#kips does an edit

[wings-of-ink]

Hello, my friends!

Just wanted to pop in with some info and updates.

*The "Cursed Birthday" won the 2k follower celebration poll. Sorry dads! I don't have an ETA for that just yet. I may write it here and there until the end of the year as the motivation strikes. I think the easiest way to tell the tale would be from Oswin's POV or even a shifting POV between him and Da (Kip). I'll decide for sure once I begin to write it. Also playing with the idea of doing this in Twine to make it playable. That way you could put your MC's specifics in for maximum emotional damage.

*I will still write things about the dads though, so all my Papa and Da fans out there won't be left in the dark forever.

*I will be "patching" Chapter 5 in the near future. I redid Zahn's scene (again) which gave me such a headache on release day. I formatted the beginnings in a much more streamlined way and fixed some bugs. When I have more time to sit and go through error reports, and make more corrections to typos, grammar, and code - then I will put the patch through.

*All chapters will be getting a scrub for issues in the text in the coming months. I will do my best to find them, but self-editing is very difficult (there's good reason that professional editors exist). In the future, I may need to ask for testers/editors.

*ASKS will be changing a bit. I do not know the full extent of how because it's a trial by fire. The rules will be updated as I come across things. But, here's why:

Spoiler prevention - as much as it is possible, I want to limit spoiling content for both new and existing readers. Not just for the plot points that are developing, but also for our mystery suitor who will have a lot of unraveling in the coming chapters. I will probably make a specific tag for answers that may contain spoilers, but some of the issue is the information in the Ask itself, which I can't hide. I may opt to compile these in a big post like once a month or so. This way, if anyone does not want to see anything spoilery, it's easier to avoid.

Time management - reaction asks specifically will remain limited and they will honestly have to be a lower priority depending on the condition of my inbox. I am very sorry for this, but these can take an inordinate amount of time. I write this IF in my downtime from work and personal life, and I also use those moments to manage Tumblr. I need to balance those so I can work toward releasing more of the IF.

Patreon - I still plan to give Patreon a go probably starting January. This will help me fund things for the game, such as art, and help me justify spending even more of my time writing chapters and extras. But like everything else, I will need to allot time to work on these things.

Personal Development - I'm taking a coding class! I can work on it at my leisure and it won't take a ton of time during the week, but it will take me out of my Tumblr time a little bit I think. Fingies crossed, I will learn a lot that will help me code a better game for you!

*Inbox - I have several Asks awaiting responses about chapter 5. As noted above, I am holding these due to spoilers to give readers a chance to catch up. (I may opt to compile these in one large post.)

Anyway, that's all for now (it's at least all I currently remember, lol).

Take care, all!

~Lunan ^_^

[westofessos]

We really as a society need to just fucking get over it and have the men and women wrestle each other. There can obviously be separate divisions and titles but thinking of how much potential for great storylines is being wasted physically hurts me. How great would mixed tag titles be (obviously we need women’s titles first)? For the first one they could have a big tournament and have all the couples compete and have the finals be on Valentines Day or some shit, it would be adorable. Who wouldn’t want to see Toni Storm and Juice Robinson team together? Or Britt Baker and Adam Cole, Anna Jay and Jack Perry, Penelope Ford and Kip Sabian, etc. I know I would.

Or they could have a blind eliminator tournament like they just did for the men, and pair up men and women who otherwise never would have spoken to each other. You never know, they could very well strike gold like they did with the MJF/Adam Cole pairing. I think they would.

Not to mention the great singles matches we could have, the feuds they could be put in. Plus you have someone like Kris Statlander who’s with the Best Friends and has such great chemistry with them but can never be part of the feuds they’re in if the other group doesn’t have a female member, and they can’t ever help her out in her feuds, it’s just dumb as fuck.

I think it could also help with the sub-par booking of the women’s division, too. They would get more time to shine. Obviously we need more matches with just women, but I would love more than anything to see those women kick the asses of some of those men. Those matches and storylines could be epic.

Anyway, sorry if that was messy or slightly incoherent I’m just really passionate about this particular issue and just heard that Rey Fenix wouldn’t be able to go to Wembley, prompting me to practically scream “so just let Stat join them for fucks sake!”

Edit: I wasn’t really clear in the post originally but I meant this this as strictly about AEW! I am aware that intergender wrestling does exist and has been done, I just meant that it should become the norm for the big companies (i.e. AEW. I don’t follow WWE so I can’t speak on what they’re doing over there. Someone that watches it regularly can speak on what they’re doing in this regard).

[burnt-tortellini]

south english writing tips for non-uk CoD writers

im so tired of seeing gaz say “bruv” every 10 seconds OR hear about ghosts “mom”

i have no clue how much of this applies in other places/is obvious but!

ok so common slang

bloke/lad - a man

bev/bossman/brother/mush - a man but in a friendlier way (like gaz might call soap or price mush)

missus - someones wife (usually “the missus” is the wife of whoever is talking/being talked about, i dont usually hear people say “*insert names* missus” there also isnt a male equivalent sadly)

scran - good food or to eat (eg. “scranned that nandos” or “going to the chinese later to pick up some scran”)

kip - nap but you usually “take” a kip rather than “have” a kip if that makes sense?

cardy - cardigan/zip up hoodie (usually gen x or older women i hear saying this)(and me until i was 10 and got bullied of out it💔💔)

tory - technically supporters of the conservative party but the definition has been broadened to people who are posh/rich (derogatory)

bender - gay (derogatory, if you couldnt tell)

wank - jerk off

wanker/bellend/twat/knobhead/fuckface - common insults (also cunt is a lot more common over here, its still a bad word but it doesnt hold the same weight as in the states, ESPECIALLY among teenage boys)(although they just say slurs anyway so)

babe/hun - typically used by girls either as a term of endearment or to be patronising (you could call a random person in a shop hun or use it in an argument it really depends)

any word ending in “ic” can be turned into “____iccy” for instance “i look better in this piccy” or “digestives are proper good choccy biccys”

dead ____ - typically used by northerners as a substitute for “really” (eg. dead nice cake is a really nice cake), southerners usually use “proper” instead

chav - female equivalent of a roadman, hard to explain in terms that make sense. if i say “so…? spray, orange foundation, m to the b” does that make sense to you ???

roadman - male equivalent of a chav, balaclavas, nike tech jackets, bikes/scooters, vapes, central cee, usually congregate outside of maccies in packs

side note: idk how well known this is outside of the uk but along side the middle finger we have a reverse peace sign, usually combined with a wanking motion but can just be used like a middle finger. also a closed fist doing a wank motion holds the same effect

i will probably edit and add more as i think of them but feel free to reblog with anything i missed!!

[kindheart525]

Dottieverse Fun Facts

Just a list of random fun facts about the Dottieverse cast! I've done separate posts on some of these tidbits but I wanted to put all the info in one place and add some bits that might not warrant posts on their own

I’ll keep editing this post as I come up with more fun facts! This isn’t complete by any means so keep checking back for more. Please feel free to suggest some too and maybe they’ll be added to the list!

Dottie Dompler

Her favorite drink is boba tea

Writes film reviews on Letterboxd in her free time

Doesn’t remember what she studied in college as she spent most of her time there picking up dudes

Keeps two diaries: One for general thoughts and feelings and another exclusively for documenting her love life in detail

Has an OnlyFans

Actually has some ex-girlfriends (one or two from experimenting in college and a few trans lady exes who presented as male when she dated them)

Was engaged once

Kip Pimling

Is left-handed

Loves Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, and other similar artists

Her favorite video game is Just Dance

Used to do musical theater in middle school and still loves to do karaoke

Gets emotional at movies and musicals often, but the end of Wicked makes her cry especially hard

Likes making glittery sensory ASMR videos

Started seeing a therapist as an angsty preteen and still goes regularly for mental health upkeep

Was a VERY colicky baby

Sucked her thumb to self-soothe until she was 5 years old

Now she fidgets with her hair when stressed

She and Dottie dressed up for the Barbie movie 30th anniversary theater re-release (in 2053)

Got her B.A. in psychology fully online so she could stay in her hometown and intern for Smiling Friends

Whenever someone is bigoted or just plain mean in her presence she donates to corresponding charities in their name (ex: meeting a queerphobe and donating to an LGBTQ organization for them)

Ell Pimling

Giorno’s nickname for her is “Slowpoke”

Fucking horrible at driving; always goes way over the speed limit

HATES cybertrucks

Owns a bulldog named Beef in her young adulthood

When she wants to talk to a tall person she just climbs them

Her taste in women overlaps with Giorno's so they often bond by gushing over attractive female athletes together

Nee Pimling

Has a small, persistent bruise on his bicep where he pinches himself every time his conscience “acts up”

Dur Pimling

Secretly skilled in graphic design; all of the advertisements for his and Nee’s laundromat were made by him

Blep Simpson

Multilingual in Wingon, Latin, American Sign Language, Hebrew, and English (which she never speaks but can understand)

Gola Simpson

Talks with “Uncle” Allan’s inflection and pronunciation style

Wore a wig as a teenager out of insecurity

Giorno Simpson

Ell’s nickname for him is “Twiggy”

His social media is mostly full of videos of him doing various workouts but he also has a "making fun of short people" series which has featured Suzy, Eep, Chad, and Ell

Secretly very good at singing but he isn’t super open about it

Glorp Simpson

Suzy Simpson

Owns a vast collection of hats to wear for every occasion

Is a horse girl; she owns a little pony named Rapunzel with a long mane that matches hers

Really wants to do coordinated Halloween costumes with Eep, but since Eep will never go out with her she does it with her niece Royal instead

Eep Simpson

Has a collection of hair bows much like Suzy’s hat collection; they share a literal “hats and bows” closet

Very prone to anxiety-induced stomachaches

Terrified of Halloween

Chad Simpson

Enjoys collecting fancy watches, and also has some silly kid ones from his sisters

Likes horses like Suzy does, but he doesn't like dirt so he bonds with her over sharing facts and watching races rather than riding them

Crawdad Crustacean

Has a southern accent that comes and goes

Chucky Dompler II

His Zodiac sign is Cancer (born in July)

Was born a full two weeks past his due date

Very skilled in Dungeons and Dragons

Pim “Beef” Pimling-Simpson II

Lost his legs from getting them tangled in holiday lights and falling down the stairs

When strangers in public ask him why he doesn’t have legs, he makes up different horrible stories about how he lost them to make them regret asking

Royal Simpson-Crustacean

Writes Y/N self-insert fanfiction

[pynkhues]

Hi Sophie! I love your blog and really appreciate all your insights. I noticed that you seem to have a lot of insight into the Australian entertainment industry. If I remember correctly, you also commented on Australian theater in the past. I was wondering if you have any interesting information on Kip Williams that might not reached other parts of the world so far. I came across his work when I was doing some research on Sarah Snook. Not too far down the rabbit hole I came across an article on Kip's career and school education. I was surprised to read Sam Reid's name in the article, becoming even more interested in the subject... ;-) Apparently, Kip and Sam used to be friends in school and were part of the drama club. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have collaborated since. Are there any rumors on Kip as a writer and director? What kind of reputation does he have?

Feel free to ignore my question if you don't want to answer or if you have no information. Also sorry for my writing style - English is not my first language...

Thank you and best regards from Germany.

Hi, and thank you for your kind words, anon! And yeah, I mean, Kip has a great reputation in the industry here. He's a highly decorated playwright and director, having won and been nominated for our biggest theatre awards (The Helpmann Awards, which are the Australian equivalent of the Tonys / the Olivier Awards, and the Green Room Awards) multiple times, and serving for almost a decade as the artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company, which is one of the most prestigious theatre companies in the countrty.

He's a nepo baby though, haha - his grandmother was Wendy Playfair, who was a pretty famous Australian actress in the 70s and 80s - and he comes from old money like Sam does (which makes sense, given they both went to Cranbrook, which is basically a school for Australia's old money boys).

As to why he hasn't reached other parts of the world so far - - I mean, Australian art doesn't really travel all that often? We're an island nation, and the only country that's also a continent, so we don't benefit from cultural bleed in the way say, parts of Europe and the Americas do. That geographic isolation I think has an impact on a lot of things, in both good and bad ways, but it definitely impacts the way Australian voices are (or more accurately, aren't) heard internationally.

A part of why Australian art doesn't travel is also because Australian artists deeply battle with what's known as the 'cultural cringe'. The Wikipedia page explains it pretty well, but here's a little excerpt on the history of it:

The term "cultural cringe" was coined in Australia after the Second World War by the Melbourne critic and social commentator A. A. Phillips, and defined in an influential and highly controversial 1950 essay of the same name published in the Summer 1950 edition of literary journal Meanjin.[2] It explored ingrained feelings of inferiority that local intellectuals struggled against, and which were most clearly pronounced in the Australian theatre, music, art and letters. The implications of these insights potentially applied to all former colonial nations, and the essay is now recognised as a cornerstone in the development of post-colonial theory in Australia. In essence, Phillips pointed out that the public widely assumed that anything produced by local dramatists, actors, musicians, artists and writers was necessarily deficient when compared to the works of their European and American counterparts. In the words of the poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe (quoted by Peter Conrad[3]), Australia was being made to rhyme with failure. The only ways local arts professionals could build themselves up in public esteem was either to follow overseas fashions, or, more often, to spend a period of time working in Britain.[4][5]

In other words, Australia has a deeply rooted inferiority complex and as a result, doesn't necessarily vocally champion local talent or invest in it travelling overseas. A lot of artists need to break out overseas independently to be really acknowledged - Sarah in Succession for instance, or Sam in Interview (I do think Interview bolstered The Newsreader in ways that were both good and bad for instance) - because I don't think Australia inherently trusts its own judgement of the art that it makes because Australians find Australian culture - particularly our attempts at high brow or ambitious art - embarrassing.

That said, Kip is very successful here, and he's deeply involved in STC which is pretty much the high point of Australian theatre, so his work starting to travel now (because he is still young!) isn't a huge surprise to me.

I hope this makes sense, haha, it feels very culturally specific.

[xxcocoiiixx]

The Elysian Idol extract: Belladonna from different povs - Luke edition

"𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐕𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔, 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐎𝐍."

"I got it"

"If you got it, I wouldn't have to say it for the hundredth time"

Luke stood a few paces away from Bella who was gripping the sword tightly. Luke's critical eyes swept over her the smaller girl, her knees were shaking slightly, she kept shifting her white sneakers against the dirt and it was obvious that the sword was too big for her by the way she struggled to keep it balanced.

She had to learn he told himself. If not now, within the safe confines of the camp, then never. He wasn’t used to being so harsh with her. Bella wasn’t like Annabeth who dusted herself off and got back up again. Bella was fragile, used to a soft word and a kind touch. Reassurance that tomorrow would be alright or risk her world shattering into a waterfall of tears.

But reassurance couldn’t be guaranteed, that much he knew. He slowly began sick at the possibility. Of Bella being subjugated to a fate an iota worse than she deserved. And in Luke’s opinion that little girl deserved everything and more. Day by day he was plagued by the anticipation of what’s to come. So rather than being swallowed by the storm he decided to push ahead of it.

Bella wasn’t exactly receptive to that logic, or much logic usually….

"Clearly I'm trying my best Luke."

Luke sighed. As brassy as Bella was, it wasn't often that was truly frustrated, especially at others. The clipped tone she was exhibiting now caused a pang of guilt in his chest.

His voice softened this time around. "Just- swing for me one last time. Your weapon will choose you, but only if you try"

Belladonna huffed through her nose. Her delicate features scrunched up as her focus was locked onto her target, a limp and frail straw man in the distance.

Breaking into a sprint, she raised the sword and swung as hard as she could, determined to cut the head off the straw dummy.

To Bella's surprise, her movements screeched to a halt. Her arms were almost completely stretched above her head and her torso was leaved forward at an awkward angle. Bella blinked when she looked up to see when her sword was cut. The blade was lodged right in the middle of its "neck" she tried pushing it through and pulling it out the opposite way. Neither direction budged.

"I think it chose the dummy."

Luke walked up and with little effort pulled the sword out of the dummy. He returned the sword to her only for him to freeze at the sight of her familiar tearful pout. Her round eyes somehow like got even rounder and bigger and shinier like baby doll.

Uh oh.

She didn’t accept the sword. Instead she moved around him and her body plopped onto the grass that was on the sidelines of the arena. She had her back facing him with a slouched posture that would make Silena frown.

Luke made sure to lean the sword against its resting spot before taking a seat next to her on the ground. The whole thing put him in a much younger, more childlike headspace.

"It takes practice" he offered soothingly.

The young girl practically scoffed.

“I reckon it does”

"You wanna talk?”

There wasn’t an explicit yes or no from her so for a few moments they basked in silence.

“Do you know what else takes practice?” She suddenly asked.

“No.”

“Kips”

Not what he thought she was going to say. Though at this point he was used to her not always making sense. And in her defence she has become quite the acrobat

“Y’know once I learned I wanted to do tricks like that I practiced. Every day before the crow calls. And now I could do it upside down and with my eyes closed if I wanted”

He nodded. Unsure of what to do or say. 

"I'm not a fighter Lu.” Her voice was so soft, practically a whisper at that point. The finality of it all, her being ashamed to look at him in the eye, broke his heart.

"That's not true." He was eager to protest.

Belladonna stayed silent. Suddenly finding more of an interest on the dust ruining her wide legged jeans. She didn't know how to tell him that it was true. Or that the other campers reminded her and family every day that Cabin 10 was useful in anything battle or strategy related.

"You're just different. And there's no better way to prove it than in capture the flag tomorrow when we steal the blue flag together, side by side. Wouldn't that be cool?"

She moved to lean her head against Luke's arm. She told herself it was to make herself more comfortable but there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she didn't want to openly show her distress.

"I can't. Silena and Clarisse sorted out an alliance yesterday. I'm team red again. I got a way you can make it up to me though”

“How?…”

Usually favours for Bella involve labour. He wanted to at least mentally prepare for whatever outrageously convoluted request she was about to ask of him.

"If we cross paths in Capture you can let me win”

That made him laugh aloud.

“And why would I do that”

And risk his shot at glory was also on the tip of him tongue. Though he, and everyone else at camp knew that kleos is worth dust to her unlike most demigods.

“As compensation. For being on a team that has lost so many times it has a pernicious effect an’ all”

“That’s….a mouthful. Where’d you hear a word like that?”

“Oh Annabeth said it” “Y’know I had to look it up myself. She surprises me everyday, that girl she’s as smart as all get out” Bella gushed

Luke couldn’t help but be doubtful either shrug didn’t fully understand the definition of “pernicious” (which was the likely option) or she truly didn’t care.

“Are you sure that you’re alright with what she said”

Bella shrugged cluelessly. “I’m fine. I’m sure she’s just stressed after carrying an entire team on her back since forever”

“Wait! No changing the subject” Luke groaned in response.

“Come on, pretty please!”

She had that look in her eye. That weird, annoyingly irresistible Bambi look in her eye but the scary part of it all was a slight glint of mischievousness in the corners. That gleam that shone, knowing she has already won the battle.

Luke had to break eye contact and rub at his temple. If this cost his team the victory and Annabeth found out, because she always does, she would lose her mind. But the corner of his lips couldn’t help but quirk upwards at the sight of her brighter mood.

“I’m not allowed to say no to you, am I?”

The little girl rung out her perfect laugh that resembles a ringing bell before looking up at him again. His brown eyes were warm with understanding and soft encouragement. He was at least trying to make her feel less like a complete failure of a demigod. Bella grinned playfully at the older boy with her nose high up in the air, like she was confident about her odds.

“Nuh uh”

He shook his head at the thought. Belladonna always got what Belladonna wanted it seems. She just had those doe like face that seemed to trick people into serving her before they had even realised what they had given up. Loving Bella was probably as easy as breathing.

But this was Belladonna. The girl in the tattered white dress and a plastic rhinestoned crown with half the gems missing. The girl he swore to protect since she was seven. Belladonna deserved more. And as her brother he would give her the world if she asked.

"Alright then, you have yourself a deal little lady"

[weafurry]

YAYY YIPPEE HII/silly

(Sorry I didn't get to this till now it was late when I saw the ask and I didn't wanna answer it while I was half asleep. Also apparently tumblr doesn't let you edit asks anymore?? )

Leaving this under a cut tho cuz I know this shit will get LONG

ANYWAYS. The. Big one related to that™ post came from a combination of me wondering how the FUCK Cedric got the yellow phosphor needed to rebuild proto + consequences of the revival of characters my beloved

And uh. Yea any yellow phosphor he does end up getting his hands on I. DOUBT WOULD BE ENOUGH.

So uh. Proto being rebuilt with less yellow phosphor then is probably even remotely adviseable and that causing a whole ton of issues™ . And Cedric not even knowing cuz of the whole just. Scanning the blueprints in.

Also this is proto we're talking about here. There's no fucking way he'd tell anyone until shit got BAD.

LEMME JUST. Screenshots from when I was brainrotting over this in my first OneShot fixation

And yea. The author probably would have had yellow phosphor stored in the lab somewhere just incase. (Esp with the head canon that. Proto predicted his own death a long time ago cuz. Prophet moment. And. Told the author and the prophet but never cedric and rue cuz everytime he went to he would get another vision of them trying to intervene and things only going worse)

BUT. since I want my angst goddammit. That part of the lab collapsed first and while Cedric was abled to salvage some yellow phosphor it ends up not being enough.

BUT LIKE. YEA. the way I always imagined Cedric and Rue actually finding out is. One of those moments where a bunch of errors and shit happens . Happens when him Cedric and Rue are walking in the refuge. And this one's bad enough that he can't just metaphorically grit his teeth through it like the other times this has happened in public. Once it's over Cedric and Rue are reasonably extremely concerned and. Fuckin rush him to the lab to try and see if there something they can do to fix this.

AND UH. That segways into another little detail of this headcanon. BECAUSE. he let this go on for so long with the damage all the errors and malfunctions overtime have caused. It probably would just be better to rebuild him and reuse the yellow phosphor they already have. BUT UH. since the situation around him being rebuilt made it so stressful the first time around, he. REALLY doesn't wanna do that again. I have. Such a vivid idea of a scene in my head for that. They're like. Talking with kip. And shes like halfway through saying the word rebuild and. She doesn't even get to finish he just cuts her off.

So what they end up doing is, in the meantime, using red phosphor to prevent any further damage until they can go to the barrens to get blue phosphor so said phosphor won't have to be replaced as often.

I ACTUALLY. made a dumb little chart of how. I imagined them looking different a few days ago

I imagine that. Actually having a normal level of phosphor would. Definitely HELP. But. There would still be some issues partially because it's not one uniform type of phosphor and partially because of the damage the issues caused. And you couldnt pry this headcanon out of my cold dead hands. Consequences of the revival of characters go brrrrrrr

AND THEN UH. Don't get me started on the night terrors as a result of the whole squares thing headcanons.

that whole thing. Came from me going. "do robots still need sleep?" and ultimately deciding yes when i came up with the other headcanon that. only tamed robots dream.

When I made this headcanon I actually hadnt played solstice in a while, and for some reason I always remembered it as, him handing Niko the disk while the lower half of his body was already in the squares. which. no he actually hands it to them while the squares are directly behind him BUT. I still choose to remember it that way HSHSH. anyways uh. Important and related to this headcanon. He remembers what that feels likeeee. and hes probably the only oneee because in the solstice ending everyone only sayss they remember the squares surrounding themm not actually touching themmm and even robots who have gotten caught in them and liveed probably dont rememberrr especially since most of them arent tameddd and uhh even if he only remembers the beginning of ittt hes probably really good at filling in the gapss with the whole prophet thingg (thanks @malwarechips for that last idea/silly)

ANYWAYS UHm. so the whole. tamed robots dreaming thing right. HIM. having night terrors about the fucking squares.

I always imagined it as like. about a week after solstice, once things are starting to calm down and return to normal, one night cedric and rue wake up to proto just fuckin screaming at the top of his (metaphorical) lungs. And. they fuckin burst into his room to him tossing and turning in his sleep and then fucking jolting awake. and like.this keeps happening like. practically every other night. he's losing sleep over this shit. Which probably isn't helping all the other issues from the whole phosphor ordeal which he still hasn't told Cedric or Rue about at this point. And I mean. I doubt the nightmares would be restricted to just. in the mines. cuz dreams are weird like that esp when traumas involved AND UH. With the whole prophet thing. That. PROBABLY WOULDNT MIX WELL. (once again thanks eve for that last part/silly)

(On a lighter note I did have the thought of Cedric and Rue sleeping in his room one night and him actually finally getting a good nights sleep and thus that just. Becoming routine for them. The thing about my angsty headcanons is 99% of the time there's hurt/comfort potential in there)

I DO HAVE. some more lighthearted not angsty headcanons, but i wanna save most of those for their own posts cuz theyre small enough that i can actually draw them and finish them.

I will say one more though. this one is 100% projection but *points at proto* chronic migraines

[mariacallous]

For almost fifteen minutes, we sit looking at a vertical screen on a seemingly empty stage. In the projection, the Australian actress Sarah Snook, in tight closeup, speaks the rapid, bantering prose of Oscar Wilde’s 1890 masterpiece, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” adapted with pace and invention by the Australian director Kip Williams. Snook makes earnest eye contact with the camera as she tells the story of a Victorian portrait painter, Basil, who is himself telling his viperish friend Lord Henry about his latest subject, an exquisitely innocent young man named Dorian Gray. In the course of the play, Snook flies through a dizzying profusion of wig changes and increasingly slippery time jumps to become twenty-six characters from Wilde’s proto-horror novel, in which a young man’s portrait ages and shows the imprint of his sins, while his own lovely face stays youthful forever. How does art stamp a soul, and can a soul stamp itself on art? Perhaps four seasons of playing the morally deteriorating Shiv Roy on “Succession” have made questions like that feel particularly urgent to Snook.

As she plays all the parts, Snook makes introductions within introductions, reflections within reflections, thus creating the Wildean sense of a densely layered mille-feuille. Stage managers and camera-folk hover around her; we see their black-clad forms moving in the margins. Onscreen, dressers are fitting Snook with a golden, candyfloss wig and a billowy white shirt to play Dorian. After those first fifteen minutes, when she comes around the edge of the screen and into full view of the audience, the actor’s relative tininess is a shock: the billboard-size image—vertical as a cellphone—has made her seem so huge and clear and close.

Williams premièred this multimedia “Dorian Gray” in Australia, in 2020, with another actor, Eryn Jean Norvill, but when it went to London, Snook took over the role. Her performance at the West End’s Haymarket Theatre was a splashy success, winning an Olivier Award, and she now brings “Gray” to Broadway. The show is an athletic feat: Snook executes an elaborate, exacting dance, timed to the second so she can interact with her prerecorded selves, and she speaks for two hours, without a break—there are only three moments when she can sneak a sip of water.

Throughout “Dorian Gray,” what we can perceive and what we know to be real are in constant tension. The stage seems thick with phantoms, and so, in a way, does Snook’s career, which has taken her from drama school in Sydney to a film career (she appeared in both “Steve Jobs” and “The Glass Castle”) to the London stage (she played the temptress Hilde Wangel opposite Ralph Fiennes in Ibsen’s “Master Builder” at the Old Vic), and then to her most famous part, her Emmy Award–winning run as Shiv in “Succession.” I met Snook at the Algonquin Hotel—we sat in an empty, slightly desolate event space called the Oak Room, the onetime site of the much-missed supper club where the singer Sylvia Syms collapsed and died right at Cy Coleman’s feet. Snook spoke to me about her other stage work, and about the various forces that brought her to Wilde. (This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Your projects have a touch for the Zeitgeist. It can certainly feel like the Presidential candidate Mencken from “Succession” is our current President! This piece comes as we are thinking particularly intensely about image. “The Substance” feels very much like a response to the body horror of Dorian Gray, for instance.

When [Kip and I] first spoke on Zoom, he spoke of the Victorian era as being the first time that the word “individual” really gained prominence. Kip views this heightened narcissism, this heightened sense of the individual, the image-based dandies, all this stuff going on in the Victorian era as a bookend to what’s happening now. Kip read an interview with Oscar, who mentioned that the three main characters of the book—Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry—are all aspects of himself, that Lord Henry is who society believes he is; Dorian is who he wants to be; and Basil is who he probably really is. Now, we do that naturally with ourselves: we have a version of ourselves on Instagram; a version of ourselves with our family; a version of ourselves with friends in public; a version of ourselves at work. It’s easier to keep those [versions] separate now in a way that it hasn’t been before.

You spend so much time at the beginning of the show unseen, where you’re behind the screen, concealed “behind the curtain” in a kind of “Wizard of Oz” way. Do you feel an energy from an audience when they can see you onscreen, but you yourself are still hidden?

In my first performance [in London], I came out and I sat down, and I was, like, ‘Oh no, the audience can’t see me. I can’t connect to the audience.’ I wanted to peek out from the curtain to reassure them. And then I lost the lines. So the lesson is, don’t apologize for the format of the show. There’s always a connection to me as a performer live onstage, but there are also dramaturgical decisions made to have something between us, to be sometimes inaccessible or roundabout.

In the play, you’re showing us twenty-six characters, and also a gradation of masculinity in the men who make Dorian Gray into Dorian Gray, like Lord Henry. How technical is it, creating the differences between the characters?

Vocal pitch is conscious and different—there’s a different placement in my mouth, so for Basil, it’s very forward on the teeth and down to the right of my mouth; Lord Henry is the lower bass, with more throat resonance, and there’s a languidness to the way he speaks. The narrator is my own voice, and then Dorian is up in a higher head range.

Dorian changes from seeming very young to . . . not. What’s happening there?

That’s the narrator and Dorian coming together, as well as Lord Henry coming into Dorian. It’s also the absorbing of the narrator, as she is being seduced by looking into the mirror and having eternal youth, and then potentially realizing the error of her ways.

So the narrator is . . . you?

She is Oscar. She is the book. She is the audience. She’s me. She is a character having an opinion, having feelings about what is happening.

And you’re working against recorded versions of yourself.

Those are from the end of 2023 when we rehearsed the show in Melbourne.

You’re performing against your younger self?

Yes, but I was also right in the depths of pumping and breastfeeding. I don’t look at that and think, “Oh, you’re my younger self.” Instead, I go, “Whoa. That’s a tired lady dressed as a man with a mustache.”

Onstage, there’s a moment when your live-videoed face goes in and out of distortion, and in and out of a beautification filter. What’s going on in your mind in those moments?

The very strange thing is that when it is beautified, my brain very easily gets used to that and attached to that. And when it goes off, it’s really, “Oh, my God, that’s what I look like?” That edited image is what my brain holds on to. How powerful those technologies are to convince ourselves that we look better like that, or we could be happier like that!

The choreography for what you’re doing onstage is so complex and deliberate. Your process in “Succession” included a lot of improvisation—is there room for that here?

No, but if you put a box or a cage around something, you find a different way to dance inside it. There are three small characters, each with only one line, that I can change every night if I want to. There’s a character in the club scene, who only exists for that moment, and I ask myself, How high is he tonight? What’s he had? So you have to keep within the box. But, in order to keep yourself excited inside that box, you have to find new ways to stretch.

That sense of freedom inside formal precision reminds me of kabuki theatre. Also, in kabuki, there are people onstage with the actor who are sort of “invisible.” For you, are the camerapeople and dressers . . . there?

Yes and no. I noticed in the rehearsal period that if someone asked, “Who changes your shoes?” I couldn’t tell you, I just know that I have them on in the next scene. Lord Henry has a great speech as his costume is being changed, and that feels right for Lord Henry, the entitlement of someone changing him as he continues to have a conversation and is completely unaware that someone has just put on his waistcoat, his jacket, his shoes.

The world is his valet.

I mean, there’s a carriage scene and someone is below the window changing my pants. That one I’m aware of.

How much do you feel the presence of Oscar Wilde in the show?

In London, very much so. There was an Oscar Wilde room in the theatre that we were in. He premièred two of his plays there.

Did you get any ghost action?

I do feel like I saw one. I saw somebody get up, and I was, like, Oh, cool. They’re getting up and leaving. They must need to go to the toilet. But I look back and they were not there. They were in a very white, kind of Victorian play-dress, a big floofy white dress and a bow. I did ask the people who run the theatre, and they said that it’s haunted, but they’ve never seen that ghost.

I will say this: when we moved into our apartment in London it was very fucking cold, so we went out quickly to get beanies and gloves, a scarf. When we came back, the lights were going [makes flashing gesture] and the heaters were going up to twenty-nine and down to three and up and down, up and down. And then everything went out. We went downstairs, and there’s a gunpowder smell—and my stepson was, like, “Gunpowder! That means there’s a ghost!” The fuse box had blown in the basement.

We had to go to Brown’s Hotel, and our room was directly opposite the Albemarle Club, where Oscar Wilde had been, which was the beginning of the end of him, where he was accused of being a sodomite by the Marquess of Queensbury. The argument happened on the steps which we could see from our window.

You had a stage-management ghost?

I call it the benevolent haunting.

When you won your Olivier for this part, you thanked Wilde for his “yummy” language—but it’s also terribly sad, isn’t it?

In terms of the play, there’s something restorative about releasing into that sadness, yeah. There’s a moral at its core—in that there’s a moral person that is corrupted, yes, but in the way we’ve staged it, that question is not answered. I think that’s thrown to the audience. Did he go to heaven, or did he go to hell? I think the thing that Oscar was writing about in the novel, and that we display in the play, is the multiplicity of humankind, irrespective of gender. We can all be seduced by the prospect of eternal life and beauty.

The show is so athletic. What is your regimen?

No alcohol, no caffeine. Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. And I do my lines at pace on a treadmill, you know—

Isn’t that what Taylor Swift did for the Eras Tour?

I heard that and thought, That’s a genius idea. I’m gonna do that.

So this is clearly the most marathon thing you’ve ever done—but why? It’s so exposed, yes, but also the athleticism of it is daunting. And you started it when your daughter was eight months, right?

Yeah, six months.

So what about having a six-month-old made you think, I need a challenge?

I had already agreed! My husband has said, if either of us had seen the show, he would have convinced me not to do it. He’s already got a kid. He knew how hard it was going to be. Ignorance is bliss. You go, Oh, this will be fine.

But I think, to be honest, probably just in the framework of living as straight and narrow as possible—that probably wouldn’t be possible without a baby. It’s valuing sleep, needing to keep nutrition up, because she’s taking a lot of it from breastfeeding. Keeping myself healthy for being a new mom also kept myself healthy for doing this marathon. Otherwise, it’s very easy to go, “Had a big night tonight. Yeah, I’ll have a drink. Yeah, I’ll have a glass of wine.” And then you’re going to bed at five and sleeping until three. With a baby, you cannot do that.

Let’s go back to the beginning—you talked in an interview about your grandmother being a star of the twenties and thirties, is that right?

I don’t know if she was necessarily a star, but she probably wanted to be. She worked as an actress in the thirties in London. Philippa.

Did you know her?

She passed away when my mom was fifteen, so she’s always been a mythic family member, very talked about, very present. It was really special the first time going back and doing “Master Builder” in London at the Old Vic, and having my mom come and see that and go, “She one hundred per cent would have come and seen a show at the Old Vic.” And definitely she would have seen something at the Haymarket. I felt her presence there, perhaps because I was getting to fulfill the trajectory that she probably wanted to fulfill herself. But World War Two broke out, and she was separated from her family and immigrated to New Zealand.

My aunt has her journals. I was able to read some of her journals and [look at] the scrapbooks of her performances. When she was in drama school, they did all these wonderful portraits of her as the characters that she played.

Are there any parts you’ve played in common?

Not yet, but this is so strange. In “Master Builder,” in the final visual of the play, I am on a swing. Hilde is swinging on this giant swing, and the better I got at swinging, the more I could work it out into the audience, and I could get out over the second or third row of the audience. I have a vivid memory of holding on to the swing, looking down [into their faces] and seeing them thinking, Oh, my god.

And I read my grandmother’s journal, and she describes doing a play where she played a roustabout and, in one scene, she was upside down on a trapeze. She recalls in her diary swinging out over the audience and seeing all the faces of the audience members looking up, going, “Whoa.”

So film comes calling pretty early after drama school. Was there an early period in which you were doing purely theatre?

I did a couple plays as soon as I graduated, mostly co-op plays [independent plays]. I did do “King Lear”; I played Cordelia at my home-state theatre company. But to do theatre and screen at the same time is somewhat tricky, because theatre has a long lead and you have to sign on ahead of time. And I knew that I wanted to do screen, because I hadn’t done that yet. When I did “Master Builder,” I hadn’t done a play since the Tamarama Rock Surfers.

The Tamarama Rock Surfers . . . ?

That’s the name of the theatre company. We played at the Bondi Pavilion, which is on Bondi Beach. We did “Rope,” the original play, during the winter. You know how at Brighton Beach [in England], when they put a theatre at the end of the Brighton pier, because they wanted to bring people down in the winter, when no one wants to be there? My grandmother went to a play there once, and it was so stormy, water was coming up through the boards. It made me think of doing our play with the Tamarama Rock Surfers because at the Pavilion you could hear the storms outside. And “Rope” is so gothic.

You do have an appetite for the gothic. I was watching an early film of yours called “Predestination.” [In the sci-fi film “Predestination,” which is based on a short story by Robert A. Heinlein, Snook’s character, Jane, is given gender-reassignment surgery—without her consent—becoming John, who goes back in time and falls in love with their earlier self. Ethan Hawke plays another iteration of Jane/John from the future. Snook won an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts award for her performance.]

The other time I played a dude!

“Predestination” is like “The Picture of Dorian Gray” also in having this sense of an infinite life, this feeling of a person who’s living a double or a triple life. What do you remember about creating John in “Predestination,” and is that in any way similar to what you’ve been doing for the many male roles in “Dorian Gray”?

The thing with John was always that his sex was unwillingly changed. So all the mannerisms and all the ways in which he then was male was performing a defensive mask, performing a way of, basically, “don’t talk to me.” John’s own performance comes from observing other men and how they’re behaving and performing their gender.

When you looked in the mirror as you were being made into John, did that help?

It certainly helped. It was a three-hour process to do that. There was hair that had to be flocked, individually, into the chin piece and the brow piece that was to reflect the same crease as Ethan’s.

You do wind up looking like  . . .

Leonardo DiCaprio! Yeah! I didn’t know that until the film came out, and someone told me, and I was, like . . . Oh, my God.

Were you also studying Ethan Hawke for behavior?

I watched all of his old films, and he was doing . . . I mean, a lot of this eyebrow stuff that . . . [Snook wrinkles her eyebrows elaborately.] Dudes do love an eyebrow. Lord Henry has got a lot of eyebrow.

Is it just a coincidence that everybody in your television family from “Succession” has turned to theatre? [In just the last season, Jeremy Strong was on Broadway with “An Enemy of the People,” Peter Friedman starred in “Job,” Juliana Canfield was in “Stereophonic,” Zoe Winters was in “Walden,” Brian Cox was in “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in London, J. Smith Cameron was in “Juno and the Paycock,” and now Snook’s “brother” Kieran Culkin is just a few doors away, at the Palace, for “Glengarry Glen Ross.”]

It’s quite an amazing coincidence. But I think that probably comes down to casting in the first place. Kieran was in “This Is Our Youth” with Michael Cera, before “Succession”; he’s great onstage. I mean, Brian Cox is, you know, a theatre beast. Going back to the theatre is really just a return to what’s fun.

Is there a different appetite that is being fed?

Have you worked in, like, a kitchen or, like, a coffee shop? When it’s really busy and you know what you have to do, but there’s always new things happening, and you’re nailing it? You’re going, “I got your order, don’t worry, table five, yep, get another coffee here.” That sense of flow when the format and the parameters are set—you know the game, the game is the same, but slightly different things are happening. That’s the feeling I get onstage.

What do you want to do next in the theatre?

The thing I’d love to do next is—anything with somebody else. ♦

[underratedandoverit]

You Wanna Wish Away Your Sins (2/3)

After losing to Best Friends at Arcade Anarchy, Kip undergoes shoulder surgery. One person reaching out to him afterwards sends Kip spiraling, turning all the pain and suffering in him into… Flowers? Flowers growing in his lungs?

Kip Sabian/Chuck Taylor. Hanahaki disease. Angst. Hurt/comfort. Emotional hurt/comfort. One-sided attraction. Also tagged this from now on with manipulative Kip.

Marked Mature on AO3 for general content. Warnings for mentions of hospitals, surgery, medical stuff. Described feelings for choking and vomiting.

Other characters on-screen include Penelope Ford. Rest of Best Friends are mentioned. Background ship of Penelope/Kris is heavily implied, but never specifically shown.

part 1 || part 3

On AO3

I really didn't mean to write this for a month but hey mental illness be damned lmao. This is more of a setup for the final act than anything else, I hope it's not super repetitive, I tried to minimize things during editing.

Also this chapter is 7,1k words long I am SO sorry.

@midnightpretenders0 @stormbornpirate @ss-trashboat

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

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes Kip walked into the living room, not being even slightly surprised to see Penelope already standing there. He hadn’t woken up when she had arrived and Penelope didn’t announce her arrival very loudly, which was just fine with him. She had acted more or less as his caretaker since he was discharged from the hospital, both of them knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to take care of himself entirely on his own. Which became very obvious very fast after the first night when Kip had called her in pain after the painkillers had worn off.

“Good morning.”

Penelope perked up a little, eyes shooting over her shoulder towards him, clearly a little surprised as she hadn’t heard him walk into the room. She offered him a smile though. “Morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Better,” Kip shrugged, walking past her towards the kitchen. “It still fucking hurts though.”

“Of course it does,” Penelope stated, leaving the items she was shuffling through on the coffee table, walking after him into the kitchen. “You were literally cut up and sewn back together barely a week ago. It’s not going to pass that fast.”

Kip just nodded absentmindedly, grabbing a cup from the sink before walking over to the coffee maker. Penelope had arranged everything ready for him, learning from the mornings before that food was somehow the first thing in Kip’s mind when he rolled out of bed. He was very grateful for all the work she did for him, knowing that he would most likely barely actually get out of bed if it wasn’t for Penelope to make the early recovery days even somewhat bearable.

After pouring himself a cup of coffee Kip took a seat on one of the stools by the kitchen island, watching as Penelope sat on another seat from across him after sliding a plateful of breakfast items in front of him, observing the Brit as Kip took a sip of his coffee, nodding his head a little as if to give his approval of the quality of it. He averted Penelope’s eyes, her look almost a bit too expecting for him, almost as if she was waiting for him to strike a conversation with her that he didn’t want to have right there and then.

Instead Kip coughed a little, feeling the by now way too familiar scratching in his throat.

Oh god, not now.

“You’ve been coughing so much lately,” Penelope muttered, watching as Kip tried to hide his mouth behind his hand as he hastily set the coffee cup down, having maybe finally learned that he couldn’t use the other to cover his face anymore. Without Penelope noticing – he was fairly sure she didn’t, she would have without a doubt said something – Kip managed to get the few petals out of his lungs, hiding them in his hand before he returned to his coffee, drinking it down in hopes that it would help with the burning in his throat. “Ever since you got back from the hospital. You better not be sick with something.”

“It’s fine,” Kip assured her, his voice hoarse as he cleared his throat a little, still feeling something stuck in there. Penelope just shook her head at him, pushing herself up from her seat, preparing to get back into cleaning the living room like she had been.

“Just make sure I don’t catch it. I have no time to be sick.”

Kip watched as she walked away, letting out a quiet sigh as he glanced at the few purple tinted rose petals in his hand.

“Yeah, I’m sure you won’t be catching this.”

It had been a week, and Kip still didn’t have a solid explanation to any of this. He had tried his absolute best to work it out after the initial freak out in the hospital, but so far there were no answers. When he had coughed the petals up the first time, the nurse that came to his aid after hearing his horrified screams in the hospital room was convinced that the petals were just dropped from the freshly brought set of roses that sat on the nightstand next to the bed and Kip in his tired, painkiller amplified state just didn’t notice neither the flowers nor the petals before. She didn’t take him seriously, only gave him some sedatives to put him in a sleepless slumber so he would stop freaking out.

Ever since then Kip hadn’t told anyone about the petals. Most of the time he managed to keep the coughing to a minimum around other people, like he did around Penelope just now, keeping the petals down in his throat or in the worst case scenario hidden in his mouth until he was alone to get rid of them. The coughing fits came and went, mostly at random and he had little to no control over them, their timing or the intensity, always starting with scratching in his throat until it became unbearable, making it hard to breath, ending with Kip coughing out at least a handful of purple tinted rose petals.

He had thought about telling Penelope about it, but without having close to no idea himself why all this was happening, Kip had decided against it. Penelope was the levelheaded one out of the two of them and she put up with a lot of Kip’s nonsense already, but this might have been above even her understanding. And if Kip couldn’t explain it to even himself, well…

He wasn’t going to risk it with Penelope.

Finishing his plate while pondering through all of this before getting up to get more coffee, Kip poured the petals from his hand into the trash, sighing a little. He had tried researching the phenomena he was experiencing to the best of his ability, but every source he could find was either fictional or made little to no sense to him while he was reading it. The only connecting thread he could find in all of this was the few sets of words that seemed to come up in everything he found, no matter how grounded in reality it was.

Unrequited love.

Flowers growing in his lungs.

Be loved, get surgery… Or die.

Chewing on his lower lip, Kip sat back down to the stool he had stood up from, sipping on a fresh cup of coffee as he dwelt in his thoughts. He wasn’t really sure what it all meant, but he sure had noticed that as time passed with him coughing the petals, it seemed like the throat scratching got worse over time and he had a harder time catching proper amounts of air into his lungs. At first Kip had just put it down as the fault of the medication, but the more he looked into this whole thing, it seemed like this was definitely a lot worse than just medication messing with his body or the short time he had been in bed rest already messing him up physically.

There was something else, as another coughing fit reminded him of, making a few petals drop onto the counter of the kitchen island. Kip stared at them for a moment, slowly wiping them to the floor. Watching them gently float down until they were out of his view Kip sighed.

How did something so beautiful make him hurt so much on the inside? And maybe even more importantly, why?

“…Are you even listening?”

Kip’s eyes shot up, meeting Penelope’s gaze as she leaned against the door frame at the kitchen entrance, arms crossed over her chest. By her reaction Kip was thinking she hadn’t actually seen the petals still, but he had been too deep in his own thoughts the past few moments to notice her talking to him from the living room.

Kip shook his head slowly. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

Penelope sighed, but her features clearly softened as he finally replied to her. “I was just asking if you needed me around today for anything. Or if it’s okay if I leave.”

Kip sipped his coffee, eyeing Penelope for a moment. She had done so much for him that he never asked for, just because they were friends and she lived close by, and was one of the people he trusted the most, knowing their shared background and the work they’d done together and everything. Penelope had been the first person Kip had called when he heard his shoulder required surgery, she was the one that made sure he got in and out of the hospital with this whole ordeal, and now she was here, caring for him when he had asked for none of it.

He finally shook his head again. “I think I can handle myself for a day. I don’t feel worse than before today.”

“Which reminds me,” Penelope spoke up, walking back into the living room for a moment. Kip raised a brow at her as she re-emerged into the kitchen, but his face twisted into a little smile as he watched Penelope slide his pillbox across the kitchen island towards him. “Your meds. Remember to take them.”

Lowering the coffee cup from his hand Kip pulled the pillbox closer, struggling a little to open the correct container with one hand, eventually managing it on his own. He could feel Penelope’s eyes burning holes to the top of his head as she watched him wrestle with the small box, but it was obvious that she wasn’t going to step in before Kip asked her to. She knew he was slowly learning to do things like this on his own, and that she just needed to give him time with them.

“What would I do without you,” Kip sighed with a smile tucking in the corner of his lips as he finally observed the pill he managed to free from its plastic prison, popping it into his mouth, drinking it down with the coffee he had at hand. Penelope just rolled her eyes at him a little, but couldn’t help but to smile. “Well, today you have to figure it out. I’m heading out with Kris.”

Kip nodded, hand reaching for the pillbox again as he snapped the lid of the container shut, handing it back to Penelope. She knew where to store it and how to fill it better than he did, though Kip would eventually have to learn that as well.

“Shopping trip with the girls?”

Penelope grabbed the pillbox from him, Kip being sure he saw a soft blush crossing her cheeks as she giggled a little. “More like A Date with The Girl.”

Her enthusiasm was so obvious with the emphasis she put on her words that Kip couldn’t help but to smile at her, watching Penelope twirl a coil of her hair around her finger as she proceeded to leave the kitchen again to handle her business with the pillbox. His happiness for her was short lived unfortunately, as Kip could feel the by now way too familiar scratching on his throat again all of a sudden, only this time even stronger than at any point this morning so far. It almost felt like something was trying to make its way forcefully out of him, like sharp nails scraping against the walls of his lungs, ripping them to pieces.

And then the doorbell rang.

Penelope quickly showed back up to the doorway, Kip trying to hide the sudden struggle to breathe as she beamed at him, obviously very happy about her upcoming day.

“That’s probably Kris. I’ll see you later, text me if you need anything, I can stop by when I’m heading back home.”

Kip just nodded back at her with a small thumbs up, trying to keep on a false smile as he tried to hold the coughs back. He watched Penelope leave the doorway, disappearing from his view again, and as soon as she did, Kip sprung up on his feet, almost throwing himself to the sink as a wave of petals forcefully made its way out of him through his mouth. Gasping for air between a few small waves of rose petals exiting him, he leaned against the kitchen sink, barely keeping himself up on his feet, feeling like the air had been completely punched out of him.

Wiping a shaky hand over his face, Kip tried to take a deep breath as he closed his eyes, the burning worse than it had been since the first time he had vomited the petals out that night in the hospital. He could feel the sweat on his forehead and tears stinging in the corners of his eyes, reminding himself much of the worst hangovers of some of his younger years. And yet, somehow, this was nothing like that and far worse than anything he had ever experienced at the same time.

“Kip?”

He slowly straightened up, holding himself up against the sink with one hand, turning around to lean back against it. Opening his eyes Kip looked across the room back at Penelope, the worry and confusion clearly written on her face, though Kip was definitely quick to reflect that same emotion back at her, having thought that she had already left.

“Are, are you okay?”

Kip just waved his hand a little, offering her a weak smile. It probably wasn’t very convincing, but it was the best he could do at the moment, to give her a small amount of peace of mind if nothing else.

“I… I don’t think the painkillers are still sitting very well with me today.” He inhaled deeply, finally getting some air into his lungs that didn’t burn, surprisingly enough considering how different the situation had just been mere seconds ago. “But I thought you left.”

“Well, yeah, Kris is outside.” Kip’s eyes narrowed a little, brows furrowing in confusion. “But, uh, there is… Someone here to see you.”

Before Kip could ask, Penelope stepped a bit deeper into the kitchen, leaving the doorway open for a brief moment before another figure stepped through it. Upon seeing the man enter the kitchen, his kitchen in his house, Kip could feel something tightening in his chest as his fingers grasped onto the edge of the sink behind him just a little bit tighter. No, this time it certainly wasn’t his lungs filling up with rose petals to the point of nearly bursting out of him.

This ache was coming straight from his heart upon seeing the slightly awkward Chuck Taylor standing just a few feet away from him.

Kip didn’t register his greeting, only saw Chuck slightly wave his hand at him. Kip’s eyes shot over to Penelope, clearly begging for help as he wasn’t sure at all how to handle the situation that had suddenly evolved around him, which she thankfully understood as she walked up to him, Kip mentally letting out a sigh of relief watching her walk around the kitchen island to the side where she couldn’t possibly see the content in the kitchen sink. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to explain to her why he had gotten sick with odd colored rose petals.

“What is he doing here?” Kip whispered, eyes darting between Penelope and Chuck, despite knowing how awfully clear it made it in this situation that the other man in the room was the topic of their secretive conversation. Chuck just avoided eye contact, almost pretending that he wasn’t there as the two blonds continued their whispering, just looking around the kitchen walls as if he found them extremely interesting.

“Kris drove him here. He said he wanted to see you, insisted even. Talked about some apology or something.”

Kip’s brain was reeling, putting the pieces together slowly. He hadn’t heard anything back from Chuck since he had gotten back from the hospital and replied to the other man’s initial message, having just been left on read. Kip honestly hadn’t expected anything more out of that offer, just assuming in the moment of Chuck hearing that he was going into surgery and holding himself responsible for it, he crumbled and sent the message.

This was the last thing Kip would have expected him to do, and even less so Chuck being the one doing it, especially without Kip asking for that help he was offering.

“Do you want me to chase him out?”

Kip’s widened eyes finally landed back onto Penelope, it dawning on him that he never actually told her that Chuck had reached out to him about the surgery. Maybe it was given, considering how Kip had ended up there and how basically everyone had messaged him about it around that time, so it wouldn’t be as odd to think that Chuck did it too.

Maybe Kip was the only one making it odd and awkward by thinking that it was.

Especially as in the moment he also realized that he never told Penelope that he might have real feelings for Chuck, either.

“Kip?” He blinked at her, but didn’t respond. “I really gotta go, Kris is waiting outside. Just a word and I’ll drag him out with me.”

Kip slowly shook his head, his mind still spinning as he was trying to put the whole situation together. He wasn’t sure if this was a good idea, to keep Chuck at arms reach like this especially if they were going to be alone with just the two of them, but at the same time something was telling Kip that he needed to do this. For the sake of his own sanity, if nothing else.

For the sake of… Whatever this thing was that was wrong with him, as he couldn’t shake off the feeling that all of this was related somehow. And this was as good of an opportunity as any, at least in his mind right then, to try to get at least a little bit closer to some answers. And Chuck himself, for that matter.

“It’s… It’s fine,” Kip finally spoke up, eyes traveling from Penelope to Chuck, who still tried to look interested in anything else in the kitchen than the two of them. A small smile tucked the corner of Kip’s lips, Penelope without a doubt noticing it too as she remained silent, but her eyes surrounded by the perfectly done makeup narrowed slightly. “I’ll see what he wants. I think I can handle it.”

“…Are you sure?” Kip turned back towards her, seeing a real flash of worry in Penelope’s eyes. “After what happened and he… You know.”

Kip watched Penelope motion towards his arm hanging on the sling, the girl biting her lip a little as she was trying to be careful about choosing her next words correctly. “After all of this, are you sure you want to be alone with him?”

He wanted to laugh, but held the sound back, just smiling at Penelope a little, hoping it would melt off at least some of her concerns. They were valid points, Kip admitted that, even if Penelope already knew that what had happened to Kip wasn’t Chuck’s fault in the slightest.

“It’s Chuck Taylor. He wouldn’t hurt an already injured man. It’s all good.”

Penelope clearly wasn’t still entirely convinced of this, but she knew better than to stall the inevitable and continue to debate this with Kip, so instead she just gave a little pat on his healthy arm, offering him a smile. “Just… If he tries anything or you need help, just let me know, okay? I’ll –”

“It’s okay. You go enjoy the day with Kris. Don’t worry about me.”

She honestly wanted to fight him on it, but the smile Kip returned to her made Penelope drop the topic. With a sigh she turned on her heels, eyes landing on Chuck as she approached him on her way out of the kitchen, nudging him closer by tucking the sleeve of his shirt, whispering something to him that Kip couldn’t hear. He could have sworn he saw a quick flash of almost fear in Chuck’s eyes though, making it fairly obvious what sort of words Penelope was giving to him. Chuck just nodded before Penelope let him go, the blonde sending Kip a quick look and a nod before she exited the kitchen, leaving the two men awkwardly standing there as Chuck slowly looked at Kip from across the kitchen island as they both could hear the front door of the house being closed.

“Uh… Hi?”

Chuck waved an awkward hand at him again, Kip forcing a small smile on his lips as he shook his head a little. He honestly felt a little bad for lying to Penelope, as he had no actual idea what it would be like when they were left alone together with just the two of them with Chuck, Kip just assumed that the other man was as well-behaved as he had convinced to himself that Chuck was. After all, there was never an actual intention to hurt Kip, the way things had happened was just an unfortunate coincidence.

“Would you like some coffee?” Kip tried to offer him a smile, motioning towards the coffee maker on the counter next to him with his free hand. Chuck glanced over at it, nodding his head a little, though he was clearly hesitant. Kip returned the gesture, turning on his heels to reach for a coffee cup on the dish drying rack next to the sink before walking over to the coffee maker. Only then it seemed to click in Chuck’s mind that he was basically asking a one armed man for some awkward hospitality, even if it was in his own house, making him quickly round the kitchen island to the coffee maker.

“I got it, I got it,” Kip just smiled at him, Chuck stopping next to him to observe as Kip poured coffee into the cup, easily sliding the coffee pot back into its original place afterwards. “Just because I’m one arm short doesn’t mean I’m completely incapable.”

“I-I know, I was just--”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kip shook his head, trying to keep the smile on his face despite the awkward feel of the moment. He couldn’t get on Chuck’s nerves now, Kip had to remind himself that Chuck was just here to help. To apologize. He was here to make peace, and Kip didn’t need to treat him like the villain of this story that he definitely even wasn’t.

Pushing the thoughts aside from his mind, Kip reached over to the kitchen island, picking the coffee cup he used before into his hand, finishing the coffee in it before pouring himself a new cup. At this point it was more of a formality to keep his hands occupied and hopefully to make Chuck feel a little less awkward than he would be if he was the only one around enjoying a drink, than Kip actually needing another cup of caffeine to get him started on the day.

With Kip taking the charge, he led the two of them out of the kitchen and into the living room, motioning Chuck to take a seat on the couch. Kip wasn’t sure how long he had planned this visit to last, as Penelope had only mentioned that Chuck was here to present him with an apology of some sort. Kip already had a pretty good idea what he was about, the texts he had received from Chuck on the day of his surgery were permanently burned into his mind, and they hadn’t talked about it since Kip had sent him an acknowledging response a day later.

“So how are things?”

Kip looked at Chuck, shrugging a little as he sipped on his coffee.

“You don’t look terrible,” Chuck continued before the silence could linger around them for longer, making anything he said sound desperate and more awkward than it already was. “I mean. For someone who had surgery only like a week ago. Sorry.”

Kip shook his head with a soft chuckle. “Don’t worry, that’s still nicer than anything Penelope has told me all week.”

Chuck hummed a little in response before focusing more on his coffee, but Kip was certain he could see a little smile twitching in the corner of his lips before they disappeared behind the cup. Which was a relief to him, knowing that at least his little quip was funny enough to ease some of the clear tension in the living room. He was getting a good grade in being a good host today.

“Speaking of Penelope.” Kip raised a brow at the sudden direction the conversation was taking, him having not expected it, especially being told earlier what Chuck was here for. “She spends a lot of time here these days, huh?”

Kip’s eyes narrowed a little, him not really liking the tone that such a question was presented to him with, as usually people asking about the relationship between him and Penelope thought there was something more than genuine friendship going on there. Kip would have thought especially Chuck would know better than to ask such questions, him being friends with Kris and all who could have easily told him the true nature of things.

Besides, Kip absolutely did not want Chuck to have the wrong idea about the things that were going on with him and Penelope.

“She’s the one friend that lives close enough to help me out, with, you know, all of this.” Kip motioned at his arm hanging on the sling, watching Chuck nod back to him. “…And you do know she’s dating Kris, right? You’re friends with her, if someone should know, it should be you.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Chuck muttered, taking another sip of his coffee. “Just… Looking out for her, you know?”

Kip was really hoping that wasn’t actually all Chuck was trying to achieve with that line of questioning, but he remained quiet, both men just focusing on their coffee as the silence finally fell into the living room. Probably with anyone else Kip would have found the silence comfortable, but with Chuck around like this all of a sudden, with minimal explanation on what he was actually doing here after everything, it was just making Kip a bit uneasy. He wasn’t going to push the issue at least immediately, in hopes that he wouldn’t annoy Chuck too much.

Kip finally had some alone time with him. He hadn’t seen Chuck in person for a week and a half, and before that they didn’t spend time together outside of a few rare occasions when they were somewhere with a group of other people. And now he was here, sitting on his couch, drinking his coffee out of one of his coffee mugs, observing his decor in his living room. It was more than Kip had ever asked for, more than he had ever hoped for, and quite honestly with how things had been going the past week, it was something Kip desperately needed.

Having Chuck Taylor in such a close proximity as this was the chance Kip needed in hopes of trying to make all of this right. To make all of this make sense.

“But really though,” Chuck’s voice finally broke the silence again after a moment, almost startling Kip out of his thoughts. “How are you doing? It can’t be easy to deal with everything with one arm.”

“No, not really. Especially when it’s your non-dominant arm.”

Chuck winced a little at the mere thought, Kip just carefully shrugging one shoulder. “Yeah, it sucks, but what can you do. It could be worse, I could have no arms.”

“That would really be the worst case possible, huh?”

Kip chuckled at him, humming a little as he sipped on his coffee again. This seemed to be going well now, at least by his standards. Being able to just joke around like this with someone other than Penelope despite his current condition was refreshing, usually Kip had to deal with people wanting to talk about this topic more seriously than he did. Sure, it was a rather serious situation, he wouldn’t have required surgery otherwise, but that didn’t mean he needed to be all grave and gloom about it at all times. And at least Chuck was throwing that mentality back at him even a little bit, which Kip just found kind of nice.

“I’d imagine you get bored easily, dealing with all of this. Not really being able to do anything and all.”

“Sometimes,” Kip muttered, eyes almost on instinct landing on the tv remote on the coffee table. “Especially if I don’t have any company. You can’t really play games or something with just one hand, so I just end up watching a lot of things. I can’t tell you the amount of shows I’ve binged in the past week alone compared to maybe the rest of my entire life.”

Chuck nodded, silently pondering over his words, Kip picking it up as a sign to continue. “You just kind of realize how used you are to having two functional arms and how much easier even simple household activities are. Cooking is so much easier when you can lift a pot full of water with both hands. Showering feels incredible when you don’t have to be extra careful about your cuts and stitches. Being awake without having to take painkillers, let alone sleeping through the entire night without waking up to excruciating pain… You know what I mean.”

“Yeah…” Chuck’s voice drifted off, Kip stealing a curious glance towards him. Chuck was staring at the bottom of his coffee cup, clearly contemplating on something, and Kip was slightly worried about being able to decipher a look of distress on his face. Kip almost wanted to ask him about it, but thought better of it, not wanting to derail this relatively relaxed conversation to whatever else was in Chuck’s mind. Unfortunately for him, Chuck had other thoughts, as he slowly shook his head, inhaling sharply, Kip’s eyes shooting towards him almost a little bit too quickly.

“Listen, I…” His voice was quiet, Chuck stopping to think again for a moment, not bearing to look back at Kip who he most definitely felt staring at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I never meant to hurt you like that. I’m so sorry about everything that happened.”

His words registered pretty fast, but it still took a moment in Kip’s mind to connect everything together. Biting his lip his eyes shot away from the other man, mentally beating himself up for whatever he said that brought up this topic so suddenly. Kip had wanted to avoid talking about this for as long as possible, of course the moment Penelope had said that Chuck wanted to apologize for something Kip knew this was eventually going to be talked about, but they were having such a nice time just moments before. They were just having a regular conversation, a thing that they rarely ever did together, and it all just felt so nice at least to Kip.

Most importantly right now though, Kip needed to tell him the truth. Chuck still clearly lived with the belief that he had caused all of this, that Kip’s injury was his fault and that it all happened because of the bump he had initiated, even if it was under mutual understanding and agreement. Kip hadn’t talked about it with him so far, having avoided saying anything about it, in texts or in person, kind of just hoping that it wasn’t being brought up. When Chuck had said in the initial text messages that he was sorry, Kip had honestly thought that that was it, especially since they didn’t talk about it after that in the past week at all. Well, they hadn’t talked at all in the past few days to be honest, but that had just solidified it in Kip’s mind that this conversation was over before it even happened to begin with.

Unfortunately for him, he was wrong about it. And now Kip needed to deal with it, and probably face the consequences of not telling Chuck the truth immediately, having left him to live with the regret of causing this much pain and suffering to Kip up until this point. All he needed was to tell Chuck the truth, to be honest about it, to just say it wasn’t his fault. That’s all Kip needed to do.

“It’s…”

Tell him the truth.

“It’s fine. Accidents happen.”

Fuck.

Chuck nodded, somehow looking even more discouraged than he did before. Kip knew exactly why, but he couldn’t bring himself to correct his words.

The only thought in his mind was that if he told Chuck the truth, he would just walk away from him. Just like how he had left Kip on read for a week after reaching out to him when Kip had told him that surgery went well and everything was okay, Kip was afraid that Chuck would leave him now if he knew this wasn’t actually his fault.

It was just a little white lie, and if it was giving Kip a chance to spend time with Chuck, to maybe fix this entire thing, it was worth it all to him.

Almost on cue at the thought, Kip felt a familiar scratching in his throat. Almost as if it was mocking him, making fun of Kip for not being able to tell Chuck what was really going on. The shame gnawing on him on the inside, Kip tried his best to push the feeling aside, letting out a quiet cough, hoping it would help with the growing burning in his lungs.

“It could have happened to anyone. It’s the risk we take.”

Chuck didn’t reply back to him, but he was in deep thought, processing Kip’s words. Kip tried to hold himself back from explaining any further, not wanting to make things sound any worse than they probably already were in Chuck’s mind, him thinking that all this really was his fault. It could lead into something in this scenario that Kip didn’t want, expose his lies or drag him down deeper than he wanted to go with this whole thing, at least for the time being. Maybe eventually he was ready to tell Chuck the truth, if it even mattered at that point anymore.

The honest truth right now was that the less Chuck knew, the better chances Kip had at keeping him close by. And the closer Chuck was to him, the easier it was for Kip to try to decipher this riddle he was living with that included rose petals coming out of his lungs every now and then, but especially when Kip was thinking about the man sitting next to him on the couch just a little bit too long.

He coughed again, watching from the corner of his eye as Chuck shot a quick look that almost resembled worry towards him.

“I’m fine,” Kip smiled a little at him, coughing again. It was getting worse, he could feel it, so Kip quickly pushed himself up on his feet. He could never quite predict when or how forcefully the petals would be pushing out of him, so the sooner he got out of sight before it happened, the better. “I’m just going to get some water. Do you need anything from the kitchen?”

Chuck shook his head slowly, watching as Kip spun around on his heels, making his hurried exit from the living room and into the kitchen. He was barely able to make it back to the sink as he coughed again, loudly and almost violently as the purple tinted petals he was so used to by now appeared again, landing to the bottom of the kitchen sink where the previous pile was still waiting to be cleaned up. Kip tried to keep the noises down, not wanting to draw attention to himself and his condition, knowing how difficult it would be to explain. He struggled with it himself, he had not told Penelope about it, Chuck was the last person Kip wanted to know anything. Especially if this was all caused by him, indirectly or not, as Kip had thought all this occurred.

Kip straightened himself up against the sink, glancing over his shoulder towards the doorway, being quietly thankful that he found it empty. He was worried that Chuck would follow him, especially after the wretched noises Kip was making, just to check on him, but apparently he wasn’t loud enough. That, or Chuck just didn’t care about them, which was a thought Kip immediately pushed away as he could feel it causing more burning in his throat, not wanting to deal with another wave of petals.

He ran the faucet, waiting for the water to turn cold, watching as the flowing water grabbed some of the petals from the sink to play around with. Kip found it odd that every time they got out of him, the petals were almost in near perfect condition – he had never seen one that was torn up, they were almost all identical and symmetrical to one another as far as he had compared, and every time they were almost like freshly plucked straight from a flower. Kip never threw up anything else when the petals exited his body, it was almost like they came from a completely different source than anything else a normal human being would be throwing up.

And as they swirled around in the sink while Kip reached his coffee cup underneath the running water, he thought that in all this time he had never seen one wither away no matter how much time passed. He still had some in the trash from earlier in the week and they still looked exactly the same, hell he kept one petal to examine it later from the first night he threw them up in the hospital, and it remained unchanged since then.

Pulling the coffee cup back to himself, now filled with water, Kip took a sip from it, feeling it make him feel slightly better. The back of his throat was still burning, he could feel the scratching somewhere in his chest, but after ejecting some of the petals again the feeling was milder than before. That’s how it always went, Kip had learned that much. It was one of the two things he could count on, the other one being that somehow whenever his mind wandered off to Chuck, these things started to happen. He understood the connection from what he had been able to discover about this condition, but it still baffled Kip that this could happen in the first place.

Finishing the cup of water Kip poured himself another one, returning to the living room. Before he could get there though, he stopped in the doorway, hearing Chuck talking to someone. Staying out of sight on the side of the kitchen, Kip peeped into the living room carefully, hoping Chuck wasn’t able to see him, spotting the brunet still sitting on the couch, now with his phone pressed against his ear.

“Yeah man, I think I have to stay here for a while.”

Kip’s brows furrowed but he remained silent, his heart doing an extra lap as he realized Chuck’s words. Him? Stay? Here?

“Listen, I don’t really like it either, but… I kinda did promise him that if he needed something, I would be there, since… You know.”

Kip leaned against the door frame, pulling his head back into the kitchen, just sipping on his water and listening. Chuck was right, he had promised that after all. Kip hadn’t said anything about needing help or company today, but apparently Chuck had decided that he needed it. Which Kip was thankful for, more ways than he could express or actually say out loud, honestly.

“Just for today. Look-- Trent, let me finish. I’m just gonna keep him company today, okay? We can do stuff tomorrow. I promise.”

Kip nodded to himself, pushing himself off from the door frame before he inhaled deeply, walking back into the living room as if nothing had happened and he hadn’t heard anything just now. He just smiled at Chuck, who quickly got off the phone as the Brit arrived back, taking a seat on the couch. Kip sipped on his water, not wanting to directly jump into asking Chuck about the call to expose himself as a filthy eavesdropper, but at the same time Kip didn’t really know where to take the conversation from here.

“So uh.” Kip glanced at Chuck, watching the man just shrug a little as his hand reached for the remote on the coffee table, Kip raising a questioning brow at him. “Would you like to… I dunno, hang out or something? Since Penelope isn’t here, so you don’t get bored or whatever.”

Kip took another sip of his water, almost pretending to ponder over the question for a while as Chuck turned the television on without waiting for his answer, surfing through the channels to try to find something interesting enough for both of them to busy themselves with. Of course Kip wanted him around, it had been the only thing he had been thinking about since Chuck showed up unannounced earlier. He was the key to all of this after all, and even if he wasn’t, Kip would be lying if he said that he didn’t want this chance to be around Chuck today. Or any chance that ever presented itself for them to hang out, really.

“Since you’re already here, why not.” Kip kicked himself mentally for trying to sound almost too nonchalant about it. The last thing he needed was to give Chuck the wrong idea about how much he actually wanted him to be there. He had to find the perfect balance, just enough to make sure Chuck knew Kip wanted him, but also that Chuck didn’t know that Kip wanted him. He needed to make that connection, but not ruin it with his over enthusiasm so he wouldn’t preemptively ruin it all. “I also have some games I think you might be interested in.”

Chuck nodded, watching Kip lower the coffee cup from his hand before motioning towards the tv stand and the cabinets underneath it to emphasize his point. As Chuck stood from the couch to check out the selection Kip spoke about, the Brit allowed himself to sink into his own thoughts for a brief moment, trying to convince himself that this was a good idea.

This was what he needed. This was the breakthrough he had been looking for. Chuck Taylor was right there, within his grasp, and all Kip needed to do from this point forward was to make sure that Chuck fell madly in love with him.

[denimbex1986]

'It can be said that Christopher Nolan has always known how to end a movie. From Leonard Shelby concluding his journey where it began and asking “now where was I?” in Memento to the topper that wouldn’t stop spinning in Inception, this is a filmmaker who looks for the most potent image that will burrow its way into audiences’ heads.

Yet the final scene of his most ambitious film to date is something more impressive, if altogether disquieting. Oppenheimer definitely implants a grim idea in the viewer’s mind, but it does so by giving the uncanny impression that we are seeing it through J. Robert Oppenheimer’s eyes first. Standing by the duck pond that Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) has been consigned to by posterity, and where Oppie will be joining him in exile sooner than he realizes, the man credited with fathering the atomic bomb asks if Albert recalls Edward Teller’s theory about a nuclear explosion triggering the end of the world.

“I remember it well, what of it?” Einstein asks. “I believe we did,” Oppenheimer says while an IMAX camera plummets so deeply into Cillian Murphy’s blue eyes that the viewer feels like we are being left to drown in his despair—despair at the prospect of nuclear war, despair at self-annihilation, and the lingering, eternal despair that comes with the realization that for the rest of time on this planet, these weapons will be at humanity’s disposal. It’s a chilling signoff for a film that plumbs the ambiguities of Oppenheimer’s life without offering easy answers. While Nolan made a picture accessible to almost any viewer, he refused to provide any degree of comfort, reassurance, or easily memeable sentiment and message.

Which is one of the many reasons I’ve long been skeptical of the common criticism about Oppenheimer being too long or that “the trial” in the last hour dragged on and on. More than once, I’ve been told the movie could have ended after Trinity, the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945 which is shot and edited with all the tension of a thriller in Nolan and Jennifer Lame’s hands. It should be noted that the Trinity test, and the exuberant satisfaction Oppenheimer briefly feels toward his accomplishment as fellow scientists hoist him on their shoulders before the American flag, occurs at exactly the two-hour mark in the film.

The implication, therefore, seems to be that Oppenheimer should have ended on a note of triumph—a disastrous choice, to put it mildly, for the story of engineering a doomsday weapon—or that the movie could have glossed over Oppenheimer’s later years. Why should we care if Oppenheimer’s security clearance with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was revoked, or that the architect of his downfall, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), suffered his own public humiliation?

The answer, of course, is that it is these turns of events which elevate a riveting piece of biographic storytelling into a cinematic prophecy of doom that on its own will likely be with us for many years to come.

Living with the Bomb

The most crucial thing to understand about why Oppenheimer went on for a full third hour after World War II concluded in the shadow of a mushroom cloud is that there is no credible way to discuss this man without delving into the fact that the government which entrusted him to build the device also pillared and besmirched his name to the point of infamy.

During a panel with Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd on the 78th anniversary of the Trinity test, Nobel Prize Laureate and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne said he knew scientists early in his career who demurred from pursuing a public life in government service or policy-making because of how Oppenheimer was treated.

Said Thorne, “I was as much influenced by my father who dealt with McCarthyism as the chair of a faculty in Utah at the time. We had a governor who was dictating to the board of trustees to fire faculty with left wing tendencies. So I went through this in my own family.”

The implication that Oppenheimer was a traitor, or at least untrustworthy with American secrets due to his political leanings, sent a chill through academia and government institutions that lasted for generations. With a simple letter speciously raising doubts about Oppenheimer’s loyalty to his country, William L. Borden (who was working as a proxy for Strauss) was able to discredit and muzzle the most respected scientific mind of the 20th century in American life; the man who ended World War II and brought our boys home. If the far-right could do that to him because he expressed vocal opinions about the hydrogen bomb, no one was safe.

So any biopic about Oppenheimer legitimately needed to cover a life that eerily matched the arc of Greek tragedy to a tee. After all, historians Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin named their definitive biography on the man American Prometheus, and what is a Promethean tale if you skip the part where the gods condemn him to be chained to a rock so his guts will be pecked out each morning?

Oppenheimer dramatizes these elements, and does so with spectacular detail and specificity. Even biographer Bird remarked with astonishment at the same Trinity anniversary panel that Nolan did something he and Sherwin had not: he went through the transcript of Lewis Strauss’ failed confirmation hearing and discovered a surprise witness named Dr. David Hill (Rami Malek in the movie), who was called on to essentially smear an unprepared Strauss with the same kind of one-sided testimony Strauss used to decimate Oppenheimer in his security clearance hearing five years earlier. The dramatic irony that this was done as revenge by the scientific community against the political class’ most envious party was not lost on Nolan.

In fact, it creates one-half of the climactic crescendo wherein Strauss raves after his Cabinet post begins slipping away that “I gave [Oppenheimer] exactly what he wanted: to be remembered for Trinity! Not Hiroshima! Not Nagasaki! He should be thanking me!” Of course Strauss’ fury also articulates why the film is so much richer and, ultimately, ambiguous. It explores part and parcel the facts of Oppenheimer’s life, and in doing so invites you to descend down into the pits of Hades.

A Trial Without a Jury or a Verdict

The most powerful sequence in Oppenheimer arguably occurs at the top of the third hour. After an exhilarating taste of success and triumph, Oppenheimer is left out of the final, gruesome moments of World War II. Two nuclear bombs fell on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the span of three days in August 1945. Two hundred twenty thousand lives were snuffed out in biblical fire or the lingering, years-long horror of radiation poisoning. And J. Robert learns about it just like every other American—by listening to the radio.

Then comes Nolan’s cinematic flourish. He lets you live in Oppie’s nightmare just as it is beginning to coalesce. While giving a patriotic speech crowing about the success of the nuclear weapons’ use on Japanese cities, Oppenheimer’s unconvincing stabs at jingoism fade away as he can only hear the sound of a woman screaming; then comes a bright light as the face of a young girl melts away. It is a new world for Oppenheimer, America, and the whole the human species. But only after he has let the genie out of the bottle does the film’s interpretation of Oppenheimer begin to seriously grapple with the long term ramifications of that release.

There is an argument to be made that Oppenheimer should have shown the nuclear holocaust inflicted on the Japanese people. I respect this opinion, although Nolan’s choice to trap you in Oppenheimer’s large, yet still limited, vantage point is the dramatically right one. It took this scientist years to come to terms with the horror of what he wrought on Japan, and the movie lets it slowly seep in.

There is also the uncomfortable fact that this story is bigger than just World War II. In the film, Oppenheimer considers the irony that his former tutor opined in the press that the nuclear bomb not so much ended World War II as it began what we now call the Cold War with the Soviet Union (which really happened). But the point of the Oppenheimer film is that what those scientists at Los Alamos did was bigger than just World War II or the Cold War—or even the 20th century itself.

Oppenheimer built, sharpened, and fastened a global Sword of Damocles above our collective heads, and it hangs there still. It will, in fact, hang there forever, unless one nation finally pushes the button and invites the inevitable response.

The last hour is about Oppenheimer, as a character and a film, coming to terms with that legacy. This is not a typical biopic about a great man, but a portrait of a soul damned by unspoken regrets and second-guesses that he never articulated to anyone. The film even posits Oppenheimer went through the humiliation of an unwinnable security clearance hearing as some form of penance for fathering the bomb.

“Did you think if you let them tar and feather you that the world will forgive you?” his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) asks. “It won’t.”

“We’ll see” is Oppenheimer’s cryptic response. While we suspect Oppenheimer’s fight for political survival was not quite so history book-minded, the reality is he truly did tell the President of the United States “I have blood on my hands,” and spent the rest of his brief public life attempting to steer the United States away from the infinitely more deadly hydrogen bomb and the arms race it inevitably courted. He was then banished to the duck pond next to Einstein for his troubles.

Dramatically seeing that destruction is as cathartic as it is disturbing, with Jason Clarke’s government attorney Roger Robb embodying Zeus’ hungry eagle which is always eager to feast on Prometheus’ liver. It should be noted, this context also is what allows Kitty Oppenheimer, a brilliant woman whose mind is left to curdle by the oppressive expectations of her era, to finally speak candidly in one of the best scenes in the movie.

In the end though, the finale asks the audience to interrogate Oppenheimer the man. Can you forgive him? Should you even bother entertaining the idea? The real man never publicly admitted remorse over what happened in Japan, and whether he felt profound guilt or not, he still ushered in a nuclear age without end. There is no escape from the future Oppenheimer has wrought—not even for J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is professionally and spiritually destroyed by the legacy he pursued with wide open arms.

The last hour of Oppenheimer is not about the father of the atomic bomb; it’s about the father of our tomorrow and each and every one that will come after. Until one day, maybe it won’t.'

[crowsent]

Salts XBOX Skyrim Mods ver. 2 now with actual categories

(mod that may or may not be replaced)

[descriptors for a mod that needs to be replaced/added]

{notes on the mod}

|toggle dependin on playthrough|

.

USSEP/UI

unofficial skyrim special edition patch

simple workaround framework

survival settings

LOCATION / BUILDING

wintersun faiths of skyrim {order requested by porter}

northern cardinal traveling ship

carriage stops of skyrim xb1

unique vampire dens by gonkish

crypt of the old guard

ancient mausoleum

bloodchill manor improved

winterfrost plus edition

shadetree lodge

(angas mill cities of the north)

(half moon mill cities of the north)

castle volkihar rebuilt

stendarr rising

QUEST MODS

jayserpas quest expansion bundle

stones of barenziah droppable plus quest marker

jarl balgruuf dilemma xb1

civil war quest immersion bundle lite

whiterun without main quest {patch needed for alternate start; maybe patch for at your own pace}

windhelm without civil war {patch needed for alternate start}

(destroy the dark brotherhood)

[some kind of db kidnap mod]

save the dark brotherhood

an honorable crime overhaul

LEVELING / PERK OVERHAULS

ordinator perks of skyrim xb1

50 pct more perk points xb1

MAGIC OVERHAULS / SPELLS

xb1 spellforge

xb1 spellforge library ae

apocalypse magic of skyrim {below ordinator, patch needed}

xb1 spellforge library apocalypse

odin skyrim magic overhaul

xb1 spellforge library odin

summermyst enchantments of skyrim

andromeda unique standing stones

ALCHEMY / CRAFTING / ITEM STAT CHANGES

[alchemy mod to replace apothecary, compatibility issues]

kip ahrk bahlok food and hunger overhaul {incompatible w other food mods}

save the salt

unique uniques by insanitysorrow

(unique thane weapons 1k swf)

reliquary of myth artifact

arquebus

aldmeri anti mage

cloaks of skyrim

masks of skyrim

deaths head skull mask

xb1 mirage summoned mount

xb1 voidgate

MISC GAMEPLAY CHANGES

no vampire cure on rumours

hearthfire multiple adoptions

amazing follower tweaks

(remove follower level cap)

my home is your home {below any other follower mod}

emili skyrem immersion series aio

lora disable patch

better harvesting

dragonborn dlc is part of skyrim

xb1 smithed equipment in loot

know your enemy all in one

VAMPIRE/WEREWOLF PERKS/ABILITIES

moonlight tales mini highly compatible

growl werebeasts of skyrim

children of coldharbour a sacrosanct bundle

argent silver changes

NPC / RACES

diverse dragons collection 1k

diverse werewolves collection

populated cities towns villages

immersive patrols lite no large battles

jayserpas lines expansion bundle

immersive citizens ai overhaul

character creation overhaul aio

alternate start live another life

child of coldharbour alternate start

new beginnings live another life

abandoned prison tweaks

at your own pace aio ussep {below alternate start}

relationship dialogue overhaul {below immersive citives and alternate start}

undeath remastered xbox one

undeath immersive lichdom sse

enhanced enemy ai

APPEARANCE / MAP / PATCHES

racial body morphs redux sse ae

verolevi animations aio

immersive movement

a quality world map vivid

dawnguard map markers

universal imperious patch

carriage stops of skyrim survival patch

rdo aft patch

[whiterun w/o main quest alt start patch]

windhelm without civil war alternate start patch

cloaks of skyrim survival mode patch

dragons from the start |toggle|

imperious races of skyrim xb1 {does not work if placed higher}

[olive-branch-witch-library]

Lightbringer Book 1: The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

Alrighty, this series is a doozy (5 books, each >650 pages) so I'm going to be breaking up these posts and making them as I read. These posts will contain spoilers for their respective books, so please don't read if you don't want to see that.

Before I get into my feelings on this book, I want to get the very lengthy Series Warnings out of the way: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (someone loses fingers, the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, large age gaps (19 year old with ~60 ish year old, used as a political scheme), PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, ceremonial killings to prevent insanity, Politics, lots of creepy men, betrayal, cheating, torture, insanity

Book Warnings: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, ceremonial killings to prevent insanity, Politics, betrayal, cheating, insanity

I am still in the middle of reading this series, so the Series Warnings isn't comprehensive yet. I will edit this post after the remaining books to make sure all my bases are covered.

This series follows several characters and goes through several different POVs. The main ones for this book are Kip Guile, Gavin Guile, Aliviana 'Liv' Danavis, Dazen Guile, and Karris White Oak.

In this world, there's a kind of magic called Chromaturgy, which allows drafters to turn light into a physical substance called luxin. Each color of luxin has its' own unique properties and influences the drafters personalities in different ways. Right now all we need to know about are the Seven Colors: sub-red, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, superviolet. Sub-red and superviolet are invisible to the naked eye, and I believe are supposed to represent infrared and ultraviolet respectively.

The Prism is able to draft all seven of the main colors without any consequences. When a normal drafter uses magic it eats away at their life source, slowly turning their eyes whatever color they draft. Those who can draft more than one color have different patterns that overtake their irises. Once the drafter 'breaks the halo' (uses up as much magic as they can) they become a wight and typically go insane.

This is a really strong starting point for me. I've never heard of any kind of magic system that focuses on colors before, which is a wild thing to think about. But aside from that, Weeks does an incredible job of actually writing characters that I hate with a burning passion, and making plot twists that seriously come out of left field for me.

For example, the reveal that Dazen stole Gavin's (For simplicity's sake I'm just going to call them Young Gavin and Old Gavin from here on out) identity and imprisoned him in a box of blue luxin? I had no idea that was coming. Same with Liv's betrayal of Kip and her father Corvan.

That being said, I do have some problems with this book. I don't think it was necessary to have Old Gavin be a rapist. Like, at all. In later books he even seems to take some kind of joy in breaking the will of strong women. I don't really see how it adds anything to the plot, and kind of just feels shoehorned in there to make readers hate him more (which definitely worked with me).

The author also does the typical male fantasy author thing where he focuses on how attractive a lot of the women are. In some instances, like Kip for example, it makes sense. Kip's a 15 year old boy who's never had anyone show interest or even really be nice to him, so I get having him be distracted. To me it felt a little heavy handed having almost every single male character point out how attractive different women are, but I like The Dresden Files, so it isn't really a huge issue for me lol.

The cliffhanger was spectacular though. The most powerful magic user in the entire world is losing his ability to do magic? I'm hooked. As of writing this I'm in the middle of the third book and I'm super excited to see how the rest of the series plays out!

[theflyingkipper]

proteus dude we’ve been looking for you everywhere!!

[theflyingkipper]

a version with some extra rendering! I un-blued the hill in the background XD

A big thank you to @theflyingkipper for allowing me to uncrop one of their works! Dall-E struggles a bit with raindrops but I like the outcome otherwise :D

[iamfitzwilliamdarcy]

Thinking about how Kipps is everything an adult supervisor should be and it’s those exact reasons he cannot live with himself being one... this was just supposed to be a post of contrasting block quotes and it’s still mostly that but I added a bit of commentary/context:

“The adult supervisors had zero psychic sensitivity and, since they were mortally afraid of going anywhere near an actual Visitor, never ventured far into a haunted zone. Instead, they hung around on the sidelines, being old and useless.” 

- Lucy in The Creeping Shadow

Kipps, meanwhile, during the Guppy escapade:

“The one exception was Kipps, who sat cross-legged in the kitchen, drinking hot chocolate and reading a newspaper. He didn’t have sufficient Talents to do psychic exploration.”

(emphasized because he’s actually in the home, none of Lucy’s adult supervisors have ever done that -- also he’s staying out of the way) 

Later, he makes an official suggestion in his capacity as Fittes observer, but when the actual psychic kids reject it, he goes along with their plan anyway. Not only that, they’re actively trying to draw out Guppy and Kipps helps: 

“Lockwood inserted his crowbar into a narrow space between a countertop and the cupboard below.  ‘Kips and I will start,’ he said. ‘The rest of you keep watch”  ....After a bit, he moved back and let Kipps take over with the mallet.

And then :

“We have to go and help him, Kipps,” I said.  Kipps didn’t seem to have moved since Lockwood had left the room. His face was white. He gathered his wits. “Yes. We must. Come on.”

He doesn’t end up having to do anything because George finds the Source a moment later but he’s willing! He can’t see the ghost but he’s gonna go help Lockwood fight it! 

I don’t have my copy of Screaming Staircase with me to double check so I’ll edit this later-- I can’t remember if Lucy asking Jacobs to come into the house and offer advice is in the book or a show addition, but it’s such a contrast!!! 

And then, of course, these are all the reasons that Kipps ends up resigning-

“I just had a realization,” he said when we were on the train and rocking slowly through the south London suburbs. “After the Guppy job. I mean, there we were-- in a house possessed by a wicked and powerful entity, and you all were running around like madmen-- fighting, screaming, being fools-- but dealing with it... I was just a fifth wheel. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t hear it... I was too old to do anything useful. And that’s what being a supervisor is: it’s a life of sending others out to fight and die. I’ve known that for a while, but it took you to make me realize I couldn’t bear to continue with it.... it was probably another dumb decision... like agreeing to come along with you today. Lockwood says he wants my expertise, but I’m not sure what I can contribute aside from standing around like a fence post. Maybe I can make the tea.” 

which like wow! The acceptance that he no longer has Talent, that his leadership can no longer continue to the way it used to -- which is exactly what an adult supervisor should do -- be there for input, listen to the psychic kids, advise and support-- it’s what Kipps does !  

we very frequently see Kipps actively engaged with his Team in Whispering Skull and Hollow Boy- obviously he has a Prideful streak, he’s pompous and makes mistakes, but we generally see him trust his team and do his best as a Leader. Again, don’t have my copies with me so can’t make the point further in those books, but also remember the reason he falls into hot water with Fittes in the first place is he goes a little rogue-- and the reason for that is because none of DEPRAC or the other Adults know what’s going on with the Chelsea outbreak, and, in the wake of his agent’s death, Kipps doesn’t want to lose anyone else to arbitrary nonsense (there’s something here in direct contrast to Marissa but maybe I’ll expound more in another post) -- instead, he trusts a Talent he actually knows and makes the best choice for his team members 

Which is all to say-- Kipps is a good adult supervisor, but the system isn’t made for good adult supervisors 

[kassil]

Planescape had a point

First, a little bit of explanation for those unaware: Planescape was a setting for 2nd edition AD&D. It is, arguably, one of the most uniquely creative settings ever devised for a D20 system, but that's probably just my love of it and how weird it could get coming through. The important part right now is that it had the Factions - philosophical groups that struggled to manipulate the nature of the multiverse, because belief can alter reality for the Outer Planes.

When it was a new-ish setting and I was deep into it, of course I thought the louder and wilder ones were cool. You know how it is, right? But there was one faction that, these days, absolutely 100% speaks to my very heart - the ominously named Bleak Cabal. You'd expect them to be nihilists with that name, and to a degree they were, but what made them different is that, where everyone else is looking to enforce their philosophy on the multiverse and prove that it's the real truth, the Bleakers looked at everything and went, "Well, doesn't seem to be much of a point to any of this, does there? Hey, buddy, you look hungry, want some soup? And you, gentlefolk, I saw you sleeping in that alley, I've got a spare room you could set up kip in for a bit so you can stay dry."

The Bleakers looked at the multiverse, decided there's no grand meaning or ultimate purposes, and concluded that you should be kind. Everyone's going to be going through the worst of it sooner or later, and it's better to hold out a bowl of hot soup and a warm blanket when they do than it is to mock or belittle them. The world's on fire and in the trash bin, why make it any worse when you don't absolutely have to?

As an elder Millennial, I really like that. The world's on fire and filled with awful things, so why not be kind if you can?