully sink in until she actually sits down.

grief. the whole place stinks of it. suwon keeps shoveling food down by the bowlful, as if it’d serve as any form of comfort. but it’s in there too, in the rice, the salt.

it’d be a different story had her teacher been older. healthier even. the acceptance could’ve come easier, with less of the ache. cardiac arrest, and barely fifty years old at that.

the funeral hall is far from still: colleagues, prodigies, faces she can hardly consider familiar at all.

and that’s the worst thing,

she’d been selfish enough to think she was the only one.

22.

"i can’t do it."

there’s nothing else to say. she’s used up all the possibilities, aversions, bullshit excuses. about time that she face the music: go suwon has come this far, and it’s time to end it all here. she’s been tired before, but not like this. not in the way that it feels unfixable.

"haesoo knows all my lines and,” there’s at least a little bit of light left in her to smile: “she’d do a way better job, anyway."

it’s only a coincidence, people have taken to telling her. no one hits a home run on the first try in the theater world, and neither is it guaranteed by the second. there’s a reason why they say third time’s the charm. she’s rock-solid in terms of skill, like always, as always. there’s nothing to lose.

but there’s something that has been lost, beyond the presence of a loved one: that spark, snuffed out like a flame.

she doesn’t see it coming back. not now, not yet.

suwon tilts her head. "i’m sorry."

23.

it’s a year and then some. you could call it healing, or just having the autopilot on lock. finding her pulse again, that’s more like it. with the snow melting off, the process comes easier. new year. new earth. new suwon.

maybe it’s this sheer newness that had them scout her off the streets. something about wanting fresh new faces, and according to the agent, she’d apparently fit the bill. the card is slipped into her hands along with the chance to audition.

absently, she slips both into her pocket. something inside her stirs awake.

thump. thump. thump.

25.

so she wasn’t supposed to be here. at least, not initially.

but suwon’s long let go of the rigidity that’s bound her in the first place: the singular, set path she’d been walking on until she’d been knocked off course.  fifteen years of dedication shaved her training period to a little less than a year; enough time to mold her as an idol in other areas she’d lacked. dancing, in particular, was a challenge alone to bring to a level of high proficiency.

it’s a different road she’s taken, perhaps far too different for the taste of some, suwon’s sure. but one that’s taken her back on a stage she’d once given up on. and there’s nothing, nothing more enthralling than the possibility of hope found in second chances.